living flesh! Thus thou wouldst not die, with the death of thy works!"
Master Zacharius remained silent after these words; but Aubert essayed to keep up the conversation. "Indeed, master," said he, "I love to see you work so unceasingly! You will be ready for the festival of our corporation, for I see that the work on this crystal watch is going forward famously."
"No doubt, Aubert," cried the old watchmaker, "and it will be no slight honor for me to have been able to cut and shape the crystal to the durability of a diamond! Ah, Louis Berghen did well to perfect the art of diamond-cutting, which has enabled me to polish and pierce the hardest stones!"
Master Zacharius was holding several small watch pieces of cut crystal, and of exquisite workmanship. The wheels, pivots, and box of the watch were of the same material, and he had employed remarkable skill in this very difficult task. "Would it not be fine," said he, his face flushing, "to see this watch palpitating beneath its transparent envelope, and to be able to count the very beatings of its heart?"
"I will wager, sir," replied the young apprentice, "that it will not vary a second in a year."
"And you would wager on a certainty! Have I not imparted to it all that is purest of myself? And does my heart itself vary?"
Aubert did not dare to lift his eyes to his master's transfigured face.
"Tell me frankly," said the old man, sadly. "Have you never taken me for a fool? Do you not think me sometimes subject to dangerous folly? Yes; is it not? In my daughter's eyes and yours, I have often read my condemnation. Oh!" he cried, as if in pain, "to be not understood by those whom one most loves in the world! But I will prove victoriously to thee, Aubert, that I am right! Do not bow thy head, for thou wilt be stupefied. The day on which thou understandest how to listen to and comprehend me, thou wilt see that I have discovered the secrets of existence, the secrets of the mysterious union of the soul with the body!"
As he spoke thus, Master Zacharius appeared superb in
