norama.

They halted a moment, on the abbe's advice, at the Baths of Caracalla,
and went through them. The cicerone explained where the different
bathing-rooms had been and the size of the pools. Those cyclopean
buildings, those high, high arches, those enormous walls, left Caesar
overcome.

One couldn't understand a thing like this except in a town which had a
mania for the gigantic, the titanic.

They left the baths and started along. They followed the Via di Porta
San Sebastiano, between two walls. They left behind the imposing ruins
of the Baths of Caracalla and various establishments for archeological
reconstructions, and the carriage stopped at the gate of the Catacombs.

They went in, guided by the abbe, and arrived at a sort of office.

They each paid a lira for a taper which a friar was handing out, and
they joined a group of other people, without quite knowing what they
expected next. In the group there were two German Dominicans, a tall one
whose fiery red beard hung to his waist, and a slim one, with a nose
like a knife.

_IRREVERENT CICERONE_

It was not long before another numerous group of tourists came out of a
hole in the floor, and among them was a Trappist brother who came over
to where Don Calixto and Caesar were. The Trappist carried a stick,
and a taper twisted in the end of the stick. He asked if everybody
understood French; any one that didn't could wait for another group.

"I don't understand it," said the Canon.

"I will translate what he says, to you," replied Caesar.

"All right," answered the Canon.

"_En avant, messieurs_," said the Trappist, lighting his taper, and
requesting them all to do the same.

They went around giving one another a light, and with their little
candles aflame they began to descend into the Catacombs.

They went in by a gallery as narrow as one in a mine, which once in a
while broadened into bigger spaces.

In certain spots there were openings in the roof.

Caesar had never thought about what the celebrated Catacombs would be
like, but he had not expected them so poor and so sinister.

The sensation they caused was disagreeable, a sensation of choking, of
suffocation, without one's really getting any impression of grandeur.
The place seemed like an abandoned ant-hill. The wide spaces that opened
out at the sides of the passage were chapels, the monk said.

The Trappist cicerone contributed to removing any serious feelings with
his chatter and hi