Come now, darken
the edge of that pillar ... I fear you have made the tower a little
confused,' and so forth.
I offered to buy a few apples off him, but he gave me three instead,
and these, as they incommoded me, I gave later to a little child.
Indeed the people of Epinal, not taking me for a traveller but simply
for a wandering poor man, were very genial to me, and the best good
they did me was curing my lameness. For, seeing an apothecary's shop
as I was leaving the town, I went in and said to the apothecary -
'My knee has swelled and is very painful, and I have to walk far;
perhaps you can tell me how to cure it, or give me something that
will.'
'There is nothing easier,' he said; 'I have here a specific for the
very thing you complain of.'
With this he pulled out a round bottle, on the label of which was
printed in great letters, 'BALM'.
'You have but to rub your knee strongly and long with this ointment of
mine,' he said, 'and you will be cured.' Nor did he mention any
special form of words to be repeated as one did it.
Everything happened just as he had said. When I was some little way
above the town I sat down on a low wall and rubbed my knee strongly
and long with this balm, and the pain instantly disappeared. Then,
with a heart renewed by this prodigy, I took the road again and began
walking very rapidly and high, swinging on to Rome.
The Moselle above fipinal takes a bend outwards, and it seemed to me
that a much shorter way to the next village (which is called
Archettes, or 'the very little arches', because there are no arches
there) would be right over the hill round which the river curved. This
error came from following private judgement and not heeding tradition,
here represented by the highroad which closely follows the river. For
though a straight tunnel to Archettes would have saved distance, yet a
climb over that high hill and through the pathless wood on its summit
was folly.
I went at first over wide, sloping fields, and some hundred feet above
the valley I crossed a little canal. It was made on a very good
system, and I recommend it to the riparian owners of the Upper Wye,
which needs it. They take the water from the Moselle (which is here
broad and torrential and falls in steps, running over a stony bed with
little swirls and rapids), and they lead it along at an even gradient,
averaging, as it were, the uneven descent of the river. In this way
they have a continuous stream running through fields that would
otherwise be bare and dry, but that are thus nourished into excellent
pastures.
