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I had ordered my door barred that day; having firmly resolved that morning to do nothing, I did not wish to be disturbed in this important occupation. Confident no intruder would trouble me (they are not all confined to Molière's comedies), I had made all arrangements to savor my favorite pleasure at leisure.

A great fire blazed in the fireplace; the closed curtains filtered a discreet and languid daylight; half a dozen cushions lay strewn across the carpet; and, gently stretched before the hearth at a roasting distance, I made a large Moroccan babouche dance at the end of my foot—oriental yellow in color and bizarre in shape. My cat lay upon my sleeve, like the Prophet Muhammad's, and I would not have changed my position for all the gold in the world.

My distracted gaze, already drowned in that delicious drowsiness following the voluntary suspension of thought, wandered, without truly seeing them, from the charming sketch of The Magdalene in the Desert by Camille Roqueplan to the severe pen drawing by Aligny and the large landscape by the four inseparables, Feuchères, Séchan, Diéterle and Despléchins—the riches and glory of my poet's dwelling. The feeling of real life gradually abandoned me, and I sank deep beneath the unfathomable waves of that sea of nothingness where so many oriental dreamers have lost their reason, already shaken by hashish and opium.

The deepest silence reigned in the room; I had stopped the clock to avoid hearing the tick-tock of the pendulum, that pulse-beat of eternity; for I cannot bear, when idle, the stupid, feverish activity of that yellow copper disk which moves from one corner of its cage to the other, forever walking without advancing a step.

Suddenly, kling and klang—a sharp, nervous, unbearably silvery ring of the bell burst forth and fell into my tranquility like a drop of molten lead sinking, hissing, into a sleeping lake. Forgetting my cat, curled into a ball upon my sleeve, I straightened with a start and leaped to my feet as if propelled by a spring, consigning to all the devils the idiot concierge who had let someone pass despite strict orders; then I sat down again. Scarcely recovered from the nervous shock, I settled the cushions under my arms and awaited the event with steadfast feet.

The salon door opened a crack, and I first saw the woolly head of Adolfo-Francesco Pergialla appear—a kind of Abyssinian brigand in whose service I then was, under the pretext of having a Negro servant. His white eyes sparkled, his flat nose dilated prodigiously, his thick lips, spread in a broad smile he strained to make mischievous, revealed his Newfoundland dog-like teeth. He was bursting with eagerness to speak within his black skin and contorted himself in every possible way to attract my attention.

“Well then, Francesco! What is it? Were you to roll your enamel eyes for an hour like that bronze Negro who had a clock in his belly, would I be any wiser? Enough pantomime.