"I measure time with a simple palantir," replied the abbé. "It cannot see very far, but it can see the sky through the window" (pointing to a slit so narrow a cockroach would have been hard put to penetrate it) "and thus distinguish day and night, as well as perceiving some of the brighter luminaries of the nocturnal sky, enabling me to make passable astronomical calculations. I made the palantir out of my gruel through what the Eldar call chemingóle, and I employed the same science to create a light in dark places, where all other lights go out, out of my fingernails. As for the book, I am writing it on my bedsheets in an ink made out of what it pleases me to call mushroom juice."
"How can you possibly accomplish these marvels!"
"Le bon goût, voilà le secret," said the abbé with a smile. "You would be astounded at how much one can accomplish with so little."
"Such merveilleux knowledge as you possess must have be obtained from books; but how can you have read such books in this tenebrous abysm?" inquired Samouard, trembling with astoundment.
