The son of her late master had, then, brought back from Italy his tender
and affectionate heart, however stern and anxious his long and colourless
face might seem; and when he heard of the old man's longing to see him,
and death, his eyes were wet with tears.
He interrupted the course of her narrative but seldom; when she came to
his father's last hours, however, and the success of the experiment which
had been made on her with the elixir, he plied her with question upon
question until he was satisfied as to what he wished to know. Then he
suddenly stood still in the middle of the room and lifting his eyes and
arms on high cried aloud, like one in an ecstasy:
"Eternal Truth, holy Truth! Thy kingdom come!"
These words went through Frau Schimmel like a knife, and as Melchior
stood there looking up at the ceiling as if he expected it to open
and disclose to him a sight of Heaven, he seemed so great, and
unapproachable, and apart, that she feared him, though in years gone by
she had tucked his luncheon into his knapsack before sending him off to
school, and tremblingly she yielded to his will as she had done before to
his father's and swore again a solemn oath never to reveal what she might
see or hear concerning the elixir.
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