"To look at the fallen city I loved long ago," I replied, with careless sorrow.
"Have you then also read of the old times in books?" he said, looking round at me with large bright eyes.
"Yes, I have read many books," said I, trying to evade the subject. "But will you forgive me if I ask an impertinent question?"
"Nothing coming from you, sir, could be impertinent."
"I wanted to ask how old you are, because you seem so young. You seem to be only seventeen."
"You could tell me nothing more delightful," the young man replied, with a gentle, yet strong and deep intonation. "I am indeed one of the youngest men alive--I am twenty-two years old. And I am looking for the last time on the city of Paris."
"Do not say that," I cried. "All this may be horrible, but it cannot be as dull as Death. Surely there must be some place in the world where we could live among beauty, some other folk besides ourselves who are still poets. Why should one die until life becomes hopelessly ugly and deformed?"
"I am not going to kill myself, as you seem to think," said the young man. "I am going, and I pray and implore you to come with me, to a place after your heart and mine, that some friends have prepared. It is a garden, and we are a League. I have already been there three months, and I have put on these horrible clothes for one day only, in obedience to a rule of our League, that every one should go out once a year to look at the world around. We are thinking of abolishing the rule."
"It is, and will you come with me there right now?"
"My word will admit you at once. Come this way with me. I have a motor at the bottom of the hill."
During the journey I gathered much information about the League, which was called the Florentine League. It had been formed out of the youngest "years" of the race, and its members had been chosen for their taste and elegance. For although few parents of the day had thought it worth while to teach their children anything more recondite than their letters and tables, yet some of the boys and girls had developed a great desire for knowledge, and an exceeding great delight in Poetry, Art, Music, and all beautiful sights and sounds.
"We live," he said, "apart from the world, like that merry company of gentle-folk who, when the plague was raging at Florence, left the city, and retiring to a villa in the hills, told each other those enchanting tales. We enjoy all that Life, Nature, and Art can give us, and Love has not deserted the garden, but still draws his golden bow. It is no crippled and faded Eros of the city that dwells among us, but the golden-thighed God himself. For we do all things with refinement, and not like those outside, seeing to it that in all our acts we keep our souls and bodies both delicate and pure."