The Queens Necklace | Page 7

hundred louis
d'ors."
"The devil," cried Richelieu; "that is even better than tokay."
"I must then drink?" said the baron, almost trembling.
"Or pass the glass to another, sir, that some one at least may profit by
it."
"Pass it here," said Richelieu, holding out his hand.
The baron raised the glass, and decided, doubtless, by the delicious
smell and the beautiful rose color which those few drops had given to
the champagne, he swallowed the magic liquor. In an instant a kind of
shiver ran through him; he seemed to feel all his old and sluggish blood
rushing quickly through his veins, from his heart to his feet, his
wrinkled skin seemed to expand, his eyes, half covered by their lids,
appeared to open without his will, and the pupils to grow and brighten,
the trembling of his hands to cease, his voice to strengthen, and his
limbs to recover their former youthful elasticity. In fact, it seemed as if
the liquid in its descent had regenerated his whole body.
A cry of surprise, wonder, and admiration rang through the room.
Taverney, who had been slowly eating with his gums, began to feel
famished; he seized a plate and helped himself largely to a ragout, and
then demolished a partridge, bones and all, calling out that his teeth
were coming back to him. He eat, laughed, and cried for joy, for half an
hour, while the others remained gazing at him in stupefied wonder;
then little by little he failed again, like a lamp whose oil is burning out,
and all the former signs of old age returned upon him.

"Oh!" groaned he, "once more adieu to my youth," and he gave
utterance to a deep sigh, while two tears rolled over his cheeks.
Instinctively, at this mournful spectacle of the old man first made
young again, and then seeming to become yet older than before, from
the contrast, the sigh was echoed all round the table.
"It is easy to explain, gentlemen," said Cagliostro; "I gave the baron but
thirty-five drops of the elixir. He became young, therefore, for only
thirty-five minutes."
"Oh more, more, count!" cried the old man eagerly.
"No, sir, for perhaps the second trial would kill you."
Of all the guests, Madame Dubarry, who had already tested the virtue
of the elixir, seemed most deeply interested while old Taverney's youth
seemed thus to renew itself; she had watched him with delight and
triumph, and half fancied herself growing young again at the sight,
while she could hardly refrain from endeavoring to snatch from
Cagliostro the wonderful bottle; but now, seeing him resume his old
age even quicker than he had lost it, "Alas!" she said sadly, "all is
vanity and deception; the effects of this wonderful secret last for
thirty-five minutes."
"That is to say," said Count Haga, "that in order to resume your youth
for two years, you would have to drink a perfect river."
Every one laughed.
"Oh!" said De Condorcet, "the calculation is simple; a mere nothing of
3,153,000 drops for one year's youth."
"An inundation," said La Pérouse.
"However, sir," continued Madame Dubarry; "according to you, I have
not needed so much, as a small bottle about four times the size of that
you hold has been sufficient to arrest the march of time for ten years."

"Just so, madame. And you alone approach this mysterious truth. The
man who has already grown old needs this large quantity to produce an
immediate and powerful effect; but a woman of thirty, as you were, or a
man of forty, as I was, when I began to drink this elixir, still full of life
and youth, needs but ten drops at each period of decay; and with these
ten drops may eternally continue his life and youth at the same point."
"What do you call the periods of decay?" asked Count Haga.
"The natural periods, count. In a state of nature, man's strength
increases until thirty-five years of age. It then remains stationary until
forty; and from that time forward, it begins to diminish, but almost
imperceptibly, until fifty; then the process becomes quicker and quicker
to the day of his death. In our state of civilization, when the body is
weakened by excess, cares, and maladies, the failure begins at
thirty-five. The time, then, to take nature, is when she is stationary, so
as to forestall the beginning of decay. He who, possessor as I am of the
secret of this elixir, knows how to seize the happy moment, will live as
I live; always young, or, at least, always young enough for what he has
to do in the world."
"Oh, M. Cagliostro," cried the countess; "why, if you could choose
your own age, did you not stop at twenty instead of