“Much as usual. Wrote, before riding out, part of a scene of ‘Sardanapalus.’ The first act nearly finished. The rest of the day and evening as before—partly without, in conversazione—partly at home.
“Heard the particulars of the late fray at Russi, a town not far from this. It is exactly the fact of Romēo and Giulietta—not Romĕo, as the Barbarian writes it. Two families of Contadini (peasants) are at feud. At a ball, the younger part of the families forget their quarrel, and dance together. An old man of one of them enters, and reproves the young men for dancing with the females of the opposite family. The male relatives of the latter resent this. Both parties rush home, and arm themselves. They meet directly, by moonlight, in the public way, and fight it out. Three are killed on the spot, and six wounded, most of them dangerously,—pretty well for two families, methinks—and all fact, of the last week. Another assassination has taken place at Cesenna,—in all about forty in Romagna within these last three months. These people retain much of the middle ages.
