Various - Stories of Mystery

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Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly
remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very
soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble
in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke.

"Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark upon
your cheek might be removed?"

"No, indeed," said she, smiling; but, perceiving the seriousness of
his manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth, it has been
so often called a charm, that I was simple enough to imagine it might
be so."

"Ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; "but
never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from
the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we
hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the
visible mark of earthly imperfection."

"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first
reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. "Then
why did you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love what shocks
you!"

To explain this conversation, it must be mentioned that in the centre
of Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven,
as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual
state of her complexion,--a healthy though delicate bloom,--the mark
wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid
the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more
indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that
bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting
emotion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson
stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful
distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand,
though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say
that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the
infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic
endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a
desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing
his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however,
that the impression wrought by this fairy sign-manual varied
exceedingly according to the difference of temperament in the
beholders. Some fastidious persons--but they were exclusively of her
own sex--affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite
destroyed the effect of Georgiana's beauty and rendered her
countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that
one of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest
statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine
observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration,
contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess
one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw.
After his marriage--for he thought little or nothing of the matter
before--Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself.

Had she been less beautiful,--if Envy's self could have found aught
else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the
prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now
stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of
emotion that throbbed within her heart; but, seeing her otherwise so
perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with
every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity
which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her
productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or
that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson
hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the
highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with
the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible
frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of
his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre
imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object,
causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty,
whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.

At all the seasons which should have been their happiest he invariably,
and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary,
reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first appeared,
it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes
of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the morning
twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized
the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening
hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld,
flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote
mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned
to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar
expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek
into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought
strongly out, like a bas-relief of ruby on the whitest marble.

Late one night, when the lights were growing dim so as hardly to betray
the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time,
voluntarily took up the subject.

"Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at
a smile, "have you any recollection, of a dream last night about this
odious hand?"

"None! none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added,
in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth
of his emotion, "I might well dream of it; for, before I fell asleep,
it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy."

"And you did dream of it?" continued Georgiana, hastily; for she
dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. "A
terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to
forget this one expression?--'It is in her heart now; we must have it
out!' Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall
that dream."

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine
her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to
break forth affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance
belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied
himself with his servant Aminadab attempting an operation 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
under-worker 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."

"O, 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 nostrom,
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."

"O, 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
red-hot iron had touched her cheek.

Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice
in the distant furnace-room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh,
uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt
or growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer
reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of
chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former
he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a
gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the
breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value,
the contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some
of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and
invigorating delight.

"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe
containing a gold-colored liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye that
I could imagine it the elixir of life."

"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer; "or rather, the elixir of
immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted
in this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal
at whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would
determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midst
of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if I,
in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions
justified me in depriving him of it."

"Why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired Georgiana in horror.

"Do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous
potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! here is a powerful
cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may
be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A stronger infusion
would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty
a pale ghost."

"Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked
Georgiana, anxiously.

"O, no," hastily replied her husband; "this is merely superficial. Your
case demands a remedy that shall go deeper."

In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute
inquiries as to her sensations, and whether the confinement of the
rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These
questions had such a particular drift that Georgiana began to
conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical
influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her
food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there
was a stirring up of her system,--a strange, indefinite sensation
creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half
pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the
mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the
crimson birthmark stamped upon her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it
so much as she.

To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary
to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana
turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old
tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the
works of the philosophers of the Middle Ages, such as Albertus Magnus,
Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the
prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance
of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and
therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have
acquired from the investigation of nature a power above nature, and
from physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and
imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal
Society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural
possibility, were continually recording wonders or proposing methods
whereby wonders might be wrought.

But, to Georgiana, the most engrossing volume was a large folio from
her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of
his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its
development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances
to which either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both
the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet
practical and laborious life. He handled physical details as if there
were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed
himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration toward the
infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul.
Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more profoundly
than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than
heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that
his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if
compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were
the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with
the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume,
rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as
melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad
confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the
composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter,
and of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself
so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius,
in whatever sphere, might recognize the image of his own experience
in Aylmer's journal.

So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana, that she laid her
face upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she
was found by her husband.

"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile,
though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "Georgiana, there
are pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my
senses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you."

"It has made me worship you more than ever," said she.

"Ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you
will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come, I have sought
you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest."

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst
of his spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety,
assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and
that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when
Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten
to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had
begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal birthmark,
not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her system.
Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time into the
laboratory.

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