The Count of Monte Cristo

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Franz had so managed his route, that during the ride to the Colosseum
they passed not a single ancient ruin, so that no preliminary impression
interfered to mitigate the colossal proportions of the gigantic building
they came to admire. The road selected was a continuation of the Via
Sistina; then by cutting off the right angle of the street in which
stands Santa Maria Maggiore and proceeding by the Via Urbana and
San Pietro in Vincoli, the travellers would find themselves directly
opposite the Colosseum. This itinerary possessed another great
advantage,--that of leaving Franz at full liberty to indulge his deep
reverie upon the subject of Signor Pastrini's story, in which his
mysterious host of Monte Cristo was so strangely mixed up. Seated with
folded arms in a corner of the carriage, he continued to ponder over
the singular history he had so lately listened to, and to ask himself
an interminable number of questions touching its various circumstances
without, however, arriving at a satisfactory reply to any of them. One
fact more than the rest brought his friend "Sinbad the Sailor" back
to his recollection, and that was the mysterious sort of intimacy that