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. October 6th.