Little Poems in Prose

lodious sounds of waterfalls the desire never to see again their household gods, their wives, their children; never again to confront the lofty billows of the sea. Strange faces were there, of men and women, marked with a fatal beauty; it seemed to me that I had known them long since, at times and in countries whose exact remem- brance I could no longer fix, and which rather inspired me with a fraternal sympathy than with that fear which usually arises at the sight of the unknown. If I wished to try to define in any way their strange expression, I would say that never have I seen eyes that shone more forcefully with the horror of boredom and with the immortal desire to feel themselves alive. My host and myself were already by the time we sat down old and good friends. We ate, we drank outrageously every sort of ex- traordinary wine, and, a thing no less strange, it seemed to me after several hours that I was no more drunk than he was; nevertheless, gambling, that super-human pleasure, had in- terrupted at different intervals our frequent li- bations, and I must tell you that I played and lost my soul in a rubber with heroic careless- ness and lightness. The soul is so impalpable a thing, so often useless, and sometimes so troublesome, that at this loss I experienced lit-