"Monsieur, the miracle of the resurrection, in which perhaps you believe, although Voltaire had no faith in it, was accomplished, not at the end of three days ... three days, a fine miracle!... but at the end of a year.... I renewed the same test ten times: ten times the sand dried, ten times the rotifer died! ten times the sand was wetted, and ten times the rotifer came to life again! I had discovered an immortal, not a rotifer, monsieur! My rotifer had probably lived before the Deluge and would survive to the Judgment Day."
"And you still possess this marvellous animal?"
"Ah, monsieur," my neighbour replied, with a deep sigh, "I have not that happiness. One day when, for the twentieth time, perhaps, I was preparing to repeat my experiment, a puff of wind carried away the dry sand, and, with the dry sand, my deathless phenomenon. Alas! I have taken many a pinch of wet sand from my gutters since, and even from elsewhere, but always in vain; I have never found again the equivalent of what I lost. My rotifer was not only immortal but even unique.... Will you allow me to pass, monsieur? The second act is about to begin, and I think this melodrama so poor that I much prefer to go away."
"Oh, monsieur," I said, "I beg of you not to go; I have many more things to ask of you, and you seem to me to be very learned!... You need not listen if you don't want to; you can read le Pastissier françois, and in the intervals we can talk of Elzevirs and rotifers.... I will listen to the play, which, I assure you, interests me greatly."
"You are very good," said my neighbour; and he bowed.
Then came the three raps and, with the charming suavity I had already noticed in him, he resumed his reading.
The curtain rose, revealing the entrance to a farm, a chain of snowy mountains, and a window. The farm represented on the stage was that belonging to Marsden Castle.