So he reached his dwelling; he lighted his lamp and sat down to write. He began a letter to Mary, calm and gentle--after the first few lines, the lie became apparent--for it seethed and boiled and surged within him, till he threw the pen upon the table, and sprang up to go--he knew not whither. At last he went again into the night, towards Bianchi's house. Should he seek him out, tell him all? conceal all from him? or only in his neighbourhood struggle for decision and composure? He knew not clearly--but solitude he could not bear. Only a young and narrow moon stood above the roofs, but the houses were bright, the windows and balconies alive with people. Along the Corso rolled a gay stream of careless promenaders, refreshing themselves in the cool evening; laughing girlish faces, foreign and Roman, lightly dressed, as they had just escaped from the close rooms. The street was like a long corridor near a ball-room, where the company wander in cool twilight between the dances. Here and there music floated through the open windows, and a girl's voice amongst the crowd sang lightly to the air. Theodore was obliged to cross the stream. He seemed to himself like one departed, who has nothing more to do with life, but who is forced to revisit some friend in order to reveal to him some forgotten duty before he departs for ever. He buried himself in the small deserted streets which lead down to the Tiber, and passed along without the power of grasping any one train of thought firmly; at last, wearied by the fruitless endeavour, he let his spirit dive along the empty waste of sorrow, as across a shoreless, waveless sea. Thus he reached a part of the river bank called the Ripa Grande, where the boats lie which ply to Ostia and to the little post steamer and other shipping; from there down to the Ripetta there are still some hundred paces, and no direct connection by the water. He turned, however, to the right, towards the broader street, as a loud altercation reached his ears from the summit of the landing-steps. He heard the sound of a voice through it which made him stop suddenly; he approached the crowd, the individuals composing which he could only distinguish gradually by the light of a flaring street lamp. The dispute seemed to be about a girl that a sailor had seized by the arm and was endeavouring to drag off--another tried to separate them--"Let her go, Pietro;" he cried. "How long have you taken cargoes of women, kidnapper that you are? See, she is crying, poor thing! she does not want to go back into your hole of a cabin, she has good reasons--"