ppressed in the narrow valleys, and
if you want to get a distant view--there's nothing to be seen, for
everywhere some good-for-nothing mountain thrusts itself directly before
your nose. I believe the Lord created those humps for a punishment to men
after Adam's fall. On the sixth day of creation the earth was level. It
was in August, and when the noon sun was reflected from the rocks, the
heat was enough to kill one; it's a miracle, that I'm not sitting beside
you dried up and baked. The famous blue of the Italian sky! Always the
same! We have it here in this country too, but it alternates with
beautiful clouds. There are few things in Holland I like better than our
clouds. When the rough Apennines at last lay behind me, I reached the
renowned city of Florence."

"And can you deny it your approval?" asked the musician.

"No, sir, there are many proud, stately palaces and beautiful churches
and no lack of silk and velvet everywhere, the trade of cloth-weaving too
is flourishing; but my health, my health was not good in your Florence,
principally on account of the heat, and besides I found many things
different from what I expected. In the first place, there's the river
Arno! The stream is a puddle, nothing but a puddle! Do you know what the
water looks like? Like the pools that stand between the broken fragments
and square blocks in a stonecutter's yard, after a heavy thunder-shower."

"The score, Captain, the score!"

"I mean the yard of a stone-cutter, who does a large business, and pools
of tolerable width. Will you still contradict me if I maintain--the Arno
is a shallow, narrow stream, just fit to sail a boy's bark-boat. It
spreads over a wide surface of grey pebbles, very much as the gold fringe
straggles over the top of Junker von Warmond's fencing-glove."

"You saw it at the end of a hot summer," replied Wilhelm, "it's very
different in spring."

"Perhaps so; but I beg you to remember the Rhine, the Meuse, and our
other rivers, even the Marne, Drecht and whatever the smaller streams are
called. They remain full and bear stately ships at all seasons of the
year. Uniform and reliable is the custom of this country; to-day one way,
to-morrow another, is the Italian habit. It's just the same with the
blades in the fencing-school."

"The Italians wield dangerous weapons," said von Warmond.

"Very true, but they bend to and fro and lack firmness. I know what I'm
talking about, for I lodged with my colleague Tor