VII
A WEEK AT LEGHORN
We left Rome with such a nostalgic pang in our hearts that we tried to
find relief in a name for it, and we called ourselves Romesick.
Afterward, when we practised the name with such friends as we could get
to listen, they thought we said homesick. Being better instructed, they
stared or simpered, and said, "Oh!" That was not all we could have
asked, but Rome herself would understand, and, while we were seeking
this outlet for our grief, she followed us as far as she could on her
poor, broken aqueducts. At places they gave way under her, and she fell
down, but scrambled up again on the next stretch of arches, like some
fond cripple pursuing a friend on crutches; when at last our train
outran them, and there was no longer an arch to halt upon, she gave up
the vain chase and turned back within her walls, where we saw her domes
and bell-towers fading into the heaven to which they pointed.
It was a heaven of better than absolute blue, for there were soft, white
clouds in it, and the air that our Sunday breathed under it was, at the
beginning of April, as bland as that of an American May-end.
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