The latter passed close to the tomb again, but without seeing it, or even remembering the unknown General. Castro had gone!... Castro wanted to become a soldier!...
After going down along the Monegetti road as far as the parade ground of La Condamine, he ascended once more the gently sloping avenue that leads up to Monaco. After his long seclusion, this walk aroused a certain pleasant tingling in his muscles.
Finding himself between the two turrets that mark the entrance to the gardens, the memory of Alicia flashed across his brain. There, a little farther on, they had gotten out of their carriage; behind the trees was a bench on which he first had told her of his love; below, at the edge of the rocks, lay the solitary path along which they had passed as though treading on air, wrapped in the twilight and with lips joined. Then, had come the tearing of her dress, the sweet comical difficulties in mending it, and the pearl pin of the Princess.... Only a few weeks had passed, and these happenings seemed to belong to another happier race of beings, to have taken place on a different planet, bathed in a light that was different from the light of earth.
He made an effort to forget. At present he was standing on an asphalt square, opposite the steps of the Museum of Oceanography. For the first time he noticed the architectural decorations of the white building. They had adopted as an ornamental motif the cluster of twisting arms of the octopus, the semi-circular striations of sea-shells, the trailing filmy umbrella form of the jelly-fish. He observed the sculptural groups symbolizing the powers of the Ocean, or the arts of the navigators, he read the names carved on the frieze of the edifice, and the titles of ships famous for scientific explorations.
He stood there motionless for a long time, seeking a pretext to justify his visit. Finally he went up the steps of the building, and found himself in a deep, cool shade like that of a Cathedral, but without the stale, musty odor of shut-in places, and with a whiff of salt air coming from the nearby sea. He knew the stately edifice: on one side was the vast hall for the lectures and scientific assemblies, like that of a parliament building, with lamp shades of frosted crystal affecting the different shapes of animals from the ocean depths; in the middle of the vestibule was the statue of Prince Albert, dressed as a sailor and leaning on the rail of the bridge of his yacht; on the opposite side and on the upper floors, were the collections gathered during the voyages of the famous scientific explorer: thousands of fishes and molluscs, gigantic skeletons of whales, some kaiaks and fishing implements from the polar seas. On the lower floors, under his feet, in that second palace which, clinging to the cliff, descended to the sea, were the aquaria, where the mysterious creatures of the depths continued their lives in crystal cages amid the silver bubbles of running water.
The gate-keeper in a long blue coat, and a kepis with red braid, started to offer him a ticket, but paused on seeing that he was stopping at the turn-stile, asking for Novoa.
"He went out a moment ago. Perhaps you may find him in the neighborhood of the palace. Almost every day, before lunch, he makes the rounds of 'the rock'."
"The Rock," for the inhabitants of Monaco, is the nickname of the high promontory on which Monaco is situated, and "to make the rounds" means to follow the circle of gardens and abandoned bulwarks, which, starting from the palace of the Princes, returns to it, after completely embracing the old city.
Lubimoff followed the outer line of the San Martino gardens. He did not dare enter them; he was afraid of coming across the bench where he and Alicia had been that afternoon. He entered the City streets, narrow, without sidewalks, and paved with wide stones, as in many towns in Italy.
The dwellings, which were old and lofty, recalled the time when ground was precious on a peninsula narrowly enclosed by its fortifications. Some of the houses were pierced by tunnels and at the end of the archway, one could see the sunlight and the whiteness of the next street. The largest buildings were convents, or religious schools. Above the roofs, the bells slowly tolled as in a Spanish village; in the streets there were many sacred images lighted by tiny lamps.