aris. I, however, began to tell him of the adventures I had on my
travels. I assured him that all Italian women are charming, and I made
him hope for the most refined pleasures at Naples, thanks to certain
letters of introduction which I had; and so at last he allowed himself to
be persuaded.

II

We took the express one Thursday evening, Paul and I. Hardly anyone goes
south at that time of the year, so that we had the carriages to
ourselves, and both of us were in a bad temper on leaving Paris, sorry
for having yielded to the temptation of this journey, and regretting
Marly, the Seine, and our lazy boating excursions, and all those
pleasures in and near Paris which are so dear to every true Parisian.

As soon as the train started Paul stuck himself in his corner, and said,
"It is most idiotic to go all that distance," and as it was too late for
him to change his mind then, I said, "Well, you should not have come."

He made no answer, and I felt very much inclined to laugh when I saw how
furious he looked. He is certainly always rather like a squirrel, but
then every one of us has retained the type of some animal or other as the
mark of his primitive origin. How many people have jaws like a bulldog,
or heads like goats, rabbits, foxes, horses, or oxen. Paul is a squirrel
turned into a man. He has its bright, quick eyes, its hair, its pointed
nose, its small, fine, supple, active body, and a certain mysterious
resemblance in his general bearing; in fact, a similarity of movement, of
gesture, and of bearing which might almost be taken for a recollection.

At last we both went to sleep with that uncomfortable slumber of the
railway carriage, which is interrupted by horrible cramps in the arms and
neck, and by the sudden stoppages of the train.

We woke up as we were passing along the Rhone. Soon the continued noise
of crickets came in through the windows, that cry which seems to be the
voice of the warm earth, the song of Provence; and seemed to instill into
our looks, our breasts, and our souls the light and happy feeling of the
south, that odor of the parched earth, of the stony and light soil of the
olive with its gray-green foliage.

When the train stopped again a railway guard ran along the train calling
out "Valence" in a sonorous voice, with an accent that again gave us a
taste of that Provence which the shrill note of the crickets had already
imparted to us.

Nothing fresh happened till we got to Marsei