‘Alice! That’s an English name! Are you an Englishwoman? Did you know me in former days?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why is it then you have come to me?’ ‘I love you.’ ‘And are you content?’ ‘Yes; we float, we whirl together in the fresh air.’ ‘Alice!’ I said all at once, ‘you are perhaps a sinful, condemned soul?’ My companion’s head bent towards me. ‘I don’t understand you,’ she murmured. ‘I adjure you in God’s name....’ I was beginning. ‘What are you saying?’ she put in in perplexity. ‘I don’t understand.’ I fancied that the arm that lay like a chilly girdle about my waist softly trembled.... ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Alice, ‘don’t be afraid, my dear one!’ Her face turned and moved towards my face.... I felt on my lips a strange sensation, like the faintest prick of a soft and delicate sting.... Leeches might prick so in mild and drowsy mood. VIII I glanced downwards. We had now risen again to a considerable height. We were flying over some provincial town I did not know, situated on the side of a wide slope. Churches rose up high among the dark mass of wooden roofs and orchards; a long bridge stood out black at the bend of a river; everything was hushed, buried in slumber. The very crosses and cupolas seemed to gleam with a silent brilliance; silently stood the tall posts of the wells beside the round tops of the willows; silently the straight whitish road darted arrow-like into one end of the town, and silently it ran out again at the opposite end on to the dark waste of monotonous fields. ‘What town is this?’ I asked. ‘X....’ ‘X ... in Y ... province?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I’m a long distance indeed from home!’ ‘Distance is not for us.’ ‘Really?’ I was fired by a sudden recklessness. ‘Then take me to South America! ‘To America I cannot. It’s daylight there by now.’ ‘And we are night-birds. Well, anywhere, where you can, only far, far away.’ ‘Shut your eyes and hold your breath,’ answered Alice, and we flew along with the speed of a whirlwind. With a deafening noise the air rushed into my ears. We stopped, but the noise did not cease. On the contrary, it changed into a sort of menacing roar, the roll of thunder... ‘Now you can open your eyes,’ said Alice. IX I obeyed ... Good God, where was I?