window was narrow,
being the one over the seat, beside the door, or I believe I would have
jumped out of it then and there. In an instant the speed increased,
and I was being carried swiftly away in the opposite direction from the
thing I loved.
For a quarter of an hour I lay back in my place, stunned by the
suddenness of the apparition. At last one of the two other passengers,
a large and gorgeous captain of the White Konigsberg Cuirassiers,
civilly but firmly suggested that I might shut my window, as the
evening was cold. I did so, with an apology, and relapsed into
silence. The train ran swiftly on for a long time, and it was already
beginning to slacken speed before entering another station, when I
roused myself and made a sudden resolution. As the carriage stopped
before the brilliantly lighted platform, I seized my belongings,
saluted my fellow-passengers, and got out, determined to take the first
express back to Paris.
This time the circumstances of the vision had been so natural that it
did not strike me that there was anything unreal about the face, or
about the woman to whom it belonged. I did not try to explain to
myself how the face, and the woman, could be travelling by a fast train
from Berlin to Paris on a winter's afternoon, when both were in my mind
indelibly associated with the moonlight and the fountains in my own
English home. I certainly would not have admitted that I had been
mistaken in the dusk, attributing to what I had seen a resemblance to
my former vision which did not really exist. There was not the
slightest doubt in my mind, and I was positively sure that I had again
seen the face I loved. I did not hesitate, and in a few hours I was on
my way back to Paris. I could not help reflecting on my ill luck.
Wandering as I had been for many months, it might as easily have
chanced that I should be travelling in the same train with that woman,
instead of going the other way. But my luck was destined to turn for a
time.
I searched Paris for several days. I dined at the principal hotels; I
went to the theatres; I rode in the Bois de Boulogne in the morning,
and picked up an acquaintance, whom I forced to drive with me in the
afternoon. I went to mass at the Madeleine, and I attended the
services at the English Church. I hung about the Louvre and Notre
Dame. I went to Versailles. I spent hours in parading the Rue de
Rivoli, in the neighborhood of Meurice's corner, where foreigne
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