At the entrance to the Avenue de l'Opéra the crowd is great, and we are constantly separated by those who meet us. It happens that a man carrying some cotton wool stumbles against my companion so that he is covered over with white. With my head full of Swedenborgs symbols, I try to remember what this should signify, but can only think of the opening of the grave at St. Helena, when Napoleon's body looked as though it were covered with white down.
In the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin I am already so tired and nervous that we resolve to take a carriage. Since it is dinner-time the street is very full, and when we have driven for some minutes the carriage suddenly stands still. Simultaneously I receive such a blow in the back that I rise from my seat, and as I turn round there are three horses' heads opposite me,—an omnibus with a shouting driver on the top of it. This puts me out of humour, and I ask myself if it is intended for a warning.
We alight at the Place Pigalle and dine. Here I am reminded of my residence in Paris in the seventies, when I was young, but it makes me sad, for the changes are great. My lodging-house in the Rue Douai is no more. The "Black Cat" which stood there then is closed, and Rodolphe Salis has been buried this year. The "Café de l'Ermitage" is only a recollection, and the "Tambourin" has changed its name and title. The friends of those days are dead, married, scattered, and the Swedish colony has transferred its quarters to Mont Parnasse. I feel that I have grown old.
The dinner is not so lively as I expected. The wine is of the bad kind that puts one out of humour. My having got out of the habit of listening and speaking makes the conversation disjointed and exhausting. The hope of recovering our former cheerful mood with the coffee is not realised, and soon that terrible silence begins which betrays a desire to get away from each other.
For a long while we struggle against the growing embarrassment, but in vain. As early as nine o'clock we rise from table, and my companion, guessing my mood, takes his own way, under the pretext of having an appointment to keep. As soon as I am alone I feel an indescribable relief; my discomfort ceases, my headache disappears, and I feel as though the convolutions of my brain, and the network of my nerves which had become entangled, were slowly returning to their normal state. In truth, solitude has made my personality so sensitive that I cannot bear the contact of a stranger.
Quietly, but with an illusion the less, I return home, glad to be in my cell again; but I notice that the room has undergone a change; it is no longer the same, and a sort of domestic discomfort seems to pervade it. The furniture and small articles are in their places, but give a strange impression. Some one has been here and left traces of himself behind. I am undone!
The next day I go out to seek for society, but find none. The third day I go by appointment to my friend the artist to see his etchings. He lives in Marais. I ask the porter whether he is at home. "Yes," he answered, "but he is in the café, with a lady." Since I have nothing to say to the lady I go away again. The next day I go again to Marais, and since he is at home I proceed to mount the six flights of stairs, which wind narrowly like stairs in a tower. When I have ascended three I begin to remember a dream and a reality. The dream which is often repeated has to do with just such narrow cork-screw stairs up which I crawl till I am stifled, as they grow ever narrower. The first time I remembered this dream was in the tower at Putbus, and I immediately went down again. Now I stand here squeezed, panting, my heart palpitating, but determine to ascend. I manage to get up, enter the studio, and find my friend with a lady. After I have sat for five minutes I get a severe headache and say, "My good friend, it seems as though I must renounce your society, for your stairs kill me. Just now I have a distinct conviction that if I come up here again I shall die."
He answered, "But you lately ascended the Montmartre and the stairs at the church of the Sacred Heart."
"Yes," I reply, "it is very strange."
"Well," he said, "then I will come to you, and we will dine in the evening together."