Of Course Such An Oracle Might Very Easily Have Made Me Fear Too Much.
The 'shaven Head' I Should Have Taken For A Priest, Especially If It
Was To Be Met With 'in A Temple' - It Might Have Prevented Me Entering
A Church, Which Would Have Been Deplorable.
Then I might have taken it
to mean that I should never have reached Rome, which would have been a
monstrous weight upon my mind.
Still, as things unfolded themselves,
the oracle would have become plainer and plainer, and I felt the lack
of it greatly. For, I repeat, I had certainly received an omen.
The road now neared the end of the lake, and the town called Capo di
Lago, or 'Lake-head', lay off to my right. I saw also that in a very
little while I should abruptly find the plains. A low hill some five
miles ahead of me was the last roll of the mountains, and just above
me stood the last high crest, a precipitous peak of bare rock, up
which there ran a cog-railway to some hotel or other. I passed through
an old town under the now rising heat; I passed a cemetery in the
Italian manner, with marble figures like common living men. The road
turned to the left, and I was fairly on the shoulder of the last
glacis. I stood on the Alps at their southern bank, and before me was
Lombardy.
Also in this ending of the Swiss canton one was more evidently in
Italy than ever.
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