The fall was sudden and complete, and never had Pierre better understood that genius is everything--that when it disappears the school collapses.

The man of genius sums up his period; at a given hour he throws forth all the sap of the social soil, which afterwards remains exhausted often for centuries.

So Pierre became more particularly interested in the fine view that the _loggie_ afford, and all at once he noticed that the papal apartments were in front of him, just across the Court of San Damaso.

This court, with its porticus, fountain, and white pavement, had an aspect of empty, airy, sunlit solemnity which surprised him.

There was none of the gloom or pent-up religious mystery that he had dreamt of with his mind full of the surroundings of the old northern cathedrals.