This Appalachian country was not huge, barren, and monotonous like so much of the West. There was nothing here to suggest that perhaps one had always… - Hervey Allen

Between the villages of Aubière and Romagnat in the ancient Province of Auvergne there is an old road that comes suddenly over the top of a high hill. To stand south of this ridge looking up at the highway flowing over the skyline is to receive one of those irrefutable impressions from landscape which requires more than a philosopher to explain. In this case it is undoubtedly, for some reason, one of exalted expectation.

I lay there in the river for a minute and gave up. When you do that something dies inside.

It was good to be alive. Black Girl gathered herself under him and thundered down the Pike towards Lancaster. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—was the tune her hoofs now seemed to be drumming on the road away from yesterday.