had not noticed anything, since she still kept her bonnet on and the
thick veil tightly drawn over her face.

I took pity on her, and offered to go out into the corridor to smoke a
cigarette, so that she might make herself a little more comfortable
until we arrived at some large station, where she would enter another
parlour-car.

She accepted thankfully, and, to my utter astonishment, the little boy
raised his tiny hand, and caressingly stroked the fur collar of my coat.
I bent down to kiss him, and he smiled sweetly on me; and when I got up
and signed to him that he could now occupy both seats and stretch
himself upon the little sofa, he shook his head, and crept into the
corner which I had quitted. And there, as often as in my walk up and
down the corridor I threw a glance into his corner, I could see the
child's large dark-blue eyes following all my movements with an eager
curiosity; the white little face pressed to the window-pane and the tiny
hand never losing hold of the edge of the curtain, which he had
purposely lifted, for the governess had pulled the curtain down the
moment I left, possibly to take off her bonnet.

Mine was not a very pleasant situation in that corridor. I watched the
rising and sinking of the moon, which phenomenon repeated itself about
twice every hour, according to the serpentine windings of the road. I
looked at the milky mist which surrounded the icy pinnacles of the great
mountains, and grumbled over the intense darkness in the many tunnels,
in which the roar and noise of the train is tremendously increased,
thundering as if Titans were breaking out of their prisons below Mount
Pelion.