Then Octavian, to whom all ideas of time had become hopelessly confused, was able to convince himself that he was walking, not through a dead Pompeii, the chill corpse of a city half-shrouded, but through a living, youthful, intact Pompeii over which the torrents of burning mud from Vesuvius had never flowed. An inconceivable prodigy had transported him, a Frenchman of the nineteenth century, back to the age of Titus, not in spirit only, but in reality; or else had called up before him from the depths of the past a desolated city with its vanished inhabitants, for a man clothed in the antique fashion had just passed out of a neighboring house. This man wore his hair short, and his face was closely shaven; he was dressed in a brown tunic and a grayish mantle, the ends of which were well tucked up so as not to impede his movements. He walked at a rapid gait, bordering upon a run, and passed by Octavian without perceiving him. He carried on his arm a basket made of Spanish broom, and proceeded toward the Forum Nundinarium. He was evidently a slave, some Davus, going to market beyond a doubt. The noise of wheels became audible, and an antique wagon, drawn by white oxen and loaded with vegetables, came along the street. Beside the team walked a peasant--with legs bare and sunburnt, and feet sandal-shod--who was clad in a sort of canvas shirt puffed out about the waist; a conical straw hat hanging at his shoulders, and depending from his neck by the chin-band, left his face exposed to view--a type of face unknown in these days--a forehead low and traversed by salient, knotty lines, hair black and curly, eyes tranquil as those of his oxen, and a neck like that of the rustic Hercules. As he gravely pricked his animals with the goad, his statuesque attitudes would have thrown Ingres into ecstasy. The peasant perceived Octavian and appeared surprised, but he proceeded on his way without being able, doubtless, to find any explanation for the appearance of this strange-looking personage, and in his rustic simplicity willingly leaving the solution of the enigma to those wiser than himself. Campanian peasants also appeared on the scene, driving before them asses laden with skins of wine, and ringing their brazen bells. Their physiognomies differed from those of the modern peasants as a medallion differs from a son. Gradually the city became peopled, like one of those panoramic pictures at first desolate, but which by a sudden change of light become animated with personages previously invisible.