And the light was so faint and yellow that he felt inclined to turn the lamp up, but did not dare.

Then he found himself with his brow resting against one of the panes of the window facing the Piazza of St.Peter's, and for a moment he was thunderstruck, for between the imperfectly closed shutters he could see all Rome, as he had seen it one day from the _loggie_ of Raffaelle, and as he had pictured Leo XIII contemplating it from the window of his bed-room.

However, it was now Rome by night, Rome spreading out into the depths of the gloom, as limitless as the starry sky.

And in that sea of black waves one could only with certainty identify the larger thoroughfares which the white brightness of electric lights turned, as it were, into Milky Ways.

All the rest showed but a swarming of little yellow sparks, the crumbs, as it were, of a half-extinguished heaven swept down upon the earth.