“A part of them belongs to the library of my father, with whom I live. Yes, young man, I live with my father and mother, but I cannot introduce you to them, as I and my acquaintances meet with but scant respect at home. I am a prodigal son, you see. My father is very much looked up to, he is a well-known clergyman and preacher in this town. And I, to let you know at once, am his talented and promising son, who, however, is guilty of many back-slidings, and, to a certain extent, mad. I was studying theology, and deserted this worthy faculty shortly before my final examination, although really I am still in the same line, as far as concerns my private studies. For me it is still of the highest importance and interest what sort of gods people have invented for themselves at various times. I am a musician into the bargain, and shall soon get a post as organist, I think. Then I shall be in the church again.” I glanced over the backs of the books and found Greek, Latin, Hebrew titles, as far as I could see by the feeble light of the lamp on the table. My acquaintance, meanwhile, had taken up a position on the floor in the dark by the wall. “Come here,” he called after a while, “we will practice a little philosophy. That means keeping one’s mouth shut, lying on one’s stomach and thinking.” He struck a match and applied it to the paper and wood in the fireplace, in front of which he was lying. The flame leapt up; he poked and blew the fire with great skill. I lay down near him on the ragged carpet. He stared into the flames, which drew my attention as well, and we lay silent for perhaps a whole hour stretched out in front of the flaring wood fire. We watched it flame and roar, die down and flicker up again, until finally it settled down into a subdued glow. “Fire worship was not by any means the silliest form of worship invented,” he murmured without looking up. Those were the only words spoken. With staring eyes I gazed into the fire. Lulled by the tranquillity of the room, I sank in dreams, seeing shapes in the smoke and pictures in the ashes. Once I started up. My companion had thrown a little bit of resin into the glow. A little slender flame shot up, I saw in it the bird with the gold hawk’s head. In the glow which died away in the fireplace, golden glittering threads wove themselves together into a net, letters and pictures, memories of faces, of animals, of plants, of worms and serpents. When I woke from my reveries and looked across at my companion, he was absorbed, staring at the ashes with the fixed gaze of a fanatic, his chin in his hands. “I must go now,” I said softly. “Well, go then, good-bye!”