elieve--in the teeth of
all experience, in the teeth of good judgment--that with a woman as
passionate as this one seemed to be, he would experience superhuman
sensations and novel abandon.

And he imagined her as he would have her, blonde, firm of flesh, lithe,
feline, melancholy, capable of frenzies; and the picture of her brought
on such a tension of nerves that his teeth rattled.

For a week, in the solitude in which he lived, he had dreamed of her and
had become thoroughly aroused and incapable of doing any work, even of
reading, for the image of this woman interposed itself between him and
the page.

He tried suggesting to himself ignoble visions. He would imagine this
creature in moments of corporal distress and thus calm his desires with
unappetizing hallucinations; but the procedure which had formerly been
very effective when he desired a woman and could not have her now failed
utterly. He somehow could not imagine his unknown in quest of bismuth or
of linen. He could not see her otherwise than rebellious, melancholy,
dizzy with desire, kindling him with her eyes, inflaming him with her
pale hands.

And his sensual resurrection was incredible--an aberrated Dog Star
flaming in a physical November, at a spiritual All Hallows. Tranquil,
dried up, safe from crises, without veritable desires, almost impotent,
or rather completely forgetful of sex for months at a time, he was
suddenly roused--and for an unreality!--by the mystery of mad letters.

"Enough!" he cried, smiting the table a jarring blow.

He clapped on his hat and went out, slamming the door behind him.

"I know how to make my imagination behave!" and he rushed over to the
Latin Quarter to see a prostitute he knew. "I have been a good boy too
long," he murmured as he hurried down the street. "One can't stay on the
straight and narrow path for ever."

He found the woman at home and had a miserable time. She was a buxom
brunette with festive eyes and the teeth of a wolf. An expert, she
could, in a few seconds, drain one's marrow, granulate the lungs, and
demolish the loins.

She chid him for having been away so long, then cajoled him and kissed
him. He felt pathetic, listless, out of breath, out of place, for he had
no genuine desires. He finally flung himself on a couch and, enervated
to the point of crying, he went through the back-breaking motions
mechanically, like a dredge.

Never had he so execrated the flesh, never had he felt such repugn