aspects, is too exciting and alarming for so indolent a man, and I am
too egoistic to have much desire to be mothered. What, then,
remains for me? Let me try to describe it to you.


It is the close of a busy and vexatious day--say half past five or six
o'clock of a winter afternoon. I have had a cocktail or two, and am
stretched out on a divan in front of a fire, smoking. At the edge of
the divan, close enough for me to reach her with my hand, sits
a woman not too young, but still good-looking and
well-dressed--above all, a woman with a soft, low-pitched, agreeable
voice. As I snooze she talks--of anything, everything, all the things
that women talk of: books, music, the play, men, other women. No
politics. No business. No religion. No metaphysics. Nothing
challenging and vexatious--but remember, she is intelligent; what
she says is clearly expressed, and often picturesquely. I observe the
fine sheen of her hair, the pretty cut of her frock, the glint of her
white teeth, the arch of her eye-brow, the graceful curve of her arm.
I listen to the exquisite murmur of her voice. Gradually I fall
asleep--but only for an instant. At once, observing it, she raises her
voice ever so little, and I am awake. Then to sleep again--slowly
and charmingly down that slippery hill of dreams. And then awake
again, and then asleep again, and so on.


I ask you seriously: could anything be more unutterably beautiful?
The sensation of falling asleep is to me The most exquisite in the
world. I delight in it so much that I even look forward to death itself
with a sneaking wonder and desire. Well, here is sleep poetized and
made doubly sweet. Here is sleep set to the finest music in the