Fantastic Tales

by Iginio Ugo Tarchetti

  Ortensia wanted to be avenged—and truly she was. The news that she went on a hunting party escorted by Albert Koffer reached me in my workroom. Albert Koffer was favored by her protectress, and that very evening he, the gentlewoman, and Ortensia walked beneath the windows of my smoke-blackened dwelling. It seemed as if they were murmuring my name, as if Ortensia glanced inside my workroom with a scornful, derisive smile. At that instant, jealousy entered my breast with all its bitter poison, all its immense misery. At times, I shed torrents of tears, languishing at the thought that I could never call her mine; at others, I damned her inconstancy with a thousand curses.

  And all the while I still had to stoke the alchemist’s fires, still stay awake to observe the transformations of his incomprehensible philters.

  Cornelius had watched for three days and nights. The progress of his alembics was slower than he flattered himself; despite his anxiety, sleep began to weigh heavily on his brows. Although countless times he fought against this fatal drowsiness with something stronger than a properly human effort, it still succeeded in lulling his senses into the most distressing impotence.

  Cornelius looked at his clock. “It is still not ready,” he said. “Will another night pass, then, before this work is perfected? Vincenzo, you are diligent, you are trustworthy, you have slept, my boy, you slept last night. Devote your attention to this glass vessel. The liquid it contains is a faint rose color; the instant this color begins to change, awaken me—until then, I can sleep. At first, it will turn white, and then emit some golden flashes. But do not wait until that moment; rouse me as soon as the rose color starts to fade.” I barely heard these last words, murmured as they were, in sleep. Yet he did not yield completely to nature. “Vincenzo, my boy,” he added, “do not touch the vessel, do not draw it to your lips; it is a philter—a philter to cure love; you will not want to cease loving your Ortensia—beware of drinking it.”

  Now he fell asleep. His venerable head sunk on his chest—I scarcely heard his regular, calm breathing. For several minutes I looked at the vessel: the liquid was still the same rose color. Then my attention was distracted by numerous thoughts that began to crowd my brain: I recalled the fountain where we usually met, the first days of our love, our childhood, my father’s cottage, and I mused upon all those delightful scenes that would nevermore be renewed. Nevermore! My heart was rent by this word: nevermore! Deceitful girl, false and cruel! She had never smiled at me as sweetly as she smiled at Albert that evening. Detested, vile creature! But I would not remain unavenged. Albert would breathe his last at her feet. Was it perhaps because she knew my weakness, because she sensed all the power she exercised over me, that she had smiled with that triumphant air as she passed beneath my windows? Yes, she realized her power, she knew that it could also provoke my hatred, my contempt, but not my indifference. Indifference! If only I could achieve so much, if only I could gaze on her with impassive eyes, and bestow my scorned love on someone else. Oh, that would be such a sweet victory!

  At that moment, a bright beam flashed before my eyes. I had forgotten the alchemist’s medicine. I observed it with amazement: flashes of marvelous beauty, more brilliant than those produced when diamonds are struck by the sun, glistened on the surface of the liquid. The most fragrant and gratifying scent I have ever smelled intoxicated all my senses. The vessel looked like a sphere of vibrant, eternal rays; the liquid it contained enticed me to lift it to my lips. Then I vividly recalled Cornelius’s words: “It is a cure for love,” he had told me. “You will not want to cease loving your Ortensia.” “That would cure me of my passion,” I exclaimed, “these dreadful pangs of love…” I seized the glass and, resolute, brought it to my lips. I had already drunk off half of the most delicious liquor ever tasted by the human palate when the philosopher suddenly awoke. I was startled, the vessel slipped from my hands, the liquor spread across the floor, emitting flashes of light and flame, while Cornelius shouted in a terrible voice, “Wretch! you have destroyed my entire life’s work!”

  The philosopher, however, was totally unaware that I had drunk any portion of his drug. He believed—and I did not want to disabuse him of this illusion—that I had lifted the vessel solely from curiosity, and hence frightened by his waking and by those flashes of extremely bright light, I had let it fall. I did not reveal the truth to him. The fire in the medicine was quenched, the fragrance faded, Cornelius grew calm again as a philosopher must when he has been tested by fortune, and he dismissed me with permission to take several days’ rest.

  I shall not attempt to describe the dream of glory and bliss that transported my spirit to heaven during the remaining hours of that memorable night. Words would be a futile, impotent expression of the joy that flooded my breast when I awoke from that slumber. I felt exalted; my thoughts were in heaven. Earth seemed heaven to me; a succession of infinite delights seemed to await me in the future.

  “Thus it is to be cured of love,” I thought. “Indifference is so sweet! Today I shall see Ortensia, today I shall be avenged on her scorn!”

  The hours fled swiftly. The philosopher, confident that he would be successful on another occasion and trustful that he would have sufficient time to do it, began to concoct the same drug once again. He shut himself up with his books and his ingredients, and I had a few more days’ vacation. I dressed with extreme care; I studied myself in the mirror, and it seemed to me that my eyes, once so ingenuous, had acquired a remarkable expression.

  I hurried beyond the walls of the city with joy in my heart, with the proud satisfaction that accompanied the thought of being soon avenged. I headed toward the castle. I could now gaze on it without trembling, could observe its majestic towers with a calm, serene heart, because I felt cured of my love. Ortensia perceived me from afar as I wandered down an avenue. I know not what impulse suddenly animated her breast, but no sooner did she see me than she hurled herself down the stairs and ran headlong toward me. Yet she had been observed by someone else. Her protectress, that old, arrogant witch, the cause of all our misfortunes, had also come out of the castle and was running behind her, gasping and limping, waving her fan convulsively, with an equally horrid page carrying the train of her gown.

  As if paralyzed by the lady’s look, Ortensia clasped her hands and came to a halt, fixing her eyes upon me. She apparently wanted to implore my assistance and affection. I imagined the battle that was being waged in her soul. I hastened toward her. What loathing I felt then for her protectress, that despicable old woman who wanted to smother the tender impulses of Ortensia’s loving heart!

  Until that moment, respect for the lady’s rank had made me avoid her—I now disdained such trivial considerations. I was cured of love and lifted above every human fear. I approached Ortensia. How much affection shone in her face! Her eyes were flashing, her cheeks blazed with impatience and rage; she was a thousand times more charming, lovely, attractive. To see her was to feel myself rekindled. The change that then occurred in my heart was as instantaneous as the faith I had moments ago put in my supposed indifference.

  That morning Ortensia had endured more tormenting vexations than usual, so that she would agree to give her hand immediately to my rival. She was accused of encouraging him with her demeanor and was threatened, if she refused, with expulsion from the castle. Her proud spirit was reawakened by that threat; and when she saw me, and recalled the injustice of her behavior toward me, and realized that she might have lost in me the only person she could consider a true friend, regret and indignation wrung tears from her. At that moment, I arrived.

  “Oh! Vincenzo,” she exclaimed, “lead me to your mother’s cot, so that I can quickly abandon this abhorrent luxury, this gilded prison…Restore me to my poverty and happiness!”

  Enraptured, I clasped her in my arms. The old woman could not utter a word, prevented as she was by agitation. A species of rage took possession of her; she burst into invective only when we were far on the road to my family’s cotta
ge. With transports of tenderness and joy, my mother welcomed the beautiful fugitive who had fled a gilded cage to resume her life in liberty and nature; my father, who loved her, gave her a hearty greeting. It was an hour of gladness, which did not require the addition of the alchemist’s celestial potion to immerse me in pleasure.

  Soon after that fortunate day, I became Ortensia’s husband. I ceased to be Cornelius’s pupil, but continued to be his friend. I always felt grateful to him for having unwittingly procured me that delicious draught of divine elixir, which, instead of curing me of love (insane cure! sad, desolate remedy for evils that are frequently recalled as blessings), armed me with courage and resolution to win a priceless treasure in my Ortensia.

  With amazement I often recalled that period of ecstatic intoxication. Although Cornelius’s drink did not achieve the purpose for which he asserted it had been prepared, its effects were more potent and delightful than words could express. These effects gradually diminished, but they still seemed to linger long, painting my life in the most gorgeous hues. Ortensia often marveled at my peace of mind and unusual cheerfulness, because my temperament had previously been rather serious and irascible. Her love grew with the transformation in my nature, and our days were winged with joy.

  Five years later, I was suddenly summoned to the bedside of the dying Cornelius. He had me speedily fetched, entreating me to come to him without delay. I found him stretched out on his bed, afflicted by a deadly fever; all that remained of his life seemed to have fled to his piercing eyes, which were fixed on a small glass vessel filled with a roseate liquor.

  “Behold,” he said in a voice broken by gasps, “the vanity of human wishes! A second time my hopes were about to be crowned, and a second time they were destroyed. Look at that liquor. You recall that five years ago I prepared a similar potion, with the same result; then, as now, my greedy lips were impatient to drink the elixir of immortality! You put it beyond my reach! And now it is too late.”

  He spoke with difficulty and fell back on his pillow. I could not restrain myself from asking, “How, reverend master, could the cure for love ever restore you to life?”

  He smiled sadly and said in scarcely intelligible words, “The cure you sought for your love destroyed the elixir of immortality. Ah! If now I might drink…I should live forever!”

  As he spoke, a golden light flashed from the liquor, and a fragrance I well remembered suffused the air. Weakened as he was, he sat up; strength seemed to reanimate his body miraculously; he extended a hand—a deafening explosion made me start—a blaze of fire suddenly leapt from the elixir, and the glass vessel that contained it shattered into a thousand atoms. I turned around—Cornelius had fallen back on his pillow—his eyes were glassy—his features rigid—he was dead.

  Yet I survived him, and I lived, destined to live forever. So said the unfortunate alchemist, and for a few days I believed his words.

  I remembered the glorious drunkenness that had followed the libation stolen from the philosopher’s lips; I began to ponder the alterations I had subsequently observed in my body, in my soul: the marvelous elasticity of the one, the animated serenity of the other. I examined myself in a mirror and was unable to detect the slightest change in my features after the five years that had elapsed. I remembered the radiant hues and gratifying scent of that delicious beverage—the gift should equal the excellence of the giver—I was, therefore, immortal!

  Several days later I smiled at my credulity. The hackneyed proverb that “a prophet is least regarded in his own country” was true as far as my master and I were concerned. I loved him as a man—I respected him as a sage—but I derided the view that he could command the powers of darkness, and I smiled at the superstitious errors with which he was regarded by the vulgar. He was a wise philosopher, but he had no relations with any spirit, except those clothed in flesh and blood. His science did not elevate him beyond human science; and I soon persuaded myself that any science deriving from man could not master the laws of nature so fully as to imprison a soul forever in its mortal coil.

  Cornelius had concocted a soul-restoring drink; more inebriating than wine, sweeter and more fragrant than any fruit, it probably possessed strong medicinal qualities that imparted happiness to the heart and vigor to the limbs. But its effects had to fade with time; already they were diminished in my body. I was a lucky young fellow…I had imbibed health and joyous spirits, and perhaps a long life, at my master’s expense; but my good fortune must have ended there: longevity is quite different from immortality.

  I continued to entertain this illusion for several years. Occasionally, I was seized by a doubt—was the alchemist really deceived? But my habitual credence was that I too would meet the fate of all Adam’s children at my appointed hour—a little late perhaps, but still at a natural age. It is undeniable, however, that I preserved a marvelously youthful appearance. I smiled at my vanity in consulting the mirror so often, but I consulted it to no effect: my brow was still free of wrinkles, my cheeks, my eyes, my entire person continued to remain as intact as in my twentieth year.

  I was troubled. I saw Ortensia’s beauty fade—I looked more like her son. By degrees, our neighbors began to make the same observations, and finally I noticed that because I had been Cornelius’s student, I was thought to be a sorcerer. Ortensia herself entertained the same idea. She became jealous and peevish and at last turned quarrelsome. We had no children; we were everything to each other; and although, as she grew older, her vivacious spirit was a little mixed with her ill temper and her pitifully decayed beauty, I held her dear to my heart as the mistress I had once idolized, as the wife I had sought and won with my passionate love.

  Finally, our situation turned intolerable: Ortensia was fifty years old—I was twenty. Shamefully I adopted in some measure the habits of a more advanced age. No longer did I mingle at dances with the young and happy: my heart leapt with them, but I halted my feet, and I assumed a pensive attitude among the Nestors of our village. Before the time I mention, however, things had changed—we were universally shunned—I was accused of having maintained guilty relations with several of my old master’s alleged friends. Poor Ortensia was pitied, but abandoned. I was regarded with horror and detested.

  What was to be done? We huddled near our fireplace, resigned to the solitude in which we now found ourselves, and prepared for the poverty that threatened us—for at this point no one would purchase the produce from my farm, and I was often forced to travel twenty miles to find some place where I was not known in order to sell my provisions. We had put something aside for a rainy day—that day has come.

  We sat near our solitary fireplace—the old-hearted youth and his ancient wife. Again Ortensia insisted on knowing the truth; she recapitulated all the gossip she had ever heard whispered about me and added her own observations. She conjured me to reject sorcery; she described gray hair as much more refined than my chestnut locks; enraptured, she spoke of the reverence and respect due to advanced age—how much more preferable to the frivolous attention paid on mere childhood! Could I imagine that the vulgar graces of youth would be the cause of so many misfortunes? What more must be said? She predicted that I would be imprisoned, burned as a witch, while she, to whom I disdained to grant any portion of my good fortune, would be stoned as my accomplice. At length, she gave me to understand that I must share my secret with her and bestow on her the very benefits I myself enjoyed, or she would denounce me—and then she burst into tears.

  In this distressing predicament, I thought that divulging the truth would be the best decision. And I revealed it as gently as possible and spoke only of a “very long life,” not of immortality—belief that, in truth, accorded better with my ideas. When I finished, I rose and said, “And now, my Ortensia, will you denounce the lover of your youth? You will not, I know. But it is too hard a fate that you must be unhappy because of my wretched fortune and Cornelius’s accursed arts. I shall leave you—you are wealthy eno
ugh, and the people who shunned you will renew their friendships in my absence. I shall go; young as I seem and vigorous as I am, I can work and earn my bread among strangers, where I shall arrive unsuspected and unknown. I loved you in youth; God is my witness that I would not want to desert you in old age did not your safety and happiness require it.”

  I took my hat and started toward the door; in an instant Ortensia’s arms were encircling my neck, her lips pressing against mine. “No, my Vincenzo, my friend,” she said, “you shall not go alone—take me with you; together we will abandon this village and, as you say, take refuge among strangers, unknown and safe. I am not so very old as to make you ashamed of me; and I dare hope that your beauty will soon fade, and you will begin to look more elderly, which in fact is more dignified. No, you do not want to abandon me.”

  I clasped her to my breast. “I shall not leave you, no, my Ortensia, my dear wife; without your love I would not have enough heart to leave you.” The next day we secretly prepared for our emigration. We were forced to make great pecuniary sacrifices; it could not be helped. We realized a sum sufficient, at least, to provide for our maintenance while Ortensia lived, and without bidding adieu to a living soul, we abandoned our native country to seek refuge in a remote part of western France.

  It was a cruel thing to go off like that, leaving our native village and the friends of our youth, repairing to an unknown country to live among strange people, with different customs.

  The singular secret of my fate rendered me indifferent to this exile, but for her I felt profound compassion, and it gladdened me to perceive that she found recompense for her misfortunes in a variety of childish, ridiculous circumstances. Without alluding to them all, she sought to diminish the obvious disparity in our years with a thousand feminine artifices—rouge, youthful dress—and she adopted the behavior of an adolescent. I could not complain. Did not I myself wear a mask? Should I complain because she wore hers with less fortunate results? Rather, I grieved profoundly when I recalled that this was my Ortensia, whom I had loved so madly, whose affection I had won with such transports—the dark-eyed, dark-haired girl, with the arch, bewitching smile and the fawnlike step—this affected, untidy, jealous old woman. I should have reverenced her gray hair, her withered cheeks; I loved her—it was my duty, I realized—but I could not do less than pity this type of human degeneration.