be the same as yours, I think?"

Previously to this, Kalinin had squatted down upon his haunches, and
taken some bread and a few pears from his wallet; but now, on hearing
my decision, he replaced the viands in his receptacle, snapped--to the
lid of it with an air of vexation--and asked:

"Why did you come with me at all?"

"Because I wanted to have a talk with you--I had found you an
interesting character."

"Yes. At least I am THAT; many like me do not exist."

"Pardon me; I have met several."

"Perhaps you have." After which utterance, doubtfully drawled, the
speaker added more sticks to the fire.

Eventide was falling with tardy languor, but, as yet, the sun, though
become a gigantic, dull, red lentil in appearance, was not hidden, and
the waves were still powerless to besprinkle his downward road of fire.
Presently, however, he subsided into a cloud bank; whereupon darkness
flooded the earth like water poured from an empty basin, and the great
kindly stars shone forth, and the nocturnal profundity, enveloping the
world, seemed to soften it even as a human heart may be rendered gentle.

"Good-bye!" I said as I pressed my companion's small, yielding hand:
whereupon he looked me in the eyes in his open, boyish way, and replied:

"I wish I were going with you!"

"Well, come with me as far as Gudaout."

"Yes, I will."

So we set forth once more to traverse the land which I, so alien to its
inhabitants, yet so at one with all that it contained, loved so dearly,
and of which I yearned to fertilise the life in return for the vitality
with which it had filled my own existence.

For daily, the threads with which my heart was bound to the world at
large were growing more numerous; daily my heart was storing up
something which had at its root a sense of love for life, of interest
in my fellow-man.

And that evening, as we proceeded on our way, the sea was singing its
vespertinal hymn, the rocks were rumbling as the water caressed them,
and on the furthermost edge of the dark void there were floating dim
white patches where the sunset's glow had not yet faded--though already
stars were glowing in the zenith. Meanwhile every slumbering treetop
was aquiver, and as I stepped across the scattered rain-pools, their
water gurgled dreamily, timidly under my feet.

Yes, that night I was a torch unto myself, for in my breast a red flame
was smouldering like a living beacon, and leading me to long that some
frightened