ake a hole
in the famous wall, and pry into the secrets of lacquered screens and
porcelain cups. I have a strong desire to taste their swallow-nest soup,
their shark's fins served with jujube sauce, the whole washed down by
small glasses of castor oil. We will have a house painted apple-green
and vermilion, presided over by a female mandarin with no feet,
circumflex eyes, and nails that serve as toothpicks. When shall I order
the post-horses?

A wise man of the Middle Empire said that we should never attempt to
stem the current of events. Life takes care of itself. The loss of your
fiancee proves that you are not predestined for matrimony, therefore do
not attempt to coerce chance; let it act, for perhaps it is the
pseudonym of God.

Thanks to this very happy disappearance, your love remains young and
fresh; besides, you have, in addition to the Pleasures of Memory, the
Pleasures of Hope (considered the finest work of the poet Campbell); for
there is nothing to show that your divinity has been translated to that
better world, where, however, no one seems over-anxious to go.

Let not my retreat give rise to any unfavorable imputations against my
courage. Achilles, himself, would have incontinently fled if threatened
with the blessings in store for me. From what oriental head-dresses,
burnous affectedly draped, golden rings after the style of the Empress
of the Lower Empire, have I not escaped by my prudence?

But this is all an enigma to you. You are in ignorance of my story,
unless some too-well-posted Englishman hinted it to you in the temple of
Elephanta. I will relate it to you by way of retaliation for the recital
of your love affair with Mlle. Irene de Chateaudun.

You have probably met that celebrated blue-stocking called the "Romantic
Marquise." She is handsome, so the painters say; and, perhaps, they are
not far from right, for she is handsome after the style of an old
picture. Although young, she seems to be covered with yellow varnish,
and to walk surrounded by a frame, with a background of bitumen.

One evening I found myself with this picturesque personage at Madame de
Blery's. I was listlessly intrenched in a corner, far from the circle of
busy talkers, just sufficiently awake to be conscious that I was
asleep--a delirious condition, which I recommend to your consideration,
resembling the beginning of haschish intoxication--when by some turn in
the conversation Madame de Blery mentioned my name and po