Where once he lingered in old days to glance at
the river, or to dream of days yet older and long gone, scarce
conscious of the beggar at his elbow and hardly seeing the half dozen
workmen who laboured at their trades almost in the middle of the public
way--where all was once aged and silent and melancholy and full of the
elder memories--there, at that very corner, he is hustled and jostled by
an eager crowd, thrust to the wall by huge, grinding, creaking carts,
threatened with the modern death by the wheel of the modern omnibus,
deafened by the yells of the modern newsvendors, robbed, very likely, by
the light fingers of the modern inhabitant.
And yet he feels that Rome must be Rome still. He stands aloof and gazes
at the sight as upon a play in which Rome herself is the great heroine
and actress. He knows the woman and he sees the artist for the first
time, not recognising her. She is a dark-eyed, black-haired, thoughtful
woman when not upon the stage. How should he know her in the strange
disguise, her head decked with Gretchen's fair tresses, her olive cheek
daubed with pink and white paint, her stately form clothed in garments
that would be gay and girlish but which are only unbecoming? He would
gladly go out and wait by the stage door until the performance is over,
to see the real woman pass him in the dim light of the street lamps as
she enters her carriage and becomes herself again.
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