Such as you see
him, he is a hundred and two, and yet quite lately he walked over to
Clermont with our little chap! Oh, he has been a strong man in his time;
but he does nothing now but sleep and eat and drink. He amuses himself
with the little fellow. Sometimes the child trails him up the hillsides,
and he will just go up there along with him."

Valentin made up his mind immediately. He would live between this child
and old man, breathe the same air; eat their bread, drink the same
water, sleep with them, make the blood in his veins like theirs. It was
a dying man's fancy. For him the prime model, after which the customary
existence of the individual should be shaped, the real formula for the
life of a human being, the only true and possible life, the life-ideal,
was to become one of the oysters adhering to this rock, to save
his shell a day or two longer by paralyzing the power of death. One
profoundly selfish thought took possession of him, and the whole
universe was swallowed up and lost in it. For him the universe existed
no longer; the whole world had come to be within himself. For the sick,
the world begins at their pillow and ends at the foot of the bed; and
this countryside was Raphael's sick-bed.

Who has not, at some time or other in his life, watched the comings
and goings of an ant, slipped straws into a yellow slug's one
breathing-hole, studied the vagaries of a slender dragon-fly, pondered
admiringly over the countless veins in an oak-leaf, that bring the
colors of a rose window in some Gothic cathedral into contrast with the
reddish background? Who has not looked long in delight at the effects
of sun and rain on a roof of brown tiles, at the dewdrops, or at the
variously shaped petals of the flower-cups? Who has not sunk into these
idle, absorbing meditations on things without, that have no conscious
end, yet lead to some definite thought at last. Who, in short, has not
led a lazy life, the life of childhood, the life of the savage without
his labor? This life without a care or a wish Raphael led for some days'
space. He felt a distinct improvement in his condition, a wonderful
sense of ease, that quieted his apprehensions and soothed his
sufferings.

He would climb the crags, and then find a seat high up on some peak
whence he could see a vast expanse of distant country at a glance, and
he would spend whole days in this way, like a plant in the sun, or a
hare in its form. And at last, growing familia