Reaching the large chamber at the top, we
paid our respects to the seven bells, whose intricate changes I had so
many times tried to follow. Their ringing is a puzzle. In the middle
hung the melancholy _campanone_, with a silvery soprano by its side--a
very Dante and Beatrice among bells.
We stayed to hear the noon Angelus strike, and while the last stroke
was still booming around the great bell I took a step toward it and
stretched my hand out.
I was instantly snatched backward, with a profusion of excuses.
"It is said," the professor explained, "that if a bell be touched, even
with the finger-tip, while ringing, it will instantly break. I do not
know if it be true, but it is worth guarding against."
It was indeed! A fine appetite I should have had for my breakfast, at
that moment awaiting me, if I had had to reflect over it that the great
bell of the great basilica of St. Francis of Asisi had that very
morning been cracked into pieces by my fore finger! What visions of
horrified crowds of _Asisinati_, of black storms of newspaper items, of
censuring gossip the world over, would have come between me and that
purple pigeon smothered in rice which Maria had promised me! The pope
himself would have known me individually out of the cloud of his
subjects, and have frowned upon my image.
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