It is only right to add, for the sake of fairness, thought Des Esseintes, that it is not the awkward man, who generally loses no time in disappearing, but rather the woman, the victim of his stupidity, who expiates the crime of having saved an innocent life.

Yet was it right that the world should be filled with such prejudice as to wish to repress manoeuvres so natural that primitive man, the Polynesian savage, for instance, instinctively practices them?

The servant interrupted the charitable reflections of Des Esseintes, who received the slice of bread on a plate of vermeil.  Pains shot through his heart.  He did not have the courage to eat this bread, for the unhealthy excitement of his stomach had ceased.  A sensation of frightful decay swept upon him.  He was compelled to rise.  The sun turned, and slowly fell upon the place that he had lately occupied.  The heat became more heavy and fierce.

“Throw this slice of bread to those children who are murdering each other on the road,” he ordered his servant.  “Let the weakest be crippled, be denied share in the prize, and be soundly thrashed into the bargain, as they will be when they return to their homes with torn trousers and bruised eyes.  This will give them an idea of the life that awaits them!”

And he entered the house and sank into his armchair.

“But I must try to eat something,” he said.  And he attempted to soak a biscuit in old Constantia wine, several bottles of which remained in his cellar.

That wine, the color of slightly burned onions, partaking of Malaga and Port, but with a specially luscious flavor, and an after-taste of grapes dried by fiery suns, had often comforted him, given a new energy to his stomach weakened by the fasts which he was forced to undergo.  But this cordial, usually so efficacious, now failed.  Then he thought that an emollient might perhaps counteract the fiery pains which were consuming him, and he took out the Nalifka, a Russian liqueur, contained in a bottle frosted with unpolished glass.  This unctuous raspberry-flavored syrup also failed.  Alas! the time was far off when, enjoying good health, Des Esseintes had ridden to his house in the hot summer days in a sleigh, and there, covered with furs wrapped about his chest, forced himself to shiver, saying, as he listened attentively to the chattering of his teeth:  “Ah, how biting this wind is!  It is freezing!” Thus he had almost succeeded in convincing himself that it was cold.

Unfortunately, such remedies as these had failed of their purpose ever since his sickness became vital.

With all this, he was unable to make use of laudanum:  instead of allaying the pain, this sedative irritated him even to the degree of depriving him of rest.  At one time he had endeavored to procure visions through opium and hashish, but these two substances had led to vomitings and intense nervous disturbances.  He had instantly been forced to give up the idea of taking them, and without the aid of these coarse stimulants, demand of his brain alone to transport him into the land of dreams, far, far from life.