“Ah! well, my poor friend, I am here,” he said, in that mute language that phantoms understand.  “I have taken your place, and almost your form; I play your part in the great fair of this world, and, although your noble body has rested for four years, six feet underground, thanks to me you still live.  I always have had a most sincere admiration for you.  I considered you a phenomenon, a prodigy.  You were courageous, devoted, generosity itself; you esteemed honour above all the gold deposits in California; you detested all coarse thoughts and doubtful actions; your mother had nourished you in all sublime follies.  You were a true chevalier, a true Pole, the last Don Quixote in this age of sceptics, plunderers, and interlopers.  Blessed be the chance that made us acquainted!  You lived retired, solitary, unknown, in a miserable hovel just outside of Bucharest.  So goes the world!  You were in hiding—­you who had nothing to hide from either God or man—­you who deserved a crown.  Alas! the Russian Government had the poor taste not to appreciate your exploits, and you feared that it would claim and obtain your extradition.  At our first meeting I pleased you, and you took me into your friendship; I spoke Polish, and you loved music.  I became your intimate friend, your sole companion, your confidant.  You must grant that you owe to me the last happy moments of your short existence.  I soon knew your origin, the history of your youth, of your enterprises, and of your misfortunes.  You initiated me into the secret of the great invention that you had just made; you explained to me in detail the mechanism of your famous gun.  I was intelligent; I understood, or thought I understood.  This gun, you said, would one day make my fortune, for, on your own account, you had renounced all hope; you had heart-disease, and you knew that you were condemned to a speedy end.  My imagination was kindled.  Through my entreaty you decided to leave with me for Vienna.  This expedition was fatal to you, but I swear to you I did not foresee it.”

Samuel crossed his hands on his knee; then he continued:  “May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, may my blood cease to flow in my veins, may the marrow dry up in my bones, if ever I forget to be grateful for what I owe to you, Abel Larinski, or cease to remember the forlorn hovel in which we passed the first night of our journey!  You were attacked by suffocation.  You had only time to call and wake me.  I hastened to you.  You gave me, in a dying voice, your last instructions.  You delivered into my hands your last fifty florins, which were as acceptable as an orange would have been to the shipwrecked passengers of the Medusa.  Then you pointed with your finger to a box, in which were inclosed family relics, letters, your journal, and papers.  You said:  ’Destroy all that; Poland is dead, let no one remember that I have lived!’ After that you breathed your last.  Well!  I confess that I did not fulfil your orders.