I regret all the more that I have given up traveling, for I seem to have become lazy in this regard, since my visits to Milan were always so delightful--I was going to say adorable--thanks to the friendly Edouard Sonzogno, who constantly paid me the most delicate and kindly attentions. What delightful receptions, and perfectly arranged and elaborate dinners, we had at the fine mansion at 11 Via Goito! What bursts of laughter and gay sallies there were; what truly enchanted hours I passed there, with my Italian confrères, invited to the same love-feast as I, at the house of the most gracious of hosts: Umberto Giordano, Cilea and many others! In this great city I had excellent friends and illustrious ones as well, as Mascagni and Leoncavallo, whom I had known before and had had as friends in Paris. They did not then foresee the magnificent situation they would create for themselves one day at the theater. In Milan my old friend and publisher Giulio Ricordi also invited me to his table. I was sincerely moved at finding myself again in the bosom of the Ricordi family to whom I was attached by so many charming memories. It is unnecessary to add that we drank to the health of the illustrious Puccini. Among my memories of Milan I have kept the recollection of being present at Caruso's debut. The now famous tenor was very modest then; and when, a year afterwards, I saw him wrapped in an ample fur-coat, it was obvious that the figures of his salary must have mounted _crescendo_. As I saw him I did not envy him his brilliant fortune or his undoubted talent, but I did regret--that winter especially--that I could not put his rich warm coat on my back.... It snowed, indeed, in Milan, in large and seemingly endless flakes. It was a hard winter. I remember that once I hadn't enough bread from my breakfast to satisfy the appetite of some thirty pigeons which, shivering and trembling with cold, came to my balcony for shelter. Poor dear little creatures! I regretted that I could not do more for them. And involuntarily I thought of their sisters in the Piazza Saint Marc, so pretty, so friendly, who at that instant must be just as cold. I have to confess to a flagrant but entirely innocent joke that I played at a dinner of Sonzogno's, the publisher. Everyone knew of the strained relations between him and Ricordi. I slipped into the dining room before any of the guests had gone in and placed under Sonzogno's napkin an Orsini bomb, which I had bought and which was really awe inspiring--be reassured, it was only of cardboard and from the confectioner's. Beside this inoffensive explosive I placed Ricordi's card. The joke was a great success. The diners laughed so much that during the whole meal nothing else was talked about and little attention was paid to the menu, in spite of the fact that we knew that it must inevitably be appetizing, like all those to which we had to do honor in that opulent house.