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The good man, deeply lost in thought, started at the touch and demanded in an angry tone, “What are you up to?"
“Master, people say you are like the philosopher's stone. At your touch, even iron turns into gold. So I have come to see for myself if it is true. They say the poor and the needy have little sense left in them. I am poor and needy, and perhaps I am ignorant and foolish. I must be very wicked, too, for I live on and on after all my sufferings, after losing two young sons. God knows what more is in store for me! My third son is on his death-bed. Driven to desperation, I have come with this piece of iron, hoping against hope, it might turn into gold at your touch, and I might have at last the means to restore my son to health. Forgive me my audacity, but they did say you were a living philosopher's stone. How could I resist the temptation?” Faint with fear and fatigue, the woman poured out her tale in a torrent of words and stood there, gasping for breath.
The good man gazed at the woman's face, lined with age and suffering, her eyes dimmed with shedding tears of woe, her expression of trust and hope in him, and his heart turned within him with pity. He stretched out his hand for the piece of iron and told her to sit on a bench nearby. But she dared not sit; she stood there as if rooted to the spot, while her heart thumped alternately with fear and expectation. The man had spoken angrily at first, but there was compassion in his eyes. Perhaps he would find it in
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