Author Description

The narrator is in his spacious breakfast-saloon, high above the noisy public square. The Chancellor has hired a mob to put on a "spontaneous" protest, but the rioters seem confused whether to chant for more or less of bread and taxes. Bruno enters, looking for Sylvie, but he ends up on the Chancellor's knee with Sylvie, listening to the Warden's report of the Professor's return from his travels in search of health. In the Library the Professor tells them about his troubles with barometric and "horizontal weather" issues.The narrator finds himself in a train compartment, which a veiled young lady has just entered. He is on his way to see Arthur, a doctor friend, for a consultation; he rereads Arthur's letter, and absent-mindedly repeats out loud its last line, "Do you believe in Fate?" The lady laughs, and a conversation ensues. The scene changes abruptly to the breakfast-saloon, in which the Professor is explaining his plunge-bath invention to the Sub-Warden, his wife, her son, the Chancellor, Warden, Sylvie, and Bruno.