the assurance which had inspired him in the distant shadows.  He sat down and, with both elbows on the desk, rubbed his forehead.  “And yet it is true—­it is true.  In the destructive element immerse.” . . .  He spoke in a subdued tone, without looking at me, one hand on each side of his face.  “That was the way.  To follow the dream, and again to follow the dream—­and so—­ewig—­usque ad finem. . . .”  The whisper of his conviction seemed to open before me a vast and uncertain expanse, as of a crepuscular horizon on a plain at dawn—­or was it, perchance, at the coming of the night?  One had not the courage to decide; but it was a charming and deceptive light, throwing the impalpable poesy of its dimness over pitfalls—­over graves.  His life had begun in sacrifice, in enthusiasm for generous ideas; he had travelled very far, on various ways, on strange paths, and whatever he followed it had been without faltering, and therefore without shame and without regret.  In so far he was right.  That was the way, no doubt.  Yet for all that, the great plain on which men wander amongst graves and pitfalls remained very desolate under the impalpable poesy of its crepuscular light, overshadowed in the centre, circled with a bright edge as if surrounded by an abyss full of flames.  When at last I broke the silence it was to express the opinion that no one could be more romantic than himself.

’He shook his head slowly, and afterwards looked at me with a patient and inquiring glance.  It was a shame, he said.  There we were sitting and talking like two boys, instead of putting our heads together to find something practical—­a practical remedy—­for the evil—­for the great evil—­he repeated, with a humorous and indulgent smile.  For all that, our talk did not grow more practical.  We avoided pronouncing Jim’s name as though we had tried to keep flesh and blood out of our discussion, or he were nothing but an erring spirit, a suffering and nameless shade.  “Na!” said Stein, rising.  “To-night you sleep here, and in the morning we shall do something practical—­practical. . . .”  He lit a two-branched candlestick and led the way.  We passed through empty dark rooms, escorted by gleams from the lights Stein carried.  They glided along the waxed floors, sweeping here and there over the polished surface of a table, leaped upon a fragmentary curve of a piece of furniture, or flashed perpendicularly in and out of distant mirrors, while the forms of two men and the flicker of two flames could be seen for a moment stealing silently across the depths of a crystalline void.  He walked slowly a pace in advance with stooping courtesy; there was a profound, as it were a listening, quietude on his face; the long flaxen locks mixed with white threads were scattered thinly upon his slightly bowed neck.

’"He is romantic—­romantic,” he repeated.  “And that is very bad—­very bad. . . .  Very good, too,” he added.  “But is he?” I queried.

’"Gewiss,” he said, and stood still holding up the candelabrum, but without looking at me.  “Evident!  What is it that by inward pain makes him know himself?  What is it that for you and me makes him—­exist?”