It was only six o'clock. As the student walked up and down the path, he
heard the horn of a stagecoach in the street.
“Oh, to travel, to travel!” he exclaimed, “that's the most pleasant thing in
the world. It's the great goal of all my dreams. If only I could travel, I'm
sure that this restlessness within me would be stilled. But it must be far, far
away. How I should like to see beautiful Switzerland, to tour Italy, and-”
Fortunately the galoshes began to function at once, or he might have
traveled entirely too much to suit him or to please us. Travel he did. He was
high up in Switzerland, tightly packed in a diligence with eight other
travelers. He had a pain in his head, his neck felt tired, and the blood had
ceased to circulate in his legs. His feet were swollen and his heavy boots
hurt him. He was half awake and half asleep. In his right-hand pocket he
had his letter of credit, in his left-hand pocket he had his passport, and sewn
into a little bag inside his breast pocket he had a few gold pieces. Every
time he dozed off he dreamed that he had lost one or another of these
things. Starting feverishly awake, his first movement would be to trace with
his hand a triangle from right to left, and up to his breast, to feel whether his
treasures were still there.
Umbrellas, hats, and walking sticks swung in the net above him and
almost spoiled the magnificent view. As he glanced out the window his
heart sang, as at least one poet has sung in Switzerland, these as yet
unpublished words:
“This view is as fine as a view can be.
Mount Blanc is sublime beyond a doubt,
And the traveler's life is the life for me-
But only as long as my money holds out.”
Vast, severe, and somber was the whole landscape around him. The pine
woods looked like patches of heather on the high cliffs, whose summits
were lost in fog and cloud. Snow began to fall, and the cold wind blew.
