And
this, too, was one of the wonders of Time, for a bare minute had worked
that change. There was at the end of the line a certain street I wanted
to look at, I explained to my companion.
To our right the unequal massive towers of St. Mary's Church soared aloft
into the ethereal radiance of the air, very black on their shaded sides,
glowing with a soft phosphorescent sheen on the others. In the distance
the Florian Gate, thick and squat under its pointed roof, barred the
street with the square shoulders of the old city wall. In the narrow,
brilliantly pale vista of bluish flagstones and silvery fronts of houses,
its black archway stood out small and very distinct.
There was not a soul in sight, and not even the echo of a footstep for
our ears. Into this coldly illuminated and dumb emptiness there issued
out of my aroused memory, a small boy of eleven, wending his way, not
very fast, to a preparatory school for day-pupils on the second floor of
the third house down from the Florian Gate. It was in the winter months
of 1868. At eight o'clock of every morning that God made, sleet or
shine, I walked up Florian Street.
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