I walked through the Boulevard Montmartre, and at every step I took I became more profoundly miserable. One had called Paris the pleasure city, the fairest city in the world, in the days before the Proclamation; for one found it vibrating with beauty and life. And now assuredly it was supremely a city of pleasure, for there was no work to be done at all. So no artist ever took any trouble now, since there was neither payment nor fame attainable; and wonderful caricatures of philanthropists scribbled on the pavement or elsewhere, or clever ribald songs shrieking out of gramophones were the only reminder of that past and beautiful Paris that I had known. There was a fatuous and brutal expression on most of the faces, and the people seemed to be too lazy to do anything except drink and fondle. Even the lunatics attracted but little attention. There was a flying-machine man who was determined, as he expressed it, "that it should not be said of the human race that it never flew." Even the "Anglais" were tired of helping him with his machine, which he was quietly building on the Place de l'Opéra--a mass of intricate wires, bamboos, and paper boxes; and the inventor himself frequently got lost as he climbed cheerily among the rigging. Weary of all this, I slept, alone, in one of the public beds, and early next morning I clambered up the sacred slope of the Butte to see the sunrise. The great silence of early morning was over the town, a deathly and unnatural stillness. As I stood leaning over the parapet, thinking miserably, a young man came up the hill slowly yet gracefully, so that it was a pleasure to look at him. His face was sad and noble, and as I had never thought to see nobility again, I hoped he would be a friend to me. However, he turned himself almost roughly, and said: "Why have you come here?" "To look at the fallen city I loved long ago," I replied, with careless sorrow. "Have you then also read of the old times in books?" he said, looking round at me with large bright eyes. "Yes, I have read many books," said I, trying to evade the subject. "But will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?" "Nothing coming from you, sir, could be impertinent." "I wanted to ask how old you are, because you seem so young. You seem to be only seventeen." "You could tell me nothing more delightful," the young man replied, with a gentle, yet strong and deep intonation. "I am indeed one of the youngest men alive--I am twenty-two years old. And I am looking for the last time on the city of Paris." "Do not say that," I cried. "All this may be horrible, but it cannot be as dull as Death. Surely there must be some place in the world where we could live among beauty, some other folk besides ourselves who are still poets. Why should one die until life becomes hopelessly ugly and deformed?"