----A few hours after our arrival we drove to the graveyard at Montmartre, an ugly, gloomy graveyard, bordering directly upon a business-street, so that the noise and bustle of the city sound deafeningly where the dead are reposing. The paths are as straight as if drawn by a ruler, and upon the graves lie wreaths of straw flowers or stiff immortelles. These durable decorations seem to me heartless,--as if the poor dead were to be provided for once for all, since it might be tiresome to visit them often.
My parents' grave lies a little apart from the broad centre path, under a knotty old juniper-tree.
I heaped it with flowers, and amid the fresh blossoms I laid the roses, now faded, which Harry gave me yesterday when we parted.
I was enchanted with Paris. My aunt was delighted with the shops. She spent all her time in them, and thought everything very reasonable. At the end of four days she had bought so many reasonable articles that she had to purchase a huge trunk in which to take them home, and she had scarcely any money left.
She was convinced that she must have made some mistake in her accounts, and she worked over them half through an entire night, but with no consoling result.
The upshot of it was that she wanted to go home immediately; but since the trip had been undertaken chiefly for my health and was to end in a visit to some sea-side resort, she wrote to my uncle, explaining the state of affairs--that is, of her finances--and asking for a subsidy.
My uncle sent the subsidy, but requested us to leave Paris as soon as possible, and to choose a modest seaside resort.
The next day we departed from Babylon.
After inquiring everywhere, and studying the guidebook attentively, my aunt finally resolved to go to St. Valery.
The evening was cold and windy when we reached the little town and drew up in the omnibus before the Hôtel de la Plage.