; overhead is the blue, blue
Italian sky; the rain has beaten holes in the walls, and the plaster is
peeling from it. The chapel stands here alone upon the promontory, and
by day and by night the sea breaks at its feet. Some say that it was
set here by the monks from the island down below, that they might bring
their sick here in times of deadly plague. Some say that it was set here
that the passing monks and friars, as they hurried by upon the roadway,
might stop and say their prayers here. Now no one stops to pray here,
and the sick come no more to be healed.

Behind it runs the old Roman road. If you climb it and come and sit
there alone on a hot sunny day you may almost hear at last the clink of
the Roman soldiers upon the pavement, and the sound of that older time,
as you sit there in the sun, when Hannibal and his men broke through the
brushwood, and no road was.

Now it is very quiet. Sometimes a peasant girl comes riding by between
her panniers, and you hear the mule's feet beat upon the bricks of the
pavement; sometimes an old woman goes past with a bundle of weeds upon
her head, or a brigand-looking man hurries by with a bundle of sticks
in his hand; but for the rest the Chapel lies here alone upon the
promontory, between the two bays and hears the sea break at its feet.

I came here one winter's day when the midday sun shone hot on the bricks
of the Roman road. I was weary, and the way seemed steep. I walked into
the chapel to the broken window, and looked out across the bay. Far off,
across the blue, blue water, were towns and villages, hanging white and
red dots, upon the mountain-sides, and the blue mountains rose up into
the sky, and now stood out from it and now melted back again.

The mountains seemed calling to me, but I knew there would never be a
bridge built from them to me; never, never, never! I shaded my eyes with
my hand and turned away. I could not bear to look at them.

I walked through the ruined Chapel, and looked at the Christ in red
carrying his cross, and the Blessed rubbed-out Bambino, and the Roman
soldiers, and the folded hands, and the reed; and I went and sat down
in the open porch upon a stone. At my feet was the small bay, with its
white row of houses buried among the olive trees; the water broke in a
long, thin, white line of foam along the shore; and I leaned my elbows
on my knees. I was tired, very tired; tired with a tiredness that seemed
older than the heat of the day and