The Elixir

Then the doctor cried: "And so my hard-earned discovery is of less value than I hoped!"

But these words had scarcely escaped him before he smiled to himself, for it was the elixir that had forced him to this outbreak, otherwise he would never have confessed to any one, be he who be might, that his wonderful discovery was in any way incomplete.

Being satisfied with his experiences for that day he no longer hindered the old lady from going to rest.

On his own bed he lay and pondered over the limitations of his discovery.

To reveal the truth, wholly and absolutely, was not within the power of the elixir, nor unfortunately did it possess the efficacy to lead one to a perfect knowledge of oneself; on the other hand it was capable of forcing any one who used it to be absolutely honest in his dealings with his neighbours, and that surely was no small gain. Indeed it was enough to place him among the most famous discoverers in all ages, and to inscribe his name beside those of the noblest benefactors of man in the whole round world.

Sleepless, yet filled with triumphant joy, like a general who has won a glorious victory, he watched through the night. When Frau Schimmel came to the house on the following morning she found him with the little Zeno between his knees.

Her suspicion was immediately aroused that the father had misused the child in order to try the effect of the elixir upon it, and she stood at the door and listened.

But the little bottle tightly corked peered from the doctor's breast- pocket and, instead of questioning Zeno, he was talking to him earnestly:

"Your mother," he was saying, "was more precious to me than life or aught else, and you, my little one, are dear to me, too, chiefly because it was she who gave you to me, but who knows if I might not have sacrificed you if the success of the work, to which I have devoted so many years, had depended upon it. Now I have reached the goal, and I tell you, my boy, there are only two joys here below so great as to give a foretaste of the bliss that awaits us in Paradise: one is the sweet rapture of true love, and the other, the transport of the inventor when his experiment is successful. I have known both."

During this speech, which the doctor had made under the influence of the elixir, the boy stared at his father with open mouth, undecided whether to be afraid, or to consider it all a jest and laugh.

Frau Schimmel made an end of his doubt, for she could not bring herself to stand by patiently and have the child confused by such extraordinary sentiments. She interrupted the doctor: "Little Zeno finds his pleasure in very different ways, don't you, my lamb? You would rather have your father send you to market with Frau Schimmel who buys cherries for you, wouldn't you? Cherries are better for children than 'true love,' and all the other nonsense that men worry themselves about."

The doctor only laughed and said "One day he will learn for himself what his father meant, and if you wish to buy him cherries, you good old soul, take him along with you and pick out the finest. You might also go to the Nuremberg shop and let him choose the most beautiful horse, and whatever else among the toys that he wishes for, no matter how expensive it may be; for I owe it in part to my boy that I have attained my object, and I must hurt him a bit more. But don't be afraid! He will hardly feel it."

What did that remarkable man have in mind? Certainly, no good!

As Frau Schimmel felt that she stood in the place of a mother to her darling, she demanded respectfully what the doctor meant to do to the child.

He answered in some embarrassment, and without looking at the old lady; "It is because I have need of a larger quantity of the elixir. If I were to bleed another child—and bleeding is good for every one, big or little—they would accuse me of practising the black arts and perhaps, after their fashion of making a mountain out of a molehill, would denounce me as an infanticide. Therefore the boy must spare a few more drops of his blood, and he will do so gladly if he receives something pretty as a reward. I am very skilful and can draw the blood without hurting him."

When, however, Frau Schimmel clasped her hands, and Zeno, whimpering, hid his face in her skirts, the doctor hastened to add: "There, there, I am not going to do it at once, and perhaps it is just as well that I should experiment with my own blood first. So take the boy out and buy him the finest plaything you can find, and leave a message at Herr Winckler's; he is to come to-day to The Three Kings, for I have something very important to communicate to him."

The old lady was very glad to get the child beyond the reach of his father. His happiness was as incomprehensible to her, as his design on the blood of his child was dreadful, and she led the boy forth quickly. The doctor, however, went into the laboratory with wavering steps, and in the next half hour prepared more of the elixir into which he mixed some of his own blood.

The effect was the same as if he had used the blood of his child.

This delighted him so much that he fairly beamed with pleasure. But even then he gave himself no rest. He took the elixir which he had made the day before into the library, and there he wrote and wrote.

At noon he allowed a morsel of food to be brought to him, and ate it seated at his desk. When he had finished he continued his work with his pen, sealing-wax and seal, until the notary, Herr Winckler, called towards evening.

For the first time in the course of their long friendship he fell on the notary's neck, and told him with wet eyes, and broken voice that he had reached the happiest hour of his life, for the great work to which he had already dedicated himself while yet in Padua and Bologna, was completed, and that only the preceding evening he had achieved the most marvellous discovery of all times.

One of whose effects would be that a new epoch would dawn for the profession to which Herr Winckler belonged—that of the law.

Here his friend interrupted him to inquire what this discovery might be, but Melchior had the force to keep his secret, and only handed over to him the phial of the elixir, which he had previously packed carefully in a jewel casket of Bianca's, of Italian workmanship, and then wrapped in parchment, and tied, and fastened, with many seals.

He also entrusted his school companion with the letters which he had written, saying that his days were numbered, and giving him many instructions. Finally he made the notary swear to be a faithful guardian and second father to Zeno if he should be taken away.

At midnight the friends parted, deeply moved, and Herr Winckler told his wife that he had never seen any man, let alone the solemn Melchior, so bubbling over and beaming with happiness, and if one could judge by the radiance of his glance, and the fire of his youthful enthusiasm, his friend had many more good years to live.

But what had pleased him in the appearance of the doctor was, alas! only the expiring flicker of the burnt-out candle.

The intense excitement of the last few days had exhausted the sick man, and before dawn Frau Schimmel was roused by his bell. When she entered his room she found him sitting up in bed with burning cheeks and coughing violently. He called for something to drink, saying that he was dying of thirst.

When he was refreshed by a glass of wine mixed with water, which in Italy had grown to be his favourite drink, he said to the old housekeeper that he would not need to use his son's blood, as his own was equally efficacious. He also asked her if perchance his father had wounded his hand before he had discovered the elixir, and when Frau Schimmel stated that he had, for she remembered the broken glass retort which had cut the Court apothecary's finger the day before his death, he smiled and said: "Now the wonderful fact of his discovery is explained. A drop of the paternal blood must have found its way into the mixture. Thus one riddle after another is solved, and soon the last mystery that remains will become clear to me."

Then he added that having brought Truth into the world he was glad to depart to that region where it was always day, where there were no deceits and no uncertainties, and where the star of his life that had set would arise for him once more.

He murmured Bianca's name and closed his eyes, while a happy smile lit up his worn, thin face. His breast rose and fell with his irregular breathing, shaken now and then by his cough and feverish shivering, and often he cried out like one inspired: "Infinite labour, measureless reward! All, all fulfilled!"

Frau Schimmel realised that the end had come. After he had received the sacrament, the old lady laid his hand upon the curly head of his son. Melchior gazed fondly into the sweet face of his child, and quietly closed his eyes.

The priest who administered extreme unction to him was fond of telling the story of this last sacrament, for he had never seen any dying man exhibit greater confidence and faith.

Frau Schimmel cried herself nearly blind.

On the third day after the death of Doctor Melchior Ueberhell, his mortal remains were carried to rest with great ceremony, and buried in the place that he himself had chosen during his lifetime.

Between his wife and his mother, rose the little mound that marked his resting-place, and later many who visited the churchyard used to stop beside the graves of Bianca and Melchior, perhaps because of the creeping roses which had been planted beneath the cross of his beloved, and which spread so luxuriantly that they soon covered the husband's grave as well as the wife's, and in the month of June decked them both with a wondrous wealth of blossom.

In the letter which the doctor handed to Herr Winckler, the guardian of his son, shortly before his death, he desired the notary, or his successor, to give to his son Zeno, on the morning of his twenty-fifth birthday, the sealed package containing the phial, together with the accompanying manuscript.

In a second letter on which was written: "To be opened in case my son Zeno should die before reaching his twenty-fifth birth day," he informed the notary of the power that dwelt within the phial, and charged him to employ it for the benefit of mankind.

Both letters—the one to Zeno and the other to the notary—contained precise directions for the making of the elixir, and also the recommendation that it should be sent to all universities and faculties, as well as to the spiritual and temporal authorities of his beloved fatherlands, Saxony and Germany, that it might become the common property of the whole world.

To Frau Schimmel the doctor entrusted the worldly welfare of little Zeno, and to the notary the responsibility of his education, and both of these people not only fulfilled their duties, but gave the child a large share of their love, so that the orphan throve both in mind and body.

That he was neither wiser nor duller, stronger nor weaker than his school companions pleased Frau Schimmel, for as she loved to say: "Those people over whom one exclaims when one meets them, either because of their exceptional goodness or badness, are destined to be unhappy in this world."

The old lady also took great pleasure in dressing the boy very finely, and as he would one day be rich, she had no fear for his future, save that on his twenty-fifth birthday he was to receive his father's elixir, concerning which, loyal to her oath, she maintained silence towards everyone.

But even this anxiety was, she thought, to be removed when one day there was an alarm of fire, and she learned that a conflagration had broken out in the oil cellar of the Winckler house, and that the notary's quarters had been entirely destroyed by the flames.

But she rejoiced too soon, for only Doctor Melchior's letters to his son and to the notary were burned, and the strange old lady could hardly bring herself to forgive the brave and conscientious guardian of her favourite, because at great personal risk he had saved the casket containing the phial.

Of Zeno there is very little to tell, except that from a child he grew to be a fine youth, with the great dark eyes of his mother, and that he cared much about his elegant clothes, and was devoted to his noble horse.

In his twenty-third year he became a doctor of ancient and modern jurisprudence, in his twenty-fourth he gained admission to the famous Leipsic "Schoppen" court of justice, and now the venerable Frau Schimmel as well as his guardian, the notary, whose housekeeper had died in the meanwhile, were strongly urging him to choose a helpmate for life.

As the wishes of his guardians coincided with his own in this particular, he hastened to fulfil them, and his choice fell upon the daughter of an officer of high rank, who had been noticeable at the Rathhaus balls on account of the elegance of her costume.

Frau Schimmel was apprehensive, for according to her ideas, an honourable young woman of good burgher family was better suited to the heir of The Three Kings; yet in reality she considered nothing too good or too beautiful for Zeno, and after she had learned from the officer's servants that their mistress was of a cheerful disposition, and was able with her own skilful hands to dress herself well on very small means, and to keep up an appearance of elegance in her father's house which swarmed with children, she came to the conclusion that Zeno's choice was a wise one.

She therefore gave her consent to his wooing, and at the end of three months the wedding took place with great magnificence, to the sound of drums and trumpets. The young husband went about as if he were borne on wings.

Surely there was no bride in all Saxony so lovely and so beautiful, and when she refused flatly to have Frau Schimmel invited to the wedding feast, he excused her, thinking that her refusal was the result of her aristocratic surroundings and training. The question did not give rise to any open quarrel, for Frau Schimmel of her own accord announced that it was enough for her to pray for the happiness of the young couple in church.

For four weeks after the wedding-day, Zeno continued to wonder that such exquisite bliss could fall to the lot of any mortal in this world, which so many people regarded as a vale of sorrow, and when his passionate dark eyes were reflected in the cooler blue ones of his wife, and she returned his caresses sweetly but without laying aside her distinctive and reserved manner, which he laid to the account of maidenly bashfulness, he felt that no one could be more blessed, and that he was the most enviable of men. So the time passed, and his twenty-fifth birthday was approaching. The young Frau Ueberhell awaited with even greater curiosity than her husband, the disclosure of the contents of the sealed package which Herr Winckler had in charge for his ward.