In the course of the night, the old man had several fits of restlessness and delirium; he would call out upon Theophrastus, and Geber, and Albertus Magnus, and other sages of his art; and anon would murmur about fermentation and projection, until, toward daylight, he once more sunk into a salutary sleep.  When the morning sun darted his rays into the casement, the fair Inez, attended by the female domestic, came blushing into the chamber.  The student now took his leave, having himself need of repose, but obtaining ready permission to return and inquire after the sufferer.

When he called again, he found the alchymist languid and in pain, but apparently suffering more in mind than in body.  His delirium had left him, and he had been informed of the particulars of his deliverance, and of the subsequent attentions of the scholar.  He could do little more than look his thanks, but Antonio did not require them; his own heart repaid him for all that he had done, and he almost rejoiced in the disaster that had gained him an entrance into this mysterious habitation.  The alchymist was so helpless as to need much assistance; Antonio remained with him, therefore, the greater part of the day.  He repeated his visit the next day, and the next.  Every day his company seemed more pleasing to the invalid; and every day he felt his interest in the latter increasing.  Perhaps the presence of the daughter might have been at the bottom of this solicitude.

He had frequent and long conversations with the alchymist.  He found him, as men of his pursuits were apt to be, a mixture of enthusiasm and simplicity; of curious and extensive reading on points of little utility, with great inattention to the everyday occurrences of life, and profound ignorance of the world.  He was deeply versed in singular and obscure branches of knowledge, and much given to visionary speculations.  Antonio, whose mind was of a romantic cast, had himself given some attention to the occult sciences, and he entered upon these themes with an ardour that delighted the philosopher.  Their conversations frequently turned upon astrology, divination, and the great secret.  The old man would forget his aches and wounds, rise up like a spectre in his bed, and kindle into eloquence on his favourite topics.  When gently admonished of his situation, it would but prompt him to another sally of thought.

“Alas, my son!” he would say, “is not this very decrepitude and suffering another proof of the importance of those secrets with which we are surrounded?  Why are we trammelled by disease, withered by old age, and our spirits quenched, as it were, within, us, but because we have lost those secrets of life and youth which were known to our parents before their fall?  To regain these, have philosophers been ever since aspiring; but just as they are on the point of securing the precious secrets for ever, the brief period of life is at an end; they die, and with them all their wisdom and experience.  ‘Nothing,’ as De Nuysment observes, ’nothing is wanting for man’s perfection but a longer life, less crossed with sorrows and maladies, to the attaining of the full and perfect knowledge of things.’”