`That mortal nonsense,' he would say to me, while at the same time spending so much of my money to splendidly furnish Pointe du Lac, that even I, who cared nothing for the money, was forced to wince! This power -- sputtering as if all day long he had been saying the words over with the same intensity, and it does not really matter that now I am present -- this power that made all the lies meaningless, this dark power that soared over everything, this truth that obliterated?