The next day I go out to seek for society, but find none. The third day I go by appointment to my friend the artist to see his etchings. He lives in Marais. I ask the porter whether he is at home. "Yes," he answered, "but he is in the café, with a lady." Since I have nothing to say to the lady I go away again. The next day I go again to Marais, and since he is at home I proceed to mount the six flights of stairs, which wind narrowly like stairs in a tower. When I have ascended three I begin to remember a dream and a reality. The dream which is often repeated has to do with just such narrow cork-screw stairs up which I crawl till I am stifled, as they grow ever narrower. The first time I remembered this dream was in the tower at Putbus, and I immediately went down again. Now I stand here squeezed, panting, my heart palpitating, but determine to ascend. I manage to get up, enter the studio, and find my friend with a lady. After I have sat for five minutes I get a severe headache and say, "My good friend, it seems as though I must renounce your society, for your stairs kill me. Just now I have a distinct conviction that if I come up here again I shall die." He answered, "But you lately ascended the Montmartre and the stairs at the church of the Sacred Heart." "Yes," I reply, "it is very strange." "Well," he said, "then I will come to you, and we will dine in the evening together." So the next day we actually have our meal together, and fall into the pleasant mood which is desirable at such times. We treat each other with respect, avoid saying unpleasant things, put ourselves at each other's point of view, and obtain the illusion of being of one mind in all matters. After our meal, since the evening is mild, we continue our conversation, and cross the river, proceeding to the Boulevards till we finally reach the Café du Cardinal. It is now midnight, but we are far from being tired, and now begin those wonderful hours when the soul gets free from her wrappings, and the spiritual faculties, which would ordinarily be employed in dreaming, are roused to waking, and clear conceptions and keen glances into the past and future. During these night hours, my spirit seems to hover over and outside my body, which sits there like a stranger. Our drinking is merely a secondary matter which serves to keep sleep away, perhaps also to open the flood-gates of memory whence all the occurrences of my life flow forth, so that at every moment I can call up facts, dates, years, scenes, and pictures. That is the attraction and power of vinous excitement over me, but a religious-minded occultist has told me that it is a sin, for it is wrongfully antedating salvation, which consists in the liberation of the soul from matter. Therefore this trespass is punished with terrible subsequent tortures.