XXIV
Eureka
A visit from the dean and the Warden restored him.
All three talked for an hour or two without mentioning metempsychosis; but when his two friends were leaving Heraclius could not contain himself any longer. While the Dean was struggling into his bearskin coat, he drew aside the Warden, of whom he was less afraid, and confided all his trouble to him. He told him how he thought he had found the author of the manuscript, how he had been mistaken, how the wretched monkey had played a most scandalous trick on him and how utterly in despair he felt. In fact, confronted with the ruin of his illusions, Heraclius broke down completely. The Warden, much moved, clasped him by the hand and was just about to speak when the Dean’s solemn voice calling out “Aren’t you ever coming, Warden?” boomed from the hall.
“Come, come,” said the Warden, with a final clasp of the unhappy Doctor’s hand and the sort of smile with which one comforts a child who has been naughty, “cheer up, my friend. Perhaps after all you’re the author of the manuscript yourself.”
Then he went out into the dark street, leaving the astonished Heraclius on the doorstep.
The Doctor went slowly back to his study, muttering from time to time:
“Perhaps I am the author of the manuscript.”
He made another careful study of the way in which the document had been recovered at each appearance of its author and then he recalled how he himself had found it. The dream which had preceded the happy day like a providential warning, the emotion he had felt on entering Ruelle des Vieux Pigeons—all this came back to him, clearly, distinctly, surprisingly. And then he stood up, spreading out his arms as though he had seen a vision, and cried in a resounding voice:
“It is I! It is I!”
A shiver seemed to pass through the whole house. Pythagoras barked violently, the disturbed animals suddenly woke up and became so excited that it seemed as though each one was bent on celebrating in his own tongue the tremendous resurrection of the prophet of metempsychosis. Then, in the grip of an overwhelming emotion, Heraclius sat down, opened the last page of this new Bible and reverently added to it the entire history of his life.