had left,
note how little I perilled: mine was the game where the player cannot
lose and may win.

Of an artistic temperament, I deny that I am; yet I must possess
something of the artist's faculty of making the most of present
pleasure: that is to say, when it is of the kind to my taste. I enjoyed
that day, though we travelled slowly, though it was cold, though it
rained. Somewhat bare, flat, and treeless was the route along which our
journey lay; and slimy canals crept, like half-torpid green snakes,
beside the road; and formal pollard willows edged level fields, tilled
like kitchen-garden beds. The sky, too, was monotonously gray; the
atmosphere was stagnant and humid; yet amidst all these deadening
influences, my fancy budded fresh and my heart basked in sunshine.
These feelings, however, were well kept in check by the secret but
ceaseless consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on enjoyment, like a
tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in
my ear always; his fierce heart panted close against mine; he never
stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he waited only for sun-down
to bound ravenous from his ambush.

I had hoped we might reach Villette ere night set in, and that thus I
might escape the deeper embarrassment which obscurity seems to throw
round a first arrival at an unknown bourne; but, what with our slow
progress and long stoppages--what with a thick fog and small, dense
rain--darkness, that might almost be felt, had settled on the city by
the time we gained its suburbs.

I know we passed through a gate where soldiers were stationed--so much
I could see by lamplight; then, having left behind us the miry
Chaussee, we rattled over a pavement of strangely rough and flinty
surface. At a bureau, the diligence stopped, and the passengers
alighted. My first business was to get my trunk; a small matter enough,
but important to me. Understanding that it was best not to be
importunate or over-eager about luggage, but to wait and watch quietly
the delivery of other boxes till I saw my own, and then promptly claim
and secure it, I stood apart; my eye fixed on that part of the vehicle
in which I had seen my little portmanteau safely stowed, and upon which
piles of additional bags and boxes were now heaped. One by one, I saw
these removed, lowered, and seized on.

I was sure mine ought to be by this time visible: it was not. I had
tied on the direction-card with a piece of green ribbon