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I had loosened the golden muffler that he always wore. I had moistened his temples, and had given him some water to drink. And now I did not dare ask him any more questions. He looked at me very gravely, and put his arms around my neck. I felt his heart beating like the heart of a dying bird, shot with someone's rifle . . .
"I am glad that you have found what was the matter with your engine," he said. "Now you can go back home--"
"How do you know about that?"
I was just coming to tell him that my work had been successful, beyond anything that I had dared to hope.
He made no answer to my question, but he added:
"I, too, am going back home today . . ."
Then, sadly--
"It is much farther . . . It is much more difficult . . ."
I realized clearly that something extraordinary was happening. I was holding him close in my arms as if he were a little child; and yet it seemed to me that he was rushing headlong toward an abyss from which I could do nothing to restrain him . . .
His look was very serious, like some one lost far away.
"I have your sheep. And I have the sheep's box. And I have the muzzle . . ."
And he gave me a sad smile.
I waited a long time. I could see that he was reviving little by little.
"Dear little man," I said to him, "you are afraid . . ."
He was afraid, there was no doubt about that. But he laughed lightly.
"I shall be much more afraid this evening . . ."
Once again I felt myself frozen by the sense of something irreparable. And I knew that I could not bear the thought of never hearing that laughter any more. For me, it was like a spring of fresh water in the desert.
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