“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,” Cæsar 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 Popólo and through the Via Babuino to the Piazza di Spagna.
“Would you like to go to a Benedictine abbey tomorrow?” asked Kennedy.
“All right.”