In a new thoroughfare driven boldly through the most ancient part of the city and flanked absurdly with common terraces of houses, they found a thin crowd standing in expectation. The two Emperors were to go by on their way to open the new Technical College and Public Library. They passed swiftly in an open carriage, and a faint little cheer went up, so different from the vast roar that used to greet the Emperor and the Princess in all their public appearances. The Emperor looked haggard and nervous, as though he were consumed with a fever, but the Emperor of Colombia was fat as a successful spider. Peter gasped when he saw him, for he was Simon. But he said nothing, and they passed on. Saddest sight of all were the prosperous, well-fed women gazing with dead eyes into the shop windows wherein were displayed fashionable garments and trinkets, overwhelming in their quantity. Preferable to that was the avenue with the Jews and the Levantines and the Americans. Thither with the stranger Peter returned, and he met a poet, lean and disconsolate, who had been his intimate friend. They three talked together, and the poet asked if there were no power to cool the heat and reduce the frenzy in the blood of the inhabitants of the country. Said the stranger: "There is a power which makes the earth a heaven; a power without which the life of men is no more than the life of tadpoles squirming in a stagnant pond." Peter said the power must be Love: the poet declared it was Imagination. "Love in itself," said the stranger, "is a human, comfortable thing; with the light of imagination, love is the living word of God in the heart of man." And behold the stranger stood before them, an angel or genius clad all in white with wings of silver that rose above him and beat to flight, and away he soared to the sun. And the poet raised his head, and in a loud voice declaimed musical words, and Peter sobbed in his joy, but the Jews and the Levantines and the Americans had seen nothing, and wearily they drove and walked along the avenue, scanning each other in sly envy. Hard and bitter was the lot of the people, and their loyalty to the Emperor was shaken. There were none now to bless his name, none to call him the greatest of rulers, and only the priests praised him for his wisdom in yielding to the tide of progress. There was little happiness anywhere: the old superstitions and prejudices were restored to currency, the tyranny of public opinion was enthroned again, and books were written and plays performed to fortify its authority.