Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/192

 rattle of carts and hoof and feet and angry Italian voices came up to her, from the pavements of the Lung' Arno. It was Holy Week, and on the next day would be, so Roger Cuncliffe had told her, the great religious procession which she must not miss. 'All winter,' he had said, 'Florentines shiver in their cold stone houses which there is no way of making comfortable, and the icy mountain winds breathe upon them. Then spring comes with a bounce. You are almost mad with the joy of it, if you are a good Florentine. Birds singing, caterpillars crawling, little tendrils upon the vine, soft air and flowers, you smell them in church, in your dreams all through the countryside. That is why the spring religious procession is so terribly intense and beautiful. Girls go mad with religion and throw themselves under the feet of the marching monks. Monks forget their...It is heavenly in Florence in Holy Week. One feels the genuine pagan spirit.'

'But I thought it was a sad religious occasion.'

'Oh, yes, religious, but not exactly sad. They worship the corruption of the body and renewing freshness of life, death and love. If religion cannot explain these two mysteries to us, what good is religion?'

He was the most charming man she had ever met, this young Roger Cuncliffe with his black curls, feverish color, narrow face, and cattish walk. No one had warned her how sick he was. Every day she saw sauntering through the streets listlessly—and her heart bled for them—the young men and women from her country and England sent to Italy to die,