"I honour the sentiment," replied the Jew smiling. Then he cried to the driver, "To the Hotel Féder!"
The Hotel Féder, like most of the hostelries of Genoa, of Venice, and of other Italian cities, is an ancient palace appropriated to this new service. The structure, half antique and half modern, has a strange appearance. At the foot of the court, obscure and abandoned, trickles an old fountain; a narrow path passes under the windows of the chambers, and on every side can be discovered traces of former grandeur, relics of a romantic age now superseded everywhere by the plain practical life of to-day, whose chief end is money-getting.
The companions obtained a large room on the third floor with two beds, the windows of which commanded a fine view of the port, bristling with masts, like a garden of shrubs despoiled of their leaves by winter. In the distance the Mediterranean could be seen stretching away to the horizon.
They had hardly entered the room when the young man fell exhausted into a chair, and seemed about to swoon for the second time. Some cologne revived him, and a slight repast soon dispelled his weakness, the result of long fasting and excessive fatigue. His strength returned with rest and nourishment.
"And now," advised the Jew, "lie down on this couch, or perhaps it would be better to go to bed."
"If you will permit me?" asked the young man timidly.
"Nay, I beg you to do so."
"And you?"
"Oh, I will see Genoa this evening. Never mind me. I will amuse myself; all I ask of you at present is to sleep; and, mind, you must not even dream."
He took his hat and cane and left the room. The young man fell like one dead on the bed, and was asleep before his head touched the pillow. Fatigue is not the same in old age as in youth, for then sleep soon restores the exhausted energies.