y led Caesar to make absurd resolutions which he
didn't carry out.

One Sunday in the beginning of April, he went out into the street,
disposed to take a walk outside of Rome, following the road anywhere it
led. A hard, fine rain was falling, the sky was grey, the air mild, the
streets were full of puddles, the shops closed; a few flower merchants
were offering branches of almond in blossom.

Caesar was very depressed. He went into a church to get out of the rain.
The church was full; there were many people in the centre of it; he
didn't know what they were doing. Doubtless they were gathered there for
some reason, although Caesar didn't understand what. Caesar sat down on
a bench, worn out; he would have liked to listen to organ music, to a
boy choir. No ideas occurred to him but sentimental ones. Some time
passed, and a priest began to preach. Caesar got up and went into the
street.

"I must get rid of these miserable impressions, get back to noble ideas.
I must fight this sentimental leprosy."

He started to walk with long strides through the sad, empty streets.

He went toward the river and met Kennedy, who was coming back, he told
him, from the studio of a sculptor friend of his.

"You look like desolation. What has happened to you?"

"Nothing, but I am in a perfectly hellish humour."

"I am melancholy too. It must be the weather. Let's take a walk."

They went along the bank of the Tiber. Full of clay, more turbid than
ever, and very high between the white embankments hemming it in, the
river looked like a big sewer.

"This is not the 'coeruleus Tibris' that Virgil speaks of in the
Aeneld, which presented itself to Aeneas in the form of an ancient man
with his head crowned with roses," said Kennedy.

"No. This is a horrible river," Caesar opined.

They followed the shore, passed the Castel Sant' Angelo and the bridge
with the statues.

From the embankment, to the right, they could now see narrow lanes, sunk
almost below the level of the river. On the other bank a new, white
edifice towered in the rain.

They went as far as the Piazza d'Armi, and then came back at nightfall
to Rome. The rain was gradually ceasing and the sky looked less
threatening. A file of greenish gaslights followed the river-wall and
then crossed over the bridge.

They walked to the Piazza del Popolo and through the Via Babuino to the
Piazza di Spagna.

"Would you like to go to a Benedictine abbey tomorrow?" asked Kennedy.