ey act upon, and affect one
another? Behold this key; it is that of my laboratory, and may it indeed
open the door of knowledge to you."

After Sanazio's decease, curiosity quickly led me to his study: I was
alone, and the shades of evening were stealing over the earth: conceive
then my utter dismay and superstitious horror upon suddenly entering, what
I could but suppose to be a charnel-house! Its effluvium was intolerable,
and well accounted for by (loathsome spectacle!) a disorderly collection
of human fragments in various stages of preservation and decay! A dozen
grisly skeletons grinned upon me from pedestals round the room, and in the
centre of it, the half dissected body of a man, stretched upon a large
lava slab, supported by tressels, was more horrible and odious than all. I
now comprehended the full meaning of Sanazio's dying words and secret; but
received at the same time, a shock which to this day I have not recovered;
I found myself compelled to make Druso my confidant in this matter, and my
companion in some of my first attempts at following the hideous occupation
recommended by my deceased friend. By degrees I grew accustomed to the
horrors of the room and of my employment. Druso, who found himself better
engaged in courting the living than in cutting up the dead, was no longer
necessary to me in the prosecution of my hateful studies, and kept aloof,
but I soon discovered the value of them, in my increase of knowledge,
employment, and reputation. At last an epidemic raged in Padua, proving
very fatal; Ignatius, alarmed for the safety of his Phaedera, who was
attacked, applied to me, and I cured her. Some time afterwards, the
ungrateful wretch rushed into my laboratory, claiming the body upon which
I was operating, as that of a young man, cousin to Phaedera, which had
miraculously disappeared just previous to the day intended for its
interment. The features of the poor wretch were too much disfigured to
render possible his recognition by them, but Druso swore to its being the
body of Marcus, from a scar on the left leg, which had been wounded
severely by a quoit. Of course I refused to resign, that, for which I had
paid a handsome price, and to reveal the names of those from whom I
purchased it. So Druso dragged me before the Supreme Council, impeached me
of sacrilege in the affair of the nun, of theft, and of violating the
sanctity of the tomb, of barbarously mutilating the dead, and of applying
their lace