He was a Swiss who had come to Paris
on business for a few days, leaving his wife in a village near Basle. It
was of his wife that he kept talking.
"Ach, mein armes Weib! Sie hat Angst fur mich."
I pitied this little man in a shoddy suit and limp straw hat who had
tears in his eyes and no courage to make inquiries of station officials
because he spoke no word of French. I asked on his behalf and after
jostling for half an hour in the crowd and speaking to a dozen porters
who shrugged their shoulders and said, "Je n'en sais rien!" came
back with the certain and doleful news that the last train had left that
night for Basle. The little Swiss was standing between his packages
with his back to the wall, searching for me with anxious eyes, and
when I gave him the bad news tears trickled down his face.
"Was kann ich thun? Mein armes Weib hat Angst fur mich."
There was nothing he could do that night, however anxious his poor
wife might be, but I did not have any further conversation with him, for
my bad German had already attracted the notice of the people
standing near, and they were glowering at me suspiciously, as though
I were a spy.
15
It was an hour later that I found a train leaving for Nancy, though
even then I was assured by railway officials that there was no such
train.
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