Mosses from an old manse
for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the
deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have
caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; whence, however, her husband was
inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away.
When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in
his wife’s presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to
the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with
uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an
unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. Until now he had
not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over
his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for
the sake of giving himself peace.
“Aylmer,” resumed Georgiana, solemnly, “I know not what may be the cost
to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal
may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as
life itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any
terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid
upon me before I came into the world?”
“Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject,”
hastily interrupted Aylmer. “I am convinced of the perfect
practicability of its removal.”
“If there be the remotest possibility of it,” continued Georgiana, “let
the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for
life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and
disgust,—life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either
remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep
science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great
wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with
the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake
of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?”
“Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife,” cried Aylmer, rapturously, “doubt
not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest
thought—thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a
being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper
than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to
render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most
beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what
Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his
sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will
be.”
“It is resolved, then,” said Georgiana, faintly smiling. “And, Aylmer,
spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my
heart at last.”
Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek—her right cheek—not that which
bore the impress of the crimson hand.
The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed
whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant
watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while
Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its
success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments
occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome
youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature that
had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe.
Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated
the secrets of the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines;
he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the
fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and
how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others
with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth.
Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the
human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature
assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from
the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The
latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling
recognition of the truth—against which all seekers sooner or later
stumble—that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with
apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to
keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us
nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to
mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now,
however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of
course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because
they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his
proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana.
As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold
and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to
reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the
birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a
strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted.
“Aminadab! Aminadab!” shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor.
Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature,
but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was
grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer’s
underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably
fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill
with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he
executed all the details of his master’s experiments. With his vast
strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable
earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s physical
nature; while Aylmer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face,
were no less apt a type of the spiritual element.
“Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab,” said Aylmer, “and burn
a pastil.”
“Yes, master,” answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form
of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, “If she were my wife,
I’d never part with that birthmark.”
When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an
atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had
recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked
like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre
rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits,
into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded
abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains,
which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other
species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to
the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and
straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For
aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And
Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his
chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps,
emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled
radiance. He now knelt by his wife’s side, watching her earnestly, but
without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he
could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude.
“Where am I? Ah, I remember,” said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed
her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband’s
eyes.
“Fear not, dearest!” exclaimed he. “Do not shrink from me! Believe me,
Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be
such a rapture to remove it.”
“Oh, spare me!” sadly replied his wife. “Pray do not look at it again.
I never can forget that convulsive shudder.”
In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from
the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the
light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its
profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of
unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their
momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct
idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was
almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed
sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look
forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were
answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen.
The scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented,
but with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference which always
makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the
original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a
vessel containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest
at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant
shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves
gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely
flower.
“It is magical!” cried Georgiana. “I dare not touch it.”
“Nay, pluck it,” answered Aylmer,—“pluck it, and inhale its brief
perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and
leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be
perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself.”
But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant
suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of
fire.
“There was too powerful a stimulus,” said Aylmer, thoughtfully.
To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her
portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to be
effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal.
Georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to
find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the
minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been.
Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive
acid.
Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of
study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but
seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of
the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the
alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by
which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and
base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific
logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover
this long-sought medium; “but,” he added, “a philosopher who should go
deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to
stoop to the exercise of it.” Not less singular were his opinions in
regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his
option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps
interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all
the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find
cause to curse.
“Aylmer, are you in earnest?” asked Georgiana, looking at him with
amazement and fear. “It is terrible to possess such power, or even to
dream of possessing it.”
“Oh, do not tremble, my love,” said her husband. “I would not wrong
either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our
lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is
the skill requisite to remove this little hand.”
At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a
redhot iron had touched her cheek.