All below was in that transparent shadow wherein
objects look like pictures of themselves or like reflections in clear
water. The whole street was indeed a picture, with its gray houses set
in irregular lines, and as distinct in character as a line of men and
women would have been. On the building opposite our window was an
inscription telling that Metastasio had lived there--on another a date,
1419.
In 1419, when they piled the stones of that wall, Christopher Columbus
was not born, yet the basilica of St. Francis had been built more than
one hundred and fifty years; and on such a June day as this the
Asisinati leaned from their windows to see a Corpus Domini procession
come up the street, just as they were now doing. It came through the
fragrant silence and clear shadow like a vision. I could not restrain
an exclamation of surprise and delight, for I had not dreamed of
anything so beautiful. The procession would have been striking
anywhere, but shut in as it was between the soft gray of the opposite
stone houses, with the green-sprinkled street beneath and the glorious
blue above, it was as wonderful as if, looking down into clear deeps of
water, one should see the passing of some pageant of an enchanted city
buried deep in the crystalline waves centuries ago.
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