Little Poems in Prose

XXIX THE GENEROUS GAMESTER YESTERDAY, among the crowd of the Boule- vards, I felt myself brushed by a mysterious being whom I had always wished to know, and whom I instinctively recognized, although I had never seen him. Doubtless there was in him an analogous desire as regards myself, for as he passed he gave me a significant wink which I hastened to obey. I followed him attentively, and soon I descended at his heels into a sub- terranean dwelling-place where shone a luxury of which none of the above-ground dwellings of Paris can show a rival. It seemed strange to me that I should so often have passed this wondrous den without ever perceiving its door. There an exquisite though heavy atmosphere reigned, which made one forget almost in- stantly all the fastidious horrors of life. One breathed there a sombre happiness, somewhat like that which the lotus-eaters must experi- ence when, disembarking upon an enchanted isle, lighted by the gleam of eternal afternoon, they feel born in them to the soothing and me-