CHAPTER XXVII.
LOVE VERSUS SCIENCE.
In five minutes Balsamo was in his vestibule, looking at Fritz andasking with anxiety:
"Has she returned?"
"She has gone up into the room of the arms and the furs, very wornout,from having run so rapidly that I was hardly in time to open the doorafter I caught sight of her. I was frightened; for she rushed in like atempest. She ran up the stairs without taking breath, and fell on thegreat black lion's-skin on entering the room. There you will find her."
Balsamo went up precipitately and found her as said. He took her up inhis arms and carried her into the inner house where the secret doorclosed behind them.
He was going to awake her to vent the reproaches on her which werenursed in his wrath, when three knocks on the ceiling notified him thatthe sage called Althotas, in the upper room, was aware of his arrivaland asked speech of him.
Fearing that he would come down, as sometimes happened, or that Lorenzawould learn something else detrimental to the Order, he charged her witha fresh supply of the magnetic fluid, and went up by a kind of elevatorto Althota' laboratory.
In the midst of a wilderness of chemical and surgical instruments,phials and plants, this very aged man was a terrible figure at thismoment.
Such part of his face as seemed yet to retain life was empurpled withangry fire: his knotted hands like those of a skeleton, trembled andcracked--his deepset eyes seemed to shake loose in the sockets and in alanguage unknown even to his pupil he poured invectives upon him.
Having left his padded armchair to go to the trap by which Balsamo cameup through the floor, he seemed to move solely by his long spider-likearms. It must be extraordinary excitement to make him leave the seatwhere he conducted his alchemical work and enter into our worldly life.
Balsamo was astonished and uneasy.
"So you come, you sluggard, you coward, to abandon your master," saidAlthotas.
As was his habit, the other summoned up all his patience to reply to hismaster.
"I thought you had only just called me, my friend," he meekly said.
"Your friend, you vile human creature," cried the alchemist, "I thinkyou talk to me as if I were one of your sort. Friend? I should think Iwere more than that: more than your father, for I have reared you,instructed you and enriched you. But you are no friend to me, oh, no!for you have left me, you let me starve, and you will be my death."
"You have a bilious attack, master, and you will make yourself ill bygoing on thus."
"Illness--rubbish! Have I ever been ill save when you made me feel thepetty miseries of your mean human life? I, ill, who you know am thephysician to others."
"At all events, master, here I am," coldly observed Balsamo. "Let us notwaste time."
"You are a nice one to remind me of that. You force me to dole out whatought to be unmeasured to all human creatures. Yes, I am wasting time:my time, like others, is falling drop by drop into eternity when itought to be itself eternity."
"Come, master, let us know what is to be done?" asked the other, workingthe spring which closed the trap in the floor. "You said you werestarved. How so, when you know you were doing your fortnight's absolutefast?"
"Yes; the work of regeneration was commenced thirty-two days ago."
"What are you complaining about in that case--I see yet two or threedecanters of rainwater, the only thing you take."
"Of course: but do you think I am a silkworm to perform alone the greattask of transformation and rejuvenation? Can I without any strengthalone compose my draft of life? Do you think I shall have my abilitywhen I am lying down with no support but refreshing drink, if you do nothelp me? abandoned to my own resources, and the minute labor of myregeneration--you know you ought to help and succor, if a friend?"
"I am here," responded Balsamo, taking the old man and placing him inhis chair as one might a disagreeable child, "what do you want? You haveplenty of distilled water: your loaves of barley and sesame are there;and I have myself given you the white drops you prescribed."
"Yes; but the elixir is not composed. The last time I was fifty, I hadyour father to help me, your faithful father. I got it ready a monthbeforehand. For the blood of a virgin which I had to have, I bought achild of a trader at Mount Ararat where I retired. I bled it accordingto the rites; I took three drops of arterial blood and in an hour mymixture, only wanting that ingredient, was composed. Therefore myregeneration came off passing well: my hair and teeth fell during thespasms caused by the draft, but they came again--the teeth badly, Iadmit, for I had neglected to use a golden tube for decanting theliquor. But my hair and nails came as if I were fifteen again. But hereI am once more old; and the elixir is not concocted. If it is not soonin this bottle, with all care given to compounding it, the science of acentury will be lost in me, and this admirable and sublime secret whichI hold will be lost for man, who would thus through me be linked withdivinity. Oh, if I go wrong, if I fail, you, Acharat, will have been thecause, and my wrath will be dreadful!"
As these final words made a spark flash from his dying eye, the hideousold man fell back in a convulsion succeeded by violent coughing. Balsamoat once gave him the most eager care. The old doctor came to hissenses; his pallor was worse; this slight shaking had so exhausted himthat he seemed about to die.
"Tell me what you want, master, and you shall have it, if possible."
"Possible?" sneered the other, "You know that all is possible with timeand science. I have the science; but time is only about to be conqueredby me. My dose has succeeded; the white drops have almost eradicatedmost of my old nature. My strength has nearly disappeared. Youth ismounting and casting off the old bark, so to say. You will remark,Acharat, that the symptoms are excellent; my voice is faint; my sightweakened by three parts; I feel my senses wander at times; thetransitions from heat to cold are insensible to me. So it is urgent thatI get my draft made so that on the proper day of my fifteenth year, Ishall pass from a hundred years to twenty without hesitation. Theingredients are gathered, the gold tube for the decanting is ready; Ionly lack the three drops of pure blood which I told you of."
Balsamo made a start in repugnance.
"Oh, well, let us give up the idea of a child," sneered Althotas, "sinceyou dream of nothing but your wife with whom you shut yourself upinstead of coming to aid me."
"My wife," repeated Balsamo, sadly: "a wife but in name. I have had tosacrifice all to her, love, desire, all, I repeat, in order to preserveher pure that I may use her spirit as a seer's to pierce the almostimpenetrable. Instead of making me happy, she makes the world so."
"Poor fool," said Althotas, "I believe you gabble still of youramelioration of society when I talk to you of eternal youth and life forman."
"To be acquired at the price of a horrid crime! and even then---- "
"You doubt--he doubts!"
"But you said you renounced that want: what can you substitute?"
"Oh, the blood of the first virgin creature which I find--or you supplywithin a week."
"I will attend to it, master," said Balsamo.
Another spark of ire kindled the old man's eye.
"You will see about it!" he said, "that is your reply, is it? However, Iexpected it, and I am not astonished. Since when, you insignificantworm, does the creature speak thus to its creator? Ah, you see mefeeble, solicitating you and you fancy I am at your mercy! Do you thinkI am fool enough to rely on your mercy? Yes or no, Acharat--and I canread in your heart whether you deceive me or not--ay, read in yourheart--for I will judge you and pursue you."
"Master, have a care! your anger will injure you. I speak nothing butthe truth to my master. I will see if I can procure you what you wantwithout its bringing harm, nay, ruin upon us both. I will seek thewretch who will sell you what you wish but I shall not take the crimeupon me. That is all I can say."
"You are very dainty. Then, you would expose me to death, scoundrel; youwould save the three drops of the blood of some paltry thing in order tolet the wo
ndrous being that I am fall into the eternal abysm. Acharat,mark me," continued the weird old man, with a frightful smile, "I nolonger ask you for anything. I want absolutely nothing of you. I shallwait: but if you do not obey me, I shall take for myself; if you abandonme I shall help myself. You hear? away!"
Without answering the threat in any way, Balsamo prepared all things forthe old man's wants; like a good servant or a pious son attending to hisfather. Absorbed in quite another thought than that torturing Althotas,he went down through the trap-hole without noticing the old sage'sironical glance following him. He smiled like an evil genius when he sawthe mesmerist beside Lorenza, still asleep.