"That I cannot give to your dreadful designs," replied the Counsellor; "It is so fearful, that I must still look upon you and myself as two spectres." Both were silent for a long time. At last the father said: "I will not entreat of you to go to rest, for I greatly fear that you will not obey me, it is fruitless also that I should seek for repose in sleep, for slumber would flee from my shaken brain; what I may learn to-morrow, I may as well hear to-day; if I can conceive, if I can comprehend that which is incomprehensible, perhaps, it would terrify me less, perhaps, I shall yield to grief and sorrow, and necessity, as to the storm, or the earthquake; but from this spectral terror, from this almost mask-like enigma, which threatens to drive me mad, deliver me at least from this by speech and narration." "Can it be expressed, my father?" began Edmond, "will you comprehend what I myself cannot understand with my common knowledge? We should not indeed comprehend, if this hall round us were suddenly turned into Hesperian gardens, but we should enjoy the fruit, we should live and exist in the miracle, even though by that means we should forget that yet some other knowledge were wanting." "Has that delirium also taken possession of you," cried the old man, "in its peculiar way and wrapped you in the folds of its dark vestments? now I would have sworn that you were free from that! and yet I should have done wrong, for all fanaticism is but the twinborn of the apparently most improbable and inimical." "You speak what your mind prompts," said the son, "and I understand you perfectly, but you do not understand me." "Well, Edmond, you may be right, only speak, relate to me, perhaps I may be able to approach nearer to your soul." "How much I hated these Huguenots," began Edmond, "how much I abhorred their war against the king, their fanaticism and prophets, that I despised the gross deception of those people, I need not tell you, for my irritated feelings made you unhappy and it seems that I am destined to cause your misery, I may place myself now as then on whatever side I like.--"