From Bellinzona to Lugano has
a crook in it, and it was essential to find a short cut. So I thought
to myself, 'I will try to see a good map as cheaply as possible,' and
I slunk off to the right into a kind of main square, and there I found
a proud stationer's shop, such as would deal with rich men only, or
tourists of the coarser and less humble kind. I entered with some
assurance, and said in French -
'Sir, I wish to know the hills between here and Lugano, but I am too
poor to buy a map. If you will let me look at one for a few moments, I
will pay you what you think fit.'
The wicked stationer became like a devil for pride, and glaring at me,
said -
'Look! Look for yourself. I do not take pence. I sell maps; I do not
hire them!'
Then I thought, 'Shall I take a favour from such a man?' But I
yielded, and did. I went up to the wall and studied a large map for
some moments. Then as I left, I said to him -
'Sir, I shall always hold in remembrance the day on which you did me
this signal kindness; nor shall I forget your courtesy and goodwill.'
And what do you think he did at that?
Why, he burst into twenty smiles, and bowed and seemed beatified, and
said: 'Whatever I can do for my customers and for visitors to this
town, I shall always be delighted to do. Pray, sir, will you not look
at other maps for a moment?'
Now, why did he say this and grin happily like a gargoyle appeased?
Did something in my accent suggest wealth? or was he naturally kindly?
I do not know; but of this I am sure, one should never hate human
beings merely on a first, nor on a tenth, impression. Who knows? This
map-seller of Bellinzona may have been a good man; anyhow, I left him
as rich as I had found him, and remembering that the true key to a
forced march is to break the twenty-four hours into three pieces, and
now feeling the extreme heat, I went out along the burning straight
road until I found a border of grass and a hedge, and there, in spite
of the dust and the continually passing carts, I lay at full length in
the shade and fell into the sleep of men against whom there is no
reckoning. Just as I forgot the world I heard a clock strike two.
I slept for hours beneath that hedge, and when I woke the air was no
longer a trembling furnace, but everything about me was wrapped round
as in a cloak of southern afternoon, and was still.
