If it be true that to-morrow always blooms in the dust of the
past, one ought to force oneself to hope; but Pierre asked himself if the
soil were not exhausted, and since mere buildings could no longer grow on
it, if it were not for ever drained of the sap which makes a race
healthy, a nation powerful.
As the night advanced the lights in the houses of the Trastevere went out
one by one: yet Pierre for a long time lingered on the quay, leaning over
the blackened river and yielding to hopelessness. There was now no
distance to the gloom; all had become dense; no longer did any
reflections set a moire-like, golden quiver in the water, or reveal
beneath its mystery-concealing current a fantastic, dancing vision of
fabulous wealth. Gone was the legend, gone the seven-branched golden
candelabrum, gone the golden vases, gone the golden jewellery, the whole
dream of antique treasure that had vanished into night, even like the
antique glory of Rome. Not a glimmer, nothing but slumber, disturbed
solely by the heavy fall of sewage from the drain on the right-hand,
which could not be seen. The very water had disappeared, and Pierre no
longer espied its leaden flow through the darkness, no longer had any
perception of the sluggish senility, the long-dating weariness, the
intense sadness of that ancient and glorious Tiber, whose waters now
rolled nought but death.
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