ich leads up to the old town. It is a throng of
white faces; they carry scourges in their hands. On their red banners
a rain of fire is pictured. And the black crosses sway from one side to
the other in the crowd.

From the dense mass there rises a smell of sweat, of ashes, of the dust
of the roadway, and of stale incense.

They no longer sing, neither do they speak, nothing is audible but the
tramping, herd-like sound of their naked feet.

Face after face plunges into the darkness of the tower-gate, and emerges
into the light on the other side with a dazed, tired expression and
half-closed lids.

Then the singing begins again: a miserere; they grasp their scourges
more firmly and walk with a brisker step as if to a war-song.

They look as if they came from a famished city, their cheeks are hollow,
their bones stand out, their lips are bloodless, and they have dark
rings beneath their eyes.

The people of Bergamo have flocked together and watch them with
amazement--and uneasiness. Red dissipated faces stand contrasted with
these pale white ones; dull glances exhausted by debauchery are
lowered before these piercing, flaming eyes; mocking blasphemers stand
open-mouthed before these hymns.

And there is blood on their scourges.

A feeling of strange uneasiness filled the people at the sight of these
strangers.

But it did not take long, however, before they shook off this
impression. Some of them recognized a half-crazy shoemaker from Brescia
among those who bore crosses, and immediately the whole mob through him
became a laughingstock. Anyhow, it was something new, a distraction
amid the everyday, and when the strangers marched toward the cathedral,
everybody followed behind as they would have followed a band of jugglers
or a tame bear.

But as they pushed their way forward they became embittered; they felt
so matter-of-fact in comparison with the solemnity of these people. They
understood very well, that those shoemakers and tailors had come here
to convert them, to pray for them, and to utter the words which they did
not wish to hear. There were two lean, gray-haired philosophers who had
elaborated impiety into a system; they incited the people, and out of
the malice of their hearts stirred their passions, so that with each
step as they neared the church the attitude of the crowd became more
threatening and their cries of anger wilder. It would not have taken
much to have made them lay violent hands on tho