'The saint is writing for you,' the medium at once chimed in, turning to Fragalà.
'So we hope—that is my hope,' he humbly replied.
A great noise greeted San Biagio, another Bishop of Naples; he is shown blessing the town. For two or three years diphtheria and quinsy had kept the hearts of Naples' mothers in terror, especially among the lower classes. San Biagio is just the saint for throat complaints. When the silver saint came out, amidst clamour, fathers and mothers held out their children to the holy Bishop to get his blessing, that they might escape the dreadful scourge that killed so many innocents.
'San Biase! San Biase!' screamed out the excited, sobbing mothers, holding up their children.
Annarella too, Carmela's and unhappy Filomena's sister, held up her two remaining sons, for the smallest was dead, after having languished a long time. Ah! he would never again be waiting for her on the cellar doorstep, patiently munching a bit of bread till she came back from work. Poor little Peppinello—he was dead! He died of wretchedness in a damp, smelly cellar, from bad, coarse food, with only his little garments to cover him when asleep, always clinging to his mother for warmth. Mother's little flower was dead, starved by the bonafficciata, by that terrible lottery that ruined Gaetano, that drove him to steal his children's bread. Annarella would never be consoled for that death. The two left to her were well-behaved and strong, but they were not her blonde, delicate flower. They had dragged her there to see San Gennaro, and when the wretched woman saw so many little ones held up she lifted hers too, weeping and sobbing, thinking her dear flower had not been saved either by San Biase, San Gennaro, or all the saints in Paradise. But as the day went on, the people's emotion increased; everyone was given up to strong emotions that grew stronger every moment from the influence of those around them. In the excited eyes of girls, mothers, the poor, the unhappy, the guilty, all who needed help, whether moral or material, that show of saints got to be like a dream; they saw a shining vision pass, with silvery, dazzling reflections; the names got lost, but the whole procession of the blessed images was impressed on them.
The crowd, now confused and deafened, shaken by religious fervour, did not recognise a group of saints of Naples' earliest ages—Sant' Aspreno, San Severo, Sant' Eusebio, Sant' Agrippino, and Sant' Attanasio, most antique saints, rather obscure and forgotten. A roar like thunder greeted the five Franciscans who keep watch round San Gennaro in the succorpo: San Francesco d'Assisi, Di Paolo, Di Ceronimo, Caracciolo, and Borgia. Another shout when Sant' Anna, the Virgin's mother, came out, to whom, say the people, no grace is ever refused. No one troubled themselves much about San Domenico, who invented the Rosary, as no one in the confusion of that noontide hour recognised the proud Spanish monk, except the gloomy Finance Secretary, Don Domenico Mayer. Being pushed by the crowd against a wall, he kept his tall hat well over his eyes, and his arms were crossed in a proud, gloomy way, his lips set in a sad, sceptical smile. The saints went on and on, out of the cathedral's great dark portal, towards Forcella, rather quicker now; the crowd swayed from right to left, as if to free itself from the constraint of that close attention.
The saints' procession was just about finishing, having lasted nearly an hour, from the slowness of the going, and it ended with San Gaetano Thiene, the angelic San Filippo Neri, with the holy doctors Tommaso and Agostino, Santa Irene, Sant' Maria Maddalena di Pazzi, the great Santa Teresa in ecstasy, all ardour and passion, that magnificent saint of Avila, who died of divine love. When the long file of saints finished, and the first of the cathedral canons came out, there was a great movement among the waiting people. All stretched their heads to see better, not to lose a tittle of the religious show; but the noise was unrestrained in spite of this close attention. At last the canons ended also, and finally, under the great embroidered, gold-fringed canopy, appeared the chief pastor of the Neapolitan Church, pallid, his face radiant with a deeply compassionate expression, his lips moving in prayer. Eight gentlemen held up the poles of the canopy, eight choir-boys swung censers of smoking incense around him. The Archbishop, a Cardinal Prince of the Church, walked slowly, alone, under the canopy, his eyes fixed on his own clasped hands; and the whole crowd of women stretching out their arms, men praying, children lisping San Gennaro's name, gazed not at the canopy, gold vestments, or jewelled mitre, but affectionately, enthusiastically at the Archbishop's waxen, clasped hands, weeping, crying, asking favours and pity, gazing fixedly at what he pressed in his hands, now trembling with sacred respect. To it were directed all glances, all sighs, all prayers. The Cardinal Archbishop of Naples held the phial of the precious blood.
In Santa Chiara's fine church, all white with stucco and loaded with gilding like a very spacious royal hall, the crowd was waiting for San Gennaro's miracle. It was not yet night, but thousands of wax tapers, on the high altar and in the side chapels, especially on those dedicated to the Virgin and Eternal Father, lighted up the vast, lovely, graceful church. On the high altar, San Gennaro's head, in a gemmed mitre, the face ornamented with gold, was placed on a white napkin in a gold dish. The two phials of the precious blood stood more in the middle, for the adoration of the faithful. All around the high altar and behind the antique carved wood balustrade that cuts off a large space with the altar from the rest of the church, stood the forty-six silver statues that form a guard of honour to San Gennaro's relics. The Cardinal Archbishop and the canons were doing service at the high altar to Naples' holy patron, that he might perform the miracle; behind the balustrade, to the side of the high altar, stood a solitary, favoured, happy group of old men and women, all in black, with white neckerchiefs and cravats, the men uncovered, the women with a black veil over their hair, a group watched, commented on, and envied by all the other devotees. They were San Gennaro's relations; they alone had the right to go up to the high altar to see the miracle at half a yard's distance.
Then came an immense crowd—in the great single nave of Santa Chiara, in the side chapels, and even outside the two great doors, on the steps and cloisters, where the latest arrivals stood on tiptoe, dazzled by the thousands of tapers, trying to see something, struggling vainly to push a step forward, for there was no more room for anyone. All were agitated and disquieted, from the Cardinal Archbishop kneeling in prayer before the altar to the humblest little woman of the lower class; all were waiting till the heavenly Gennaro carried out the miracle. Most fervently, with head bent over the seat in front, with the trusting piety of a young heart, Bianca Maria Cavalcanti was praying, as the miraculous moment drew near. She prayed to San Gennaro, in the name of his precious blood, to give peace to her father's heart, to give Amati faith; and sincerely, in the great, wise, deep goodness of her heart, she asked nothing for herself. It was enough for her that her father's sick, troubled, tortured heart should have peace; that Antonio Amati's strong, hard heart, besides its human love, should share the highest tenderness of the Divine. Here in a short time one of the greatest miracles of religion would be accomplished. Could not San Gennaro work a miracle in their hearts, if she worshipped with her whole strength? She prayed on, her cheeks flushed with an unwonted fire, a faint blush over them, with a restrained force of mystic enthusiasm, a new passion that had come into her frozen life and brightened it.