immortal
cypresses and the blossoming shrubs, which looked like little puffs
of pink and white cloud resting on the bosom of the valley. A small,
clear mountain-stream wound round the headland to join the Tiber,
which divides the landscape with its bare, pebbly bed. It was almost
the same view that one has from twenty places in Perugia, but coming
out upon it as from the bowels of the earth, framed in its huge stone
arch, it was like opening a window from this world into Paradise.

Slowly and lingeringly I left the cloister, and panted up the many
steps back to the piazza to await my companion and the carriage which
was to take us back to Perugia. The former was already there, and in a
few minutes a small omnibus came clattering down the stony street, and
stopping beside us the driver informed us that he had come for us. Our
surprise and wrath broke forth. Hours before we had bespoken a little
open carriage, and it was this heavy, jarring, jolting vehicle which
they had sent to drive us ten miles across the hills. The driver
declared, with truly Italian volubility and command of language and
gesture, that there was no other means of conveyance to be had; that
it was excellent, swift, admirable; that it was what the signori
always went from Assisi to Perugia in; that, in fine, we had engaged
it, and _must_ take it. My companion hesitated, but I had the
advantage here, being the one who could speak Italian; so I promptly
replied that we would not go in the omnibus under any circumstances.
The whole story was then repeated with more adjectives and
superlatives, and gestures of a form and pathos to make the fortune
of a tragic actor. I repeated my refusal. He began a third time: I
sat down on the steps, rested my head on my hand and looked at the
carvings of the portal. This drove him to frenzy: so long as you
answer an Italian he gets the better of you; entrench yourself in
silence and he is impotent. The driver's impotence first exploded
in fury and threats: at least we should pay for the omnibus, for his
time, for his trouble; yes, pay the whole way to Perugia and back, and
his _buon' mano_ besides. All the beggars who haunt the sanctuary of
their patron had gathered about us, and from playing Greek chorus
now began to give us advice: "Yes, we would do well to go: the only
carriage in Assisi, and excellent, admirable!" The numbers of these
vagrants, their officiousness, their fluency, were bewildering. "But
what are we