The Interior Is Vast, And
Nowhere Softened By Decoration, But The Space Is Reduced By The Huge
Bulk Of The Choir In The Center Of It; As We Entered A Fine Echo Mounted
To The Cathedral Roof From The Chanting And Intoning Within.
When the
service ended a tall figure in scarlet crossed rapidly toward the
sacristy.
It was of such imposing presence that we resolved at once it
must be the figure of a cardinal, or of an archbishop at the least. But
it proved to be one of the sacristans, and when we followed him to the
sacristy with half a dozen other sightseers, he showed us a silver
monstrance weighing a hundred and fifty pounds and decked with statites
of our first parents as they appeared before the Fall. Besides this we
saw, much against our will, a great many ecclesiastical vestments of
silk and damask richly wrought in gold and silver. But if we were
reluctant there was a little fat priest there who must have seen them
hundreds of times and had still a childish delight in seeing them again
because he had seen them so often; he dimpled and smiled, and for his
sake we pretended a joy in them which it would have been cruel to deny
him. I suppose we were then led to the sacrifice at the several side
altars, but I have no specific recollection of them; I know there was a
pale, sick-looking young girl in white who went about with her father,
and moved compassion by her gentle sorrowfulness.
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