Chattering groups of Lyonese, mounting to the freer air of the hills in Sunday attire, enlivened my morning tramp down the descending highway. By early afternoon I came in sight of the second city of France and the confluence of the Soâne and Rhône. The vineyards ceased, to give place to mulberry trees. Even on this day of merry-making the whir of silk-looms sounded from the wayside cottages, well into the suburbs of the city. The humble dwellings were succeeded by mansions; the national highway, by a broad boulevard that led down to the meeting-place of the two rivers, and the first stage of my journey to southern Europe was ended.
From Lyon I turned northeastward towards Geneva and the Alps. A serpentine route climbed upward. Often I tramped for hours around the edge of a yawning chasm, having always in view a rugged village and its vineyards far below, only to find myself at the end of that time within stone’s throw of a long-forgotten kilometer-post. Near the frontier hovered a general air of suspicion. The aubergiste of the mountain hamlet of Moulin Chabaud hesitated long and studied every dot and letter of my papers before offering me a chair under the big fire-place; he remained surly and distraught all through the evening, as if convinced in spite of himself that he was harboring one whose career had not been unsullied. When I awoke, a mountain rain was falling, cold and ceaseless; but preferring always a certain amount of physical discomfort to sour looks, I pushed on, splashing into Geneva long after nightfall.
It would doubtless require a frequent repetition of such experiences to stifle that indefinable dread, akin to fear, which oppresses the weary pedestrian who, entirely unbefriended, enters an unknown city in the darkness of night. Limping aimlessly through the streets of Geneva in my water-soaked garments, I felt particularly dismal and forlorn. Genevese, huddled under their umbrellas, pushed me aside when I attempted to speak to them or snapped a few incoherent words over their shoulders. In vain I attempted to escape from the district of jewellers’ shops and watch-makers’ show-windows, little suspecting that I was virtually on an island given over almost entirely to business houses and rich dwellings.
A slippery street led to a bridge across the Rhône, and a policeman beyond pointed out the district gendarmerie as the proper place to prosecute my inquiries. From a window of the building shown a dim light, and within sounded a brisk “entrez” in answer to my knock. Two police sergeants, engrossed in a game of cards, turned to scowl at me across the room.
“Eh bien, toi! Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”
“I am looking for a lodging house and the policeman—”
“Lodging! At this time of night? Do you think the city provides a hotel de luxe for vagabonds, that they may come and go at any hour—?”
“But I intend to pay my own lodging.”
“Pay! Quoi! Tu as de l’argent?”
“Certainly I have money!” I cried indignantly, though to tell the truth the weight of it was not making me stoop-shouldered.