Ch. 14 - The Famine - Page 2

estranges grief was unknown to the populace; and
though fast losing spirit, they had not yet sunk to the depths of
ferocious despair which even now were invisibly opening between them. A
thousand pangs were felt, a thousand humble tragedies were acted, in the
brief moments of separation between guardian and charge. The child
snatched its last kiss of the bird that had sung over its bed; the dog
looked its last entreaty for protection from the mistress who had once
never met it without a caress. Then came the short interval of agony
and death, then the steam rose fiercely from the greedy caldron, and
then the people for a time dispersed; the sorrowful to linger near the
confines of the fire, and the hungry to calm their impatience by a visit
to the neighbouring church.

The marble aisles of the noble basilica held a gloomy congregation.
Three small candles were alone lighted on the high altar. No sweet
voices sang melodious anthems or exulting hymns. The monks, in hoarse
tones and monotonous harmonics, chanted the penitential psalms. Here
and there knelt a figure clothed in mourning robes, and absorbed in
secret prayer; but over the majority of the assembly either blank
despondency or sullen inattention universally prevailed.

As the last dull notes of the last psalm died away among the lofty
recesses of the church, a procession of pious Christians appeared at the
door and advanced slowly to the altar. It was composed both of men and
women barefooted, clothed in black garments, and with ashes scattered
over their dishevelled hair. Tears flowed from their eyes, and they
beat their breasts as they bowed their foreheads on the marble pavement
of the altar steps.

This humble public expression of penitence under the calamity that had
now fallen on the city was, however, confined only to its few really
religious inhabitants, and commanded neither sympathy nor attention from
the heartless and obstinate population of Rome. Some still cherished
the delusive hope of assistance from the court at Ravenna; others
believed that the Goths would ere long impatiently abandon their
protracted blockade, to stretch their ravages over the rich and
unprotected fields of Southern Italy. But the same blind confidence in
the lost terrors of the Roman name, the same fierce and reckless
determination to defy the Goths to the very last, sustained the sinking
courage and suppressed the despondent emotions of the great mass of the
suffering people, from the beggar who prowled for garbage, to the
patrician who sighed over his new and unwelcome nourishment of simple
bread.

While the penitents who formed the procession above described were yet
engaged in the performance of their unnoticed and unshared duties of
penance