r. That
performance has always been and will always be an inspiration to me.

Hadley was always starting off on impossible journeys to Egypt and the
Orient, in search of "material." His talk was filled with the strangest
scraps of out-of-the-way information, like bright-coloured rags in a
dust heap. Bauer lived a door or two away, and I used to hear him
practising and then hear his concerts. A wordy war would rage at our end
of the table at dinner, while old Madame, from her seat of honour in the
centre, would cry, "_Mais francais, parlez francais, mes enfants!_ You
crush my ears with your English!" Of course, no attention was paid to
her. Joining passionately in the discussions, though not themselves of
the _metier,_ were two American girls, living on the top floor, who were
supposed to be writing a play together. One or another of the composers
was usually more or less in love with one or other of the girls, and
they took sides accordingly, for and against the recognized masters of
the past. The two were amusing, always doing something eccentric.

At one time they had an incubator in their room, the gift of a passing
admirer, and we engaged passionately in raising chickens. The machine
was heated by a huge kerosene lamp, and they were always turning it too
high and having it fill the room with blacks and smoke, or letting it go
out altogether. However, two or three chicks, more strenuously
determined to live than the rest, managed to struggle out at length, and
their advent was heralded by the whole pension. We had marked our
initials on the eggs, one egg each, and when mine showed the first signs
of life, I held it in my hand till it was partly hatched. The little
pecks inside the shell were fascinating to feel in one's palm. As soon
as the chicks could walk, they were taken downstairs into the _cite_,
and their attempts to scratch gravel were hailed by the assembled
inhabitants of the garden in a rapture of several languages. One
Englishman wanted to make them little jackets, so he could take them for
walks in the _Bois_.

Discussion was meat and drink to all these people. Their cry was
"Sensations, sensations! Let the artist experience everything in his own
person!" This doctrine sounded rather a menace to conduct, but talking
endlessly about sensations seemed to be equivalent in most cases to
experiencing them. Nevertheless, some of them indulged in desperate
orgies of black coffee and cigarettes as an invocatio