the most vivid emotion
of his childhood.

Though it was February the season was so soft that the orange and lemon
trees had been put out in their earthen vases before the lemon-house,
and the beds in the parterres were full of violets, daffodils and
auriculas; but the scent of the orange-blossoms and the bright colours
of the flowers moved Odo less than the noble ordonnance of the pleached
alleys, each terminated by a statue or a marble seat; and when he came
to the grotto where, amid rearing sea-horses and Tritons, a cascade
poured from the grove above, his wonder passed into such delicious awe
as hung him speechless on the hunchback's hand.

"Eh," said the latter with a sneer, "it's a finer garden than we have at
our family palace. Do you know what's planted there?" he asked, turning
suddenly on the little boy. "Dead bodies, cavaliere! Rows and rows of
them; the bodies of my brothers and sisters, the Innocents who die like
flies every year of the cholera and the measles and the putrid fever."
He saw the terror in Odo's face and added in a gentler tone: "Eh, don't
cry, cavaliere; they sleep better in those beds than in any others
they're like to lie on. Come, come, and I'll show your excellency the
aviaries."

From the aviaries they passed to the Chinese pavilion, where the Duke
supped on summer evenings, and thence to the bowling-alley, the
fish-stew and the fruit-garden. At every step some fresh surprise
arrested Odo; but the terrible vision of that other garden planted with
the dead bodies of the Innocents robbed the spectacle of its brightness,
dulled the plumage of the birds behind their gilt wires and cast a
deeper shade over the beech-grove, where figures of goat-faced men
lurked balefully in the twilight. Odo was glad when they left the
blackness of this grove for the open walks, where gardeners were working
and he had the reassurance of the sky. The hunchback, who seemed sorry
that he had frightened him, told him many curious stories about the
marble images that adorned the walks; and pausing suddenly before one of
a naked man with a knife in his hand, cried out in a frenzy: "This is my
namesake, Brutus!" But when Odo would have asked if the naked man was a
kinsman, the boy hurried him on, saying only: "You'll read of him some
day in Plutarch."

1.3.

Odo, next morning, under the hunchback's guidance, continued his
exploration of the palace. His mother seemed glad to be rid of him, and
Vanna packing