And that was not all! I was haunted by the conviction that my ox’s brain would go mad. My attacks of uncontrollable wrath might bring on madness, and they became more frequent, for the conduct of Emma was not calculated to mitigate them. Can the face of a savage murderer be the face of love, and can one be astonished that so many sweethearts close their eyes when the god kisses them? So Emma looked with pleasure at the hideous Minotaur, and did not perceive Lerne, who was on the watch, laughing in his sleeves at her mistake. Yes, laughing, but in the philosophical way, in order not to weep! My uncle was obviously suffering. He seemed to have grasped that Emma would never love him, and the Professor took his disillusionment ill. He was growing old, and killing himself with work. On the terrace of the laboratory and on the roof of the _château_, some machines had been installed whose handling interested me very much. They were surmounted with characteristic _antennæ_, and as electric bells were continually ringing in the recesses of the two buildings, my opinion was that they had been transformed into wireless telegraphy and telephone stations. One morning Lerne made a little boat dart about on the pond--a toy torpedo-boat. He directed it from the shore with the help of an apparatus, which also was fitted with feelers. Tele-mechanics--it was certain! The Professor was studying how to make communications at a distance without any tangible intermediary. Was this a new method for the introversion of personalities? Perhaps it was. I lost interest in the matter. A happy issue out of my afflictions now seemed to me an impossible miracle. I should never learn this future discovery, nor all the secrets which were a blot on the past of my uncle and his companions. It was, however, by meditating on those last mysteries, that I beguiled the torturing insomnia of my nights, and my idleness by day, but I could make nothing of it. It may be the case, indeed, that my mind was dulled, for there were, amongst the daily occurrences which I have just narrated, some that it could not retain--to which some confidences on Lerne’s part gave capital significance, and the rational examination of which would have made me hope for deliverance. And so, about mid-September, this deliverance was brought about without my having guessed anything, and in the following circumstances: For some time past the friendship of the Minotaur and Emma had grown stronger. The monster, now accustomed to my body, began to make gestures. One afternoon, while I was endeavoring to see my mistress through the bushes where she was watching the false Nicolas, there was a sudden noise of smashed and falling glass. The Minotaur had dashed through the window of the summerhouse! Without in the least heeding my unfortunate body, he dashed up, cut, slashed, and bleeding, with roars of fury. Emma shrieked, and tried to make off, but the creature had disappeared into the little wood.