The church, the square are humming with humanity.
He does the same clever work at the deathbed of Pompilia.

She lies in the House of the dying, and certain folk are allowed to see her.

Each one is made alive by this creative pencil; and all are different, one from the other--the Augustinian monk, old mother Baldi chattering like a jay who thought that to touch Pompilia's bedclothes would cure her palsy, Cavalier Carlo who fees the porter to paint her face just because she was murdered and famous, the folk who argue on theology over her wounded body.

Elsewhere we possess the life-history of Pietro and Violante, Pompilia's reputed parents; several drawings of the retired tradesmen class, with their gossips and friends, in the street of a poor quarter in Rome; then, the Governor and Archbishop of Arezzo, the friar who is kindly but fears the world and all the busy-bodies of this provincial town.

Arezzo, its characters and indwellers, stand in clear light.