I had not the suspicion of a thought of injuring any one.  Fool! fool! egregious fool that I was!  I who understood most things so clearly did not guess that no creature, no being in the universe—­god, or man, or beast—­can indulge in arrogant, full, magnificent enjoyment without gathering and living in himself, squandering through himself, the lives of others, to their eternal loss and his own final ruin!  But, as I said, I did not think, and it was not evident until recently, that I injured any one.  I had for a long time been aware that I had an unusual mesmeric or magnetic influence—­call it what you will—­over others.  I cultivated that power in eye and hand, so that I was soon able to take any person at unawares whom I considered fit for my purpose, and subdue him or her completely to myself.  Then after one or two failures I hit upon a method, which I perfected at length into entire simplicity, by which I was able to tap the nervous system and draw into myself as much as ever I needed of the abounding force of life, without leaving any sign which even the most skilful doctor could detect.”

“Julius, you sicken me!” exclaimed Lefevre.  “I am a doctor, but you sicken me!”

“I explain myself so in detail,” said Julius, “because you are a doctor.  But let me finish.  I lived that life of complete wedlock with Nature for I dare not think how many years.”

“And you did not get weary of it?” asked Lefevre.

“Weary of it?  No!  I returned to it always, after a pause of a few days for the reinvigoration I needed,—­I returned to it with all the freshness of youth, with the advantage which, of course, mere youth can never have,—­an amazingly rich experience.  I revelled in the full lap of life.  I passed through many lands, civilised and barbaric; but it was my especial delight to strike down to that simple, passionate, essential nature which lies beneath the thickest lacquer of refinements in our civilised societies.  Oh, what a life it was!—­what a life!

“But a change came:  it must have been growing on me for some time without my knowledge.  I commonly removed from society when I felt exhaustion coming on me; but on one occasion it chanced that I stayed on in the pleasant company I was in (I was then in Vienna).  I did not exactly feel ill; I felt merely weary and languid, and thought that presently I would go to bed.  Gradually I began to observe that the looks of my companions were bent strangely on me, and that the expression of their countenances more and more developed surprise and alarm.  ’What is the matter with you all?’ I demanded; when they instantly cried, ’What is the matter with you? Have you been poisoned?’ I rose and went and looked in a mirror; I saw, with ghastly horror, what I was like, and I knew then that I was doomed.  I fled from that company for ever.  I saw that, when the alien life on which I flourished was gone out of me, I was a worn old man—­that the