My well-beloved little madcap was dining with me, and through the open
window of the dining-room I was contemplating the moving architecture
which God formed from the vapors, the marvellous constructions of the
impalpable. And I was saying to myself, in my reflection: "All these
phantasmagoria are almost as beautiful as the eyes of my beautiful
well-beloved, the little prodigious madcap with green eyes."
And all at once I received a violent punch in the back, and I heard a
hoarse and charming voice, a voice hysterical and husky as with brandy,
which said to me: "Are you going to eat your soup, s..., b... of a
dealer in clouds?"