When the boy came farther into the city, he saw that the larger part of it was made up of small, low houses; but here and there were still a few high gabled houses and a few cathedrals, which were from the olden time.  The walls of the gabled houses were whitewashed, and entirely without ornamentation; but because the boy had so lately seen the buried city, he seemed to understand how they had been decorated:  some with statues, and others with black and white marble.  And it was the same with the old cathedrals; the majority of them were roofless with bare interiors.  The window openings were empty, the floors were grass-grown, and ivy clambered along the walls.  But now he knew how they had looked at one time; that they had been covered with images and paintings; that the chancel had had trimmed altars and gilded crosses, and that their priests had moved about, arrayed in gold vestments.

The boy saw also the narrow streets, which were almost deserted on holiday afternoons.  He knew, he did, what a stream of stately people had once upon a time sauntered about on them.  He knew that they had been like large workshops—­filled with all sorts of workmen.

But that which Nils Holgersson did not see was, that the city—­even to-day—­was both beautiful and remarkable.  He saw neither the cheery cottages on the side streets, with their black walls, and white bows and red pelargoniums behind the shining window-panes, nor the many pretty gardens and avenues, nor the beauty in the weed-clad ruins.  His eyes were so filled with the preceding glory, that he could not see anything good in the present.

The wild geese flew back and forth over the city a couple of times, so that Thumbietot might see everything.  Finally they sank down on the grass-grown floor of a cathedral ruin to spend the night.

When they had arranged themselves for sleep, Thumbietot was still awake and looked up through the open arches, to the pale pink evening sky.  When he had been sitting there a while, he thought he didn’t want to grieve any more because he couldn’t save the buried city.

No, that he didn’t want to do, now that he had seen this one.  If that city, which he had seen, had not sunk into the sea again, then it would perhaps become as dilapidated as this one in a little while.  Perhaps it could not have withstood time and decay, but would have stood there with roofless churches and bare houses and desolate, empty streets—­just like this one.  Then it was better that it should remain in all its glory down in the deep.

“It was best that it happened as it happened,” thought he.  “If I had the power to save the city, I don’t believe that I should care to do it.”  Then he no longer grieved over that matter.

And there are probably many among the young who think in the same way.  But when people are old, and have become accustomed to being satisfied with little, then they are more happy over the Visby that exists, than over a magnificent Vineta at the bottom of the sea.