DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0250
234
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
assisted him hold down their heads and laugh al-
most convulsively. The Pole seemed to be con-
scious that he was creating a sensation, and that
all eyes were upon him, and sat with his arms
folded, with an ease and self-complacency alto-
gether indescribable, looking down in the vase,
and turning his foot in the superior's hands, heel up,
toe up, so as to facilitate the process ; and when the
superior had washed and kissed it, and was hold-
ing it up for others to do the same, he looked
about him with all the grandeur of a monarch in the
act of coronation. Keeping his arms folded, he
fairly threw himself back into the huge chair, look-
ing from his foot to the monks, and from the monks
to his foot again, as one to whom the world had
nothing more to offer. It was more than a min-
ute before any one would venture upon the peril-
ous task of kissing those very suspicious toes, and
the monk who was assisting the superior had to go
round and drum them up; though he had already
kissed it once in the way of his particular duty, to
set an example he kissed it a second time; and
now, as if ashamed of their backwardness, two or
three rushed forward at once ; and the ice once
broken, the effect seemed electric, and there was a
greater rush to kiss his foot than there had been to
any of the others.
It was almost too hard to follow Paul after this
display. I ought to have spared him, but I could
not. His mortification was in proportion to his
predecessor's pride. He was sneaking up to the
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
assisted him hold down their heads and laugh al-
most convulsively. The Pole seemed to be con-
scious that he was creating a sensation, and that
all eyes were upon him, and sat with his arms
folded, with an ease and self-complacency alto-
gether indescribable, looking down in the vase,
and turning his foot in the superior's hands, heel up,
toe up, so as to facilitate the process ; and when the
superior had washed and kissed it, and was hold-
ing it up for others to do the same, he looked
about him with all the grandeur of a monarch in the
act of coronation. Keeping his arms folded, he
fairly threw himself back into the huge chair, look-
ing from his foot to the monks, and from the monks
to his foot again, as one to whom the world had
nothing more to offer. It was more than a min-
ute before any one would venture upon the peril-
ous task of kissing those very suspicious toes, and
the monk who was assisting the superior had to go
round and drum them up; though he had already
kissed it once in the way of his particular duty, to
set an example he kissed it a second time; and
now, as if ashamed of their backwardness, two or
three rushed forward at once ; and the ice once
broken, the effect seemed electric, and there was a
greater rush to kiss his foot than there had been to
any of the others.
It was almost too hard to follow Paul after this
display. I ought to have spared him, but I could
not. His mortification was in proportion to his
predecessor's pride. He was sneaking up to the