The next day he takes a final ride with the prima donna and Madame Lablache. "I was very sad," he writes: "the idea of ending this happy day has spoiled my pleasure. How well she looks on horseback, with her great blue eyes and her loosened fair hair! And why does she quit the stage? Is she tired of doing good? As long as she has been an artist she has lived the life of a saint. They tell me of a bishop who has put certain scruples into her head. May Heaven be his judge! "I know that in Paris people say, 'Why does she not come here to consecrate her reputation? She is afraid, doubtless, of comparisons and recollections.' No, no! she has nothing to fear. She preserves in her heart of hearts, doubtless, some resentment for the indifference--to call it no more--wherewith the last manager of the Opera received her advances for a hearing when her fresh young talent had just left the hands of Manuel Garcia. But since then Meyerbeer has composed operas for her; Germany, Sweden, England have set the seal upon her reputation: we can add nothing to it. As to homage, what could we give her? Wherever she goes, as soon as she arrives in a city its chief personages hasten to meet her; when she leaves the theatre five or six hundred persons await her exit with lighted torches; every leaf that falls from her laurel-wreaths is quarrelled over; crowds escort her to her hotel; and serenades are organized under her windows. At Paris, when once the curtain falls the emotion is over, the artist no longer exists. A serenade! Who ever saw such a thing outside of the _Barber of Seville?_ It is in bad taste to do anything singular. As to escorting a prima donna home, Malibran could find her way alone very well." Roger returned to Paris, recording as he did so the fact that he was by no means overjoyed at finding himself at home: "And why? I cannot tell. Perhaps I regret the life of excitement, those great theatres, the audiences that changed every day, the struggle of the singer with new _partitions_, the boundless admiration I experienced for that strange being, that compound of goodness and coldness, of egotism and benevolence, whom one might not perhaps love, but whom it is impossible to forget."