warnings of Victorine,
who asserted that it was not safe. And, indeed, on such inky nights as
that one, no cutthroat place ever presented a more tragic aspect. Not a
soul, not a passer-by; a dense gloom, a void in front and on either hand.
At a corner of the mansion, now steeped in darkness, there was a gas lamp
which stood in a hollow since the river margin had been banked up, and
this lamp cast an uncertain glimmer upon the quay, level with the
latter's bossy soil. Thus long vague shadows stretched from the various
materials, piles of bricks and piles of stone, which were strewn around.
On the right a few lights shone upon the bridge near San Giovanni and in
the windows of the hospital of the Santo Spirito. On the left, amidst the
dim recession of the river, the distant districts were blotted out. Then
yonder, across the stream, was the Trastevere, the houses on the bank
looking like vague, pale phantoms, with infrequent window-panes showing a
blurred yellow glimmer, whilst on high only a dark band shadowed the
Janiculum, near whose summit the lamps of some promenade scintillated
like a triangle of stars. But it was the Tiber which impassioned Pierre;
such was its melancholy majesty during those nocturnal hours. Leaning
over the parapet, he watched it gliding between the new walls, which
looked like those of some black and monstrous prison built for a giant.
So long as lights gleamed in the windows of the houses opposite he saw
the sluggish water flow by, showing slow, moire-like ripples there where
the quivering reflections endowed it with a mysterious life. And he often
mused on the river's famous past and evoked the legends which assert that
fabulous wealth lies buried in its muddy bed. At each fresh invasion of
the barbarians, and particularly when Rome was sacked, the treasures of
palaces and temples are said to have been cast into the water to prevent
them from falling into the hands of the conquerors. Might not those
golden bars trembling yonder in the glaucous stream be the branches of
the famous candelabrum which Titus brought from Jerusalem? Might not
those pale patches whose shape remained uncertain amidst the frequent
eddies indicate the white marble of statues and columns? And those deep
moires glittering with little flamelets, were they not promiscuous heaps
of precious metal, cups, vases, ornaments enriched with gems? What a
dream was that of the swarming riches espied athwart the old river's
bosom, of t