was also deserted amidst the pallid radiance of its electric lights, the
Palazzo Torlonia appeared on the right-hand, with one wing ripped open by
the picks of demolishers, whilst on the left, farther up, the Palazzo
Colonna showed its long, mournful facade and closed windows, as if, now
that it was deserted by its masters and void of its ancient pomp, it
awaited the demolishers in its turn.

Then, as the cab at a slower pace began to climb the ascent of the Via
Nazionale, Pierre's reverie continued. Was not Rome also stricken, had
not the hour come for her to disappear amidst that destruction which the
nations on the march invariably left behind them? Greece, Athens, and
Sparta slumbered beneath their glorious memories, and were of no account
in the world of to-day. Moreover, the growing paralysis had already
invaded the lower portion of the Italic peninsula; and after Naples
certainly came the turn of Rome. She was on the very margin of the death
spot which ever extends over the old continent, that margin where agony
begins, where the impoverished soil will no longer nourish and support
cities, where men themselves seem stricken with old age as soon as they
are born. For two centuries Rome had been declining, withdrawing little
by little from modern life, having neither manufactures nor trade, and
being incapable even of science, literature, or art. And in Pierre's
thoughts it was no longer St. Peter's only that fell, but all
Rome--basilicas, palaces, and entire districts--which collapsed amidst a
supreme rending, and covered the seven hills with a chaos of ruins. Like
Nineveh and Babylon, and like Thebes and Memphis, Rome became but a
plain, bossy with remnants, amidst which one vainly sought to identify
the sites of ancient edifices, whilst its sole denizens were coiling
serpents and bands of rats.

The cab turned, and on the right, in a huge gap of darkness Pierre
recognised Trajan's column, but it was no longer gilded by the sun as
when he had first seen it; it now rose up blackly like the dead trunk of
a giant tree whose branches have fallen from old age. And farther on,
when he raised his eyes while crossing the little triangular piazza, and
perceived a real tree against the leaden sky, that parasol pine of the
Villa Aldobrandini which rises there like a symbol of Rome's grace and
pride, it seemed to him but a smear, a little cloud of soot ascending
from the downfall of the whole city.

With the anxious, frate