Translated by Claudine Cowen

WHILE many things in my life have escaped my memory, the recollection of the first hours I spent in the University stays forever indelible, for very precise reasons.

It was my uncle Walter Hartridge who had taken charge of the operations that day. I had arrived from France about the twentieth of September, 1919. My uncle was waiting for me in New York, where we stayed only very briefly. After that we took a train to Washington. Never before had I traveled in a pullman car and my astonishment was great when I settled in a large armchair in which I immediately enjoyed the upholstered curves. It seemed to me that I was sitting on clouds, and that those clouds would swivel at one's will added to my surprise; but since the stunning impression I had received from New York, I was going from discovery to discovery. Undoubtedly, the mere thought that I was not going to see Paris for a long time made me sometimes feel deadly sad, but on the other hand I felt myself caught in a sort of whirlwind, and that was not without interest.