To reach the Rue Delaborde, where Jacques Molan lived, I had fortunately to traverse a nice part of Paris, of the sort to distract my attention. I know it so well from making numerous studies of it when I was preoccupied, as the critics say when they are looking on our pictures for an opportunity to theorize and be modern. That is finished as far as I am concerned. It has profited me all the same; for if I no longer think a picture ought to represent freaks of light without significance, or bodies of human life without essential value, I have kept for these studies a keener taste, a more refined sense of certain landscapes, those of the Seine, for example, the Tuileries, and the Place de la Concorde. I love them especially in their morning tints which give them a tender freshness, distinct water-colour transparencies, with a thrill of alert activity. That morning, though my nerves were still quivering with the intoxication of my new-born passion, the water of the river seemed to me fresher than ever; the grey-blue of the sky more delicate above the leafless trees; the water of the fountains more sparkling with a whiter and more noisy foam. My over-excited being more readily appreciated the charm of the trees, houses, and flowing water. I unconsciously forgot my wise resolution and my remorse at leaving my work, to picture to myself the renewal of the soul which a liaison such as the one satiated Jacques Molan held so cheaply would instil into me. Then the irresistible demon of irony took possession of me.