'Excuse me for saying so, but you have thrown away many hundred florins on vile beggars and other rabble; what has it profited you? They have wished you blessings and health for it; well, have you grown the healthier for that? For half that money you might have kept a physician. A blessing, a fine blessing, forsooth, when one is distrained upon and ejected! And what was it that urged you put your hand into your pocket, as often as a beggar held out his broken hat?--Why your heart again, and ever your heart, neither your eyes, nor your tongue, nor your arms, nor your legs, but your heart; you have, as the proverb truly says, taken too much to heart.' 'But how can we accustom ourselves to act otherwise? I take, at this moment, every possible pains to suppress it, and yet my heart palpitates and pains me.' 'You, indeed, poor fellow!' cried Michel, laughing; 'you can do nothing against it; but give me this scarcely palpitating thing, and you will see how comfortable you will then feel.' 'My heart to you?' cried Peter, horrified. 'Why, then, I must die on the spot! Never!' 'Yes, if one of your surgeons would operate upon you and take out your heart, you must indeed die; but with me it is a different thing; just come in here and convince yourself.' Rising at these words, he opened the door of a chamber and took Peter in. On stepping over the threshold, his heart contracted convulsively, but he minded it not, for the sight that presented itself was singular and surprising. On several shelves glasses were standing, filled with a transparent liquid, and each contained a heart. All were labelled with names which Peter read with curiosity; there was the heart of the bailiff in F., that of fat Hezekiel, that of the king of the dancing-room, that of the ranger; there were the hearts of six usurious corn merchants, of eight recruiting officers, of three money-brokers; in short, it was a collection of the most respectable hearts twenty leagues around. 'Look!' said Dutch Michel, 'all these have shaken off the anxieties and cares of life; none of these hearts any longer beat anxiously and uneasily, and their former owners feel happy now they have got rid of the troublesome guest.' 'But what do they now carry in their breasts instead?' asked Peter, whose head was nearly swimming at what he beheld. '_This_,' replied he, taking out of a small drawer, and presenting to him--a heart of stone. 'Indeed!' said Peter, who could not prevent a cold shuddering coming over him. 'A heart of marble? But, tell me, Mr. Michel, such a heart must be very cold in one's breast.' 'True, but very agreeably cool. Why should a heart be warm? For in winter its warmth is of little use, and good strong Kirschwasser does more than a warm heart, and in summer when all is hot and sultry, you can't think how cooling such a heart is. And, as before said, such a heart feels neither anxiety nor terror, neither foolish compassion nor other grief.'