"Yes—blue."
"No—gray."
"That is it! You have seen it!"
And there was inexpressible delight. Only a few silent individuals showed by their dejected attitude the humiliation they felt at not being sure of what they had seen, or whether they had seen it. But no one took any notice of this in the tumult of commentary.
I looked at the happy group. Laughing faces, bright eyes, all the weariness of travel wiped out. Some of the women grew quiet, the more consciously to taste their joy. The men, more communicative, exchanged opinions. They had seen Giambolo, and could not get over the wonder of it.
They had not come to Italy in vain. Which opinion was shared by the excellent Lombardy guide, weighing in his palm the money accruing to him from the sight of Giambolo.
A week had passed without any notable event other than meeting everywhere those pilgrim bands who spoil all pleasure in beautiful things by the obsession of their ready-made admirations. From the outer rotunda of the convent in Assisi I was letting my gaze wander over the plain of Umbria, all the world in sight being an expanse of billowing greenness. As if through a trap door a man sprang up at my side, then two, then ten, then what seemed a thousand, for the platform on which I had a moment before been walking alone under the sky was turned into a clamorous ant hill.
Voices on all sides exclaimed: "Here it is! Here is the place from which we can see. Over there, there, the towers of Perugia. And the railway!"
"What! The railway that brought us?"
"Yes, really!"