Some hours later, Gilbert entered Stephane's room, and struck by his pallor and with the troubled expression of his voice, inquired about him anxiously.
"I assure you I am very well," Stephane replied, mastering his emotion."Have you brought me any flowers?""No, I have had no time to go for them."
"That is to say, you have not had time to think of me.""Oh! I beg your pardon! I can think of you while working, while reading Greek, even while sleeping.And last night I saw you in my dreams: you treated me as a pedant, and threw your cap in my face.""That was a very extravagant dream."
"I am not so sure about that.It seems to me that one day--""Yes, one day, two centuries ago."
"Is it then so long since our acquaintance commenced?""Perhaps not two centuries, but nearly.As for me, I have already lived three lives: my first I passed with my mother.The second--let us not speak of that.The third began upon the night when, for the first time, you climbed into this window.And that must have been a long time ago, if I can judge of it by all which has passed since then, in my soul, in my imagination, and in my mind.Is it possible that these two centuries have only been two months? How can it be that such great changes have been wrought in me, in so short a time, for they are so marvelous that I can hardly recognize myself?""One of these changes, of which I am proud, is that you no longer throw your cap at my head.""That was a liberty I took only with the pedant.""And are you at last reconciled to him?"
"I have discovered that the pedant does not exist.There is a hero and a philosopher in you.""That is a discovery I did not expect from you, and one that astonishes as much as it flatters me.""When I tell you that I am changed throughout, and that I no longer recognize myself--""And I, in spite of your transformation, recognize you very easily.
My dear Stephane has preserved his habit of exaggerating all his impressions.Once I was a man who ought to be smothered; now I am an extraordinary being who passes his life in executing heroic projects.No, my poet, I am neither a scoundrel nor a knight errant, and the best that can be said of me is that I am not a blockhead, that I do not lack heart, and that I run over the roofs with remarkable agility.""No, I exaggerate nothing," he said."I speak of things as they are, and the proof that you are an extraordinary man is, that in all you do, you appear perfectly simple and natural."And as Gilbert shrugged his shoulders and smiled: