cade of the Basilica also showed vaguely, pale as a vision, whilst
from it on either side like a pair of giant arms stretched the quadruple
colonnade, a thicket of stone, steeped in obscurity. The dome was but a
huge roundness scarcely discernible against the moonless sky; and only
the jets of the fountains, which could at last be detected rising like
slim phantoms ever on the move, lent a voice to the silence, the endless
murmur of a plaint of sorrow coming one knew not whence. Ah! how great
was the melancholy grandeur of that slumber, that famous square, the
Vatican and St. Peter's, thus seen by night when wrapped in silence and
darkness! But suddenly the clock struck ten with so slow and loud a chime
that never, so it seemed, had more solemn and decisive an hour rung out
amidst blacker and more unfathomable gloom. All Pierre's poor weary frame
quivered at the sound as he stood motionless in the centre of the
expanse. What! had he spent barely three-quarters of an hour, chatting up
yonder with that white old man who had just wrenched all his soul away
from him! Yes, it was the final wrench; his last belief had been torn
from his bleeding heart and brain. The supreme experiment had been made,
a world had collapsed within him. And all at once he thought of Monsignor
Nani, and reflected that he alone had been right. He, Pierre, had been
told that in any case he would end by doing what Monsignor Nani might
desire, and he was now stupefied to find that he had done so.

But sudden despair seized upon him, such atrocious distress of spirit
that, from the depths of the abyss of darkness where he stood, he raised
his quivering arms into space and spoke aloud: "No, no, Thou art not
here, O God of life and love, O God of Salvation! But come, appear since
Thy children are perishing because they know neither who Thou art, nor
where to find Thee amidst the Infinite of the worlds!"

Above the vast square spread the vast sky of dark-blue velvet, the silent
disturbing Infinite, where the constellations palpitated. Over the roofs
of the Vatican, Charles's Wain seemed yet more tilted, its golden wheels
straying from the right path, its golden shaft upreared in the air;
whilst yonder, over Rome towards the Via Giulia, Orion was about to
disappear and already showed but one of the three golden stars which
bedecked his belt.

XV.

IT was nearly daybreak when Pierre fell asleep, exhausted by emotion and
hot with fever. And at nine