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154ARIADNE.wrong; she was quite sane, only she had but onethought night and day.They knew me well at that mighty place, andhad always orders tolet mepass.Itook her up theimmense stairways that seembudded for some palace of Hercules, and thewide, still solemn passages and corridors, whereall the arts of the whole world's innumerablecenturies seem to be so near one, from thegolden crowns of the Etruscan Larthia to theflower garlands of Raffaelle's scholars.Itook her into the galleries which she hadnever entered since the days when she hadstudied there the humblest yet the proudest ofArt's acolytes. It was eight in the morning;there was no one near; the vast chambersseemed countless like the centuries they heldembalmed. AVe went past the sarcophagi andthe stones from the tombs, past the colossalheads and the cinerary urns; past the vases ofporphyry and agates and chalcedony, and thedeep, serene-eyed faces of the gods, and so intothe Chiaramonti gallery;past the Gannymede ofLeucares andthecolossalIsis,and theolivepresses