Life translates itself into music--a wild "Invitation to the
Waltz" by some Archangel Weber. I laugh out loud. Polyphemus,
who has been regarding me with his one bantering eye from
Carlotta's corner on the sofa, leaps to the ground and
grotesquely curvets round the room in a series of impish hops.
Heigh, old boy? Do the pulsations of the music throb in your
veins, too? Come along and let us make a night of it. To the
Devil with sleep. We'll go together down to the cellar and find
a bottle of Pommery, and we will drink to Life and Youth and Love
and the Splendour and the Joy thereof.
He utters a little cry of delight and frisks around me. In the
blackness of the cellar his one eye gleams like a star and he
purrs unutterable rapture. My hand passed over his back produces
a shower of sparks. We return up the silent stairs, I carry a
bottle of Pommery and a milkjug--for you shall revel, too,
Polyphemus; and as I have forgotten to bring a saucer, you shall
drink, as no cat has drunk before, from an old precious platter
bearing the arms of the Estes of Ferrara--over which Lucrezia
Borgia laughed when the world was young.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249