But they were a cowardly bunch. And they did not detect my presence. Oh, now and then they knew an old one was passing. But they never got close enough to confirm their suspicions. In fact they fled at the sound of my heartbeat.

Over and over, I got those disconcerting flashes of olden times, my times, when there had been bloody executions in the Place de Grève, and even the most popular thoroughfares had run with mud and filth, and the rats had owned the capital as surely as humankind. Gasoline fumes owned it now.

But mostly, I had to admit I felt good. I even went to the grand Palais Garnier, for a performance of Balanchine’s Apollo, and wandered the magnificent foyer and stairway at my leisure, loving the marble, the columns, the gilt, the soaring ceilings as much as the music. Paris, my capital, Paris, where I’d died and been reborn, was buried beneath the great nineteenth-century monuments I beheld around me, but it was still Paris where I’d suffered the worst defeat of my immortal life. Paris where I might live again every night if I could overcome my own tiresome misery.

I didn’t have long to wait for Jesse and David.

The telepathic cacophony of the fledglings let me know that David had been seen in the streets of the Left Bank, and within hours they were singing songs of Jesse as well.

I was tempted to send out a warning blast to the fledglings to leave the pair entirely alone, but I did not want to break the silence I’d maintained for so long.

It was a chilly night in September, and I soon spotted the pair behind glass, in a noisy crowded brasserie called the Café Cassette in the Rue de Rennes. They had just seen each other as Jesse approached David’s table. I stood concealed in a dark doorway across the way, spying on them, confident they knew someone was out there, but not me.

Meanwhile the fledglings were darting up, photographing them apparently with cell phones that looked like the slab of glass given to me by my attorneys, and then tearing away as fast as they could, without David or Jesse giving them the slightest acknowledgment.

This sent a stab through me, as I knew I’d be photographed too the moment I made my approach. This is the way it is with us now. This was what Benji had been talking about. This was what was happening with the Undead. There was no avoiding it.

I continued to listen and watch.