nable to make use of laudanum: instead of
allaying the pain, this sedative irritated him even to the degree of
depriving him of rest. At one time he had endeavored to procure
visions through opium and hashish, but these two substances had led to
vomitings and intense nervous disturbances. He had instantly been
forced to give up the idea of taking them, and without the aid of
these coarse stimulants, demand of his brain alone to transport him
into the land of dreams, far, far from life.

"What a day!" he said to himself, sponging his neck, feeling every
ounce of his strength dissolve in perspiration; a feverish agitation
still prevented him from remaining in one spot; once more he walked up
and down, trying every chair in the room in turn. Wearied of the
struggle, at last he fell against his bureau and leaning mechanically
against the table, without thinking of anything, he touched an
astrolabe which rested on a mass of books and notes and served as a
paper weight.

He had purchased this engraved and gilded copper instrument (it had
come from Germany and dated from the seventeenth century) of a
second-hand Paris dealer, after a visit to the Cluny Museum, where he
had stood for a long while in ecstatic admiration before a marvelous
astrolabe made of chiseled ivory, whose cabalistic appearance
enchanted him.

This paper weight evoked many reminiscences within him. Aroused and
actuated by the appearance of this trinket, his thoughts rushed from
Fontenay to Paris, to the curio shop where he had purchased it, then
returned to the Museum, and he mentally beheld the ivory astrolabe,
while his unseeing eyes continued to gaze upon the copper astrolabe on
the table.

Then he left the Museum and, without quitting the town, strolled down
the streets, wandered through the rue du Sommerard and the boulevard
Saint-Michel, branched off into the neighboring streets, and paused
before certain shops whose quite extraordinary appearance and
profusion had often attracted him.

Beginning with an astrolabe, this spiritual jaunt ended in the cafes
of the Latin Quarter.

He remembered how these places were crowded in the rue
Monsieur-le-Prince and at the end of the rue de Vaugirard, touching
the Odeon; sometimes they followed one another like the old _riddecks_
of the Canal-aux-Harengs, at Antwerp, each of which revealed a front,
the counterpart of its neighbor.

Through the half-opened doors and the windows dimmed with colored
panes