that of a blacksmith's hammer, and each heavy blow made his heart bound
painfully.

Ah! never travel, and above all, never travel alone, if your heart is
sad! How hostile and inhospitable the first sensation is that one feels
then when entering an unknown city! Amedee was obliged to submit to the
tiresome delay of looking after his baggage in a commonplace station; the
hasty packing into an omnibus of tired-out travellers, darting glances of
bad humor and suspicion; to the reception upon the hotel steps by the
inevitable Swiss porter with his gold-banded cap, murdering all the
European languages, greeting all the newcomers, and getting mixed in his
"Yes, sir," "Ja, wohl," and "Si, signor." Amedee was an inexperienced
tourist, who did not drag along with him a dozen trunks, and had not a
rich and indolent air; so he was quickly despatched by the Swiss polyglot
into a fourth-story room, which looked out into an open well, and was so
gloomy that while he washed his hands he was afraid of falling ill and
dying there without help. A notice written in four languages hung upon
the wall, and, to add to his cheerfulness, it advised him to leave all
his valuables at the office of the hotel--as if he had penetrated a
forest infested with brigands. The rigid writing warned him still
further that they looked upon him as a probable sharper, and that his
bill would be presented every five days.

The tiresome life of railroads and table-d'hotes began for him.

He would be dragged about from city to city, like a bag of wheat or a
cask of wine. He would dwell in pretentious and monumental hotels, where
he would be numbered like a convict; he would meet the same carnivorous
English family, with whom he might have made a tour of the world without
exchanging one word; swallowing every day the tasteless soup, old fish,