I went away the next day. Where was I going? I did not know. I had flung a feather to the wind; it blew that day from the south, so my feather was carried northwards. I set out therefore, for the north, and should probably go to Havre. There seems to be an invincible attraction leading one back to places one has previously visited. It will be remembered that I was at Havre in 1828 and rewrote _Christine_, as far as the plot was concerned, in the coach between Paris and Rouen. Then, too, Rouen is such a beautiful town to see with its cathedral, its church of Saint-Ouen, its ancient houses with their wood-carvings, its town-hall and hôtel Bourgtheroude, that one longs to see it all again! I stopped a day there. Next day the boat left at six in the morning. At that time it still took fourteen hours to get from Paris to Rouen by diligence, and ten hours from Rouen to Havre by boat. Now, by _express train_ it only takes three and a half! True, one departs and arrives--when one does arrive--but one does not really travel; you do not see Jumiéges, or la Meilleraie or Tancarville, or all that charming country by Villequier, where, one day, ten years after I was there, the daughter of our great poet met her death in the midst of a pleasure party. Poor Léopoldine! she would be at Jersey now, completing the devout colony which provided a family if not a country for our exiled Dante, dreaming of another inferno! Oh! if only I were that mysterious unknown whose elastic arm could extend from one side of the Guadalquiver to the other, to offer a light to Don Juan's cigar, how I would stretch out each morning and evening my arm from Brussels to Jersey to clasp the beloved hand which wrote the finest verse and the most vigorous prose of this century! We no longer see Honfleur, with its fascinating bell-tower, built by the English; an erection which made some bishop or other, travelling to improve his mind, say, "I feel sure that was not made here!" In short, one goes to Havre and returns the same day, and one can even reach Aix-la-Chapelle the next morning. If you take away distance, you augment the duration of time. Nowadays we do not live so long, but we get through more.