As she had heard the hostess say more than once: "You are in the best hotel in Grenoble," she knew the name of the city, and remembered that Frédéric had mentioned that name. That recollection led her to resolve not to leave that place until she had sought him there; and the next morning, after she had succeeded in making her hostess understand that she proposed to pass that day also at Grenoble, she left the inn and set out to search the city, which seemed to her enormously large.
As she walked along, she looked at every window in every house. If Frédéric were there, she thought that he would see her pass, and would either call to her or run after her. Sometimes she stopped, thinking that she recognized his figure; but she soon discovered her error. She passed the whole day thus, and did not return to the inn until it was so dark that she could see nothing.
"Have you been looking about our city?" inquired the landlady; "it's a very pretty place, I tell you, a very pretty place, our city of Grenoble. But it isn't as big as Lyon, and even Lyon don't come near Paris."
At the word Paris, the young traveller made a joyful movement, and, grasping the hostess's arm, signified that that was where she wanted to go. But she did not make her meaning clear.
"You are going to Lyon, I'll wager," said the hostess; "that isn't so far; fifteen leagues, that's all. To be sure, in your condition you can't walk very fast; but in three or four days at most, you ought to do it."
Sister Anne went sadly to her room. How could she find the road to Paris, if she could not make people understand that that was where she wanted to go? That thought disheartened her; but she had implored her mother to guide her on her journey; she prayed to her again, and hope was born anew in her heart; without hope, what would be left for the unhappy?
The next day, the girl prepared to leave the inn; the landlady presented a bill to her, of which she could make nothing; but she tendered a gold piece and received very little change. In cities, one has to pay for every reverence, every attention. Sister Anne had been treated with great courtesy, so that her stay at the inn cost her rather dear.
They pointed out the road to Lyon, and she set forth once more, with her little bundle and her stick. But how easy it is to lose one's way in the hilly, wooded paths between Grenoble and Lyon! She abandoned herself to Providence for guidance. She walked most of the day, and at night, thoroughly exhausted, went to a farmhouse, where they consented to let her sleep in a barn. But, provided that she could pass the night where she was sheltered from the cold, she slept as well on straw as on feathers; fatigue enabled her at last to sleep several hours.
Her accommodation at the farm helped to exhaust her little store, and the young traveller began to realize that she must be sparing of it, for it was almost the only talisman by means of which she could obtain shelter. Hospitable folk are rare. The most humane think that they are doing much for the poor wayfarer when they give him a trifling sum of money and a crust of bread; but they will not receive him under their roof. Far distant are the days when men deemed it an honor to give shelter to a stranger, without inquiring as to his rank and his means; when they shared their fire and their repast and their bed with him. Other times, other manners! We have become very proud, we are no longer inclined to share anything. By way of compensation, we have excellent friends, who come to our house and eat our bread, drink our wine, and sometimes make love to our wives, and who, when they leave, go elsewhere and say countless cruel things about us; but they do it from excess of affection, and because they are afraid that we may have other friends than themselves.
Toward noon of the second day after she left Grenoble, Sister Anne, absorbed by her recollections, did not notice that she had strayed from the road that had been pointed out to her. Not until she began to feel the need of rest did she look about for the village, which, according to the directions she had received in the morning, could not be far away.