The city

Before the city come the vegetable plots, the parks, the gardens. The adventurer finds himself approaching the walls along a path through flowerbeds and fountains, trimmed lawns and bandstands. A small stream ripples over pebbles. If night were not falling, he would stay to rest, to enjoy, to remember how to travel. He passes through the gates to the city almost without noticing. There is only one official standing there, who pays him no attention, maybe because he carries no goods. But within two streets he knows he has made a transition. The horde of people push him indifferently this way and that with insulting carelessness, and the noise of an incessant movement deafens him after the peaceful simplicity of the wilderness.