set is but veiled by night, and
will soon show itself again as the red dawn of a new day."

"How convincing all that sounds!" answered the physician, "all, even
the terrible, wins charm from your lips; but I could invert your
proposition, and declare that it is evil that rules the world, and
sometimes gives us one drop of sweet content, in order that we may more
keenly feel the bitterness of life. You see harmony and goodness
in everything. I have observed that passion awakens life, that all
existence is a conflict, that one being devours another."

"And do you not feel the beauty of visible creation, and does not the
immutable law in everything fill you with admiration and humility?"

"For beauty," replied Nebsecht, "I have never sought; the organ is
somehow wanting in me to understand it of myself, though I willingly
allow you to mediate between us. But of law in nature I fully appreciate
the worth, for that is the veritable soul of the universe. You call the
One 'Temt,' that is to say the total--the unity which is reached by the
addition of many units; and that pleases me, for the elements of the
universe and the powers which prescribe the paths of life are
strictly defined by measure and number--but irrespective of beauty or
benevolence."

"Such views," cried Pentaur troubled, "are the result of your strange
studies. You kill and destroy, in order, as you yourself say, to come
upon the track of the secrets of life. Look out upon nature, develop
the faculty which you declare to be wanting, in you, and the beauty of
creation will teach you without my assistance that you are praying to a
false god."

"I do not pray," said Nebsecht, "for the law which moves the world is
as little affected by prayers as the current of the sands in your
hour-glass. Who tells you that I do not seek to come upon the track of
the first beginning of things? I proved to you just now that I know more
about the origin of Scarabei than you do. I have killed many an animal,
not only to study its organism, but also to investigate how it has built
up its form. But precisely in this work my organ for beauty has become
blunt rather than keen. I tell you that the beginning of things is not
more attractive to contemplate than their death and decomposition."

Pentaur looked at the physician enquiringly.

"I also for once," continued Nebsecht, "will speak in figures. Look at
this wine, how pure it is, how fragrant; and yet it was trodden from the