Martel is, interestingly, a student of the world the same way Henry is a student of the body - having learnt so many of its intimacies one can now shape without, the other within. It is probably also interesting to note how much fucking trouble it's already gotten one of them and is about to get the other. Knowledge is what keeps both of them going (love is knowledge too, of a kind) but at its purest level it is dangerous.

Or maybe it's just dangerous because both of these men also exhibit a particular kind of arrogance. Henry's is much ...weirder, because he's so self-effacing in general, but not about his work. For this reason Martel should really point out that he did all this; Henry would love it.

"It sounds like as an ideal it's meant to encourage balance. Is that how it usually goes?"

The physical v. the intellectual, if you will.