So he had wandered in all directions from the Forum to the Amphitheatre, from the Porta di Stabia to the Porta del Vesuvio through the Street of Tombs as well as through countless others, and the sun had likewise, in the meanwhile, made its accustomed morning journey to the position where it usually changes to the more comfortable descent toward the sea. Thereby, to the great satisfaction of their misunderstood, hoarsely eloquent guides, it gave the English and American men and women, forced to go there by a traveller’s sense of duty, a signal to become mindful of the superior comfort of sitting at the lunch-tables of the twin hotels; besides, they had seen with their own eyes everything that could be required for conversation on the other side of the ocean and channel; so the separate groups, satiated by the past, started on the return, ebbed in common movement down through the Via Marina, in order not to lose meals at the, to be sure somewhat euphemistically Lucullan, tables of the present, in the house of “Diomed” or of Mr. Swiss. In consideration of all the outer and inner circumstances, this was doubtless also the wisest thing that they could do, for the noon sun of May was decidedly well disposed toward the lizards, butterflies and other winged inhabitants or visitors of the extensive mass of ruins, but for the northern complexion of a Madame or Miss its perpendicular obtrusiveness was unquestionably beginning to become less kindly, and, supposedly in some causal connection with that, the “charmings” had already in the last hour considerably diminished, the “shockings” had increased in the same proportion, and the masculine “ah’s” proceeding from rows of teeth even more widely distended than before had begun a noticeable transition to yawning. It was remarkable, however, that simultaneously with their vanishing, what had formerly been the city of Pompeii assumed an entirely changed appearance, but not a living one; it now appeared rather to be becoming completely petrified in dead immobility. Yet out of it stirred a feeling that death was beginning to talk, although not in a manner intelligible to human ears. To be sure, here and there was a sound as if a whisper were proceeding from the stone which, however, only the softly murmuring south wind, Atabulus, awoke, he who, two thousand years ago, had buzzed in this fashion about the temples, halls and houses, and was now carrying on his playful game with the green, shimmering stalks on the low ruins. From the coast of Africa he often rushed across, casting forth wild, full blasts: he was not doing that to-day, but was gently fanning again the old acquaintances which had come to light again. He could not, however, refrain from his natural tendency to devastate, and blew with hot breath, even though lightly, on everything that he encountered on the way.