apable of comprehending the laws
of Nature can escape the danger of mistaking the fortuitous, and ever
changing reality, for the eternal and unchangeable truth. Therefore I do
not regret what I have done. If one of my grandsons should wish to become
a painter I have obviated the risk of his falling into the error of
believing that he has succeeded when he has only slavishly imitated all
the imperfections in the objects he sees around him. Nature reflected in
a mirror, would be what his pictures under the influence of our elixir,
would have been like, and for a true work of art, in the highest
acceptation of the term, something further is needed."

These words of my father removed my last regret for the loss of the
elixir, and my sons and grandsons who are now grown men have, with God's
help, brought it to pass that the burghers of Leipsic are willing once
again to associate with the Ueberhells.

I have only one thing more to say before I close this story.

I have already mentioned the fact that I am a physician. When recently
from England came the news of the discovery of vaccination and I saw how
a small drop could penetrate through a man's entire system, then I
regretted that my father had thrown away the elixir. If I still possessed
it I would, despite my advanced age, try the experiment of inoculating
myself with it. The exhalation of the elixir acted only on the tongue,
and hence its fatal effect, if, however, it had been possible to
infiltrate a desire for truth into the whole man, then, ah then! it might
have been possible for a man really to know himself, which is the
beginning of his salvation. One thought occurs to me for my consolation:

A race that has felt itself forced, generation after generation, to serve
the truth must finally have acquired an instinct to do so, like the races
of pearl-divers who by inheritance can hold their breath a phenomenally
long time.

POSTSCRIPT.

At this point my granddaughter Bianca came in to see me. Three days
before she had been betrothed to young Karl Winckler, a descendant of the
notary Anselmus.

As I had fallen asleep over my writing she read through undisturbed the
book that had fallen from my hands onto the floor.

And so the secret was betrayed, for of course she told the story to her
lover.

She expressed her thankfulness that the elixir was out of the world, but
asserted impertinently, that if a drop of blood had been drawn from Frau
Bianca--whose