fellowship for the potent distillation of passionate companionship, flavoured with loyalty. That intensifies life, brings oblivion of minor cares, creates an illusion of energy and health. Yet it belongs to a category of things I've forsworn. The old Adam dies hard. And Eve, this time, ascended my rickety stairs, not with an apple, but with a packet of thermogene!
"What deft fingers, what a way of tucking in blankets that always slide off in the middle watches, what a voice to let oneself sink into—a voice which laves feverish thoughts like a cool river. Hair of glowing copper silhouetted against my brown walls! Some suggestion of jade—the eyes. Translucent jade—a risky amulet.
"Like the drunkard I'm sorry for myself in a maudlin way, but don't wish to be cured. I want earthly love once more, only once. I want it neat. Yet with the glass before me, inviting, I'm afraid. Courage, I know only too well, will come with the first sip, the treacherous courage that bears you on the crest of warm waves, mounting, roaring, rolling with an irresistible momentum, the courage that abandons you at the impact, leaving you numb and weak for the arduous recovery."
"Rue N. D. des C., January 19, 1924.
"A convalescent torpor, grey clouds and wet pavements, an unheated hovel and a cough, growing penury—my own fault, but no matter—and the thought of having to commence some routine of daily-breadwinning. I feel as though my soul, as well as my body, had had an attack of double pneumonia.
"I can fight any number of odds and win, if the odds will do me the favour of being above-board and aggressive. But if they are insidious and passive, if they are merely sandbags, mines, and entanglements, I have no resource but to lay down my firearms and ardently envisage the state of affairs I would substitute.
