In the beginning it excited me to watch, and I made it a point of honor never to extinguish my lamp as long as the rival lamp was burning; at last it became the friend of my solitude, the companion of my destiny.  I ended by giving it a soul to understand and answer me.  I talked to it; I questioned.  I sometimes said, “Who art thou?”

Now I imagined a pale youth enamored with glory, and called him my brother.  Then it was a young and lovely Antigone, laboring to sustain her old father, and I called her my sister, and by a sweeter name too.  Finally, shall I tell you, there were moments when I fancied that the light of our fraternal lamps was but the radiance of two mysterious sympathies, drawn together to be blended into one.

One must have passed two years in solitude to be able to comprehend these puerilities.  How many prisoners have become attached to some wall-flower, blooming between the bars of their cell, like the Marvel of Peru of the garden, which closes to the beams of day to open its petals to the kisses of the evening; the flower that I loved was a star.  Anxiously I watched its awakening, and could not repose until it had disappeared.  Did it grow dim and flicker, I cried—­“Courage and hope!  God blesses labor, he keeps for thee a purer and brighter seat in heaven!”

Did I in turn feel sad, it threw out a brighter light and a voice said, “Hope, friend, I watch and suffer with thee!” No!  I cannot but believe now that between that lamp and mine there passed an electric current, by which two hearts, created for each other, communicated with and understood their mutual pulsations.  Of course I tried to find the house and room from whence shone my beloved light, but each day I received a new direction that contradicted the one they gave before; so I concluded that the occupant of this room had an object, like myself, in concealment, and I respected his secret.

Thus my life glided by—­so much happiness lasted too short a time!

The gods and goddesses of Olympus had a messenger named Iris, who carried their billets-doux from star to star.  We mortals have a fairy in our employ that leaves Iris far behind; this fairy is called the post; dwell upon the summit of Tschamalouri, and some fine morning you will see the carrier arrive with his box upon his shoulder, and a letter to your address.  One evening, on returning from one of those excursions I told you of, I found at my porter’s a letter addressed to me.  I never receive letters without a feeling of terror.  This, the only one in two years, had a formidable look; the envelope was covered with odd-looking signs, and the seal of every French consulate in the East; under this multitude of stamps was written in large characters—­“In haste—­very important.”  The square of paper I held in my hand had been in search of me from Paris to Jerusalem, and from consulate to consulate, had returned from Jerusalem to Paris, to the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs.  There they had let loose some blood-hounds of the police, who with their usual instinct followed my tracks and discovered my abode in less than a day.