"Indeed, perhaps you, gentlemen, have come for the same purpose!" he
said smiling. "Everyone comes for that now. Once upon a time they came
to see a pope! Certainly! There was a pope at Jenne once--Alexander IV,
You will see the inscription: '_Colores aestivos vitandi caussa.'_ Now
they come for a saint. He ought to be more than a pope, but I fear he
is less. Did you see the two sick people? did you see the students from
Rome? Ah! you will see other astonishing things, other astonishing
things! But, after all, I am afraid he is less than a pope! A pleasant
journey to you!"
Beyond the cross, they ascended with the open sky before them, between
the green ridges, which slope downward, forming the lonely hollow of
Jenne, which is crowned on the opposite side with that wretched herd of
poor dwellings, dominated by the carnpanile. Giovanni had been to Jenne
before, but it did not seem to him in any way changed because a saint
now lived there, and miracles were performed there. It impressed his
wife, who now saw it for the first time, as a spot which might inspire
religious contemplation, by that sense of altitude, not suggested by
distant views, by that deep sky behind the village, by its solitude, its
silence.
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