At this point my granddaughter Bianca came in to see me. Three days
before she had been betrothed to young Karl Winckler, a descendant of the
notary Anselmus.
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.