attention is paid by the ladies to the mass which is celebrating at
the high altar and the altar of the Holy Countenance. Their jeweled
hands hold no missal, their knees are unbent, their lips utter no
prayer. Instead, there are bright glances from lustrous eyes, and
whispered words to favored golden youths (without religion, of
course--what has a golden youth to do with religion?) who have
insinuated themselves within the ladies seats, or lean over, gazing at
them with upturned faces.

Peal after peal of musical thunder rolls from the double organs. It
is caught up by the two orchestras placed in gilt galleries on either
side of the nave. A vocal chorus on this side responds to exquisite
voices on that. Now a flute warbles a luscious solo, then a flageolet.
A grand barytone bursts forth, followed by a tenor soft as the notes
of a nightingale, accompanied by a boy on the violin. Then there is
the crash of many hundred voices, with the muffled roar of two organs.
It is the _Gloria in Excelsis_. As the music rolls down the pillared
nave out into the crowded piazza, where it dies away in harmonious
murmurs, an iron cresset, suspended from the vaulted ceiling of the
nave, filled with a bundle of flax, is fired. The flax blazes for a
moment, then passes away in a shower of glittering sparks that glitter
upon the inlaid floor. _Sic transit gloria mundi_ is the motto. (Now
the lighting of this flax is a special privilege accorded to the
Archbishop of Lucca by the pope, and jealously guarded by him.)




CHAPTER III.