But this journey was his master’s, and if it was Monsieur Fogg’s desire to travel without touring, then so be it.
They slept on the train moving through a cluster of little European countries; they had not been long out of England, and were still in a civilized region. The towns and cities that flashed by the passing train seemed as unremarkable as any Jean had seen in France or in England. He fell asleep on the border of Germany, and when he awoke, could see little difference.
Monsieur Fogg was still abed; Jean had eighty minutes before he would be needing to serve his employer. He took these eighty minutes to wander out into the main car, where a few early-risers were already sitting.
“Pardon, monsieur, but what country is this that we are now in?”
The man whom Jean had addressed, a heavily bearded fellow with a ridiculously oversized hat, harrumphed.
“It’s some piddly little backwater nation called Westmark,” he answered. “They’re always on the verge of a revolution, too; the train will be stopping at the station, but I wouldn’t get out if I were you. Nothing to see there, anyway.”
Jean found himself intrigued by the bearded man’s words. First of all, his description of Westmark as a backwater nation made it different, in Jean’s mind, from the multitude of overcivilized countries that had passed so far – perhaps Westmark, less civilized, would be also more exotic. Secondly, a revolution! That was as uncivilized as anything!
The conductor made an announcement, interrupting Jean’s excited reverie to state that the train would be shortly stopping at Freybourg Station. Jean glanced at his watch, that antiquated heirloom. He had yet an hour and ten minutes before Monsieur Fogg would be expecting his services. A turn about the station in the fresh air would, he felt sure, do him a world of good.
At Freyborg Station, accordingly, Jean stepped out onto the platform. He was the only one of the train’s many passengers to do so, he noticed. All the better for him, he decided. There should be no one to prevent him from seeing this backwater nation.
The early hour meant that there were not many people about, only two or three station employees, and the ticket master in his windowed office. Jean took a quick peek at his watch, and the amount of time still lingering persuaded him to move off the platform, away from this little, inconsequential shack of a train station.
Before he was quite aware of what he was doing, Jean found himself wandering the streets of Freyborg. It was a city, perhaps, by the standards of little Westmark; but compared to the cities Jean had seen, it was hardly a town. There were a few townsfolk walking through the cobbled streets, and Jean soon came out into a broad, tree-lined square, home to a market just starting to wake up.
Jean was good at avoiding attention, when he wanted to, and he made his way through the small market without attracting notice. His own attention, however, was everywhere at once, and as easily caught as it was distracted. The marketers’ wares were as lovely, in this hazy morning, as he could have wished. He paused to examine a sweet-smelling apple, a pot of bright violet flowers, a stall draped all in fans and scarves and silken handkerchiefs.
But the people… ah, the people! Jean enjoyed watching the people even more than looking at what they sold. Here was an old fishwife, with a large, bulbous nose, cajoling potential clients in a shrill, cagey voice. There went a fine young man, with starkly violet eyes, walking along as though the world belonged to him. Passing by at Jean’s left hand was a girl with golden hair, a large basket of linens held against her hip.
It was this girl who caught Jean’s eye particularly. Perhaps it was the ease, borne from obvious long experience, with which she carried her heavy load; perhaps it was the way the sun, newly risen from behind the thatched roofs, sank its rays into her curls, shining like melted honey on her hair; perhaps it was the smile that played on her pink lips, a quick, fleeting, silent laugh that came and went and came again.
She seemed to be watching the people, also, and that, above all, made Jean notice her. Most of the square’s other occupants were moving along, concerned for themselves or the shoppers only, wholly engaged in what they were doing. The sun-flecked girl stood beside a slender, white-blossomed tree, and watched them all.
Jean moved around to beside a stall selling onions and other rather noxious-smelling vegetables, from which position he could see her without being himself seen. The stall’s owner, a thick-muscled farmer, didn’t notice Jean’s presence, and the Frenchman settled in to keep an eye on his unknown friend.
There was something of an air of expectancy about her, as if she were waiting for something or someone. Occasionally she would move, shifting her weight from one booted foot to the other, adjusting the basket on her hip. Her laughing blue eyes scanned the crowd, sometimes lingering on one face, sometimes moving swiftly on.
It had been several minutes, and Jean was just thinking that he had best be getting back to the train (the conductor had said that they would only be stopped for a half an hour), when the girl exclaimed, a loud, happy cry, and quickly set her basket down at her feet, rushing forward to greet a young man who had just separated from the crowd.
The cause of all her excitement was the fine young man Jean had seen earlier, the one with the violet eyes and the aura of confident strength. He came up to the girl as gladly as she ran to him, but both stopped a foot apart, abruptly and awkwardly.
Jean wished he could sneak closer and hear what they were saying, but he could see the words in their awkward fidgets, their hands, their feet, their eyes, without needing to hear them with his ears.
Could anything have been more obvious than this? That they were in love was evident in every lingering glance, every timid twist of the head, every aborted touch. Jean, who was beginning to feel rather protective of the golden haired girl, was glad for both of them, glad that they had each other, and that they both loved where there was love to be returned. He only wished they would stop being so hesitant and shy and tell each other what he could so easily see.
Jean could have stayed there all day, watching these beautiful young lovers, but the sound of a church bell ringing from nearby brought him back to the real world, the world of schedules and timetables and duties, a world where hazy, golden, summery young love had no place. He fumbled for his watch, saw the time, and, with a gasp, dashed off back to the train station, not even daring to spare a moment for a backwards glance at the girl and her love.
Jean made it back to the train on time, though barely, and he was late to wake Monsieur Fogg. M. Fogg was displeased with his valet, and when he curtly required an explanation for the unusual tardiness, Jean found himself unable to explain what he had been doing.
“I went to walk in the town,” he said weakly, and felt the feebleness of this as an excuse. He accepted his master’s cold displeasure as being well-deserved, but as he set about his duties, he wished Monsieur Fogg had been there to see what he saw. Perhaps he might not have said anything, but surely not even that mechanical gentleman could be unmoved by the golden-haired girl and the violet-eyed boy, so deeply in love that even a tourist saw it, and marveled at the beauty of it.
The train was moving out of Westmark, away from Freyborg and its young lovers, and Jean, who knew he would never see them again nor ever know what fate befell them, decided, in all his optimistic nature, that they would have a long and peaceful life in each other’s arms. He decided they would admit their love, be married and have a family, and when the time came to die, she of the golden hair, he of the violet eyes, would die together, in peace and in love...