“He who is unfortunate at cards is fortunate in love,” said De Nani, fumbling to feel if the thousand-franc note was safe in his pocket, whilst the waiter respread the table with all sorts of cold things—oysters, mayonnaise, and galantine. “I,” said Gaillard, “am unfortunate at both.” He attacked some oysters like a wolf, whilst Struve, with the withered rose in his coat, whistled a mournful air of Berlioz’ whilst he cut a sardine in three and put a pinch of pepper on it. De Nani was at the champagne again like a leech, whilst he feasted like a man off a wreck. He looked a horribly wicked old man in the dawn, which mixed with the electric light; the paint from his cheeks was on his nose and chin, and his wig was awry. It was a cheerless party; Pelisson was half asleep, and Toto as white as a ghost. Gaillard, his cuff scribbled over with lunatic poetry, cast his mournful eyes at the dawn peeping in white over the silent Boulevard des Capucines. “I was once a youth,” said Gaillard. “That is what the world says to us in the dawn. The dawn ever fills me with despair—a delicious despair. I do not know why, but it seems forever linked to that divine forlorn hope, love. This is the light from which we rebuild old castles and recall vanished faces. In the faint wind that moves we hear the whisper of voices. Fair women walk in vanished gardens, and the sound of the dew recalls their tears.” “Ah!” cried De Nani, “is this a harp I hear, or the voice of a mortal man?” “Have you read my little poem,” continued Gaillard, “commencing, “O Love, whose every golden tress The sunshine holds of loveliness, What tragedy in what dark dawn Hath lent thine eyes such mournfulness? O——” “Oh, stop!” said Toto. “Your poetry makes me want to commit suicide.” “That,” said Gaillard, “shows but the beauty of it. My ambition is to write a quatrain that will be as poisonous to hope as strychnine. Hope, that accursed allurement born of the——Heaven! I am going to be ill; I have swallowed a bad oyster.” “Run to the window,” commanded Toto. “Brandy,” suggested Pelisson. “I am better,” declared the poet. “The taste has passed. The question is, Will it prove poisonous? _Mon Dieu!_ and the proofs of my ‘Fall of the Damned’ are not corrected.” “Never mind,” said Toto gloomily. “You can correct them as you are falling. Oh, what a wretched world this is! I’m going to drown myself in the Seine.” He rose, yawning, from his chair. “Who will follow me?” “I will as far as the door,” said Struve, rising also. “Pelisson, where are you for?” “Home and go to bed,” said Pelisson, rising also. “M. de Nani—why, he’s drunk again!” M. le Marquis de Nani had risen from his seat, and seemed trying to walk upstairs through the air. It was the back blow of the night.