"What, then, do you mean by a city?" he asked.

"What do I mean? Why, a city, I take it, is nothing more than a
collection or congeries of houses--hundreds and thousands, or hundreds
_of_ thousands of houses, all built close together, where one can
live very comfortably for years without seeing a blade of grass."

"I am afraid," he returned, "that the accident you met with in the
mountains must have caused some injury to your brain; for I cannot in
any other way account for these strange fantasies."

"Do you mean seriously to tell me, sir, that you have never even heard
of the existence of a city, where millions of human beings live crowded
together in a small space? Of course I mean a small space comparatively;
for in some cities you might walk all day without getting into the
fields; and a city like that might be compared to a beehive so large
that a bee might fly in a straight line all day without getting out of
it."

It struck me the moment I finished speaking that this comparison was not
quite right somehow; but he did not ask me to explain: he had evidently
ceased to pay any attention to what I said. The girl looked at me with
an expression of pity, not to say contempt, and I felt at the same time
ashamed and vexed. This served to rouse a kind of dogged spirit in me,
and I returned to the subject once more.

"Surely," I said, "you have heard of such cities as Paris, Vienna, Rome,
Athens, Babylon, Jerusalem?"

He only shook his head, and walked on in silence.