I laid them side by side, palms upward, on the bench where we had sat
the night before. No dream-wind has blown them away; no dream-thief has
stolen them; there they lie still, and will lie till the great change
comes over me, and I am one with their owner.
* * * * *
I am there every night--in the lovely spring or autumn
sunshine--meditating, remembering, taking notes--dream-notes to be
learned by heard, and used next day for a real purpose.
I walk round and round, or sit on the benches, or lie in the grass by
the brink, and smoke cigarettes without end, and watch the old
amphibious life I found so charming half a century ago, and find it
charming still.
Sometimes I dive into the forest (which has now been razed to the
ground. Ever since 1870 there is an open space all round the Mare
d'Auteuil. I had seen it since then in a dream with Mary, who went to
Paris after the war, and mad pilgrimages by day to all the places so
dear to our hearts, and so changed; and again, when the night came,
with me for a fellow-pilgrim. It was a sad disenchantment for us both).
_My_ Mare d'Auteuil, where I spend so many hours, is the Mare d'Auteuil
of Louis Philippe, unchangeable except for such slight changes as _will_
occur, now and then, between the years 1839 and 1846: a broken bench
mended, a new barrier put up by the high-road, a small wooden dike
where the brink is giving way.
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