In this cage there was what appeared at first to be a heap of rags, but which presently resolved itself into a human shape, crouching in that narrow, cruel space, exposed there to the pitiless beating of the sun, and suffering Heaven alone can say what agonies.

The murmuring crowd looked up in mingled fear and sympathy.
He had been there since last night, a peasant girl informed us, and he had been confined there by order of my Lord the Cardinal-legate for the odious sin of sacrilege.
"What!" I cried out, in such a tone of astonished indignation that Monna Giuliana seized my arm and pressed it to enjoin prudence.
It was not until she had made her purchases in a shop under the Duomo and we were returning home that I touched upon the matter.

She chid me for the lack of caution that might have led me into some unpardonable indiscretions but for her warning.
"But the very thought of such a man as my Lord Gambara torturing a poor wretch for sacrilege!" I cried.

"It is grotesque; it is ludicrous; it is infamous!" "Not so loud," she laughed.

"You are being stared at." And then she delivered herself of an amazing piece of casuistry.