I leaped the Céphise Eleusinien to the great scandal of the little tortoises who leaped like frogs into the water. A hundred steps further on, the path was lost in a deep and wide ravine, worn by the storms of two or three thousand winters. I supposed, reasonably enough, that the ravine ought to be the right road. I had noticed, in my former excursions, that the Greeks did not trouble themselves with making roads where streams were liable to change them. In this country, where man does not oppose the works of nature, torrents are royal roads; brooks, are department routes; rivulets, are parish-roads. Tempests are the road-constructors, and rain is the surveyor of wide and narrow paths. I entered the ravine and walked between two river banks, which hid the plain from me. But the path had so many turns, that I should not have known in which direction I was walking, if I had not kept my back to Parnassus. The wisest course would have been to climb one bank or the other and ascertain my bearings; but the sides were perpendicular, I was weary, I was hungry; and I found the shade refreshing. I seated myself upon a bowlder of marble, I took from my box a piece of bread, some cold lamb, and a gourd of wine. I said to myself: "If I am on the right road, some one will pass and I can find out where I am." In fact, just as I had finished lunching, and was about to stretch myself out for the rest which follows the meal of travelers or serpents, I thought I heard a horse's step. I laid my ear to the ground and heard two or three horses coming up the ravine. I buckled my box on my back, and made ready to follow them, in case they were going towards Parnassus. Five minutes afterward, I saw coming toward me, two ladies mounted upon livery-horses, and equipped like Englishwomen on a journey. Behind them was a pedestrian, whom I had no trouble in recognizing; it was Dimitri. You who know the world a little, you have noticed that a traveler starts out without much care for his personal appearance; but if he is about to meet ladies, though they be as old as the Dove of the Ark, he loses, at once, his indifference and looks at his dusty and travel-stained garments with a troubled eye. Before even being able to distinguish the faces of the two riders, behind their blue veils, I had looked myself over, and I was sufficiently satisfied. I wore these garments which I have on, and which are even now presentable, although that was two years ago. I have never changed the fashion of my hair; a cap, although as fine and handsome a one as this, would not have protected a traveler from the sun. I wore, instead, a large gray felt hat, which the dust could not hurt. I took it off politely as the ladies passed me. My salutation did not appear to trouble them much. I held out my hand to Dimitri, and he told me in a few words, all that I wished to know. "Am I upon the road to Parnassus?" "Yes, we are going there." "I can go with you, then?" "Why not?"