replaced by a great dispersed multitude of houses--we should see
their window lights, but little else--that we were the victims of
some strange transition in space or time, and we should come down by
dimly-seen buildings into the part that would answer to Hospenthal,
wondering and perhaps a little afraid. We should come out into this
great main roadway--this roadway like an urban avenue--and look up
it and down, hesitating whether to go along the valley Furka-ward,
or down by Andermatt through the gorge that leads to Goschenen....

People would pass us in the twilight, and then more people; we
should see they walked well and wore a graceful, unfamiliar dress,
but more we should not distinguish.

"Good-night!" they would say to us in clear, fine voices. Their dim
faces would turn with a passing scrutiny towards us.

We should answer out of our perplexity: "Good-night!"--for by the
conventions established in the beginning of this book, we are given
the freedom of their tongue.


Section 4

Were this a story, I should tell at length how much we were helped
by the good fortune of picking up a Utopian coin of gold, how at
last we adventured into the Utopian inn and found it all
marvellously easy. You see us the shyest and most watchful of
guests; but of the food they put before us and the furnishings of
the house, and all our entertainment, it will be better to speak
later. We are in a migratory world, we know, one greatly accustomed