Page:The Man Who Died Twice (1924).djvu/53

 Though I should have enjoyed, when I was young,

The taste of them. But they were not the wine

To fill my cup, and now it doesn’t matter.”

There was for some time an obscurity

For me in such a reasoning, but I learned,

And I have striven loyally to believe

That he did well—sure that he did not well

In going down those dark stairs again that night

For the beginning of a last debauch

That was to be a prelude, as he put it,

Wincing in reminiscence, for a fugue

Of ravening miseries and recriminations

Assembling in remorseful exposition

That was to be remorseless and infernal

Before they were devouring one another

In a malicious fantasy more infernal,