His imagination, taking the intervening obstacles at
a bound, arrived at once at the general axiom to which such inductions
pointed; and if he afterward learned that human development follows no
such direct line of advance, but must painfully stumble across the
wastes of error, prejudice and ignorance, while the theoriser traverses
the same distance with a stroke of his speculative pinions; yet the
influence of these teachings tempered his judgments with charity and
dignified his very failures by a tragic sense of their inevitableness.
Crescenti suggested that Gamba should wait on Odo that evening; but the
latter, being uncertain how far he might dispose of his time, enquired
where the hunchback lodged, with a view of sending for him at a
convenient moment. Having dined at the Duchess's table, and soon
wearying of the vapid company of her associates, he yielded to the
desire for contrast that so often guided his course, and set out toward
sunset in search of Gamba's lodging.
It was his first opportunity of inspecting the town at leisure, and for
a while he let his curiosity lead him as it would. The streets near the
palace were full of noble residences, recording, in their sculptured
doorways, in the wrought-iron work of torch-holders and window-grilles,
and in every architectural detail, the gradual change of taste that had
transformed the machicolations of the mediaeval fighter into the open
cortiles and airy balconies of his descendant. Here and there, amid
these inveterate records of dominion, rose the monuments of a mightier
and more ancient power.
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