Sandro Botticelli Madonna in Glory with Seraphim painting

Sandro Botticelli Madonna in Glory with Seraphim paintingJean Beraud The Great Boulevard paintingJean Beraud Le Billard painting
upon them, so that no element or particle of this hated city, -- this sink of iniquities which humiliates him by giving him sanctuary, so that he must be beholden to it in spite of the lustfulness, greed and vanity of its ways, -- can lodge itself, like a dust--speck, in his eyes. When he leaves this loathed exile to return in triumph to that other city beneath the postcard-mountain, it will be a point of pride to be able to say that he remained in complete ignorance of the Sodom in which he had been obliged to wait; ignorant, and therefore unsullied, unaltered, pure.
And another reason for the drawn curtains is that of course there are eyes and ears around him, not all of them friendly. The orange buildings are not neutral. Somewhere across the street there will be zoom lenses, video equipment, jumbo mikes; and always the risk of snipers. Above and below and