I changed carriages at Rouen because the
express did not stop at any of the little stations beyond. I took a slower
train, which came immediately behind it, and stopped at most of the
stations. I took my ticket rather at random for a little station between
Pont de l'Arche and Mantes. I got out at that little station, and it was
still early--only midway through the morning.
"I was in an odd mixture of fatigue and exhilaration: I had not slept and
I would willingly have done so, but the freshness of the new day was upon
me, and I have always had a very keen curiosity to see new sights and to
know what lies behind the hills.
"The day was fine and already rather hot for June. I did not stop in the
village near the station for more than half an hour, just the time to take
some soup and a little wine; then I set out into the woods to cross over
into this parallel valley. I knew that I should come to it and to the
railway line that goes down it in a very few miles. I proposed when I came
to that other railway line on the far side of the hills to walk quietly
down it as nearly parallel to it as I could get, and at the first station
to take the next train for Chartres, and then the next day to go from
Chartres to Paris. That was my plan.
"The road up into the woods was one of those great French roads which
sometimes frighten me and always weary me by their length and insistence:
men seem to have taken so much trouble to make them, and they make me
feel as though I had to take trouble myself; I avoid them when I walk.
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