“Of course: but do you think I am a silkworm to perform alone the great task of transformation and rejuvenation? Can I without any strength alone compose my draft of life? Do you think I shall have my ability when I am lying down with no support but refreshing drink, if you do not help me? abandoned to my own resources, and the minute labor of my regeneration—you know you ought to help and succor, if a friend?”
“I am here,” responded Balsamo, taking the old man and placing him in his chair as one might a disagreeable child, “what do you want? You have plenty 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 had your father to help me, your faithful father. I got it ready a month beforehand. For the blood of a virgin which I had to have, I bought a child of a trader at Mount Ararat where I retired. I bled it according to the rites; I took three drops of arterial blood and in an hour my mixture, only wanting that ingredient, was composed. Therefore my regeneration came off passing well: my hair and teeth fell during the spasms caused by the draft, but they came again—the teeth badly, I admit, for I had neglected to use a golden tube for decanting the liquor. But my hair and nails came as if I were fifteen again. But here I am once more old; and the elixir is not concocted. If it is not soon in this bottle, with all care given to compounding it, the science of a century will be lost in me, and this admirable and sublime secret which I hold will be lost for man, who would thus through me be linked with divinity. Oh, if I go wrong, if I fail, you, Acharat, will have been the cause, and my wrath will be dreadful!”
As these final words made a spark flash from his dying eye, the hideous old man fell back in a convulsion succeeded by violent coughing. Balsamo at once gave him the most eager care. The old doctor came to his senses; his pallor was worse; this slight shaking had so exhausted him that 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 time and science. I have the science; but time is only about to be conquered by me. My dose has succeeded; the white drops have almost eradicated most of my old nature. My strength has nearly disappeared. Youth is mounting and casting off the old bark, so to say. You will remark, Acharat, that the symptoms are excellent; my voice is faint; my sight weakened by three parts; I feel my senses wander at times; the transitions from heat to cold are insensible to me. So it is urgent that I get my draft made so that on the proper day of my fifteenth year, I shall pass from a hundred years to twenty without hesitation. The ingredients are gathered, the gold tube for the decanting is ready; I only 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, “since you dream of nothing but your wife with whom you shut yourself up instead of coming to aid me.”
“My wife,” repeated Balsamo, sadly: “a wife but in name. I have had to sacrifice all to her, love, desire, all, I repeat, in order to preserve her pure that I may use her spirit as a seer’s to pierce the almost impenetrable. Instead of making me happy, she makes the world so.”
“Poor fool,” said Althotas, “I believe you gabble still of your amelioration of society when I talk to you of eternal youth and life for man.”