out of her lee, were at the mercy of the tremendous sea which was still
running. We made a determined effort to put back, but our little boat
was like a feather in the breath of the tempest. We saw at a glance that
the doom of the unfortunate artist was sealed.
As our distance from the wreck rapidly increased, the madman (for as
such only could we regard him) was seen to emerge from the companionway,
up which, by dint of strength that appeared gigantic, he dragged,
bodily, the oblong box. While we gazed in the extremity of astonishment,
he passed rapidly several turns of a three-inch rope, first around the
box and then around his body. In another instant both body and box were
in the sea, disappearing suddenly, at once and forever.
We lingered awhile sadly upon our oars, with our eyes riveted upon the
spot. At length we pulled away. The silence remained unbroken for an
hour. Finally I hazarded a remark.
"Did you observe, Captain, how suddenly they sank? Was not that an
exceedingly singular thing? I confess that I entertained some feeble
hope of his final deliverance when I saw him lash himself to the box and
commit himself to the sea."
"They sank as a matter of course," replied the Captain, "and that like a
shot. They will soon rise again, however, but not till the salt melts."
"The salt!" I ejaculated.
"Hush!" said the Captain, pointing to the wife and sisters of the
deceased. "We must talk of these things at some more appropriate time."
* * * * *
We suffered much and made a narrow escape; but fortune befriended us, as
well as our mates in the long-boat. We landed, in fine, more dead than
alive, after four days of intense distress, upon the beach opposite
Roanoke Island. We remained here a week, were not ill-treated by the
wreckers, and at length obtained a passage to New York.
About a month after the loss of the _Independence_, I happened to meet
Captain Hardy in Broadway. Our conversation turned, naturally, upon the
disaster, and especially upon the sad fate of poor Wyatt. I thus learned
the following particulars:
The artist had engaged passage for himself, wife, two sisters, and a
servant. His wife was indeed, as she had been represented, a most lovely
and most accomplished woman. On the morning of the fourteenth of June
(the day in which I first visited the ship), the lady suddenly sickened
and died. The young husband was frantic with grief, but circumstances
imperatively forbade the deferring his voyage to New York. It was
necessary to take to her mother the corpse of his adored wife, and, on
the other hand, the universal prejudice which would prevent his doing so
openly was well known. Nine tenths of the passengers would have
abandoned the ship rather than take passage with a dead body.
In this dilemma Captain Hardy arranged that the corpse, being first
partially embalmed and packed, with a large quantity of salt in a box of
suitable dimensions, should be conveyed on board as merchandise. Nothing
was to be said of the lady's decease; and, as it was well understood
that Mr. Wyatt had engaged passage for his wife, it became necessary
that some person should personate her during the voyage. This the
deceased lady's maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra stateroom,
originally engaged for this girl during her mistress's life, was now
merely retained. In this stateroom the pseudo-wife slept, of course,
every night. In the daytime she performed, to the best of her ability,
the part of her mistress, whose person, it had been carefully
ascertained, was unknown to any of the passengers on board.
My own mistake arose, naturally enough, through too careless, too
inquisitive, and too impulsive a temperament. But of late it is a rare
thing that I sleep soundly at night. There is a countenance which haunts
me, turn as I will. There is an hysterical laugh which will forever ring
within my ears.
THE BIRTH-MARK
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
In the latter part of the last century, there lived a man of science--an
eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy--who, not long
before our story opens, had made experience of a spiritual affinity,
more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the
care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the
furnace-smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded
a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days, when the
comparatively recent discovery of electricity, and other kindred
mysteries of nature, seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it
was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman, in
its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination,
the spirit, and even the heart, might all find their congenial aliment
in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would
ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the
philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force, and
perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer
possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over nature. He
had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies,
ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his
young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by
intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength
of the latter to its own.
Such an union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly
remarkable consequences, and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very
soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife, with a trouble
in his countenance that grew stronger, until he spoke.
"Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark upon
your cheek might be removed?"
"No, indeed," said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his
manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth, it has been so often
called a charm, that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so."
"Ah, upon another face, perhaps it might," replied her husband. "But
never on yours! No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from
the hand of Nature, that this slightest possible defect--which we
hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty--shocks me, as being the
visible mark of earthly imperfection."
"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first
reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. "Then why
did you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love what shocks you!"
To explain this conversation, it must be mentioned, that, in the centre
of Georgiana's left cheek, there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven,
as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual
state of her complexion,--a healthy, though delicate bloom,--the mark
wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid
the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed, it gradually became more
indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood, that
bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But, if any shifting
emotion caused her to turn pale, there was the mark again, a crimson
stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful
distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand,
though of the smallest pigmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say,
that some fairy, at her birth-hour, had laid her tiny hand upon the
infant's cheek, and left this impress there, in token of the magic
endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a
desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his
lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the
impression wrought by this fairy sign-manual varied exceedingly,
according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. Some
fastidious persons--but they were exclusively of her own sex--affirmed
that the Bloody Hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the
effect of Georgiana's beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous.
But it would be as reasonable to say, that one of those small blue
stains, which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble, would
convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the
birth-mark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with
wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of
ideal loveliness, without the semblance of a flaw. After his
marriage--for he thought little or nothing of the matter before--Aylmer
discovered that this was the case with himself.
Had she been less beautiful--if Envy's self could have found aught else
to sneer at--he might have felt his affection heightened by the
prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now
stealing forth again, and glimmering to-and-fro with every pulse of
emotion that throbbed within her heart. But, seeing her otherwise so
perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable, with
every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity,
which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her
productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that
their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The Crimson Hand
expressed the ineludible gripe, in which mortality clutches the highest
and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the
lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames
return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife's
liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre imagination
was not long in rendering the birth-mark a frightful object, causing him
more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or
sense, had given him delight.
At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably,
and without intending it--nay, in spite of a purpose to the
contrary--reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first
appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought, and
modes of feeling, that it became the central point of all. With the
morning twilight, Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face, and
recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the
evening hearth, his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld,
flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral Hand that wrote
mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to
shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance, with the peculiar
expression that his face often wore, to change the roses of her cheek
into a death-like paleness, amid which the Crimson Hand was brought
strongly out, like a bas-relief of ruby on the whitest marble.
Late, one night, when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to
betray the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first
time, voluntarily took up the subject.
"Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a
smile--"have you any recollection of a dream, last night, about this
odious Hand?"
"None!--none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added in a
dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of
his emotion:--"I might well dream of it; for, before I fell asleep, it
had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy."
"And you did dream of it," continued Georgiana hastily; for she dreaded
lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say--"A terrible
dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget this
one expression?--'It is in her heart now--we must have it
out!'--Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall
that dream."
The mind is in a sad state, when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot
confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them
to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance
belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied
himself, with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the
removal of the birth-mark. But the deeper went the knife, the deeper
sank the Hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught
hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably
resolved to cut or wrench it away.
When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in
his wife's presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to
the mind close-muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with
uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an
unconscious self-deception, during our waking moments. Until now, he had
not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over
his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go, for
the sake of giving himself peace.
"Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the cost
to both of us, to rid me of this fatal birth-mark. Perhaps its removal
may cause cureless deformity. Or, it may be, the stain goes as deep as
life itself. Again, do we know that there is a possibility, on any
terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little Hand, which was laid
upon me before I came into the world?"
"Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," hastily
interrupted Aylmer--"I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its
removal."
"If there be the remotest possibility of it," continued Georgiana, "let
the attempt be made, at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for
life--while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and
disgust--life is a burthen which I would fling down with joy. Either
remove this dreadful Hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep
science! All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great
wonders! Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with
the tips of two small fingers! Is this beyond your power, for the sake
of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?"
"Noblest--dearest--tenderest wife!" cried Aylmer, rapturously. "Doubt
not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest
thought--thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a
being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper than
ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to render
this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what
will be my triumph, when I shall have corrected what Nature left
imperfect, in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his sculptured
woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be."
"It is resolved, then," said Georgiana, faintly smiling,--"And, Aylmer,
spare me not, though you should find the birth-mark take refuge in my
heart at last."
Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek--her right cheek--not that which
bore the impress of the Crimson Hand.
The next day, Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed,
whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant
watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while
Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its
success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments
occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome
youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of nature, that
had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. Seated
calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the
secrets of the highest cloud-region, and of the profoundest mines; he
had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the
fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and
how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others with
such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. Here,
too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human
frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature
assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the
spiritual world, to create and foster Man, her masterpiece. The latter
pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside, in unwilling recognition
of the truth, against which all seekers sooner or later stumble, that
our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working
in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own
secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but
results. She permits us indeed to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a
jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed
these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or
wishes as first suggested them; but because they involved much
physiological truth, and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the
treatment of Georgiana.
As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold
and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to
reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the
birth-mark upon the whiteness of her cheek, that he could not restrain a
strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted.
"Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor.
Forthwith, there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature,
but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was
grimed with the vapours of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer's
under-worker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably
fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill
with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he
executed all the practical details of his master's experiments. With his
vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable
earthiness that encrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical
nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were
no less apt a type of the spiritual element.
"Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab," said Aylmer, "and burn a
pastille."
"Yes, master," answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form
of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself:--"If she were my wife,
I'd never part with that birth-mark."
When Georgiana recovered consciousness, she found herself breathing an
atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had
recalled her from her death-like faintness. The scene around her looked
like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms,
where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a
series of beautiful apartments, not unfit to be the secluded abode of a
lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted
the combination of grandeur and grace, that no other species of
adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to the floor,
their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight
lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For aught
Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer,
excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical
processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames
of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, empurpled radiance. He now
knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for
he was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magic
circle round her, within which no evil might intrude.
"Where am I?--Ah, I remember!" said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed
her hand over her cheek, to hide the terrible mark from her husband's
eyes.
"Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! Believe me,
Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be
such a rapture to remove it."
"Oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at it again. I
never can forget that convulsive shudder."
In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from
the burthen of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the
light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its
profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of
unsubstantial beauty, came and danced before her, imprinting their
momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct
idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was
almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed
sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look
forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were answered,
the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. The
scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, but
with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference, which always makes a
picture, an image, or a shadow, so much more attractive than the
original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a
vessel, containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest
at first, but was soon startled, to perceive the germ of a plant,
shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk--the leaves
gradually unfolded themselves--and amid them was a perfect and lovely
flower.
"It is magical!" cried Georgiana, "I dare not touch it."
"Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer, "pluck it, and inhale its brief
perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments, and
leave nothing save its brown seed-vessels--but thence may be perpetuated
a race as ephemeral as itself."
But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant
suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black, as if by the agency of
fire.
"There was too powerful a stimulus," said Aylmer thoughtfully.
To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her
portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to be
effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal.
Georgiana assented--but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to
find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the
minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been.
Aylmer snatched the metallic plate, and threw it into a jar of corrosive
acid.
Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of
study and chemical experiment, he came to her, flushed and exhausted,
but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of
the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the
Alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent, by
which the Golden Principle might be elicited from all things vile and
base. Aylmer appeared to believe, that, by the plainest scientific
logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover
this long-sought medium; but, he added, a philosopher who should go deep
enough to acquire the power, would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to
the exercise of it. Not less singular were his opinions in regard to the
Elixir Vitae. He more than intimated, that it was at his option to
concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years--perhaps
interminably--but that it would produce a discord in nature, which all
the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find
cause to curse.
"Aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked Georgiana, looking at him with
amazement and fear; "it is terrible to possess such power, or even to
dream of possessing it!"
"Oh, do not tremble, my love!" said her husband, "I would not wrong
either you or myself, by working such inharmonious effects upon our
lives. But I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the
skill requisite to remove this little Hand."
At the mention of the birth-mark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank, as if a
red-hot iron had touched her cheek.