The day before the fête was a Sunday. It only remained to give a last glance and a finishing touch to the work. He determined to dress with some care and to stroll about the city after escorting Mila to the evening service. He soon learned the location of the principal churches, squares, and buildings. Lastly, his father introduced him to several of his friends and relations, who welcomed him cordially, and with whom he strove to be amiable. But the contrast between that environment and the society he had frequented at Rome made him sad in spite of himself, and he retired early, longing for the morrow; for, in presence of his work, and under the spell of the noble edifice in which he labored, he forgot that he was of the common people, and remembered only that he was an artist. At last that day of hope and dread arrived, the day on which Michel's work was to be applauded or ridiculed by the élite of Sicilian society. VI THE STAIRCASE "What! no farther advanced than this?" cried the majordomo, in despair, rushing in among the workmen. "Great God! what are you thinking of? The clock will strike seven in a moment; at eight the carriages will begin to arrive, and half of this room is not yet draped!" As this apostrophe was addressed to no person in particular, no one replied, and the workmen continued to work with more or less speed, each according to the measure of his strength and his skill. "Room, room for the flowers!" cried the controller of that notable branch of the establishment. "Put a hundred boxes of camellias in rows along the benches!" "How do you expect to arrange your boxes of flowers before the carpets are down?" queried Master Barbagallo, with a profound sigh. "And where do you expect me to put my boxes and flower-pots?" retorted the head gardener. "Why haven't your upholsterers finished their work?" "Ah! there you are! why haven't they?" said the other, in a tone of intense indignation. "Room! room for my ladders!" cried another voice; "the orders are that everything must be lighted at eight o'clock sharp, and that doesn't give me any too much time to light so many chandeliers. Room, room, I say!" "Painters, take away your ladders," cried the upholsterers, in their turn; "we can do nothing as long as you are in the way." "Such confusion, such an uproar, it's a second Tower of Babel," muttered the majordomo, wiping his brow. "I did all that I could to see that everything was done at the proper time; I warned everyone more than a hundred times; and here you are, all in a muddle, disputing the ground with one another, in one another's way, and making no progress at all. It is hopeless! it is disgusting!" "Whose fault is it?" said the man with the flowers. "Can I put my wreaths on bare walls and my flowerpots on rough boards?"