One could feel the gap in the house. They cried; and I, being an
Austrian from Graz, to my astonishment felt my tears slip over on to the
table. I also _was_ sorry, and I would have kissed the little old ladies
to comfort them.
'Only in heaven it is warm, and it doesn't rain, and no one dies,' I
said, looking at the wet leaves.
Then I went away. I would have stayed the night at this house: I wanted
to. But I had developed my Austrian character too far.
So I went on to a detestable brutal inn in the town. And the next day I
climbed over the back of the detestable Rigi, with its vile hotel, to
come to Lucerne. There, on the Rigi, I met a lost young Frenchman who
could speak no German, and who said he could not find people to speak
French. So we sat on a stone and became close friends, and I promised
faithfully to go and visit him in his barracks in Algiers: I was to sail
from Naples to Algiers. He wrote me the address on his card, and told me
he had friends in the regiment, to whom I should be introduced, and we
could have a good time, if I would stay a week or two, down there
in Algiers.
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