Paracelsus

My friend and I are both lovers of the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges.  Borges wrote a story called The Rose of Paracelsus.  In it a stranger comes to the aged alchemist, Paracelsus, and asks to be his disciple.  He brings with him a rose.  He has heard of the legend of Paracelsus - that he can throw a rose into the fire, let it burn to ash - and then with a word restore the flower again.  If the old man will let him but witness that miracle, then the stranger pledges to offer up his life as the alchemist's disciple.

"If I did what you ask... the miracle would not bring you the belief you seek.  Put aside, then, the rose," Paracelsus says.

In a rush the young man, full of suspicious passion throws the rose into the flames where its color fades and it is reduced to ashes.

"Paracelsus sat unmoving.  He said with strange simplicity:
'All the physicians and all the pharmacists in Basel say I am a fraud.  Perhaps they are right.  There are the ashes that were the rose, and that shall be the rose no more.'
"The young man was ashamed.  Paracelsus was a charlatan, or a mere visionary, and he, an intruder, had come through his door and forced him now to confess that his famed magic arts were false."

The stranger makes an apology - filled with pity for the old man...  He makes his awkward apology then stumbles out the door...

Many find themselves in this place, I imagine.  The faith of their youth laid bare, they have lost the mystery.  They have seen behind the curtain...  They have found their churches filled with old men speaking riddles without meaning.  The magic is gone.  And so they walk away.  With anger at being deceived, perhaps.  Or maybe like the young stranger, they leave with pity - gently replacing the curtain and walking away.

But perhaps there is still magic to be found...  Life in the ashes...

I love the ending to Borges' tale:
"Paracelsus was then alone.  Before putting out the lamp and returning to his weary chair, he poured the delicate fistful of ashes from one hand into the concave other, and he whispered a single word.  The rose appeared again."