Fourteen

france, 1855

The young doctor did not think of himself as anything special. He knew himself to be a competent doctor, a fair man, and a mediocre alchemist.

He had not discovered The Philosopher’s Stone, yet his modest laboratory contained herbs he used to heal his wife and son when they were sick. He was not above feeling jealous of the men who had lived in previous centuries, when alchemy was in its heyday. He fantasized that, had he lived then, he might have been honored with a spot in Rudolph II’s court in Prague, where men from across the world were said to have been given a stipend to practice alchemy. But the doctor had been born centuries too late for that. Here in the nineteenth century, he had to live out his fantasies through books.

It was this hobby that led to the most improbable day of his life.

Though the doctor and his family lived in Paris, the doctor’s wife was originally from the town of Blois. He and his family frequently traveled there to visit her infirm mother. His love for books was well-known to his family, so they thought nothing of it when he spent the afternoon at a local bookshop. In truth, it was his desire to avoid the company of his mother-in-law at least as much as the pull of books that led him to the bookshop that afternoon.

He had learned not to openly express his obsession with alchemy. Even in the modern times in which he lived, alchemy was greeted with suspicion. Therefore he feigned an interest in a wide range of scientific subjects. Once he told the bookseller the range of topics that interested him, the stooped man without a hair on his head nodded and retreated to the back of his shop.

The doctor looked over the books selected for him, then politely asked if the man had anything that was perhaps … older.

The bookseller nodded with understanding. The doctor watched the small, elderly man climb to the top of a ladder, wondering if he should assist the bookseller, lest he fall from the high rungs as he clutched a large book in one hand. Before the doctor could make up his mind, the bookseller was back on the ground, pressing the book into the medical man’s hands.

“This is more to your liking, sir?”

It was. The doctor paid more than a fair price for Non Degenera Alchemia, an amount that had the bookseller drinking fine wine for months to come. The bookseller was quite pleased, for he had not even purchased the book to begin with. It had been left on the stoop of his shop some years before. At first he thought the anonymous donor must not have realized its value, but when he turned the pages of the book, he guessed the donor’s true motivation. A foul odor emanated from the book. When certain pages were opened, the stench grew stronger. But the bookseller was also a book-lover. He could not abandon such a carefully made book. Even after cleaning the book failed to remove the smell, he was unable to part with it. Instead, he climbed to the top rung of his ladder and set the book on top of his highest bookshelf, where the scent would not reach his nose. The scent would fade over time, he imagined. With the book far from his gaze, he promptly forgot all about it—until the day the young man with an interest in alchemy walked into his shop.

The doctor didn’t notice anything odd about the scent of the book until he and his family returned to Paris. Was it his imagination, or did the book smell of more than dusty leather and mold? Perhaps one of the items in his medical bag had spilled onto it. He wasn’t usually so careless, but with a young son, he was neither as methodical nor as well rested as he once had been.

He had a small collection of alchemy books, which he kept in the midst of a much larger collection of literature and scientific volumes. Non Degenera Alchemia was unlike any other alchemy book he’d seen. The transformations pictured were all wrong. Indeed, once he was back home in Paris, the doctor was no longer sure it was a real alchemy book. The tiny bookshop had appealed to his
romantic tendencies. Perhaps he’d spent his money more on an idea than the book itself.

Now, it looked as if he wouldn’t have a chance to find out. His wife insisted he remove the book that smelled like it had been stored in a stable of animals. He couldn’t argue with her, and not only because she won every argument. In this case, he believed she was right.

He no longer knew any alchemists who might want to buy the book. He had once tried to join a secret society of alchemists in Paris, but he found them to be a very silly group of men. None of them had discovered alchemy’s secrets, but all of them delighted in deciphering riddles.

Thus, with a heavy heart, he tucked the book under his arm and set out to find a bookseller who might pay him a few francs for it. Before leaving, he sprinkled a few drops of his wife’s perfume onto the spine, hoping to mask the other odors. He hated to damage the book, but who would buy it in its current state?

His actions were for naught. A few steps out the door, the odor of the book returned. The perfume must have dispersed quickly in the dry air. Perhaps he could find a bookseller with a stuffed-up nose.

The doctor followed the path of the Seine River, the pleasant day balancing out his feeling of foolishness for his hasty purchase. As the spires of Notre Dame Cathedral came into view, the smell of farm animals dissipated, replaced with scents of the forest. So shocked was the doctor that he tripped. The book flew out of his hands, landing a few feet in front of him. He dusted off his trousers, which thankfully had not ripped, then lifted the book. Memories of childhood Christmases flooded through his mind as fragrances filled his nostrils.

Was he going crazy? Or could this be true alchemy?