I went with him to the same room where he had first received us, my
tutor and myself, on the day we entered his service. I found there,
exactly as on that occasion, ranged along the walls, the ancient
Egyptians with golden faces. A glass globe of the size of a pumpkin
stood on a table. M. d'Asterac sank on a sofa, and signed to me to
take a seat near him, and having twice or thrice passed a hand
covered with jewels and amulets across his forehead said:

"My son, I do not wish to injure you by believing that, after our
conversation on the Isle of Swans, you still doubt of the existence
of Sylphs and Salamanders, who are as real as men and perhaps more
so, if one measures reality by the duration of the appearances by
which it is displayed, their existence being very much longer than
ours. Salamanders range from century to century in unalterable
youth; some of them have seen Noah, Moses and Pythagoras. The wealth
of their recollections and the freshness of their memory render
their conversation attractive to the utmost. It has been pretended
that they gain immortality in the arms of men, and that the hope of
never dying led them into the beds of the philosophers, But those
are fables unfit to seduce a reflecting mind. All union of sexes,
far from ensuring immortality to lovers, is a sign of death, and we
could not know love were we to live indefinitely. It could not be
otherwise with the Salamanders, who look in the arms of the wise for
nothing else but for one single kind of immortality--that is, of the
race. It is also the only one which can be reasonably expected. And,
much as I promise myself to prolong human life in a notable manner--
that is, to extend it over at least five or six centuries--I have
never flattered myself to assure it perpetuity. It would be insane
to want to go against the established rules of nature, Therefore, my