{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1215/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1215","id":"gutenberg_1215","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1215","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy","Category: Short Stories","French fiction -- Translations into English"],"text":"Produced by Dagny\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ELIXIR OF LIFE\n\n\nBy Honore De Balzac\n\n\nTranslated By Clara Bell and James Waring\n\n\n\n\n\nTO THE READER\n\nAt the very outset of the writer's literary career, a friend, long since\ndead, gave him the subject of this Study. Later on he found the same\nstory in a collection published about the beginning of the present\ncentury. To the best of his belief, it is some stray fancy of the brain\nof Hoffmann of Berlin; probably it appeared in some German almanac,\nand was omitted in the published editions of his collected works. The\n_Comedie Humaine_ is sufficiently rich in original creations for the\nauthor to own to this innocent piece of plagiarism; when, like the\nworthy La Fontaine, he has told unwittingly, and after his own fashion,\na tale already related by another. This is not one of the hoaxes in\nvogue in the year 1830, when every author wrote his \"tale of horror\"\nfor the amusement of young ladies. When you have read the account of\nDon Juan's decorous parricide, try to picture to yourself the part which\nwould be played under very similar circumstances by honest folk who, in\nthis nineteenth century, will take a man's money and undertake to pay\nhim a life annuity on the faith of a chill, or let a house to an ancient\nlady for the term of her natural life! Would they be for resuscitating\ntheir clients? I should dearly like a connoisseur in consciences to\nconsider how far there is a resemblance between a Don Juan and fathers\nwho marry their children to great expectations. Does humanity, which,\naccording to certain philosophers, is making progress, look on the art\nof waiting for dead men's shoes as a step in the right direction? To\nthis art we owe several honorable professions, which open up ways of\nliving on death. There are people who rely entirely on an expected\ndemise; who brood over it, crouching each morning upon a corpse, that\nserves again for their pillow at night. To this class belong bishops'\ncoadjutors, cardinals' supernumeraries, _tontiniers_, and the like.\nAdd to the list many delicately scrupulous persons eager to buy landed\nproperty beyond their means, who calculate with dry logic and in cold\nblood the probable duration of the life of a father or of a step-mother,\nsome old man or woman of eighty or ninety, saying to themselves, \"I\nshall be sure to come in for it in three years' time, and then----\" A\nmurderer is less loathsome to us than a spy. The murderer may have acted\non a sudden mad impulse; he may be penitent and amend; but a spy is\nalways a spy, night and day, in bed, at table, as he walks abroad; his\nvileness pervades every moment of his life. Then what must it be to live\nwhen every moment of your life is tainted with murder? And have we not\njust admitted that a host of human creatures in our midst are led by\nour laws, customs, and usages to dwell without ceasing on a\nfellow-creature's death? There are men who put the weight of a coffin\ninto their deliberations as they bargain for Cashmere shawls for their\nwives, as they go up the staircase of a theatre, or think of going to\nthe Bouffons, or of setting up a carriage; who are murderers in thought\nwhen dear ones, with the irresistible charm of innocence, hold up\nchildish foreheads to be kissed with a \"Good-night, father!\" Hourly they\nmeet the gaze of eyes that they would fain close for ever, eyes that\nstill open each morning to the light, like Belvidero's in this Study.\nGod alone knows the number of those who are parricides in thought.\nPicture to yourself the state of mind of a man who must pay a life\nannuity to some old woman whom he scarcely knows; both live in\nthe country with a brook between them, both sides are free to hate\ncordially, without offending against the social conventions that require\ntwo brothers to wear a mask if the older will succeed to the entail,\nand the other to the fortune of a younger son. The whole civilization\nof Europe turns upon the principle of hereditary succession as upon a\npivot; it would be madness to subvert the principle; but could we not,\nin an age that prides itself upon its mechanical inventions, perfect\nthis essential portion of the social machinery?\n\nIf the author has preserved the old-fashioned style of address _To the\nReader_ before a work wherein he endeavors to represent all literary\nforms, it is for the purpose of making a remark that applies to\nseveral of the Studies, and very specially to this. Every one of his\ncompositions has been based upon ideas more or less novel, which, as\nit seemed to him, needed literary expression; he can claim priority for\ncertain forms and for certain ideas which have since passed into the\ndomain of literature, and have there, in some instances, become common\nproperty; so that the date of the first publication of each Study cannot\nbe a matter of indifference to those of his readers who would fain do\nhim justice.\n\nReading brings us unknown friends, and what friend is like a reader?\nWe have friends in our own circle who read nothing of ours. The author\nhopes to pay his debt, by dedicating this work _Diis ignotis_.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ELIXIR OF LIFE\n\nOne winter evening, in a princely palace at Ferrara, Don Juan Belvidero\nwas giving a banquet to a prince of the house of Este. A banquet in\nthose times was a marvelous spectacle which only royal wealth or the\npower of a mightly [sic] lord could furnish forth. Seated about a\ntable lit up with perfumed tapers, seven laughter-loving women were\ninterchanging sweet talk. The white marble of the noble works of art\nabout them stood out against the red stucco walls, and made strong\ncontrasts with the rich Turkey carpets. Clad in satin, glittering with\ngold, and covered with gems less brilliant than their eyes, each told\na tale of energetic passions as diverse as their styles of beauty.\nThey differed neither in their ideas nor in their language; but the\nexpression of their eyes, their glances, occasional gestures, or\nthe tones of their voices supplied a commentary, dissolute, wanton,\nmelancholy, or satirical, to their words.\n\nOne seemed to be saying--\"The frozen heart of age might kindle at my\nbeauty.\"\n\nAnother--\"I love to lounge upon cushions, and think with rapture of my\nadorers.\"\n\nA third, a neophyte at these banquets, was inclined to blush. \"I feel\nremorse in the depths of my heart! I am a Catholic, and afraid of hell.\nBut I love you, I love you so that I can sacrifice my hereafter to you.\"\n\nThe fourth drained a cup of Chian wine. \"Give me a joyous life!\" she\ncried; \"I begin life afresh each day with the dawn. Forgetful of the\npast, with the intoxication of yesterday's rapture still upon me, I\ndrink deep of life--a whole lifetime of pleasure and of love!\"\n\nThe woman who sat next to Juan Belvidero looked at him with a feverish\nglitter in her eyes. She was silent. Then--\"I should need no hired bravo\nto kill my lover if he forsook me!\" she cried at last, and laughed, but\nthe marvelously wrought gold comfit box in her fingers was crushed by\nher convulsive clutch.\n\n\"When are you to be Grand Duke?\" asked the sixth. There was the frenzy\nof a Bacchante in her eyes, and her teeth gleamed between the lips\nparted with a smile of cruel glee.\n\n\"Yes, when is that father of yours going to die?\" asked the seventh,\nthrowing her bouquet at Don Juan with bewitching playfulness. It was\na childish girl who spoke, and the speaker was wont to make sport of\nsacred things.\n\n\"Oh! don't talk about it,\" cried Don Juan, the young and handsome giver\nof the banquet. \"There is but one eternal father, and, as ill luck will\nhave it, he is mine.\"\n\nThe seven Ferrarese, Don Juan's friends, the Prince himself, gave a cry\nof horror. Two hundred years later, in the days of Louis XV., people of\ntaste would have laughed at this witticism. Or was it, perhaps, that\nat the outset of an orgy there is a certain unwonted lucidity of mind?\nDespite the taper light, the clamor of the senses, the gleam of gold and\nsilver, the fumes of wine, and the exquisite beauty of the women,\nthere may perhaps have been in the depths of the revelers' hearts some\nstruggling glimmer of reverence for things divine and human, until it\nwas drowned in glowing floods of wine! Yet even then the flowers had\nbeen crushed, eyes were growing dull, and drunkenness, in Rabelais'\nphrase, had \"taken possession of them down to their sandals.\"\n\nDuring that brief pause a door opened; and as once the Divine presence\nwas revealed at Belshazzar's feast, so now it seemed to be manifest\nin the apparition of an old white-haired servant, who tottered in,\nand looked sadly from under knitted brows at the revelers. He gave\na withering glance at the garlands, the golden cups, the pyramids of\nfruit, the dazzling lights of the banquet, the flushed scared faces, the\nhues of the cushions pressed by the white arms of the women.\n\n\"My lord, your father is dying!\" he said; and at those solemn words,\nuttered in hollow tones, a veil of crape seemed to be drawn over the\nwild mirth.\n\nDon Juan rose to his feet with a gesture to his guests that might be\nrendered by, \"Excuse me; this kind of thing does not happen every day.\"\n\nDoes it so seldom happen that a father's death surprises youth in the\nfull-blown splendor of life, in the midst of the mad riot of an orgy?\nDeath is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in her disdain; but\ndeath is truer--Death has never forsaken any man.\n\nDon Juan closed the door of the banqueting-hall; and as he went down\nthe long gallery, through the cold and darkness, he strove to assume an\nexpression in keeping with the part he had to play; he had thrown off\nhis mirthful mood, as he had thrown down his table napkin, at the first\nthought of this role. The night was dark. The mute servitor, his guide\nto the chamber where the dying man lay, lighted the way so dimly that\nDeath, aided by cold, silence, and darkness, and it may be by a reaction\nof drunkenness, could send some sober thoughts through the spendthrift's\nsoul. He examined his life, and became thoughtful, like a man involved\nin a lawsuit on his way to the Court.\n\nBartolommeo Belvidero, Don Juan's father, was an old man of ninety, who\nhad devoted the greatest part of his life to business pursuits. He had\nacquired vast wealth in many a journey to magical Eastern lands, and\nknowledge, so it was said, more valuable than the gold and diamonds,\nwhich had almost ceased to have any value for him.\n\n\"I would give more to have a tooth in my head than for a ruby,\" he would\nsay at times with a smile. The indulgent father loved to hear Don Juan's\nstory of this and that wild freak of youth. \"So long as these follies\namuse you, dear boy----\" he would say laughingly, as he lavished money\non his son. Age never took such pleasure in the sight of youth; the fond\nfather did not remember his own decaying powers while he looked on that\nbrilliant young life.\n\nBartolommeo Belvidero, at the age of sixty, had fallen in love with an\nangel of peace and beauty. Don Juan had been the sole fruit of this late\nand short-lived love. For fifteen years the widower had mourned the\nloss of his beloved Juana; and to this sorrow of age, his son and\nhis numerous household had attributed the strange habits that he had\ncontracted. He had shut himself up in the least comfortable wing of his\npalace, and very seldom left his apartments; even Don Juan himself must\nfirst ask permission before seeing his father. If this hermit, unbound\nby vows, came or went in his palace or in the streets of Ferrara, he\nwalked as if he were in a dream, wholly engrossed, like a man at strife\nwith a memory, or a wrestler with some thought.\n\nThe young Don Juan might give princely banquets, the palace might echo\nwith clamorous mirth, horses pawed the ground in the courtyards, pages\nquarreled and flung dice upon the stairs, but Bartolommeo ate his seven\nounces of bread daily and drank water. A fowl was occasionally dressed\nfor him, simply that the black poodle, his faithful companion, might\nhave the bones. Bartolommeo never complained of the noise. If the\nhuntsmen's horns and baying dogs disturbed his sleep during his illness,\nhe only said, \"Ah! Don Juan has come back again.\" Never on earth\nhas there been a father so little exacting and so indulgent; and,\nin consequence, young Belvidero, accustomed to treat his father\nunceremoniously, had all the faults of a spoiled child. He treated\nold Bartolommeo as a wilful courtesan treats an elderly adorer; buying\nindemnity for insolence with a smile, selling good-humor, submitting to\nbe loved.\n\nDon Juan, beholding scene after scene of his younger years, saw that it\nwould be a difficult task to find his father's indulgence at fault. Some\nnew-born remorse stirred the depths of his heart; he felt almost ready\nto forgive this father now about to die for having lived so long. He\nhad an accession of filial piety, like a thief's return in thought to\nhonesty at the prospect of a million adroitly stolen.\n\nBefore long Don Juan had crossed the lofty, chilly suite of rooms in\nwhich his father lived; the penetrating influences of the damp close\nair, the mustiness diffused by old tapestries and presses thickly\ncovered with dust had passed into him, and now he stood in the old man's\nantiquated room, in the repulsive presence of the deathbed, beside a\ndying fire. A flickering lamp on a Gothic table sent broad uncertain\nshafts of light, fainter or brighter, across the bed, so that the dying\nman's face seemed to wear a different look at every moment. The bitter\nwind whistled through the crannies of the ill-fitting casements; there\nwas a smothered sound of snow lashing the windows. The harsh contrast of\nthese sights and sounds with the scenes which Don Juan had just quitted\nwas so sudden that he could not help shuddering. He turned cold as he\ncame towards the bed; the lamp flared in a sudden vehement gust of\nwind and lighted up his father's face; the features were wasted and\ndistorted; the skin that cleaved to their bony outlines had taken wan\nlivid hues, all the more ghastly by force of contrast with the white\npillows on which he lay. The muscles about the toothless mouth had\ncontracted with pain and drawn apart the lips; the moans that issued\nbetween them with appalling energy found an accompaniment in the howling\nof the storm without.\n\nIn spite of every sign of coming dissolution, the most striking thing\nabout the dying face was its incredible power. It was no ordinary spirit\nthat wrestled there with Death. The eyes glared with strange fixity of\ngaze from the cavernous sockets hollowed by disease. It seemed as if\nBartolommeo sought to kill some enemy sitting at the foot of his bed by\nthe intent gaze of dying eyes. That steady remorseless look was the\nmore appalling because the head that lay upon the pillow was passive and\nmotionless as a skull upon a doctor's table. The outlines of the body,\nrevealed by the coverlet, were no less rigid and stiff; he lay there as\none dead, save for those eyes. There was something automatic about the\nmoaning sounds that came from the mouth. Don Juan felt something like\nshame that he must be brought thus to his father's bedside, wearing a\ncourtesan's bouquet, redolent of the fragrance of the banqueting-chamber\nand the fumes of wine.\n\n\"You were enjoying yourself!\" the old man cried as he saw his son.\n\nEven as he spoke the pure high notes of a woman's voice, sustained by\nthe sound of the viol on which she accompanied her song, rose above the\nrattle of the storm against the casements, and floated up to the chamber\nof death. Don Juan stopped his ears against the barbarous answer to his\nfather's speech.\n\n\"I bear you no grudge, my child,\" Bartolommeo went on.\n\nThe words were full of kindness, but they hurt Don Juan; he could not\npardon this heart-searching goodness on his father's part.\n\n\"What a remorseful memory for me!\" he cried, hypocritically.\n\n\"Poor Juanino,\" the dying man went on, in a smothered voice, \"I have\nalways been so kind to you, that you could not surely desire my death?\"\n\n\"Oh, if it were only possible to keep you here by giving up a part of my\nown life!\" cried Don Juan.\n\n(\"We can always _say_ this sort of thing,\" the spendthrift thought; \"it\nis as if I laid the whole world at my mistress' feet.\")\n\nThe thought had scarcely crossed his mind when the old poodle barked.\nDon Juan shivered; the response was so intelligent that he fancied the\ndog must have understood him.\n\n\"I was sure that I could count upon you, my son!\" cried the dying man.\n\"I shall live. So be it; you shall be satisfied. I shall live, but\nwithout depriving you of a single day of your life.\"\n\n\"He is raving,\" thought Don Juan. Aloud he added, \"Yes, dearest father,\nyes; you shall live, of course, as long as I live, for your image will\nbe for ever in my heart.\"\n\n\"It is not that kind of life that I mean,\" said the old noble, summoning\nall his strength to sit up in bed; for a thrill of doubt ran through\nhim, one of those suspicions that come into being under a dying man's\npillow. \"Listen, my son,\" he went on, in a voice grown weak with that\nlast effort, \"I have no more wish to give up life than you to give up\nwine and mistresses, horses and hounds, and hawks and gold----\"\n\n\"I can well believe it,\" thought the son; and he knelt down by the bed\nand kissed Bartolommeo's cold hands. \"But, father, my dear father,\" he\nadded aloud, \"we must submit to the will of God.\"\n\n\"I am God!\" muttered the dying man.\n\n\"Do not blaspheme!\" cried the other, as he saw the menacing expression\non his father's face. \"Beware what you say; you have received extreme\nunction, and I should be inconsolable if you were to die before my eyes\nin mortal sin.\"\n\n\"Will you listen to me?\" cried Bartolommeo, and his mouth twitched.\n\nDon Juan held his peace; an ugly silence prevailed. Yet above the\nmuffled sound of the beating of the snow against the windows rose the\nsounds of the beautiful voice and the viol in unison, far off and faint\nas the dawn. The dying man smiled.\n\n\"Thank you,\" he said, \"for bringing those singing voices and the music,\na banquet, young and lovely women with fair faces and dark tresses, all\nthe pleasure of life! Bid them wait for me; for I am about to begin life\nanew.\"\n\n\"The delirium is at its height,\" said Don Juan to himself.\n\n\"I have found out a way of coming to life again,\" the speaker went on.\n\"There, just look in that table drawer, press the spring hidden by the\ngriffin, and it will fly open.\"\n\n\"I have found it, father.\"\n\n\"Well, then, now take out a little phial of rock crystal.\"\n\n\"I have it.\"\n\n\"I have spent twenty years in----\" but even as he spoke the old man felt\nhow very near the end had come, and summoned all his dying strength\nto say, \"As soon as the breath is out of me, rub me all over with that\nliquid, and I shall come to life again.\"\n\n\"There is very little of it,\" his son remarked.\n\nThough Bartolommeo could no longer speak, he could still hear and see.\nWhen those words dropped from Don Juan, his head turned with appalling\nquickness, his neck was twisted like the throat of some marble statue\nwhich the sculptor had condemned to remain stretched out for ever, the\nwide eyes had come to have a ghastly fixity.\n\nHe was dead, and in death he lost his last and sole illusion.\n\nHe had sought a shelter in his son's heart, and it had proved to be a\nsepulchre, a pit deeper than men dig for their dead. The hair on his\nhead had risen and stiffened with horror, his agonized glance still\nspoke. He was a father rising in just anger from his tomb, to demand\nvengeance at the throne of God.\n\n\"There! it is all over with the old man!\" cried Don Juan.\n\nHe had been so interested in holding the mysterious phial to the lamp,\nas a drinker holds up the wine-bottle at the end of a meal, that he had\nnot seen his father's eyes fade. The cowering poodle looked from his\nmaster to the elixir, just as Don Juan himself glanced again and again\nfrom his father to the flask. The lamplight flickered. There was a\ndeep silence; the viol was mute. Juan Belvidero thought that he saw his\nfather stir, and trembled. The changeless gaze of those accusing eyes\nfrightened him; he closed them hastily, as he would have closed a\nloose shutter swayed by the wind of an autumn night. He stood there\nmotionless, lost in a world of thought.\n\nSuddenly the silence was broken by a shrill sound like the creaking of\na rusty spring. It startled Don Juan; he all but dropped the phial. A\nsweat, colder than the blade of a dagger, issued through every pore. It\nwas only a piece of clockwork, a wooden cock that sprang out and crowed\nthree times, an ingenious contrivance by which the learned of that epoch\nwere wont to be awakened at the appointed hour to begin the labors of\nthe day. Through the windows there came already a flush of dawn. The\nthing, composed of wood, and cords, and wheels, and pulleys, was more\nfaithful in its service than he in his duty to Bartolommeo--he, a man\nwith that peculiar piece of human mechanism within him that we call a\nheart.\n\nDon Juan the sceptic shut the flask again in the secret drawer in the\nGothic table--he meant to run no more risks of losing the mysterious\nliquid.\n\nEven at that solemn moment he heard the murmur of a crowd in the\ngallery, a confused sound of voices, of stifled laughter and light\nfootfalls, and the rustling of silks--the sounds of a band of revelers\nstruggling for gravity. The door opened, and in came the Prince and Don\nJuan's friends, the seven courtesans, and the singers, disheveled and\nwild like dancers surprised by the dawn, when the tapers that have\nburned through the night struggle with the sunlight.\n\nThey had come to offer the customary condolence to the young heir.\n\n\"Oho! is poor Don Juan really taking this seriously?\" said the Prince in\nBrambilla's ear.\n\n\"Well, his father was very good,\" she returned.\n\nBut Don Juan's night-thoughts had left such unmistakable traces on his\nfeatures, that the crew was awed into silence. The men stood motionless.\nThe women, with wine-parched lips and cheeks marbled with kisses, knelt\ndown and began a prayer. Don Juan could scarce help trembling when he\nsaw splendor and mirth and laughter and song and youth and beauty and\npower bowed in reverence before Death. But in those times, in that\nadorable Italy of the sixteenth century, religion and revelry went hand\nin hand; and religious excess became a sort of debauch, and a debauch a\nreligious rite!\n\nThe Prince grasped Don Juan's hand affectionately, then when all\nfaces had simultaneously put on the same grimace--half-gloomy,\nhalf-indifferent--the whole masque disappeared, and left the chamber of\ndeath empty. It was like an allegory of life.\n\nAs they went down the staircase, the Prince spoke to Rivabarella:\n\"Now, who would have taken Don Juan's impiety for a boast? He loves his\nfather.\"\n\n\"Did you see that black dog?\" asked La Brambilla.\n\n\"He is enormously rich now,\" sighed Bianca Cavatolino.\n\n\"What is that to me?\" cried the proud Veronese (she who had crushed the\ncomfit-box).\n\n\"What does it matter to you, forsooth?\" cried the Duke. \"With his money\nhe is as much a prince as I am.\"\n\nAt first Don Juan was swayed hither and thither by countless thoughts,\nand wavered between two decisions. He took counsel with the gold heaped\nup by his father, and returned in the evening to the chamber of death,\nhis whole soul brimming over with hideous selfishness. He found all his\nhousehold busy there. \"His lordship\" was to lie in state to-morrow; all\nFerrara would flock to behold the wonderful spectacle; and the servants\nwere busy decking the room and the couch on which the dead man lay. At a\nsign from Don Juan all his people stopped, dumfounded and trembling.\n\n\"Leave me alone here,\" he said, and his voice was changed, \"and do not\nreturn until I leave the room.\"\n\nWhen the footsteps of the old servitor, who was the last to go, echoed\nbut faintly along the paved gallery, Don Juan hastily locked the door,\nand sure that he was quite alone, \"Let us try,\" he said to himself.\n\nBartolommeo's body was stretched on a long table. The embalmers had\nlaid a sheet over it, to hide from all eyes the dreadful spectacle of a\ncorpse so wasted and shrunken that it seemed like a skeleton, and only\nthe face was uncovered. This mummy-like figure lay in the middle of\nthe room. The limp clinging linen lent itself to the outlines it\nshrouded--so sharp, bony, and thin. Large violet patches had already\nbegun to spread over the face; the embalmers' work had not been finished\ntoo soon.\n\nDon Juan, strong as he was in his scepticism, felt a tremor as he opened\nthe magic crystal flask. When he stood over that face, he was trembling\nso violently, that he was actually obliged to wait for a moment. But Don\nJuan had acquired an early familiarity with evil; his morals had been\ncorrupted by a licentious court, a reflection worthy of the Duke of\nUrbino crossed his mind, and it was a keen sense of curiosity that\ngoaded him into boldness. The devil himself might have whispered the\nwords that were echoing through his brain, _Moisten one of the eyes with\nthe liquid_! He took up a linen cloth, moistened it sparingly with\nthe precious fluid, and passed it lightly over the right eyelid of the\ncorpse. The eye unclosed....\n\n\"Aha!\" said Don Juan. He gripped the flask tightly, as we clutch in\ndreams the branch from which we hang suspended over a precipice.\n\nFor the eye was full of life. It was a young child's eye set in a\ndeath's head; the light quivered in the depths of its youthful liquid\nbrightness. Shaded by the long dark lashes, it sparkled like the strange\nlights that travelers see in lonely places in winter nights. The eye\nseemed as if it would fain dart fire at Don Juan; he saw it thinking,\nupbraiding, condemning, uttering accusations, threatening doom; it cried\naloud, and gnashed upon him. All anguish that shakes human souls was\ngathered there; supplications the most tender, the wrath of kings, the\nlove in a girl's heart pleading with the headsman; then, and after all\nthese, the deeply searching glance a man turns on his fellows as he\nmounts the last step of the scaffold. Life so dilated in this fragment\nof life that Don Juan shrank back; he walked up and down the room, he\ndared not meet that gaze, but he saw nothing else. The ceiling and\nthe hangings, the whole room was sown with living points of fire and\nintelligence. Everywhere those gleaming eyes haunted him.\n\n\"He might very likely have lived another hundred years!\" he cried\ninvoluntarily. Some diabolical influence had drawn him to his father,\nand again he gazed at that luminous spark. The eyelid closed and\nopened again abruptly; it was like a woman's sign of assent. It was an\nintelligent movement. If a voice had cried \"Yes!\" Don Juan could not\nhave been more startled.\n\n\"What is to be done?\" he thought.\n\nHe nerved himself to try to close the white eyelid. In vain.\n\n\"Kill it? That would perhaps be parricide,\" he debated with himself.\n\n\"Yes,\" the eye said, with a strange sardonic quiver of the lid.\n\n\"Aha!\" said Don Juan to himself, \"here is witchcraft at work!\" And he\nwent closer to crush the thing. A great tear trickled over the hollow\ncheeks, and fell on Don Juan's hand.\n\n\"It is scalding!\" he cried. He sat down. The struggle exhausted him; it\nwas as if, like Jacob of old, he was wrestling with an angel.\n\nAt last he rose. \"So long as there is no blood----\" he muttered.\n\nThen, summoning all the courage needed for a coward's crime, he\nextinguished the eye, pressing it with the linen cloth, turning his head\naway. A terrible groan startled him. It was the poor poodle, who died\nwith a long-drawn howl.\n\n\"Could the brute have been in the secret?\" thought Don Juan, looking\ndown at the faithful creature.\n\nDon Juan Belvidero was looked upon as a dutiful son. He reared a\nwhite marble monument on his father's tomb, and employed the greatest\nsculptors of the time upon it. He did not recover perfect ease of mind\ntill the day when his father knelt in marble before Religion, and the\nheavy weight of the stone had sealed the mouth of the grave in which he\nhad laid the one feeling of remorse that sometimes flitted through his\nsoul in moments of physical weariness.\n\nHe had drawn up a list of the wealth heaped up by the old merchant in\nthe East, and he became a miser: had he not to provide for a second\nlifetime? His views of life were the more profound and penetrating;\nhe grasped its significance, as a whole, the better, because he saw it\nacross a grave. All men, all things, he analyzed once and for all; he\nsummed up the Past, represented by its records; the Present in the law,\nits crystallized form; the Future, revealed by religion. He took spirit\nand matter, and flung them into his crucible, and found--Nothing.\nThenceforward he became DON JUAN.\n\nAt the outset of his life, in the prime of youth and the beauty of\nyouth, he knew the illusions of life for what they were; he despised\nthe world, and made the utmost of the world. His felicity could not\nhave been of the bourgeois kind, rejoicing in periodically recurrent\n_bouilli_, in the comforts of a warming-pan, a lamp of a night, and\na new pair of slippers once a quarter. Nay, rather he seized upon\nexistence as a monkey snatches a nut, and after no long toying with it,\nproceeds deftly to strip off the mere husks to reach the savory kernel\nwithin.\n\nPoetry and the sublime transports of passion scarcely reached\nankle-depth with him now. He in nowise fell into the error of strong\nnatures who flatter themselves now and again that little souls will\nbelieve in a great soul, and are willing to barter their own lofty\nthoughts of the future for the small change of our life-annuity ideas.\nHe, even as they, had he chosen, might well have walked with his feet\non the earth and his head in the skies; but he liked better to sit on\nearth, to wither the soft, fresh, fragrant lips of a woman with kisses,\nfor like Death, he devoured everything without scruple as he passed; he\nwould have full fruition; he was an Oriental lover, seeking prolonged\npleasures easily obtained. He sought nothing but a woman in women, and\ncultivated cynicism, until it became with him a habit of mind. When\nhis mistress, from the couch on which she lay, soared and was lost in\nregions of ecstatic bliss, Don Juan followed suit, earnest, expansive,\nserious as any German student. But he said I, while she, in the\ntransports of intoxication, said We. He understood to admiration the art\nof abandoning himself to the influence of a woman; he was always clever\nenough to make her believe that he trembled like some boy fresh from\ncollege before his first partner at a dance, when he asks her, \"Do\nyou like dancing?\" But, no less, he could be terrible at need, could\nunsheathe a formidable sword and make short work of Commandants. Banter\nlurked beneath his simplicity, mocking laughter behind his tears--for\nhe had tears at need, like any woman nowadays who says to her husband,\n\"Give me a carriage, or I shall go into a consumption.\"\n\nFor the merchant the world is a bale of goods or a mass of circulating\nbills; for most young men it is a woman, and for a woman here and there\nit is a man; for a certain order of mind it is a salon, a coterie, a\nquarter of the town, or some single city; but Don Juan found his world\nin himself.\n\nThis model of grace and dignity, this captivating wit, moored his bark\nby every shore; but wherever he was led he was never carried away, and\nwas only steered in a course of his own choosing. The more he saw,\nthe more he doubted. He watched men narrowly, and saw how, beneath\nthe surface, courage was often rashness; and prudence, cowardice;\ngenerosity, a clever piece of calculation; justice, a wrong; delicacy,\npusillanimity; honesty, a _modus vivendi_; and by some strange\ndispensation of fate, he must see that those who at heart were really\nhonest, scrupulous, just, generous, prudent, or brave were held cheaply\nby their fellow-men.\n\n\"What a cold-blooded jest!\" said he to himself. \"It was not devised by a\nGod.\"\n\nFrom that time forth he renounced a better world, and never uncovered\nhimself when a Name was pronounced, and for him the carven saints in the\nchurches became works of art. He understood the mechanism of society too\nwell to clash wantonly with its prejudices; for, after all, he was not\nas powerful as the executioner, but he evaded social laws with the wit\nand grace so well rendered in the scene with M. Dimanche. He was, in\nfact, Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, Mathurin's\nMelmoth--great allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius\nin Europe, to which Mozart's harmonies, perhaps, do no more justice than\nRossini's lyre. Terrible allegorical figures that shall endure as long\nas the principle of evil existing in the heart of man shall produce\na few copies from century to century. Sometimes the type becomes\nhalf-human when incarnate as a Mirabeau, sometimes it is an inarticulate\nforce in a Bonaparte, sometimes it overwhelms the universe with irony\nas a Rabelais; or, yet again, it appears when a Marechal de Richelieu\nelects to laugh at human beings instead of scoffing at things, or when\none of the most famous of our ambassadors goes a step further and\nscoffs at both men and things. But the profound genius of Juan Belvidero\nanticipated and resumed all these. All things were a jest to him.\nHis was the life of a mocking spirit. All men, all institutions, all\nrealities, all ideas were within its scope. As for eternity, after half\nan hour of familiar conversation with Pope Julius II. he said, laughing:\n\n\"If it is absolutely necessary to make a choice, I would rather believe\nin God than in the Devil; power combined with goodness always offers\nmore resources than the spirit of Evil can boast.\"\n\n\"Yes; still God requires repentance in this present world----\"\n\n\"So you always think of your indulgences,\" returned Don Juan Belvidero.\n\"Well, well, I have another life in reserve in which to repent of the\nsins of my previous existence.\"\n\n\"Oh, if you regard old age in that light,\" cried the Pope, \"you are in\ndanger on canonization----\"\n\n\"After your elevation to the Papacy nothing is incredible.\" And they\nwent to watch the workmen who were building the huge basilica dedicated\nto Saint Peter.\n\n\"Saint Peter, as the man of genius who laid the foundation of our double\npower,\" the Pope said to Don Juan, \"deserves this monument. Sometimes,\nthough, at night, I think that a deluge will wipe all this out as with a\nsponge, and it will be all to begin over again.\"\n\nDon Juan and the Pope began to laugh; they understood each other. A\nfool would have gone on the morrow to amuse himself with Julius II. in\nRaphael's studio or at the delicious Villa Madama; not so Belvidero. He\nwent to see the Pope as pontiff, to be convinced of any doubts that he\n(Don Juan) entertained. Over his cups the Rovere would have been capable\nof denying his own infallibility and of commenting on the Apocalypse.\n\n\n\nNevertheless, this legend has not been undertaken to furnish materials\nfor future biographies of Don Juan; it is intended to prove to\nhonest folk that Belvidero did not die in a duel with stone, as some\nlithographers would have us believe.\n\nWhen Don Juan Belvidero reached the age of sixty he settled in Spain,\nand there in his old age he married a young and charming Andalusian\nwife. But of set purpose he was neither a good husband nor a good\nfather. He had observed that we are never so tenderly loved as by\nwomen to whom we scarcely give a thought. Dona Elvira had been devoutly\nbrought up by an old aunt in a castle a few leagues from San-Lucar in\na remote part of Andalusia. She was a model of devotion and grace. Don\nJuan foresaw that this would be a woman who would struggle long against\na passion before yielding, and therefore hoped to keep her virtuous\nuntil his death. It was a jest undertaken in earnest, a game of chess\nwhich he meant to reserve till his old age. Don Juan had learned wisdom\nfrom the mistakes made by his father Bartolommeo; he determined that\nthe least details of his life in old age should be subordinated to one\nobject--the success of the drama which was to be played out upon his\ndeath-bed.\n\nFor the same reason the largest part of his wealth was buried in the\ncellars of his palace at Ferrara, whither he seldom went. As for the\nrest of his fortune, it was invested in a life annuity, with a view to\ngive his wife and children an interest in keeping him alive; but this\nMachiavellian piece of foresight was scarcely necessary. His son, young\nFelipe Belvidero, grew up as a Spaniard as religiously conscientious\nas his father was irreligious, in virtue, perhaps, of the old rule, \"A\nmiser has a spendthrift son.\" The Abbot of San-Lucar was chosen by Don\nJuan to be the director of the consciences of the Duchess of Belvidero\nand her son Felipe. The ecclesiastic was a holy man, well shaped, and\nadmirably well proportioned. He had fine dark eyes, a head like that of\nTiberius, worn with fasting, bleached by an ascetic life, and, like all\ndwellers in the wilderness, was daily tempted. The noble lord had hopes,\nit may be, of despatching yet another monk before his term of life was\nout.\n\nBut whether because the Abbot was every whit as clever as Don Juan\nhimself, or Dona Elvira possessed more discretion or more virtue than\nSpanish wives are usually credited with, Don Juan was compelled to spend\nhis declining years beneath his own roof, with no more scandal under\nit than if he had been an ancient country parson. Occasionally he would\ntake wife and son to task for negligence in the duties of religion,\nperemptorily insisting that they should carry out to the letter the\nobligations imposed upon the flock by the Court of Rome. Indeed, he was\nnever so well pleased as when he had set the courtly Abbot discussing\nsome case of conscience with Dona Elvira and Felipe.\n\nAt length, however, despite the prodigious care that the great\nmagnifico, Don Juan Belvidero, took of himself, the days of decrepitude\ncame upon him, and with those days the constant importunity of physical\nfeebleness, an importunity all the more distressing by contrast with the\nwealth of memories of his impetuous youth and the sensual pleasures of\nmiddle age. The unbeliever who in the height of his cynical humor had\nbeen wont to persuade others to believe in laws and principles at which\nhe scoffed, must repose nightly upon a _perhaps_. The great Duke, the\npattern of good breeding, the champion of many a carouse, the proud\nornament of Courts, the man of genius, the graceful winner of hearts\nthat he had wrung as carelessly as a peasant twists an osier withe,\nwas now the victim of a cough, of a ruthless sciatica, of an unmannerly\ngout. His teeth gradually deserted him, as at the end of an evening the\nfairest and best-dressed women take their leave one by one till the room\nis left empty and desolate. The active hands became palsy-stricken,\nthe shapely legs tottered as he walked. At last, one night, a stroke of\napoplexy caught him by the throat in its icy clutch. After that fatal\nday he grew morose and stern.\n\nHe would reproach his wife and son with their devotion, casting it in\ntheir teeth that the affecting and thoughtful care that they lavished\nso tenderly upon him was bestowed because they knew that his money was\ninvested in a life annuity. Then Elvira and Felipe would shed bitter\ntears and redouble their caresses, and the wicked old man's insinuating\nvoice would take an affectionate tone--\"Ah, you will forgive me, will\nyou not, dear friends, dear wife? I am rather a nuisance. Alas, Lord in\nheaven, how canst Thou use me as the instrument by which Thou provest\nthese two angelic creatures? I who should be the joy of their lives am\nbecome their scourge...\"\n\nIn this manner he kept them tethered to his pillow, blotting out the\nmemory of whole months of fretfulness and unkindness in one short\nhour when he chose to display for them the ever-new treasures of his\npinchbeck tenderness and charm of manner--a system of paternity that\nyielded him an infinitely better return than his own father's indulgence\nhad formerly gained. At length his bodily infirmities reached a point\nwhen the task of laying him in bed became as difficult as the navigation\nof a felucca in the perils of an intricate channel. Then came the day of\nhis death; and this brilliant sceptic, whose mental faculties alone had\nsurvived the most dreadful of all destructions, found himself between\nhis two special antipathies--the doctor and the confessor. But he was\njovial with them. Did he not see a light gleaming in the future\nbeyond the veil? The pall that is like lead for other men was thin and\ntranslucent for him; the light-footed, irresistible delights of youth\ndanced beyond it like shadows.\n\n\n\nIt was on a beautiful summer evening that Don Juan felt the near\napproach of death. The sky of Spain was serene and cloudless; the air\nwas full of the scent of orange-blossom; the stars shed clear, pure\ngleams of light; nature without seemed to give the dying man assurance\nof resurrection; a dutiful and obedient son sat there watching him with\nloving and respectful eyes. Towards eleven o'clock he desired to be left\nalone with this single-hearted being.\n\n\"Felipe,\" said the father, in tones so soft and affectionate that the\nyoung man trembled, and tears of gladness came to his eyes; never had\nthat stern father spoken his name in such a tone. \"Listen, my son,\" the\ndying man went on. \"I am a great sinner. All my life long, however, I\nhave thought of my death. I was once the friend of the great Pope\nJulius II.; and that illustrious Pontiff, fearing lest the excessive\nexcitability of my senses should entangle me in mortal sin between the\nmoment of my death and the time of my anointing with the holy oil, gave\nme a flask that contains a little of the holy water that once issued\nfrom the rock in the wilderness. I have kept the secret of this\nsquandering of a treasure belonging to Holy Church, but I am permitted\nto reveal the mystery _in articulo mortis_ to my son. You will find the\nflask in a drawer in that Gothic table that always stands by the head\nof the bed.... The precious little crystal flask may be of use yet again\nfor you, dearest Felipe. Will you swear to me, by your salvation, to\ncarry out my instructions faithfully?\"\n\nFelipe looked at his father, and Don Juan was too deeply learned in the\nlore of the human countenance not to die in peace with that look as his\nwarrant, as his own father had died in despair at meeting the expression\nin his son's eyes.\n\n\"You deserved to have a better father,\" Don Juan went on. \"I dare\nto confess, my child, that while the reverend Abbot of San-Lucar was\nadministering the Viaticum I was thinking of the incompatibility of the\nco-existence of two powers so infinite as God and the Devil----\"\n\n\"Oh, father!\"\n\n\"And I said to myself, when Satan makes his peace he ought surely to\nstipulate for the pardon of his followers, or he will be the veriest\nscoundrel. The thought haunted me; so I shall go to hell, my son, unless\nyou carry out my wishes.\"\n\n\"Oh, quick; tell me quickly, father.\"\n\n\"As soon as I have closed my eyes,\" Don Juan went on, \"and that may be\nin a few minutes, you must take my body before it grows cold and lay it\non a table in this room. Then put out the lamp; the light of the stars\nshould be sufficient. Take off my clothes, reciting Aves and Paters the\nwhile, raising your soul to God in prayer, and carefully anoint my\nlips and eyes with this holy water; begin with the face, and proceed\nsuccessively to my limbs and the rest of my body; my dear son, the power\nof God is so great that you must be astonished at nothing.\"\n\nDon Juan felt death so near, that he added in a terrible voice, \"Be\ncareful not to drop the flask.\"\n\nThen he breathed his last gently in the arms of his son, and his son's\ntears fell fast over his sardonic, haggard features.\n\nIt was almost midnight when Don Felipe Belvidero laid his father's body\nupon the table. He kissed the sinister brow and the gray hair; then he\nput out the lamp.\n\nBy the soft moonlight that lit strange gleams across the country\nwithout, Felipe could dimly see his father's body, a vague white thing\namong the shadows. The dutiful son moistened a linen cloth with the\nliquid, and, absorbed in prayer, he anointed the revered face. A deep\nsilence reigned. Felipe heard faint, indescribable rustlings; it was the\nbreeze in the tree-tops, he thought. But when he had moistened the right\narm, he felt himself caught by the throat, a young strong hand held him\nin a tight grip--it was his father's hand! He shrieked aloud; the flask\ndropped from his hand and broke in pieces. The liquid evaporated; the\nwhole household hurried into the room, holding torches aloft. That\nshriek had startled them, and filled them with as much terror as if the\nTrumpet of the Angel sounding on the Last Day had rung through earth and\nsky. The room was full of people, and a horror-stricken crowd beheld the\nfainting Felipe upheld by the strong arm of his father, who clutched\nhim by the throat. They saw another thing, an unearthly spectacle--Don\nJuan's face grown young and beautiful as Antinous, with its dark hair\nand brilliant eyes and red lips, a head that made horrible efforts, but\ncould not move the dead, wasted body.\n\nAn old servitor cried, \"A miracle! a miracle!\" and all the Spaniards\nechoed, \"A miracle! a miracle!\"\n\nDona Elvira, too pious to attribute this to magic, sent for the Abbot of\nSan-Lucar; and the Prior beholding the miracle with his own eyes, being\na clever man, and withal an Abbot desirous of augmenting his revenues,\ndetermined to turn the occasion to profit. He immediately gave out\nthat Don Juan would certainly be canonized; he appointed a day for the\ncelebration of the apotheosis in his convent, which thenceforward, he\nsaid, should be called the convent of San Juan of Lucar. At these words\na sufficiently facetious grimace passed over the features of the late\nDuke.\n\nThe taste of the Spanish people for ecclesiastical solemnities is so\nwell known, that it should not be difficult to imagine the religious\npantomime by which the Convent of San-Lucar celebrated the translation\nof the _blessed Don Juan Belvidero_ to the abbey-church. The tale of the\npartial resurrection had spread so quickly from village to village, that\na day or two after the death of the illustrious nobleman the report had\nreached every place within fifty miles of San-Lucar, and it was as good\nas a play to see the roads covered already with crowds flocking in on\nall sides, their curiosity whetted still further by the prospect of\na _Te Deum_ sung by torchlight. The old abbey church of San-Lucar, a\nmarvelous building erected by the Moors, a mosque of Allah, which for\nthree centuries had heard the name of Christ, could not hold the throng\nthat poured in to see the ceremony. Hidalgos in their velvet mantles,\nwith their good swords at their sides, swarmed like ants, and were so\ntightly packed in among the pillars that they had not room to bend the\nknees, which never bent save to God. Charming peasant girls, in the\nbasquina that defines the luxuriant outlines of their figures, lent an\narm to white-haired old men. Young men, with eyes of fire, walked beside\naged crones in holiday array. Then came couples tremulous with joy,\nyoung lovers led thither by curiosity, newly-wedded folk; children\ntimidly clasping each other by the hand. This throng, so rich in\ncoloring, in vivid contrasts, laden with flowers, enameled like a\nmeadow, sent up a soft murmur through the quiet night. Then the great\ndoors of the church opened.\n\nLate comers who remained without saw afar, through the three great open\ndoorways, a scene of which the theatrical illusions of modern opera can\ngive but a faint idea. The vast church was lighted up by thousands of\ncandles, offered by saints and sinners alike eager to win the favor\nof this new candidate for canonization, and these self-commending\nilluminations turned the great building into an enchanted fairyland. The\nblack archways, the shafts and capitals, the recessed chapels with gold\nand silver gleaming in their depths, the galleries, the Arab traceries,\nall the most delicate outlines of that delicate sculpture, burned in\nthe excess of light like the fantastic figures in the red heart of a\nbrazier. At the further end of the church, above that blazing sea, rose\nthe high altar like a splendid dawn. All the glories of the golden lamps\nand silver candlesticks, of banners and tassels, of the shrines of the\nsaints and votive offerings, paled before the gorgeous brightness of\nthe reliquary in which Don Juan lay. The blasphemer's body sparkled with\ngems, and flowers, and crystal, with diamonds and gold, and plumes white\nas the wings of seraphim; they had set it up on the altar, where the\npictures of Christ had stood. All about him blazed a host of tall\ncandles; the air quivered in the radiant light. The worthy Abbot of\nSan-Lucar, in pontifical robes, with his mitre set with precious stones,\nhis rochet and golden crosier, sat enthroned in imperial state among his\nclergy in the choir. Rows of impassive aged faces, silver-haired old\nmen clad in fine linen albs, were grouped about him, as the saints who\nconfessed Christ on earth are set by painters, each in his place, about\nthe throne of God in heaven. The precentor and the dignitaries of the\nchapter, adorned with the gorgeous insignia of ecclesiastical vanity,\ncame and went through the clouds of incense, like stars upon their\ncourses in the firmament.\n\nWhen the hour of triumph arrived, the bells awoke the echoes far and\nwide, and the whole vast crowd raised to God the first cry of praise\nthat begins the _Te Deum_. A sublime cry! High, pure notes, the voices\nof women in ecstasy, mingled in it with the sterner and deeper voices of\nmen; thousands of voices sent up a volume of sound so mighty, that the\nstraining, groaning organ-pipes could not dominate that harmony. But\nthe shrill sound of children's singing among the choristers, the\nreverberation of deep bass notes, awakened gracious associations,\nvisions of childhood, and of man in his strength, and rose above that\nentrancing harmony of human voices blended in one sentiment of love.\n\n_Te Deum laudamus_!\n\nThe chant went up from the black masses of men and women kneeling in\nthe cathedral, like a sudden breaking out of light in darkness, and the\nsilence was shattered as by a peal of thunder. The voices floated up\nwith the clouds of incense that had begun to cast thin bluish veils over\nthe fanciful marvels of the architecture, and the aisles were filled\nwith splendor and perfume and light and melody. Even at the moment when\nthat music of love and thanksgiving soared up to the altar, Don Juan,\ntoo well bred not to express his acknowledgments, too witty not\nto understand how to take a jest, bridled up in his reliquary, and\nresponded with an appalling burst of laughter. Then the Devil having put\nhim in mind of the risk he was running of being taken for an ordinary\nman, a saint, a Boniface, a Pantaleone, he interrupted the melody of\nlove by a yell, the thousand voices of hell joined in it. Earth blessed,\nHeaven banned. The church was shaken to its ancient foundations.\n\n_Te Deum laudamus_! cried the many voices.\n\n\"Go to the devil, brute beasts that you are! _Dios! Dios! Garajos\ndemonios!_ Idiots! What fools you are with your dotard God!\" and a\ntorrent of imprecations poured forth like a stream of red-hot lava from\nthe mouth of Vesuvius.\n\n\"_Deus Sabaoth!... Sabaoth_!\" cried the believers.\n\n\"You are insulting the majesty of Hell,\" shouted Don Juan, gnashing his\nteeth. In another moment the living arm struggled out of the reliquary,\nand was brandished over the assembly in mockery and despair.\n\n\"The saint is blessing us,\" cried the old women, children, lovers, and\nthe credulous among the crowd.\n\nAnd note how often we are deceived in the homage we pay; the great man\nscoffs at those who praise him, and pays compliments now and again to\nthose whom he laughs at in the depths of his heart.\n\nJust as the Abbot, prostrate before the altar, was chanting \"_Sancte\nJohannes, ora pro noblis_!\" he heard a voice exclaim sufficiently\ndistinctly: \"_O coglione_!\"\n\n\"What can be going on up there?\" cried the Sub-prior, as he saw the\nreliquary move.\n\n\"The saint is playing the devil,\" replied the Abbot.\n\nEven as he spoke the living head tore itself away from the lifeless\nbody, and dropped upon the sallow cranium of the officiating priest.\n\n\"Remember Dona Elvira!\" cried the thing, with its teeth set fast in the\nAbbot's head.\n\nThe Abbot's horror-stricken shriek disturbed the ceremony; all the\necclesiastics hurried up and crowded about their chief.\n\n\"Idiot, tell us now if there is a God!\" the voice cried, as the Abbot,\nbitten through the brain, drew his last breath.\n\n\n\nPARIS, October 1830.","title":"The Elixir of Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":9408}