"Very well, you may stay," he replied gloomily.

Frau Schimmel, who had been in the room for some time, turned to the
notary and said: "The Court apothecary used to say that I was stupid,
but thirty years ago I foretold what has happened here today."

She then implored Zeno to throw the elixir into the Pleisse, but for the
first time he exhibited a will of his own. He put the phial and the
document in his father's writing into his breast pocket, and tucking the
gray-haired notary under his arm, he left the room.

Frau Schimmel followed his example. Having reached the ground-floor she
stopped and, shaking her gray head, murmured: "Doctor Melchior was such
a wise man, I wonder he did not order that each of his successors should
make the girl of his choice inhale the elixir before he proposed to her.
The life I led with Vorkel, and with my second husband Schimmel, who lies
beside the first in the churchyard, was hardly perfect, but Zeno's
existence will be hell upon earth."

But this time Frau Schimmel was a little wide of the mark in her
prophesy. The two young people, for a time, treated each other distantly
and coldly, but Fran Rosalie learned to regard her husband with a timid
respect that sat well upon her. As for him he was transformed into a
stern man since he had inhaled the elixir, and his severe dress seemed
but an outward sign of his earnestness. Before the year was out a boy
was given to them, and when Rosalie saw him take the little one in his
arms and kiss it, she called him to her bedside and whispered: "Forgive
me."