In this wise as mankind marched on, carried by the hidden forces of civilisation from east to west, it marked each day's journey with ruins; and how frightful was the sterility nowadays displayed by the cradle of History, that Asia and that Egypt, which had once more lapsed into childhood, immobilised in ignorance and degeneracy amidst the ruins of ancient cities that once had been queens of the world! It was thus Pierre reflected as the cab rolled on.

Still he was not unconscious of his surroundings.

As he passed the Palazzo di Venezia it seemed to him to be crumbling beneath some assault of the invisible, for the mist had already swept away its battlements, and the lofty, bare, fearsome walls looked as if they were staggering from the onslaught of the growing darkness.

And after passing the deep gap of the Corso, which was also deserted amidst the pallid radiance of its electric lights, the Palazzo Torlonia appeared on the right-hand, with one wing ripped open by the picks of demolishers, whilst on the left, farther up, the Palazzo Colonna showed its long, mournful facade and closed windows, as if, now that it was deserted by its masters and void of its ancient pomp, it awaited the demolishers in its turn.
Then, as the cab at a slower pace began to climb the ascent of the Via Nazionale, Pierre's reverie continued.

Was not Rome also stricken, had not the hour come for her to disappear amidst that destruction which the nations on the march invariably left behind them?
Greece, Athens, and Sparta slumbered beneath their glorious memories, and were of no account in the world of to-day.