The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

The narrator is initially depressed as he sails for Europe, but he perks up as he witnesses fantastic sights like icebergs. Paris is everything the narrator hopes for. Clad in tailored clothes provided by the millionaire and generously armed with money that is more an allowance than a salary, the narrator walks the streets of Paris. He learns French from women in cafes and devours the art of the city. The French look at him, too, and they see an American. He has few uncomfortable moments related to race (aside from a friend asking him one night if they really lynch people in the United States). On a night at the Grand Opera, he happens to see his father and half-sister, however, an occurrence that makes him feel a desperate loneliness.

A year passes, and the millionaire grows bored with Paris, so the two men go to London, which the narrator finds stifling and overly formal in comparison to Paris; the beautiful countryside and the weight of all that history are all that redeem England. The two men continue on to Berlin. The narrator is playing at a party one night when a German pianist pushes him aside and turns the