"What happened next?" the boy began again, in a tired voice. "I hardly
know. There was such an uproar, such confusion, such an outburst of
frenzy, that the mere recollection of it makes my brain reel. All I saw
was a vortex of arms and flags, and the breath was almost knocked out of
me by a thundering blow on the chest. After a while, I got out of the
thick of it, and plunged into one of the streets leading to the bridge
of St. Angelo. People were still pouring into the piazza from Borgo Pio
with frantic shouts. I heard afterwards that the crowd tried to break
into the Vatican; the soldiers had to keep them back, first breast to
breast, then with blows, and then with their bayonets. They say that
some people were suffocated in the press. No one knows yet what happened
inside the Vatican; there was a rumor that the Pope had given his
blessing from the window--but I didn't see him. I was almost dead when I
got to the bridge. The news of what had taken place had already spread
over the whole city, and from every direction crowds were still pouring
towards the Vatican. Detachments of cavalry went by me at a trot;
orderlies and aides-de-camps carrying orders dashed along the streets.
Hearing their shouts, the people in the windows shouted back at them.
Decrepit old men, sick people, women with babies in their arms, swarmed
on the terraces, poured out of the houses, questioning, wondering,
embracing one another... At last I got to the Corso. At that minute
there was a tremendous report from the direction of the Pincio, another
from Porta Pia, a third from San Pancrazio: all the batteries of the
Italian army were saluting the Pope. Soon afterwards the bells of the
Capitol began to ring; then, one after another, a hundred churches
chimed in. The crowds of Borgo Pio surged frantically back towards the
left bank of the Tiber, invading the streets, the squares, the houses,
stripping the coverings from the papal escutcheons, carrying in triumph
busts of Pius IX., portraits and banners. Thousands assembled with