And they
considered a little doubtfully the seventeenth century statue of Bladud,
who is said to have been healed by the Bath waters and to have founded
the city in the days when Stonehenge still flourished, eight hundred
years before the Romans came.
In the afternoon Miss Seyffert came with Sir Richmond and Miss Grammont
and was very enthusiastic about everything, but in the evening after
dinner it was clear that her role was to remain in the hotel. Sir
Richmond and Miss Grammont went out into the moonlit gloaming; they
crossed the bridge again and followed the road beside the river towards
the old Abbey Church, that Lantern of the West. Away in some sunken
gardens ahead of them a band was playing, and a cluster of little lights
about the bandstand showed a crowd of people down below dancing on the
grass. These little lights, these bobbing black heads and the lilting
music, this little inflamed Centre of throbbing sounds and ruddy
illumination, made the dome of the moonlit world about it seem very vast
and cool and silent. Our visitors began to realize that Bath could
be very beautiful. They went to the parapet above the river and stood
there, leaning over it elbow to elbow and smoking cigarettes. Miss
Grammont was moved to declare the Pulteney Bridge, with its noble arch,
its effect of height over the swirling river, and the cluster of houses
above, more beautiful than the Ponte Vecchio at Florence.
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