e book. And then he did not stir any more, but read on, read on with
his eye and his mind; all his wasting body seemed to read, all his soul
plunged, lost, disappeared, in this book, up to the hour when the cool
air made him cough a little. Then, he got up and reentered the hotel.

He was a tall German, with fair beard, who breakfasted and dined in his
own room, and spoke to nobody.

A vague, curiosity attracted me to him. One day, I sat down by his side,
having taken up a book, too, to keep up appearances, a volume of Musset's
poems.

And I began to look through "Rolla."

Suddenly, my neighbor said to me, in good French:

"Do you know German, monsieur?"

"Not at all, monsieur."

"I am sorry for that. Since chance has thrown us side by side, I could
have lent you, I could have shown you, an inestimable thing--this
book which I hold in my hand."

"What is it, pray?"

"It is a copy of my master, Schopenhauer, annotated with his own hand.
All the margins, as you may see, are covered with his handwriting."

I took the book from him reverently, and I gazed at these forms
incomprehensible to me, but which revealed the immortal thoughts of the
greatest shatterer of dreams who had ever dwelt on earth.

And Musset's verses arose in my memory:

"Hast thou found out, Voltaire, that it is bliss to die,
And does thy hideous smile over thy bleached bones fly?"

And involuntarily I compared the childish sarcasm, the religious sarcasm
of Voltaire with the irresistible irony of the German philosopher whose
influence is henceforth ineffaceable.

Let us protest and let us be angry, let us be indignant, or let us be
enthusiastic, Schopenhauer has marked humanity with the seal of his
disdain and of his disenchantment.

A disabused pleasure-seeker, he overthrew beliefs, hopes, poetic ideals
and chimeras, destroyed the aspirations, ravaged the confidence of souls,
killed love, dragged down the chivalrous worship of women, crushed the
illusions of hearts, and accomplished the most gigantic task ever
attempted by scepticism. He spared nothing with his mocking spirit, and
exhausted everything. And even to-day those who execrate him seem to
carry in their own souls particles of his thought.

"So, then, you were intimately acquainted with Schopenhauer?" I said to
the German.

He smiled sadly.

"Up to the time of his death, monsieur."

And he spoke to me about the philosopher and told me about the almost
supernatural