In the midst of all the human business and bustle, removed
by a century from the concerns of men, it stands, hollow and empty,
with life surging round about, like the sea on the precipices below
us. The folk throng everywhere--the sort of humble people who of old
knelt hatless to my ancestors. The base born wander in our chambers
of state, the villagers dry their linen on our marble floors,
children play in the closets of great counsellors, bats flutter
through the casements where princesses have sat and hoped and
feared!
"My people," he continued, "have sunk through many a stage and very
swiftly of late. My grandfather was only a woodman, who brought
charcoal from the mountains on two mules; my uncle grew lemons at
Mentone and saved a few thousand francs for his wife to squander.
Now I alone remain--the last of the line--and the home of the Doria
has long stood in the open market.
"With the fortress also goes the title--that is our grotesque
Italian way. A pork butcher or butter merchant might become Count
Doria to-morrow if he would put his hand deep enough in his pocket.
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