My companion’s head bent towards me. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she murmured.
‘I adjure you in God’s name....’ I was beginning.
‘What are you saying?’ she put in in perplexity. ‘I don’t understand.’
I fancied that the arm that lay like a chilly girdle about my waist softly trembled....
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Alice, ‘don’t be afraid, my dear one!’ Her face turned and moved towards my face.... I felt on my lips a strange sensation, like the faintest prick of a soft and delicate sting.... Leeches might prick so in mild and drowsy mood.
VIII
I glanced downwards. We had now risen again to a considerable height. We were flying over some provincial town I did not know, situated on the side of a wide slope. Churches rose up high among the dark mass of wooden roofs and orchards; a long bridge stood out black at the bend of a river; everything was hushed, buried in slumber. The very crosses and cupolas seemed to gleam with a silent brilliance; silently stood the tall posts of the wells beside the round tops of the willows; silently the straight whitish road darted arrow-like into one end of the town, and silently it ran out again at the opposite end on to the dark waste of monotonous fields.
‘What town is this?’ I asked.
‘X....’
‘X ... in Y ... province?’