How they have changed! The coffee sends a glow
throughout my body. I am fulfilled with a sense of material well-
being. The queer ethereal exaltation of the dawn has vanished. I climb
up into the train, and dispose myself in the dun-cushioned coupe'.
`Chemins de Fer de l'Ouest' is perforated on the white antimacassars.
Familiar and strange inscription! I murmur its impressive iambs over
and over again. They become the refrain to which the train vibrates on
its way. I smoke cigarettes, a little drowsily gazing out of the
window at the undulating French scenery that flies past me, at the
silver poplars. Row after slanted row of these incomparably gracious
trees flies past me, their foliage shimmering in the unawoken
landscape Soon I shall be rattling over the cobbles of unawoken Paris,
through the wide white-grey streets with their unopened jalousies. And
when, later, I awake in the unnatural little bedroom of walnut-wood
and crimson velvet, in the bed whose curtains are white with that
whiteness which Paris alone can give to linen, a Parisian sun will be
glittering for me in a Parisian sky.
Yes! In my whole collection the Paris specimens were dearest to me,
meant most to me, I think. But there was none that had not some
tendrils on sentiment.
Pages:
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119