And that man Gustave Kahn, who takes the French language as a violin, and lets the bow of his emotion run at wild will upon it producing strange acute strains, unpremeditated harmonies comparable to nothing that I know of but some Hungarian rhapsody; verses of seventeen syllables interwoven with verses of eight, and even nine, masculine rhymes, seeking strange union with feminine rhymes in the middle of the line--a music sweet, subtil, and epicene; the half-note, the inflexion, but not the full tone--as "_se fondre, o souvenir, des lys âcres délices._" Se penchant vers les dahlias, Des paons cabrient dès rosace lunaire L'assoupissement des branches vénère Son pale visage aux mourants dahlias. Elle écoute au loin les brèves musiques Nuit claire aux ramures d'accords, Et la lassitude a bercé son corps Au rhythme odorant des pures musiques. Les paons out dressé la rampe occellée Pour la descente de ses yeux vers le tapis De choses et de sens Qui va vers l'horizon, parure vemiculée De son corps alangui En âme se tapit Le flou désir molli de récits et d'encens. I laughed at these verbal eccentricities, but they were not without their effect, and that effect was a demoralising one; for in me they aggravated the fever of the unknown, and whetted my appetite for the strange, abnormal and unhealthy in art. Hence all pallidities of thought and desire were eagerly welcomed, and Verlaine became my poet. Never shall I forget the first enchantment of "Les Fêtes Galantes." Here all is twilight. The royal magnificences of the sunset have passed, the solemn beatitude of the night is at hand but not yet here; the ways are veiled with shadow, and lit with dresses, white, that the hour has touched with blue, yellow, green, mauve, and undecided purple; the voices? strange contraltos; the forms? not those of men or women, but mystic, hybrid creatures, with hands nervous and pale, and eyes charged with eager and fitful light ... "_un soir équivoque d'automne_," ... "_les belles pendent rêveuses à nos bras_" ... and they whisper "_les mots spéciaux et tout bas_."