This baited injunction caused the padre to exclaim, “My goodness gracious, doctor, you frighten me! I hope you don’t truly think there’s anything like magic or sorcery used upon us here? To be sure, now that I remember, I have had strange thoughts, to which I have never been accustomed to before! But they have been in motive pure, urging the necessity of controlling the appetites and passions, if we would attain the abiding confidence of a trustful affection, that outreaches self. But then, as you know, the devil can preach, and practice too, if it so minds him, self-condemnation?”
“Certes, the fact is,” replied the doctor, “you are subject to vagaries when your stomach is empty, and require to feel the force of sound German philosophy that urges substantial fullness as the source of generous impressions, eloquence, and heroic deeds, and for exorcism thorough fumigation with tobacco smoke.”
M. Hollydorf, from the intervention of multiplied causes, had procrastinated the inauguration of his scientific explorations, until compelled to enter upon the duties of his commission through fear that inquiries would be instituted to learn the cause of his long silence. Fully aware that the manifold attractions of Correliana had served to abate his professional enthusiasm, and urgency of his desire to fulfill the trust reposed in his discretion, he resolved to make a test of his naturalistic occupation for the diversion of his thoughts from an object of hopeless attainment. Notwithstanding his knowledge that her affections were irrevocably fixed, he could not withhold the manifestation of a hopeful desire in her presence, within the limits of reverential respect. Correliana, on her part, seemed to fully understand the import of his attentions, but was in no way embarrassed by their indulgence, which with her frankness appeared inexplicable. When he expressed his intention of commencing his microscopical field investigations, she asked the privilege of assisting him when free from the indispensable duties of the household; promising, if her request was granted, to be diligent for advancement in scientific knowledge. She was promptly accepted as a catechumenic aid, notwithstanding the promptings of his judgment which suggested that with the ever present cause of his disquietude, his remedy would prove of little avail for relief. But he determined, with a lover’s infatuation, to converse with her as an abstract divested of material embodiment.