become as lunatic as the rest.
Many travellers, when they have departed, remember the events they have
caused there as a person remembers in the morning what he has said and
thought in the moonlight of the night.

In Paris it is moonlight even in the morning; and in Paris one falls in
love even more strangely than by moonlight.

It is a place of glimpses: a veil fluttering from a motor-car, a little
lace handkerchief fallen from a victoria, a figure crossing a lighted
window, a black hat vanishing in the distance of the avenues of the
Tuileries. A young man writes a ballade and dreams over a bit of lace.
Was I not, then, one of the least extravagant of this mad people? Men
have fallen in love with photographs, those greatest of liars; was I
so wild, then, to adore this grey skirt, this small shoe, this divine
glove, the golden-honey voice--of all in Paris the only one to pity and
to understand? Even to love the mystery of that lady and to build my
dreams upon it?--to love all the more because of the mystery? Mystery
is the last word and the completing charm to a young man's passion. Few
sonnets have been written to wives whose matrimony is more than five
years of age--is it not so?

Chapter Two

When my hour was finished and I in liberty to leave that horrible
corner, I pushed out of the crowd and walked down the boulevard, my
hat covering my sin, and went quickly. To be in love with my mystery, I
thought, that was a strange happiness! It was enough. It was romance! To
hear a voice which speaks two sentences of pity and silver is to have a
chime of bells in the heart. But to have a shaven head is to be a monk!
And to have a shaven head with a sign painted upon it is to be a pariah.
Alas! I was a person whom the Parisians laughed at, not with!

Now that at last my martyrdom was concluded, I had some shuddering, as
when one places in his mouth a morsel of unexpected flavour. I wondered
where I had found the courage to bear it, and how I had resisted hurling
myself into the river, though, as is known, that is no longer safe, for
most of those who attempt it are at once rescued, arrested, fined, and
imprisoned for throwing bodies into the Seine, which is forbidden.

At the theatre the frightful badge was removed from my head-top and I
was given three hundred francs, the price of my shame, refusing an offer
to repeat the performance during the following week. To imagine such
a thing made me a choking in my throat