The train started about seven o'clock in the morning. I rose at six
in chill darkness, the discomfort of my room seeming worse than ever
at this featureless hour. The waiter--perhaps he was the landlord,
I left this doubt unsolved--brought me a cup of coffee; dirtier
and more shabbily apparelled man I have never looked upon; viler
coffee I never drank. Then I descended into the gloom of the street.
The familiar odours breathed upon me with pungent freshness, wafted
hither and thither on a mountain breeze. A glance upwards at the
narrow strip of sky showed a grey-coloured dawn, prelude, I feared,
of a dull day.
Evidently I was not the only traveller departing; on the truck just
laden I saw somebody else's luggage, and at the same moment there
came forth a man heavily muffled against the air, who, like myself,
began to look about for the porter. We exchanged greetings, and on
our walk to the station I learned that my companion, also bound for
Taranto, had been detained by illness for several days at the
_Lionetti_, where, he bitterly complained, the people showed him no
sort of attention.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55