As I had fallen asleep over my writing she read through undisturbed the book that had fallen from my hands onto the floor.
And so the secret was betrayed, for of course she told the story to her lover.
She expressed her thankfulness that the elixir was out of the world, but asserted impertinently, that if a drop of blood had been drawn from Frau Bianca—whose features as well as name she had inherited—instead of from the little Zeno, or if the women of the Ueberhell family had been allowed to inhale the elixir the consequences might have been entirely different.
"Woman," she said, "is ruler in the kingdom of the affections, and in Leipsic as well as elsewhere, the austere Goddess of Truth will find devoted and loving worshippers, as well as dutiful subjects, only when she exhibits goodness of heart combined with grace of manner as does my grandfather."
Perhaps she is not altogether wrong, though women….
And yet both Greeks and Romans represented Truth under the guise of a woman.
FINIS.
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