He went on and on, challenged from
time to time by the sentinels to whom he mechanically showed his
pass. Striding up hill and down through the highways and through
the least frequented streets of the city, it was all the same to
him in his misery, and he had no consciousness of what he saw or
heard. At eight o'clock in the evening he was opposite Saint
Peter's; at midnight he was standing alone at the desolate cross-
roads before Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, beyond the Lateran, and
only just within the walls. From place to place he wandered,
feeling no fatigue, but only a burning fever in his head and an
icy chill in his heart. Sometimes he would walk up and down some
broad square twenty or thirty times; then again he followed a long
thoroughfare throughout its whole length, and retraced his steps
without seeing that he passed twice through the same street.
At last he found himself in a great crowd of people. Had he
realised that it was nearly three o'clock in the morning the
presence of such a concourse would have astonished him. But if he
was not actually ill and out of his mind, he was at all events in
such a confused state that he did not even ask himself what was
the meaning of the demonstration.
The tramp of marching troops recalled the thought of Gouache, and
suddenly he understood what was happening.
Pages:
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347