It was as though the soil had been left
imperfect and rough after some cataclysm; it reminded me of those bad
lands in the west of America, where the desert has no form, and where
the crumbling and ashy look of things is more abhorrent than their
mere desolation. As soon march through evil dreams!
The north is the place for men. Eden was there; and the four rivers of
Paradise are the Seine, the Oise, the Thames, and the Arun; there are
grasses there, and the trees are generous, and the air is an unnoticed
pleasure. The waters brim up to the edges of the fields. But for this
bare Tuscany I was never made.
How far I had gone I could not tell, nor precisely how much farther
San Quirico, the neighbouring town, might be. The imperfect map I had
bought at Siena was too minute to give me clear indications. I was
content to wait for evening, and then to go on till I found it. An
hour or so in the shade of a row of parched and dusty bushes I lay and
ate and drank my wine, and smoked, and then all day I slept, and woke
a while, and slept again more deeply.
