Whether Doctor Melchior were holding converse with the broom, or the
peruke, or a spectre whom he, and no one else could see Frau Schimmel
could not tell, but she had then recovered herself sufficiently to be
able to listen attentively.
She crossed herself several times for the sake of greater safety, and
what she heard from the doctor's own mouth remained a secret between her
and Schimmel.
Not a word did she lose till Melchior went into the library next the
laboratory, and then she thought it expedient to leave her hiding-place
and hurry to her room.
Schimmel had long been in bed, and his snoring greeted her as she
entered, but she wakened him to tell him breathlessly what she had just
seen and heard.
After she had explained her anxiety about the doctor and its
consequences, she continued that the apparition which the doctor had
invoked was the Spirit of Truth. Whether it had been obedient to the
call she could not say, but, at any rate it had been no demon of hell-God
be praised--bringing a reek of the pit, and besides Satan was the Prince
of Lies and would consider himself insulted if he were called the Spirit
of Truth, moreover the spirit who had appeared to the doctor had behaved
in the most exemplary manner.
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