Good-bye my readers; good-bye the world.
At the foot of the hill I prepared to enter the city, and I lifted up
my heart.
There was an open space; a tramway: a tram upon it about to be drawn
by two lean and tired horses whom in the heat many flies disturbed.
There was dust on everything around.
A bridge was immediately in front. It was adorned with statues in soft
stone, half-eaten away, but still gesticulating in corruption, after
the manner of the seventeenth century. Beneath the bridge there
tumbled and swelled and ran fast a great confusion of yellow water: it
was the Tiber. Far on the right were white barracks of huge and of
hideous appearance; over these the Dome of St Peter's rose and looked
like something newly built. It was of a delicate blue, but made a
metallic contrast against the sky.
Then (along a road perfectly straight and bounded by factories, mean
houses and distempered walls: a road littered with many scraps of
paper, bones, dirt, and refuse) I went on for several hundred yards,
having the old wall of Rome before me all this time, till I came right
under it at last; and with the hesitation that befits all great
actions I entered, putting the right foot first lest I should bring
further misfortune upon that capital of all our fortunes.
