“I noticed that in Florence. Don’t you think it is a shame that people with nasty wounds or terribly deformed should be allowed to go about begging? The authorities ought to take care of those unfortunate people.” “I don’t know. It is the way out here. Foreigners can hardly judge. I suppose they prefer to beg; they earn more that way.” “On the Piazza Michelangelo there was a beggar without arms; his hands came out straight from the shoulders. A German doctor I was living with said the man owned a villa at Fiesole.” “All the better for him!” “With us the cripples are taught to work so that they can earn their living in a respectable way.” “Hardly enough anyhow to buy a villa,” said Jenny, laughing. “Can you imagine anything more demoralizing than to make one’s living by exposing one’s deformity?” “It is always demoralizing to know that one is a cripple in one way or another.” “But to live by invoking people’s compassion.” “A cripple knows that he will be pitied in any case, and has to accept help from men—or God.” Jenny mounted some steps and lifted the corner of a curtain that looked like a thin mattress. They entered a small church. Candles were burning on the altar. The light was reflected manifold on the halo of the tabernacle, fluttered on candlesticks and brass ornaments and made the paper roses in the altar vases look red and yellow. A priest stood with his back turned to them, reading silently from a book; a pair of acolytes moved to and fro, bowed, made the sign of the cross and various other movements which seemed meaningless to Helge. The little church was dark; in the two side chapels tiny nightlight flames flickered, hanging from brass chains in front of images blacker than the darkness itself. Jenny Winge knelt on a rush stood. Her folded hands rested on the _prie-Dieu_, and her head was raised, showing her profile clearly outlined against the soft candlelight, which trembled in the fair waves of her hair and stole down the delicate bend of her bare neck. Heggen and Ahlin took two chairs quietly from the pile against one of the pillars. This quiet service before dawn was quaint and impressive; Gram followed attentively every movement of the priest. The acolytes hung a white garment, with a golden cross on it, over his shoulders. He took the Host, turned round and held it up to the light. The boys swung the incense, and the sharp, sweet smell of it floated to where Helge stood, but he waited in vain for music or singing. Miss Winge apparently made some pretence of being a Catholic, since she was kneeling like that. Heggen sat looking straight in front of him towards the altar. He had laid one arm about the shoulders of Francesca, who had fallen asleep leaning against him. Ahlin sat behind a pillar, probably asleep too—he could not see him.