from Wormwood
Gaston runs into an acquaintance in park, a wretched artist named André Gessonex. It is a meeting that is going to change his life, because Gessonex introduces Gaston to absinthe:
“Do you like that stuff?” “ Like it?” I love it! And you?” “I have never tasted it.” “Never tasted it!” exclaimed Gessonex amazedly. “Mon Dieu! You, a born and bred Parisian, have never tasted absinthe?”
I smiled at his excitement. “Never! I have seen others drinking it often, - but I have not liked the look of it somehow. A repulsive colour to me,- that medicinal green!” He laughed a trifle nervously, and his hand trembled (...) “I hope you will not compel me to consider you a fool, Beauvais! What an idea that is of yours – ‘medicinal green!’ Think of melted emeralds instead. There, beside you, you have the most marvelous cordial in all the world, - drink and you will find your sorrows transmuted – yourself transformed! (...) Life without absinthe! – I cannot imagine it.”
He raised his glass glimmering pallidly in the light, - his words, his manner, fascinated me, and a curious thrill ran through my veins. There was something spectral in his expression too, as though the skeleton of the man had become suddenly visible beneath its fleshly covering, - as though Death had for a moment peered through the veil of Life. I fixed my eyes doubtingly on the pale green liquid whose praises he thus sang – had it indeed such a potent charm?” “Again!” he whispered eagerly, with a strange smile.“Once again! It is like vengeance, - bitter at first, but sweet at last!”
*****
“You mean to tell me” I asked incredulously, “that Absinthe, - which I have heard spoken of as the curse of Paris, - is a cure for all human ills?”
The action of absinthe cannot more be opposed that the action of morphia. Once absorbed into the blood, a clamorous and constant irritation is kept up throughout the system, - an irritation which can only be assuaged and pacified by fresh draughts of the ambrosial poison...I made my way down to the Boulevard Montmartre, where I entered one of the best and most brilliant cafes, and at once ordered the elixir that my very soul seemed athirst for! What a sense of tingling expectation quivered in my veins as I prepared the greenish opal mixture, whose magical influence pushed wide ajar the gates of dreamland! – with what lingering ecstasy I sipped to the uttermost dregs two full glasses of it, - enough, let me tell you, to unsteady a far more slow and stolid brain that mine! The sensations which followed me were both physically and mentally keener than on the previous evening, - and when I at last left the café and walked home at about midnight, my way was encompassed with the strangest enchantments. For example: there was no moon, and clouds were still hanging in the skies heavily enough to obscure all the stars, - yet, as I sauntered leisurely up the Champs Elysees, a bright green planet suddenly swung into dusky space, and showered its lustre full upon my path.
Its dazzling beams completely surrounded me, and made the wet leaves of the trees overhead shine like jewels; and I tranquilly watched the burning halo spreading about me in the fashion of a wide watery rim, knowing all the time that it was but an image of my fancy. Elixir vitae! – the secret so ardently sought for by philosophers and alchemists! – I had found it, even I! – I was as a god in the power I had obtained to create and enjoy the creations of my own fertile brain...
