In the Days of My Youth: A Novel

by Amelia B. Edwards

Having started late in the evening, I arrived in Paris between four and five o'clock on a bright midsummer Sunday morning. I was not long delayed by the customs officers, for I carried but a scant supply of luggage. Having left this at an hotel, I wandered about till it should be time for breakfast. After breakfast I meant to dress and call upon Dr. Chéron.

The morning air was clear and cool. The sun shone brilliantly, and was reflected back with dazzling vividness from long vistas of high white houses, innumerable windows, and gilded balconies. Theatres, shops, cafés, and hotels not yet opened, lined the great thoroughfares. Triumphal arches, columns, parks, palaces, and churches succeeded one another in apparently endless succession. I passed a lofty pillar crowned with a conqueror's statue--a palace tragic in history--a modern Parthenon surrounded by columns, peopled with sculptured friezes, and approached by a flight of steps extending the whole width of the building. I went in, for the doors had just been opened, and a white-haired Sacristan was preparing the seats for matin service. There were acolytes decorating the altar with fresh flowers, and early devotees on their knees before the shrine of the Madonna. The gilded ornaments, the tapers winking in the morning light, the statues, the paintings, the faint clinging odors of incense, the hushed atmosphere, the devotional silence, the marble angels kneeling round the altar, all united to increase my dream of delight. I gazed and gazed again; wandered round and round; and at last, worn out with excitement and fatigue, sank into a chair in a distant corner of the Church, and fell into a heavy sleep. How long it lasted I know not; but the voices of the choristers and the deep tones of the organ mingled with my dreams. When I awoke the last worshippers were departing, the music had died into silence, the wax-lights were being extinguished, and the service was ended.

Again I went out into the streets; but all was changed. Where there had been the silence of early morning there was now the confusion of a great city. Where there had been closed shutters and deserted thoroughfares, there was the bustle of life, gayety, business, and pleasure. The shops blazed with jewels and merchandise; the stonemasons were at work on the new buildings; the lemonade venders, with their gay reservoirs upon their backs, were plying a noisy trade; the bill-stickers were papering boardings and lamp-posts with variegated advertisements; the charlatan, in his gaudy chariot, was selling pencils and penknives to the accompaniment of a hand-organ; soldiers were marching to the clangor of military music; the merchant was in his counting-house, the stock-broker at the Bourse, and the lounger, whose name is Legion, was sitting in the open air outside his favorite café, drinking chocolate, and yawning over the Charivari.

I thought I must be dreaming. I scarcely believed the evidence of my eyes. Was this Sunday? Was it possible that in our own little church at home--in our own little church, where we could hear the birds twittering outside in every interval of the quiet service--the old familiar faces, row beyond row, were even now upturned in reverent attention to the words of the preacher? Prince Bedreddin, transported in his sleep to the gates of Damascus, could scarcely have opened his eyes upon a foreign city and a strange people with more incredulous amazement.

I can now scarcely remember how that day of wonders went by. I only know that I rambled about as in a dream, and am vaguely conscious of having wandered through the gardens of the Tuilleries; of having found the Louvre open, and of losing myself among some of the upper galleries; of lying exhausted upon a bench in the Champs Elysées; of returning by quays lined with palaces and spanned by noble bridges; of pacing round and round the enchanted arcades of the Palais Royal; of wondering how and where I should find my hotel, and of deciding at last that I could go no farther without dining somehow. Wearied and half stupefied, I ventured, at length, into one of the large restaurants upon the Boulevards. Here I found spacious rooms lighted by superb chandeliers which were again reflected in mirrors that extended from floor to ceiling. Rows of small tables ran round the rooms, and a double line down the centre, each laid with its snowy cloth and glittering silver.

It was early when I arrived; so I passed up to the top of the room and appropriated a small table commanding a view of the great thoroughfare below. The waiters were slow to serve me; the place filled speedily; and by the time I had finished my soup, nearly all the tables were occupied. Here sat a party of officers, bronzed and mustachioed; yonder a group of laughing girls; a pair of provincials; a family party, children, governess and all; a stout capitalist, solitary and self content; a quatuor of rollicking commis-voyageurs; an English couple, perplexed and curious. Amused by the sight of so many faces, listening to the hum of voices, and watching the flying waiters bearing all kinds of mysterious dishes, I loitered over my lonely meal, and wished that this delightful whirl of novelty might last for ever. By and by a gentleman entered, walked up the whole length of the room in search of a seat, found my table occupied by only a single person, bowed politely, and drew his chair opposite mine.

He was a portly man of about forty-five or fifty years of age, with a broad, calm brow; curling light hair, somewhat worn upon the temples; and large blue eyes, more keen than tender. His dress was scrupulously simple, and his hands were immaculately white. He carried an umbrella little thicker than a walking-stick, and wrote out his list of dishes with a massive gold pencil. The waiter bowed down before him as if he were an habitué of the place.

It was not long before we fell into conversation. I do not remember which spoke first; but we talked of Paris--or rather, I talked and he listened; for, what with the excitement and fatigue of the day, and what with the half bottle of champagne which I had magnificently ordered, I found myself gifted with a sudden flood of words, and ran on, I fear, not very discreetly.

A few civil rejoinders, a smile, a bow, an assent, a question implied rather than spoken, sufficed to draw from me the particulars of my journey. I told everything, from my birthplace and education to my future plans and prospects; and the stranger, with a frosty humor twinkling about his eyes, listened politely. He was himself particularly silent; but he had the art of provoking conversation while quietly enjoying his own dinner. When this was finished, however, he leaned back in his chair, sipped his claret, and talked a little more freely.

"And so," said he, in very excellent English, "you have come to Paris to finish your studies. But have you no fear, young gentleman, that the attractions of so gay a city may divert your mind from graver subjects? Do you think that, when every pleasure may be had for the seeking, you will be content to devote yourself to the dry details of an uninteresting profession?"