My energy would have been dangerous there, no doubt, if I
had not have squandered it in such ways as these. Was not the world
rid of an Alexander, by the cup of Hercules, at the close of a
drinking bout?
"There are some, the sport of Destiny, who must either have heaven or
hell, the hospice of St. Bernard or riotous excess. Only just now I
lacked the heart to moralize about those two," and he pointed to
Euphrasia and Aquilina. "They are types of my own personal history,
images of my life! I could scarcely reproach them; they stood before
me like judges.
"In the midst of this drama that I was enacting, and while my
distracting disorder was at its height, two crises supervened; each
brought me keen and abundant pangs. The first came a few days after I
had flung myself, like Sardanapalus, on my pyre. I met Foedora under
the peristyle of the Bouffons. We both were waiting for our carriages.
"'Ah! so you are living yet?'
"That was the meaning of her smile, and probably of the spiteful words
she murmured in the ear of her cicisbeo, telling him my history no
doubt, rating mine as a common love affair. She was deceived, yet she
was applauding her perspicacity. Oh, that I should be dying for her,
must still adore her, always see her through my potations, see her
still when I was overcome with wine, or in the arms of courtesans; and
know that I was a target for her scornful jests! Oh, that I should be
unable to tear the love of her out of my breast and to fling it at her
feet!
"Well, I quickly exhausted my funds, but owing to those three years of
discipline, I enjoyed the most robust health, and on the day that I
found myself without a penny I felt remarkably well.
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