At length, one day, the widow being alone, Raymund Lully was announced, and there entered the apartment a bald and emaciated old man, who held in his hand a phial filled with a bright and ruddy elixir. He advanced with unsteady step, seeking her with his eyes. The object which they sought was before them but he did not recognise her, who in his imagination had remained always young and beautiful. “It is I,” she said at length. “What would you with me?” At the accents of that voice, the alchemist startled violently; he recognised her whom he had thought fondly to find unchanged. Casting himself on his knees at her feet, he offered her the phial, saying: “Take it, drink it, it is life. Thirty years of my own existence are comprised in it; but I have tried it, and I know that it is the elixir of immortality.” “What,” asked Ambrosia, with a sad smile, “have you yourself drunk it?” “For two months,” replied Raymund, “after having taken a quantity of the elixir equal to that which is contained here, I have abstained from all other nourishment. The pangs of hunger have tormented me; but not only have I not died, I am conscious within me of an unparalleled accession of strength and life.” “I believe you,” said Ambrosia, “but this elixir, which preserves existence, is powerless to restore lost youth. My poor friend, look at yourself,” and she held up a mirror before him. Raymund Lully recoiled, for it is affirmed by the legend that he had never surveyed himself in this manner during the thirty years of his labours. “And now, Raymund,” continued Ambrosia, “look at me,” and she unbound her hair, which was white as snow; then, loosening the clasps of her robe, she exposed to him her breast, which was almost eaten away by a cancer. “Is it this,” she asked piteously, “which you wish to immortalise?” Then, seeing the consternation of the alchemist, she continued: “For thirty years I have loved you, and I would not doom you to a perpetual prison in the body of an infirm old man; in your turn, do not condemn me. Spare me this death which you term life. Let me suffer the change which is necessary before I can live again truly: let us renew our nature with an eternal youth. I have no wish for your elixir, which prolongs only the night of the tomb: I aspire to immortality.” Raymond Lully thereupon cast down the phial, which was broken on the ground. “I deliver you,” he said, “and for your sake I remain in prison. Live in the immortality of heaven, while I am condemned for ever to a living death on this earth.”