Here is the book, of course without commentaries. In accordance with
the imperative requirements of the will, I have not corrected its
style, but revised it where that was necessary, for Louis Delacolombe,
educated in English, had retained some traces of his school-years in
his language. I think that it was written as fast as the pen would
move, and with a feverish hand, in the space of a few days.
I have summarised in a final note the results of my personal inquiry.
There is no need to read it, but I think, however, that it will
interest those whose curiosity is aroused by my friend's enigmatical
narrative.
_P. S._--The drawing below, which is from the hand of M. Sandy
Rose, and which I have inserted at the place that he had indicated,
may have a meaning, but, if so, I have been unable to penetrate it. It
seems to represent a Greek medal dedicated to the goddess Core. But
KOPH means also young girl, and even doll. Besides, are such medals
known?
[Illustration: Koph]
A NIGHT IN THE LUXEMBOURG...
I am certainly drunk, yet my lucidity is very great. Drunk with love,
drunk with pride, drunk with divinity, I see clearly things that I do
not very well understand, and these things I am about to narrate. My
adventure unrolls before my eyes with perfect sharpness of outline; it
is a piece of faery in which I am still taking part; I am still in the
midst of lights, of gestures, of voices.... She is there. I have only
to turn my head to observe her; I have only to rise to go and touch her
body with my hands, and with my lips.... She is there. A privileged
spectator, I have carried away with me the queen of the spectacle, a
proof that the spectacle was one of the days of my actual life. That
day was a night, but a night lit by a Spring sun, and, behold, it
continues, night or day, I do not know.... The queen is there. But I
must write.
The abridged story of my adventure will appear to-morrow morning in
the _Northern Atlantic Herald_, and will soon make the circuit of the
American press, to return to us through the English agencies: but that
does not satisfy me. I telegraphed, because it was my duty; I write,
because it is my pleasure. Besides, experience has taught me that news
gains rather in precision than in exactitude in its journeys from cable
to cable, and I am anxious for exactitude.
With what happiness I am going to write! I feel in my head, in my
fingers, an unheard-of facility....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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