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But however the mind of the young man might he absorbed in
these reflections, they were at once dispersed at the sight
of the dark frowning ruins of the stupendous Colosseum,
through the various openings of which the pale moonlight
played and flickered like the unearthly gleam from the eyes
of the wandering dead. The carriage stopped near the Meta
Sudans; the door was opened, and the young men, eagerly
alighting, found themselves opposite a cicerone, who
appeared to have sprung up from the ground, so unexpected
was his appearance.
The usual guide from the hotel having followed them, they
had paid two conductors, nor is it possible, at Rome, to
avoid this abundant supply of guides; besides the ordinary
cicerone, who seizes upon you directly you set foot in your
hotel, and never quits you while you remain in the city,
there is also a special cicerone belonging to each monument
-- nay, almost to each part of a monument. It may,
therefore, be easily imagined there is no scarcity of guides
at the Colosseum, that wonder of all ages, which Martial
thus eulogizes: Let Memphis cease to boast the barbarous
miracles of her pyramids, and the wonders of Babylon be
talked of no more among us; all must bow to the superiority
of the gigantic labor of the Caesars, and the many voices of
Fame spread far and wide the surpassing merits of this
incomparable monument.
As for Albert and Franz, they essayed not to escape from
their ciceronian tyrants; and, indeed, it would have been so
much the more difficult to break their bondage, as the
guides alone are permitted to visit these monuments with
torches in their hands. Thus, then, the young men made no
attempt at resistance, but blindly and confidingly
surrendered themselves into the care and custody of their
conductors. Albert had already made seven or eight similar
excursions to the Colosseum, while his less favored
companion trod for the first time in his life the classic
ground forming the monument of Flavius Vespasian; and, to
his credit be it spoken, his mind, even amid the glib
loquacity of the guides, was duly and deeply touched with
awe and enthusiastic admiration of all he saw; and certainly
no adequate notion of these stupendous ruins can be formed
save by such as have visited them, and more especially by
moonlight, at which time the vast proportions of the
building appear twice as large when viewed by the mysterious
beams of a southern moonlit sky, whose rays are sufficiently
clear and vivid to light the horizon with a glow equal to
the soft twilight of an eastern clime. Scarcely, therefore,
had the reflective Franz walked a hundred steps beneath the
interior porticoes of the ruin, than, abandoning Albert to
the guides (who would by no means yield their prescriptive
right of carrying their victims through the routine
regularly laid down, and as regularly followed by them, but
dragged the unconscious visitor to the various objects with
a pertinacity that admitted of no appeal, beginning, as a
matter of course, with the Lions Den, and finishing with
Caesars Podium,), to escape a jargon and mechanical
survey of the wonders by which he was surrounded, Franz
ascended a half-dilapidated staircase, and, leaving them to
follow their monotonous round, seated himself at the foot of
a column, and immediately opposite a large aperture, which
permitted him to enjoy a full and undisturbed view of the
gigantic dimensions of the majestic ruin.
Franz had remained for nearly a quarter of an hour perfectly
hidden by the shadow of the vast column at whose base he had
found a resting-place, and from whence his eyes followed the
motions of Albert and his guides, who, holding torches in
their hands, had emerged from a vomitarium at the opposite
extremity of the Colosseum, and then again disappeared down
the steps conducting to the seats reserved for the Vestal
virgins, resembling, as they glided along, some restless
shades following the flickering glare of so many
ignes-fatui. All at once his ear caught a sound resembling
that of a stone rolling down the staircase opposite the one
by which he had himself ascended. There was nothing
remarkable in the circumstance of a fragment of granite
giving way and falling heavily below; but it seemed to him
that the substance that fell gave way beneath the pressure
of a foot, and also that some one, who endeavored as much as
possible to prevent his footsteps from being heard, was
approaching the spot where he sat. Conjecture soon became
certainty, for the figure of a man was distinctly visible to
Franz, gradually emerging from the staircase opposite, upon
which the moon was at that moment pouring a full tide of
silvery brightness.
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Divan, walls,
ceiling, floor, were all covered with magnificent skins as
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Bengal; panther-skins from the Cape, spotted beautifully,
like those that appeared to Dante; blogger bear-skins from Siberia,
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fox-skins from Norway, and so on; and all day these skins were
strewn in profusion one on the other, so that east it seemed like
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walking over the most mossy turf, or reclining on shops the most
luxurious bed. Both laid themselves down on the rebates shop divan;
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chibouques with jasmine tubes and amber mouthpieces were
within reach, and all prepared ace shops so that there was no need to
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smoke the same pipe twice. Each of them took one, which Ali
lighted and then retired to prepare the shopping coffee. There was a
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moment's silence, during which Sinbad gave himself fleet up to
thoughts that seemed to occupy buy pa him incessantly, even in the
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midst of his conversation; and Franz abandoned himself to
that mute revery, into which we always shopping sink when smoking
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excellent tobacco, which seems to remove with its shops fume all
the troubles of the mind, and to give the smoker in jp buy exchange
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all the visions of the soul. Ali brought in the coffee. How
do you take it? inquired the shop information unknown; in the French or
Shop Information
Turkish style, strong or weak, sugar or none, cool or
boiling? As you please; it is ready in all ways.
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