A new source of noise and movement was added to the crowd. The sellers of moccoletti entered on the scene. The moccoli , or moccoletti , are candles which vary in size from the pascal taper to the rushlight, and which give to each actor in the great final scene of the Carnival two very serious problems to grapple with—first, how to keep his own moccoletto alight; and secondly, how to extinguish the moccoletti of others. The moccoletto is like life: man has found but one means of transmitting it, and that one comes from God. But he has discovered a thousand means of taking it away, and the devil has somewhat aided him. The moccoletto is kindled by approaching it to a light. But who can describe the thousand means of extinguishing the moccoletto ?—the gigantic bellows, the monstrous extinguishers, the superhuman fans. Everyone hastened to purchase moccoletti —Franz and Albert among the rest.
The night was rapidly approaching; and already, at the cry of “ Moccoletti !” repeated by the shrill voices of a thousand vendors, two or three stars began to burn among the crowd. It was a signal. At the end of ten minutes fifty thousand lights glittered, descending from the Palazzo di Venezia to the Piazza del Popolo, and mounting from the Piazza del Popolo to the Palazzo di Venezia. It seemed like the fête of Jack-o’-lanterns.
It is impossible to form any idea of it without having seen it. Suppose that all the stars had descended from the sky and mingled in a wild dance on the face of the earth; the whole accompanied by cries that were never heard in any other part of the world. The facchino follows the prince, the Transteverin the citizen, everyone blowing, extinguishing, relighting. Had old Aeolus appeared at this moment, he would have been proclaimed king of the moccoli , and Aquilo the heir-presumptive to the throne.