I slept soundly until late
in the morning, and breakfasted at the Bains Deligny, a delightful
swimming-bath near the Pont de la Concorde (on the other side), and
spent most of the day there, alternately swimming, and dozing, and
smoking cigarettes, and thinking of the wonders of the night before, and
hoping for their repetition on the night to follow.
[Illustration]
I remained a week in Paris, loafing about by day among old haunts of my
childhood--a melancholy pleasure--and at night trying to "dream true" as
my dream duchess had called it. Only once did I succeed.
I had gone to bed thinking most persistently of the "Mare d'Auteuil,"
and it seemed to me that as soon as I was fairly asleep I woke up there,
and knew directly that I had come into a "true dream" again, by the
reality and the bliss. It was transcendent _life_ once more--a very
ecstasy of remembrance made actual, and _such_ an exquisite surprise!
There was M. le Major, in his green frock-coat, on his knees near a
little hawthorn-tree by the brink, among the water-logged roots of which
there dwelt a cunning old dytiscus as big as the bowl of a
table-spoon--a prize we had often tried to catch in vain.
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