o let himself be saturated with rain and his suite with him. In
the narrow, high streets near the cathedral they had to drive almost at
a walking-pace, right through the cheering of the crowding populace.
Soaked to the skin, the Crown-prince of Liparia with his following
arrived at the cardinal-archbishop's; they left a trail of water behind
them on the staircases and in the corridors of the Episcopal.

5

In changed uniforms, a short dinner with the high prelate; a few canons
and minor ecclesiastics sit down with them. The room is large and
sombre, barely lighted with a feeble glimmer of candles; the silver
gleams dully on the dressers of old black oak; the frescoes on the
walls--sacred subjects--are barely distinguishable. A silent haste
quickens the jaws; the conversation is conducted in an undertone; the
servants, in their dark livery, move as though on tiptoe. The cardinal,
on either side of whom the princes are seated, is tall and thin, with a
refined, ascetic face and the steel-blue eyes of an enthusiast; his
voice issues from low down in his throat, like that of an oracle; he
says something of the Lord's will and makes a submissive gesture with
both hands, the fingers lightly outspread, as Jesus does in the old
pictures. One of the priests, the cardinal's private secretary, a young
man with a round, pink face and soft, white hands, laughs rather loudly
at a joke of Prince Dutri, who, sitting next to him, tells a story about
a countess in Lipara whom they both know. The cardinal casts a stern
glance at the frivolous secretary.

After the hurried dinner, the princes and their suite ride into the town
on horseback, cheered wherever they go. The water already mounts close
to the cathedral and the Archiepiscopal Palace. Groups of men, women and
children, sobbing, flow towards the prince, as he rides across the dark
squares; they carry torches about him, as the gas is not everywhere
lighted; the ruddy flares look strange, romantic, over the ancient dark
mass of the walls and are reflected with long streaks of blood in the
water lying in the narrow alleys. A large house of many storeys and rows
of little windows appears to have suddenly gone under: a sudden
mysterious pressure of water, filtering from the foundations through the
masonry of the cellars, making its treacherous way through the least
crack or crevice. The inhabitants save themselves in skiffs, which pass
with little red lights through the black, wate