a
skeleton, with tight-drawn skin, with long curly hair like a woman's,
and a shaggy beard. The colour of his face was yellow, of an earthy
shade; the cheeks were sunken, the back long and narrow, and the hand
upon which he leaned his hairy head was so lean and skinny that it was
painful to look upon. His hair was already silvering with grey, and no
one who glanced at the senile emaciation of the face would have
believed that he was only forty years old. On the table, before his
bended head, lay a sheet of paper on which something was written in a
tiny hand.

"Poor devil," thought the banker, "he's asleep and probably seeing
millions in his dreams. I have only to take and throw this half-dead
thing on the bed, smother him a moment with the pillow, and the most
careful examination will find no trace of unnatural death. But, first,
let us read what he has written here."

The banker took the sheet from the table and read:

"To-morrow at twelve o'clock midnight, I shall obtain my freedom and
the right to mix with people. But before I leave this room and see the
sun I think it necessary to say a few words to you. On my own clear
conscience and before God who sees me I declare to you that I despise
freedom, life, health, and all that your books call the blessings of
the world.

"For fifteen years I have diligently studied earthly life. True, I saw
neither the earth nor the people, but in your books I drank fragrant
wine, sang songs, hunted deer and wild boar in the forests, loved
women... And beautiful women, like clouds ethereal, created by the
magic of your poets' genius, visited me by night and whispered to me
wonderful tales, which made my head drunken. In your books I climbed
the summits of Elbruz and Mont Blanc and saw from there how the sun
rose in the morning, and in the evening suffused the sky, the ocean
and lie mountain ridges with a purple gold. I saw from there how above
me lightnings glimmered cleaving the clouds; I saw green forests,
fields, rivers, lakes, cities; I heard syrens singing, and the playing
of the pipes of Pan; I touched the wings of beautiful devils who came
flying to me to speak of God... In your books I cast myself into
bottomless abysses, worked miracles, burned cities to the ground,
preached new religions, conquered whole countries...

"Your books gave me wisdom. All that unwearying human thought created
in the centuries is compressed to a little lump in my skull. I know
that I am cleve