I stood in the crypt of the cathedral to hear the
Ambrosian Mass, and it was (as I had expected) like any other, save
for a kind of second _lavabo_ before the Elevation. To read the
distorted stupidity of the north one might have imagined that in the
Ambrosian ritual the priest put a _non_ before the _credo,_ and
_nec's_ at each clause of it, and renounced his baptismal vows at the
_kyrie;_ but the Milanese are Catholics like any others, and the
northern historians are either liars or ignorant men. And I know three
that are both together.
Then I set out down the long street that leads south out of Milan, and
was soon in the dull and sordid suburb of the Piacenzan way. The sky
was grey, the air chilly, and in a little while - alas! - it rained.
Lombardy is an alluvial plain.
That is the pretty way of putting it. The truth is more vivid if you
say that Lombardy is as flat as a marsh, and that it is made up of
mud. Of course this mud dries when the sun shines on it, but mud it is
and mud it will remain; and that day, as the rain began falling, mud
it rapidly revealed itself to be; and the more did it seem to be mud
when one saw how the moistening soil showed cracks from the last day's
heat.
