Edmund Von Freyhold returned from Iceland that same evening and was very surprised and delighted to see me and sadly deplored not having had the privilege of meeting me with ‘Einen blumen’. He said that it felt almost unreal that I should be sitting there. “What is true and what is fiction?” he said.

I replied that I thought one was as true as the other - both are illusions - after all there are no stories so true as those we dream of.

“Is not life itself a dream?” he replied bending forward. How fascinating Edmund was. He had that strength of being about him.

Later we sat in the garden. The crimson ramblers were early and waiting to burst into their lovely deep colours. They scampered up long poles like naughty children.

Every day we went out together around Paris. Steffy did not always accompany us in the morning. “Saving herself for the evening, ‘ she said.

We drove sometimes slowly through the streets which glittered and seemed full of adventures. We hired what they called a fiacre - a much nicer and cleaner one than I had hired on that memorial morning - and passed along right bank where the ’Grand Boulevard’ meets L’Avenue L’Opera and ‘La Rue De La Paix’.

And here it was! The fashionable and pleasure ridden district that the Quarter held in noble scorn We dismissed our carriage and, meeting several friends, we strolled along the Boulevard. Later we took chairs around a marble table.

There was a tall young artist, the painter Karl Wiek - also the sculptor Otto Hettner and Doutendeigh - a poet.

Someone suggested taking me to the ‘Luxembourg Gardens’ to see some of the exquisite statuary - also Rodin whom I met in person later at his studio near Montparnasse. I loved the fountain Medicis which represented a group - the giant Polypheme overshadowing that of his sweetheart Galthee where she lies in the arms of her lover Acis.

They delighted in showing me all these and said I was very much alive to beauty.

We walked back to the ‘Place De L’Opera’. The gleaming colourful boulevards were like jewels with glittering perfumeries. The restaurants so crowded - some so tiny and cosy but innumerable. All so peculiarly Parisienne.

Everyday we did something or went somewhere. The mornings Otto and Karl and Edmund spent working in their own studios, but they made time so as to take me to see as much as I could. Many were the days I spent among the treasure aisles  

of the Louvre where hung some of the most marvellous paintings by artists of world renown. I loved the Mona Lisa with her inward smile and Botticelli’s Madonna and Lorenzo’s picture of the Nativity. Edmund showed me how I could reach the portals of the sublime.

The Louvre was a short tram ride from the Rue Boulard past the Lyon de Belfort . There were intricate passages but I could soon find my way.

One beautiful afternoon we visited the forests of Fontainblue with Edmund and two bearded artists - the beards made them look quite middle aged but they were really only twenty one. Heinrich Borgman declared that he wanted to paint me and make me immortal and became quite alarmed when told that I would not staying for long.

We went to Versailles and we had a picnic under the great trees. Coming back in the evening we walked along the ‘Montparnasse’ and spent a happy evening on the ‘Boulevard Saint Germain’.

I was so happy and getting used to my surroundings which were utterly different to what I had ever experienced. In the morning I rose early and lighted a little charcoal fire and used bellows to keep it hot with a red glow. We used bellows at home on Brasted Chart for our woodfires. I made french coffee which was poured out into little blue and white cups and saucers painted with little people and purple with white flowers all around the edges. We ate fresh baked brioches which were left on the doorstep every morning.

We sat long over these and by the time they were finished it was mid morning and people were taking their morning walk.

Several times I went with Stephani to the ‘Place de Concord’ where the leaves of the plane trees fluttered and the water glimmered below. We strolled along the ‘Champs Elysees’ under the shade of great chestnut trees.

Little children, so Parisienne in their cheque dresses played with their adored toys of feathers, set in a moving ring on a stick which whirred and whirred around like a Catherine wheel. Some had red tops or hoops and shuttlecocks that spun up in the air.

We put up our sunshades and wore light dresses and idled the morning away. Then Stephani suggested we drove home so that we might get rested ready for the evening when Otto had promised to take us to the ‘Brassiere Universal’.

“He spends money like lightening when he has it, ‘ Steffy said.

So we drove back our parasols fluttering in the breeze.