Guy
did not come on deck for two hours after we cast anchor off Mola di
Gaeta.
Our _ciceroni_ were much pained and scandalized at an indifference
which exceeded all they had yet encountered in the matter-of-fact
_Signori Inglesi_. I saw one of them look quite relieved when, after
quitting us, he had to listen to an excitable young Jewess endeavoring
to express her raptures in the most execrable Italian. The physical
effort it cost her was awful to witness, especially as she was wintering
in Italy for her lungs. O, long-suffering stones of the Coliseum! which
returned the most barbarous echo--the growls from the cells when their
tenants scented the Christian; the jargon of the Goth and the Hun; or
the _lingua Anglo-Romana in bocca Bloomsburiana_? The two first-named
classes, at all events, confined themselves to their own dialect, and
spoke it, doubtless, with perfect propriety. However, in the present
instance, the _custode_ took the sentimental ebullition of the Maid of
Judah for an _amende honorable_, and rubbed his key complacently.
I do not believe that our travels brought to Guy a single distraction to
the great sorrow that all the while held him fast.
A German philosopher under similar circumstances would have written
reams and spoken volumes (eating and drinking all the while
Pantagruelically), theorizing and abstracting his emotions till they
vanished into cloud and vapor.
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