The Queen's Necklace by Alexandre Dumas père (best e books to read .TXT) 📕

"I have never met a man at once so serious and so diverting."

"I assure you," replied Cagliostro, "that Jonathan was much more so. He was really a charming companion; until he was killed by Saul, he nearly drove me crazy with laughing."

"Do you know," said the Duke de Richelieu, "if you go on in this way you will drive poor Taverney crazy; he is so afraid of death, that he is staring at you with all his eyes, hoping you to be an immortal."

"Immortal I cannot say, but one thing I can affirm----"

"What?" cried Taverney, who was the most eager listener.

"That I have seen all the people and events of which I have been speaking to you."

"You have known Montecucully?"

"As well as I know you, M. de Favras; and, indeed, much better, for this is but the second or third time I have had the honor of seeing you, while I lived nearly a year under the same tent with him of whom you speak."

"You knew Philip de Valois?"

"As I have already had the honor of telling you, M. de Condorcet; but when he returned to Paris, I left France and returned to Bohemia."

"And Cleopatra."

"Yes, countess; Cleopatra, I can tell you, had eyes as black as yours, and shoulders almost as beautiful."

"But what do you know of my shoulders?"

"They are like what Cassandra's once were; and there is still a further resemblance,--she had like you, or rather, you have like her, a little black spot on your left side, just above the sixth rib."

"Oh, count, now you really are a sorcerer."

"No, no," cried the marshal, laughing; "it was I who told him."

"And pray how do you know?"

The marshal bit his lips, and replied, "Oh, it is a family secret."

"Well, really, marshal," said the countess, "one should put on a double coat of rouge before visiting you;" and turning again to Cagliostro, "then, sir, you have the art of renewing your youth? For although you say you are three or four thousand years old, you scarcely look forty."

"Yes, madame, I do possess that secret."

"Oh, then, sir, impart it to me."

"To you, madame? It is useless; your youth is already renewed; your age is only what it appears to be, and you do not look thirty."

"Ah! you flatter."

"No, madame, I speak only the truth, but it is easily explained: you have already tried my receipt."

"How so?"

"You have taken my elixir."

"I?"

"You, countess. Oh! you cannot have forgotten it. Do you not remember a certain house in the Rue St. Claude, and coming there on some business respecting M. de Sartines? You remember rendering a service to one of my friends, called Joseph Balsamo, and that this Joseph Balsamo gave you a bottle of elixir, recommending you to take three drops every morning? Do you not remember having done this regularly until the last year, when the bottle became exhausted? If you do not remember all this, countess, it is more than forgetfulness--it is ingratitude."

"Oh! M. Cagliostro, you are telling me things----"

"Which were only known to yourself, I am aware; but what would be the use of being a sorcerer if one did not know one's neighbor's secrets?"

"Then Joseph Balsamo has, like you, the secret of this famous elixir?"

"No, madame, but he was one of my best friends, and I gave him three or four bottles."

"And has he any left?"

"Oh! I know nothing of that; for the last two or three years, poor Balsamo has disappeared. The last time I saw him was in America, on the banks of the Ohio: he was setting off on an expedition to the Rocky Mountains, and since then I have heard that he is dead."

"Come, come, count," cried the marshal; "let us have the secret, by all means."

"Are you speaking seriously, sir?" said Count Haga.

"Very seriously, sire,--I beg pardon, I mean count;" and Cagliostro bowed in such a way as to indicate that his error was a voluntary one.

"Then," said the marshal, "Madame Dubarry is not old enough to be made young again?"

"No, on my conscience."

"Well, then, I will give you another subject: here is my friend, M. Taverney--what do you say to him? Does he not look like a contemporary of Pontius Pilate? But perhaps, he, on the contrary, is too old."

Cagliostro looked at the baron. "No," said he.

"Ah! my dear count," exclaimed Richelieu; "if you will renew his youth, I will proclaim you a true pupil of Medea."

"You wish it?" asked Cagliostro of the host, and looking round at the same time on all assembled.

Every one called out, "Yes."

"And you also, M. Taverney?"

"I more than any one," said the baron.

"Well, it is easy," returned Cagliostro; and he drew from his pocket a small bottle, and poured into a glass some of the liquid it contained. Then, mixing these drops with half a glass of iced champagne, he passed it to the baron.

All eyes followed his movements eagerly.

The baron took the glass, but as he was about to drink he hesitated.

Every one began to laugh, but Cagliostro called out, "Drink, baron, or you will lose a liquor of which each drop is worth a hundred louis d'ors."

"The devil," cried Richelieu; "that is even better than tokay."

"I must then drink?" said the baron, almost trembling.

"Or pass the glass to another, sir, that some one at least may profit by it."

"Pass it here," said Richelieu, holding out his hand.

The baron raised the glass, and decided, doubtless, by the delicious smell and the beautiful rose color which those few drops had given to the champagne, he swallowed the magic liquor. In an instant a kind of shiver ran through him; he seemed to feel all his old and sluggish blood rushing quickly through his veins, from his heart to his feet, his wrinkled skin seemed to expand, his eyes, half covered by their lids, appeared to open without his will, and the pupils to grow and brighten, the trembling of his hands to cease, his voice to strengthen, and his limbs to recover their former youthful elasticity. In fact, it seemed as if the liquid in its descent had regenerated his whole body.

A cry of surprise, wonder, and admiration rang through the room.

Taverney, who had been slowly eating with his gums, began to feel famished; he seized a plate and helped himself largely to a ragout, and then demolished a partridge, bones and all, calling out that his teeth were coming back to him. He eat, laughed, and cried for joy, for half an hour, while the others remained gazing at him in stupefied wonder; then little by little he failed again, like a lamp whose oil is burning out, and all the former signs of old age returned upon him.

"Oh!" groaned he, "once more adieu to my youth," and he gave utterance to a deep sigh, while two tears rolled over his cheeks.

Instinctively, at this mournful spectacle of the old man first made young again, and then seeming to become yet older than before, from the contrast, the sigh was echoed all round the table.

"It is easy to explain, gentlemen," said Cagliostro; "I gave the baron but thirty-five drops of the elixir. He became young, therefore, for only thirty-five minutes."

"Oh more, more, count!" cried the old man eagerly.

"No, sir, for perhaps the second trial would kill you."

Of all the guests, Madame Dubarry, who had already tested the virtue of the elixir, seemed most deeply interested while old Taverney's youth seemed thus to renew itself; she had watched him with delight and triumph, and half fancied herself growing young again at the sight, while she could hardly refrain from endeavoring to snatch from Cagliostro the wonderful bottle; but now, seeing him resume his old age even quicker than he had lost it, "Alas!" she said sadly, "all is vanity and deception; the effects of this wonderful secret last for thirty-five minutes."

"That is to say," said Count Haga, "that in order to resume your youth for two years, you would have to drink a perfect river."

Every one laughed.

"Oh!" said De Condorcet, "the calculation is simple; a mere nothing of 3,153,000 drops for one year's youth."

"An inundation," said La Perouse.

"However, sir," continued Madame Dubarry; "according to you, I have not needed so much, as a small bottle about four times the size of that you hold has been sufficient to arrest the march of time for ten years."

"Just so, madame. And you alone approach this mysterious truth. The man who has already grown old needs this large quantity to produce an immediate and powerful effect; but a woman of thirty, as you were, or a man of forty, as I was, when I began to drink this elixir, still full of life and youth, needs but ten drops at each period of decay; and with these ten drops may eternally continue his life and youth at the same point."

"What do you call the periods of decay?" asked Count Haga.

"The natural periods, count. In a state of nature, man's strength increases until thirty-five years of age. It then remains stationary until forty; and from that time forward, it begins to diminish, but almost imperceptibly, until fifty; then the process becomes quicker and quicker to the day of his death. In our state of civilization, when the body is weakened by excess, cares, and maladies, the failure begins at thirty-five. The time, then, to take nature, is when she is stationary, so as to forestall the beginning of decay. He who, possessor as I am of the secret of this elixir, knows how to seize the happy moment, will live as I live; always young, or, at least, always young enough for what he has to do in the world."

"Oh, M. Cagliostro," cried the countess; "why, if you could choose your own age, did you not stop at twenty instead of at forty?"

"Because, madame," said Cagliostro, smiling, "it suits me better to be a man of forty, still healthy and vigorous, than a raw youth of twenty."

"Oh!" said the countess.

"Doubtless, madame," continued Cagliostro, "at twenty one pleases women of thirty; at forty, we govern women of twenty, and men of sixty."

"I yield, sir," said the countess, "for you are a living proof of the truth of your own words."

"Then I," said Taverney, piteously, "am condemned; it is too late for me."

"M. de Richelieu has been more skilful than you," said La Perouse naively, "and I have always heard that he had some secret."

"It is a report that the women have spread," laughed Count Haga.

"Is that a reason for disbelieving it, duke?" asked Madame Dubarry.

The old duke colored, a rare thing for him; but replied, "Do you wish, gentlemen, to have my receipt?"

"Oh, by all means."

"Well, then, it is simply to take care of yourself."

"Oh, oh!" cried all.

"But, M. Cagliostro," continued Madame Dubarry, "I must ask more about the elixir."

"Well, madame?"

"You said you first used it at forty years of age----"

"Yes, madame."

"And that since that time, that is, since the siege of Troy----"

"A little before, madame."