evidence of shattered happiness. I can still see... Sobs are choking me.

Farewell, dear friend. What would you? I built too high on too unstable
a soil. I loved one object too well.

Yours from my heart.

CHAPTER XXVI. OLD RECOLLECTIONS

Cover yourselves with fine green leaves, tall trees casting your
peaceful shade. Steal through the branches, bright sunlight, and you,
studious promenaders, contemplative idlers, mammas in bright toilettes,
gossiping nurses, noisy children, and hungry babies, take possession of
your kingdom; these long walks belong to you.

It is Sunday. Joy and festivity. The gaufre seller decks his shop and
lights his stove. The white cloth is spread on the table and piles of
golden cakes attract the customer.

The woman who lets out chairs has put on her apron with its big pockets
for sous. The park keeper, my dear little children, has curled his
moustache, polished up his harmless sword and put on his best uniform.
See how bright and attractive the marionette theatre looks in the
sunshine, under its striped covering.

Sunday requires all this in its honor.

Unhappy are those to whom the tall trees of Luxembourg gardens do not
recall one of those recollections which cling to the heart like its
first perfume to a vase.

I was a General, under those trees, a General with a plume like a
mourning coach-horse, and armed to the teeth. I held command from the
hut of the newspaper vendor to the kiosk of the gaufre seller. No false
modesty, my authority extended to the basin of the fountain, although
the great white swans rather alarmed me. Ambushes behind the tree
trunks, advanced posts behind the nursemaids, surprises, fights with
cold steel; attacks by skirmishers, dust, encounters, carnage and no
bloodshed. After which our mammas wiped our foreheads, rearranged our
dishevelled hair, and tore us away from the battle, of which we dreamed
all night.

Now, as I pass through the garden with its army of children and nurses,
leaning on my stick with halting step, how I regret my General's cocked
hat, my paper plume, my wooden sword and my pistol. My pistol that would
snap caps and was the cause of my rapid promotion.

Disport yourselves, little folks; gossip, plump nurses, as you scold
your soldiers. Embroider peaceably, young mothers, making from time
to time a little game of your neighbors among yourselves; and you,
reflective idlers, look at that charming picture-babies making a garden.