Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/80

70 girls whispered, gossiped, chuckled, now and then breaking into open laughter, which did not shock, as it might from a choir in church; yet the court was a church at the time, since the day was Sunday and the Pope was coming there to preach. Their laughter was but part of the murmur of gayety that was everywhere.

But the people were waiting for the Pope happily. Even the papal lay nobles, in their evening dress and silk hats, with gold chains and orders clinking together across their white shirt-fronts, looked cheerful. There were many country people, and many poor, but they were the "respectable" poor; there were no beggars, no cripples, none of the deformity, rags, and dirt that make so much of Rome only less hideous than parts of Naples. Better still, there were no postal-sellers, no venders of cheap cameos nor peddlers of folding photogravures encircling the spectator. Florentines, Neapolitans, soft-spoken Venetians, and a few dark Sicilians were there with the Roman crowd. There were Germans wearing the Emperor's mustache, and Frenchmen with heavily rimmed monocles. There were about a hundred or so tall Americans and English, the former eagerly interested and looking so, the latter the same but not looking so.

Where the crowd was thinnest and the open spaces were largest, below the gallery, stood two young people whose nationality was marked—partly by their keen, humorous, expectant eyes; somewhat, too, by the fashion of their clothes. The young man was broad-shouldered, but he wore a short coat two inches broader and flared, slightly, above the hips; the girl's plain long coat "gave her a waist," and her shoes were, perhaps, too dainty. More than their nationality was marked, however, in her way of keeping her slim gray glove tucked through his arm all the while, and in their both showing openly that while they dwelt in a more exalted sphere, still the world was a beautiful, if remote, spectacle, fondly arranged for the two to look at, now and then, as a momentary diversion from their permanent vocation of looking at each other. They were a Chicago bride and groom on their wedding-journey; and they had been given tickets by Father Murphy of the American College "to see the Pope."

They looked about them with the unreasonable surprise that Americans might be expected to feel in such a place: the sense of unreality that much velvet and gold and a throne flanked by guards in helmets and long hose must produce on people who naturally expect raw planking, bunting, and a glass of water on a deal table to furnish the color of public dignity. But they did not look very long, and fearing that they were recklessly consuming too much of eternity in loose observation of the evanescent, were turning to each other again, when the young man was made aware of a hand fluttering at him over the heads of a group near by, and of a frenzied voice that cried:

"Hi! 'Ere! Zees way!"

Quite at a loss, the youth could but stare, until the owner of the hand and the voice, a small, dapper Italian, was at his side, plucking earnestly at his sleeve and repeating: "Zees way! 'Ere!"

"What is the trouble? Are we in the way?"

"In what way? No! Come weetha me!" exclaimed the sacrilegious intruder. "You too far back! I show good place! Come!"

He was all staccato; and he made use of more gestures in twenty seconds than many a legislative orator might employ in a whole session. He turned sharply and began to work a path toward the red platform—an easy task of which he made as much as possible, vociferating in Italian to his countrymen, calling greetings to acquaintances here and there, and saying everything thrice over with shoulders, arms, and hands; looking back, continually, to shout cordial encouragements to the bewildered Americans, who followed him without knowing why.

Er! Squeege! Push! I show you I Keep your both elbow out alway, in crowd, like me! Shove! You see? Push! Elbow out both side; nobody can press you, lady, w'en you keep both elbow out. Shove! Good for zees pipple to get some shove!"

Thus heartening his passive followers, he led them to within a few feet of the red platform, stopping at a vantage-point whence they faced the throne.

"Aha, gentiman! Is it better? You satisfy? Behole wair you are! Now