are hurrying hither and thither, working and
sweating, where thousands of strangers rub against your elbows; a sewer
where society is of bodies only, while souls are solitary and alone,
where all who hold out a hand to you are prostitutes! "Become corrupt,
corrupt, and you will cease to suffer!" This has been the cry of all
cities unto man; it is written with charcoal on the walls, on the streets
with mud, on men's faces with extravasated blood.

At times, when seated in the corner of some salon I watched the women as
they danced, some rosy, some blue, and others white, their arms bare and
their hair gathered gracefully about their shapely heads, looking like
cherubim drunk with light, floating in spheres of harmony and beauty, I
would think: "Ah, what a garden, what flowers to gather, to breathe! Ah!
Marguerites, Marguerites! What will your last petal say to him who plucks
it? A little, a little, but not all. That is the moral of the world, that
is the end of your smiles. It is over this terrible abyss that you are
walking in your spangled gauze; it is on this hideous reality you run
like gazelles on the tips of your little toes!"

"But why take things so seriously?" said Desgenais. "That is something
that is never seen. You complain because bottles become empty? There are
many casks in the vaults, and many vaults in the hills. Give me a dainty
fish-hook gilded with sweet words, a drop of honey for bait, and quick!
catch in the stream of oblivion a pretty consoler, as fresh and slippery
as an eel; you will still have the hook when the fish shall have glided
from your hands. Youth must pass away, and if I were you I would carry
off the queen of Portugal rather than study anatomy."

Such was the advice of Desgenais. I made my way home with swollen heart,
my face concealed under my cloak. I kneeled at the side of my bed and my
poor heart dissolved in tears. What vows! what prayers! Galileo struck
the earth, crying: "Nevertheless it moves!" Thus I struck my heart.

CHAPTER IX

BACCHUS, THE CONSOLER

Suddenly, in the midst of black despair, youth and chance led me to
commit an act that decided my fate.

I had written my mistress that I wished never to see her again; I kept my
word, but I passed the nights under her window, seated on a bench before
her door. I could see the lights in her room, I could hear the sound of
her piano, at times I saw something that looked like a shadow through the
partially drawn cur