At last I
arrived at a kind of embankment, where I could see the great mud-colored
stream slipping along in the soundless darkness. It had come on to rain, I
know not what had happened to the moon, and the whole place was anything
but gay. It was not what I had looked for; what I had looked for was in
the irrecoverable past. I groped my way back to the inn over the infernal
cailloux, feeling like a discomfited Dogberry.
I remember now that this hotel was the one (whichever that may be) which
has the fragment of a Gallo-Roman portico inserted into one of its angles.
I had chosen it for the sake of this exceptional ornament. It was damp and
dark, and the floors felt gritty to the feet; it was an establishment at
which the dreadful "gras-double" might have appeared at the table d'hote,
as it had done at Narbonne. Nevertheless, I was glad to get back to it;
and nevertheless, too--and this is the moral of my simple anecdote--my
pointless little walk (I don't speak of the pavement) suffuses itself, as
I look back upon it, with a romantic tone. And in relation to the inn, I
suppose I had better mention that I am well aware of the inconsistency of
a person who dislikes the modern caravansary, and yet grumbles when he
finds a hotel of the superannuated sort, one ought to choose, it would
seem, and make the best of either alternative.
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