Life more suggestive of death, than
any utter absence of life could be.
There are some dilapidated remains of conventual buildings on the
southern side of the church, mean, and of a date some thousand years
subsequent to that of the Basilica. They are nearly ruinous, but are
still--or were till within a few years--inhabited by one Capucin
friar, and one lay brother of the order, whose duty it was to mutter
a mass, with ague-chattering jaws, at the high altar, and act as
guardians of the building.
Small guardianship is needed. The huge ancient doors--made of planks
from vine trunks which grew fifteen hundred years ago on the
Bosphorus--are never closed; probably because their weight would
defy the efforts of the two poor old friars, to whom the keeping of
the building is committed, to move them. But a poor and mean low
gate of iron rails has been fitted to the colossal marble door-
posts, which suffices to prevent the wandering cattle of the waste
from straying into the church, but does not prevent the fever-laden
mists from the marshes from drifting into the huge nave, and
depositing their unwholesome moisture in great trickling drops upon
the green-stained walls.
But not even the low iron gateway was closed when Paolina reached
the church. It stood partially open. After having stood a minute or
two before the building to look round upon the scene, Paolina
stepped up to the gate and looked into the church, but could see no
human being.
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