friends,
who had been almost drowned and whom I had attempted to rescue.

Although I was unable to reach the man until he had already been
rescued, I received the hearty thanks of the two Englishmen, and the
following day I called upon them.

The friend was a man about thirty years old. He bore an enormous head on
a child's body--a body without chest or shoulders. An immense forehead,
which seemed to have engulfed the rest of the man, expanded like a dome
above a thin face which ended in a little pointed beard. Two sharp eyes
and a peculiar mouth gave one the impression of the head of a reptile,
while the magnificent brow suggested a genius.

A nervous twitching shook this peculiar being, who walked, moved, acted
by jerks like a broken spring.

This was Algernon Charles Swinburne, son of an English admiral and
grandson, on the maternal side, of the Earl of Ashburnham.

He strange countenance was transfigured when he spoke. I have seldom
seen a man more impressive, more eloquent, incisive or charming in
conversation. His rapid, clear, piercing and fantastic imagination
seemed to creep into his voice and to lend life to his words. His
brusque gestures enlivened his speech, which penetrated one like a
dagger, and he had bursts of thought, just as lighthouses throw out
flashes of fire, great, genial lights that seemed to illuminate a whole
world of ideas.

The home of the two friends was pretty and by no means commonplace.
Everywhere were paintings, some superb, some strange, representing
different conceptions of insanity. Unless I am mistaken, there was
a water-color which represented the head of a dead man floating in a
rose-colored shell on a boundless ocean, under a moon with a human face.

Here and there I came across bones. I clearly remember a flayed hand
on which was hanging some dried skin and black muscles, and on the
snow-white bones could be seen the traces of dried blood.

The food was a riddle which I could not solve. Was it good? Was it bad?
I could not say. Some roast monkey took away all desire to make a steady
diet of this animal, and the great monkey who roamed about among us at
large and playfully pushed his head into my glass when I wished to drink
cured me of any desire I might have to take one of his brothers as a
companion for the rest of my days.

As for the two men, they gave me the impression of two strange,
original, remarkable minds, belonging to that peculiar race of talented
madmen