"But how can a man confess such things?" my companion asked me, and we stood looking at each other in the midst of the gardens until an ape, cattling prettily, ran towards me and jumped into my arms, and looking at the curious little wizened face, the long arms covered with hair, I said: "Verlaine has an extraordinary power of expression, and to be ashamed of nothing; but to be ashamed is his genius, just as it was Manet's. It is to his shamelessness that we owe his most beautiful poems, all written in garrets, in taverns, in hospitals--yes, and in prison." "In prison! But he didn't steal, did he?" and the _commerçant's_ wife looked at me with a frightened air, and I think her hand went towards her pocket. "No, no; a mere love story, a dispute with Rambaud in some haunt of vice, a knife flashed, Rambaud was stabbed, and Verlaine spent three years in prison. As for Rambaud, it was said that he repented and renounced love, entered a monastery, and was digging the soil somewhere on the shores of the Red Sea for the grace of God. But these hopes proved illusory; only Verlaine knows where he is, and he will not tell. The last certain news we had of him was that he had joined a caravan of Arabs, and had wandered somewhere into the desert with these wanderers, preferring savagery to civilization. Verlaine preferred civilized savagery, and so he remained in Paris; and so he drags on, living in thieves' quarters, getting drunk, writing beautiful poems in the hospitals, coming out of hospitals and falling in love with drabs." Dans ces femmes d'ailleurs je n'ai pas trouvé l'ange Qu'il eût fallu pour remplacer ce diable, toi! L'une, fille du Nord, native d'un Crotoy, Etait rousse, mal grasse et de prestance molle; Elle ne m'adressa guère qu'une parole Et c'était d'un petit cadeau qu'il s'agissait, En revanche, dans son accent d'ail et de poivre, Une troisième, recemment chanteuse au Havre, Affectait de dandinement des matelots Et m'... enguelait comme un gabier tancant les flots, Mais portrait beau vraiment, sacrédié, quel dommage La quatrième était sage comme une image, Châtain clair, peu de gorge et priait Dieu parfois: Le diantre soit de ses sacrés signes de croix! Les seize autres, autant du moins que ma mémoire Surnage en ce vortex, contaient toutes l'histoire Connue, un amant chic, puis des vieux, puis "l'îlot" Tantôt bien, tantôt moins, le clair café falot Les terasses l'été, l'hiver les brasseries Et par degrés l'humble trottoir en théories En attendant les bons messieurs compatissants Capables d'un louis et pas trop repoussants _Qutorum ego parva pars erim_, me disais-je. Mais toutes, comme la première du cortège, Dès avant la bougie éteinte et le rideau Tiré, n'oubliaient pas le "mon petit cadeau."