We bade them good-bye this morning; great, great grandfather Dagorn herding his cows on the velvety dune; Yyves swinging his scythe as he whisked down the heavy crimson clover; Marie stooped over her churn; Mother Dagorn whose withered cheeks are apple-bright; the rosy-faced children, the leaping dogs. We looked our last on that golden beach, that jewelled sea; we roamed our last amid the hedges of honeysuckle, the cherry-trees snowed with blossom, the stream where the embattled lilies brandished blades and flaunted starry banners. Last of all, and with something very like sadness, we bade good-bye to that old house I called Dreamhaven, which stands between the poppies and the pines.
Back in Paris. The dear sunny boulevards are once more embowered in tender green, and once more I am a dreamy Luxemburger, feeding my Bohemian sparrows in that cool, still grove where gleam the busts of Murger and Verlaine: once more I roam the old streets, seeking the spirit of the past; once more I am the apostle of the clear laugh and the joyous mind.
One of the first persons I met as I walked down the spinal column of the Quarter, the Boul’ Mich’, was Helstern. He had just come from a lecture by Bergson at the Sorbonne and was indignant because he had been obliged to stand near the door.
“Bergson’s a society craze just now. The place was crowded with wretched women that couldn’t understand a word of his lecture. They chattered and stared at one another through their lorgnettes. One wretched cocotte threw the old man a bunch of violets.”
“What did he do?”
“He took it up and after looking at it as if he didn’t know what it was he put it in his pocket.”
“Well, how’s every one? What have you been doing? Some symbolical group, I suppose?”
“No; I’ve decided to go in for simple things, the simpler the better. I’ve done a little head and bust of Solonge I want you to see. I’m rather pleased with it.”
“All right. I’ll come as soon as we get settled.”