"I expect to write at greater length when on my way to Mr. Godefroy's prison at Wethersfield."

Of this dissembling I was not at all ashamed. Was it not my mother who engineered my departure from my natural society, and now I was here, was I not still a man? I might be safe from the so-called July Revolution, but I was not safe from love.

I lay in bed, the cool linens against my heated flesh, in the most delicious frame of mind. When my countrymen imagined America, they thought of savages and bears and presidents who would not wear wigs. Who among them could have conjured Miss Godefroy in all her beauty of form and elegance of mind, her wit, her delicacy, her slender ankles amidst those mad red leaves? Such were the unexpected turns of life, that I who had begun this journey in awful mourning, now lived again in the most delightful way.

I went to sleep very happy and in the morning, having been most surprisingly and properly waited on by Master Larrit, I directed that he copy the letters and have them dispatched by whatever was the fastest method. The good fellow undertook to spend his Sunday walking up to Peek's farm.

I tipped him generously. Shortly after, he was off inquiring about steamers to Sing Sing where Elam Lynds was-as I had heard a thousand times-using the labor of two hundred convicts to build their own prison. He would be the first step on my way to the Godefroys of Wethersfield.

By evening the servant had purchased our tickets at the slip, and had informed Mme Parrot that he would be away in pursuit of his duties. In all this he was exemplary, and there were no more signs of the rebellion I had glimpsed in his eyes aboard the Havre. He made inquiries about boardinghouses in Sing Sing and the climate in the mountains along the Hudson, ensured we were well provisioned, pasted labels on the trunks, and visited Schermerhorn Row so he would know exactly where we would board Mr. Fulton's famous steamer. I did nothing more myself than attempt, unsuccessfully, three sketches of Miss Godefroy.

Then two things happened in quick succession. First I was visited by Mr. Peek, who exhibited a coldness toward me that I found extremely odd.

Only when he produced my unopened letter to Miss Godefroy did I begin to understand.

"She has departed," he said.

"So soon."

"Exactly as expected," he said severely.

I looked into his gray eyes and saw there a mighty stew and puzzle.

"She has returned to her own home," he said. Then I understood. Peek was a father. He had sat me at lunch between his own two beauties. Had he imagined I would marry one of them? He was insulted on their behalf.

"Very well," said I. "Do you have another address where I might reach Mr. Godefroy?"

"The prison," he said.

I thought, You are an ill-mannered fool if you think you can stop me like this-and as for your dreadful daughters, are you a madman? And yet I must soon begin the work of pacifying him, for he would be an inconvenient enemy.

None of this was pleasant, but then the morning post brought a most desperate letter from Mr. Vaux in Philadelphia, in which he threw himself on my mercy, explaining that a meeting of fifty gentlemen had determined the course of my visit and it would be a distinct embarrassment to the cause of the penitentiary system in general and the Eastern Prison in particular if I was not at the Crooked Billet Wharf on the date I had promised.

So I must go to the damn Quakers. What agony to postpone the pleasure I knew was truly mine. For I had seen her soul, the excitement in her cheeks in which, illuminated by the glow of blood, were revealed the palest, finest, most exquisite markings-not freckles, not even of that genus.

In a great passion I wrote, it seemed, a hundred letters-to Mr. Vaux, the Peek girls, Mr. Peek, Mrs. Peek, O'Hara, Mr. Elam Lynds-but toward the object of my affections… I must be patient.

Very early on the following Thursday morning I was on the pier opposite Schermerhorn Row, where, with the low mist a perfect garment for my mood, Mr. Parrot and I boarded the Raritan and set off in the opposite direction to the one my heart would have me go. That is, we churned our way to New Brunswick, then transferred to what had been advertised as a stage wagon with good awning, a disgusting contraption as it turned out. I was at Bordentown that evening, lovesick, sore, and dirty, and the steamboat Phoenix was already at its wharf, tooting impatiently for us like a bull who wishes admittance to where he should not go. Finally, having spent ten dollars and twenty-six miserable hours, we arrived, soon after nine on a Friday morning, at the Crooked Billet Wharf in Philadelphia.

AS THE PHOENIX approached the dock I saw five severe gentlemen in those ridiculous clerical hats. Dear God, I thought, I hope they are not my reception committee. What dry and juiceless creatures, wrapped like ravens, furled like umbrellas in the low sad mist. Perhaps Miss Godefroy has a wharf at Wethersfield and it would appear the same-an identical honking of the geese, for instance, an awful mooing from the shore-but it would be her geese, her cattle, her home, her mist, each drop of mist with its own aura. This awful hollow loneliness in my bones, this ache would not be there.

To my mother's great distress I had become what is called a deist, but how I now longed for a Catholic household. It was not dogma I sought, but to breathe air made of such subtle emanations that I might not even detect the true source of my own well-being. Now, I thought, I will be incarcerated in Philadelphia with Protestants who have built the kindest prison ever conceived, at a cost-I did not need Peek's equation for this-of two thousand dollars for every felon, at which price the state could equally afford to house them in a handsome riverside cottage with a dozen fat pigs and red leaves arranged in wreaths in vases every way you turn.

What use was this to France, or me? I knew the answer but must still investigate, and after so short a time in the country, I could accurately predict the room of documents, the pale gray ribbon, the bound reports that awaited me onshore, including but not limited to proclamations and minutes of those dreadful American associations. Was it O'Hara or was it Peek who claimed these free associations were the bones of their handsome democracy? Perhaps this is so in the giddy present, but let us wait to see them blossom as instruments of unrest and sedition. I will be gone by then, I thought.

And yet was not my hand playing with the letter to Miss Godefroy, a pristine article when it first left my boardinghouse, since spurned by Peek, defiled by his paternal hand, and now twisted and smudged by the ink-marked fingers of the lovelorn French commissioner? And what if my feelings were returned by Miss Godefroy? How catastrophic to be in love.

Master Parrot stood at my side at the rail. Was it solicitude he seemed to emanate? Had he seen me walk beside Miss Godefroy? Had he observed the color in my cheeks? How diligently he had attended me on this turbulent journey, carried my trunk, secured my seat on the stage, belligerently pursued my comfort in the awful hotel.

The Phoenix met the Crooked Billet Wharf with a loud bang, and the Parrot's hand was on my shoulder. I thought, He knows I am in love.

On the wharf the members of the Society for the Alleviation of the Miseries of the Public Prisons awaited us-Mr. Vaux, Mr. Washington-Smith, Mr. Devlin, Mr. Weatherspoon, and another chap whom I took to be their clerk, a deracinated Frenchman. I took particular note of this M. Duponceau, an old man of light frame, a little belly, a mane of gray hair, mouth ascetic but humorous, eyes clear and very lively. I thought, Did you fall in love, long ago, poor exiled creature?

Behold The Welcome of the French Commissioner to Philadelphia. The Crooked Billet Inn stands behind us. A dog gazes at the sky. There is the usual confusion of meeting and greeting.