On a certain Sunday, in the year 1250, a beautiful and accomplished lady, named Ambrosia di Castello, originally of Genoa, went, as she was accustomed, to hear mass in the church of Palma, a town in the island of Majorca. A mounted cavalier of distinguished appearance and richly dressed, who was passing at the time in the street, noticed the lady and pulled up as one thunderstruck. She entered the church, quickly disappearing in the shadow of the great porch. The cavalier, quite unconscious of what he did, spurred his horse and rode after her into the midst of the affrighted worshippers. Great was the astonishment and scandal. The cavalier was well known; he was the Seigneur Raymund Lully, Seneschal of the Isles and Mayor of the Palace. He had a wife and three children, while Ambrosia di Castello was also married and enjoyed, moreover, an irreproachable reputation. Raymund Lully passed therefore for a great libertine. His equestrian entrance into the church of Palma was noised over the whole town, and Ambrosia, in the greatest confusion, sought the advice of her husband. He was apparently a man of sense, and he did not consider his wife insulted because her beauty had turned the head of a young and brilliant nobleman. He proposed that Ambrosia should cure her admirer by a folly as grotesque as his own. Meanwhile, Raymund Lully had written already to the lady, to excuse, or rather to accuse himself still further. What had prompted him, he said, was “strange, supernatural, irresistible.” He respected her honour and the affections which, he knew, belonged to another; but he had been overwhelmed. He felt that his imprudence required for its expiation high self-devotion, great sacrifices, miracles to be accomplished, the penitence of a Stylite and the feats of a knight-errant. Ambrosia answered: “To respond adequately to a love which you term supernatural would require an immortal existence. If this love be sacrificed heroically to our respective duties during the lives of those who are dear to each of us, it will, beyond all doubt, create for itself an eternity at that moment when conscience and the world will permit us to love one another. It is said that there is an elixir of life; seek to discover it, and when you are certain that you have succeeded, come and see me. Till then, live for your wife and your children, as I also will live for the husband whom I love; and if you meet me in the street make no sign of recognition.” It was evidently a gracious _congé_, which put off her lover till Doomsday; but he refused to understand it as such, and from that day forth the brilliant noble disappeared to make room for the grave and thoughtful alchemist. Don Juan had become Faust. Many years passed away; the wife of Raymund Lully died; Ambrosia di Castello in her turn became a widow; but the alchemist appeared to have forgotten her and to be absorbed only in his sublime work.