IT was after this night that Barfleur took his departure for London for two weeks, where business affairs were calling him during which time I was to make myself as idle and gay as I might alone or with the individuals to whom he had introduced me or to whom I had introductions direct. There was so much that I wished to see and that he did not care to see over again with me, having seen it all before—the Musée de Cluny, for instance, the Louvre, the Luxembourg and so on.

 

The next afternoon after a more or less rambling¹ day I saw him off for London and then I plunged² into this treasure world alone.

 

One of the things that seriously impressed me was the never-failing singing air of the city which was everywhere; and another the peculiarly moody⁴ atmosphere of the cemetery⁵ of Père-Lachaise—that wonderful world of celebrated⁶ dead—who crowd each other like the residents of a narrow city and who make a veritable fanfare⁷ of names. What a world! One whole day I idled here over the tombs of Balzac, Daudet, De Musset, Chopin, Rachel, Abélard and Héloise—a long, long list of celebrities⁸. My brain fairly reeled with the futility⁹ of life—and finally I came away immensely sad. Another day I visited Versailles and all its splendor¹⁰ with one of the most interesting and amusing Americans I met abroad, a publisher by the name of H——, who regaled me with his own naïve experiences. I fairly choked at times over his quaint¹¹, slangy, amusing248 comments on things as when at Versailles, in the

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