the distant furnace-room, giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh,
uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt
or growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer
reappeared, and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of
chemical products, and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former
he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a
gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the
breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the
contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the
perfume into the air, and filled the room with piercing and invigorating
delight.
"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe,
containing a gold-coloured liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye, that
I could imagine it the Elixir of Life."
"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer, "or rather the Elixir of
Immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in
this world. By its aid, I could apportion the life-time of any mortal at
whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would
determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midst
of a breath. No king, on his guarded throne, could keep his life, if I,
in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions
justified me in depriving him of it."
"Why do you keep such a terrible drug?" inquired Georgiana in horror.
"Do not mistrust me, dearest!" said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous
potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But, see! here is a
powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this, in a vase of water,
freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A
stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the
rosiest beauty a pale ghost."
"Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked
Georgiana, anxiously.
"Oh, no!" hastily replied her husband,--"this is merely superficial.
Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper."
In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiries
as to her sensations, and whether the confinement of the rooms, and the
temperature of the atmosphere, agreed with her. These questions had such
a particular drift, that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was
already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in
with the fragrant air, or taken with her food. She fancied,
likewise--but it might be altogether fancy--that there was a stirring up
of her system: a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her
veins, and tingling, half-painfully, half-pleasurably, at her heart.
Still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld
herself, pale as a white rose, and with the crimson birth-mark stamped
upon her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she.
To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary
to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana turned
over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old tomes, she
met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the works of the
philosophers of the middle ages, such as Albertus, Magnus, Cornelius
Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the prophetic
Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance of their
centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore
were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves, to have acquired from
the investigation of nature a power above nature, and from physics a
sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and imaginative were
the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society, in which the
members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were
continually recording wonders, or proposing methods whereby wonders
might be wrought.
But, to Georgiana, the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her
husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his
scientific career, with its original aim, the methods adopted for its
development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to
which either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both the
history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical
and laborious, life. He handled physical details, as if there were
nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed himself
from materialism, by his strong and eager aspiration towards the
infinite. In his grasp, the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul.
Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer, and loved him more profoundly
than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than
heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that
his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared
with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest
pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the
inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, rich
with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as
melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad
confession, and continual exemplification, of the short-comings of the
composite man--the spirit burthened with clay and working in matter; and
of the despair that assails the higher nature, at finding itself so
miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius, in
whatever sphere, might recognize the image of his own experience in
Aylmer's journal.
So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana, that she laid her face
upon the open volume, and burst into tears. In this situation she was
found by her husband.
"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he, with a smile,
though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "Georgiana, there are
pages in that volume, which I can scarcely glance over and keep my
senses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you!"
"It has made me worship you more than ever," said she.
"Ah! wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you
will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But, come! I have
sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest!"
So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of
his spirit. He then took his leave, with a boyish exuberance of gaiety,
assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and
that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed, when
Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten to
inform Aylmer of a symptom, which, for two or three hours past, had
begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal
birth-mark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her
system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded, for the first time,
into the laboratory.
The first thing that struck her eyes was the furnace, that hot and
feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which, by the
quantities of soot clustered above it, seemed to have been burning for
ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the
room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of
chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use.
The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous
odours, which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The
severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and
brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to
the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost
solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself.
He was pale as death, anxious, and absorbed, and hung over the furnace
as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid, which
it was distilling, should be the draught of immortal happiness or
misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had
assumed for Georgiana's encouragement!
"Carefully now, Aminadab! Carefully, thou human machine! Carefully, thou
man of clay!" muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. "Now,
if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over!"
"Hoh! hoh!" mumbled Aminadab--"look, master, look!"
Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler
than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her, and seized her
arm with a grip that left the print of his fingers upon it.
"Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried he
impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal birth-mark over
my labours? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!"
"Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana, with the firmness of which she possessed
no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. You
mistrust your wife! You have concealed the anxiety with which you watch
the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my
husband! Tell me all the risk we run; and fear not that I shall shrink,
for my share in it is far less than your own!"
"No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer impatiently, "it must not be."
"I submit," replied she calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever
draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would
induce me to take a dose of poison, if offered by your hand."
"My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the height and
depth of your nature, until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then,
that this Crimson Hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp
into your being, with a strength of which I had no previous conception.
I have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to
change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried.
If that fail us, we are ruined!"
"Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she.
"Because, Georgiana," said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger!"
"Danger? There is but one danger--that this horrible stigma shall be
left upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it! remove it!--whatever
be the cost--or we shall both go mad!"
"Heaven knows, your words are too true," said Aylmer, sadly. "And now,
dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while, all will be tested."
He conducted her back, and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness,
which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his
departure, Georgiana became wrapt in musings. She considered the
character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous
moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honourable love, so
pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection, nor
miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had
dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment, than
that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her
sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love, by degrading its
perfect idea to the level of the actual. And, with her whole spirit, she
prayed, that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and
deepest conception. Longer than one moment, she well knew, it could not
be; for his spirit was ever on the march--ever ascending--and each
instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant
before.
The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal
goblet, containing a liquor colourless as water, but bright enough to be
the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the
consequence of a highly wrought state of mind, and tension of spirit,
than of fear or doubt.
"The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to
Georgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot
fail."
"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I might
wish to put off this birth-mark of mortality by relinquishing mortality
itself, in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to
those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at
which I stand. Were I weaker and blinder, it might be happiness. Were I
stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself,
methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die."
"You are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband.
"But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its
effect upon this plant!"
On the window-seat there stood a geranium, diseased with yellow
blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small
quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time,
when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly
blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure.
"There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the goblet. I
joyfully stake all upon your word."
"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid
admiration. "There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy
sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect!"
She quaffed the liquid, and returned the goblet to his hand.
"It is grateful," said she, with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like
water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of
unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst,
that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My
earthly senses are closing over my spirit, like the leaves around the
heart of a rose, at sunset."
She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required
almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and
lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips, ere
she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect
with the emotions proper to a man, the whole value of whose existence
was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood,
however, was the philosophic investigation, characteristic of the man of
science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the
cheek--a slight irregularity of breath--a quiver of the eyelid--a hardly
perceptible tremor through the frame--such were the details which, as
the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thought
had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume; but the
thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last.
While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal Hand, and
not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse,
he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very
act, and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily
and murmured, as if in remonstrance. Again, Aylmer resumed his watch.
Nor was it without avail. The Crimson Hand, which at first had been
strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek now grew
more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but the
birth-mark, with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its
former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was more
awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out of the sky; and
you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away.
"By Heaven, it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almost
irrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely trace it now. Success! Success!
And now it is like the faintest rose-colour. The slightest flush of
blood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!"
He drew aside the window-curtain, and suffered the light of natural day
to fall into the room, and rest upon her cheek. At the same time, he
heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant
Aminadab's expression of delight.
"Ah, clod! Ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of
frenzy. "You have served me well! Matter and Spirit--Earth and
Heaven--have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses!
You have earned the right to laugh."
These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her
eyes, and gazed into the mirror, which her husband had arranged for that
purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips, when she recognized how
barely perceptible was now that Crimson Hand, which had once blazed
forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their
happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face, with a trouble and
anxiety that he could by no means account for.
"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she.
"Poor? Nay, richest! Happiest! Most favoured!" exclaimed he. "My
peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!"
"My poor Aylmer!" she repeated, with a more than human tenderness. "You
have aimed loftily!--you have done nobly! Do not repent, that, with so
high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could
offer. Aylmer--dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"
Alas, it was too true! The fatal Hand had grappled with the mystery of
life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union
with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birth-mark--that
sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the parting
breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her
soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight.
Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross
Fatality of Earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal
essence, which, in this dim sphere of half-development, demands the
completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder
wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness, which would have
woven his mortal life of the self-same texture with the celestial. The
momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond
the shadowy scope of Time, and living once for all in Eternity, to find
the perfect Future in the present.
A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED
WILKIE COLLINS
Shortly after my education at college was finished, I happened to be
staying at Paris with an English friend. We were both young men then,
and lived, I am afraid, rather a wild life, in the delightful city of
our sojourn. One night we were idling about the neighbourhood of the
Palais Royal, doubtful to what amusement we should next betake
ourselves. My friend proposed a visit to Frascati's; but his suggestion
was not to my taste. I knew Frascati's, as the French saying is, by
heart; had lost and won plenty of five-franc pieces there, merely for
amusement's sake, until it was amusement no longer, and was thoroughly
tired, in fact, of all the ghastly respectabilities of such a social
anomaly as a respectable gambling-house.
"For Heaven's sake," said I to my friend, "let us go somewhere where we
can see a little genuine, blackguard, poverty-stricken gaming, with no
false gingerbread glitter thrown over it at all. Let us get away from
fashionable Frascati's, to a house where they don't mind letting in a
man with a ragged coat, or a man with no coat, ragged or otherwise."
"Very well," said my friend, "we needn't go out of the Palais Royal to
find the sort of company you want. Here's the place just before us; as
blackguard a place, by all report, as you could possibly wish to see."
In another minute we arrived at the door, and entered the house.
When we got upstairs, and had left our hats and sticks with the
doorkeeper, we were admitted into the chief gambling-room. We did not
find many people assembled there. But, few as the men were who looked up
at us on our entrance, they were all types--lamentably true types--of
their respective classes.
We had come to see blackguards; but these men were something worse.
There is a comic side, more or less appreciable, in all blackguardism:
here there was nothing but tragedy--mute, weird tragedy. The quiet in
the room was horrible. The thin, haggard, long-haired young man, whose
sunken eyes fiercely watched the turning up of the cards, never spoke;
the flabby, fat-faced, pimply player, who pricked his piece of
pasteboard perseveringly, to register how often black won, and how often
red, never spoke; the dirty, wrinkled old man, with the vulture eyes and
the darned great-coat, who had lost his last sou, and still looked on
desperately after he could play no longer, never spoke. Even the voice
of the croupier sounded as if it were strangely dulled and thickened in
the atmosphere of the room. I had entered the place to laugh, but the
spectacle before me was something to weep over. I soon found it
necessary to take refuge in excitement from the depression of spirits
which was fast stealing on me. Unfortunately I sought the nearest
excitement, by going to the table and beginning to play. Still more
unfortunately, as the event will show, I won--won prodigiously; won
incredibly; won at such a rate that the regular players at the table
crowded round me; and staring at my stakes with hungry, superstitious
eyes, whispered to one another that the English stranger was going to
break the bank.
The game was Rouge et Noir. I had played at it in every city in Europe,
without, however, the care or the wish to study the Theory of
Chances--that philosopher's stone of all gamblers! And a gambler,
in the strict sense of the word, I had never been. I was heart-whole
from the corroding passion for play. My gaming was a mere idle
amusement. I never resorted to it by necessity, because I never knew
what it was to want money. I never practised it so incessantly as to
lose more than I could afford, or to gain more than I could coolly
pocket without being thrown off my balance by my good luck. In short,
I had hitherto frequented gambling-tables--just as I frequented
ball-rooms and opera-houses--because they amused me, and because I
had nothing better to do with my leisure hours.
But on this occasion it was very different--now, for the first time in
my life, I felt what the passion for play really was. My successes first
bewildered, and then, in the most literal meaning of the word,
intoxicated me. Incredible as it may appear, it is nevertheless true,
that I only lost when I attempted to estimate chances, and played
according to previous calculation. If I left everything to luck, and
staked without any care or consideration, I was sure to win--to win in
the face of every recognized probability in favour of the bank. At first
some of the men present ventured their money safely enough on my colour;
but I speedily increased my stakes to sums which they dared not risk.
One after another they left off playing, and breathlessly looked on at
my game.
Still, time after time, I staked higher and higher, and still won. The
excitement in the room rose to fever pitch. The silence was interrupted
by a deep-muttered chorus of oaths and exclamations in different
languages, every time the gold was shovelled across to my side of the
table--even the imperturbable croupier dashed his rake on the floor in a
(French) fury of astonishment at my success. But one man present
preserved his self-possession, and that man was my friend. He came to my
side, and whispering in English, begged me to leave the place, satisfied
with what I had already gained. I must do him the justice to say that he
repeated his warnings and entreaties several times, and only left me and
went away, after I had rejected his advice (I was to all intents and
purposes gambling drunk) in terms which rendered it impossible for him
to address me again that night.
Shortly after he had gone, a hoarse voice behind me cried, "Permit me,
my dear sir--permit me to restore to their proper place two napoleons
which you have dropped. Wonderful luck, sir! I pledge you my word of
honour, as an old soldier, in the course of my long experience in this
sort of thing, I never saw such luck as yours--never! Go on, sir--_Sacre
mille bombes!_ Go on boldly, and break the bank!"
I turned round and saw, nodding and smiling at me with inveterate
civility, a tall man, dressed in a frogged and braided surtout.