Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neithergranted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began tointerchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold of the fair prize,they grappled fiercely at one another's throats. As they struggledto and fro, the table was overturned, and the vase dashed into athousand fragments. The precious Water of Youth flowed in a brightstream across the floor, moistening the wings of a butterfly, which,grown old in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. Theinsect fluttered lightly through the chamber, and settled on the snowyhead of Dr. Heidegger.
"Come, come, gentlemen! come, Madam Wycherly," exclaimed thedoctor, I really must protest against this riot."They stood still and shivered; for it seemed as if gray Time werecalling them back from their sunny youth, far down into the chilland darksome vale of years. They looked at old Dr. Heidegger, whosat in his carved arm-chair, holding the rose of half a century, whichhe had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase. Atthe motion of his hand, the four rioters resumed their seats; the morereadily, because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthfulthough they were.
"My poor Sylvia's rose!" ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it inthe light of the sunset clouds; "it appears to be fading again."And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it, theflower continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile aswhen the doctor had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off thefew drops of moisture which clung to its petals.
"I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness," observed he,pressing the withered rose to his withered lips. While he spoke, thebutterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head, and fell uponthe floor.
His guests shivered again. A strange chillness, whether of the bodyor spirit they could not tell, was creeping gradually over them all.
They gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting momentsnatched away a charm, and left a deepening furrow where none had beenbefore. Was it an illusion? Had the changes of a lifetime been crowdedinto so brief a space, and were they now four aged people, sittingwith their old friend, Dr. Heidegger?
"Are we grown old again, so soon?" cried they, dolefully.
In truth they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtuemore transient than that of wine. The delirium which it created hadeffervesced away. Yes! they were old again. With a shuddering impulse,that showed her a woman still, the widow clasped her skinny handsbefore her face, and wished that the coffin lid were over it, since itcould be no longer beautiful.
"Yes, friends, ye are old again," said Dr. Heidegger, "and lo!
the Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well- I bemoan itnot; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoopto bathe my lips in it- no, though its delirium were for years insteadof moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!"But the doctor's four friends had taught no such lesson tothemselves. They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida,and quaff at morning, noon, and night, from the Fountain of Youth.
NOTE. In an English review, not long since, I have been accusedof plagiarizing the idea of this story from a chapter in one of thenovels of Alexandre Dumas. There has undoubtedly been a plagiarismon one side or the other; but as my story was written a good deal morethan twenty years ago, and as the novel is of considerably more recentdate, I take pleasure in thinking that M. Dumas has done me thehonor to appropriate one of the fanciful conceptions of my earlierdays. He is heartily welcome to it; nor is it the only instance, bymany, in which the great French romancer has exercised the privilegeof commanding genius by confiscating the intellectual property of lessfamous people to his own use and behoof.
September, 1860
THE END
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