Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/79



NDER the gay sky of a winter Sunday, nearly all the cabs in Rome were scurrying towards St. Peter's. There was one long parade of them returning along the Tiber embankment, having discharged their loads, and there was an endless double file of the reckless little flea-bitten vetturas trotting into the Borgo, these overcrowded with laughing Italian families—grandmothers, parents, daughters-in-law, and children, heaped up pleasantly like fruit and flowers in peddlers' carts. They crossed the St. Angelo bridge, passing that statue of St. Peter which, Pasquino said, once grew so alarmed at the number of people Pope Sixtus V. was hanging, for petty offences, from the battlements of the castle near by, that it called over to the statue of St. Paul: "I fear I must be leaving. Sixtus will surely hang me for cutting off Malchus's ear!" When the double file reached the piazza in front of the church, it broke into brisk disorder: the pathetic little horses galloped for the arch to the left, which leads into the Via delle Fondamenta, the iron tires making an intolerable clatter on the uneven flagstones. They passed through the arch, and so on, round St. Peter's, to the Swiss Gate of the Vatican, where the people dismounted hurriedly and joined the pedestrians. Every one held in his hand a slip of white paper—a printed invitation. These were presented for the inspection of the Papal Gendarmes and the Swiss Guards—the former fine enough with their cocked hats and white belts, the latter more mediæval-looking than the Yeomen of the Guard, gaudier than bumblebees, and showing no signs of overwork.

The stream of people went through the gate, through a small court and a couple of passages, to emerge upon a great court, the Cortile di San Damaso, which is enclosed partly by the palace, partly by a large open gallery. The roof of the latter was now crowded, the figures of the people silhouetted to the view of those below, against the rich blue sky that curves down over Italy on a clear day, almost as rich, almost as blue, as the summer sky over the United States. The court itself was not crowded by the eight or nine thousand persons who were standing about in groups, the murmur of their chatter and laughter rising through the warm air to those who were leaning from open windows of the palace.

Against the arcade, opposite the gallery, stood a very large platform, higher than the heads of the spectators. It was hung with red velvet and gold, and between two columns which rose over a dais on the platform long red velvet curtains depended, underneath the papal arms carven upon the stone front of a small balcony. The dais supported a great red and gold chair, the papal throne. Upon each side of the throne stood rigidly a tall, steel-helmeted Swiss Guard in his brilliant stripes, long pike in hand. In spite of the stateliness of this pair, the whole picture was (to an American) so strangely theatrical that it seemed only plausible that the two guards would presently draw the curtains to disclose an old-fashioned tableau: "Marmion and Constance" possibly, or "Joan of Arc before her Judges," to be followed by a declamation, "I speak not to implore your grace," for the benefit of the Ladies Missionary Adjunct.

The Society of the Daughters of Mary had entered in procession, girls in white dresses with long veils; and with the banners of the society borne proudly in the van, they took places nearest the platform, for it was to them, particularly, that the Pope would speak.

Seated upon the steps of the arcade, to the left, were twenty or thirty young girls in gray, with lace scarfs upon their heads, a choir of novices; beyond them was a band of many pieces. The choir-