|
|
|
Outside, the sound of the smith shoeing horses in the smithy opposite, the uneven clink of the hammers on the anvil, the snorting of the brokenwinded horses, the smell of the scorched hoofs, the slapping of the pats of the washerwoman kneeling by the water, the heavy thuds of the butcher's chopper next door, the clatter of a horse's hoofs on the stores of the street, the creaking of the pump, or the drawbridge over the canal, the heavy barges laden with blocks of wood, slowly passing at the end of the garden, drawn along by a rope... sometimes the noise of a fair in the square hard by, with peasants in bright blue smocks, and grunting pigs ... And on Sunday, at church, the precentor, who sang out of tune, and the old priest who went to sleep as he was saying Mass...
Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe, trans. Gilbert Cannan, Holt, 1910, p. 203, vol. 2.
TIME: mid-19th c.
PLACE: a provincial town in central France
CIRCUMSTANCE: sounds of the city
And all about him was the perpetual hum of Paris, the roar of the carriages, the surging sea of footsteps, the familiar street-cries, the gay distant whistle of a china-mender, a navvy's hammer ringing out on the cobblestones, the noble music of a fountain - all the fevered golden trappings of the Parisian dream.
Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe, trans. Gilbert Cannan, Holt, 1910, p. 203, vol.3.
TIME: end of 19th c.
PLACE: Paris
CIRCUMSTANCE: dinner hour
home
