16 The Wine-Dark Sea - Libro della tutto

Patrick O'Brian The Wine-Dark Sea
SEVEN
The little girls, stiff with pride and amazement,
and fairly soused with holy water, were
handed into the carriage after pontifical High
Mass in Lima cathedral. They smoothed their
white dresses, their broad blue Marial sashes
and sat quite straight, looking as happy as
was consistent with a high degree of pious
awe: they had just heard the tremendous voice
of an organ for the first time; they had just
been blessed by an archbishop in his mitre.
The crowded steps and pavement thinned;
the viceroy's splendid coach rolled away, escorted
by guards in blue and scarlet, to his
palace fifty yards away; the great square be-