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Little Masterpieces
Edited by Bliss Perry
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
DR. HEIDEGGER'S EXPERIMENT
THE BIRTHMARK
ETHAN BRAND
WAKEFIELD
DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE
THE AMBITIOUS GUEST
THE GREAT STONE FACE
THE GRAY CHAMPION
NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.
1897
Copyright, 1897, by
DOUBLEDAY & MCCLURE CO.
_These selections are used by special arrangement with
Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the authorized
publishers of Hawthorne's works._
MCCLURE PRESS
New York City
[Illustration: Nathaniel Hawthorne]
Introduction
Hawthorne made three collections of his short stories and sketches:
"Twice-Told Tales," "Mosses from an Old Manse," and "The Snow Image and
Other Tales." The prefaces to these volumes express, with characteristic
charm, the author's dissatisfaction with his handiwork. No critic has
pointed out so clearly as Hawthorne himself the ineffectiveness of some
of the "Twice-Told Tales"; he thinks that the "Mosses from an Old Manse"
afford no solid basis for a literary reputation; and his comment upon
the earlier and later work gathered indiscriminately into his final
volume is that "the ripened autumnal fruit tastes but little better than
the early windfalls."
It must be remembered that the collections were made in desultory
fashion. They included some work that Hawthorne had outgrown even when
the first volume was published, such as elaborate exercises in
description and fanciful allegories, excellently composed but without
substance. Yet side by side with these proofs of his long, weary
apprenticeship are stories that reveal the consummate artist, mature in
mind and heart, and with the sure hand of the master. The qualities of
imagination and style that place Hawthorne easily first among American
writers of fiction are as readily discernible in his best brief tales as
in his romances.
"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," with which the present volume opens, is
Hawthorne's earliest treatment of the elixir of immortality theme, which
haunted him throughout his life and was the subject of the unfinished
romance which rested upon his coffin. He handles it daintily, poetically
here, with an irony at once exquisite and profound. "The Birthmark"
represents another favorite theme: the rivalry between scientific
passion and human affection. It is not wholly free from the morbid fancy
which Hawthorne occasionally betrays, and which allies him, on one side
of his many-gifted mind, with Edgar Allan Poe; but the essential sanity
of Hawthorne's moral, and the perfection of the workmanship, render "The
Birthmark" worthy of its high place among modern short stories. "Ethan
Brand" dates obviously from the sojourn at North Adams, Massachusetts,
described in the "American Note-Book." Fragmentary as it is, it is one
of Hawthorne's most powerful pieces of writing, the Unpardonable Sin
which it portrays--the development of the intellect at the expense of
the heart--being one which the lonely romancer himself had had cause to
dread. The motive of the humorous character sketch entitled "Wakefield"
is somewhat similar: the danger of stepping aside, even for a moment,
from one's allotted place. "Drowne's Wooden Image" is a charming old
Boston version of the artistic miracles made possible by love. In "The
Ambitious Guest," the familiar story of the Willey House, in the Notch
of the White Hills, is told with singular delicacy and imaginativeness,
while "The Great Stone Face," a parable after Hawthorne's own heart, is
suggested by a well-known phenomenon of the same mountainous region.
Hawthorne's numerous tales based upon New England history are
represented by one of the briefest, "The Gray Champion," whose succinct
opening and eloquent close are no less admirable than the stern passion
of its dramatic climax.
Not every note of which Hawthorne's deep-toned instrument was capable is
exhibited in these eight tales, but they will serve, perhaps, to show
the nature of his magic. Certain characteristics of his art are
everywhere in evidence: simplicity of theme and treatment, absolute
clearness, verbal melody, with now and again a dusky splendor of
coloring. The touch of a few other men may be as perfect, the notes they
evoke more brilliant, certainly more gay, but Hawthorne's graver
harmonies linger in the ear and abide in the memory. It is only after
intimate acquaintance, however, that one perceives fully Hawthorne's
real scope, his power to convey an idea in its totality. His art is the
product of a rich personality, strong, self-contained, content to brood
long over its treasures. It is seldom in the history of literature--and
quite without parallel in American letters--that a nature so perfectly
dowered should attain to such perfect self-expression. Here lies his
supreme fortune as an artist. He was permitted to give adequate
expression to a rare and beautiful genius, and for thousands of his
countrymen life has been touched to finer issues because Hawthorne
followed his boyish bent and became a writer of fiction.
BLISS PERRY.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Editor's Introduction V
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment 1
The Birthmark 21
Ethan Brand 53
Wakefield 83
Drowne's Wooden Image 101
The Ambitious Guest 125
The Great Stone Face 141
The Gray Champion 177
Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
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 further, I will merely hint, that
Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a
little beside themselves; as is not unfrequently the case with old
people, when worried either by present troubles or woful 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 death-like 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
wofully. They looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure
was, but had been the off-spring 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 beside. 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 grandsires,
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 arm-chair, 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 chillness, 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.
NOTE.--In an English Review, not long since, I have been accused of
plagiarizing the idea of this story from a chapter in one of the
novels of Alexandre Dumas. There has undoubtedly been a plagiarism
on one side or the other; but as my story was written a good deal
more than twenty years ago, and as the novel is of considerably
more recent date, I take pleasure in thinking that M. Dumas has
done me the honor to appropriate one of the fanciful conceptions of
my earlier days. He is heartily welcome to it: nor is it the only
instance, by many, in which the great French romancer has exercised
the privilege of commanding genius by confiscating the intellectual
property of less famous people to his own use and behoof.
_September, 1860._
The Birthmark
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 weakened 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 his own.
Such a 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
motion 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 pygmy 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 birthmark 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 birthmark 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 birthmark; 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 birthmark. 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 burden 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 birthmark 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
birthmark 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 vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer's
underworker 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 details of his master's experiments. With his vast strength, his
shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that
incrusted 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
pastil."
"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 birthmark."
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, impurpled 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."
"O, 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 burden 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."
"O, 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 birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a
red-hot iron had touched her cheek.