_Par._ My friend, my friend, I toil, you listen; I explain, perhaps You understand: there our communion ends. Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse? When we would thoroughly know the sick man's state We feel awhile the fluttering pulse, press soft The hot brow, look upon the languid eye, And thence divine the rest. Must I lay bare My heart, hideous and beating, or tear up My vitals for your gaze, ere you will deem Enough made known? You! who are you, forsooth? That is the crowning operation claimed By the arch-demonstrator--heaven the hall, And earth the audience. Let Aprile and you Secure good places: 't will be worth the while. _Fest._ Are you mad, Aureole? What can I have said To call for this? I judged from your own words. _Par._ Oh, doubtless! A sick wretch describes the ape That mocks him from the bed-foot, and all gravely You thither turn at once: or he recounts The perilous journey he has late performed, And you are puzzled much how that could be! You find me here, half stupid and half mad; It makes no part of my delight to search Into these matters, much less undergo Another's scrutiny; but so it chances That I am led to trust my state to you: And the event is, you combine, contrast And ponder on my foolish words as though They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here-- Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage! Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame? Will you guess nothing? will you spare me nothing? Must I go deeper? Ay or no? _Fest._ Dear friend ... _Par._ True: I am brutal--'t is a part of it; The plague's sign--you are not a lazar-haunter, How should you know? Well then, you think it strange I should profess to have failed utterly, And yet propose an ultimate return To courses void of hope: and this, because You know not what temptation is, nor how 'T is like to ply men in the sickliest part. You are to understand that we who make Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end: There is not one sharp volley shot at us, Which 'scaped with life, though hurt, we slacken pace And gather by the wayside herbs and roots To stanch our wounds, secure from further harm: We are assailed to life's extremest verge. It will be well indeed if I return, A harmless busy fool, to my old ways! I would forget hints of another fate, Significant enough, which silent hours Have lately scared me with. _Fest._ Another! and what? _Par._ After all, Festus, you say well: I am A man yet: I need never humble me. I would have been--something, I know not what; But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl. There are worse portions than this one of mine. You say well! _Fest._ Ah!