The Loan Redeemed
At Florence he parted from the priests, and while the horses rested through the afternoon he walked his empty purse around the city. The streets took narrow courses between rough brick walls and passed under heavy arches, so that the whole city seemed a kind of castle. Everything was cleaner than in Rome; there was no washing in the open, no spoiled vegetables. Cathedrals hid behind the corners and ambushed him as he went. He craned his neck and found fantastic spires hanging just over his head, too close to understand. In the huge, dark interiors he walked between the marble columns as if through fairy crypts. There were family chapels locked behind iron gates, dead kings with Latin on their coffins, huge painted Christs and saints and very few living souls other than t
