driven across the superb piazza with its obelisk and twin
fountains, encircled by Bernini's colonnades, those four rows of columns
and pilasters which form a girdle of monumental majesty. At the far end
rises the basilica, its facade making it look smaller and heavier than it
really is, but its sovereign dome nevertheless filling the heavens.

Pebbled, deserted inclines stretched out, and steps followed steps, worn
and white, under the burning sun; but at last Pierre reached the door and
went in. It was three o'clock. Broad sheets of light streamed in through
the high square windows, and some ceremony--the vesper service, no
doubt--was beginning in the Capella Clementina on the left. Pierre,
however, heard nothing; he was simply struck by the immensity of the
edifice, as with raised eyes he slowly walked along. At the entrance came
the giant basins for holy water with their boy-angels as chubby as
Cupids; then the nave, vaulted and decorated with sunken coffers; then
the four cyclopean buttress-piers upholding the dome, and then again the
transepts and apsis, each as large as one of our churches. And the proud
pomp, the dazzling, crushing splendour of everything, also astonished
him: he marvelled at the cupola, looking like a planet, resplendent with
the gold and bright colours of its mosaic-work, at the sumptuous
_baldacchino_ of bronze, crowning the high altar raised above the very
tomb of St. Peter, and whence descend the double steps of the Confession,
illumined by seven and eighty lamps, which are always kept burning. And
finally he was lost in astonishment at the extraordinary profusion of
marble, both white and coloured. Oh! those polychromatic marbles,
Bernini's luxurious passion! The splendid pavement reflecting the entire
edifice, the facings of the pilasters with their medallions of popes, the
tiara and the keys borne aloft by chubby angels, the walls covered with
emblems, particularly the dove of Innocent X, the niches with their
colossal statues uncouth in taste, the _loggie_ and their balconies, the
balustrade and double steps of the Confession, the rich altars and yet
richer tombs--all, nave, aisles, transepts, and apsis, were in marble,
resplendent with the wealth of marble; not a nook small as the palm of
one's hand appearing but it showed the insolent opulence of marble. And
the basilica triumphed, beyond discussion, recognised and admired by
every one as the largest and most splendid church in the whole