“All the stones look like tombs,” said Cæsar. “Yes, that is true.”
“What are those three high open vaults that give so strange an impression of immense size?” asked Cæsar.
“That is what remains of Constantine’s basilica.”
For a long while they gazed at that abandoned space, with its melancholy columns and white stones.
In a street running into the Forum, there began to shine two rows of gaslights of a greenish colour.
As they passed down the slope leading to the Capitol, in a little street to the left, the Via Monte Tarpea, they saw a funeral procession ready to start. At that moment the corpse was being brought into the street. Several women in black were waiting by the house door with lighted candles.
The priest, in his white surplice and holding up his cross, gave the order to start, and pushed to the front of the crowd; four men raised the bier and took it on their shoulders, and the procession of women in black, men, and children, followed behind. Bells with sharp voices began again to sound in the air.
“Oh, isn’t it sad!” said Susanna, lifting her hand to her breast.
They watched how the procession moved away, and then Cæsar murmured, ill-humouredly:
“It is stupid.”