It seemed to me they cheapened
the glorious end of those immortal fathers of the faith by including
the details of the martyrdom in every picture. Still, I would not
have that admission get out and obtain general circulation. It
might be used against me as an argument that my artistic education
was grounded on a false foundation.
It was in Rome, while we were doing the Vatican, that our guide
furnished us with a sight that, considered as a human experience,
was worth more to me than a year of Old Masters and Young Messers.
We had pushed our poor blistered feet - a dozen or more of us - past
miles of paintings and sculptures and relics and art objects, and
we were tired - oh, so tired! Our eyes ached and our shoes hurt us;
and the calves of our legs quivered as we trailed along from gallery
to corridor, and from corridor back to gallery.
We had visited the Sistine Chapel; and, such was our weariness,
we had even declined to become excited over Michelangelo's great
picture of the Last Judgment. I was disappointed, too, that he
had omitted to include in his collection of damned souls a number
of persons I had confidently and happily expected would be present.
I saw no one there even remotely resembling my conception of the
person who first originated and promulgated the doctrine that all
small children should be told at the earliest possible moment that
there is no Santa Claus. That was a very severe blow to me, because
I had always believed that the descent to eternal perdition would
be incomplete unless he had a front seat. And the man who first
hit on the plan of employing child labor on night shifts in cotton
factories - he was unaccountably absent too. And likewise the
original inventor of the toy pistol; in fact the absentees were
entirely too numerous to suit me. There was one thing, though,
to be said in praise of Michelangelo's Last Judgment; it was too
large and too complicated to be reproduced successfully on a
souvenir postal card; and I think we should all be very grateful
for that mercy anyway.
As I was saying, we had left the Sistine Chapel a mile or so
behind us and had dragged our exhausted frames as far as an arched
upper portico in a wing of the great palace, overlooking a paved
courtyard inclosed at its farther end by a side wall of Saint
Peter's. We saw, in another portico similar to the one where we
had halted and running parallel to it, long rows of peasants, all
kneeling and all with their faces turned in the same direction.
"Wait here a minute," said our guide. "I think you will see
something not included in the regular itinerary of the day."
So we waited.
