That butt of Malmsey of the Duke of
Clarence's must have had a pleasanter flavor than Seine mud. When we
sink gloriously under the table, is not that a periodical death by
drowning on a small scale? If we are picked up by the police and
stretched out on those chilly benches of theirs at the police-station,
do we not enjoy all the pleasures of the Morgue? For though we are not
blue and green, muddy and swollen corpses, on the other hand we have
the consciousness of the climax.
"'Ah,' he went on, 'this protracted suicide has nothing in common
with the bankrupt grocer's demise. Tradespeople have brought the river
into disrepute; they fling themselves in to soften their creditors'
hearts. In your place I should endeavor to die gracefully; and if you
wish to invent a novel way of doing it, by struggling with life after
this manner, I will be your second. I am disappointed and sick of
everything. The Alsacienne, whom it was proposed that I should marry,
had six toes on her left foot; I cannot possibly live with a woman who
has six toes! It would get about to a certainty, and then I should be
ridiculous. Her income was only eighteen thousand francs; her fortune
diminished in quantity as her toes increased.
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