hymned by so many poets and served by so 
many philosophers, who laboured to glorify 
him without ever suspecting it, said to me, “I 
should like you to remember me kindly, and to 
prove to you that I, of whom people say so 
much evil, am sometimes—to employ one of 
your vulgar phrases—a devilish good fellow, to 
compensate you for the irremediable loss of 
your soul, I will give you the stake which you 
would have won had you been lucky, namely, 
the power to sustain and conquer during your 
whole life the strange malady called boredom, 
which is the source alike of all your diseases 
and of your wretched progress. Never shall you 
form a desire but I will help you to realize it; 
you shall reign over your vulgar fellows; at 
your service shall be all flatteries, even all ado-
rations; silver and gold and precious stones, 
and fairy palaces shall come to seek you, shall 
beg you to accept them without your making a 
single effort to win them. You shall change 
country and climate as often as your fancy 
bids; you shall be drunk with pleasure without 
weariness, in charming countries where it is 
always warm, where the women smell as 
sweet as flowers—and the rest, and the rest—” 
he added, rising and dismissing me with a 
friendly smile.