Something wells up in his chest—a new desire. The world is immense, and the life he has tasted but a mere speck in the spectrum of possibilities and destinies available to human beings. Beyond the shores of the River Thames, there are other capitals, old and modern, each with its own tempests and tides, meandering, flowing. He is seized, and not for the first time, by an urge to travel far and wide, a frightening impulse for an introvert like him. He longs to see distant kingdoms and provinces whose tongues are foreign and customs different, not just to read about them in books.
