Althotas.
THE TRAVELER FOUND himself face to face with an old man with gray eyes, a hooked nose, and trembling but busy hands. He was half buried in a great chair, and turned, with his right hand, the leaves of a manuscript on parchment, called “La Chiave del Gabinetto”; in his left he held a silver skimming-dish.
His attitude, his occupation, his face, motionless and deeply wrinkled, alive only, as it were, in the eyes and mouth, may seem strange to the reader, but they were certainly very familiar to the traveler; for he scarcely cast a look on the old man, nor on all that surrounded him, and yet it was worth the trouble.
Three walls — so the old man called the sides of the carriage — were covered by shelves filled with books. These walls shut in his chair, his usual and principal seat, while above the books had been planned for his convenience several articles for holding vials, decanters, and boxes set in wooden cases as earthen and glassware are secured at sea. He could thus reach anything without assistance, for his chair was on wheels, and with the aid of a spring he could raise it and lower it to any height necessary to attain what he wanted.
The room, for so we must call it, was eight feet long, six wide, and six high. Opposite the door was a little furnace with its shade, bellows and tongs. Al that moment there boiled in a crucible a mixture which sent out by the chimney the mysterious smoke of which we have spoken, and which excited so much surprise in old and young who saw the carriage pass.
Besides the vials, boxes, books, and papers strewed around, copper pincers were seen, and pieces of charcoal which had been dipped in various liquids; there was also a large vase half full of water, and from the roof, hung by threads, were bundles of herbs, some apparently gathered the night before, others a hundred years ago. A keen odor prevailed in this laboratory, which in one less strange would have been called a perfume.
As the traveler entered, the old man wheeled his chair with wonderful ease to the furnace, and was about to skim the mixture in the crucible attentively — nay, almost respectfully — but disturbed by the appearance of the other, he grumbled, drew over his ears his cap of velvet, once black, and from under which a few locks of silver hair peeped out. Then he sharply pulled from beneath one of the wheels of his chair the skirt of his long silk robe — a robe now nothing but a shapeless, colorless, ragged covering. The old man appeared to be in a very bad humor, and grumbled as he went on with his operation.
“Afraid — the accursed animal! Afraid of what? He has shaken the wall, moved the furnace, spilled a quart of my elixir in the fire. Acharat, in Heaven’s name, get rid of that brute in the first desert we come to!”
“In the first place,” said the other, smiling, “we shall come to no deserts; we are in France. Secondly, I should not like to leave to his fate a horse worth a thousand louis d’ors, or rather, a horse above all price, for he is of the race of Al Borach.”
“A thousand louis d’ors! I will give you them, or what is equal to them. That horse has cost me more than a million, to say nothing of the time, the life, he has robbed me of.”
“What has he done? — poor Djerid!”
“What has he done? The elixir was boiling, not a drop escaping — true, neither Zoroaster nor Paracelsus says that none must escape, but Borri recommends it.”
“Well! dear master, in a few moments more the elixir will boil again.”
“Boil? See! there is a curse on it — the fire is going out. I know not what is falling down the chimney.”
“I know what is falling,” said the disciple, laughing; “water!”
“Water? — water? Then the elixir is ruined; the operation must be begun again — as if I had time to lose! Heaven and earth!” cried the old man, raising his hands in despair, “water! What kind of water, Acharat?”
“Pure water, master — rain from the sky. Have you not seen that it rained?”
“How should I see anything when I am at my work? Water! You see, Acharat, how this troubles my poor brain! For six months — nay, for a year — I have been asking you for a funnel for my chimney! You never think of anything — yet, what have you to do, you who are young? Thanks to your neglect, it is now the rain, now the wind, which ruins all my operations; and yet, by Jupiter! I have no time to lose! You know it — the day decreed is near; and, if I am not ready for that day — if I have not found the elixir of life — farewell to the philosopher! farewell to the wise Althotas! My hundredth year begins on the 15th of July, at eleven at night, and from this time to that, my elixir must attain perfection.”
“But it is going on famously, dear master!”
“Yes, I have made some trials by absorption. My left arm, nearly paralyzed, has regained its power — then, only eating, as I do, once in two or three days, and taking a spoonful of my elixir, though yet imperfect, I have more time, and am assisted on by hope. Oh, when I think that I want but one plant, but one leaf of a plant, to perfect my elixir, and that we have perhaps passed by that plant a hundred — five hundred — a thousand times! — perhaps our horses have trodden it, our wheels crushed it, Acharat — that very plant of which Pliny speaks, and which no sage has yet found or discovered, for nothing is lost. — But stay, Acharat, you must ask its name from Lorenza in one of her trances!”
“Fear not, master! I will ask her.”
“Meantime,” said the philosopher, with a deep sigh, “my elixir remains imperfect, and three times fifteen days will be necessary to reach the point at which I was to-day. Have a care, Acharat, your loss will be as great as mine, if I die, and my work incomplete! But what voice is that? Does the carriage move?”
“No, master — you hear thunder.”
“Thunder?”
“Yes, we have nearly all been killed by a thunderbolt; but my silk coat protected me!”
“Now, see to what your childish freaks expose me, Acharat! To die by a thunderbolt, to be stupidly killed by an electric fire that I would myself bring down from heaven, if I had time, to boil my pot — this is not only exposing me to accidents which the malice or awkwardness of men bring on us, but to those which come from Heaven, and which may be easily prevented.”
“Your pardon, master; I do not understand.”
“What! did I not explain to you my system of points — my paper-kite conductor? When I have found my elixir, I shall tell it you again; but now, you see, I have not time.”
“And you believe one may master the thunderbolt of heaven?”
“Certainly — not only master it, but conduct it where you choose; and when I have passed my second half century, when I shall have but calmly to await a third, I shall put a steel bridle on a thunderbolt, and guide it as easily as you do Djerid. Meantime, put a funnel on my chimney, I beg you!”
“I shall. Rest easy.”
“I shall! — always the future, as if we could both look forward to the future! Oh, I shall never be understood!” cried the philosopher, writhing in his chair, and tossing his arms in despair. “‘ Be calm!’ — he tells me to be calm; and in three months, if I have not completed my elixir, all will be over! But so that I pass my second half century — that I recover my powers of motion — I shall meet no one who says, ‘I shall do ‘ — I shall then myself exclaim, ‘I have done!’”
“Do you hope to say that, with regard to our great work?”
“Yes! were I but as sure of — oh, heavens! — discovering the elixir as I am of making the diamond!”
“Then you are sure of that?”
“It is certain, since I have already made some.”
“Made some?”
“Yes, look!”
“Where?”
“On your right, in the little glass vase.”
The traveler anxiously seized the little crystal cup, to the bottom and sides of which adhered an almost impalpable powder.
“Diamond dust?” cried the young man.
“Yes, diamond dust — but in the middle of it?”
“Yes! yes! a brilliant of the size of a millet-seed.”
“The size is nothing; we shall attain to the union of the dust, and make the grain of millet-seed a grain of hemp-seed, and of the grain of hemp-seed a pea. But first, my dear Acharat, put a funnel on my chimney, and a conductor on the carriage, that the rain may not descend through my chimney, and that the lightning may go and sport itself elsewhere.”
“Yes, yes — doubt it not! Be calm!”
“Again, again, this eternal ‘Be calm!’ You make me swear. Youth! — mad youth! — presumptuous youth!” cried the old man, with a laugh of scorn, which showed all his toothless gums and made his eyes sink deeper in their hollow sockets.
“Master,” said Acharat, “your fire is going out, your crucible cooling. But what is in the crucible?”
“Look into it!”
The young man obeyed, uncovered the crucible, and found in it a heap of vitrified charcoal, about the size of a small seed.
“A diamond!” cried he; then, after a slight examination of it—” Yes, but stained, incomplete, valueless!”
“Because the fire was put out — because there is no funnel on the chimney.”
“Let me look at it again, master,” said the young man, turning in his hand the diamond, which sometimes shot forth brilliant rays, and sometimes was dull. “Good! — pardon me, and take some food.”
“It is unnecessary; I took my spoonful of elixir two hours ago.”
“You are mistaken, dear master; it was at six in the morning that you, took it.”
“Well, and what o’clock is it now?”
“Half-past eight in the evening.”
“Heaven and earth! — another day past! — gone forever! But the days are shorter than they were; there are not twenty-four hours in them now.”
“If you will not eat, sleep at least for some minutes.”
“Well, yes, I will sleep two hours — yes, just two hours. Look at your watch, and in two hours awake me.”
“I promise to do so.”
“Dost thou know, dear Acharat,” said the old man in a caressing tone, “when I sleep, I always fear it will be for eternity — so in two hours you will wake me. Will you not? Promise it — swear it!”
“I swear it, master.”
“In two hours?”
“In two hours!”
Just then something like the trampling of a horse was heard, and then a shout which indicated alarm and surprise.
“What does that mean?” cried the traveler; and hurriedly opening the carriage door, he leaped out.