"Animal, vegetable, mineral?
Those are antiquated distinctions, like the four elements of the alchemists." "Well--but what is the thing, then ?" asked Corbario, almost impatiently.
"What should you call it in scientific language ?" Kalmon closed his eyes for a moment, as if to collect his thoughts.
"In scientific language," he began, "it is probably H three C seven, parenthesis, H two C plus C four O five, close parenthesis, HC three O." Corbario laughed carelessly.
"I am no wiser than before," he said.
"Nor I," answered the Professor.

"Not a bit." "It is much simpler to call it 'the sleeping death,' is it not ?" suggested the Contessa.
"Much simpler, for that is precisely what it is." It was growing late, according to country ideas, and the party rose from the table and began to move about a little before going to bed.

The moon had risen high by this time.
Marcello and Aurora, unheeded by the rest, went round the verandah to the other side of the house and stood still a moment, looking out at the trees and listening to the sounds of the night.

Down by the pool a frog croaked now and then; from a distance came the plaintive, often repeated cry of a solitary owlet; the night breeze sighed through the long grass and the low shrubbery.
The boy and girl turned to each other, put out their hands and then their arms, and clasped each other silently, and kissed.

Then they walked demurely back to their elders, without exchanging a word.
"We have had to give you the little room at the end of the cottage," Corbario was saying to Kalmon.