Page:Works of Heinrich Heine 01.djvu/80

64 "Paris delighted me by the gaiety which is there manifested in everything, and which sheds its influence even on darkened souls. Strange, Paris is the stage where the greatest tragedies of the world's history are acted—tragedies of which the memory, even in most distant lands, makes hearts tremble and eyes weep—but to him who sees them here in Paris itself, it is as it once was with me when I saw the Tour de Nesle played at the Porte Saint Martin. For I was seated behind a lady who wore a hat of rose-red gauze, and this hat was so broad that it completely covered for me the whole stage-view, so that I only saw all that was being tragedied through the red gauze, and all the horrors of the Tour de Nesle appeared consequently in the gayest couleur de rose. Yes, there is such a roselight in Paris, which softens all tragedies for him who is close by, so that his enjoyment of life shall not be diminished. Even the terrors or troubles which one has brought to Paris in his own heart lose their power to torment. There all sufferings are soothed. In the air of Paris all wounds heal more rapidly than elsewhere; there is something in it as grandly elevating, as soothing, as charming as in the people themselves

"What pleased me best in the Paris people was its polite manners and aristocratic mien. Sweet pine-apple perfume of politeness, how beneficently