Suddenly the picture broke away from the wall and fell, breaking the frame. I rushed to it. The portrait was lying on the carpet, and Spero's gentle face was turned towards me. Picking it up, I found a large paper, grown yellow, which filled up the whole back, and was written over on both sides in Spero's handwriting. Why had I never noticed this paper? It is true that it might have lain under the setting of the frame, hidden beneath the protecting cardboard mat. When I brought this water-color back from Christiania I did not think of examining its arrangement. But who could have had the singular idea of putting this sheet in such a place? I recognized my friend's handwriting, and glanced over the two pages in utter bewilderment. According to all appearances they must have been written on the last day of the young student's life,--the day of his ascension to the aurora borealis. Probably Icléa's father wished to preserve these last thoughts carefully, so framed them with Spero's portrait, and forgot to mention it when he afterwards gave me the portrait as a memento, on my return from the pilgrimage to my two friends' graves. However that might be, placing the water-color gently on the table, I experienced the deepest emotion as I recognized every detail of that dear face. They were his very eyes, so sweet, so deep, and always unfathomable; the wide brow apparently so calm, the delicate mouth with its reserved sensitiveness, the fresh coloring of the face, neck, and hands. His eyes looked at me, whichever way I turned the portrait; they looked at Urania at the same time; they looked everywhere at once. Strange idea of the artist! I could not resist the thought of Urania's eyes, which had seemed to me to be looking at the portrait with embarrassing intentness. Her celestial countenance no longer wore the same expression at all, but appeared to me rather to be melancholy, almost sad. Then I turned again to the mysterious sheet of paper. It was written in a clear, precise hand, with no erasures. I offer it to the readers of this book just as I found it, without the slightest change; for it appears to be the very natural conclusion of the preceding episodes. Here it is, _verbatim_:-- This is the scientific testament of a mind which on the Earth did all in its power to remain independent of the weight of matter, and which hopes to be freed from it. I should like to leave the results of my researches in the form of aphorisms. It seems to me that the Truth can be reached only through the study of Nature, that is to say, by science. Here are the inductions which appear to me to be founded on this method of observation. I. The visible, tangible, ponderable, and constantly moving universe is composed of invisible, intangible, imponderable, and inert atoms. II. These atoms are governed by force, to constitute bodies and to organize beings. III. Force is essential entity.