visit Paris for the express purpose of satisfying himself that I am to
be depended upon, and that there is a house of so many stones in the
Place Maubert. Here I lived, _au premier au dessous du soleil_, in the
enjoyment of no end of fresh air, especially in winter, and a brilliant
prospect up and down the street and over the roofs of the houses across
the way, which reached from the Pantheon on the one side, to the peaked
roofs and factory-like chimneys of the Tuileries on the other, the dome
of the Hôtel des Invalides occupying the centre of the picture. I was
studying painting at that time,--learning to paint the much-admired
landscapes and figure-pieces which I produce with so much ease now and
dispose of with so little,--and, as a general thing, was busy, (though I
had my fits of abstraction, like other men of genius, during which I did
nothing but lie on my bed and smoke pipes over French novels, or join
parties of pleasure into the country or within the barriers,) through
the day, and often till late in the evening, in the atelier of one or
another of the most renowned artists of the city.

At the head of the last flight of stairs in this house was a narrow
passage-way in which I was always obliged to stop and recover my breath,
after finishing the one hundred and thirty-nine steps that led to
my paradise, before I could get my key into its lock; and into this
passage-way opened two doors, one of which, of course, belonged to my
room, and the other to some one's else. But who this some one else was I
was unable to find out. Was _it_--and how convenient a word is _ça_ in
such a case!--male or female? I was persuaded it must be a woman, and as
a woman I always used to think of her and speak of her, to myself,--and
I thought and spoke of her often enough. Of course, I could have settled
the question at once by knocking at her door and asking for a match, but
I scorned resorting to such weak subterfuges. But how quiet she was!
Occasionally, when, contrary to my usual custom, I took another nap