There was nothing
here but the procession, leisurely occupying the whole street, treading
out faint odors without raising a particle of dust. The crowd that in
other places always obscures and spoils such a display here followed on
behind. The leisureliness of an Italian religious procession is
something delicious, as well as the way they have of forming hollow
squares and leaving the middle of the street sacred to the grander
dignities.
The members of the different societies wore long robes of red, blue or
of gray trimmed with red, and had small three-cornered pieces of the
material of the robe suspended by a string at the back of the neck, to
be drawn up over the head if necessary. The arms of the societies were
embroidered on the breast or shoulder, and each one had its great
painted banner of Madonna or saint and a magnificent crucifix with a
veil as rich as gold, silver, silk and embroidery could make it. There
were the white _camicie_ half covering the brown robes of long-bearded,
bare-ankled Cappuccini, and sheets of silver and gold in the vestments
of the other clergy.
Presently the canopy borne over the Host appeared, with the
incense-bearers walking backward before it and swinging out faint
clouds of smoke: the voices of the choir grew audible, singing the
_Pange lingua_, and everybody knelt.
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