Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/384

 fragments, half excavated and half identified, known as the Palace of the Cæsars. Nothing in Rome is more interesting than this confused and crumbling garden, where you stumble at every step on the disinterred bones of the past; where damp frescoed corridors, relics possibly of Nero's Golden House, serve as gigantic bowers, and where in the spring-time you may sit on a Latin inscription in the shade of a flowering almond and admire the composition of the Campagna. The day left a deep impression on Rowland's mind, partly owing to its intrinsic sweetness and partly because his companion on this occasion let some book of reference she had brought with her lie unopened for an hour and asked several questions which had no connection with Consuls or Cæsars. She had begun by saying that it was coming over her, after all, that Rome was a ponderously sad place. The sirocco was gently blowing, the air was heavy, she was tired, she looked pale and grave.

"Everything," she said, "seems to insist that all things are vanity indeed. If one has something good to do I suppose one feels a certain strength within one to say otherwise. But if one has nothing it 's surely depressing to live year after year among the ashes of things that once were mighty. If I were to remain here I should either become permanently 'low,' as they say, or I would take refuge in some practical occupation."

"And what occupation would be your idea?"

"I would open a school for those beautiful little beggars, though I 'm sadly afraid I should never bring myself to scold them." 350