"In the church," says Fucini, "the crowd was dense. Around the altar crowded pilgrims, male and female, shouting, laughing, weeping, chewing prayers and oranges.... In the midst of deep silence begins the moving function. The officiating priest holding up to the people the vase, not unlike a carriage lamp, inspects it carefully, and beginning to twirl it in his hands, cries out with a stentorian voice, 'It is hard, the blood is hard!' At that fatal announcement the people break out into cries most pitiful. The pilgrims weep, some even are like to faint. The saint is slow. The miracle delays, the cries and tears redouble. A group of peasant women who stand near me pour out these prayers, 'Faccela, faccela, la grazia, San Gennarino mio bello!' And if the priest still shook his head they broke out again, 'It is hard! O, quanto ci mette stamattina, San Gennarino mio benedetto. Ah faccela, faccela, questa divina grazia, faccela, faccela, San Gennarino bello, bello, bello!' "The pilgrims went on chanting, the people crowded round the chapel. In the nave a powerful preacher was relating the life and glories of the saint. The noise of voices rose or fell as the priest signified that the commencement of the miracle was still far off, or gave hopes of its speedy consummation. "At last, when the suspense had lasted nine-and-twenty minutes, we saw the priests and those spectators who were nearest to them fix their eyes more intently on the vase, with beckonings and signs, as if to say, 'Perhaps--a minute more--I almost think--who knows?' Then followed a moment of great anxiety, a short interval of silence, broken only by sobs and stifled sighs. The emotion spread, tearful faces and trembling hands undulated in a kneeling crowd. Then suddenly all arms were flung in air, all hands were clapped, the priest waved a white veil joyfully, and like the outbursts of a hurricane the organs pealed out in crashing harmonies, the bells clanged and clamoured through the air, and the high roof of the cathedral rang with the triumph of the voices of the vast crowd chanting the Ambrosian hymn."