And indeed why should he have resisted?
Apart from the motives of ardent charity which had brought him to Rome to defend his book, was he not there for a self-educating, experimental purpose?
It was necessary that he should carry his attempts to the very end.
On the morrow, when he reached the colonnade of St.Peter's, the hour was so early that he had to wait there awhile.

He had never better realised the enormity of those four curving rows of columns, forming a forest of gigantic stone trunks among which nobody ever promenades.

In fact, the spot is a grandiose and dreary desert, and one asks oneself the why and wherefore of such a majestic porticus.

Doubtless, however, it was for its sole majesty, for the mere pomp of decoration, that this colonnade was reared; and therein, again, one finds the whole Roman spirit.

However, Pierre at last turned into the Via di Sant' Offizio, and passing the sacristy of St.Peter's, found himself before the Palace of the Holy Office in a solitary silent district, which the footfall of pedestrians or the rumble of wheels but seldom disturbs.