XXI + 

In Which It Is Shown That a Dearly-Loved Friend Can Lighten the Heaviest Sorrow + 

As the doctor had said, from that day onward the monkey was really master of the house, and Heraclius became the animal’s humble valet. He thought of him with infinite tenderness for hours at a time, acted towards him with the thoughtfulness of a lover, lavished on him a whole dictionary of tender phrases, clasped his hand as one clasps that of a friend. When talking to him, he looked earnestly at him and explained the points in his arguments which might have been obscure. In fact he surrounded the creature’s entire life with gentle care and delicate attention. + 

But the monkey accepted it all as calmly as a god receiving the homage of its worshippers. Heraclius, like all great minds living in solitude, isolated by their sublimity above the common level of foolishness of ordinary people, had up till then felt himself alone. Alone in his work, alone in his hopes, in his struggles and his failures, alone even in his discovery and his triumph. He had not yet preached his doctrine to the masses. He had not even been able to convince his most intimate friends, the Warden and the Dean. But from the day on which he discovered his monkey to be the great philosopher of his dreams, the Doctor felt less isolated. + 

As he was convinced that all animals were deprived of speech only because of past misdeeds, and that as part of the same punishment they were endowed with the remembrance of previous existences, Heraclius became passionately devoted to his companion, and in doing this consoled himself for all the misery he had endured. For, as a fact, the Doctor’s life had for some time past been growing sadder. The Warden and the Dean came to see him less frequently, and this made a large gap in his existence. They had even ceased coming to dinner on Sundays since he had decreed that no food which had once had life should be served at his table. This change of habit was a great sacrifice, even for him, and now and again it assumed the proportions of a genuine grief, for he who had hitherto awaited so eagerly the pleasant hour devoted to his lunch, now almost dreaded its arrival. He would go sadly into his dining room realizing that now there was nothing to look forward to. Moreover, he was continuously haunted by the thought of quails⁠—a thought which plagued him with remorse. But alas! it was not his remorse for having eaten so many⁠—it was, on the contrary, his despair at having renounced them forever. + 