afening rhythmical gallop, and the vigorously rocked traveller
could distinguish in the diminished uproar a strain of music, at first
confused like a groan, then more distinct, but always the same cruel,
haunting monotone--the fragment of a song that Maria once sang when
they were both children. Suddenly a mournful and prolonged whistle would
resound through the night. The express rushed madly into a tunnel. Under
the sonorous roof, the frightful concert redoubled, exasperating him
among all these metallic clamors; but Amedee still heard a distant sound
like that of a blacksmith's hammer, and each heavy blow made his heart
bound painfully.

Ah! never travel, and above all, never travel alone, if your heart is
sad! How hostile and inhospitable the first sensation is that one feels
then when entering an unknown city! Amedee was obliged to submit to the
tiresome delay of looking after his baggage in a commonplace station;
the hasty packing into an omnibus of tired-out travellers, darting
glances of bad humor and suspicion; to the reception upon the hotel
steps by the inevitable Swiss porter with his gold-banded cap, murdering
all the European languages, greeting all the newcomers, and getting
mixed in his "Yes, sir," "Ja, wohl," and "Si, signor." Amedee was an
inexperienced tourist, who did not drag along with him a dozen trunks,
and had not a rich and indolent air; so he was quickly despatched by the
Swiss polyglot into a fourth-story room, which looked out into an open
well, and was so gloomy that while he washed his hands he was afraid
of falling ill and dying there without help. A notice written in four
languages hung upon the wall, and, to add to his cheerfulness, it
advised him to leave all his valuables at the office of the hotel--as
if he had penetrated a forest infested with brigands. The rigid writing
warned him still further that they looked upon him as a probable
sharper, and that his bill would be presented every five days.

The tiresome life of railroads and table-d'hotes began for him.

He would be dragged about from city to city, like a bag of wheat or a
cask of wine. He would dwell in pretentious and monumental hotels, where
he would be numbered like a convict; he would meet the same carnivorous
English family, with whom he might have made a tour of the world without
exchanging one word; swallowing every day the tasteless soup, old
fish, tough vegetables, and insipid wine which have an international
repu