And as he stepped out into the darkness the bitter cold gripped him by the throat and cut into his lungs. He drew his collar about his neck, thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and tramped down dingy streets that echoed his footfall along their haunted ways—he thought with a pang of the threadbare coats of these pallid revellers in the beautiful. It was the black hour that goes before the coming of the daybreak; and blacker than the blackness of the night loomed the great bulk of the cathedral of Notre Dame, its towers lost in the reek of the bleak heavens above—there were lights that showed low down and beyond—the lights of the Morgue were not yet burnt out.
The youth stood on the bridge and peered at the sighing sound that told of the river below; but his brows were knit upon the destiny of these kindly gentle people he had left behind him.
Where was this sorry tragedy of art for art’s sake hurrying these sinking wits?
Those dark shadows that slept under the bridges, were they the husks of such human things? Was that the end? To share the dank shelter with the rats that made their litter there! Or perhaps in the black waters icy oblivion would solve their sorry problem of evading the tragedy of living! The Morgue.
Nay, how they clung to this despised life, for all its sordidness, for all its misery—even the Failures!
CHAPTER LXXVI
Wherein our Hero sets Foot upon the Road to Rome
Midnight did not see Noll at the tavern of The Golden Sun.