"Justement," replied Monte Fato. "Receive my compliments; such knowledge is rare among women. Eh bien, if you take a milligram the first day, two the second, and three the third, at the end of twenty days you will support without harm three centigrams, which would be highly dangerous to another person who had not taken the same precautions – which is how Bilbon survived in the caravanserais of Mirquewoude."
"I have often read and reread the journals of Bilbon," said Mme. de Villefaramir. "But I had taken that for a fable."
"Non, madame; against the habitude of history, it is the truth. But what you have just said and what you inquire of me are not at all the results of a sudden caprice; for there are already two years that you asked similar questions."
"It is true, monsieur; minerangole and botaningole fascinate me; would I were a man, that I might be an Elessard or a Durin."
"All the more, madame, since the Haradrins do not limit themselves to using potions as a defense; they use them also as a weapon; in their hands, science becomes not only defensive, but very often offensive. There is not one of those women, haradrique or arachnide or even gondorienne, who does not know enough of chemingole to stupefy a physician, and of psychology to terrify a wizard."
