Page:Tales of Today.djvu/59

Rh else than a towel. When he perceived what he had done it was too late; the neckcloth was all rumpled and soiled. He had to go and get another one; he seated himself to fold it across his knee. But he was so comfortable, there upon the divan! He resumed his pipe and began to smoke; his head rested luxuriously upon the cushions.

His state was one of languid torpor that fills the head with flitting thoughts, light and fanciful, that change their form or are dissipated into air at the slightest breath, like puffs of smoke; that gives free rein to the imagination, which goes gadding, leaving the numbed body without strength either to follow or control it, like the bird which, escaping from the net, flutters about it and seems to mock the fowler, who looks amazedly upon its flight.

Delightful state in which the I disappears, in which one stands by and looks upon his own life, its sensations, its joys and sorrows, as if at a play, with the pleased unconcern of a comfortably seated spectator; in which one cannot evoke a melancholy thought that, in spite of his efforts to retain it, will not escape him, as water slips through one's fingers, and transmute itself into some ridiculous image which will dance before him in the curling smoke-wreaths of his tobacco, laugh him in the face and compel him to be merry, whether he will or no.

Arthur sets out at last, however. A man stops him on the staircase.

"Is M. Arthur at home?"

"No, he is dead."

The man descends the stairs before him, dumfoundeddumbfounded [sic].