As If Such A Progress Were Not In Its Nature Inevitably Droll
Enough, There Lay, On The Top Of The Stairs, A Wooden Figure On A
Crucifix, Resting On A Sort Of Great Iron Saucer:
So rickety and
unsteady, that whenever an enthusiastic person kissed the figure,
with more than usual devotion, or threw
A coin into the saucer,
with more than common readiness (for it served in this respect as a
second or supplementary canister), it gave a great leap and rattle,
and nearly shook the attendant lamp out: horribly frightening the
people further down, and throwing the guilty party into unspeakable
embarrassment.
On Easter Sunday, as well as on the preceding Thursday, the Pope
bestows his benediction on the people, from the balcony in front of
St. Peter's. This Easter Sunday was a day so bright and blue: so
cloudless, balmy, wonderfully bright: that all the previous bad
weather vanished from the recollection in a moment. I had seen the
Thursday's Benediction dropping damply on some hundreds of
umbrellas, but there was not a sparkle then, in all the hundred
fountains of Rome--such fountains as they are!--and on this Sunday
morning they were running diamonds. The miles of miserable streets
through which we drove (compelled to a certain course by the Pope's
dragoons: the Roman police on such occasions) were so full of
colour, that nothing in them was capable of wearing a faded aspect.
The common people came out in their gayest dresses; the richer
people in their smartest vehicles; Cardinals rattled to the church
of the Poor Fishermen in their state carriages; shabby magnificence
flaunted its thread-bare liveries and tarnished cocked hats, in the
sun; and every coach in Rome was put in requisition for the Great
Piazza of St. Peter's.
One hundred and fifty thousand people were there at least! Yet
there was ample room. How many carriages were there, I don't know;
yet there was room for them too, and to spare. The great steps of
the church were densely crowded. There were many of the Contadini,
from Albano (who delight in red), in that part of the square, and
the mingling of bright colours in the crowd was beautiful. Below
the steps the troops were ranged. In the magnificent proportions
of the place they looked like a bed of flowers. Sulky Romans,
lively peasants from the neighbouring country, groups of pilgrims
from distant parts of Italy, sight-seeing foreigners of all
nations, made a murmur in the clear air, like so many insects; and
high above them all, plashing and bubbling, and making rainbow
colours in the light, the two delicious fountains welled and
tumbled bountifully.
A kind of bright carpet was hung over the front of the balcony; and
the sides of the great window were bedecked with crimson drapery.
An awning was stretched, too, over the top, to screen the old man
from the hot rays of the sun. As noon approached, all eyes were
turned up to this window. In due time, the chair was seen
approaching to the front, with the gigantic fans of peacock's
feathers, close behind. The doll within it (for the balcony is
very high) then rose up, and stretched out its tiny arms, while all
the male spectators in the square uncovered, and some, but not by
any means the greater part, kneeled down. The guns upon the
ramparts of the Castle of St. Angelo proclaimed, next moment, that
the benediction was given; drums beat; trumpets sounded; arms
clashed; and the great mass below, suddenly breaking into smaller
heaps, and scattering here and there in rills, was stirred like
parti-coloured sand.
What a bright noon it was, as we rode away! The Tiber was no
longer yellow, but blue. There was a blush on the old bridges,
that made them fresh and hale again. The Pantheon, with its
majestic front, all seamed and furrowed like an old face, had
summer light upon its battered walls. Every squalid and desolate
hut in the Eternal City (bear witness every grim old palace, to the
filth and misery of the plebeian neighbour that elbows it, as
certain as Time has laid its grip on its patrician head!) was fresh
and new with some ray of the sun. The very prison in the crowded
street, a whirl of carriages and people, had some stray sense of
the day, dropping through its chinks and crevices: and dismal
prisoners who could not wind their faces round the barricading of
the blocked-up windows, stretched out their hands, and clinging to
the rusty bars, turned THEM towards the overflowing street: as if
it were a cheerful fire, and could be shared in, that way.
But, when the night came on, without a cloud to dim the full moon,
what a sight it was to see the Great Square full once more, and the
whole church, from the cross to the ground, lighted with
innumerable lanterns, tracing out the architecture, and winking and
shining all round the colonnade of the piazza! And what a sense of
exultation, joy, delight, it was, when the great bell struck half-
past seven--on the instant--to behold one bright red mass of fire,
soar gallantly from the top of the cupola to the extremest summit
of the cross, and the moment it leaped into its place, become the
signal of a bursting out of countless lights, as great, and red,
and blazing as itself, from every part of the gigantic church; so
that every cornice, capital, and smallest ornament of stone,
expressed itself in fire: and the black, solid groundwork of the
enormous dome seemed to grow transparent as an egg-shell!
A train of gunpowder, an electric chain--nothing could be fired,
more suddenly and swiftly, than this second illumination; and when
we had got away, and gone upon a distant height, and looked towards
it two hours afterwards, there it still stood, shining and
glittering in the calm night like a jewel!
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