A brilliant moon illuminated the market-place; there
was a pleasant sound of falling water from the fountain; the lake
was bathed in splendour, save where it took the reflection of the
mountains - so peaceful and quiet was the night that there was
hardly a rustle in the leaves of the aspens. But whether in
moonlight or in shadow, the busy persistent vibrations that rise in
Anglo-Saxon brains were radiating from every wall, and the man in
the black felt hat and the bland lady with the sewing machine were
there - lying in wait, as a cat over a mouse's hole, to insinuate
themselves into the hearts of the people so soon as they should
wake.
Great numbers came to the festivities. There were special trains
from Biasca and all intermediate stations, and special boats. And
the ugly flat-nosed people came from the Val Verzasca, and the
beautiful people came from the Val Onsernone and the Val Maggia,
and I saw Anna, the curate's housekeeper, from Mesocco, and the old
fresco painter who told me he should like to pay me a visit, and
suggested five o'clock in the morning as the most appropriate and
convenient time. The great procession contained seven or eight
hundred people. From the balcony of the Hotel della Corona I
counted as well as I could and obtained the following result:-
Women 120
Men with white shirts and red capes 85
Men with white shirts and no capes (?)
The music from Intra 30
Men with white shirts and blue capes 25
Men with white shirts and no capes 25
Men with white shirts and green capes 12
Men with white shirts and no capes 36
The music of Locarno 30
Girls in blue, pink, white and yellow,
red, white 50
Choristers 3
Monks 6
Priests 66
Canons 12
His Excellency Paolo Angelo Ballerini,
Patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt,
escorted by the firemen, and his
private cortege of about 20 25
Government ushers (?)
The Grand Council, escorted by 22
soldiers and 6 policemen 28
The clergy without orders 30
583
In the evening, there, sure enough, the apparition of the Blessed
Virgin was. The church of the Madonna was unilluminated and all in
darkness, when on a sudden it sprang out into a blaze, and a great
transparency of the Virgin and child was lit up from behind. Then
the people said, "Oh bel!"
I was myself a little disappointed. It was not a good apparition,
and I think the effect would have been better if it had been
carried up by a small balloon into the sky. It might easily have
been arranged so that the light behind the transparency should die
out before the apparition must fall again, and also that the light
inside the transparency should not be reflected upon the balloon
that lifted it; the whole, therefore, would appear to rise from its
own inherent buoyancy.
