Chapter 3

My father, M. le Duc DI SPEPSION, belonged to one of the oldest French families. He had many old French customs, amongst others that of brushing his bearded lips against my cheek. He was a stern man, with a severe habit of addressing me as "_Mon fils_." Generally he disapproved of my proceedings, which was, perhaps, not unnatural, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration. Why have I mentioned him? I know not, save that even now, degraded as I am, memories of better things sometimes steal over me like the solemn sound of church-bells pealing in a cathedral belfry. But I have done with home, with father, with patriotism, with claret, with walnuts, and with all simple pleasures. _Ça va sans dire._ They talk to me of Good, and Nature. The words are meaningless to me. Are there realities behind these words--realities that can touch the heart of a confirmed _marroneur_? Cold and pitiless, Nature sits aloft like a mathematician, with his balance regulating the storm-pulses of this troubled world. Bah! I fling myself in her teeth. I brazen it out. She quails. For, since the accursed food passed my lips, the strength of a million demons is in me. I am pitiless. I laugh to think of the fool I once was in the days when I fed myself on _Baba au Rhum_, and other innocent dishes. Now I have knowledge. I am my own good. I glance haughtily into--[Ten rhapsodical pages omitted.--ED. _Punch_.] But there came into my life a false priest, who was like the ghost of a fair lost god--and because he was a fair lost, the cabmen loved him not--and he had to die, and lie in the Morgue--the Morgue where murdered men and women love to dwell--and thus he should discover the Eternal Secret!