“Do you know, my dear count,” she said, “that you are a very terrible reasoner, and that you look at the world through a somewhat distempered medium? Have you really measured the world by scrutinies, or through alembics and crucibles? For you must indeed be a great chemist, and the elixir you administered to my son, which recalled him to life almost instantaneously——”
“Oh, do not place any reliance on that, madame; one drop of that elixir sufficed to recall life to a dying child, but three drops would have impelled the blood into his lungs in such a way as to have produced most violent palpitations; six would have suspended his respiration, and caused syncope more serious than that in which he was; ten would have destroyed him. You know, madame, how suddenly I snatched him from those phials which he so imprudently touched?”
“Is it then so terrible a poison?”
“Oh, no! In the first place, let us agree that the word poison does not exist, because in medicine use is made of the most violent poisons, which become, according as they are employed, most salutary remedies.”
“What, then, is it?”
“A skilful preparation of my friend’s the worthy Abbé Adelmonte, who taught me the use of it.”
“Oh,” observed Madame de Villefort, “it must be an admirable anti-spasmodic.”
“Perfect, madame, as you have seen,” replied the count; “and I frequently make use of it—with all possible prudence though, be it observed,” he added with a smile of intelligence.