“Well, but what if I were Hungarian?”

“Nothing; only I was lonely and wanted company, and you looked as if I had seen you somewhere before.  You are an artist, are you not?”

I said I was, and asked him how he guessed it.

“I can’t explain how it is,” he said, “but I always know them.  Are you doing anything?”

“No,” I replied.

“Perhaps I may get you something to do,” he suggested.  “What is your line?”

“Figures,” I answered, unable to divine how he thought he could assist me.

This reply seemed to puzzle him a little, and he continued: 

“Do you ride or do the trapeze?”

It was my turn now to look dazed, and it might easily have been gathered, from my expression, that I was not flattered at being taken for a saw-dust artist.  However, as he apparently did not notice any change in my face, I explained without further remark that I was a painter.  The explanation did not seem to disturb him any; he was evidently acquainted with the profession, and looked upon it as kindred to his own.

As we walked along through the great open quadrangle of the Tuileries, I had an opportunity of studying his general appearance.  He was neatly dressed, and, though pale, was apparently in good health.  Notwithstanding a painful limp his carriage was erect, and his movements denoted great physical strength.  On the bridge over the Seine we paused for a moment and leaned on the parapet, and thus, for the first time, stood nearly face to face.  He looked earnestly at me a moment without speaking, and then, shouting “Torino” so loudly and earnestly as to attract the gaze of all the passers, he seized me by the hand, and continued to shake it and repeat “Torino” over and over again.

This word cleared up my befogged memory like magic.  There was no longer any mystery about the man before me.  The impulse which now drew us together was only the unconscious souvenir of an earlier acquaintance, for we had met before.  With the vision of the Italian city, which came distinctly to my eyes at that moment, came also to my mind every detail of an incident which had long since passed entirely from my thoughts.

It was during the Turin carnival, in 1875, that I happened to stop over for a day and a night, on my way down from Paris to Venice.  The festival was uncommonly dreary, for the air was chilly, the sky gray and gloomy, and there was a total lack of spontaneity in the popular spirit.  The gaudy decorations of the Piazza and the Corso, the numberless shows and booths, and the brilliant costumes, could not make it appear a season of jollity and mirth, for the note of discord in the hearts of the people was much too strong.  King Carnival’s might was on the wane, and neither the influence of the Church nor the encouragement of the State was able to bolster up the superannuated monarch.  There was no communicativeness in even what little fun there was going, and the day