“That would be nothing to wonder at,” said my husband; “the ungrateful task of taking charge of a festival brings with it so much annoyance and worry that—as he himself told me a little while ago—it is only with quinine that he keeps himself up.... And then he is one who understands everything, forgives everything, and would be willing that everybody should have a bit of happiness, whether what they wish is right or—in the opinion of the world—wrong. I am one who have had fulfilled a warm wish which other people condemned—and it was my happiness.” “And mine, too,” I added under my breath. XXIII A WINTER IN PARIS _Schriftstellerroman_ and _Das Maschinenzeitalter_ · Journey to Paris · Renewed acquaintance with Alfred Nobel · The Schnäbele affair · Madame Adam’s salon · Princess Tamara of Georgia in Paris · Max Nordau · A ball in the Palais of the _Revue des deux mondes_ · Victor Cherbuliez · Ludovic Halévy · Alphonse Daudet Now once more followed a long and industrious period of work in our dear Harmannsdorf. We all stayed in the country, even in winter; the palace in Vienna had been sold, for the quarry and other business transactions had turned out badly. But none of us had any yearnings for the city; the social companionship of the numerous members of the family, the sleighing parties on the snow-covered fields, mailtime with its manifold messages from the wide world, the sessions of joyous labor at our common writing-table, the reading aloud to each other of some interesting scientific book, the many little jokes and silly tricks which we still kept playing on each other,—for we remained like children,—all this filled our days so satisfactorily that we assuredly did not hanker for the pleasures of city life. And then when spring awoke, about Easter-time, how we did enjoy finding the first violet in the sward of the park! and there followed the series of ever-increasing pleasures in the first umbels of the elder, the first call of the cuckoo, the first note of the blackbird. “After all,” My Own remarked, “that is pleasanter to hear than the howling of the jackal. Now spring was thoroughly beautiful in the home of Medea too; but really the charm of the things which one has been accustomed to since childhood, the beauty of one’s own garden, the thousand greetings which come to one from the tones, the scents, and the colors of one’s own home, are sweeter than the most splendid impressions of travel.”