So it was ordained. We started the next morning—by train to St. Germain-en-Laye.
One of my treasures is a worn road map of Northwestern France. Starting from Paris, a line traces our intended course, down the Seine to Rouen, across country to Calais. It is a clear line. I had a ruler to work with, and the map was laid out on the marble top of a table in the little Café de la Rotonde. Also starting from Paris is another line, which shows the path we did follow. It is less dearly drawn, traced for the most part on a book balanced on my knee. Stars mark the places where we stopped, at night. From St. Germain-en-Laye, we doubled back to St. Denis, then a tangent off to Amiens, a new angle to Rheims. It stops abruptly at Moret-sur-Loing.
I can command no literary form to do justice to that Odyssey—it led me unto those high mountains from which one can see the wondrous land of love.
What did we do? I remember hours on end when we trudged along with scarcely a word. I remember running a race with her through the forest of Saint Germain. I remember a noontime under the great elm in the Jardin of a village café. There was delectable omelette and _Madame la patronne_ chattered amiably about her children and chickens and the iniquitous new tax on cider. I remember the wonder of those century old windows at Rheims and Suzanne’s talk of the Pucelle. I remember trying to teach her to throw stones and her vexation when I laughingly told her she could never learn to do it like a man. And here and there along our route, I remember little corners of the Elysian Fields where we rested awhile and talked. Suzanne had found me unappreciative of Browning. Often by the wayside she would take a little volume of his verse out of her rucksac and make me listen. The first poem to charm me was "Cleon." It led us far afield into a discussion of the meaning of life and Suzanne—to make more clear Browning’s preference for the man who lives over the man who writes about life—read "The Last Ride Together." Her voice faltered once—she realized I think how near it came to the forbidden subject—but she thought better to read on. After that I belonged to Browning.
Those verses seemed written to express our outing. Whether she looked beyond our walk or not I do not know. I did not. What would happen when our pilgrimage was over I did not ask. The present was too dizzyingly joyful to question the future.