bath of soft perfumed light—­shrouded in the sullen voluptuousness of plushy, narcotic-breathing draperies—­pervaded by the mysterious spirit of its brooding occupant—­grew more and more on my fantasy, till the remembrance had for me all the cool refreshment shed by a midsummer-night’s dream in the dewy deeps of some Perrhoebian grove of cornel and lotos and ruby stars of the asphodel.  It was, therefore, in all haste that I set out to share for a time in the solitude of my friend.

Zaleski’s reception of me was most cordial; immediately on my entrance into his sanctum he broke into a perfect torrent of wild, enthusiastic words, telling me with a kind of rapture, that he was just then laboriously engaged in co-ordinating to one of the calculi certain new properties he had discovered in the parabola, adding with infinite gusto his ‘firm’ belief that the ancient Assyrians were acquainted with all our modern notions respecting the parabola itself, the projection of bodies in general, and of the heavenly bodies in particular; and must, moreover, from certain inferences of his own in connection with the Winged Circle, have been conversant with the fact that light is not an ether, but only the vibration of an ether.  He then galloped on to suggest that I should at once take part with him in his investigations, and commented on the timeliness of my visit.  I, on my part, was anxious for his opinion on other and far weightier matters than the concerns of the Assyrians, and intimated as much to him.  But for two days he was firm in his tacit refusal to listen to my story; and, concluding that he was disinclined to undergo the agony of unrest with which he was always tormented by any mystery which momentarily baffled him, I was, of course, forced to hold my peace.  On the third day, however, of his own accord he asked me to what epidemic I had referred.  I then detailed to him some of the strange events which were agitating the mind of the outside world.  From the very first he was interested:  later on that interest grew into a passion, a greedy soul-consuming quest after the truth, the intensity of which was such at last as to move me even to pity.

I may as well here restate the facts as I communicated them to Zaleski.  The concatenation of incidents, it will be remembered, started with the extraordinary death of that eminent man of science, Professor Schleschinger, consulting laryngologist to the Charite Hospital in Berlin.  The professor, a man of great age, was on the point of contracting his third marriage with the beautiful and accomplished daughter of the Herr Geheimrath Otto von Friedrich.  The contemplated union, which was entirely one of those mariages de convenance so common in good society, sprang out of the professor’s ardent desire to leave behind him a direct heir to his very considerable wealth.  By his first two marriages, indeed, he had had large families, and was at this very time surrounded by quite an army of little grandchildren, from whom (all