There he sat now, amidst crucibles, retorts, bottles and tubes; here were covered utensils, heated over little lamps, there others stood open, so that he might watch the process of decomposition which the oxygen in the air calls forth in its contact with other gases.
The Doctor had just blown into the blowpipe, and laid it aside. The blow-pipe, thought he to himself, plays a still greater part in the world than it does here in the laboratory. How many flames, which burned upwards to the sky, has it not blown back, until they crept away upon the ground! And in all ages the sycophants of a State, and the false teachers of mankind, have blown their ruinous breath upon nations through the blow-pipe of egotism.
He went up to a retort and observed how in the process of heating two matters lost the unity of their elements, exchanged their constitutional parts with one another, so that, in consequence of this flow and dissolution, two other quite different combinations ensued.
"Those fatal elective affinities," said he to himself, "what evil have they not caused in the world! How can one apply the laws of dead nature to the human heart? As if two were the decisive numbers for it; although, however, Hindoostan's gods already formed a triune Trimurti, as if, at the accession of a third, the one must fly this, the other that way, instead of remaining together in one beautiful league. What does it matter to us if chloride and lead, hydrogen and oxygen, seek and find one another, whether they meet as oxyde of lead and chlorate of hydrogen? How can any one wish to rule the human heart according to this freak of nature? Our great poets are the most dangerous enemies of freedom of the heart, and of a glorious love in common."
Then the Doctor watched two utensils, in which, by a peculiar process, he sought to condense and harden carbon; he flattered himself with the hope of being able thus to obtain diamonds; but never was the result attained which his experiments should have given him. He consoled himself with a general observation. The hard coal becomes a diamond; strength of character alone creates great men, the sparkling jewels of mankind, but how seldom this process succeeds. Coal remains coal--with it the furnace only can be lighted.
"While contemplating the immature diamonds, with a hopeless gaze, he heard his mother's voice in the study--
"Where is the youngster, then?" and she soon entered the laboratory, leading Olga by the hand. "Here is a lady visitor, dear Paul! Entertain Olga a short time, I will prepare a little supper for our dear guest."
Fräulein von Dornau ventured boldly into the chemical atelier, where everywhere, right and left, as upon the Pharsalian fields in the classical Walpurgis night, little flames glowed, certainly not fairy-like will-o'-the-wisps, but little altar flames in the sacred temple of knowledge.
Paul greeted her warmly, causing a glass to lose its balance and be scattered in pieces.
"Sit down, Olga," said Paul, "we can talk here a little."