(I) The first objects of which he became aware were his own hands clasped on his lap before him, and the cloth cuffs from which they emerged; and it was these latter that puzzled him.

So engrossed was he that at first he could not pay attention to the strange sounds in the air about him; for these cuffs, though black, were marked at their upper edges with a purpled line such as prelates wear.

He mechanically turned the backs of his hands upwards; but there was no ring on his finger.

Then he lifted his eyes and looked.
He was seated on some kind of raised chair beneath a canopy.

A carpet ran down over a couple of steps beneath his feet, and beyond stood the backs of a company of ecclesiastics--secular priests in cotta, cassock, and biretta, with three or four bare-footed Franciscans and a couple of Benedictines.