Throughout the day there sounded from the
piazza a ceaseless clamour of voices, such a noise as in England
would only rise from some excited crowd on a rare occasion; it was
increased by reverberations from the colonnade which runs all round
in front of the shops. When the north-east gale had passed over,
there ensued a few days of sullen calm, permitting the people to
lead their ordinary life in open air. I grew to recognize certain
voices, those of men who seemingly had nothing to do but to talk all
day long. Only the sound reached me; I wish I could have gathered
the sense of these interminable harangues and dialogues. In every
country and every age those talk most who have least to say that is
worth saying. These tonguesters of Cotrone had their predecessors in
the public place of Croton, who began to gossip before dawn, and
gabbled unceasingly till after nightfall; with their voices must
often have mingled the bleating of goats or the lowing of oxen, just
as I heard the sounds to-day.
One day came a street organ, accompanied by singing, and how glad I
was! The first note of music, this, that I had heard at Cotrone.
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