The Elixir of Life | Page 4

that
still open each morning to the light, like Belvidero's in this Study. God
alone knows the number of those who are parricides in thought. Picture
to yourself the state of mind of a man who must pay a life annuity to
some old woman whom he scarcely knows; both live in the country
with a brook between them, both sides are free to hate cordially,
without offending against the social conventions that require two
brothers to wear a mask if the older will succeed to the entail, and the
other to the fortune of a younger son. The whole civilization of Europe
turns upon the principle of hereditary succession as upon a pivot; it
would be madness to subvert the principle; but could we not, in an age
that prides itself upon its mechanical inventions, perfect this essential
portion of the social machinery?
If the author has preserved the old-fashioned style of address To the
Reader before a work wherein he endeavors to represent all literary
forms, it is for the purpose of making a remark that applies to several of
the Studies, and very specially to this. Every one of his compositions
has been based upon ideas more or less novel, which, as it seemed to
him, needed literary expression; he can claim priority for certain forms
and for certain ideas which have since passed into the domain of
literature, and have there, in some instances, become common property;
so that the date of the first publication of each Study cannot be a matter
of indifference to those of his readers who would fain do him justice.
Reading brings us unknown friends, and what friend is like a reader?
We have friends in our own circle who read nothing of ours. The author
hopes to pay his debt, by dedicating this work Diis ignotis.

THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
One winter evening, in a princely palace at Ferrara, Don Juan Belvidero
was giving a banquet to a prince of the house of Este. A banquet in
those times was a marvelous spectacle which only royal wealth or the
power of a mightly [sic] lord could furnish forth. Seated about a table
lit up with perfumed tapers, seven laughter-loving women were
interchanging sweet talk. The white marble of the noble works of art
about them stood out against the red stucco walls, and made strong
contrasts with the rich Turkey carpets. Clad in satin, glittering with
gold, and covered with gems less brilliant than their eyes, each told a
tale of energetic passions as diverse as their styles of beauty. They
differed neither in their ideas nor in their language; but the expression
of their eyes, their glances, occasional gestures, or the tones of their
voices supplied a commentary, dissolute, wanton, melancholy, or
satirical, to their words.
One seemed to be saying--"The frozen heart of age might kindle at my
beauty."
Another--"I love to lounge upon cushions, and think with rapture of my
adorers."
A third, a neophyte at these banquets, was inclined to blush. "I feel
remorse in the depths of my heart! I am a Catholic, and afraid of hell.
But I love you, I love you so that I can sacrifice my hereafter to you."
The fourth drained a cup of Chian wine. "Give me a joyous life!" she
cried; "I begin life afresh each day with the dawn. Forgetful of the past,
with the intoxication of yesterday's rapture still upon me, I drink deep
of life--a whole lifetime of pleasure and of love!"
The woman who sat next to Juan Belvidero looked at him with a
feverish glitter in her eyes. She was silent. Then--"I should need no
hired bravo to kill my lover if he forsook me!" she cried at last, and
laughed, but the marvelously wrought gold comfit box in her fingers
was crushed by her convulsive clutch.
"When are you to be Grand Duke?" asked the sixth. There was the
frenzy of a Bacchante in her eyes, and her teeth gleamed between the
lips parted with a smile of cruel glee.
"Yes, when is that father of yours going to die?" asked the seventh,
throwing her bouquet at Don Juan with bewitching playfulness. It was a
childish girl who spoke, and the speaker was wont to make sport of

sacred things.
"Oh! don't talk about it," cried Don Juan, the young and handsome
giver of the banquet. "There is but one eternal father, and, as ill luck
will have it, he is mine."
The seven Ferrarese, Don Juan's friends, the Prince himself, gave a cry
of horror. Two hundred years later, in the days of Louis XV., people of
taste would have laughed at this witticism. Or was it, perhaps, that at
the outset of an orgy there is a certain unwonted lucidity of mind?