’At that moment it was difficult to believe in Jim’s existence—­starting from a country parsonage, blurred by crowds of men as by clouds of dust, silenced by the clashing claims of life and death in a material world—­but his imperishable reality came to me with a convincing, with an irresistible force!  I saw it vividly, as though in our progress through the lofty silent rooms amongst fleeting gleams of light and the sudden revelations of human figures stealing with flickering flames within unfathomable and pellucid depths, we had approached nearer to absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, floats elusive, obscure, half submerged, in the silent still waters of mystery.  “Perhaps he is,” I admitted with a slight laugh, whose unexpectedly loud reverberation made me lower my voice directly; “but I am sure you are.”  With his head dropping on his breast and the light held high he began to walk again.  “Well—­I exist, too,” he said.

’He preceded me.  My eyes followed his movements, but what I did see was not the head of the firm, the welcome guest at afternoon receptions, the correspondent of learned societies, the entertainer of stray naturalists; I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had known how to follow with unfaltering footsteps, that life begun in humble surroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms, in friendship, love, war—­in all the exalted elements of romance.  At the door of my room he faced me.  “Yes,” I said, as though carrying on a discussion, “and amongst other things you dreamed foolishly of a certain butterfly; but when one fine morning your dream came in your way you did not let the splendid opportunity escape.  Did you?  Whereas he . . .”  Stein lifted his hand.  “And do you know how many opportunities I let escape; how many dreams I had lost that had come in my way?” He shook his head regretfully.  “It seems to me that some would have been very fine—­if I had made them come true.  Do you know how many?  Perhaps I myself don’t know.”  “Whether his were fine or not,” I said, “he knows of one which he certainly did not catch.”  “Everybody knows of one or two like that,” said Stein; “and that is the trouble—­the great trouble. . . .”

’He shook hands on the threshold, peered into my room under his raised arm.  “Sleep well.  And to-morrow we must do something practical—­practical. . . .”

’Though his own room was beyond mine I saw him return the way he came.  He was going back to his butterflies.’

CHAPTER 21

‘I don’t suppose any of you have ever heard of Patusan?’ Marlow resumed, after a silence occupied in the careful lighting of a cigar.  ’It does not matter; there’s many a heavenly body in the lot crowding upon us of a night that mankind had never heard of, it being outside the sphere of its activities and of no earthly importance to anybody but to the astronomers who are paid to talk learnedly about its composition, weight, path—­the