detail rose to the surface: that he had called, really, upon quite another errand, and that there was something he wanted to tell me that he had not the courage to put into words. Later he admitted it was true....
Anticipating Otto Huebner's visits was now a keen pleasure; the one event of a long weary day.
During the next fortnight or so, he missed no single afternoon. His moods varied amazingly. One day he seemed an angel, the next a devil. I was completely puzzled.
The talks we had on his good days were an enjoyment I can hardly describe. I realized how much I depended on them, as well as on the man who made them possible. I realized also how much I depended on my other friend--on Boyde. The latter's curious and unsatisfactory behaviour, mysterious still to my blind ignorant eyes, made no difference to my feelings for him, but, if anything, tended to strengthen the attachment. My affection deepened. There lay now a certain pity in me too, an odd feeling that he was in my charge, and that, for all his greater knowledge and experience of life, his seniority as well, I could--I must--somehow help him. Upon the German doctor and Boyde, at any rate, Kay being far away, my mind rested with security, if of different degrees. To lose either of them in my lonely situation would have been catastrophic.
The old German would settle himself on the sofa, drawn up close to the bed, and talk. He was saturated in his native philosophy, but Hegel was his king.... "Sartor Resartus" enthralled him. Of De Quincey's struggle against opium he was never tired. Of Vedantic and Hindu philosophy, too, he was understanding and tolerant, though not enamoured. Regarding me still as a "specimen" evidently, he also treated me as though I were a boy, discerning of course at once my emptiness of mind and experience.
How patiently he listened to my eager exposition of
life's mysteries, my chaotic theories, my fanciful speculations....
