CHAPTER 24
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LUCIA:
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WE TOOK THE TRAIN TO Genoa and, instead of lingering on the water-front or a short drive to the sunshine and wisteria of Portofino, we changed at the bustling Mediterranean port, first for a steamer which brought us to Alexandria—Alexandria!—a center of Hellenistic civilization and the capital of Ptolemaic, Roman and Byzantine Egypt for almost a thousand years, and, for several centuries, the largest city in the world, second only to Rome, home to the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and its great fabled library... Alexandria, we could scarcely conceive of it... And then, wonder of wonders, breaking through the commotion and swarming crowds, from the crush of Alexandria’s quays to a platform teeming with people
