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a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no visitors.
Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully kept a secret
from my own former associates; and it had been many years since Dupin
had ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed within ourselves
alone.
It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?) to
be enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this bizarrerie,
as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself up to his wild
whims with a perfect abandon. The sable divinity would not herself
dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her presence. At the
first dawn of the morning we closed all the messy shutters of our old
building; lighting a couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw
out only the ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we
then busied our souls in dreams--reading, writing, or conversing, until
warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we sallied
forth into the streets arm in arm, continuing the topics of the day, or
roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights
and shadows of the populous city, that infinity of mental excitement
which quiet observation can afford.
At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from
his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar analytic
ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an eager delight in its
exercise--if not exactly in its display--and did not hesitate to confess
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