"We shall arrive there some time before the hour," said Mr. George; "but I thought it was better to be too early than too late."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Beekman, "we can amuse ourselves half an hour in rambling about the colonnades and porticos of St. Peter's."
In front of St. Peter's there is an immense area, enclosed on each side by a magnificent semicircular colonnade. There are four rows of lofty columns in this colonnade, with a carriage way in the centre between them. The space enclosed between these colonnades is called the piazza,[A] and it is adorned with fountains and colossal statues, and on days of public festivities and celebrations, it is filled with an immense concourse of people. It is large enough to contain a great many thousands.
[8][Footnote 8: A Pronounced piatza.]
When Mr. George and his party arrived, they dismissed the carriage and began to walk to and fro under the colonnade and about the piazza. The time passed away very rapidly; and at length, a few minutes before eight, the other carriages began to come. All the persons who belonged to the party were anxious to arrive in time, for they were afraid that, if they were too late, the others would have gone into the Vatican, where, the building being so immense, it might be very difficult to find them.
Accordingly, before the clock struck eight, all the party were assembled at the entrance door.
The entrance opened from a vast covered gallery, which formed one of the approaches to St. Peter's, between the end of the colonnade and the main front of the building. There were several Swiss sentinels on guard here. They were dressed in what seemed to Rollo a very fantastic garb. In a few minutes the men who were to accompany the party through the galleries appeared. One of them carried a great number of very long candles under his arm. Another had a long pole with a socket at the top of it, and a semicircular screen of tin on one side, to screen the light of the candles from the eyes of the visitors, and to throw it upon the statues. When all was ready, these torch bearers moved on, and were followed by the whole party up the great staircase which led to the galleries of the Vatican.
After going upward and onward for some time, they came at length to the entrance of one of the long galleries of sculpture. Here the torch bearers stopped and began to prepare their torches. They cut the long candles in two, so as to make pieces about eighteen inches long. Taking six or eight of these pieces, they placed them together like a bundle of sticks, and tied them, and then crowded the ends together into the socket upon the end of the pole. This socket was made large enough to receive them. They then lighted the wicks, and thus they had a large number of candles all burning together as one.
The screen, which I have already spoken of, covered this blaze of light upon one side, so as to keep it from shining upon the faces of the company.
Thus provided the torch bearers went on, and the company followed them. Of course, there is only time in the two hours usually appropriated to this exhibition to show a comparatively small number of the statues. The torch bearers accordingly selected such as they thought were most important to be seen, and they passed rapidly on from one to another of these, omitting all the others. When they approached a statue which they were going to exhibit, they would hold the torch up near the face of it in such a manner as to throw a strong light upon the features, and so bring out the expression in a striking manner. The screen shielded the eyes of the company from the direct rays of the flame, and yet there was sufficient light reflected from the marble walls of the gallery, and from the beautiful white surfaces of the statues arranged along them, to enable the company to discern each other very distinctly, and to see all the objects around them.
The company passed in this manner through one of the long galleries, stopping here and there to look at the great masterpieces of ancient art, and then they entered into a series of comparatively smaller chambers and halls. Rollo was exceedingly interested in the exhibition, and in all the attendant circumstances of it; but he could not tell whether Allie was pleased or not. She seemed bewildered and struck dumb with amazement at the strange aspect of the scenes and spectacles which were continually presented to view. The immense extent and the gorgeous magnificence of the galleries and halls, the countless multitude of statues, and the almost spectral appearance which they assumed when the torch bearers threw the bright light of the torch upon their cold marble faces, all impressed her with a solemn awe, which seemed so entirely to subdue and silence her, that Rollo could not tell how she felt, or what she thought of the strange spectacle which he had brought her to see.
After about an hour, the first set of candles that had been put into the socket of the torch pole were burned down, and then the torch bearers supplied their places with another set formed by the remaining halves of the candles which they had cut in two. These lasted another hour. By that time the company had seen all the most striking and celebrated statues in the principal halls and galleries. They had been making a sort of circuit through the palace in passing through these rooms, and now came out very near the entrance door, where they had come in. Here the torch bearers left them, and went away with their apparatus to the part of the building where they belonged, while the company, descending the grand staircase, came out into one of the porticos of the church, and issuing from the portico they found carriages in waiting upon the piazza, and ready to convey them home. Mr. George and his party reached their hotel about nine o'clock, all very much pleased with the spectacle which they had witnessed.
CHAPTER XI. CONCLUSION.
Rollo was so much pleased with his torch light visit to the Vatican, and he found, moreover, on talking with Charles and Allie about it the next day, so much evidence of their having been greatly pleased with it, that he planned, a few days afterwards, a torch light visit to the Coliseum. It is very common to make moonlight visits to the Coliseum, but Rollo thought a torch light view of the majestic old ruin would be better. On proposing his plan to his uncle, Mr. George said that he had no objection to it if Rollo would make all the arrangements. He did not know any thing about it himself, he said.
Rollo said he had no doubt that he could arrange it, with the help of a commissioner.
[Illustration: COLISEUM BY TORCHLIGHT.]
So Rollo looked out a good commissioner, and the commissioner arranged the plan. I have not space to describe this visit fully, but must pass on to the conclusion of the book. I will only say that the torches which were employed on this occasion, were different from those employed in the exhibition of the statues in the Vatican, being more like those used by firemen in America. There were also more of them in number, the commissioner having provided four. With these torch bearers to light their way, Rollo's party explored the Coliseum in every part, and they found that the grandeur and sublimity of the immense corridors and vast vaulted passages of the ruin were greatly enhanced by the solemnity of the night, and by the flickering glare of the torches, shining upon the massive piers, and into the dark recesses of the ruin.
I do not know how many more torch light visits to wonderful places in Rome Rollo would have planned, had not the time arrived when Mr. George thought it was necessary for them to go back to France.
"It is getting late in the season," said Mr. George, "and every body is leaving Rome. I don't think it is safe for us to remain much longer here ourselves, on account of the fever."
Rome is extremely unhealthy in the summer months; and in the environs there is a very wide tract of country which is almost entirely uninhabitable all the year round, on account of the prevalence of fever.