Strange, that London still holds my body, when a corduroyed magician
has whisked my soul verily into Paris. The engine is hissing as I
hurry my body along the platform, eager to reunite it with my soul...
Over the windy quay the stars are shining as I pass down the gangway,
hat-box in hand. They twinkle brightly over the deck I am now pacing--
amused, may be, at my excitement. The machinery grunts and creaks. The
little boat quakes in the excruciating throes of its departure. At
last!... One by one, the stars take their last look at me, and the sky
grows pale, and the sea blanches mysteriously with it. Through the
delicate cold air of the dawn, across the grey waves of the sea, the
outlines of Dieppe grow and grow. The quay is lined with its blue-
bloused throng. These porters are as excited by us as though they were
the aborigines of some unknown island. (And yet, are they not here, at
this hour, in these circumstances, every day of their lives?) These
gestures! These voices, hoarse with passion! The dear music of French,
rippling up clear for me through all this hoarse confusion of its
utterance, and making me happy!... I drink my cup of steaming coffee--
true coffee!--and devour more than one roll. At the tables around me,
pale and dishevelled from the night, sit the people whom I saw--years
ago!--at Charing Cross.
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