So insisted on, and laboured at, besides, that
every sufferer gives you the same occasion for wonder as poor old
Duncan awoke, in Lady Macbeth, when she marvelled at his having so
much blood in him.
There is an upper chamber in the Mamertine prisons, over what is
said to have been--and very possibly may have been--the dungeon of
St. Peter. This chamber is now fitted up as an oratory, dedicated
to that saint; and it lives, as a distinct and separate place, in
my recollection, too. It is very small and low-roofed; and the
dread and gloom of the ponderous, obdurate old prison are on it, as
if they had come up in a dark mist through the floor. Hanging on
the walls, among the clustered votive offerings, are objects, at
once strangely in keeping, and strangely at variance, with the
place--rusty daggers, knives, pistols, clubs, divers instruments of
violence and murder, brought here, fresh from use, and hung up to
propitiate offended Heaven: as if the blood upon them would drain
off in consecrated air, and have no voice to cry with. It is all
so silent and so close, and tomb-like; and the dungeons below are
so black and stealthy, and stagnant, and naked; that this little
dark spot becomes a dream within a dream: and in the vision of
great churches which come rolling past me like a sea, it is a small
wave by itself, that melts into no other wave, and does not flow on
with the rest.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 192 of 268
Words from 52662 to 52926
of 73541
