will drop in, when he has corrected his proofs.  He will come with his fine paradoxes and his strained eloquence.  He will lean towards you, he will take you by the arm, and his presence is a nervous pleasure.  And when the cafe is closed, when the last bock has been drunk, we shall walk about the great moonlight of the Place Pigale, and through the dark shadows of the streets, talking of the last book published, he hanging on to my arm, speaking in that high febrile voice of his, every phrase luminous, aerial, even as the soaring moon and the fitful clouds.  Duranty, an unknown Stendal, will come in for an hour or so; he will talk little and go away quietly; he knows, and his whole manner shows that he knows that he is a defeated man; and if you ask him why he does not write another novel, he will say, “What’s the good, it would not be read; no one read the others, and I mightn’t do even as well if I tried again.”  Paul Alexis, Leon Diex, Pissarro, Cabaner, are also frequently seen in the “Nouvelle Athenes.”

Cabaner! the world knows not the names of those who scorn the world:  somewhere in one of the great populous churchyards of Paris there is a forgotten grave, and there lies Cabaner.  Cabaner! since the beginning there have been, till the end of time there shall be Cabaners; and they shall live miserably and they shall die miserable, and shall be forgotten; and there shall never arise a novelist great enough to make live in art that eternal spirit of devotion, disinterestedness, and aspiration, which in each generation incarnates itself in one heroic soul.  Better than those who stepped to opulence and fame upon thee fallen thou wert; better, loftier-minded, purer; thy destiny was to fall that others might rise upon thee, thou wert one of the noble legion of the conquered; let praise be given to the conquered, for the brunt of victory lies with the conquered.  Child of the pavement, of strange sonnets and stranger music, I remember thee; I remember the silk shirts, the four sous of Italian cheese, the roll of bread, and the glass of milk;—­the streets were thy dining-room.  And the five-mile walk daily to the suburban music hall where five francs were earned by playing the accompaniments of comic songs.  And the wonderful room on the fifth floor, which was furnished when that celebrated heritage of two thousand francs was paid.  I remember the fountain that was bought for a wardrobe, and the American organ with all the instruments of the orchestra, and the plaster casts under which the homeless ones that were never denied a refuge and a crust by thee slept.  I remember all, and the buying of the life-size “Venus de Milo.”  Something extraordinary would be done with it, I knew, but the result exceeded my wildest expectation.  The head must needs be struck off, so that the rapture of thy admiration should be secure from all jarring reminiscence of the streets.