THE LEGEND OF THE PERFECT FOOD
A foretaste of autumn had crept into the midst of summer. There were
gray clouds in the sky, a north wind booming across the moors. Burton
even shivered as he walked down the hill to the house where she lived.
There was still gorse, still heather, still a few roses in the garden
and a glimmering vision of the beds of other flowers in the background.
But the sun which gave them life was hidden. Burton looked eagerly into
the garden and his heart sank. There was no sign there of any living
person. After a moment's hesitation, he opened the gate, passed up the
neat little path and rang the bell. It was opened after the briefest of
delays by the trim parlor-maid.
"Is your mistress at home?" he asked.
"Miss Edith has gone to London for two days, sir," the girl announced.
"The professor is in his study, sir."
Burton stood quite still for a moment. It was absurd that his heart
should be so suddenly heavy, that all the spring and buoyancy should
have gone out of life! For the first time he realized the direction in
which his thoughts had been travelling since he had left his rooms an
hour ago. He had to remind himself that it was the professor whom he
had come to see.
Mr. Cowper received him graciously, if a little vaguely. Burton wasted
no time, however, in announcing the nature of his errand. Directly he
produced the sheets, the professor became interested. The faint odor
which seemed shaken out from them into the room stimulated his
curiosity. He sniffed at it with great content.
"Strange," he remarked, "very strange. I haven't smelt that perfume
since I was with the excavators at Chaldea. A real Oriental flavor,
young man, about your manuscript."
"There is very little of it," Burton said,--"just a page or so which
apparently the writer never had time to finish. The sheets came into my
hands in rather a curious way, and I should very much like to have an
exact translation of them. I don't even know what the language is. I
thought, perhaps, that you might be able to help me. I will explain to
you later, if you will allow me, the exact nature of my interest in
them."
Mr. Cowper took the pages into his hand with a benevolent smile. At
the first glance, however, his expression changed. It was obvious that
he was greatly interested. It was obvious, also, that he was
correspondingly surprised.
"My dear young man," he exclaimed, "my dear Mr.--Mr. Burton--why, this
is wonderful! Where did you get these sheets, do you say? Are you
honestly telling me that they were written within the last thousand
years?"
"Without a doubt," Burton replied. "They were written in London, a few
months ago."
Mr. Cowper was already busy surrounding himself with strange-looking
volumes. His face displayed the utmost enthusiasm in his task.
"It is most amazing, this," he declared, drawing a chair up to the
table. "These sheets are written in a language which has been dead as a
medium of actual intercourse for over two thousand years. You meet with
it sometimes in old Egyptian manuscripts. There was a monastery
somewhere near the excavations which I had the honor to conduct in
Syria, where an ancient prayer-book contained several prayers in this
language. Literally I cannot translate this for you; actually I will.
I can get at the sense--I can get at the sense quite well. But if one
could only find the man who wrote it! He is the man I should like to
see, Mr. Burton. If the pages were written so recently, where is the
writer?"
"He is dead," Burton replied.
Mr. Cowper sighed.
"Well, well," he continued, starting upon his task with avidity, "we
will talk about him presently. This is indeed miraculous. I am most
grateful--deeply grateful to you--for having brought me this
manuscript."
Mr. Cowper was busy for the next quarter of an hour. His expression,
as he turned up dictionaries and made notes, was still full of the
liveliest and most intense interest. Presently he leaned back in his
chair. He kept one hand upon the loose sheets of manuscript, while with
the other he removed his spectacles. Then he closed his eyes for a
moment.
"My young friend," he said, "did you ever hear a quaint Asiatic
legend--scarcely a legend, perhaps, but a superstition--that many and
many a wise man, four thousand years ago, spent his nights and his days,
not as our more modern scientists of a few hundred years ago have done,
in the attempt to turn baser metals into gold, but in the attempt to
constitute from simple elements the perfect food for man?"
Burton shook his head. He was somewhat mystified.
"I have never heard anything of the sort," he acknowledged.
"The whole literature of ancient Egypt and the neighboring countries,"
Mr. Cowper proceeded, "abounds with mystical stories of this perfect
food. It was to come to man in the nature of a fruit. It was to give
him, not eternal life--for that was valueless--but eternal and absolute
understanding, so that nothing in life could be harmful, nothing save
objects and thoughts of beauty could present themselves to the
understanding of the fortunate person who partook of it. These pages
which you have brought to me to translate are concerned with this
superstition. The writer claims here that after centuries of research
and blending and grafting, carried on without a break by the priests of
his family, each one handing down, together with an inheritance of his
sacerdotal office, many wonderful truths respecting the growth of this
fruit,--the writer of these lines claims here, that he, the last of his
line, has succeeded in producing the one perfect food, from which
everything gross is eliminated, and whose spiritual result upon a normal
man is such as to turn him from a thing of clay into something
approaching a god."
"Does he mention anything about beans?" Burton asked anxiously.
Mr. Cowper nodded benignantly.
"The perfect food referred to," he said, "appears to have been produced
in the shape of small beans. They are to be eaten with great care, and
to ensure permanency in the results, a green leaf of the little tree is
to follow the consumption of the bean."
Burton sprang to his feet.
"A thousand thanks, professor!" he cried. "That is the one thing we
were seeking to discover. The leaves, of course!"
Mr. Cowper looked at his visitor in amazement.
"My young friend," he said, "are you going to tell me that you have seen
one of these beans?"
"Not only that but I have eaten one," Burton announced,--"in fact I
have eaten two."
Mr. Cowper was greatly excited.
"Where are they?" he exclaimed. "Show me one! Where is the tree? How
did the man come to write this? Where did he write it? Let me look at
one of the beans!"
Burton produced the little silver snuff-box in which he carried them.
With his left hand he kept the professor away.
"Mr. Cowper," he said, "I cannot let you touch them or handle them.
They mean more to me than I can tell you, yet there they are. Look at
them. And let me tell you this. That old superstition you have spoken
of has truth in it. These beans are indeed a spiritual food. They
alter character. They have the most amazing effect upon a man's moral
system."
"Young man," Mr. Cowper insisted, "I must eat one."
Burton shook his head.
"Mr. Cowper," he said, "there are reasons why I find it very hard to
deny you anything, but as regards those three beans, you will neither
eat one nor even hold it in your hand. Sit down and I will tell you a
story which sounds as though it might have happened a thousand years
ago. It happened within the last three months. Listen."
Burton told his story with absolute sincerity. The professor listened
with intense interest. It was perhaps strange that, extraordinary
though it was, he never for one moment seemed to doubt the truth of what
he heard. When Burton had finished, he rose to his feet in a state of
great excitement.
"This is indeed wonderful," he declared. "It is more wonderful, even,
than you can know of. The legend of the perfect food appears in the
manuscripts of many centuries. It antedates literature by generations.
There is a tomb in the interior of Japan, sacred to a saint who for
seventy years worked for the production of this very bean. That, let me
tell you, was three thousand years ago. My young friend, you have
indeed been favored!"
"Let me understand this thing," Burton said, anxiously. "Those pages
say that if one eats a green leaf after the bean, the change wrought in
one will become absolutely permanent?"
"That is so," the professor assented. "Now all that you have to do, is
to eat a green leaf from the little tree. After that, you will have no
more need of those three beans, and you can therefore give them to me."
Burton made no attempt to produce his little silver box.
"First of all," he said, "I must test the truth of this. I cannot run
any risks. I must go and eat a leaf. If in three months no change has
taken place in me, I will lend you a bean to examine. I can do no more
than that. Until this matter is absolutely settled, they are worth more
than life itself to me."
Mr. Cowper seemed annoyed.
"Surely," he protested, "you are not going to ask me to wait three
months until I can examine one of these?"
"Three months will soon pass," Burton replied. "Until that time is up,
I could not part with them."
"But you can't imagine," the professor pleaded, "how marvelously
interesting this is to me. Remember that I have spent all my life
digging about among the archives and the literature and the
superstitions of these pre-Egyptian peoples. You are the first man in
the world, outside a little circle of fellow-workers, to speak to me of
this perfect food. Your story as to how it came into your hands is the
most amazing romance I have ever heard. It confirms many of my
theories. It is wonderful. Do you realize what has happened? You,
sir, you in your insignificant person," the professor continued, shaking
his finger at his visitor, "have tasted the result of thousands of years
of unceasing study. Wise men in their cells, before Athens was built,
before the Pyramids were conceived, were thinking out this matter in
strange parts of Egypt, in forgotten parts of Syria and Asia. For
generations their dream has been looked upon as a thing elusive as the
philosopher's stone, the transmutation of metals--any of these unsolved
problems. For five hundred years--since the days of a Russian scientist
who lived on the Black Sea, but whose name, for the moment, I have
forgotten--the whole subject has lain dead. It is indeed true that the
fairy tales of one generation become the science of the next. Our own
learned men have been blind. The whole chain of reasoning is so clear.
Every article of human food contains its separate particles, affecting
the moral as well as the physical system. Why should it have been
deemed necromancy to endeavor to combine these parts, to evolve by
careful elimination and change the perfect food? In the house, young
man, which you have told me of, there died the hero of the greatest
discovery which has ever been made since the world began to spin upon
its orbit."
"Will Miss Edith be back to-morrow?" Burton asked.
The professor stared at him.
"Miss Edith?" he repeated. "Oh! my daughter? Is she not in?"
"She is away for two days, your servant told me," Burton replied.
"Perhaps so--perhaps so," the professor agreed. "She has gone to her
aunt's, very likely, in Chelsea. My sister has a house there in
Bromsgrove Terrace."
Burton rose to his feet. He held out his hand for the manuscript.
"I am exceedingly obliged to you," he said. "Now I must go."
The professor gripped the manuscript in his hand. He was no longer a
harmless and benevolent old gentleman. He was like a wild animal about
to be robbed of its prey.
"No," he cried. "You must not take these away. You must not think of
it. They are of no use to you. Leave me the sheets, just as they are.
I will go further back. There are several words at the meaning of which
I have only guessed. Leave them with me for a few days, and I will make
you an exact translation."
"Very well," Burton assented.
"And one bean?" the professor begged. "Leave me one bean only? I
promise not to eat it, not to dissect it, not to subject it to
experiments of any sort. Let me just have it to look at, to be sure
that what you have told me is not an hallucination."
Burton shook his head.
"I dare not part with one. I am going straight back to test the leaf
theory. If it is correct, I will keep my promise. And--will you
remember me to Miss Edith when she returns, professor?"
"To Miss Edith? Yes, yes, of course," Mr. Cowper declared,
impatiently. "When shall you be down again, my young friend?" he went
on earnestly. "I want to hear more of your experiences. I want you to
tell me the whole thing over again. I should like to get a signed
statement from you. There are several points in connection with what
you say, which bear out a favorite theory of mine."
"I will come in a few days, if I may," Burton assured him.
The professor walked with his guest to the front door. He seemed
reluctant to let him go.
"Take care of yourself, Mr. Burton," he enjoined. "Yours is a precious
life. On no account subject yourself to any risks. Be careful of the
crossings. Don't expose yourself to inclement weather. Keep away from
any place likely to harbor infectious disease. I should very much like
to have a meeting in London of a few of my friends, if I could ensure
your presence."
"When I come down again," Burton promised, "we will discuss it."
He shook hands and hurried away. In less than an hour and a half he was
in Mr. Waddington's rooms. The latter had just arrived from the
office.
"Mr. Waddington," Burton exclaimed, "the little tree on which the beans
grew--where is it?"
Mr. Waddington was taken aback.
"But I picked all the beans," he replied. "There were only the leaves
left."
"Never mind that!" Burton cried. "It is the leaves we want! The
tree--where is it? Quick! I want to feel myself absolutely safe."
Mr. Waddington's face was blank.
"You have heard the translation of those sheets?"
"I have," Burton answered hastily. "I will tell you all about it
directly--as soon as you have brought me the tree."
Mr. Waddington had turned a little pale.
"I gave it to a child in the street, on my way home from Idlemay House,"
he declared. "There was no sign of any more beans coming and I had more
than enough to carry."
Burton sank into a chair and groaned.
"We are lost," he exclaimed, "unless you can find that child! Our cure
is only temporary. We need a leaf each from the tree. I have only
eight months and two weeks more!"
Mr. Waddington staggered to a seat. He produced his own beans and
counted them eagerly.
"A little under eleven months!" he muttered. "We must find the tree!"