What was that? Something yellow, and spotted--something sinuous and
lithe, with crawling, catlike motion. No, no! Yes, yes!! A leopard
of the forest had issued from a side-street, a _cul de sac_, as the
frivolous sons of Paris, the Queen of Vice, call it. It was moving
with me, stopping when I stopped, galloping when I galloped, turning
somersaults when I turned them. And then it spoke to me--spoke,
yes, spoke, this thing of the desert--this wild phantasm of a brain
distraught by over-indulgence in _marrons glacés_, the curse of _ma
patrie_, and its speech was as the scent of scarlet poppies, plucked
from the grave of a discarded mistress.
"Thou shalt write," it said, "for it is thine to reform the world." I
shuddered. The conversational "thou" is fearful at all times; but, ah,
how true to nature, even the nature of a leopard of the forest. The
beast continued--"But thou shalt write in English."
"Spare me!" I ventured to interpose.
"In English," it went on, inexorably--"in hysterical, sad, mad, bad
English. And the tale shall be of France--France, where the ladies
always leave the dinner-table before the men. Note this, and use it
at page ninety of thy first volume. And thy French shall be worse than
thy English, for thou shalt speak of a _frissonement_, and thy friends
shall say, "_Nous blaguons le chose._"
"Stop!" I cried, in despair, "stop, fiend!--this is too much!" I
sprang at the monster, and seized it by the throat. Our eyes, peering
into each other's, seemed to ravage out, as by fire, the secrets
hidden in our hearts. My blood hurled itself through my veins. There
was something clamorous and wild in it. Then I fell prone on the
ground, and remembered that I had eaten one _marron_ for dinner. This
explained everything, and I remembered no more till I came to myself,
and found the divisional surgeon busily engaged upon me with a _pompe
d'estomac_.