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Glowing with marbles and mosaics, glittering with ornaments, where the foliage of the Corinthian acanthus hides the symbols of the Passion, and where birds and Cupids peep from tangled fruits beneath grave brows of saints and martyrs; leaning now to the long low colonnades of the Basilica, now to the high-built arches of the purely Pointed style; surmounting the meeting point of nave and transept with Etruscan domes; covering the façade with bas-reliefs, the roof with statues; raising the porch-pillars upon lions and winged griffins; flanking the nave with bell-towers, or planting them apart like flowers in isolation on the open square these wonderful buildings, the delight and joy of all who love to trace variety in beauty, and to note the impress of a nation's genius upon its art, seem, like Italy herself, to feel all influences and to assimilate all nationalities.
His view embraced an immense extent of abrupt, irregular roofing, from every part of which rose turrets of every kind, in the shape of extinguishers, pointed gables, corners, retreating or salient angles, bell-towers, open to the daylight, profound depths where the gloom thickened, grinning chimneys, heavy weathercocks cutting the milky way with their iron rods and feathered arrows; from the top of the chapel steeple a great cross of stone, seeming to stretch out its arms; here and there the whitish zinc, cutting the dark blue of the slates; in spots an indistinct glittering and flashes of pale light enveloped in opaque shadows, and then the tops of three or four large trees which extended beyond the eaves, as if prying into the secrets of the attic.
But the Belgian, schooled in horror, faces a fuller horror yet when the guns of his friends are put on his bell-towers and birthplace, held by the invaders. "My father and mother are inside the enemy lines," said a Belgian officer to me as we were talking of the final victory. That is the ever-present thought of an army of boys whose parents are living in doomed houses back of German trenches.
What's the good of curfew, and poor devils of bell-ringers jumping at a rope's end in bell-towers? What's the use of day, if people sit up all night? The gripes to them!" He grinned as he saw where his logic was leading him. "Every man to his business, after all," added he, "and if they're awake, by the Lord, I may come by a supper honestly for this once, and cheat the devil."
Later on I sent Tupac with many men up to the fortress, and they brought down the Golden Throne and the symbols of the Sun and great quantities of gold and jewels, and they set the throne in the midst of the terrace in front of the cathedral, with silver seats on either side of it, on the spot where in the olden time stood the Palace of Viracocha; and on the front of the cathedral, over the great doors, they fixed the symbols of the Sun, and high above all, between the two bell-towers, they placed a great flagstaff.
Guards are also placed "at the bell-towers of certain churches, so that the bells might not be rung for an interdict.
Many strange suggestions began to glimmer ghost-like through this same Adagio, the fair, dead face of Niphrata flitted past him, as a wandering moonbeam flits athwart a cloud, then came flashing reflections of light and color, the bewildering dazzlement of Lysia's beauty shone before the eyes of his memory with a blinding lustre as of flame, . . the phantasmagoria of the city of Al-Kyris seemed to float in the air like a faintly discovered mirage ascending from the sea, again he saw its picturesque streets, its domes and bell-towers, its courts and gardens.. again he heard the dreamy melody of the dance that had followed the death of Nir-jalis, and saw the cruel Lysia's wondrous garden lying white in the radiance of the moon; anon he beheld the great Square, with its fallen Obelisk and the prostrate, lifeless form of the Prophet Khosrul.. and.. Oh, most sad and dear remembrance of all! ... the cherished Shadow of Himself, the brilliant, the joyous Sah-luma appeared to beckon him from the other side of some vast gulf of mist and darkness, with a smile that was sorrowful, yet persuasive; a smile that seemed to say "O friend, why hast thou left me as though I were a dead thing and unworthy of regard?
What's the good of curfew, and poor devils of bell-ringers jumping at a rope's-end in bell-towers? What's the use of day, if people sit up all night? The gripes to them!" He grinned as he saw where his logic was leading him. "Every man to his business, after all," added he, "and if they're awake, by the Lord, I may come by a supper honestly for this once, and cheat the devil."
"Oh!" said he, "good and honorable pavement of Paris, cursed staircase, fit to put the angels of Jacob's ladder out of breath! What was I thinking of to thrust myself into that stone gimlet which pierces the sky; all for the sake of eating bearded cheese, and looking at the bell-towers of Paris through a hole in the wall!"
On a beatific afternoon we sat in council on Dennis's terrace awaiting the envoys. Below, the misty plain rose on and on till it gathered into an amber surge in Monte Morello and rippled away again through the Fiesolan hills. Nearer, torrid bell-towers pierced the shimmering reek, like stakes in a sweltering lagoon.
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