That very singular man old Dr. Heidegger once invited four venerable
friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded
gentlemen—Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne—and a
withered gentlewoman whose name was the widow Wycherly. They were all
melancholy old creatures who had been unfortunate in life, and whose
greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves.
Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant,
but had lost his all by a frantic speculation, and was now little
better than a mendicant. Colonel Killigrew had wasted his best years
and his health and substance in the pursuit of sinful pleasures which
had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout and divers other
torments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man
of evil fame—or, at least, had been so till time had buried him from
the knowledge of the present generation and made him obscure instead of
infamous. As for the widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a
great beauty in her day, but for a long while past she had lived in
deep seclusion on account of certain scandalous stories which had
prejudiced the gentry of the town against her. It is a circumstance
worth mentioning that each of these three old gentlemen—Mr. Medbourne,
Colonel Killigrew and Mr. Gascoigne—were early lovers of the widow
Wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting each other’s
throats for her sake. And before proceeding farther I will merely hint
that Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be
a little beside themselves, as is not infrequently the case with old
people when worried either by present troubles or woeful recollections.
“My dear old friends,” said Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be seated,
“I am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments
with which I amuse myself here in my study.”
If all stories were true, Dr. Heidegger’s study must have been a very
curious place. It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber festooned with
cobwebs and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood
several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with
rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with
little parchment-covered duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a
bronze bust of Hippocrates, with which, according to some authorities,
Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult
cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall
and narrow oaken closet with its door ajar, within which doubtfully
appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass,
presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame.
Among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that
the spirits of all the doctor’s deceased patients dwelt within its
verge and would stare him in the face whenever he looked thitherward.
The opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length
portrait of a young lady arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk,
satin and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half
a century ago Dr. Heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this
young lady, but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had
swallowed one of her lover’s prescriptions and died on the
bridal-evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be
mentioned: it was a ponderous folio volume bound in black leather, with
massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody
could tell the title of the book. But it was well known to be a book of
magic, and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it merely to brush away
the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the
young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor and several ghastly
faces had peeped forth from the mirror, while the brazen head of
Hippocrates frowned and said, “Forbear!”
Such was Dr. Heidegger’s study. On the summer afternoon of our tale a
small round table as black as ebony stood in the centre of the room,
sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful form and elaborate
workmanship. The sunshine came through the window between the heavy
festoons of two faded damask curtains and fell directly across this
vase, so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen
visages of the five old people who sat around. Four champagne-glasses
were also on the table.
“My dear old friends,” repeated Dr. Heidegger, “may I reckon on your
aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment?”
Now, Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman whose eccentricity
had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these
fables—to my shame be it spoken—might possibly be traced back to mine
own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale should
startle the reader’s faith, I must be content to bear the stigma of a
fiction-monger.
When the doctor’s four guests heard him talk of his proposed
experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of
a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb by the
microscope, or some similar nonsense with which he was constantly in
the habit of pestering his intimates. But without waiting for a reply
Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber and returned with the same
ponderous folio bound in black leather which common report affirmed to
be a book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume and
took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose,
though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish
hue and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in the
doctor’s hands.
“This rose,” said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh—“this same withered and
crumbling flower—blossomed five and fifty years ago. It was given me by
Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder, and I meant to wear it in my
bosom at our wedding. Five and fifty years it has been treasured
between the leaves of this old volume. Now, would you deem it possible
that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?”
“Nonsense!” said the widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head.
“You might as well ask whether an old woman’s wrinkled face could ever
bloom again.”
“See!” answered Dr. Heidegger. He uncovered the vase and threw the
faded rose into the water which it contained. At first it lay lightly
on the surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture.
Soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. The crushed and
dried petals stirred and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if
the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber, the slender stalk
and twigs of foliage became green, and there was the rose of half a
century, looking as fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to her
lover. It was scarcely full-blown, for some of its delicate red leaves
curled modestly around its moist bosom, within which two or three
dewdrops were sparkling.
“That is certainly a very pretty deception,” said the doctor’s
friends—carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at
a conjurer’s show. “Pray, how was it effected?”
“Did you never hear of the Fountain of Youth?” asked Dr. Heidegger,
“which Ponce de Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in search of two or
three centuries ago?”
“But did Ponce de Leon ever find it?” said the widow Wycherly.
“No,” answered Dr. Heidegger, “for he never sought it in the right
place. The famous Fountain of Youth, if I am rightly informed, is
situated in the southern part of the Floridian peninsula, not far from
Lake Macaco. Its source is overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias
which, though numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as
violets by the virtues of this wonderful water. An acquaintance of
mine, knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what you see in
the vase.”
“Ahem!” said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor’s
story; “and what may be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?”
“You shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel,” replied Dr.
Heidegger.—“And all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so
much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth.
For my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no
hurry to grow young again. With your permission, therefore, I will
merely watch the progress of the experiment.”
While he spoke Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four
champagne-glasses with the water of the Fountain of Youth. It was
apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas, for little bubbles
were continually ascending from the depths of the glasses and bursting
in silvery spray at the surface. As the liquor diffused a pleasant
perfume, the old people doubted not that it possessed cordial and
comfortable properties, and, though utter sceptics as to its
rejuvenescent power, they were inclined to swallow it at once. But Dr.
Heidegger besought them to stay a moment.
“Before you drink, my respectable old friends,” said he, “it would be
well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should
draw up a few general rules for your guidance in passing a second time
through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and shame it would be if,
with your peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue
and wisdom to all the young people of the age!”
The doctor’s four venerable friends made him no answer except by a
feeble and tremulous laugh, so very ridiculous was the idea that,
knowing how closely Repentance treads behind the steps of Error, they
should ever go astray again.
“Drink, then,” said the doctor, bowing; “I rejoice that I have so well
selected the subjects of my experiment.”
With palsied hands they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor,
if it really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it,
could not have been bestowed on four human beings who needed it more
woefully. They looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure
was, but had been the offspring of Nature’s dotage, and always the
gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures who now sat stooping round
the doctor’s table without life enough in their souls or bodies to be
animated even by the prospect of growing young again. They drank off
the water and replaced their glasses on the table.
Assuredly, there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of
the party—not unlike what might have been produced by a glass of
generous wine—together with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine,
brightening over all their visages at once. There was a healthful
suffusion on their cheeks instead of the ashen hue that had made them
look so corpse-like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that some
magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad
inscriptions which Father Time had been so long engraving on their
brows. The widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a
woman again.
“Give us more of this wondrous water,” cried they, eagerly. “We are
younger, but we are still too old. Quick! give us more!”
“Patience, patience!” quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat, watching the
experiment with philosophic coolness. “You have been a long time
growing old; surely you might be content to grow young in half an hour.
But the water is at your service.” Again he filled their glasses with
the liquor of youth, enough of which still remained in the vase to turn
half the old people in the city to the age of their own grandchildren.
While the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim the doctor’s four
guests snatched their glasses from the table and swallowed the contents
at a single gulp. Was it delusion? Even while the draught was passing
down their throats it seemed to have wrought a change on their whole
systems. Their eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among
their silvery locks: they sat around the table three gentlemen of
middle age and a woman hardly beyond her buxom prime.
“My dear widow, you are charming!” cried Colonel Killigrew, whose eyes
had been fixed upon her face while the shadows of age were flitting
from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.
The fair widow knew of old that Colonel Killigrew’s compliments were
not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran to the
mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet
her gaze.
Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such a manner as proved that
the water of the Fountain of Youth possessed some intoxicating
qualities—unless, indeed, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a
lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal of the weight of
years. Mr. Gascoigne’s mind seemed to run on political topics, but
whether relating to the past, present or future could not easily be
determined, since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue these
fifty years. Now he rattled forth full-throated sentences about
patriotism, national glory and the people’s right; now he muttered some
perilous stuff or other in a sly and doubtful whisper, so cautiously
that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the secret; and now,
again, he spoke in measured accents and a deeply-deferential tone, as
if a royal ear were listening to his well-turned periods. Colonel
Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle-song and
ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered
toward the buxom figure of the widow Wycherly. On the other side of the
table, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents
with which was strangely intermingled a project for supplying the East
Indies with ice by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs.
As for the widow Wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and
simpering to her own image and greeting it as the friend whom she loved
better than all the world besides. She thrust her face close to the
glass to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow’s-foot had
indeed vanished; she examined whether the snow had so entirely melted
from her hair that the venerable cap could be safely thrown aside. At
last, turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing step to the
table.
“My dear old doctor,” cried she, “pray favor me with another glass.”
“Certainly, my dear madam—certainly,” replied the complaisant doctor.
“See! I have already filled the glasses.”
There, in fact, stood the four glasses brimful of this wonderful water,
the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the surface,
resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds.
It was now so nearly sunset that the chamber had grown duskier than
ever, but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within the vase and
rested alike on the four guests and on the doctor’s venerable figure.
He sat in a high-backed, elaborately-carved oaken arm-chair with a gray
dignity of aspect that might have well befitted that very Father Time
whose power had never been disputed save by this fortunate company.
Even while quaffing the third draught of the Fountain of Youth, they
were almost awed by the expression of his mysterious visage. But the
next moment the exhilarating gush of young life shot through their
veins. They were now in the happy prime of youth. Age, with its
miserable train of cares and sorrows and diseases, was remembered only
as the trouble of a dream from which they had joyously awoke. The fresh
gloss of the soul, so early lost and without which the world’s
successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded pictures, again threw
its enchantment over all their prospects. They felt like new-created
beings in a new-created universe.
“We are young! We are young!” they cried, exultingly.
Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked
characteristics of middle life and mutually assimilated them all. They
were a group of merry youngsters almost maddened with the exuberant
frolicsomeness of their years. The most singular effect of their gayety
was an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude of which they had
so lately been the victims. They laughed loudly at their old-fashioned
attire—the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men
and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. One limped across
the floor like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles
astride of his nose and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages
of the book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair and strove
to imitate the venerable dignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted
mirthfully and leaped about the room.
The widow Wycherly—if so fresh a damsel could be called a widow—tripped
up to the doctor’s chair with a mischievous merriment in her rosy face.
“Doctor, you dear old soul,” cried she, “get up and dance with me;” and
then the four young people laughed louder than ever to think what a
queer figure the poor old doctor would cut.
“Pray excuse me,” answered the doctor, quietly. “I am old and
rheumatic, and my dancing-days were over long ago. But either of these
gay young gentlemen will be glad of so pretty a partner.”
“Dance with me, Clara,” cried Colonel Killigrew.
“No, no! I will be her partner,” shouted Mr. Gascoigne.
“She promised me her hand fifty years ago,” exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.
They all gathered round her. One caught both her hands in his
passionate grasp, another threw his arm about her waist, the third
buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the
widow’s cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, her warm
breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove to disengage
herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. Never was there a
livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the
prize. Yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the
chamber and the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror
is said to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered
grand-sires ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a
shrivelled grandam. But they were young: their burning passions proved
them so.
Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither
granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began to
interchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold of the fair prize,
they grappled fiercely at one another’s throats. As they struggled to
and fro the table was overturned and the vase dashed into a thousand
fragments. The precious Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream across
the floor, moistening the wings of a butterfly which, grown old in the
decline of summer, had alighted there to die. The insect fluttered
lightly through the chamber and settled on the snowy head of Dr.
Heidegger.
“Come, come, gentlemen! Come, Madam Wycherly!” exclaimed the doctor. “I
really must protest against this riot.”
They stood still and shivered, for it seemed as if gray Time were
calling them back from their sunny youth far down into the chill and
darksome vale of years. They looked at old Dr. Heidegger, who sat in
his carved armchair holding the rose of half a century, which he had
rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase. At the motion
of his hand the four rioters resumed their seats—the more readily
because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they
were.
“My poor Sylvia’s rose!” ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it in the
light of the sunset clouds. “It appears to be fading again.”
And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it the flower
continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the
doctor had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops of
moisture which clung to its petals.
“I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness,” observed he,
pressing the withered rose to his withered lips.
While he spoke the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor’s snowy
head and fell upon the floor. His guests shivered again. A strange
dullness—whether of the body or spirit they could not tell—was creeping
gradually over them all. They gazed at one another, and fancied that
each fleeting moment snatched away a charm and left a deepening furrow
where none had been before. Was it an illusion? Had the changes of a
lifetime been crowded into so brief a space, and were they now four
aged people sitting with their old friend Dr. Heidegger?
“Are we grown old again so soon?” cried they, dolefully.
In truth, they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtue more
transient than that of wine; the delirium which it created had
effervesced away. Yes, they were old again. With a shuddering impulse
that showed her a woman still, the widow clasped her skinny hands
before her face and wished that the coffin-lid were over it, since it
could be no longer beautiful.
“Yes, friends, ye are old again,” said Dr. Heidegger, “and, lo! the
Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well, I bemoan it not;
for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to
bathe my lips in it—no, though its delirium were for years instead of
moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me.”
But the doctor’s four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves.
They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida and quaff at
morning, noon and night from the Fountain of Youth.