line, right in front and far away at the other end of
the city; whilst on the heights of the neighbouring Viminal, Pierre only
perceived a confused mass of whitish blocks, steeped in light and
streaked with fine brown lines--recent erections, no doubt, which at that
distance suggested an abandoned stone quarry. He long sought the Capitol
without being able to discover it; he had to take his bearings, and ended
by convincing himself that the square tower, modestly lost among
surrounding house-roofs, which he saw in front of Sta. Maria Maggiore was
its campanile. Next, on the left, came the Quirinal, recognisable by the
long facade of the royal palace, a barrack or hospital-like facade, flat,
crudely yellow in hue, and pierced by an infinite number of regularly
disposed windows. However, as Pierre was completing the circuit, a sudden
vision made him stop short. Without the city, above the trees of the
Botanical Garden, the dome of St. Peter's appeared to him. It seemed to
be poised upon the greenery, and rose up into the pure blue sky, sky-blue
itself and so ethereal that it mingled with the azure of the infinite.
The stone lantern which surmounts it, white and dazzling, looked as
though it were suspended on high.

Pierre did not weary, and his glances incessantly travelled from one end
of the horizon to the other. They lingered on the noble outlines, the
proud gracefulness of the town-sprinkled Sabine and Alban mountains,
whose girdle limited the expanse. The Roman Campagna spread out in far
stretches, bare and majestic, like a desert of death, with the glaucous
green of a stagnant sea; and he ended by distinguishing "the stern round
tower" of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, behind which a thin pale line
indicated the ancient Appian Way. Remnants of aqueducts strewed the short
herbage amidst the dust of the fallen worlds. And, bringing his glance
nearer in, the city again appeared with its jumble of edifices, on which
his eyes lighted at random. Close at hand, by its loggia turned towards
the river, he recognised the huge tawny cube of the Palazzo Farnese. The
low cupola, farther away and scarcely visible, was probably that of the
Pantheon. Then by sudden leaps came the freshly whitened walls of San
Paolo-fuori-le-Mura,* similar to those of some huge barn, and the statues
crowning San Giovanni in Laterano, delicate, scarcely as big as insects.
Next the swarming of domes, that of the Gesu, that of San Carlo, that of
St'. Andr