A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would bring her here tomorrow night.  But no.  What is a week?  Leaden-footed, it is an eternity; but winged with the dove’s iris it is a mere moment.  Besides, I must accustom myself to my youth.  I must investigate its follies, I must learn the grammar of its wisdom.  We’ll take counsel together, Polyphemus, how to turn these chambers, fusty with decayed thought, into a bridal bower radiant and fragrant with innumerable loves.  Let us drink again to her witchery.  It is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly Twins that foams against my lips.  I would give the soul out of my body to marry her, did I say?  It were like buying her for a farthing.  I would pledge the soul of the universe for a kiss.

I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle.  He continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically.  He is stolid over his cups—­which is somewhat disappointing.  No matter; he can be shaken into enthusiasm.

“I care not,” I cry, “for man or devil, Polyphemus.

’Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu
Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!’

You may say that it’s wrong, that the first line is a syllable short, and that Triboulet said ’colere’ instead of amour.  You always were a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig.  But I say amour- love, do you hear?  I’ll translate, if you like: 

’Now am I mighty, and my love of fire
To-night goes even with a god’s desire.’

Yes; I’ll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your hind claws, Polyphemus.”

There!  Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle.  The wine smells of hyacinth.  It is a revelation.  Her hair smells of violets, but it is the delicate odour of hyacinth that came from her bare young arms when she clasped them round my neck; et sa peau, on dirait du satin.  Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery and her laughter and her youth, and I drink Carlotta.

"Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?"

To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I visited.  You yawn?  You are bored?  I shoot the dregs of my glass into his distended jaws.  He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in my chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter.

October 2d.

I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened at six o’clock and crept shivering to bed.  I realise that Pommery and Greno are not demi-gods at all, but mere commercial purveyors of a form of alcohol, a quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed tom-cat as boon companion, at two o’clock in the morning: 

But I am unrepentant.  If I committed follies last night, so much the better.  I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when the inevitable is the crown and joy of earthly things.  For in sober truth I love her infinitely.