It was the malady of the age, or rather was it that girl herself; and it was she who, with her pale, halfmocking features and rasping voice, came and sat with me at the end of the tavern room.

The moment I perceived her resemblance to my mistress a frightful idea occurred to me; it took irresistible possession of my muddled mind, and I put it into execution at once.

I escorted that girl to my home; and I arranged my room just as I had been wont to do when my mistress was with me, for I was dominated by a certain recollection of past joys.

Having arranged my room to my satisfaction, I gave myself up to the intoxication of despair.  I probed my heart to the bottom in order to sound its depths.  A Tyrolean song that my loved one used to sing began to run through my head: 

          Altra volta gieri biele,
          Blanch’ a rossa com’ un flore,
          Ma ora no.  Non son piu biele
          Consumatis dal’ amore.

   [Once I was beautiful, white and rosy as a flower; but now I am not. 
   I am no longer beautiful, consumed by the fire of love.]

I listened to the echo of that song as it reverberated through the desert of my heart.  I said:  “Behold the happiness of man; behold my little Paradise; behold my queen Mab, a girl from the streets.  My mistress is no better.  Behold what is found at the bottom of the glass when the nectar of the gods has been drained; behold the corpse of love.”

The unfortunate creature heard me singing and began to sing herself.  I turned pale; for that harsh and rasping voice, coming from the lips of one who resembled my mistress, seemed a symbol of my experience.  It sounded like a gurgle in the throat of debauchery.  It seemed to me that my mistress, having been unfaithful, must have such a voice.  I was reminded of Faust who, dancing at the Brocken with a young sorceress, saw a red mouse emerge from her throat.

“Stop!” I cried.  I arose and approached her.

Let me ask you, O men of the time, bent upon pleasure, who attend the balls and the opera and who, upon retiring this night, will seek slumber with the aid of some threadbare blasphemy of old Voltaire, some sensible satire by Paul Louis Courier, or some essay on economics, you who dally with the cold substance of that monstrous water-lily that Reason has planted in the hearts of our cities-let me ask, if by some chance this obscure book falls into your hands, not to smile with noble disdain or shrug your shoulders.  Be not too sure that I complain of an imaginary evil; be not too sure that human reason is the most beautiful of faculties, that there is nothing real here below but quotations on the Bourse, gambling in the salon, wine on the table, the glow of health, indifference toward others, and the pleasures of the night.