“Another little item you may not know,” the Signora said. “The canonico being a bishop, you have to kiss his ring before receiving. He will himself touch it to your lips after he has taken the Host in his finger and thumb to give you. When I first came here, I was embarrassed by many of these customs, which everybody here takes for granted, you know.”
Nothing could be pleasanter than Mr. Vane’s manner that morning—serious and quiet, but less grave, even, than usual. Seeing Isabel’s eyes fixed anxiously on him while the Signora spoke, he smiled and said: “I am glad your education is not quite finished, my dear. I am still more ignorant, and you must all teach me. I wish, Signora, that you would be so good as to stay by me this morning, so that, if I should be in doubt, I may look at you. I think you would be more correct and prompt than the children here.”
“Certainly,” she said, “I will be near you.”
The porter had sprinkled and swept the stairs just before they went down, and the place was shaded, fresh, and cool. Carlin was whistling to his baby while his wife prepared breakfast—a whistling as soft and clear as the song of a bobolink. The other birds adopted him, and answered him back from the garden, a little surprised, it may be, at the length and smoothness of his carol. The air was so richly scented with orange-flowers that one might almost have thought worth while to bottle it, and there was a rustling sound, exquisitely cool and pervading, of falling water. In a shady corner near the door of the porter’s room was a tiny brazier with a handful of glowing coals in it, and over this Augusto was making his early cup of coffee. Out doors everything shone with a golden color—the light, the houses, the streets—and in that frame the sky was set like a gem, so blue that it could be compared to nothing, and nothing could approach it.
They did not look about as they drove slowly through the city, but, leaning back silent, had a mingled sense of Rome and heaven. It was impossible for any of them to imagine anything more perfect, or to ask for any addition to their happiness. Earth and heaven had united to bless them, and every gift of earth worth the taking was theirs. To have been sovereigns would have oppressed them; to have had millions at their disposal would have been a care and annoyance. They had enough, and their cup was running over.
The narrow streets were beginning to stir as they passed, and some were dim, and all were in shade. Not a ray of sunshine touched them, except in the piazzas, till they reached the bridge of Sant’ Angelo. Then all was light, for the sun shot straight on through the Borgo, and all the piazza of St. Peter’s was in a blaze. They were almost faint with the heat as they walked up the ascent; but in a few minutes they were inside the sacred door, where, before entering, summer and winter meet to give the kiss of peace on the threshold, and the one quenches her fiery arrows, and the other warms his frosty breath.
Not a person was in sight as they went in, but they heard, faintly and far away, the mingled voices of the choir coming and going. The circle of ever-burning lamps twinkled like a constellation before them, and invited their steps. Half way up they paused before the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, which is an exception to the cheerful grandeur of St. Peter’s. For this dim chapel gives a sense of remoteness and mystery, and the inner chamber, from which the eyes can see no outlet, seems to lead to some edifice still more vast; as though St. Peter’s were life and day, but here was the way to death and night, yet a way not gloomy and dreadful, but only solemn and mysterious. The Baptistery is merely dark, and produces no such impression.
When they reached the bronze statue, the ladies kissed the foot and passed on, but Mr. Vane stood thoughtfully there for some time before following. And even then he did not pay the accustomed homage to the venerable image. His soul had saluted it, may be; but he was of a different sort from those who have the act of reverence always ready, whether the heart move or not; who will kiss the relic between the kisses of the shameless, and touch what is holy with lips that have just lied, and which are prompt to lie again. This man’s outward devotion was ever the blossom of a plant that grew in his heart, and filled it so that the act was an overflowing.
Marion was already waiting for them at the grand altar. They recognized each other silently, and seated themselves on the steps to wait, being early. The Signora placed herself beside Mr. Vane, and, noticing that he drew a deep breath, and looked about with a glance that took in their position there in the centre of that immense cross, she pointed upward where the dome, glorious with light and color, rested on the legend that had turned the face of the world: “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” The legend ran in a circle of gigantic letters rimmed with gold, and the circle and the dome were as the ring and mitre of the church let down from heaven, and hovering in air over the ashes of the first pontiff.
A Mass was being said at the altar directly before them, at the end of the south transept, but not a sound of it reached them. They saw indistinctly the priest, and the mosaic crucifixion of St. Peter over the altar. They heard the coro, now swelling loudly in a brave, manly chant as the whole chapter joined, now sinking in a cadence, now fine with a boy’s clear treble. The bronze canopy above them glittered in every gilded point, the twisted columns that supported it soaring like flame and smoke entwined. The wreath of lamps about the confession was as bright as the ever-burning flames within them, and the polished marble answered them back, blaze for blaze. Below—a frozen prayer—knelt the guardian statue, its face turned to the screen behind which rest the relics of St. Peter. Two or three persons, entering the church, looked small as mice down the nave, and intensified the sense of magnificent solitude about them. All this light and splendor seemed so independent of, so superior to, human presence that human beings appeared to be only permitted, not invited, to come. It was a temple for the invisible God.