t introduce poetry into our pleasures. Pass me some cheese
with my turkey. Ha! ha! ha! I feel queer, I am wild, I am crazy, am I
not, pets?" And he bestowed two more kisses, as before. If I had not been
already drunk, upon my honor, I should have made a scene.

I was stupid. Around me they were laughing, shouting, singing, and
rattling their plates. A racket of popping corks and breaking glasses
buzzed in my ears, but it seemed to me that a cloud had risen between me
and the outer world; a veil separated me from the other guests, and, in
spite of the evidence of my senses, I thought I was dreaming. I could
distinguish, however, though in a confused manner, the animated glances
and heightened color of the guests, and, above all, a disorder quite new
to me in the toilettes of the ladies. Even my sweetheart appeared to have
changed. Suddenly--it was as a flash of lightning--my beloved, my angel,
my ideal, she whom that very morning I was ready to marry, leaned toward
the examining magistrate and--I still feel the cold shudder--devoured
three truffles which were on his plate.

I experienced keen anguish; it seemed to me as if my heart were breaking
just then.

Here my recollections cease. What then took place I do not know. All I
remember is that some one took me home in a cab. I kept asking: "Where is
she? Where? Oh, where?"

I was told that she had left two hours before. The next morning I
experienced a keen sense of despair when the truffles of the examining
magistrate came back to mind. For a moment I had a vague idea of entering
upon holy orders, but time--you know what it is--calmed my troubled
breast. But what the devil was her name? It ended in "ine." Indeed, no, I
believe it ended in "a."

CHAPTER II

THE SOUL IN AGONY.
TO MONSIEUR CLAUDE DE L--------

Seminary of P------sur-C-------

(Haute-Saone).

It affords me unspeakable pleasure to sit down to address you, dear
Claude. Must I tell you that I can not think without pious emotion of
that life which but yesterday we were leading together at the Jesuits'
College. How well I remember our long talks under the great trees, the
pious pilgrimages we daily made to the Father Superior's Calvary, our
charming readings, the darting forth of our two souls toward the eternal
source of all greatness and all goodness. I can still see the little
chapel which you fitted up one day in your desk, the pretty wax tapers we
made for it, which we