Upon returning to the station they took refuge from the heat in a little waiting room with dusty velvet divans. In order to beguile the time while waiting for the train, Freya took from her handbag a gold cigarette-case and the light smoke of Egyptian tobacco charged with opium whirled among the shafts of sunlight from the partly-opened windows.
Ferragut, who had gone out in order to ascertain the exact hour of the arrival of the train, on returning stopped near the door, amazed at the animation with which the two ladies were speaking in a new language. Recollections of Hamburg and Bremen came surging up in his memory. His companions were talking German with the ease of a familiar idiom. At sight of the sailor, they instantly continued their conversation in English.
Wishing to take part in the dialogue, he asked Freya how many languages she spoke.
"Very few,—no more than eight. The doctor, perhaps, knows twenty. She knows the languages of people who passed away many centuries ago."
And the young woman said this with gravity, without looking at him, as though she had lost forever that smile of a light woman which had so deceived Ferragut.
In the train she became more like a human being, even losing her offended manner. They were soon going to separate. The doctor grew less and less approachable as the cars rolled towards Salerno. It was the chilliness that appears among companions of a day, when the hour of separation approaches and each one draws into himself, not to be seen any more.
Words fell flat, like bits of ice, without finding any echo in their fall. At each turn of the wheel, the imposing lady became more reserved and silent. Everything had been said. They, too, were going to remain in Salerno in order to take a carriage-trip along the gulf. They were going to Amalfi and would pass the night on the Alpine peak of Ravello, a medieval city where Wagner had passed the last months of his life, before dying in Venice. Then, passing over to the Gulf of Naples, they would rest in Sorrento and perhaps might go to the island of Capri.
Ulysses wished to say that his line of march was exactly the same, but he was afraid of the doctor. Furthermore, their trip was to be in a vehicle which they had already rented and they would not offer him a seat.
Freya appeared to surmise his sadness and wished to console him.
"It is a short trip. No more than three days…. Soon we shall be in
Naples."