vast events were taking place--all this stimulated her. She had
brushed, as it were, the fringe of the terror of the war and the
invasion. Fear was seething around her. And yet she was excited and
glad. The vast world was in one of its convulsions, and she was
moving amongst it. Somewhere, she believed in the convulsion, the
event elated her.
The train began to climb up to Modane. How wonderful the Alps
were!--what a bigness, an unbreakable power was in the mountains! Up
and up the train crept, and she looked at the rocky slopes, the
glistening peaks of snow in the blue heaven, the hollow valleys with
fir trees and low-roofed houses. There were quarries near the
railway, and men working. There was a strange mountain town,
dirty-looking. And still the train climbed up and up, in the hot
morning sunshine, creeping slowly round the mountain loops, so that
a little brown dog from one of the cottages ran alongside the train
for a long way, barking at Alvina, even running ahead of the
creeping, snorting train, and barking at the people ahead. Alvina,
looking out, saw the two unfamiliar engines snorting out their
smoke round the bend ahead. And the morning wore away to mid-day.
Ciccio became excited as they neared Modane, the frontier station.
His eye lit up again, he pulled himself together for the entrance
into Italy. Slowly the train rolled in to the dismal station. And
then a confusion indescribable, of porters and masses of luggage,
the unspeakable crush and crowd at the customs barriers, the more
intense crowd through the passport office, all like a madness.
They were out on the platform again, they had secured their places.
Ciccio wanted to have luncheon in the station restaurant. They went
through the passages. And there in the dirty station gang-ways and
big corridors dozens of Italians were lying on the ground, men,
women, children, camping with their bundles and packages in heaps.
They were either emigrants or refugees. Alvina had never seen people
herd about like cattle, dumb, brute cattle. It impressed her. She
could not grasp that an Italian labourer would lie down just where
he was tired, in the street, on a station, in any corner, like a
dog.
In the afternoon they were slipping down the Alps towards Turin. And
everywhere was snow--deep, white, wonderful snow, beautiful and
fresh, glistening in the afternoon light all down the mountain
slopes, on the railway track, almost seeming to touch the train. And
twilight was falling. And at the stations people crowded in once
more.
It had been dark a long time when they reached Turin. Many people
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