t-hills of the Alps, and of the
very uninteresting valley which runs on from Langnau.

I had best employ my time in telling the story of the Hungry Student.

LECTOR. And if you are so worn-out and bereft of all emotions, how can
you tell a story?

AUCTOR. These two conditions permit me. First, that I am writing some
time after, and that I have recovered; secondly, that the story is not
mine, but taken straight out of that nationalist newspaper which had
served me so long to wrap up my bread and bacon in my haversack. This
is the story, and I will tell it you.

Now, I think of it, it would be a great waste of time. Here am I no
farther than perhaps a third of my journey, and I have already
admitted so much digression that my pilgrimage is like the story of a
man asleep and dreaming, instead of the plain, honest, and
straightforward narrative of fact. I will therefore postpone the Story
of the Hungry Student till I get into the plains of Italy, or into the
barren hills of that peninsula, or among the over-well-known towns of
Tuscany, or in some other place where a little padding will do neither
you nor me any great harm.

On the other hand, do not imagine that I am going to give you any kind
of description of this intolerable day's march. If you want some kind
of visual Concept (pretty word), take all these little chalets which
were beginning and make what you can of them.

LECTOR. Where are they?

AUCTOR. They are still in Switzerland; not here. They were
overnumerous as I maundered up from where at last the road leaves the
valley and makes over a little pass for a place called Schangnau. But
though it is not a story, on the contrary, an exact incident and the
truth--a thing that I would swear to in the court of justice, or quite
willingly and cheerfully believe if another man told it to me; or even
take as historical if I found it in a modern English history of the
Anglo-Saxon Church--though, I repeat, it is a thing actually lived,
yet I will tell it you.

It was at the very end of the road, and when an enormous weariness had
begun to add some kind of interest to this stuffless episode of the
dull day, that a peasant with a brutal face, driving a cart very
rapidly, came up with me. I said to him nothing, but he said to me
some words in German which I did not understand. We were at that
moment just opposite a little inn upon the right hand of the road, and
the peasant began making signs to me to hold his horse