Nathaniel Hawthorne
 


   Dr. Heidegger's Experiment
    From Twice-Told Tales


    That very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once invited four venerable friends 
to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, 
Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose  name  was 
the Widow  Wycherly.  They  were  all  melancholy  old  creatures,  who  had  been 
unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not  long 
ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous 
merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic speculation, and was now little better
than a mendicant. Colonel Killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health  and 
substance, in the pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of 
pains, such as the gout, and divers other torments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne 
was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least had been so till time had 
buried him from the knowledge of the present  generation,  and  made  him  obscure 
instead of infamous. As for the Widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was  a 
great beauty in her day; but, for a  long  while  past,  she  had  lived  in  deep 
seclusion, on account of certain  scandalous  stories  which  had  prejudiced  the 
gentry of the town against her. It is a circumstance worth mentioning that each of 
these three old gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew,  and  Mr.  Gascoigne,
were early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting 
each other's throats for her sake. And, before proceeding further, I  will  merely 
hint that Dr. Heidegger and all his foul guests were sometimes  thought  to  be  a 
little beside themselves, - as is not unfrequently the case with old people,  when 
worried either by present troubles or woful recollections.
    "My dear old friends," said Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be seated, "I  am 
desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments with which I  amuse 
myself here in my study."
    If all stories were true, Dr. Heidegger's study must have been a very  curious 
place.  It  was  a  dim,  old-fashioned  chamber,  festooned  with  cobwebs,   and 
besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the 
lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios  and  black-letter
quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos. Over the  central 
bookcase was  a  bronze  bust  of  Hippocrates,  with  which,  according  to  some 
authorities, Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in  all  difficult 
cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow 
oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which  doubtfully  appeared  a  skeleton. 
Between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high  and  dusty 
plate within a tarnished gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of  this 
mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of all the doctor's deceased patients dwelt 
within its verge, and would stare him in the face whenever he looked  thitherward. 
The opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a 
young lady, arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk,  satin,  and  brocade,  and 
with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago, Dr.  Heidegger  had 
been on the point of marriage with this young lady; but, being affected with  some 
slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover's prescriptions, and  died  on
the bridal evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains to  be  mentioned; 
it was a ponderous folio volume, bound  in  black  leather,  with  massive  silver 
clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of  the 
book. But it was well known to be a book of magic; and once,  when  a  chambermaid
had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the  skeleton  had  rattled  in  its 
closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot  upon  the  floor,  and 
several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror; while the brazen  head  of 
Hippocrates frowned, and said, - "Forbear!"
    Such was Dr. Heidegger's study. On the summer afternoon of our  tale  a  small 
round table, as black as ebony, stood in the centre of the room, sustaining a cut-
glass vase of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship. The sunshine came  through 
the window, between the heavy festoons of two  faded  damask  curtains,  and  fell
directly across this vase; so that a mild splendor was reflected from  it  on  the 
ashen visages of the five old people who sat around. Four champagne  glasses  were 
also on the table.
    "My dear old friends," repeated Dr. Heidegger, "may I reckon on  your  aid  in 
performing an exceedingly curious experiment?"
    Now Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old  gentleman,  whose  eccentricity  had 
become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these fables,  to  my 
shame be it spoken, might possibly be traced back to my own veracious self; and if 
any passages of the present tale should startle the  reader's  faith,  I  must  be 
content to bear the stigma of a fiction monger.
    When the doctor's four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment,  they 
anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an air  pump,  or 
the examination of a cobweb by the microscope,  or  some  similar  nonsense,  with 
which he was constantly in the habit  of  pestering  his  intimates.  But  without 
waiting for a reply, Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber, and  returned  with 
the same ponderous folio, bound in black leather, which common report affirmed  to 
be a book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume, and took from
among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose, though now the green 
leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue,  and  the  ancient  flower 
seemed ready to crumble to dust in the doctor's hands.
    "This rose,"  said  Dr. Heidegger,  with  a  sigh,  "this  same  withered  and 
crumbling flower, blossomed five and fifty years ago. It was given  me  by  Sylvia 
Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder; and I meant to wear  it  in  my  bosom  at  our 
wedding. Five and fifty years it has been treasured between the leaves of this old 
volume. Now, would you deem it possible that this rose of  half  a  century  could 
ever bloom again?"
    "Nonsense!" said the Widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss  of  her  head.  "You 
might as well ask whether an old woman's wrinkled face could ever bloom again."
    "See!" answered Dr. Heidegger.
    He uncovered the vase, and threw the  faded  rose  into  the  water  which  it 
contained. At first, it lay lightly on the surface  of  the  fluid,  appearing  to 
imbibe none of its moisture. Soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. 
The crushed and dried petals stirred, and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as 
if the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber; the slender stalk and  twigs 
of foliage became green; and there was the rose of  half  a  century,  looking  as 
fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It  was  scarcely  full 
blown; for some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its moist bosom, 
within which two or three dewdrops were sparkling.
    "That is certainly a  very  pretty  deception,"  said  the  doctor's  friends; 
carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer's show; 
"pray how was it effected?"
    "Did you never hear of the 'Fountain of Youth?' " asked Dr. Heidegger,  "which 
Ponce De Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in search of two  or  three  centuries 
ago?"
    "But did Ponce De Leon ever find it?" said the Widow Wycherly.
    "No," answered Dr. Heidegger, "for he never sought it in the right place.  The 
famous Fountain of Youth, if I am rightly informed, is situated  in  the  southern 
part of the  Floridian  peninsula,  not  far  from  Lake  Macaco.  Its  source  is 
overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias,  which,  though  numberless  centuries 
old, have been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues of this wonderful water. An 
acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me  what  you 
see in the vase."
    "Ahem!" said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor's story; 
"and what may be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?"
    "You shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel," replied  Dr. Heidegger;  "and 
all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so much of this  admirable  fluid 
as may restore to you the bloom of youth. For my own part, having had much trouble 
in growing old, I am in no hurry  to  grow  young  again.  With  your  permission,
therefore, I will merely watch the progress of the experiment."
    While he spoke, Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four champagne glasses with 
the water of the  Fountain  of  Youth.  It  was  apparently  impregnated  with  an 
effervescent gas, for little bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of 
the glasses, and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. As the liquor  diffused 
a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted  not  that  it  possessed  cordial  and 
comfortable properties; and though utter sceptics as to its  rejuvenescent  power, 
they were inclined to swallow it at once. But Dr. Heidegger besought them to  stay 
a moment.
    "Before you drink, my respectable old friends," said he,  "it  would  be  well 
that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw  up  a  few 
general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through  the  perils  of 
youth. Think what a sin and shame it would be, if, with your peculiar  advantages, 
you should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the 
age!"
    The doctor's four venerable friends made him no answer, except by a feeble and 
tremulous laugh; so very  ridiculous  was  the  idea  that,  knowing  how  closely 
repentance treads behind the steps of error, they should ever go astray again.
    "Drink, then," said the doctor,  bowing:  "I  rejoice  that  I  have  so  well 
selected the subjects of my experiment."
    With palsied hands, they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor,  if  it 
really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it, could not have  been 
bestowed on four human beings who needed it more wofully. They looked as  if  they 
had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the offspring of Nature's 
dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures, who  now  sat 
stooping round the doctor's table, without life enough in their souls or bodies to 
be animated even by the prospect of growing young again. They drank off the water, 
and replaced their glasses on the table.
    Assuredly there was an almost immediate  improvement  in  the  aspect  of  the 
party, not unlike what might have been produced  by  a  glass  of  generous  wine, 
together with a sudden glow  of  cheerful  sunshine  brightening  over  all  their 
visages at once. There was a healthful suffusion on their cheeks, instead  of  the 
ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-like. They gazed at one  another,  and 
fancied that some magic power had really begun to smooth away  the  deep  and  sad 
inscriptions which Father Time had been so long  engraving  on  their  brows.  The 
Widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a woman again.
    "Give us more of this wondrous water!" cried they, eagerly. "We are  younger - 
but we are still too old! Quick - give us more!"
    "Patience, patience!" quoth Dr. Heidegger, who  sat  watching  the  experiment 
with philosophic coolness. "You have been a long time  growing  old.  Surely,  you 
might be content to grow young in half an hour! But the water is at your service."
    Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of which  still 
remained in the vase to turn half the old people in the city to the age  of  their 
own grandchildren. While the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim, the  doctor's 
four guests snatched their glasses from the table, and swallowed the contents at a
single gulp. Was it delusion? even  while  the  draught  was  passing  down  their 
throats, it seemed to have wrought a change on their  whole  systems.  Their  eyes 
grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery locks,  they  sat 
around the table, three gentlemen of middle age, and a woman,  hardly  beyond  her
buxom prime.
    "My dear widow, you are charming!" cried Colonel  Killigrew,  whose  eyes  had 
been fixed upon her face, while the shadows of age  were  flitting  from  it  like 
darkness from the crimson daybreak.
    The fair widow knew, of old, that Colonel  Killigrew's  compliments  were  not 
always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran  to  the  mirror,  still 
dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet her gaze. Meanwhile,  the 
three gentlemen behaved in such a manner as proved that the water of the  Fountain 
of Youth possessed some intoxicating qualities; unless, indeed, their exhilaration 
of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal  of  the 
weight of years. Mr. Gascoigne's mind seemed  to  run  on  political  topics,  but 
whether relating to the past, present, or future, could not easily be  determined, 
since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue  these  fifty  years.  Now  he 
rattled forth full-throated sentences about patriotism, national  glory,  and  the 
people's right; now he muttered some  perilous  stuff  or  other,  in  a  sly  and 
doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely  catch 
the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents, and a deeply deferential 
tone, as if a  royal  ear  were  listening  to  his  wellturned  periods.  Colonel 
Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle song,  and  ringing 
his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered  toward  the  buxom 
figure of the Widow Wycherly. On the other side of the  table,  Mr. Medbourne  was 
involved in  a  calculation  of  dollars  and  cents,  with  which  was  strangely 
intermingled a project for supplying the East Indies with  ice,  by  harnessing  a 
team of whales to the polar icebergs.
    As for the Widow  Wycherly,  she  stood  before  the  mirror  courtesying  and 
simpering to her own image, and greeting it as the friend whom  she  loved  better 
than all the world beside. She thrust her face close to the glass, to see  whether 
some long-remembered wrinkle or crow's foot  had  indeed  vanished.  She  examined 
whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair that the venerable cap could 
be safely thrown aside. At last, turning briskly away, she came  with  a  sort  of 
dancing step to the table.
    "My dear old doctor," cried she, "pray favor me with another glass!"
    "Certainly, my dear madam, certainly!" replied the complaisant  doctor;  "see! 
I have already filled the glasses."
    There, in fact, stood the four glasses, brimful of this wonderful  water,  the 
delicate spray of which,  as  it  effervesced  from  the  surface,  resembled  the 
tremulous glitter of diamonds. It was now so nearly sunset that  the  chamber  had 
grown duskier than ever; but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within  the 
vase, and rested alike on the four guests and on the doctor's venerable figure. He 
sat in a high-backed, elaborately-carved, oaken arm-chair, with a gray dignity  of 
aspect that might have well befitted that very Father Time, whose power had  never 
been disputed, save by this fortunate  company.  Even  while  quaffing  the  third 
draught of the Fountain of Youth, they were almost awed by the expression  of  his 
mysterious visage.
    But, the next moment, the exhilarating gush of young life shot  through  their 
veins. They were now in the happy prime of youth. Age, with its miserable train of 
cares and sorrows and diseases, was remembered only as the  trouble  of  a  dream, 
from which they had joyously awoke. The fresh gloss of the soul,  so  early  lost,
and without which the world's successive scenes had been but a  gallery  of  faded 
pictures, again threw its enchantment over all their  prospects.  They  felt  like 
new-created beings in a new-created universe. 
    "We are young! We are young!" they cried exultingly.
    Youth,  like  the  extremity  of  age,   had   effaced   the   strongly-marked 
characteristics of middle life, and mutually assimilated them  all.  They  were  a 
group of merry youngsters, almost maddened with the  exuberant  frolicsomeness  of 
their years. The most singular effect of their gayety was an impulse to  mock  the 
infirmity and decrepitude of which they had  so  lately  been  the  victims.  They 
laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire, the wide-skirted coats  and  flapped 
waistcoats of the young men, and the ancient cap and gown of  the  blooming  girl. 
One limped across the floor like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles 
astride of his nose, and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the book 
of magic; a third seated himself in  an  arm-chair,  and  strove  to  imitate  the 
venerable dignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully, and leaped  about 
the room. The Widow Wycherly - if so fresh a damsel  could  be  called  a  widow - 
tripped up to the doctor's chair, with a mischievous merriment in her rosy face.
    "Doctor, you dear old soul," cried she, "get up and dance with me!"  And  then 
the four young people laughed louder than ever, to think what a queer  figure  the 
poor old doctor would cut.
    "Pray excuse me," answered the doctor quietly. "I am old and rheumatic, and my 
dancing days were over long ago. But either of these gay young gentlemen  will  be 
glad of so pretty a partner."
    "Dance with me, Clara!" cried Colonel Killigrew
    "No, no, I will be her partner!" shouted Mr. Gascoigne.
    "She promised me her hand, fifty years ago!" exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.
    They all gathered round her. One caught both her hands in his passionate grasp 
another threw his arm about her waist - the third buried his hand among the glossy 
curls that clustered beneath  the  widow's  cap.  Blushing,  panting,  struggling, 
chiding, laughing, her warm breath fanning each  of  their  faces  by  turns,  she 
strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. Never was 
there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with  bewitching  beauty  for  the 
prize. Yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber, and the 
antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to  have  reflected
the figures of the three old, gray, withered grandsires,  ridiculously  contending 
for the skinny ugliness of a  shrivelled  grandam.  But  they  were  young:  their 
burning passions proved them so. Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the  girl-
widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three  rivals  began 
to interchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold of  the  fair  prize,  they 
grappled fiercely at one another's throats. As they  struggled  to  and  fro,  the 
table was overturned, and the vase dashed into a thousand fragments. The  precious 
Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening the wings of 
a butterfly, which, grown old in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. 
The insect fluttered lightly through the chamber, and settled on the snowy head of 
Dr. Heidegger.
    "Come,  come,  gentlemen! - come,  Madam  Wycherly,"  exclaimed  the   doctor, 
"I really must protest against this riot."
    They stood still and shivered; for it seemed as if gray Time were calling them 
back from their sunny youth, far down into the chill and darksome vale  of  years. 
They looked at old Dr. Heidegger, who sat in his  carved  arm-chair,  holding  the 
rose of half a century, which he had rescued  from  among  the  fragments  of  the 
shattered vase. At the motion of his hand, the four rioters resumed  their  seats; 
the more readily, because their  violent  exertions  had  wearied  them,  youthful 
though they were.
    "My poor Sylvia's rose!" ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it in the light  of 
the sunset clouds; "it appears to be fading again."
    And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it, the  flower  continued 
to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as  when  the  doctor  had  first 
thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its 
petals.
    "I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness," observed he,  pressing  the 
withered rose to his withered lips. 
    While he spoke, the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor's snowy head, and 
fell upon the floor. His guests shivered again. A strange  chillness,  whether  of 
the body or spirit they could not tell, was creeping gradually over them all. They 
gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting moment snatched away a charm, 
and left a deepening furrow where none had been before. Was it  an  illusion?  Had 
the changes of a lifetime been crowded into so brief a space, and  were  they  now 
four aged people, sitting with their old friend, Dr. Heidegger?
    "Are we grown old again, so soon?" cried they, dolefully.
    In truth they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtue more transient 
than that of wine. The delirium which it created had effervesced away.  Yes!  they 
were old again. With a shuddering impulse, that showed  her  a  woman  still,  the 
widow clasped her skinny hands before her face, and wished  that  the  coffin  lid 
were over it, since it could be no longer beautiful.
    "Yes, friends, ye are old again," said Dr. Heidegger, "and lo!  the  Water  of 
Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well - I bemoan it not; for if  the  fountain 
gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it - no,  though 
its delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have  taught
me!"
    But the doctor's four friends had taught no such lesson  to  themselves.  They 
resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida, and quaff  at  morning,  noon, 
and night, from the Fountain of Youth.

    1837

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