It was as though the shell had a grievance against the lodger in that particular room.

The waste was appalling.
Among the ruins I saw good paintings in rags and in gardens statues covered with the moss of centuries smashed.

In many places, still on the pedestal, you would see a headless Venus, or a flying Mercury chopped off at the waist.
Long streamers of ivy that during a century had crept higher and higher up the wall of some noble mansion, until they were part of it, still clung to it, although it was divided into a thousand fragments.

Of one house all that was left standing was a slice of the front wall just wide enough to bear a sign reading: "This house is for sale; elegantly furnished." Nothing else of that house remained.
In some streets of the destroyed area I met not one living person.
The noise made by my feet kicking the broken glass was the only sound.

The silence, the gaping holes in the sidewalk, the ghastly tributes to the power of the shells, and the complete desolation, made more desolate by the bright sunshine, gave you a curious feeling that the end of the world had come and you were the only survivor.
This-impression was aided by the sight of many rare and valuable articles with no one guarding them.