mer-house, conversing over some bottles of wine from Asti, which we
had discovered by a lucky chance, and were now emptying to the health
of our friend who had just returned from Italy. He was, by several
years, our senior, and had reached man's estate, when we first met him
twelve years ago, on our southern journey. His manly, appearance, the
nobility of his demeanour, and a certain pensive charm in his smile had
attracted us from the first. His conversation, his universal knowledge,
and the unassuming way in which he displayed it, confirmed us in our
first impressions, and at the end of the three weeks, which we passed
together in Rome, we were united in as firm a friendship as ever
existed between men of such different ages. Then he suddenly left us;
he was summoned back to Geneva, where he was at the head of a large
commercial establishment.

During the succeeding years we never missed an opportunity of meeting
again, so he had not hesitated this time to take the longer route
through our town for the sake of spending twenty-four hours in our
company.

We found him unchanged in his outward appearance; he was still a
handsome man, his hair was hardly sprinkled with grey; his high
forehead was white and smooth, but he was more silent than formerly.
Sometimes he was so absent that he did not hear our questions, but
apparently absorbed in his own thoughts gazed at the wine-bubbles in
his glass, or holding a lump of ice to the candle watched it slowly
melting. We hoped to render him more communicative by making some
inquiries respecting his last journey, but finding that even this
favourite theme could not arouse him we left him to himself, and kept
up the conversation between us, happy to have him at least in the body
with us, and patiently waiting for the time when his spirit also should
return.

In the meantime I poured forth all the ideas which had lately occupied
my mind. They were crude and superficial and would at any other time
have provoked a contradiction from our friend who was a sharp and keen
logician. The condition of the Italian theatre had given occasion to
this discussion. I maintained that it was not in any way surprising if
the Italians, in spite of all their pathos and passion, could not equal
the dramatic literature of Greece, England, and Germany; nor does it
stand higher in France and Spain, formerly so renowned for dramatic
glory. The temperament of the Latin races, their nature and
cultivation