However, on reaching the Piazza delle Terme, after skirting the greenery of a little public garden, the man turned round, still smiling, and pointing to some ruins with his whip, "The baths of Diocletian," said he in broken French, like an obliging driver who is anxious to court favour with foreigners in order to secure their custom.
Then, at a fast trot, the vehicle descended the rapid slope of the Via Nazionale, which dips down from the summit of the Viminalis,* where the railway station is situated.

And from that moment the driver scarcely ceased turning round and pointing at the monuments with his whip.

In this broad new thoroughfare there were only buildings of recent erection.
Still, the wave of the cabman's whip became more pronounced and his voice rose to a higher key, with a somewhat ironical inflection, when he gave the name of a huge and still chalky pile on his left, a gigantic erection of stone, overladen with sculptured work-pediments and statues.
* One of the seven hills on which Rome is built.

The other six are the Capitoline, Aventine, Quirinal, Esquiline, Coelian, and Palatine.

These names will perforce frequently occur in the present narrative.
"The National Bank!" he said.
Pierre, however, during the week which had followed his resolve to make the journey, had spent wellnigh every day in studying Roman topography in maps and books.