But little by little France recedes to larboard. To starboard 
America shows her nose. Marcelle becomes more fantastic, eats 
cakes, drinks whiskey. I speak to her with my whole heart, she 
speaks to me of the “Metropolitan.” 
Herds of bison in the firmament graze on the shore of a river 
of Velay. Then all the cows calve, and already the bear of the 
Rocky Mountains walks with his step of stone into a clay pipe 
canon. A lamb comes up to the threshhold of my pen, then 
sneezing disappears into the Cevennes. And here the hog, the 
buffalo, and Wall Street. The ocean is iridescent with cod, with 
whales. An odor of the Mississippi invades the hatchways. 
Little by little the Swedes become Swedish again; the Cubans, 
Cuban; the Spaniards, Spanish; the Greeks, Hellenes; the 
English, Irish; the French, American. Marcelle puts on a rain 
coat; eats corn, bacon; reads the New York Herald with glasses. 
She speaks of dollars, of the Mexican Eagle. She walks on the 
bridge, cane in hand. She buys a Bible. 
As we approach New York, I feel my fantasy turn to Love. 
The sky, the water, the currents impregnate my clothing, my 
heart. I become more and more pale. I offer Marcelle a cigar 
holder, ten Wyoming bonds, Fifth Avenue. Jerome Coeur dis 
pleases me. He swings about, shaves, becomes smooth. I ask 
him: 
—“Jerome, what kind of weather is it?” 
—“It rains!” 
Marcelle, Marcelle, today you are mine. Liberty opens her 
arms to me. Yours feel Los Angeles, Saint-Louis. Herds of 
beavers swim in a stream of cotton, rigid and webbed, like bad 
angels. Giraffes lift toward the twenty-eighth story their ser 
pent necks with spectacles. Marcelle gives me her mouth, her 
breasts. New York. Odor of iron, of coffee, of publicity, of 
Remington, of Rockefeller. New York. Young men of Louisi 
ana, high upon the stilts of thigh bones. Women of silver upon 
the pavements of azure. New York. New York. 
New York! Everyone descends! 
J08EPH DELTEIL