Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/85

Rh the gait and bearing of some of these figures, evidently betrayed that they were of the higher classes.

The men and women of the procession, together with a little crowd of all sorts of people, who accompanied it, gathered round a low barrier in front of a pulpit erected against the walls of the Colosseum to the left. A young Capuchin monk ascended the pulpit, bearing a little crucifix, with a hideous figure of the crucified Saviour, which he fixed into the pulpit beside him. He then addressed his audience in a loud and impressive manner;—but, good heavens!—what a discourse! It was about the last judgment, and of that which on that occasion would constitute the greatest torment of the damned. It was not the being separated from God, the fountain of all blessedness; it was not the flames and torments of hell. No, it was la confusione of being condemned and put to shame before the face of the Madonna, of the Saints, and all the elect! An eternity of torment was less terrible than the blushes which would burn the cheeks at this moment, and which would make the flames of Hell grow pale. “Imagine to yourselves—dilettissimi—a lady, a noble and elegant lady of the world, who is seized upon by rude fellows and”—but I cannot accompany the monk in his hideous and disgusting description of this unfortunate, who, when she had suffered all kinds of ignominy and offensive insult in the streets of the capital, is then “derided by the Virgin Mary and all the noble and elegant world of Heaven, who clap their hands at her misery, whilst she, finally, povera donna, covered with confusione, is cast down to Hell!”