“Please excuse me--but really my digestion is so poor....” (and Julius, whose nails were very carefully kept, glanced at Anthime’s large, stumpy, square-tipped fingers). “On my way back from Rome I shall be able to stop longer, and then I want to tell you about the new book I’m now at work on, my dear Anthime.” “I have just been re-reading _On the Heights_ and it seems to me better than I thought it at first.” “I am sorry for you! It’s a failure. I’ll explain why when you’re in a fit state to listen and to appreciate the strange preoccupations which beset me now. But there’s too much to say. Mum’s the word for the present!” He bade the Armand-Dubois keep up their spirits, and left them. BOOK IV: THE MILLIPEDE “_Et je ne puis approuver que ceux qui cherchent en gémissant._” --PASCAL, 3421. I Amédée Fleurissoire had left Pau with five hundred francs in his pocket. This, he thought, would certainly suffice him for his journey, notwithstanding the extra expenses, to which the Lodge’s wickedness would no doubt put him. And if, after all, this amount proved insufficient--if he found himself obliged to prolong his stay, he would have recourse to Blafaphas, who was keeping a small sum in reserve for him. As no one at Pau was to know where he was going, he had not taken his ticket further than Marseilles. From Marseilles to Rome a third-class ticket cost only thirty-eight francs, forty centimes, and left him free to break his journey if he chose--an option of which he took advantage, to satisfy, not his curiosity for foreign parts, which had never been lively, but his desire for sleep, which was inordinately strong. There was nothing he feared so much as insomnia, and as it was important to the Church that he should arrive at Rome in good trim, he would not consider the two days’ delay or the additional expense of the hotel bills.... What was that in comparison to spending a night in the train?--a night that would certainly be sleepless, and particularly dangerous to health on account of the other travellers’ breaths; and then if one of them wanted to renew the air and took it into his head to open a window, that meant catching a cold for certain.... He would therefore spend the first night at Marseilles and the second at Genoa, in one of those hotels that are found in the neighbourhood of the station, and are comfortable without being over-grand. For the rest he was amused by the journey and at making it by himself--at last! For, at the age of forty-seven, he had never lived but in a state of tutelage, escorted everywhere by his wife and his friend Blafaphas. Tucked up in his corner of the carriage, he sat with a faint goat-like smile on his face, wishing himself Godspeed. All went well as far as Marseilles.