I passed one village and then another in which everything was dark,
and in which I could waken nothing but dogs, who thought me an enemy,
till at last I saw a great belt of light in the fog above the Moselle.
Here there was a kind of town or large settlement where there were
ironworks, and where, as I thought, there would be houses open, even
after midnight. I first found the old town, where just two men were
awake at some cooking work or other. I found them by a chink of light
streaming through their door; but they gave me no hope, only advising
me to go across the river and try in the new town where the forges and
the ironworks were. 'There,' they said, 'I should certainly find a
bed.'

I crossed the bridge, being now much too weary to notice anything,
even the shadowy hills, and the first thing I found was a lot of
waggons that belonged to a caravan or fair. Here some men were awake,
but when I suggested that they should let me sleep in their little
houses on wheels, they told me it was never done; that it was all they
could do to pack in themselves; that they had no straw; that they were
guarded by dogs; and generally gave me to understand (though without
violence or unpoliteness) that I looked as though I were the man to
steal their lions and tigers. They told me, however, that without
doubt I should find something open in the centre of the workmen's
quarter, where the great electric lamps now made a glare over the
factory.

I trudged on unwillingly, and at the very last house of this
detestable industrial slavery, a high house with a gable, I saw a
window wide open, and a blonde man smoking a cigarette at a balcony. I
called to him at once, and asked him to let me a bed. He put to me all