Third class had been almost a necessity, this Italian trip hadn’t been allowed for in her original budget, but Cynthia had found third class in France so much more fun than second ... and of course even the Italians say that no one but rich, rich Americans and officials who travel on passes ever go by first. This was the coolest carriage too, since the always open windows let in floods of air and sunlight along with the floods of dust, and the hard wooden benches were pleasantly free of the small insect life almost universally inhabiting the upholstery of first and second coaches.
But third class in Italy! The young man at Cooks who had sold her her ticket had almost expired to hear of an Anglo-Saxon traveling in so unorthodox a fashion. No one ... no one ever traveled third class in Italy! Cynthia surveyed the coach and chuckled again.
Further down the aisle, two lovely little Sisters of Santa Chiara, in the soft, dove-gray habit of their order, with spotless wide-spreading winged headdresses and speckless collars munched contentedly and daintily on bread and cheese augmented by a bottle of water they had brought with them. Cynthia’s eye took in the angle of that tilted, sail-like headdress, stealthily her fingers groped for sketch-book and pencil. A moment later she was so absorbed in her drawing that she absent-mindedly grinned back in friendly fashion at the littlest Sister, who had caught her drawing. Nobody seemed to mind being sketched in this country.
Then there was the old great grandmother and her boisterous brood. Beside them she tended a hen in her apron, a hen that seemed very content to sleep and to cluck drowsily in the warm depths of that blue lap. The littlest bambino was not more than a year old, sleeping with bobbing head on the shoulder of the oldest sister. He had the most beautiful hands, tapering, with tiny dimples and wee pink nails, which fell into enchanting poses. Cynthia sketched happily.
People came and went from every tiny station and crowds gathered and dispersed beneath the trailing potted flowers that decorated the pillars of every station platform. Cheerily they screamed “Buon giorno!” “Addio!” “Arrivederci! Arrivederci!” Italian, someone had told Cynthia, was a language intended to be shouted.
The sun grew warmer, the paper beneath her hand sticky with perspiration. Somewhere along the line a few lire purchased a sandwich of garlic-flavored sausage between thick slices of warm bread, a bottle of warmish water and a bunch of sweet, very juicy green grapes. After lunch she curled in her corner and slept.
When she awoke the car was nearly empty and they were clattering and banging through the light of midafternoon. Hills were purple beyond hot haze and vineyards, white with dust, spread for miles and miles on either side the track. Cynthia sighed and got up to walk the length of the car and back again. Where were they now, she wondered?
When they stopped with a clatter and bang at the next station she hopped out to look at the map hung on the station wall. Keeping one careful eye on the train lest it slide out and leave her, she estimated the probable time that it would reach Venice. Good gracious, it was hours away yet! And at the rate this train was going ...
The little horn tooted its warning and Cynthia fled back to her seat. What to do, what to do? Thank goodness, nobody would be at all worried or put out by this fool mistake of hers. Nancy, back in Brittany by now, and Mrs. Brewster were the only people that knew about her trains and her plans. Mother had insisted when Cynthia first left America that she keep in touch, close touch, with some one person in Europe, and she had been awfully faithful about that. She had even written Nancy what train she was taking from Genoa ... and now, Cynthia grinned ... look at the darn thing!
By five o’clock she was ravenous and very weary. From former experience she knew that she could hop off almost any place that the train might stop and continue next day on the same ticket. But for hours they had not passed a decent sized town, just little settlements about the usual tiny church and inn, a few donkeys and a mangy yellow dog or two. Did she dare get off just anywhere and risk what she might find, or should she stick on here till seeming doomsday, till midnight anyway and arrive at some weird hour on the unknown canals of Venice?