florist. He succeeded. The curtain was further drawn, and he had a
glance of the same lovely face he had seen the evening before; it was
but a mere glance--the curtain again fell, and the casement closed.
All this was calculated to excite the feelings of a romantic youth.
Had he seen the unknown under other circumstances, it is probable that
he would not have been struck with her beauty; but this appearance of
being shut up and kept apart, gave her the value of a treasured gem.
He passed and repassed before the house several times in the course of
the day, but saw nothing more. He was there again in the evening. The
whole aspect of the house was dreary. The narrow windows emitted no
rays of cheerful light, to indicate that there was social life within.
Antonio listened at the portal, but no sound of voices reached his
ear. Just then he heard the clapping to of a distant door, and fearing
to be detected in the unworthy act of eavesdropping, he precipitately
drew off to the opposite side of the road, and stood in the shadow of
a ruined archway.
He now remarked a light from a window in the tower. It was fitful and
changeable; commonly feeble and yellowish, as if from a lamp; with an
occasional glare of some vivid metallic colour, followed by a dusky
glow. A column of dense smoke would now and then rise in the air, and
hang like a canopy over the tower. There was altogether such a
loneliness and seeming mystery about the building and its inhabitants,
that Antonio was half inclined to indulge the country people's
notions, and to fancy it the den of some powerful sorcerer, and the
fair damsel he had seen to be some spell-bound beauty.
After some time had elapsed, a light appeared in the window where he
had seen the beautiful arm. The curtain was down, but it was so thin
that he could perceive the shadow of some one passing and repassing
between it and the light. He fancied that he could distinguish that
the form was delicate; and, from the alacrity of its movements, it was
evidently youthful. He had not a doubt but this was the bed-chamber of
his beautiful unknown.
Presently he heard the sound of a guitar, and a female voice singing.
He drew near cautiously, and listened. It was a plaintive Moorish
ballad, and he recognized in it the lamentations of one of the
Abencerrages on leaving the walls of lovely Granada. It was full of
passion and tenderness. It spoke of the delights of early life; the
hours of love it had enjoyed on the banks of the Darro, and among the
blissful abodes of the Alhambra. It bewailed the fallen honours of the
Abencerrages, and imprecated vengeance on their oppressors. Antonio
was affected by the music. It singularly coincided with the place. It
was like the voice of past times echoed in the present, and breathing
among the monuments of its departed glory.
The voice ceased; after a time the light disappeared, and all was
still. "She sleeps!" said Antonio, fondly. He lingered about the
building, with the devotion with which a lover lingers about the bower
of sleeping beauty. The rising moon threw its silver beams on the gray
walls, and glittered on the casement. The late gloomy landscape
gradually became flooded with its radiance. Finding, therefore, that
he could no longer move about in obscurity, and fearful that his
loiterings might be observed, he reluctantly retired.
The curiosity which had at first drawn the young man to the tower, was
now seconded by feelings of a more romantic kind. His studies were
almost entirely abandoned. He maintained a kind of blockade of the old
mansion; he would take a book with him, and pass a great part of the
day under the trees in its vicinity; keeping a vigilant eye upon it,
and endeavouring to ascertain what were the walks of his mysterious
charmer. He found, however, that she never went out except to mass,
when she was accompanied by her father. He waited at the door of the
church, and offered her the holy water, in the hope of touching her
hand; a little office of gallantry common in Catholic countries. She,
however, modestly declined without raising her eyes to see who made
the offer, and always took it herself from the font. She was attentive
in her devotion; her eyes were never taken from the altar or the
priest; and, on returning home, her countenance was almost entirely
concealed by her mantilla.
Antonio had now carried on the pursuit for several days, and was
hourly getting more and more interested in the chase, but never a step
nearer to the game. His lurkings about the house had probably been
noticed, for he no longer saw the fair face at the window, nor the
white arm put forth to water the flowers. His only consolation was to
repair nightly to his post of observation, and listen to her warbling;
and if by chance he could catch a sight of her shadow, passing and
repassing before the window, he thought himself most fortunate.
As he was indulging in one of these evening vigils, which were
complete revels of the imagination, the sound of approaching footsteps
made him withdraw into the deep shadow of the ruined archway opposite
to the tower. A cavalier approached, wrapped in a large Spanish cloak.
He paused under the window of the tower, and after a little while
began a serenade, accompanied by his guitar, in the usual style of
Spanish gallantry. His voice was rich and manly; he touched the
instrument with skill, and sang with amorous and impassioned
eloquence. The plume of his hat was buckled by jewels that sparkled in
the moon-beams; and as he played on the guitar, his cloak falling off
from one shoulder, showed him to be richly dressed. It was evident
that he was a person of rank.
The idea now flashed across Antonio's mind, that the affections of his
unknown beauty might be engaged. She was young, and doubtless
susceptible; and it was not in the nature of Spanish females to be
deaf and insensible to music and admiration. The surmise brought with
it a feeling of dreariness. There was a pleasant dream of several days
suddenly dispelled. He had never before experienced any thing of the
tender passion; and, as its morning dreams are always delightful, he
would fain have continued in the delusion.
"But what have I to do with her attachments?" thought he; "I have no
claim on her heart, nor even on her acquaintance. How do I know that
she is worthy of affection? Or if she is, must not so gallant a lover
as this, with his jewels, his rank, and his detestable music, have
completely captivated her? What idle humour is this that I have fallen
into? I must again to my books. Study, study, will soon chase away all
these idle fancies!"
The more he thought, however, the more he became entangled in the
spell which his lively imagination had woven round him; and now that a
rival had appeared, in addition to the other obstacles that environed
this enchanted beauty, she appeared ten times more lovely and
desirable. It was some slight consolation to him to perceive that the
gallantry of the unknown met with no apparent return from the tower.
The light at the window was extinguished. The curtain remained
undrawn, and none of the customary signals were given to intimate that
the serenade was accepted.
The cavalier lingered for some time about the place, and sang several
other tender airs with a taste and feeling that made Antonio's heart
ache; at length he slowly retired. The student remained with folded
arms, leaning against the ruined arch, endeavouring to summon up
resolution enough to depart; but there was a romantic fascination that
still enchained him to the place. "It is the last time," said he,
willing to compromise between his feelings and his judgment, "it is
the last time; then let me enjoy the dream a few moments longer."
As his eye ranged about the old building to take a farewell look, he
observed the strange light in the tower, which he had noticed on a
former occasion. It kept beaming up, and declining, as before. A
pillar of smoke rose in the air, and hung in sable volumes. It was
evident the old man was busied in some of those operations that had
gained him the reputation of a sorcerer throughout the neighbourhood.
Suddenly an intense and brilliant glare shone through the casement,
followed by a loud report, and then a fierce and ruddy glow. A figure
appeared at the window, uttering cries of agony or alarm, but
immediately disappeared, and a body of smoke and flame whirled out of
the narrow aperture. Antonio rushed to the portal, and knocked at it
with vehemence. He was only answered by loud shrieks, and found that
the females were already in helpless consternation. With an exertion
of desperate strength he forced the wicket from its hinges, and rushed
into the house.
He found himself in a small vaulted hall, and, by the light of the
moon which entered at the door, he saw a staircase to the left. He
hurried up it to a narrow corridor, through which was rolling a volume
of smoke. He found here the two females in a frantic state of alarm;
one of them clasped her hands, and implored him to save her father.
The corridor terminated in a spiral flight of steps, leading up to the
tower. He sprang up it to a small door, through the chinks of which
came a glow of light, and smoke was spuming out. He burst it open, and
found himself in an antique vaulted chamber, furnished with a furnace
and various chemical apparatus. A shattered retort lay on the stone
floor; a quantity of combustibles, nearly consumed, with various
half-burnt books and papers, were sending up an expiring flame, and
filling the chamber with stifling smoke. Just within the threshold lay
the reputed conjurer. He was bleeding, his clothes were scorched, and
he appeared lifeless. Antonio caught him up, and bore him down the
stairs to a chamber, in which there was a light, and laid him on a
bed. The female domestic was despatched for such appliances as the
house afforded; but the daughter threw herself frantically beside her
parent, and could not be reasoned out of her alarm. Her dress was all
in disorder; her dishevelled hair hung in rich confusion about her
neck and bosom, and never was there beheld a lovelier picture of
terror and affliction.
The skilful assiduities of the scholar soon produced signs of
returning animation in his patient. The old man's wounds, though
severe, were not dangerous. They had evidently been produced by the
bursting of the retort; in his bewilderment he had been enveloped in
the stifling metallic vapours, which had overpowered his feeble frame,
and had not Antonio arrived to his assistance, it is possible he might
never have recovered.
By slow degrees' he came to his senses. He looked about with a
bewildered air at the chamber, the agitated group around, and the
student who was leaning over him.
"Where am I?" said he wildly.
At the sound of his voice, his daughter uttered a faint exclamation of
delight. "My poor Inez!" said he, embracing her; then, putting his
hand to his head, and taking it away stained with blood, he seemed
suddenly to recollect himself, and to be overcome with emotion.
"Ah!" cried he, "all is over with me! all gone! all vanished! gone in
a moment! the labour of a lifetime lost!"
His daughter attempted to soothe him, but he became slightly
delirious, and raved incoherently about malignant demons, and about
the habitation of the green lion being destroyed. His wounds being
dressed, and such other remedies administered as his situation
required, he sunk into a state of quiet. Antonio now turned his
attention to the daughter, whose sufferings had been little inferior
to those of her father. Having with great difficulty succeeded in
tranquillizing her fears, he endeavoured to prevail upon her to
retire, and seek the repose so necessary to her frame, proffering to
remain by her father until morning. "I am a stranger," said he, "it is
true, and my offer may appear intrusive; but I see you are lonely and
helpless, and I cannot help venturing over the limits of mere
ceremony. Should you feel any scruple or doubt, however, say but a
word, and I will instantly retire."
There was a frankness, a kindness, and a modesty, mingled in Antonio's
deportment, that inspired instant confidence; and his simple scholar's
garb was a recommendation in the house of poverty. The females
consented to resign the sufferer to his care, as they would be the
better able to attend to him on the morrow. On retiring, the old
domestic was profuse in her benedictions; the daughter only looked her
thanks; but as they shone through the tears that filled her fine black
eyes, the student thought them a thousand times the most eloquent.
Here, then, he was, by a singular turn of chance, completely housed
within this mysterious mansion. When left to himself, and the bustle
of the scene was over, his heart throbbed as he looked round the
chamber in which he was sitting. It was the daughter's room, the
promised land toward which he had cast so many a longing gaze. The
furniture was old, and had probably belonged to the building in its
prosperous days; but every thing was arranged with propriety. The
flowers that he had seen her attend stood in the window; a guitar
leaned against a table, on which stood a crucifix, and before it lay a
missal and a rosary. There reigned an air of purity and serenity about
this little nestling-place of innocence; it was the emblem of a chaste
and quiet mind. Some few articles of female dress lay on the chairs;
and there was the very bed on which she had slept--the pillow on which
her soft cheek had reclined! The poor scholar was treading enchanted
ground; for what fairy land has more of magic in it, than the
bedchamber of innocence and beauty?
From various expressions of the old man in his ravings, and from what
he had noticed on a subsequent visit to the tower, to see that the
fire was extinguished, Antonio had gathered that his patient was an
alchymist. The philosopher's stone was an object eagerly sought after
by visionaries in those days; but in consequence of the superstitious
prejudices of the times, and the frequent persecutions of its
votaries, they were apt to pursue their experiments in secret; in
lonely houses, in caverns and ruins, or in the privacy of cloistered
cells.
In the course of the night, the old man had several fits of
restlessness and delirium; he would call out upon Theophrastus, and
Geber, and Albertus Magnus, and other sages of his art; and anon would
murmur about fermentation and projection, until, toward daylight, he
once more sunk into a salutary sleep. When the morning sun darted his
rays into the casement, the fair Inez, attended by the female
domestic, came blushing into the chamber. The student now took his
leave, having himself need of repose, but obtaining ready permission
to return and inquire after the sufferer.
When he called again, he found the alchymist languid and in pain, but
apparently suffering more in mind than in body. His delirium had left
him, and he had been informed of the particulars of his deliverance,
and of the subsequent attentions of the scholar. He could do little
more than look his thanks, but Antonio did not require them; his own
heart repaid him for all that he had done, and he almost rejoiced in
the disaster that had gained him an entrance into this mysterious
habitation. The alchymist was so helpless as to need much assistance;
Antonio remained with him, therefore, the greater part of the day. He
repeated his visit the next day, and the next. Every day his company
seemed more pleasing to the invalid; and every day he felt his
interest in the latter increasing. Perhaps the presence of the
daughter might have been at the bottom of this solicitude.
He had frequent and long conversations with the alchymist. He found
him, as men of his pursuits were apt to be, a mixture of enthusiasm
and simplicity; of curious and extensive reading on points of little
utility, with great inattention to the everyday occurrences of life,
and profound ignorance of the world. He was deeply versed in singular
and obscure branches of knowledge, and much given to visionary
speculations. Antonio, whose mind was of a romantic cast, had himself
given some attention to the occult sciences, and he entered upon these
themes with an ardour that delighted the philosopher. Their
conversations frequently turned upon astrology, divination, and the
great secret. The old man would forget his aches and wounds, rise up
like a spectre in his bed, and kindle into eloquence on his favourite
topics. When gently admonished of his situation, it would but prompt
him to another sally of thought.
"Alas, my son!" he would say, "is not this very decrepitude and
suffering another proof of the importance of those secrets with which
we are surrounded? Why are we trammelled by disease, withered by old
age, and our spirits quenched, as it were, within, us, but because we
have lost those secrets of life and youth which were known to our
parents before their fall? To regain these, have philosophers been
ever since aspiring; but just as they are on the point of securing the
precious secrets for ever, the brief period of life is at an end; they
die, and with them all their wisdom and experience. 'Nothing,' as De
Nuysment observes, 'nothing is wanting for man's perfection but a
longer life, less crossed with sorrows and maladies, to the attaining
of the full and perfect knowledge of things.'"
At length Antonio so far gained on the heart of his patient, as to
draw from him the outlines of his story.
Felix de Vasques, the alchymist, was a native of Castile, and of an
ancient and honourable line. Early in life he had married a beautiful
female, a descendant from one of the Moorish families. The marriage
displeased his father, who considered the pure Spanish blood
contaminated by this foreign mixture. It is true, the lady traced her
descent from one of the Abencerrages, the most gallant of Moorish
cavaliers, who had embraced the Christian faith on being exiled from
the walls of Granada.
The injured pride of the father, however, was not to be appeased. He
never saw his son afterwards, and on dying left him but a scanty
portion of his estate; bequeathing the residue, in the piety and
bitterness of his heart, to the erection of convents, and the
performance of masses for souls in purgatory. Don Felix resided for a
long time in the neighbourhood of Valladolid, in a state of
embarrassment and obscurity. He devoted himself to intense study,
having, while at the university of Salamanca, imbibed a taste for the
secret sciences. He was enthusiastic and speculative; he went on from
one branch of knowledge to another, until he became zealous in the
search after the grand Arcanum.
He had at first engaged in the pursuit with the hopes of raising
himself from his present obscurity, and resuming the rank and dignity
to which his birth entitled him; but, as usual, it ended in absorbing
every thought, and becoming the business of his existence. He was at
length aroused from this mental abstraction, by the calamities of his
household. A malignant fever swept off his wife and all his children,
excepting an infant daughter. These losses for a time overwhelmed and
stupefied him. His home had in a manner died away from around him, and
he felt lonely and forlorn. When his spirit revived within him, he
determined to abandon the scene of his humiliation and disaster; to
bear away the child that was still left him beyond the scene of
contagion, and never to return to Castile until he should be enabled
to reclaim the honours of his line.
He had ever since been wandering and unsettled in his abode;--sometimes
the resident of populous cities, at other times of absolute solitudes.
He had searched libraries, meditated on inscriptions, visited adepts of
different countries, and sought to gather and concentrate the rays which
had been thrown by various minds upon the secrets of alchymy. He had at
one time travelled quite to Padua to search for the manuscripts of
Pietro d'Abano, and to inspect an urn which had been dug up near Este,
supposed to have been buried by Maximus Olybius, and to have contained
the grand elixir.[7]
[Footnote 7: This urn was found in 1533. It contained a lesser one, in
which was a burning lamp betwixt two small vials, the one of gold, the
other of silver, both of them full of a very clear liquor. On the
largest was an inscription, stating that Maximus Olybius shut up in
this small vessel elements which he had prepared with great toil.
There were many disquisitions among the learned on the subject. It was
the most received opinion, that this Maximus Olybius was an inhabitant
of Padua, that he had discovered the great secret, and that these
vessels contained liquor, one to transmute metals to gold, and other
to silver. The peasants who found the urns, imagining this precious
liquor to be common water, spilt every drop, so that the art of
transmuting metals remains as much a secret as ever.]
While at Padua, he had met with an adept versed in Arabian lore, who
talked of the invaluable manuscripts that must remain in the Spanish
libraries, preserved from the spoils of the Moorish academies and
universities; of the probability of meeting with precious unpublished
writings of Geber, and Alfarabius, and Avicenna, the great physicians
of the Arabian schools, who, it was well known, had treated much of
alchymy; but, above all, he spoke of the Arabian tablets of lead,
which had recently been dug up in the neighbourhood of Granada, and
which, it was confidently believed among adepts, contained the lost
secrets of the art.
The indefatigable alchymist once more bent his steps for Spain, full
of renovated hope. He had made his way to Granada: he had wearied
himself in the study of Arabic, in deciphering inscriptions, in
rummaging libraries, and exploring every possible trace left by the
Arabian sages.
In all his wanderings, he had been accompanied by Inez through the
rough and the smooth, the pleasant and the adverse; never complaining,
but rather seeking to soothe his cares by her innocent and playful
caresses. Her instruction had been the employment and the delight of
his hours of relaxation. She had grown up while they were wandering,
and had scarcely ever known any home but by his side. He was family,
friends, home, everything to her. He had carried her in his arms, when
they first began their wayfaring; had nestled her, as an eagle does
its young, among the rocky heights of the Sierra Morena; she had
sported about him in childhood, in the solitudes of the Bateucas; had
followed him, as a lamb does the shepherd, over the rugged Pyrenees,
and into the fair plains of Languedoc; and now she was grown up to
support his feeble steps among the ruined abodes of her maternal
ancestors.
His property had gradually wasted away, in the course of his travels
and his experiments. Still hope, the constant attendant of the
alchymist, had led him on; ever on the point of reaping the reward of
his labours, and ever disappointed. With the credulity that often
attended his art, he attributed many of his disappointments to the
machination of the malignant spirits that beset the paths of the
alchymist and torment him in his solitary labours. "It is their
constant endeavour," he observed, "to close up every avenue to those
sublime truths, which would enable man to rise above the abject state
into which he has fallen, and to return to his original perfection."
To the evil offices of these demons, he attributed his late disaster.
He had been on the very verge of the glorious discovery; never were
the indications more completely auspicious; all was going on
prosperously, when, at the critical moment which should have crowned
his labours with success, and have placed him at the very summit of
human power and felicity, the bursting of a retort had reduced his
laboratory and himself to ruins.
"I must now," said he, "give up at the very threshold of success. My
books and papers are burnt; my apparatus is broken. I am too old to
bear up against these evils. The ardour that once inspired me is gone;
my poor frame is exhausted by study and watchfulness, and this last
misfortune has hurried me towards the grave." He concluded in a tone
of deep dejection. Antonio endeavoured to comfort and reassure him;
but the poor alchymist had for once awakened to a consciousness of the
worldly ills that were gathering around him, and had sunk into
despondency. After a pause, and some thoughtfulness and perplexity of
brow, Antonio ventured to make a proposal.