Théophile Gautier 
Wanderings in Spain 

A few weeks ago (April, 1840), I happened, in an off-hand manner, to give utterance to the following phrase:—’I should like to go to Spain.’ Five or six days afterwards, my friends had suppressed the prudent ‘I should like, ‘ with which I had qualified my wish, and had told everyone who chose to listen that I was about to undertake a trip to Spain. This positive formula was soon followed by the interrogation, ‘When do you set out?’ while I, without thinking of the obligation under which I was placing myself, replied, ‘In a week.’ At the end of the week people began to manifest some astonishment at seeing me still in Paris. ‘I thought you were at Madrid, ‘ said one. ‘What! Come back?’ asked another. I saw at once that I owed my friends an absence of several months, and that I must pay the debt with the least possible delay, unless I wished to be mercilessly pursued, without a moment’s respite, by my obliging creditors. The lobbies of the theatres, the various asphaltic and bituminous pavements of the Boulevards, were to me forbidden luxuries for the time being. All I could obtain was the grace of three or four days, and on the 5th of May I commenced relieving my native land of my importunate presence, by