And through the long night we ached away an intolerable span of
time with, for under-current, for sinister accompaniment to the pitiful
strain, the muffled interminable plodding of the engine, and the rack of
the wheels pulsing through space to the rhythm of some music-hall jingle
heard in snatches at home. At intervals came shocks of contrast when we
were brought suddenly face to face with a gaunt and bleached world. Then
we stirred from our stupor, and sat looking at each other's stale faces.
We had shrieked and clanked our way into some great naked station,
shivering raw and cold under the electric lights, streaked with black
shadows on its whitewash and patched with coarse advertisements. The
porters' voices echoed in the void, shouting _"Piacensa," "Parma,"
"Reggio," "Modena," "Bologna,"_ with infinite relish for the varied
hues of a final _a_. One or two cowed travellers slippered up
responsive to the call, and we, the veterans who endured, set our teeth,
shuddered, and smoked feverish cigarettes on the platform among the
carriage-wheels and points; or, if we were new hands, watched awfully the
advent of another sleeping train, as dingy as our own--yet a hero of
romance! For it bore the hieratic and tremendous words "_Roma, Firenze,
Milano_" It was privileged then; it ministered in the sanctuary.
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