Text at top: I was in Pisa yesterday. Magnificently painterly. Sent You a postcard from

the top of the leaning tower.

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so transported back to the Middle Ages; – one

evening while in a gondola [gliding] through narrow canals –

in the eerie passages with clothes hanging on lines – that alter-

nate with bridges or hanging vines

and creepers, – and a silence, that is inter-

rupted only by the sharp cry of the gondolier (to

avoid colliding with another gondola); –

this and much more gives one the utterly illu-

sive impression, that one has been transported back to

the Middle Ages. We have been inside the narrow

prison corridors – in “the bridge of sighs” – and

one shudders inwardly, at the thought, ^ofhuman beings

having spent their entire lives here in these cramped stone dungeons,

while gondolas emitting gay mandolin tunes regularly glided

past them, – and even worse were the filthy

underground cells, still dark and stinking

(from rotten piles and water, that seeped in), – and not

least the stench of blood, that dripped from

the executioner’s axe through the holes [that gave] out to the canal

colouring it red; those sentenced to death had

naturally – (Letter from Fond lost)

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