All this part of my way was full of what they call Duty,
and I was sustained only by my knowledge that the vast mountains
(which had disappeared) would be part of my life very soon if I still
went on steadily towards Rome.
The sun had risen when I reached Burgdorf, and I there went to a
railway station, and outside of it drank coffee and ate bread. I also
bought old newspapers in French, and looked at everything wearily and
with sad eyes. There was nothing to draw. How can a man draw pain in
the foot and knee? And that was all there was remarkable at that
moment.
I watched a train come in. It was full of tourists, who (it may have
been a subjective illusion) seemed to me common and worthless people,
and sad into the bargain. It was going to Interlaken; and I felt a
languid contempt for people who went to Interlaken instead of driving
right across the great hills to Rome.
After an hour, or so of this melancholy dawdling, I put a map before
me on a little marble table, ordered some more coffee, and blew into
my tepid life a moment of warmth by the effort of coming to a
necessary decision. I had (for the first time since I had left
Lorraine) the choice of two roads; and why this was so the following
map will make clear.
Here you see that there is no possibility of following the straight
way to Rome, but that one must go a few miles east or west of it. From
Burgundy one has to strike a point on the sources of the Emmen, and
Burgdorf is on the Emmen. Therefore one might follow the Emmen all the
way up. But it seemed that the road climbed up above a gorge that way,
whereas by the other (which is just as straight) the road is good (it
seemed) and fairly level. So I chose this latter Eastern way, which,
at the bifurcation, takes one up a tributary of the Emmen, then over a
rise to the Upper Emmen again.
Do you want it made plainer than that? I should think not. And, tell
me - what can it profit you to know these geographical details? Believe
me, I write them down for my own gratification, not yours.
I say a day without salt. A trudge. The air was ordinary, the colours
common; men, animals, and trees indifferent. Something had stopped
working.
Our energy also is from God, and we should never be proud of it, even
if we can cover thirty miles day after day (as I can), or bend a peony
in one's hand as could Frocot, the driver in my piece - a man you never
knew - or write bad verse very rapidly as can so many moderns.
