An Inland Voyage Section 4 - At Mauberge

In which the narrator and his companion, burdened by the prospect of numerous locks, choose the train to advance their voyage across the frontier, contending with the peculiar suspicions their slender canoe, the Arethusa, arouses among officials. They find themselves in the fortified town of Maubeuge, where the humdrum life of soldiers and innkeepers forms a placid yet distant spectacle, and a chance encounter with a discontented omnibus driver stirs reflections on the nature of respectability and the yearning for freedom.