the twilight hour
and in the eventide, a vague desire for a sunny, perfumed, southern life?
Will you not bid adieu to this sterile country and sail away to a land
where the blue sky is reflected in the blue sea? Venice! the Rialto, the
Bridge of Sighs, Saint Mark! Rome! the Coliseum and Saint Peter--But I
know Italy by heart; let us go instead to Constantinople. I am thirsting
for sultanas and houris; I am thirsting--"

"Good gracious! why do you not drink if you are thirsty?"

"Gladly. I never say no to that. I scorn love in a nightcap; I adore
danger. Danger is life to me.

"I dote on silken ladders as long as Jacob's, on citadels worth scaling;
on moonlight evenings, bearded husbands, and all that sort of thing--I
would love a bed composed of five hundred poniards; you understand me,
poet--"

"I beg of you, do not make him drink any more," said Gerfaut to the
notary.

"You are right not to wish to drink any more, Octave, I was about to
advise you not to. You have already drunk to excess to-day, and I am
afraid that it will make you ill; your health is so weak--you are not a
strong man like me. Fancy, gentlemen, Monsieur le Vicomte de Gerfaut, a
native of Gascony, a roue by profession, a star of the first magnitude in
literature, is afflicted by nature with a stomach which has nothing in
common with that of an ostrich; he has need to use the greatest care. So
we have him drink seltzer-water principally, and feed him on the white
meat of the chicken. Besides, we keep this precious phenomenon rolled up
between two wool blankets and over a kettle of boiling water. He is a
great poet; I myself am a very great poet."

"And I also, I hope," said the notary.

"Gentlemen, formerly there were poets who wrote only in verse; nowadays
they revel in prose. There are some even who are neither prose nor verse
writers, who have never confided their secret to anybody, and who
selfishly keep their poetry to themselves. It is a very simple thing to
be a poet, provided you feel the indescribable intoxication of the soul,
and understand the inexpressible afflatus that bubbles over in your large
brain, and your noble heart throbs under your left breast--"

"He is as drunk as a fool," said M. de Camier, loud enough for him to
hear.

"Old man," said he, "you are the one who is drunk. Besides the word drunk
is not civil; if you had said intoxicated I should not have objected."

Loud shouts of laughter burst forth from the party. H