If you had only stayed here for a fortnight you would have gone off with a deplorable idea of us, but now that you have been here for two full months we are quite at ease, for you will never think of us without affection." She looked exceedingly charming as she spoke these words, and Pierre again bowed.

However, he had already given thought to the phenomenon, and fancied he could explain it.

When a stranger comes to Rome he brings with him a Rome of his own, a Rome such as he dreams of, so ennobled by imagination that the real Rome proves a terrible disenchantment.

And so it is necessary to wait for habituation, for the mediocrity of the reality to soften, and for the imagination to have time to kindle again, and only behold things such as they are athwart the prodigious splendour of the past.
However, Celia had risen and was taking leave.

"Good-bye, dear," she said; "I hope the wedding will soon take place.