"Finally, on one occasion when intoxicated, he attacked me before others, and called me 'a humbug who would come to nothing.' I was at that time fully conscious of my vocation as author; excited by the attack, and being partially in liquor, I made a presumptuous assertion that I would be 'great.' Then the man fell in a rage and swore by h--l that I should not be great. After this our ways divided. My friends noticed it, and asked, 'Do you not go about any more with your caricature?' 'What do you mean by that?' I asked. 'His face was really a caricature of yours.' And so it was.
"Two years afterwards I emerged from the ruck, and remember that my thoughts turned back to the mysterious person who had interested himself in my destiny. Somewhat later I heard that the man had died at twenty-seven years of age under peculiar circumstances. He was standing on a mountain in the evening of Midsummer Day when he had a stroke. 'He flew asunder like a goblin in the sunlight,' I said jocosely.
"This man looked like a Hun or a death's-head. He was born in the seventh month, and preserved by being wrapped in wadding and laid in a corner of the tiled stove. But that explains nothing perhaps?"
=The Inexplicable.=--The teacher continued: "He had, however, a peculiar influence over people, and that not only because he flattered them. I saw him when he was twenty-five years old talking with our foremost statesman, who was then fifty. The widely experienced, sceptical politician listened to the ill-dressed unwashed man, flushed with wine, who almost monopolised the talk. He claimed an authoritative knowledge of all subjects, teemed with facts and figures, alluded to all prominent men as old acquaintances, was well versed in family chronicles and political intrigues. 'Where did he get all that?' I asked someone. 'I don't know, but he is a remarkable man with great influence,' was the answer. In addition to his other characteristics I can mention this: with all his coarseness he had traits of sensitiveness. He wept when he read of the cruelties in the Russo-Turkish war. He loved beautiful poetry. He had a chivalrous enthusiasm for women. He gave out his money generously, but when he was tipsy he was stingy. Demons plagued him, and he used to roam in the woods alone; but he always smashed his top-hat first. One could see into his nostrils, and, when he laughed, all his back teeth could be counted. He always wore too long trousers on which he trod, for he was in the habit of walking on his heels. He was beardless like Attila, because his cheeks simply consisted of nerves.