time
in disappearing, but rather the woman, the victim of his stupidity,
who expiates the crime of having saved an innocent life.

Yet was it right that the world should be filled with such prejudice
as to wish to repress manoeuvres so natural that primitive man, the
Polynesian savage, for instance, instinctively practices them?

The servant interrupted the charitable reflections of Des Esseintes,
who received the slice of bread on a plate of vermeil. Pains shot
through his heart. He did not have the courage to eat this bread, for
the unhealthy excitement of his stomach had ceased. A sensation of
frightful decay swept upon him. He was compelled to rise. The sun
turned, and slowly fell upon the place that he had lately occupied.
The heat became more heavy and fierce.

"Throw this slice of bread to those children who are murdering each
other on the road," he ordered his servant. "Let the weakest be
crippled, be denied share in the prize, and be soundly thrashed into
the bargain, as they will be when they return to their homes with torn
trousers and bruised eyes. This will give them an idea of the life
that awaits them!"

And he entered the house and sank into his armchair.

"But I must try to eat something," he said. And he attempted to soak a
biscuit in old Constantia wine, several bottles of which remained in
his cellar.

That wine, the color of slightly burned onions, partaking of Malaga
and Port, but with a specially luscious flavor, and an after-taste of
grapes dried by fiery suns, had often comforted him, given a new
energy to his stomach weakened by the fasts which he was forced to
undergo. But this cordial, usually so efficacious, now failed. Then he
thought that an emollient might perhaps counteract the fiery pains
which were consuming him, and he took out the Nalifka, a Russian
liqueur, contained in a bottle frosted with unpolished glass. This
unctuous raspberry-flavored syrup also failed. Alas! the time was far
off when, enjoying good health, Des Esseintes had ridden to his house
in the hot summer days in a sleigh, and there, covered with furs
wrapped about his chest, forced himself to shiver, saying, as he
listened attentively to the chattering of his teeth: "Ah, how biting
this wind is! It is freezing!" Thus he had almost succeeded in
convincing himself that it was cold.

Unfortunately, such remedies as these had failed of their purpose ever
since his sickness became vital.

With all this, he was u