“You are wrong. Your mistress is far from Paris by this time. I saw her get into the stage-coach, before I came to take you out of Sainte Pelagie.”
“Yes, I was stifled in that prison. To get out, I would have given my soul to the devil. You thought so, and therefore you came to me; only, instead of my soul, you took Cephyse from me. Poor Bacchanal-Queen! And why did you do it? Thousand thunders! Will you tell me!”
“A man as much attached to his mistress as you are is no longer a man. He wants energy, when the occasion requires.”
“What occasion?”
“Let us drink!”
“You make me drink too much brandy.”
“Bah! look at me!”
“That’s what frightens me. It seems something devilish. A bottle of brandy does not even make you wink. You must have a stomach of iron and a head of marble.”
“I have long travelled in Russia. There we drink to roast ourselves.”
“And here to only warm. So—let’s drink—but wine.”