apathetically, from Camille Roqueplan's charming sketch of the Magdalen in the Desert to the severe pen-drawing of Aligny and the great landscape of the four inseparables, Feuchères, Séchan, Diéterle, and Despléchins, the, joy and glory of my poor port's domicile; the sensation of real life was gradually slipping away from me, and I was sinking deeper and deeper beneath the unfathomable waves of that ocean of oblivion in which so many dreamers of the East have left their reason, already weakened by the use of opium and hasheesh.
The most intense silence prevailed in the apartment; I had stopped the clock so that I might not hear the ticking of the pendulum, that pulse-beat of eternity; for when I am in one of my idle moods I cannot endure the feverish and idiotic restlessness of that yellow disk of brass that is constantly swinging from one corner of its cage to the other, and is always in motion without taking a step forward.
All at once, kling-klang, there comes a ring, at my bell, sharp, nervous, and reverberating with an insufferably silvery tone, and falls upon my repose as a drop of molten lead might plunge, spluttering, into the bosom of a peaceful lake; unmindful of my cat, curled up like a ball upon my sleeve, I started and jumped to my feet as if impelled by a spring, consigning to all the devils the imbecile of a porter who had allowed some one to enter in spite of my strict orders; then I resumed my seat. Still under the influence of the shock that my nerves had sustained, I settled the cushions beneath my arms and bravely awaited the upshot of the affair.
The door of the salon opened a little way, and the
