THE LIVING DEAD.
I am a physician by profession and am by
no means gifted as a story-teller, consequently,
the reader of the facts I am about to relate
must not expect a narrative told in the most
approved style. It was with some hesitancy
that I made up my mind to give this strange
story publicity, and I should not have done
so if anything more than a few prefatory re
marks was required of me, the body of my
narrative being copied verbatim from the MS.
in my possession.
On a stormy night in December, 1885, I
was comfortably seated before a grate fire in
my room, thankful that none of my then
scanty patients required my assistance, and
very contented for the time being,
notwithstanding the fact that I found it difficult, as
most youthful practitioners do, to make both
ends meet through the exercise of my
profession, when I was roused by a vigorous ringing at my night-bell. Discontentedly
muttering, what, if I rightly remember, was not
a blessing, I opened the door and admitted a
woman who had apparently enveloped her
self in a shawl with unusual haste, for it
scarcely covered her. She hurriedly informed
me that her lodger had met with an accident
and required my attendance at once.
In anything but a good humor, I put on my
overcoat and accompanied her to a house but
a short distance from my own. She led me
to a cheerless room, the sole furniture of
which consisted of a bed, a bureau, a couple
of very dilapidated chairs and two or three
common prints in cheap wooden frames. The
larger of the latter had apparently fallen,
and lay upon the floor. There was no one in
the room but an old man who lay upon the
bed, lifeless. Upon closer inspection he
proved to be quite dead. The woman told
me that the large picture had fallen from the
wall, the frame striking him upon the head,
causing the injuries from which he died. I
doubted her statement, for although the skull
was fractured and the flesh torn as if from the
cause stated, yet there was not one drop of
blood visible upon wound or frame, from
which I argued that the injuries must have
been inflicted after death.
The corpse was that of a man very far
advanced in years, the skin was of a brownish
hue seamed with innumerable wrinkles, the
teeth all gone, while the eyes must have been
sightless for a long time. There was no hair
upon the head or face; in fact, in all my
experience I never beheld anything with the
semblance of a human being bearing the
stamp of age so heavily. The woman could
give no definite account of the deceased; she
said he had lived with her for many years —
just how many she was unable to say. He
came to her agreeing to pay a high price for
board and attendance, and was then so feeble
that she thought he would not live long.
She went to the bank each month for him and
regularly received his remittances, no
questions being asked.
A small tin box, which was still in the
bureau in his room, contained everything he
had brought with him except his clothing.
Shortly after his arrival he became deaf and
dumb, and although medical aid was summoned,
nothing could be done for him. Nature had
given out. But still his extraordinary vitality
defied the approach of death, although with
each succeeding day he grew more feeble.
He was stricken with blindness, and soon
after his limbs refused to bear him. He was
<1-- page 120 TEN OF US. -->
put to bed, and there lost all power of
movement and the senses of touch, taste and smell
and yet he lived, and lay there a living corpse —
breathing, and that was all.
She fed him upon milk and soups, pouring
them down his throat with a spoon. He was
no trouble to her, and as remittances for his
keeping came regularly, she continued to
attend to his wants. She was a poor woman
and the aid she obtained through him was of
great assistance to her. He told her that he
had no friends, and if he had she knew nothing
of them, so she thought it no harm to
take care of him, and derive what benefit
she could from so doing, while he lived.
She called several physicians to see him
while he lay in this state of lethargy, and
they all assured her that he could live but a
few days at the most, yet despite their opinion,
he had lain there without sense or motion,
but breathing, for nearly twenty years. She
had moved once and caused him to be carried
from one house to another, a distance of over
a mile, but it produced no change in his
condition.
I asked to see the box he left, and my
request was willingly complied with, but it
contained nothing save a small roll of
manuscript upon which was written, "To be
opened after my death." I took possession of
the papers and told her I would send the
medical examiner in the morning. When
we went there the next day it was almost
impossible to approach the body, so great a
change had taken place in a few hours. It
was as if it had lain exposed for months;
decomposition had set in so rapidly that the
flesh was already falling from the bones.
Immediate burial was ordered and the papers
left by the deceased were examined. Their
contents explained the mystery of the living
corpse, although some do not believe the
statements contained therein; but had they
been in my place possibly they might not be
so sceptical. The following is a copy of the
old man's statement, which of course it is
optional with the reader to believe or not.
***X6
My name is Conrad Röekle. I was born
in Hamburg in the year of our Lord 1710,
and was the only child of my parents. My
father, although himself without education,
desired me to obtain the best one possible,
and I, being of a studious disposition, applied
myself so diligently that at the age of twenty,
I graduated with high honors from the
university which I was attending. After thus
graduating I began a course of study with a
well-known chemist, who was said, however,
to dabble in the occult sciences. I felt an
inordinate desire to learn something of the
nature of alchemy, and after I became well
acquainted with my master found no difficulty
in leading him to talk of, and finally to
accept my assistance in, his experiments.
Many a sleepless night did I pass in his
company with straining eyes fixed upon the
crucible, waiting for the appearance of the gold
which never came.
At the back of his laboratory there was a
little room in which he was conducting some
experiment which he kept a profound secret
from me. I was never allowed to enter, nor
did he speak of what occupied him there,
and any attempt to converse upon the subject
threw him into a rage. But one day he came
from his sanctuary more than usually agitated
and paced up and down, ever and anon glancing
at me in a questioning manner and
muttering to himself. Finally he seemed to
come to a decision and approached me.
"Conrad," he said, "I need an assistant,
and am therefore about to confide to you the
greatest, the grandest secret of alchemy."
He withdrew the curtain dividing his laboratory
from the room, exclaiming impressively,
as he did so, "Behold the Elixir of Life in all
but completion. A few short hours, and this
greatest gift to mankind is ours." He then
explained the nature of his discovery to me.
Whomsoever should drink of it would be
blessed with unending life; nothing but an
accident or suicide could cut short his earthly
existence; if it were left to Nature, she
would never allow the vital spark to desert
the frame through whose veins the wondrous
elixir had coursed.
How we toiled and watched over it that
night! Yet when all was nearly complete, a
glass retort burst while my master bent over
it, and he was killed just upon the point of
victory. The precious fluid flowed sluggishly
from the shattered receptacle on to the floor.
A drop fell upon the body of a beetle I had
noticed lying there, dead, hours before; it
moved its wings a moment and flew away.
With a cry I seized a vase, caught the last
few drops of the elixir, and drained them at
a draught. They told me I was picked up
senseless beside the body of my master. Be
that as it may, I soon grew well. An
unusual amount of buoyancy and vitality
seemed to take possession of me, and I knew,
I felt, the elixir had done its work.
From that time I lived for pleasure only;
I knew I could not die save by an accident,
and took good care to avoid all chances of
such a death. I was young, I thought, and
would always remain so. Even when friends
told me I was looking older than I used, I
only laughed, for had I not drank of the
Elixir of Life? But the time came when the
changes wrought by years became so plain
that I could not help but notice them. Then
came doubt and questionings. I still felt
young and buoyant as when I first drained
the magic draught, and could not understand
the paradox of a middle-aged man with the
feelings and ideas of youth.
I began to doubt the power of the elixir,
but the extraordinary vitality I felt within
me banished all distrust. The rheumatism
and gout came, my teeth began to trouble me,
and I was compelled to wear spectacles, but
still the same youthful spirits held possession
of me. I had travelled throughout the old
world, and came here to the new country for
a change. All my friends and relations were
long since dead. Then, as my infirmities
began to increase, the terrible truth dawned
upon me. The elixir had given me perpetual
life, but some mistake or accident in its
compounding — perhaps the breaking of the
retort — had affected it so that it would not
arrest bodily decay, and I, still a youth at
heart, must sit and watch the dissolution of
my body, powerless to arrest it. I was
tempted to commit suicide, but did not dare.
I had grown cowardly. Sometimes I hoped
without hope. The decay, gradual, it is true,
but none the less perceptible, went inexorably
on.
At last, when I was, bodily, too feeble to
assist myself, although my mental faculties
were as clear as ever, save sometimes when
with brooding I feared I should go mad, I
arranged with a good woman to have her take
care of me until I should be released by some
happy accident. I deposited a sum at my
bankers, the interest of which sufficed to
defray all my expenses.
This is my story. I have lived a selfish
life and am not, perhaps, deserving of pity,
but I have bitterly atoned for my faults, and I
shall die a repentant sinner. I have
sometimes, in my misery, been tempted to believe
there is no God. I have my doubts upon that
subject now. Be that as it may, if there is a
hell they have no worse torture there than
what I have endured upon this earth.
***X6
This is all the MS. contained, but if what
the unfortunate man wrote be true, think of
him, lying for twenty years upon that bed
unable to see, hear, speak, feel, taste, smell or
move, but in full possession of the faculty of
thinking. Twenty years to look back upon a
long and misspent-life! Perhaps he became
mad. What then? Nothing but horrible
thoughts to pass before his mind, driving him
into silent, motionless frenzy.
The agonies of that mind must be a closed
book to us all.
Did Dante ever dream of such a torture?
