Judge
of my feelings when, in the mellow light which bathes Rome just after the
sun has set from a clear sky and before day has begun to fade, I perceived
that my litter-bearers, following Falco's, were turning into the street
where I had lived before my ruin! Imagine my sensations when we halted
before the palatial dwelling which had been my uncle's abode and mine! I
was even more perturbed and overwhelmed by my emotions when on entering
behind Falco I found nothing changed, scarcely anything altered from what
had been there on the fatal morning on which, without any premonition of
disaster, I had set off to the Palace levee and had, on my way, been saved
by Vedia's intervention and letter. The appointments of the vestibule, of
the porter's lodge, were as I had known them in my uncle's lifetime. So
were the furnishings of the atrium and _tablinum_. Scarcely a statue had
been added or so much as moved, most of the pictures being where my uncle
had had them hung. Appellasius, a fat, jovial, jolly man, did not see my
confusion. We were the last guests to arrive and he was hungry. We passed
at once into the _triclinium_. There also the wall-decorations were
precisely as I had last seen them; but the square table and three square
sofas had vanished and, in their place, was a new C-shaped sofa and a
circular table covered with a magnificent embroidered cloth.
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