ethren, the Black Brethren, the White Brethren of Carmel, held hands,
and confessed to each other as many sins as they had time to remember.
Can Grande went unarmed about his own city, Bevilacqua unbarred his
door, Giusti married his mistress, the bishop said his prayers. The
cripples at the church doors had no need to whine. As for the tavern of
the Golden Fish, it smelt of lavender and musk and bergamot the day
through. At one time there were eight litters with their bearers, eleven
stallions, trapped and emblazoned, held by eleven grooms in livery,
outside its door. The ladies of the litters were in the room upon their
knees; the knights of the horses, their great helmets on their backs,
knelt in the kennel praying devoutly. The wail of "Dies Irae" went down
the Corso and up again, "Salve Regina" wavered over the sunny spaces of
the Bra. In the amphitheatre, after an open-air mass, the
Cardinal-Legate solemnly exposed the relics of last night's miracle,
and a bodyguard of twenty noble youths, six chaplains, and a Benedictine
abbot went to the suburb to escort into the city the curate with the
Peach-stone. It was a glorious day, never to be forgotten in the annals
of Verona. Charity and the open heart went side by side with compunction
and the searching of the heart. Tears were shed and kissed away; kisses
induced the fall of gentler tears. It might be stoutly questioned
whether Verona held one unshriven soul, one sin unspoken, or one solace
unawarded.

It might be reasonably questioned, yet it must be denied. Within the
walls of the friars of Mount Carmel were two uneasy spirits. Fra
Sulpicio, the fat prior, was extended face downwards before the high
altar; Fra Battista, the eloquent preacher, chewed his thumb in his
cell. The pittanciar, on the other hand, was of the common mind. He was
ambling down the Via Leoni with Brother Patricio of the Capuchins on one
arm and Brother Martino of the Dominicans on the other, singing "In
Exitu Israel" like a choir-boy. But the prior, who had half believed
before, was sobbing his contrition into the pavement, and Fra Battista
was losing faith in himself, the only faith he had.

VII

LAST CONSIDERATIONS OF CAN GRANDE II

You are not to suppose that the spectacle of Verona garbed in a gown of
innocence, singing hymns and weaving chaplets of lilies, was to go
unnoticed by the ruling power. Can Grande II. was lord of Verona, a most
atrocious rascal, and one of many; but,