Fate said, Let there be light, and there was. The invisible destiny took a son's anxious hand and opened therewith an eye, which was worthy of a finer night than this starless one. Victor pressed the mature lens of the cataract--that smoke-ball[16] and cloud cast over creation--down into the bottom of the pupil; and so, when an atom had been sunk three lines deep, a man possessed immensity again, and a father his son. Oppressed mortal! thou that art at once a _son_ and a _slave_ of the dust, how slight is the thought, the moment, the drop of blood or tear-drop, that is required to overflow thy wide brain, thy wide heart! And if a couple of blood-globules can become, now thy Montgolfier's globes and now thy Belidor's percussion-balls,[17] ah, how little earth it takes to exalt or to crush thee! "Victor! thou? Is it thou who hast cured me, my son?" said the delivered man, taking the hand that was still armed with the surgical instrument. "Lay it aside and bandage me again! I rejoice that I saw thee first of all." The son could not stir for emotion. "Bandage me, the light is painful! _Was_ it thou? speak!" He bandaged in silence the open eye amidst the glad tears of his own. But when the bandage hid from that noble stoical soul everything, his blushing and his weeping, then was it impossible for the happy son to contain himself any longer;--he gave himself up to his heart, and clung with his tears upon the veiled countenance to which he had given back brighter days; and when he felt on his trembling breast the _quicker_ beatings of his father's heart, and the _tighter_ embrace of his gratitude,--then was the best child the happiest,--and all rejoiced at his joy, and congratulated the son more than the father.... Twelve cannon went off from that number of door-keys. They shot this History dead. For now it is actually gone,--not a word, not a syllable of it do I know any longer. In fact I have never in my life seen or heard or dreamed of, or romantically invented, any Horion or any St. Luna;--the Devil and I know how it is; and I, on my part, have, besides, better things to do and to lay open now, namely, THE OVERTURE AND SECRET INSTRUCTIONS.