e soul out of my body
to marry her, did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would
pledge the soul of the universe for a kiss.

I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He
continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid
over his cups--which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be
shaken into enthusiasm.

"I care not," I cry, "for man or devil, Polyphemus.

_'Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu
Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!'_

You may say that it's wrong, that the first line is a syllable short,
and that Triboulet said _'colere'_ instead of _amour_. You always were
a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say _amour_-love, do you hear? I'll
translate, if you like:

'Now am I mighty, and my love of fire
To-night goes even with a god's desire.'

Yes; I'll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your hind
claws, Polyphemus."

There! Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle. The wine smells
of hyacinth. It is a revelation. Her hair smells of violets, but it is
the delicate odour of hyacinth that came from her bare young arms
when she clasped them round my neck; _et sa peau, on dirait du satin_.
Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery and her laughter and
her youth, and I drink Carlotta.

_"Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?"_

To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I
visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of my glass into his
distended jaws. He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in
my chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter.

October 2d.

I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened at six
o'clock and crept shivering to bed. I realise that Pommery and Greno
are not demi-gods at all, but mere commercial purveyors of a form of
alcohol, a quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed
tom-cat as boon companion, at two o'clock in the morning:

But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night, so much the
better. I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when the inevitable
is the crown and joy of earthly things. For in sober truth I love her
infinitely.

October 6th.

She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been devising a welcome.
The good soul has filled the house with flowers, and, usurping Stenson's
functions, has polished furn