The spot was indeed a perfect desert, there were neither promenaders nor passers-by, nor was there even the shadow of a prowler in the pillared forest of the colonnade, which was as empty as the wild primeval forests of the world's infancy.

And what a solemn desert it was, full of the silence of haughty desolation.

Never had so vast and black a presentment of slumber, so instinct with the sovereign nobility of death, appeared to Pierre.
At ten minutes to nine he at last made up his mind and went towards the bronze portal.

Only one of the folding doors was now open at the end of the right-hand porticus, where the increasing density of the gloom steeped everything in night.

Pierre remembered the instructions which Monsignor Nani had given him; at each door that he reached he was to ask for Signor Squadra without adding a word, and thereupon each door would open and he would have nothing to do but to let himself be guided on.