The young doctor living in the boarding-house also interested me, reviving indeed my desire to follow his own profession myself. He was about twenty-six years old and very poor; the exact antithesis of myself, being clear-minded, practical, cynical and a thorough sceptic on the existence of a soul and God and immortality. He was well-read and had the true scientific temperament, spending hours with his microscope and books. The fact of his being at the opposite pole to myself attracted me to him, and we had long talks in his consulting-room on the ground floor back--where everything was prepared for the reception of patients, but where no patient ever came. Our worlds were so far apart, and it was so hard to establish a mutual coinage of words that our talks were somewhat futile. He was logical, absorbed in his dream of original research; he used words in their exact meaning and jumped to no conclusions rashly, and never allowed his judgment to be influenced by his emotions; whereas I talked, no doubt, like a child, building vast erections upon inadequate premises, indulging in my religious dreams about God and the soul, speculative and visionary. He argued me out of my boots every time, and towards the end of our talks grew impatient and almost angry with my vague mind and “transcendental tommy-rot,” as he called it; but at the same time he liked me, and was always glad to talk and discuss with me. Nothing he said, though much of it was cogent and unanswerable, ever influenced my opinions in the least degree, because I felt he was fundamentally wrong, and was trying to find by scalpel and microscope the things of the spirit. I felt a profound pity for him, and he felt a contemptuous pity for me. But one night my pity almost changed to love, and after this particular conversation, in the course of which he made me deep confidences of his early privations in order that he might study for his profession, and of his unquenchable desire for knowledge for its own sake, I felt so tenderly towards him, that I never tried to argue again, but only urged him to believe in a soul and in a future life. For he told me that he was already so far gone in consumption that at most he had but a year or two to live, and he knew that in the time at his disposal he could not accomplish the very smallest part of his great dream. I then understood why his eyes were so burning bright and why he had always glowing red spots in his cheeks, and looked so terribly thin and emaciated.