, I lived the life of a
cenobite, with no companion but a poor lunatic, whom I had met on a
small island, and who had attached himself to me. He followed me
everywhere, and loved me with that absurd and touching constancy of
which dogs and madmen alone are capable. My friend, whose insanity was
of a mild and harmless character, fancied himself the greatest genius in
the world. He was, moreover, under the impression that he suffered from
a gigantic, monstrous tooth. Of the two idiosyncrasies, the latter alone
made his lunacy discernible,--too many individuals being affected with
the other symptom to render it an anomalous feature of the human mind.
My friend was in the habit of protesting that this enormous tooth
increased periodically and threatened to encroach upon his entire jaw.
Tormented, at the same time, with the desire of regenerating humanity,
he divided his leisure between the study of dentistry, to which he
applied himself in order to impede the progress of his hypothetical
tyrant, and a voluminous correspondence which he kept up with the Pope,
his brother, and the Emperor of the French, his cousin. In the latter
occupation he pleaded the interests of humanity, styled himself "the
prince of thought," and exalted me to the dignity of his illustrious
friend and benefactor. In the midst of the wreck of his intellect, one
thing still survived,--his love of music. He played the violin, and,
strange as it may appear, although insane, he could not understand the
so-called _music of the future_.

My hut, perched on the verge of the crater, at the very summit of the
mountain, commanded a view of all the surrounding country. The rock upon
which it was built projected over a precipice, whose abysses were
concealed by creeping plants, cactus, and bamboos. The species of
table-rock thus formed had been encircled with a railing and transformed
into a terrace, on a level with the sleeping-room, by my predecessor in
this hermitage. His last wish had been to be buried there; and from my
bed I could see his white tombstone gleaming in the moonlight, a few
steps from my window. Every evening I rolled my piano out upon the
terrace, and there, facing the most incomparably beautiful landscape,
all bathed in the soft and limpid atmosphere of the tropics, I poured
forth on the instrument, and for myself alone, the thoughts with which
that scene inspired me. And what a scene! Picture to yourself a gigantic
amphitheatre hewn out of the