“Your mother,” he was saying, “was more precious to me than life or aught else, and you, my little one, are dear to me, too, chiefly because it was she who gave you to me, but who knows if I might not have sacrificed you if the success of the work, to which I have devoted so many years, had depended upon it.  Now I have reached the goal, and I tell you, my boy, there are only two joys here below so great as to give a foretaste of the bliss that awaits us in Paradise:  one is the sweet rapture of true love, and the other, the transport of the inventor when his experiment is successful.  I have known both.”

During this speech, which the doctor had made under the influence of the elixir, the boy stared at his father with open mouth, undecided whether to be afraid, or to consider it all a jest and laugh.

Frau Schimmel made an end of his doubt, for she could not bring herself to stand by patiently and have the child confused by such extraordinary sentiments.  She interrupted the doctor:  “Little Zeno finds his pleasure in very different ways, don’t you, my lamb?  You would rather have your father send you to market with Frau Schimmel who buys cherries for you, wouldn’t you?  Cherries are better for children than ‘true love,’ and all the other nonsense that men worry themselves about.”

The doctor only laughed and said “One day he will learn for himself what his father meant, and if you wish to buy him cherries, you good old soul, take him along with you and pick out the finest.  You might also go to the Nuremberg shop and let him choose the most beautiful horse, and whatever else among the toys that he wishes for, no matter how expensive it may be; for I owe it in part to my boy that I have attained my object, and I must hurt him a bit more.  But don’t be afraid!  He will hardly feel it.”

What did that remarkable man have in mind?  Certainly, no good!

As Frau Schimmel felt that she stood in the place of a mother to her darling, she demanded respectfully what the doctor meant to do to the child.

He answered in some embarrassment, and without looking at the old lady; “It is because I have need of a larger quantity of the elixir.  If I were to bleed another child—­and bleeding is good for every one, big or little—­they would accuse me of practising the black arts and perhaps, after their fashion of making a mountain out of a molehill, would denounce me as an infanticide.  Therefore the boy must spare a few more drops of his blood, and he will do so gladly if he receives something pretty as a reward.  I am very skilful and can draw the blood without hurting him.”

When, however, Frau Schimmel clasped her hands, and Zeno, whimpering, hid his face in her skirts, the doctor hastened to add:  “There, there, I am not going to do it at once, and perhaps it is just as well that I should experiment with my own blood first.  So take the boy out and buy him the finest plaything you can find, and leave a message at Herr Winckler’s; he is to come to-day to The Three Kings, for I have something very important to communicate to him.”