We
Resisted An Impulse To Dismount And Go Up To The Inn In The Heart Of The
Town Where We Had Spent That "Night Of Memory And Of Sighs."
But we searched the horizon round for the point on the highway where our
diligence had failed of the track
Between the telegraph-poles and softly
rolled with us in the muddy waters, like an elephant taking a bath, but,
so far from finding it, we could not even find the highway. We began to
have our doubts of what we had always believed had happened, and
remained as snugly as we could in our compartment, where, to tell the
truth, we were not very snug. In too fond a reliance on the almanac, the
Italian government had cut off the steam which ought to have heated it,
and the cold from the hills, on which we saw snow, pierced our rugs and
cushions; but, if we had known what we were coming to in Leghorn, we
should have thought ourselves very enviable.
I do not know exactly how far it is from the station in Leghorn to the
hotel where we had providently engaged rooms with a fire in at least one
of them, but I should say at a rough calculation it was a hundred miles
as we covered the distance in a one-horse omnibus, through long,
straight streets, after ten o'clock at night. The streets and houses
were mostly dark, as houses of good habits should be at that hour, but,
after passing through a wide, lonely piazza, we struck into a street
longer and straighter than the others, and drew up at our hotel door
opposite an hilarious cafe, where there seemed a general rejoicing of
some sort.
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