They had coffee and rolls
and honey in the vast desert refreshment room, so dreary, always so
dreary, dirty, so spacious, such desolation of space. But she washed
her face and hands in hot water, and combed her hair--that was a
blessing.
Soon they were in the train again and moving on. The greyness of dawn
began. There were several people in the compartment, large florid
Belgian business-men with long brown beards, talking incessantly in an
ugly French she was too tired to follow.
It seemed the train ran by degrees out of the darkness into a faint
light, then beat after beat into the day. Ah, how weary it was!
Faintly, the trees showed, like shadows. Then a house, white, had a
curious distinctness. How was it? Then she saw a village--there were
always houses passing.
This was an old world she was still journeying through, winter-heavy
and dreary. There was plough-land and pasture, and copses of bare
trees, copses of bushes, and homesteads naked and work-bare. No new
earth had come to pass.
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