Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 -- Travel -- Italy; Italy -- Description and travel; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography
It was four o’clock before we were released; and the Frenchman, dirty and
woolly, and snuffy, was still sleeping when the Friar went ashore. As
soon as we were free, we all hurried away, to wash and dress, that we
might make a decent appearance at the procession; and I saw no more of
the Frenchman until we took up our station in the main street to see it
pass, when he squeezed himself into a front place, elaborately renovated;
threw back his little coat, to show a broad-barred velvet waistcoat,
sprinkled all over with stars; then adjusted himself and his cane so as
utterly to bewilder and transfix the Friar, when he should appear.
The procession was a very long one, and included an immense number of
people divided into small parties; each party chanting nasally, on its
own account, without reference to any other, and producing a most dismal
result. There were angels, crosses, Virgins carried on flat boards
surrounded by Cupids, crowns, saints, missals, infantry, tapers, monks,
nuns, relics, dignitaries of the church in green hats, walking under
crimson parasols: and, here and there, a species of sacred street-lamp
hoisted on a pole. We looked out anxiously for the Cappuccíni, and
presently their brown robes and corded girdles were seen coming on, in a
body.
I observed the little Frenchman chuckle over the idea that when the Friar
saw him in the broad-barred waistcoat, he would mentally exclaim, ‘Is
that my Patron! _That_ distinguished man!’ and would be covered with
confusion. Ah! never was the Frenchman so deceived. As our friend the
Cappuccíno advanced, with folded arms, he looked straight into the visage
of the little Frenchman, with a bland, serene, composed abstraction, not
to be described. There was not the faintest trace of recognition or
amusement on his features; not the smallest consciousness of bread and
meat, wine, snuff, or cigars. ‘C’est lui-même,’ I heard the little
Frenchman say, in some doubt. Oh yes, it was himself. It was not his
brother or his nephew, very like him. It was he. He walked in great
state: being one of the Superiors of the Order: and looked his part to
admiration. There never was anything so perfect of its kind as the
contemplative way in which he allowed his placid gaze to rest on us, his
late companions, as if he had never seen us in his life and didn’t see us
then. The Frenchman, quite humbled, took off his hat at last, but the
Friar still passed on, with the same imperturbable serenity; and the
broad-barred waistcoat, fading into the crowd, was seen no more.
The procession wound up with a discharge of musketry that shook all the
windows in the town. Next afternoon we started for Genoa, by the famed
Cornice road.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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