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292 ROMAN DA YS.
with a giant flask in one hand and a pair of tongs in the
other, and was just trying to convince a spectator fur-
nished with a head of Serimner, that the latter had a
toothache in one of his grinders, when a girl dressed in
the costume of a peasant of the Abruzzi, whom I had
seen before among the models on the Spanish Stairs,
pushed, with her little brother by the hand, through the
surrounding crowd to the real dentist, who stood un-
masked and dressed like a common mortal by his wagon,
laughing at his chance rival in the business, with the full-
bottomed wig. The Abruzzan hat, gay with ribbons and
flowers, sat so jauntily on the dark locks that fell over
the boy’s forehead ; but there was no question of a car-
nival jest, here : his great eyes were wet with tears, and
he pressed his hand to his cheek. The seventeenth cen-
tury Dulcamara had hastily to clear the ground for him
of the nineteenth. The latter hopped into his wagon,
lifted the little martyr to toothache up to him, looked at
his mouth, and—one, two, three—proudly displayed the
extracted tooth ; while the boy, who seemed to be pleas-
antly astonished to have escaped the pain, under the
bravos and caresses of the masks was handed from arm
to arm, until he reached port at the side of his beautiful
sister.
From the Campo di Fiore, I went through the narrow
streets that lead by the nearest way to the market of
Trajan. Here, music sounded in my ear, as I came
along. I succeeded in getting a place on the mound by
the iron railing that surrounds the column of victory, and
could thence see the sight which called forth lively cries
of approbation from dense crowds of spectators. Girls,
and men masked as seamen, were executing a panto-
mimic dance that represented a shipwreck. The dan-
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