After Being So High-Minded In The Matter,
Shall I Confess That I Was A Good Deal Kept Out Of The Churches By The
Cold In Them?
It was a sort of stored cold, much greater than that
outside, though there was something warming to the fancy, at least, in
the smoke and smell of the incense.
Even with the Church of the Capuchins, which we lived opposite, I was
dilatory, though in my mediaeval days it had been one of the first
places to which I hurried. In those days everybody said you must be sure
and go to the Capuchins', because Guide's "St. Michael and the Enemy"
was there, and still more because the wonderful bone mosaics in the
cemetery under the church were not on any account to be missed. I
suspect that in both these matters I had then a very crude taste, but it
was not from my greater refinement that I now let the Capuchin church go
on long un-revisited. It was, for one thing, too instantly and
constantly accessible across the street there; and it is well known
human nature is such that it will not seek the line of the least
resistance as long as it can help. Besides, I could hardly believe that
it was really the Capuchin church which I had once so hastened to see,
and I neglected it almost two months, contenting myself with the display
of those hand-bills on the convent walls, spreading largely and
glaringly incongruous over it. When I did go I found the Guido
ridiculous, of course, in the painter's imagination of the archangel as
a sort of dancing figure in a _tableau vivant,_ and yet of a sublime
authority in the execution. To be more honest, I had little feeling
about it and less knowledge.
It was not so cold in the church as I had expected; and in the
succession of side chapels, beginning with the St. Michael's and opening
into one another, we found a kind of domesticity close upon cosiness,
which we were enjoying for its own sake, when we were aware of a pale,
gentle young girl who seemed to be alone there. She asked, in our
unmistakable native accents, if we were going to see the Capuchin
mosaics in their place below; and one of us said, promptly, No, indeed;
but relented at the shadow of disappointment that came over the girl's
face, and asked, Was she going? The girl said, Oh, she guessed she could
see them some other time; and then she who had spoken ordered him who
had not spoken to go with her. I do not know what question of propriety
engaged them with reference to her going alone with the handsome young
monk waiting to accompany her; but he was certainly too handsome for a
monk of any age. We followed him, however, and I had my usual nausea on
viewing the decoration of the ceilings and walls of the place below; it
always makes me sick to go into that place; between realizing that I am
of the same make as the brothers composing those mosaics, and trying to
imagine what the intricate patterns will do at the Resurrection Day, I
cannot command myself.
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