“And the poet?” asked the new-comer. “Did she love him well?” “So little,” replied the other, “that here and now she passes him daily and does not recognize his face.” “And he?” The other laughed, and answered: “It is he who just now told you that tale concerning her voice, continuing here the lies which he used to make about her when they two were together on earth.” But the new-comer said, “If he is able to give happiness in hell, how can what he says be a lie?” (_There is an appreciative pause: no one speaks: from those listening faces no word of praise is necessary. Once more the speaker has secured the homage of his fellow men; and so, forgetting for a while the pit that life has digged for him, continues to narrate to his friends the stories which he will never write._) Since that has appealed to you, I will tell you another.... Once there was a young man, so beautiful of mind that all who heard him wished to be of his company; so beautiful of form—— (_In the middle of a sentence he pauses, as he sees advancing—though the others, intent only on him, do not—a young man, graceful in person, indolent in motion, who, with a light nonchalant air, meets and lets go the glances of strangers as they pass. From these, as he draws near, his eye turns toward the group seated at the out-door table under the sun-bright awning, and becomes fixed and attentive. Glance meets glance, holds for a moment, till that of the younger man is withdrawn. Without any change of countenance he slightly deflects his course and passes on. In the face they are watching, the friends see a quick change: the colour goes, the look of quiet expectation ends abruptly, as though sight had stopped dead. But it is with his accustomed deliberation of tone that at last he resumes speaking._) Ah, no; that is a story of which I have forgotten the end: or else it has forgotten me. No matter; I will tell you another. This is one that has only just occurred to me; and I am not quite sure yet what the end of it will be. But it is there waiting. You and I will listen to this story together, as I tell it for the first time. This shall be called “The Story of the Man who sold his Soul.” A certain traveller, passing through the streets of a great city, came there upon a man whose countenance indicated a grief which he could not fathom. The traveller, being a curious student of the human heart, stopped him and said: “Sir, what is this grief which you carry before the eyes of all men, so grievous that it cannot be hidden, yet so deep that it cannot be read?” The man answered: “It is not I who grieve so greatly; it is my soul, of which I cannot get rid. And my soul is more sorrowful than death, for it hates me, and I hate it.”