Explore "Rienzi" by Edward Bulwer-lytton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Before the market-place, and at the foot of the Capitol, an immense / crowd was assembled. Each man sought to push before his neighbour; each / struggled to gain access to one particular spot, round which the crowd / was wedged think and dense.
"Corpo di Dio! " said a man of huge stature, pressing onward, like some / bulky ship, casting the noisy waves right and left from its prow, "this / is hot work; but for what, in the holy Mother's name, do ye crowd so? / See you not, Sir Ribald, that my right arm is disabled, swathed, and / bandaged, so that I cannot help myself better than a baby? And yet you / push against me as if I were an old wall!"