sses than when a youth? The same inducements and
allurements are around me. But no; my more ardent passions are burned
out; those which are strongest when we are least able to resist them.
Thus, then, my lord, it is not so much outer temptations that prevail
over us mortals; but inward instincts."

"A very curious speculation," said Media. But Babbalanja, have you
mortals no moral sense, as they call it?"

"We have. But the thing you speak of is but an after-birth; we eat and
drink many months before we are conscious of thoughts. And though some
adults would seem to refer all their actions to this moral sense, yet,
in reality, it is not so; for, dominant in them, their moral sense
bridles their instinctive passions; wherefore, they do not govern
themselves, but are governed by their very natures. Thus, some men in
youth are constitutionally as staid as I am now. But shall we
pronounce them pious and worthy youths for this? Does he abstain, who
is not incited? And on the other hand, if the instinctive passions
through life naturally have the supremacy over the moral sense, as in
extreme cases we see it developed in irreclaimable malefactors,--shall
we pronounce such, criminal and detestable wretches? My lord, it is
easier for some men to be saints, than for others not to be sinners."

"That will do, Babbalanja; you are on the verge, take not the leap! Go
back whence you set out, and tell us of that other, and still more
mysterious Azzageddi; him whom you hinted to have palmed himself off
on you for you yourself."

"Well, then, my lord,--Azzageddi still set aside,--upon that self-same
inscrutable stranger, I charge all those past actions of mine, which
in the retrospect appear to me such eminent folly, that I am
confident, it was not I, Babbalanja, now speaking, that committed
them. Nevertheless, my lord, this very day I may do some act, which at
a future period may seem equally senseless; for in one lifetime we
live a hundred lives. By the incomprehensible stranger in me, I say,
this body of mine has been rented out scores of times, though always
one dark chamber in me is retained by the old mystery."

"Will you never come to the mark, Babbalanja? Tell me something direct
of the stranger. Who, what is he? Introduce him."

"My lord, I can not. He is locked up in me. In a mask, he dodges me.
He prowls about in me, hither and thither; he peers, and I stare. This
is he who talks in my sleep, revealing my secrets; and t