Hermann cast a sidelong glance at his companion, and was painfully struck at his appearance.  The tall gaunt frame in its stooping attitude; the grayish hair and sad, fixed look; the thin legs crossed one over the other; the elbow resting on the knee and supporting the chin,—­in a word, the whole strange figure, as it sat there, bore no resemblance to Henry Warren, the friend of his youth.  This man was a stranger, a mysterious being even.  Nevertheless, the affection he felt for his friend was not impaired; on the contrary, pity entered into his heart.  “How ill the world must have used him,” thought Hermann, “to have thus disfigured him!” Then he said aloud: 

“Now, then, let me have your story, unless you prefer to hear mine first.”

He strove to speak lightly, but he felt that the effort was not successful.  As to Warren, he went on smoking quietly, without saying a word.  The long silence at last became painful.  Hermann began to feel an uncomfortable sensation of distress in presence of the strange guest he had brought to his home.  After a few minutes he ventured to ask for the third time, “Will you make up your mind to speak, or must I begin?”

Warren gave vent to a little noiseless laugh.  “I am thinking how I can answer your question.  The difficulty is that, to speak truly, I have absolutely nothing to tell.  I wonder now—­and it was that made me pause—­how it has happened that, throughout my life, I have been bored by—­nothing.  As if it would not have been quite as natural, quite as easy, and far pleasanter, to have been amused by that same nothing—­which has been my life.  The fact is, my dear fellow, that I have had no deep sorrow to bear, neither have I been happy.  I have not been extraordinarily successful, and have drawn none of the prizes of life.  But I am well aware that, in this respect, my lot resembles that of thousands of other men.  I have always been obliged to work.  I have earned my bread by the sweat of my brow.  I have had money difficulties; I have even had a hopeless passion—­but what then? every one has had that.  Besides, that was in bygone days; I have learned to bear it, and to forget.  What pains and angers me is, to have to confess that my life has been spent without satisfaction and without happiness.”

He paused an instant, and then resumed, more calmly:  “A, few years ago I was foolish enough to believe that things might in the end turn out better.  I was a professor with a very moderate salary at the school at Elmira.  I taught all I knew, and much that I had to learn in order to be able to teach it—­Greek and Latin, German and French, mathematics and physical sciences.  During the so-called play-hours, I even gave music lessons.  In the course of the whole day there were few moments of liberty for me.  I was perpetually surrounded by a crowd of rough, ill-bred boys, whose only object during lessons was to catch me making a fault in English.  When evening came, I was quite worn out; still, I could always find