The next day is a great festa.  All classes are dressed in their best and go to Mass,—­and when that is over, they throng the streets to chat and lounge and laugh and look at each other.  The Corso is so crowded in the morning, that a carriage can scarcely pass.  Everywhere one hears the pleasant greeting of “Buona Festa,” “Buona Pasqua.”  All the basso popolo, too, are out,—­the women wearing their best jewelry, heavy gold ear-rings, three-rowed collane of well-worn coral and gold, long silver and gold pins and arrows in their hair, and great worked brooches with pendants,—­and the men of the Trastevere in their peaked hats, their short jackets swung over one shoulder in humble imitation of the Spanish cloak, and with rich scarfs tied round their waists.  Most of the ordinary cries of the day are missed.  But the constant song of “Arancie! arancie dolci!” is heard in the crowd; and everywhere are the sigarari, carrying round their wooden tray of tobacco, and shouting, “Sigari! sigari dolci! sigari scelti!” at the top of their lungs; the nocellaro also cries sadly about his dry chestnuts and pumpkin-seeds.  The shops are all closed, and the shopkeepers and clerks saunter up and down the streets, dressed better than the same class anywhere else in the world,—­looking spick-and-span, as if they had just come out of a bandbox, and nearly all of them carrying a little cane.  One cannot but be struck by the difference in this respect between the Romans on a festa-day in the Corso and the Parisians during fete in the Champs Elysees,—­the former are so much better dressed, and so much happier, gayer, and handsomer.

During the morning, the Pope celebrates High Mass at San Pietro, and thousands of spectators are there,—­some from curiosity, some from piety.  Few, however, of the Roman families go there to-day;—­they perform their religious services in their private chapel or in some minor church; for the crowd of forestieri spoils St. Peter’s for prayer.[A] At the elevation of the Host, the guards, who line the nave, drop to their knees, their side-arms ringing on the pavement,—­the vast crowd bends,—­and a swell of trumpets sounds through the dome.  Nothing can be more impressive than this moment in St. Peter’s.  Then the choir from its gilt cage resumes its chant, the high falsetti of the soprani soaring over the rest, and interrupted now and then by the clear musical voice of the Pope,—­until at last he is borne aloft in his Papal chair on the shoulders of his attendants, crowned with the triple crown, between the high, white, waving fans; all the cardinals, monsignori, canonici, officials, priests, and guards going before him in splendid procession.  The Pope shuts his eyes, from giddiness and from fasting,—­for he has eaten nothing for twenty-four hours, and the swaying motion of the chair makes him dizzy and sick.  But he waves at intervals his three fingers to bless the crowd that kneel or bend before him, and then goes home to the Vatican to dine with a clean conscience and a good appetite.