At first so many eyes confused me; so that I kept my own steadily upon the
glossy neck of my mule. Very soon, however, growing accustomed to being
stared at, I lost some of my shyness, and now it was that I became a
trouble to Messer Arcolano. For as I looked about me there were a hundred
things to hold my attention and to call for inquiry and nearer inspection.
We had come by this into the market-place, and it chanced that it was a
market-day and that the square was thronged with peasants from the Val di
Taro who had come to sell their produce and to buy their necessaries.
I was for halting at each booth and inspecting the wares, and each time
that I made as if to do so, the obsequious peasantry fell away before me,
making way invitingly. But Messer Arcolano urged me along, saying that we
had far to go, and that in Piacenza there were better shops and that I
should have more time to view them.
Then it was the fountain with its surmounting statues that caught my eye--
Durfreno's arresting, vigorous group of the Laocoon--and I must draw rein
and cry out in my amazement at so wonderful a piece of work, plaguing
Arcolano with a score of questions concerning the identity of the main
figure and how he came beset by so monstrous a reptile, and whether he had
succeeded in the end in his attempt to strangle it.
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