“L’Umma’, what is the matter?”
He did not answer. He moved forward gravely, measuring his steps by the rhythm of the music, with his mind a little hazy, beneath the vast coverlets that flapped in the wind and amongst the swelling crowd.
At a street corner he suddenly fell. The Saint stopped an instant and swayed, in the centre of a momentary confusion, then continued its progress. Mattia Scafarola supplied the vacant place. Two relations gathered up the swooning man and carried him to a nearby house.
Anna di Cenzo, who was an old woman, expert at healing wounds, looked at the formless and bloody member, and then shaking her head, said:
“What can I do with it?”
Her little skill was able to do nothing. L’Ummalido controlled his feelings and said nothing. He sat down and tranquilly contemplated his wound. The hand hung limp, forever useless, with the bones ground to powder.
Two or three aged farmers came to look at it. Each, with a gesture or a word, expressed the same thought.
L’Ummalido asked:
“Who carried the Saint in my place?”
They answered: