there in the open space about it. Then, I was strolling in the
outskirts of that pleasant city, admiring the unusual neatness of
the dwelling-houses, gardens, and orchards, as I had seen them a
few hours before. In their stead arose, immediately, the two
towers of Bologna; and the most obstinate of all these objects,
failed to hold its ground, a minute, before the monstrous moated
castle of Ferrara, which, like an illustration to a wild romance,
came back again in the red sunrise, lording it over the solitary,
grass-grown, withered town. In short, I had that incoherent but
delightful jumble in my brain, which travellers are apt to have,
and are indolently willing to encourage. Every shake of the coach
in which I sat, half dozing in the dark, appeared to jerk some new
recollection out of its place, and to jerk some other new
recollection into it; and in this state I fell asleep.
I was awakened after some time (as I thought) by the stopping of
the coach. It was now quite night, and we were at the waterside.
There lay here, a black boat, with a little house or cabin in it of
the same mournful colour. When I had taken my seat in this, the
boat was paddled, by two men, towards a great light, lying in the
distance on the sea.
Ever and again, there was a dismal sigh of wind. It ruffled the
water, and rocked the boat, and sent the dark clouds flying before
the stars. I could not but think how strange it was, to be
floating away at that hour: leaving the land behind, and going on,
towards this light upon the sea. It soon began to burn brighter;
and from being one light became a cluster of tapers, twinkling and
shining out of the water, as the boat approached towards them by a
dreamy kind of track, marked out upon the sea by posts and piles.
We had floated on, five miles or so, over the dark water, when I
heard it rippling in my dream, against some obstruction near at
hand. Looking out attentively, I saw, through the gloom, a
something black and massive – like a shore, but lying close and
flat upon the water, like a raft – which we were gliding past. The
chief of the two rowers said it was a burial-place.
Full of the interest and wonder which a cemetery lying out there,
in the lonely sea, inspired, I turned to gaze upon it as it should
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
recede in our path, when it was quickly shut out from my view.
Before I knew by what, or how, I found that we were gliding up a
street – a phantom street; the houses rising on both sides, from
the water, and the black boat gliding on beneath their windows.
Lights were shining from some of these casements, plumbing the
depth of the black stream with their reflected rays, but all was
profoundly silent.
So we advanced into this ghostly city, continuing to hold our
course through narrow streets and lanes, all filled and flowing
with water. Some of the corners where our way branched off, were
so acute and narrow, that it seemed impossible for the long slender
boat to turn them; but the rowers, with a low melodious cry of
warning, sent it skimming on without a pause. Sometimes, the
rowers of another black boat like our own, echoed the cry, and
slackening their speed (as I thought we did ours) would come
flitting past us like a dark shadow. Other boats, of the same
sombre hue, were lying moored, I thought, to painted pillars, near
to dark mysterious doors that opened straight upon the water. Some
of these were empty; in some, the rowers lay asleep; towards one, I
saw some figures coming down a gloomy archway from the interior of
a palace: gaily dressed, and attended by torch-bearers. It was
but a glimpse I had of them; for a bridge, so low and close upon
the boat that it seemed ready to fall down and crush us: one of
the many bridges that perplexed the Dream: blotted them out,