You will see to what infatuation those words of pity, that sense
of a beautiful presence, had led me. To fall in love must one
behold a face? Yes; at thirty. At twenty, when one is something
of a poet--No: it is sufficient to see a grey pongee skirt! At
fifty, when one is a philosopher--No: it is enough to perceive
a soul! I had done both; I had seen the skirt; I had perceived
the soul! Therefore, while hungry, I neglected my goulasch to
read these lists of names of the United States again and again,
only that I might have the thought that one of them--though I
knew not which--might be this lady's, and that in so
infinitesimal a degree I had been near her again. Will it be
estimated extreme imbecility in me when I ventured the
additional confession that I felt a great warmth and tenderness
toward the possessors of all these names, as being, if not
herself, at least her compatriots?

I am now brought to the admission that before to-day I had
experienced some prejudices against the inhabitants of the
North-American republic, though not on account of great
experience of my own. A year previously I had made a disastrous
excursion to Monte Carlo in the company of a young gentleman of
London who had been for several weeks in New York and Washington
and Boston, and appeared to know very much of the country. He
was never anything but tired in speaking of it, and told me a
great amount. He said many times that in the hotels there was
never a concierge or portier to give you information where to
discover the best vaudeville; there was no concierge at all! In
New York itself, my friend told me, a facchino, or species of
porter, or some such good-for-nothing, had said to him,