When the Tiber, according to its frequent habit, rises and inundates
the city, the Pantheon is one of the first places to be flooded--the
sacristan told us. The water climbs above the altar-tops, sapping,
in its recession, the cement of the fine marbles which incrust the
columns, so that about their bases the pieces have to be continually
renewed. Nothing vexes you so much in the Pantheon as your
consciousness of these and other repairs. Bad as ruin is, I think I
would rather have the old temple ruinous in every part than restored
as you find it. The sacristan felt the wrongs of the place keenly, and
said, referring to the removal of the bronze roof, which took place
some centuries ago, "They have robbed us of every thing" (_Ci hanno
levato tutto_); as if he and the Pantheon were of one blood, and he
had suffered personal hurt in its spoliation.
What a sense of the wildness everywhere lurking about Rome we had
given us by that group of peasants who had built a fire of brushwood
almost within the portico of the Pantheon, and were cooking their
supper at it, the light of the flames luridly painting their swarthy
faces!