22 November 1900

 

Robbie and More have come from England.  Reggie arrives tomorrow: the three horsemen of my apocalypse.  I told them that, if they were very good, I would share my chloral with them: it becomes interesting when it is mixed with champagne.  I believe that they think I am simply posing as a dying man, and that tomorrow morning I will be patrolling the boulevards, on sentry duty as always.  I explained to them that I am on very good terms with Death: he longs to visit, and leaves a fresh card each day.

      I insisted that Robbie take me out.  It was yesterday evening, I think.  I felt unaccountably better.  We did not get very far: the fiacre took us to a little café in the Rue de Rennes where strange dancers plead for bock.  I must have been looking at everything very intently because Robbie asked me if I felt faint.  I told him it was not faintness I was feeling, but wonder.  Who would wish to leave the world when it has such people in it.  'You shall see the things I shall write now,' I told him.  Then I broke down and wept.  They took me back to my bed.