And once more Pierre got into the vehicle and gave this address: "Via Giulia, Palazzo Boccanera." II.
THE Via Giulia, which runs in a straight line over a distance of five hundred yards from the Farnese palace to the church of St.John of the Florentines, was at that hour steeped in bright sunlight, the glow streaming from end to end and whitening the small square paving stones.
The street had no footways, and the cab rolled along it almost to the farther extremity, passing the old grey sleepy and deserted residences whose large windows were barred with iron, while their deep porches revealed sombre courts resembling wells.

Laid out by Pope Julius II, who had dreamt of lining it with magnificent palaces, the street, then the most regular and handsome in Rome, had served as Corso* in the sixteenth century.

One could tell that one was in a former luxurious district, which had lapsed into silence, solitude, and abandonment, instinct with a kind of religious gentleness and discretion.

The old house-fronts followed one after another, their shutters closed and their gratings occasionally decked with climbing plants.

At some doors cats were seated, and dim shops, appropriated to humble trades, were installed in certain dependencies.