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 impression which this strange being made on all who came
near him.

He gave me an account of the interview of the old iconoclast with a
French politician, a doctrinaire Republican, who wanted to get a glimpse
of this man, and found him in a noisy tavern, seated in the midst of
his disciples, dry, wrinkled, laughing with an unforgettable laugh,
attacking and tearing to pieces ideas and beliefs with a single word, as
a dog tears with one bite of his teeth the tissues with which he plays.

He repeated for me the comment of this Frenchman as he went away,
astonished and terrified: "I thought I had spent an hour with the
devil."

Then he added:

"He had, indeed, monsieur, a frightful smile, which terrified us
even after his death. I can tell you an anecdote about it that is not
generally known, if it would interest you."

And he began, in a languid voice, interrupted by frequent fits of
coughing.

"Schopenhauer had just died, and it was arranged that we should watch,
in turn, two by two, till morning.

"He was lying in a large apartment, very simple, vast and gloomy. Two
wax candles were burning on the stand by the bedside.

"It was midnight when I went on watch, together with one of our
comrades. The two friends whom we replaced had left the apartment, and
we came and sat down at the foot of the bed.

"The face was not changed. It was laughing. That pucker which we knew so
well lingered still around the corners of the lips, and it seemed to us
that he was about to open his eyes, to move and to speak. His thought,
or rather his thoughts, enveloped us. We felt ourselves more than
ever in the atmosphere of his genius, absorbed, possessed by him. His
domination seemed to be even more sovereign now that he was dead. A
feeling of mystery was blended with the power of this incomparable
spirit.

"The bodies of these men disappear, but they themselves remain; and
in the night which follows the cessation of their heart's pulsation I
assure you, monsieur, they are terrifying.

"And in hushed tones we talked about him, recalling to mind certain
sayings, certain formulas of his, those startling maxims which are like
jets of flame flung, in a few words, into the darkness of the Unknown
Life.

"'It seems to