“Why?”
“Because I lost the parcel of an indispensable ingredient which Althotas discovered, but of which I never had the receipt. He has carried that secret with him to the grave.”
“He is dead, then? How, could you not preserve the life of this man, so useful to you, as you have kept yourself through so many centuries?”
“Because I can guard against illness, but not against such accidents as kill before I can act.”
“He died from an accident, then?”
“The fire in which you thought I died killed him; or rather he, weary of life, chose to die.”
“It is strange.”
“No, it is natural; I have a hundred times thought of ending my life.”
“But you have not done so.”
“Because I enjoy a state of youth, in which health and pleasure kept me from ennui; but he had chosen one of old age. He was a savant, and cared only for science; and thus youth, with its thousand pleasures, would have constantly drawn him from its study. An old man meditates better than a young one. Althotas died a victim to his love of science: I lead a worldly life, and do nothing—I live like a planet.”