After unpacking, there still remained half an hour before dark. They
hurried out for a first look at the double church.
The evening was cold and the wind chill. Spring comes tardily to the
high mountain town, and a light powdering of snow still lay on the
topmost slope of Monte Subasio. Before going into the church they turned
up the street that leads to the Duomo and the temple of Minerva. Assisi
seemed deserted--a city of ghosts. Not a soul in the street, not a light
in the windows. On either hand, houses built of a marvellous red stone
or marble, which seemed still to hold and radiate the tempestuous light
which had but just faded from them; the houses of a small provincial
aristocracy, immemorially old like the families which still possessed
them; close-paned, rough-hewn, and poor--yet showing here and there a
doorway, a balcony, a shrine, touched with divine beauty.
"Where _are_ all the people gone to?" cried Muriel, looking at the
secret rose-colored walls, now withdrawing into the dusk, and at the
empty street. "Not a soul anywhere!"
Presently they came to an open doorway--above it an
inscription--"Bibliotheca dei Studii Franciscani.
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