Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 9.djvu/132

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��Arria Marcella.

��ing a soft, pleasant effect upon the eye. In the middle, a basin of marble, which still exists, received the rain - water which ran from the roof. The effect of entering upon this antique life was singular. They were treading the very floors where the contemporaries of Au- gustus and Caesar had passed with their sandalled feet.

The guide then led them into the tri- cHnium, or summer room, which opened toward the sea to allow the fresh ocean breezes to enter. Here they were ac- customed to receive visitors, and pass the burning afternoons of summer, when those hot, storm-laden African winds swept over the city. From this room they entered into a long gallery, having no roof, in order to give light to the other apartments. This was the place in which visitors and clients waited un- til summoned to the audience-chamber. They were then conducted upon a ter- race of white marble, which commanded a fine view of the rich gardens and the blue sea ; then into the nympheum, or bath-room, with its walls painted yellow, its columns of stucco-work, and its mo- saic pavement and marble bath, which had held so many beautiful forms now less than the dust ; then into the cubicu- lum, with its curtained alcoves ; the tet- rastyle, or recreation-room ; the chapel of the gods ; the library ; the picture- gallery ; the women's apartments, little rooms partly ruined now, whose walls still retain traces of paintings and arab- esques.

After viewing this, they descended to the lower floor ; for the ground is much higher on the garden side than on the side towards the tombs. They went through eight rooms painted red, one of which is full of niches like those used at the present day for statuary ; and at last they arrived at a kind of

��cave or cellar, the use of which was clearly indicated by eight clay pitchers placed against the wall, and which had been filled with the wine of Crete and f alerna, as the odes of Horace tell us. A bright ray of light passed through a crevice in the roof, and the foliage outside was turned into emeralds and topaz ; and this beauty of the outer world only made the sombre interior more gloomy by the contrast.

" It was here that they found, among seventeen other skeletons, the form that you will see in the museum at Naples," said the guide in a nonchalant voice. " There were some gold rings and fila- ments of her tunic still adhering to the hardened cinders which preserved her form."

These words, carelessly spoken by the guide, strangely excited Octavio. He went in to see the exact place where her body had lain ; and, if it had not been for the presence of his friends, he would have dona something extrava- gant : his breast heaved, and his eyes trembled with tears. This catastrophe of two thousand years ago touched him as though it had happened yesterday. The death of a wife or a friend could not have affected him more ; and a tear fell upon the spot where this woman, for whom he felt a hopeless love, had perished, stifled by the falling ashes of the volcano.

" Enough of archseology," cried Fabio. " We do not intend to write a disserta- tion upon the times of Julius Csesar. These classical souvenirs cause a vac- uum in my stomach. Let's go to din- ner, if such a thing is possible in this picturesque hotel, where I am afraid they will serve us fossilized beefsteak, and eggs fried before the death of Pliny."

" I will not say, like Boileau, ' A fool

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