Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XI. The Gypsies
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
THE GYPSIES 233
mount the path into an endless labyrinth of cabins and
weather-beaten walls, fig trees peer forth from the
ruins. There is indescribable filth. The streets are
impassable for their mounds of offal and excrement.
The women sit in the gutters doing their neglected
laundry, and in the doorways of decrepit huts sit half-
blind smallpox patients, picking their scabs and blink-
ing. Their faces look as if they have been exposed to
a rain of blood. In front of one house a small child
lies on its back, wound in rags, staring into the sky
with its single eye. The other has been eaten away;
and dense clouds of flies have gathered in the sup-
purant crater.
You already find gypsies here.
The news of visiting strangers has quickly spread
in the quarter. We are surrounded by a host of
begging women and children. They have low brows,
broad noses and searching malignant eyes which with
their whisking motions and uncouth gestures make
them look like monkeys. They beg and they scratch
themselves and peer under their finger-nails, and the
gray spots in their raven hair make plain what they
are looking for. When we give a coin to one, the
others become importunate, tug at our clothing and
stick their hands into my pockets. Finally we give an
old gypsy man some money to chase them away and
deliver us from this wasps’ nest.
We emerge on a terrace where an old church stands.
From the platform we gaze into an abyss outlined by
the city itself in its furious descent. You feel that you
could jump down over all the rows of houses and land
directly on the Promenade of the Poor by the River
Darro. And on the other side of the valley, the city
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
