The country of The ring and the book . ing in May, on walking to the Lungara,to ponder once again over the Scalette, I found, sittingon the steps of the chapel, one of the most fearful-looking human beings I have ever seen. He was atramp, very old and wrinkled, unclean and was dressed darkly, in fantastic and unnatural ragsthat seemed to be parts of mediaeval garments, and wascrowned with a ridiculous hat more like a Quakerwomans bonnet (Plate 9). It was not the dirt, not the tatters, nor the povertyof the man that made him horrible, but rather it washis attitude of the castaway,
The country of The ring and the book . ing in May, on walking to the Lungara,to ponder once again over the Scalette, I found, sittingon the steps of the chapel, one of the most fearful-looking human beings I have ever seen. He was atramp, very old and wrinkled, unclean and was dressed darkly, in fantastic and unnatural ragsthat seemed to be parts of mediaeval garments, and wascrowned with a ridiculous hat more like a Quakerwomans bonnet (Plate 9). It was not the dirt, not the tatters, nor the povertyof the man that made him horrible, but rather it washis attitude of the castaway, of the solitary, shipwreckedman, who had been left by the ebbing tide of theworld upon these desert steps, a mere bit of soddenwreckage, and who was, nevertheless, garbed in sucha motley as to be incongruously grotesque. As he sat on the stone, a deformed, distorted bundle,tricked out as a mummer, he seemed something lowerthan a man. The bones of his shoulders and the bonesof his bent knees protruded, with hard anatomical detail, 128. Le Scalette under the greasy polished cloth that covered them, andwhen he moved his head the profane absurdity of hishat was dreadful. He could not have come to a more appropriate placein search of the sun ; for he seemed to personify thelamentable hospitality of the building that sheltered him,as well as the worlds disdain, the gibe of the Phariseeand the cynical pitilessness of time. Impressions are often inappropriate and lacking inproportion, but while searching among the relics of theYellow Book I experienced few impressions so hauntingas that left by this forlorn, chimerical creature in humanshape, who was leaning against the rotting door of theHouse of the Good Shepherd. 129 8. THE NEW PRISONS THE great prisons of Rome at the time of theFranceschini tragedy were the Carceri Nuove, orNew Prisons, in the Via Giulia. They replacedthe prisons of the Torre di Nono, which stood on thebank of the river near the Ponte S. Angelo. The CarceriNuove w
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1913
