I walked beside Franzius intoxicated: the woods of Lichtenberg were around me, the winds of some far-distant day were rocking the trees. Romance had touched me with her wand. I heard the Hunting-Song, the horn, the cries of the jägers; and now I was in the gallery of the Schloss, the sound of the violins was in my ears, the music that was holding me from death, the ghostly child was plucking at my sleeve. Ah, God! whoever has tasted the waters of romance like that will never want wine again.
And then the wand was withdrawn, and I was walking in the Boulevard St. Michel with Franzius.
CHAPTER XIX MY FIRST NIGHT IN PARIS (continued)
He was holding out his hand timidly, as if to bid me good-bye.
"Oh, but," said I, "we must not part so soon. Can you not come and have some dinner with me? What are you doing?"
He looked at a big clock over a café on the opposite side of the way, and sighed. It pointed to a quarter to nine. He was due at La Closerie de Lilas at ten; he was a member of the band; there was a students' fancy-dress ball that night, and he evidently hated the business, though he said no word of complaint. Poor Franzius! Simple soul, poet and peasant, child of a woodcutter in Hartz, condemned to live by the gift that God had given him, just as one might imagine some child condemned to live by the sale of some lovely toy, the present of an Emperor—what a fate his was, forever surrounded by the flare of gas, the clatter of beer-mugs, and the fœtid life of music-hall and café-chantant!
"Come," I said. And, taking him by the arm, I led him into the nearest café.
You could dine here sumptuously for 1 franc 50, wine included. We found a vacant table; and as we waited for our soup the heart in me was touched at the way the world and the years had treated this friend who was part of the romance of my life; for the pitiless gaslight showed up all—the coat so old and frayed, yet still, somehow, respectable; the face showing lines that ought never to have been there. I hugged myself at the thought of my money, and what I could do for him. But in this I reckoned without Franzius.