exclaimed Coictier, “and I affirm — “
The fiery archdeacon did not allow him to finish: “And I have studied medicine, astrology, and hermetics.
Here alone is the truth.” (As he spoke thus, he took from the top of the coffer a phial filled with the powder which we have mentioned above), “here alone is light! Hippocrates is a dream; Urania is a dream; Hermes, a thought. Gold is the sun; to make gold is to be God. Herein lies the one and only science. I have sounded the depths of medicine and astrology, I tell you! Naught, nothingness! The human body, shadows! the planets, shadows!”
And he fell back in his armchair in a commanding and inspired attitude. Gossip Touraugeau watched him in silence.