pretext for his journey; but
in reality the study of the exhibition, many as were the interesting
objects it could offer to him, the engineer, was a somewhat minor
matter, and he devoted his stay in Paris principally to walks through
the streets, excursions to the environs, wanderings through the
museums, in short, endless pilgrimages to all the scenes where, more
than a quarter of a century before, the drama of his student's life in
Paris had been enacted for three years, and whose image was interwoven
with the most beloved memories of his youth.

A quarter of a century! Almost a human life-time. And, during this
long period, he had not seen Paris again. When he left it he intended
to return very soon and very often. But, as usually happens, life
morosely opposed this pleasant plan. He was bound by the fetters of
duty, and only imagination could allow itself to wander into the
alluring blue distance.

Whoever makes his first visit to Rome throws a piece of money into the
Fontana Trevi to be sure that he will see the eternal city again. We
need not bind ourselves to Paris by such little superstitious
practices. Its mysterious spell obtains the pledge without any
intervention, and lures and draws the absent one so that he cannot rest
until he returns. But why attribute this spell to Paris alone? Every
place where we have been young, dreamed, loved, and suffered, possesses
it. We feel the affection for it which the ploughman has for the field
to which he entrusted his seed. We have the desire to see whether we
shall still find traces of our wanderings, and are joyously surprised
when we discover that wherever we sowed our youth, the best part of
ourselves, invisible to others, but tangible to us, a rich harvest of
memories has sprung up.

Every year Rudolf planned the journey to Paris, every year he was
compelled to defer it to the next, and he was already beginning to
accustom himself to a sorrowful resignation, when the World's Fair of
1878 gave the external impulse for the realization of his
long-cherished dream.

The holiday weeks on which his mind had been fixed so many years had
passed as swiftly as a dream, and the daily yoke of professional work
must again be put on. The last day of his stay in Paris fell on the
anniversary of All Souls. Rudolf, with the great majority of
Parisians, used it to visit the cemeteries. He spent the first hours
of the afternoon in Pere la Chaise, where, beside the o