Page:Imre.pdf/122

120 the more wearied, till Death would meet him, and say "Come—enough!—Be free of all!—be free of thyself most of all!"

I paused. Doing so, I heard from Imre, who had not spoken so much as a word—was it a sigh? Or a broken murmur of something coming to his lips in his own tongue? Was it—no, impossible!... was it a sort of sob, strangled in his throat? The evening had grown so dark that I could not have seen his face, even had I wished to look into it. However... absorbed now in my own tenebrous retrospect, almost forgetting that anyone was there, at my side, I went on:

"You must not think that I had not had friendships of much depth, Imre, which were not, first and last, quite free from this other accent in them. Yes, I had had such; and I have many such now; comradeships with men younger, men of my own age, men older, for whom I feel, warm affection and admiration, whose company was and is a true happiness