ou. A diplomatist? An aneurism
hangs death in your heart by a thread. It will perhaps be consumption
that will cry out to me, 'Let us be going!' as to Raphael of Urbino, in
old time, killed by an excess of love.

"In this way I have existed. I was launched into the world too early or
too late. My energy would have been dangerous there, no doubt, if I had
not have squandered it in such ways as these. Was not the world rid of
an Alexander, by the cup of Hercules, at the close of a drinking bout?

"There are some, the sport of Destiny, who must either have heaven or
hell, the hospice of St. Bernard or riotous excess. Only just now
I lacked the heart to moralize about those two," and he pointed to
Euphrasia and Aquilina. "They are types of my own personal history,
images of my life! I could scarcely reproach them; they stood before me
like judges.

"In the midst of this drama that I was enacting, and while my
distracting disorder was at its height, two crises supervened; each
brought me keen and abundant pangs. The first came a few days after I
had flung myself, like Sardanapalus, on my pyre. I met Foedora under the
peristyle of the Bouffons. We both were waiting for our carriages.

"'Ah! so you are living yet?'

"That was the meaning of her smile, and probably of the spiteful words
she murmured in the ear of her cicisbeo, telling him my history no
doubt, rating mine as a common love affair. She was deceived, yet she
was applauding her perspicacity. Oh, that I should be dying for her,
must still adore her, always see her through my potations, see her still
when I was overcome with wine, or in the arms of courtesans; and know
that I was a target for her scornful jests! Oh, that I should be unable
to tear the love of her out of my breast and to fling it at her feet!

"Well, I quickly exhausted my funds, but owing to those three years
of discipline, I enjoyed the most robust health, and on the day that I
found myself without a penny I felt remarkably well. In order to carry
on the process of dying, I signed bills at short dates, and the day came
when they must be met. Painful excitements! but how they quicken the
pulses of youth! I was not prematurely aged; I was young yet, and full
of vigor and life.

"At my first debt all my virtues came to life; slowly and despairingly
they seemed to pace towards me; but I could compound with them--they
were like aged aunts that begin with a scolding and end by bestowing
tears and m