Joseph Balsamo by Alexandre Dumas Read Free Book Online

trembling but busy hands. He was half buried in a great chair, and turned, with his right hand, the leaves of a manuscript on parchment, called “La Chiave del Gabinetto;” in his left he held a silver skimming-dish.
    His attitude, his occupation, his face, motionless and deeply wrinkled, alive only, as it were, in the eyes and mouth, may seem strange to the reader, but they were certainly very familiar to the traveler; for he scarcely cast a look on the old man, nor on all that surrounded him, and yet it was worth the trouble.
    Three walls so the old man called the sides of the carriage were covered by shelves filled with books. These walls shut-in his chair, his usual and principal seat, while above the books had been planned for his convenience several articles for holding vials, decanters, and boxes set iii wooden cases as earthen and glass-ware are secured at sea. He could thus reach anything without assistance, for his chair was on wheels, and with the aid of a spring he could raise it and lower it to any height necessary to attain what he wanted.
    The room, for so we must call it, was eight feet long, six wide, and six high. Opposite the door was a little furnace with its shade, bellows, and tongs. At that moment there boiled in a crucible a mixture which sent out by the chimney the mysterious smoke of which we have spoken, and which excited so much surprise in old and young who saw the carriage pass.
    Besides the vials, boxes, books, and papers strewed around, copper pincers were seen and pieces of charcoal which had been dipped in various liquids ; there was also
     
    JOSEPH BALSAMO. 35
    a large vase half full of water, and from the roof, hung by threads, were bundles of herbs, some apparently gathered the night before, others a hundred years ago. A keen odor prevailed in this laboratory which in one less strange would have been called a perfume.
    As the traveler entered, the old man wheeled his chair with wonderful ease to the furnace, and was about to skim the mixture in the crucible attentively nay, almost respectfully but disturbed by the appearance of the other, he grumbled, drew over his ears his cap of velvet, once black, and from under which a few locks of silver hair peeped out. Then he sharply pulled from beneath one of the wheels of his chair the skirt of his long silk robe a robe now nothing but a shapeless, colorless, ragged, covering. The old man appeared to be in a very bad humor, and grumbled as he went on with his operation.
    ” Afraid the accursed animal ! Afraid of what ? He has shaken the wall, moved the furnace, spilled a quart of my elixir in the fire. Acharat, in Heaven’s name, get rid of that brute in the first desert we come to.”
    “In the first place ‘ said the other, smiling, “we’ shall come to no deserts ; we are in France. Secondly, I should not Tike to leave to his fate a horse worth a thousand louis d’ors, or, rather, a horse above all price, for he is of the race of Al Borach.’-
    ” A thousand louis d’ors ! I will give you them, or what is equal to them. That horse has cost me more than a million, to say nothing of the time, the life, he has robbed me of.”
    ” What has he done poor Djerid ? “
    “What has he done? The elixir was boiling, not a drop escaping true, neither Zoroaster nor Paracelsus says that none must escape, but Borri recommends it.”
    ” Well, dear master, in a few moments more the elixir will boil again.”
    ” Boil ? See ! there is a curse on it the fire is going out. I know not what is falling down the chimney.”
    ” I know what is falling,” said the disciple, laughing *’ water.”
     
    36 JOSEPH BALSAMO.
    ” Water ? water ? Then the elixir is ruined ; the operation must be begun again as if I had time to lose ! Heaven and earth I” cried the old man, raising his hands in despair. ” Water ? What kind of water, Acharat ?”
    ” Pure water, master rain from the sky. Have you not seen that it rained ? “
    ” How should I see