The stout carriers tramped through the city, six of them, with the
Nurnberg fire-castle on their brawny shoulders, and went right
across Munich to the railway station, and August in the dark
recognized all the ugly, jangling, pounding, roaring, hissing
railway noises, and thought, despite his courage and excitement,
"Will it be a VERY long journey?" for his stomach had at times an
odd sinking sensation, and his head sadly often felt light and
swimming. If it was a very, very long journey, he felt half afraid
that he would be dead or something bad before the end, and
Hirschvogel would be so lonely: that was what he thought most
about; not much about himself, and not much about Dorothea and the
house at home. He was "high strung to high emprise," and could not
look behind him.
Whether for a long or a short journey, whether for weal or woe,
the stove with August still within it was once more hoisted up
into a great van; but this time it was not all alone, and the two
dealers as well as the six porters were all with it.
He in his darkness knew that; for he heard their voices. The train
glided away over the Bavarian plain southward; and he heard the
men say something of Berg and the Wurm-See, but their German was
strange to him, and he could not make out what these names meant.
The train rolled on, with all its fume and fuss, and roar of
steam, and stench of oil and burning coal.
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