by little he had been wholly caught in that huge mechanism with its
hundred wheels, that he asked himself in terror what he should do on the
morrow now that there remained nothing for him to do--unless, indeed, it
were to go mad.

However, meeting Don Vigilio in a passage of the house, he again wished
to ask him for some good advice. But the secretary, who had a gleam of
terror in his eyes, silenced him, he knew not why, with an anxious
gesture. And then in a whisper, in Pierre's ear, he said: "Have you seen
Monsignor Nani? No! Well, go to see him, go to see him. I repeat that you
have nothing else to do!"

Pierre yielded. And indeed why should he have resisted? Apart from the
motives of ardent charity which had brought him to Rome to defend his
book, was he not there for a self-educating, experimental purpose? It was
necessary that he should carry his attempts to the very end.

On the morrow, when he reached the colonnade of St. Peter's, the hour was
so early that he had to wait there awhile. He had never better realised
the enormity of those four curving rows of columns, forming a forest of
gigantic stone trunks among which nobody ever promenades. In fact, the
spot is a grandiose and dreary desert, and one asks oneself the why and
wherefore of such a majestic porticus. Doubtless, however, it was for its
sole majesty, for the mere pomp of decoration, that this colonnade was
reared; and therein, again, one finds the whole Roman spirit. However,
Pierre at last turned into the Via di Sant' Offizio, and passing the
sacristy of St. Peter's, found himself before the Palace of the Holy
Office in a solitary silent district, which the footfall of pedestrians
or the rumble of wheels but seldom disturbs. The sun alone lives there,
in sheets of light which spread slowly over the small, white paving. You