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THE ELIXIR OF LIFE
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE HONORE DE BALZAC Translated By
Clara Bell & James Waring
TO THE READER
At the very outset of the writer's literary career a friend
long since dead gave him the subject of this Study. Later on he
found the same story in a collection published about the
beginning of the present century. To the best of his belief it
is some stray fancy of the brain of Hoffmann of Berlin; probably
it appeared in some German almanac and was omitted in the
published editions of his collected works. The Comedie Humaine is
sufficiently rich in original creations for the author to own to
this innocent piece of plagiarism; when like the worthy La
Fontaine he has told unwittingly and after his own fashion a
tale already related by another. This is not one of the hoaxes in
vogue in the year 1830 when every author wrote his "tale of
horror" for the amusement of young ladies. When you have read the
account of Don Juan's decorous parricide try to picture to
yourself the part which would be played under very similar
circumstances by honest folk who in this nineteenth century
will take a man's money and undertake to pay him a life annuity
on the faith of a chill or let a house to an ancient lady for
the term of her natural life! Would they be for resuscitating
their clients? I should dearly like a connoisseur in consciences
to consider how far there is a resemblance between a Don Juan and
fathers who marry their children to great expectations. Does
humanity which according to certain philosophers is making
progress look on the art of waiting for dead men's shoes as a
step in the right direction? To this art we owe several honorable
professions which open up ways of living on death. There are
people who rely entirely on an expected demise; who brood over
it crouching each morning upon a corpse that serves again for
their pillow at night. To this class belong bishops' coadjutors
cardinals' supernumeraries tontiniers and the like. Add to the
list many delicately scrupulous persons eager to buy landed
property beyond their means who calculate with dry logic and in
cold blood the probable duration of the life of a father or of a
step-mother some old man or woman of eighty or ninety saying to
themselves "I shall be sure to come in for it in three years'
time and then----" A murderer is less loathsome to us than a
spy. The murderer may have acted on a sudden mad impulse; he may
be penitent and amend; but a spy is always a spy night and day
in bed at table as he walks abroad; his vileness pervades every
moment of his life. Then what must it be to live when every
moment of your life is tainted with murder? And have we not just
admitted that a host of human creatures in our midst are led by
our laws customs and usages to dwell without ceasing on a
fellow-creature's death? There are men who put the weight of a
coffin into their deliberations as they bargain for Cashmere
shawls for their wives as they go up the staircase of a theatre
or think of going to the Bouffons or of setting up a carriage;
who are murderers in thought when dear ones with the
irresistible charm of innocence hold up childish foreheads to be
kissed with a "Good-night father!" Hourly they meet the gaze of
eyes that they would fain close for ever eyes 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? Despite the taper light the clamor of
the senses the gleam of gold and silver the fumes of wine and
the exquisite beauty of the women there may perhaps have been in
the depths of the revelers' hearts some struggling glimmer of
reverence for things divine and human until it was drowned in
glowing floods of wine! Yet even then the flowers had been
crushed eyes were growing dull and drunkenness in Rabelais'
phrase had "taken possession of them down to their sandals."
During that brief pause a door opened; and as once the Divine
presence was revealed at Belshazzar's feast so now it seemed to
be manifest in the apparition of an old white-haired servant who
tottered in and looked sadly from under knitted brows at the
revelers. He gave a withering glance at the garlands the golden
cups the pyramids of fruit the dazzling lights of the banquet
the flushed scared faces the hues of the cushions pressed by the
white arms of the women.
"My lord your father is dying!" he said; and at those solemn
words uttered in hollow tones a veil of crape [sic] seemed to
be drawn over the wild mirth.
Don Juan rose to his feet with a gesture to his guests that might
be rendered by "Excuse me; this kind of thing does not happen
every day."
Does it so seldom happen that a father's death surprises youth in
the full-blown splendor of life in the midst of the mad riot of
an orgy? Death is as unexpected in his caprice as a courtesan in
her disdain; but death is truer--Death has never forsaken any
man.
Don Juan closed the door of the banqueting-hall; and as he went
down the long gallery through the cold and darkness he strove
to assume an expression in keeping with the part he had to play;
he had thrown off his mirthful mood as he had thrown down his
table napkin at the first thought of this role. The night was
dark. The mute servitor his guide to the chamber where the dying
man lay lighted the way so dimly that Death aided by cold
silence and darkness and it may be by a reaction of
drunkenness could send some sober thoughts through the
spendthrift's soul. He examined his life and became thoughtful
like a man involved in a lawsuit on his way to the Court.
Bartolommeo Belvidero Don Juan's father was an old man of
ninety who had devoted the greatest part of his life to business
pursuits. He had acquired vast wealth in many a journey to
magical Eastern lands and knowledge so it was said more
valuable than the gold and diamonds which had almost ceased to
have any value for him.
"I would give more to have a tooth in my head than for a ruby"
he would say at times with a smile. The indulgent father loved to
hear Don Juan's story of this and that wild freak of youth. "So
long as these follies amuse you dear boy----" he would say
laughingly as he lavished money on his son. Age never took such
pleasure in the sight of youth; the fond father did not remember
his own decaying powers while he looked on that brilliant young
life.
Bartolommeo Belvidero at the age of sixty had fallen in love
with an angel of peace and beauty. Don Juan had been the sole
fruit of this late and short-lived love. For fifteen years the
widower had mourned the loss of his beloved Juana; and to this
sorrow of age his son and his numerous household had attributed
the strange habits that he had contracted. He had shut himself up
in the least comfortable wing of his palace and very seldom left
his apartments; even Don Juan himself must first ask permission
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