"If you do not leave the establishment at once I will get a policeman," said the manager with a hiss.
Sarakoff threw out his hands.
"Make ready!" he cried. "The great uprooting!" He began to laugh unsteadily. "The end of disease and the end of desire—there's no difference. You never knew that, brothers. I've come back to tell you—thousands and thousands of miles—into the great dimension of hell and heaven. It was a mistake and I'm going back. Look! She's fading—further and further——" He pointed a shaking hand across the room and suddenly collapsed, half supported by the manager.
"Dead drunk," remarked a neighbour.
I turned.
"No. Live drunk," I said. "The champagne has brought him back to the world of desire."
The speaker, a clean-shaven young man, stared insolently.
"You have no business to come into a public place with that disease," he said with a sneer.
"You are right. I have no business here. My business is to warn the world that the end of desire is at hand." I signalled to a waiter and together we managed to get Sarakoff into a taxi-cab.
As we drove home, all that lay behind Sarakoff's broken confused words revealed itself with increasing distinctness to me.