Now the two strangers understood why they had found Assisi itself
deserted; emptied of its folk this quiet eve. Assisi was here, in the
church which is at once the home and daily spectacle of her people. Why
stay away among the dull streets and small houses of the hill-side, when
there were these pleasures of eye and ear, this sensuous medley of light
and color, this fellowship and society, this dramatic symbolism and
movement, waiting for them below, in the church of their fathers?
So that all were here, old and young, children and youths, fathers just
home from their work, mothers with their babies, girls with their
sweethearts. Their happy yet reverent familiarity with the old church,
their gay and natural participation in the ceremony that was going on,
made on Diana's alien mind the effect of a great multitude crowding to
salute their King. There, in the midst, surrounded by kneeling acolytes
and bending priests, shone the Mystic Presence. Each man and woman and
child, as they passed out of the shadow into the light, bent the knee,
then parted to either side, each to his own place, like courtiers well
used to the ways of a beautiful and familiar pageantry.
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