is but a
town of passage. And so the most valiant efforts have failed to rouse it
from its invincible slumber. The capital which the newcomers sought to
improvise with such extreme haste has remained unfinished, and has almost
ruined the nation. The Government, legislators, and functionaries only
camp there, fleeing directly the warm weather sets in so as to escape the
pernicious climate. The hotels and shops even put up their shutters, and
the streets and promenades become deserts, the city having failed to
acquire any life of its own, and relapsing into death as soon as the
artificial life instilled into it is withdrawn. So all remains in
suspense in this purely decorative capital, where only a fresh growth of
men and money can finish and people the huge useless piles of the new
districts. If it be true that to-morrow always blooms in the dust of the
past, one ought to force oneself to hope; but Pierre asked himself if the
soil were not exhausted, and since mere buildings could no longer grow on
it, if it were not for ever drained of the sap which makes a race
healthy, a nation powerful.

As the night advanced the lights in the houses of the Trastevere went out
one by one: yet Pierre for a long time lingered on the quay, leaning over
the blackened river and yielding to hopelessness. There was now no
distance to the gloom; all had become dense; no longer did any
reflections set a moire-like, golden quiver in the water, or reveal
beneath its mystery-concealing current a fantastic, dancing vision of
fabulous wealth. Gone was the legend, gone the seven-branched golden
candelabrum, gone the golden vases, gone the golden jewellery, the whole
dream of antique treasure that had vanished into night, even like the
antique glory of Rome. Not a glimmer, nothing but slumber, disturbed
solely by the heavy fall of sewage from the drain on the right-hand,
which could not be seen. The very water had disappeared, and Pierre no
longer espied its leaden flow through the darkness, no longer had any
perception of the sluggish senility, the long-dating weariness, the
intense sadness of that ancient and glorious Tiber, whose waters now
rolled nought but death. Only the vast, opulent sky, the eternal, pompous
sky displayed the dazzling life of its milliards of planets above that
river of darkness, bearing away the ruins of wellnigh three thousand
years.

Before returning to his own chamber that evening Pierre entered Dario's
room, and found