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Updated: June 15, 2025
Arriving, at length, in streets remoter and less-frequented than those through which he has passed, he walks beneath tottering house-fronts projecting over the pavement, dismantled walls that seem to totter as he passes, chimneys half crushed half hesitating to fall, windows guarded by rusty iron bars that time and dirt have almost eaten away, every imaginable sign of desolation and neglect.
He loved the increasing heat of the Venetian summer, the bruised peach-tints of worn house-fronts, the enamelling of sunlight on dark green canals, the smell of half-decayed fruits and flowers thickening the languid air.
Then, as now, it was the custom in honour of the Fête-Dieu to adorn the house-fronts with garlands and draperies; and by way of variant upon this pretty custom "certain of the conquerors, more fanatical than the rest, flayed the dead Huguenots and draped their houses bravely with Protestant skins."
From where I lay I could see the house-fronts opposite glow pearly-grey in shadow, and the crest of the slate roofs sharply print itself on the sky, like a black line on a sheet of scintillant blue velvet. Yet, a few minutes ago, I had been fancying myself in the Cromwell Road.
At times, at the base of the Trocadero, a light the lamp of a passing cab or omnibus would dart across the gloom, sparkling like a shooting star; and here amidst the radiance of the gas-jets, from which streamed a yellow haze, a confused jumble of house-fronts and clustering trees green like the trees in stage scenery could be vaguely discerned.
I would like also to attempt a description of the gorgeous "Floral Festivals," which are celebrated in every September, when the streets of the town blaze with processions of vehicles decorated with flowers, and the sidewalks and house-fronts are packed with thousands of delighted spectators; but if "of making many books there is no end," there ought to be a proper end in the making of a book.
I walked from the Custom House to the Monument before I found a coach; and although the very house-fronts, looking on the swollen gutters, were like old friends to me, I could not but admit that they were very dingy friends. I have often remarked I suppose everybody has that one's going away from a familiar place, would seem to be the signal for change in it.
Her cheeks under her thin veil were hot and bright. As she neared the hilltop she glanced at a card from her chatelaine, consulting the address upon it. Then anxiously she scanned the house-fronts. It was not this one, nor this; but the square white mansion she came to now stood so far retired at the end of its lawn that she could not make out the number.
But a fog which springs from the paved streets, that rolls between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at half speed, that drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric lights of the music hall, that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of place as a tidal wave on Broadway.
And he, poor man, thought it the melancholy of Inverlochy and the influence of this ruined countryside. When I went down to the town again the very house-fronts seemed inhospitable, so that I must pass the time upon the quay.
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