“Then I will trust you. Cure me—I will pay you well.”
I could scarce help smiling. If Lorenzo de’ Medici, conscious of
millions of ducats in his coffers, had been addressing some leech
of the period, he could not have spoken with a loftier air than
this inhabitant of the fourth story of a tenement house in the
Seventh Avenue.
“You must keep quiet,” I answered. “Let nothing irritate you. I
will leave a composing draught with your daughter, which she will
give you immediately. I will see you in the morning. You will be
well in a week.”
“Thank God!” came in a murmur from a dusk corner near the door. I
turned, and beheld the dim outline of the girl, standing with
clasped hands in the gloom of the dim chamber.
“My daughter!” screamed the old man, once more leaping up in the
bed with renewed vitality. “You have seen her, then? When?
Where? Oh, may a thousand cur—”
“Father! father! Anything—anything but that. Don’t, don’t curse
me!” And the poor girl, rushing in, flung herself sobbing on her
knees beside his pallet.
“Ah, brigand! You are there, are you? Sir,” said he, turning to
me, “I am the most unhappy man in the world. Talk of Sisyphus
rolling the ever-recoiling stone—of Prometheus gnawed by the
vulture since the birth of time. The fables yet live. There is my
rock, forever crushing me back! there is my eternal vulture,
feeding upon my heart! There! there! there!” And, with an awful
gesture of malediction and hatred, he pointed with his wounded
hand, swathed and shapeless with bandages, at the cowering,
sobbing, wordless woman by his side.
I was too much horror-stricken to attempt even to soothe him. The
anger of blood against blood has an electric power which paralyzes
bystanders.
“Listen to me, sir,” he continued, “while I skin this painted
viper. I have your oath; you will not reveal. I am an alchemist,
sir. Since I was twenty-two years old, I have pursued the
wonderful and subtle secret. Yes, to unfold the mysterious Rose
guarded with such terrible thorns; to decipher the wondrous Table
of Emerald; to accomplish the mystic nuptials of the Red King and
the White Queen; to marry them soul to soul and body to body,
forever and ever, in the exact proportions of land and water—such
has been my sublime aim, such has been the splendid feat that I
have accomplished.”
I recognized at a glance, in this incomprehensible farrago, the
argot of the true alchemist. Ripley, Flamel, and others have
supplied the world, in their works, with the melancholy spectacle
of a scientific bedlam.
“Two years since,” continued the poor man, growing more and more
excited with every word that he uttered—“two years since, I
succeeded in solving the great problem—in transmuting the baser
metals into gold. None but myself, that girl, and God knows the
privations I had suffered up to that time. Food, clothing, air,
exercise, everything but shelter, was sacrificed toward the one
great end. Success at last crowned my labors. That which Nicholas
Flamel did in 1382, that which George Ripley did at Rhodes in 1460,
that which Alexander Sethon and Michael Scudivogius did in the
seventeenth century, I did in 1856. I made gold! I said to
myself, ‘I will astonish New York more than Flamel did Paris.’ He
was a poor copyist, and suddenly launched into magnificence. I had
scarce a rag to my back: I would rival the Medicis. I made gold
every day. I toiled night and morning; for I must tell you that I
never was able to make more than a certain quantity at a time, and
that by a process almost entirely dissimilar to those hinted at in
those books of alchemy I had hitherto consulted. But I had no
doubt that facility would come with experience, and that ere long I
should be able to eclipse in wealth the richest sovereigns of the
earth.
“So I toiled on. Day after day I gave to this girl here what gold
I succeeded in fabricating, telling her to store it away after
supplying our necessities. I was astonished to perceive that we
lived as poorly as ever. I reflected, however, that it was perhaps
a commendable piece of prudence on the part of my daughter.
Doubtless, I said, she argues that the less we spend the sooner we
shall accumulate a capital wherewith to live at ease; so, thinking
her course a wise one, I did not reproach her with her
niggardliness, but toiled on, amid want, with closed lips.
“The gold which I fabricated was, as I said before, of an
invariable size, namely, a little ingot worth perhaps thirty or
forty-five dollars. In two years I calculated that I had made five
hundred of these ingots, which, rated at an average of thirty
dollars apiece, would amount to the gross sum of fifteen thousand
dollars. After deducting our slight expenses for two years, we
ought to have had nearly fourteen thousand dollars left. It was
time, I thought, to indemnify myself for my years of suffering, and
surround my child and myself with such moderate comforts as our
means allowed. I went to my daughter and explained to her that I
desired to make an encroachment upon our little hoard. To my utter
amazement, she burst into tears, and told me that she had not got a
dollar—that all of our wealth had been stolen from her. Almost
overwhelmed by this new misfortune, I in vain endeavored to
discover from her in what manner our savings had been plundered.
She could afford me no explanation beyond what I might gather from
an abundance of sobs and a copious flow of tears.
“It was a bitter blow, doctor, but nil desperandum was my motto, so
I went to work at my crucible again, with redoubled energy, and
made an ingot nearly every second day. I determined this time to
put them in some secure place myself; but the very first day I set
my apparatus in order for the projection, the girl Marion—that is
my daughter’s name—came weeping to me and implored me to allow her
to take care of our treasure. I refused decisively, saying that,
having found her already incapable of filling the trust, I could
place no faith in her again. But she persisted, clung to my neck,
threatened to abandon me; in short, used so many of the bad but
irresistible arguments known to women that I had not the heart to
refuse her. She has since that time continued to take the ingots.
“Yet you behold,” continued the old alchemist, casting an
inexpressibly mournful glance around the wretched apartment, “the
way we live. Our food is insufficient and of bad quality; we never
buy clothes; the rent of this hole is a mere nothing. What am I to
think of the wretched girl who plunges me into this misery? Is she
a miser, think you?—or a female gamester?—or—or—does she
squander it riotously in places I know not of? O Doctor, Doctor!
do not blame me if I heap imprecations on her head, for I have
suffered bitterly!” The poor man here closed his eyes and sank
back groaning on his bed.
This singular narrative excited in me the strangest emotions. I
glanced at the girl Marion, who had been a patient listener to
these horrible accusations of cupidity, and never did I behold a
more angelic air of resignation than beamed over her countenance.
It was impossible that anyone with those pure, limpid eyes; that
calm, broad forehead; that childlike mouth, could be such a monster
of avarice or deceit as the old man represented. The truth was
plain enough: the alchemist was mad—what alchemist was there ever
who was not?—and his insanity had taken this terrible shape. I
felt an inexpressible pity move my heart for this poor girl, whose
youth was burdened with such an awful sorrow.
“What is your name?” I asked the old man, taking his tremulous,
fevered hand in mine.
“William Blakelock,” he answered. “I come of an old Saxon stock,
sir, that bred true men and women in former days. God! how did it
ever come to pass that such a one as that girl ever sprung from our
line?” The glance of loathing and contempt that he cast at her
made me shudder.
“May you not be mistaken in your daughter?” I said, very mildly.
“Delusions with regard to alchemy are, or have been, very common—”
“What, sir?” cried the old man, bounding in his bed. “What? Do
you doubt that gold can be made? Do you know, sir, that M. C.
Theodore Tiffereau made gold at Paris in the year 1854 in the
presence of M. Levol, the assayer of the Imperial Mint, and the
result of the experiments was read before the Academy of Sciences
on the sixteenth of October of the same year? But stay; you shall
have better proof yet. I will pay you with one of my ingots, and
you shall attend me until I am well. Get me an ingot!”
This last command was addressed to Marion, who was still kneeling
close to her father’s bedside. I observed her with some curiosity
as this mandate was issued. She became very pale, clasped her
hands convulsively, but neither moved nor made any reply.
“Get me an ingot, I say!” reiterated the alchemist passionately.
She fixed her large eyes imploringly upon him. Her lips quivered,
and two huge tears rolled slowly down her white cheeks.
“Obey me, wretched girl,” cried the old man in an agitated voice,
“or I swear, by all that I reverence in heaven and earth, that I
will lay my curse upon you forever!”
I felt for an instant that I ought perhaps to interfere, and spare
the girl the anguish that she was so evidently suffering; but a
powerful curiosity to see how this strange scene would terminate
withheld me.
The last threat of her father, uttered as it was with a terrible
vehemence, seemed to appall Marion. She rose with a sudden leap,
as if a serpent had stung her, and, rushing into an inner
apartment, returned with a small object which she placed in my
hand, and then flung herself in a chair in a distant corner of the
room, weeping bitterly.
“You see—you see,” said the old man sarcastically, “how
reluctantly she parts with it. Take it, sir; it is yours.”
It was a small bar of metal. I examined it carefully, poised it in
my hand—the color, weight, everything, announced that it really
was gold.
“You doubt its genuineness, perhaps,” continued the alchemist.
“There are acids on yonder table—test it.”
I confess that I DID doubt its genuineness; but after I had acted
upon the old man’s suggestion, all further suspicion was rendered
impossible. It was gold of the highest purity. I was astounded.
Was then, after all, this man’s tale a truth? Was his daughter,
that fair, angelic-looking creature, a demon of avarice, or a slave
to worse passions? I felt bewildered. I had never met with
anything so incomprehensible. I looked from father to daughter in
the blankest amazement. I suppose that my countenance betrayed my
astonishment, for the old man said: “I perceive that you are
surprised. Well, that is natural. You had a right to think me mad
until I proved myself sane.”
“But, Mr. Blakelock,” I said, “I really cannot take this gold. I
have no right to it. I cannot in justice charge so large a fee.”
“Take it—take it,” he answered impatiently; “your fee will amount
to that before I am well. Besides,” he added mysteriously, “I wish
to secure your friendship. I wish that you should protect me from
her,” and he pointed his poor, bandaged hand at Marion.
My eyes followed his gesture, and I caught the glance that replied—
a glance of horror, distrust, despair. The beautiful face was
distorted into positive ugliness.
“It’s all true,” I thought; “she is the demon that her father
represents her.”
I now rose to go. This domestic tragedy sickened me. This
treachery of blood against blood was too horrible to witness. I
wrote a prescription for the old man, left directions as to the
renewal of the dressings upon his burns, and, bidding him good
night, hastened toward the door.
While I was fumbling on the dark, crazy landing for the staircase,
I felt a hand laid on my arm.
“Doctor,” whispered a voice that I recognized as Marion
Blakelock’s, “Doctor, have you any compassion in your heart?”
“I hope so,” I answered shortly, shaking off her hand; her touch
filled me with loathing.
“Hush! don’t talk so loud. If you have any pity in your nature,
give me back, I entreat of you, that gold ingot which my father
gave you this evening.”
“Great heaven!” said I, “can it be possible that so fair a woman
can be such a mercenary, shameless wretch?”
“Ah! you know not—I cannot tell you! Do not judge me harshly. I
call God to witness that I am not what you deem me. Some day or
other you will know. But,” she added, interrupting herself, “the
ingot—where is it? I must have it. My life depends on your
giving it to me.”
“Take it, impostor!” I cried, placing it in her hand, that closed
on it with a horrible eagerness. “I never intended to keep it.
Gold made under the same roof that covers such as you must be
accursed.”
So saying, heedless of the nervous effort she made to detain me, I
stumbled down the stairs and walked hastily home.
The next morning, while I was in my office, smoking my matutinal
cigar, and speculating over the singular character of my
acquaintances of last night, the door opened, and Marion Blakelock
entered. She had the same look of terror that I had observed the
evening before, and she panted as if she had been running fast.
“Father has got out of bed,” she gasped out, “and insists on going
on with his alchemy. Will it kill him?”
“Not exactly,” I answered coldly. “It were better that he kept
quiet, so as to avoid the chance of inflammation. However, you
need not be alarmed; his burns are not at all dangerous, although
painful.”
“Thank God! thank God!” she cried, in the most impassioned accents;
and, before I was aware of what she was doing, she seized my hand
and kissed it.
“There, that will do,” I said, withdrawing my hand; “you are under
no obligations to me. You had better go back to your father.”
“I can’t go,” she answered. “You despise me—is it not so?”