Alchymic Journals

hand, giving directions for his burial at St. Sebastian’s Church beyond the bridge. Bolstered half-upright on his couch he dictated to a local scribe how an erudite practitioner of medicine, Theophrastus von Hohenheim, being of clear mind committed life, death and soul to the care of an Almighty that would not permit the martyrdom and travail of His only Son to be fruitless, nugatory, one more sleeveless errand culled by a poor servant. Whereafter legacies were writ that all but paupers should forget. Two cartons of manuscripts and books he left at Augsburg, one at Kromau, various oddments at Leoben and in Carinthia—possibly at St. Veith or Villach. What a munificent estate! Some few burnished coins gibbering with loneliness, a patched cloak, boots, Concordia Bibliorum and Interpretationes super Evangelia badly frayed, ointments, knives, hostility sufficient for twelve plus the storage-vault of an insatiable mind. All work done—Lo, a misbegotten adept departed—this unlikely angel ascending from the Gasthaus zum Weissen Ross! Paradise is but a search for knowledge, he said, allotting his tormented years to that end and the public good. We doubt he had much choice. Disciples say the ferryman erred by thinking him three decades older, since as he knew so much more than cooks and servants Azrael mistook that countenance for one whose day was spent. But let it pass. In the hospital cemetery of Saint Sebastian we have examined a marble obelisk dedicated to Philippus Theophrastus, Alchymist and Physician, who with wondrous magic did cure the gout, leprosy and dropsy and bound up fearful wounds. There, by and large, he remains except his skull is gone—as though it could not quit travel. Just where this relic might be, who knows? We hear it exists in southern Bavaria and is thought to be that of some female. Yet we suspect a divine trumpeter draws winds together.

REGARDING THE SCRIVENER Flamel, we present our conspectus. That he dwelt in Paris near Saint Jacques-de-la-Boucherie in the notary street with his wife Perenelle is documented. And none save skeptics would dispute that on the seventeenth of January, Anno Domini 1382, he did successfully transmute eight ounces of mercury into an equivalent weight of silver, to which his wife stood witness—the assay exceeding proof. On the twenty-fifth of April, Perenelle again his deponent, our modest notary surpassed that achievement! O wonder upon wonder! We all but doubt our senses, we stagger from marvel to marvel. What next? Good Perenelle journeys to Switzerland, and Monsieur Flamel having interred in her vacant grave a Log respectfully publishes the date of her exit: Anno Domini 1399. But why? We confess bewilderment. Yea, we cudgel our brains. Where is the end to legerdemain? Lo, this artful scrivener—having distilled the Philosopher’s Stone of limitless wealth and fountain of immortality—having buried on his own behalf another succedaneum, swiftly joins his devoted wife. Chymist Ninian Bres testifies that he saw them hundreds of years later on the Boulevard du Temple near the Opéra strolling arm-in-arm! Flamel, says he, was of moderate height, considerably bent by the passage of centuries but walked with a firm step and his eyes were lustrous. His skin looked translucent, not unlike alabaster. Concerning sweet Perenelle, she had somewhat aged. The two were attired in a style not long out of date, nonetheless a fustiness seemed to emanate from their clothes and as they came wandering toward a recess in the boulevard where Monsieur Bres waited, half-concealed beneath an arch—all sooty, reeking with sulphur, fingers discolored by acid—the Alchymist paused, gazing toward him as if about to speak, but cautious Perenelle drew her husband back into the crowd. Now we have seen on the fifth leaf of Figures d’Abraham Juif the face of an alchymist which we think must represent Flamel. If this be so, how do we refute the testament of Ninian Bres? We confess ourselves inadequate. But that a single musty clerk might touch the Stone seems to us implausible and undeserved, since if we do not surpass ourselves we have dropped asleep within a dream. Therefore, if mortal intent is gratification but nothing beyond, all has been accomplished. And therefore human intelligence has been wasted, although some turn to it while the gods claim yet another victim. And who would care how August winds prevail across Egypt? And who, like Thebet Benchorat, would assign four decades to find out the motions of an eighth sphere? Which among us would make miracles?

VERY MANY EARNEST problems have been subjected to our thought: circumstantial conjuries, transformation, circular majesties, talismans riveted to amulets, redemption, trine and sextile aspects, magicians flush with snivel and windy smirks, bawds, panders, factors, malapert friars feeding on kickshaw, flouts, taunts, counterfeit florins, crowns and angels, the mandrake voice sweeter than heavenly music—O, sediment in abundance! And what becomes of charity? Accordingly we look upon hermetic art with one eye shut because it is meant to mislead travelers anticipating perfection. So let us contemplate that miserable Puffer coughing, spewing up dark blood, full of blasted hope, stuffed with fugitive rainbows, hail drumming the glass while wife Meg yowls on his track for gold, exploring the metallic souls of minerals caught in fuliginous envelopes with obscurity the sign of his resolution, anticipating Erichthonius’ Basket, Deucalion’s Coffer, the Tower of Danae—which is but a Swamp of Lerna, less valuable than seaweed. Lybian quicksand drowns his entangled wit. Does he consult with Avicenna? Does he ask if a thing is, then how is it? Or if it be not, how is it not? Mayhap his skull was struck that same blow with which many avow a Comet once struck the sun. See him crouch at the furnaces of Borrichius, Beccher, Kunckel, Stahl—seeking one rod of light. Now he computes the sand, now he counts the rain, daubing and greasing, cloaked and wrapped with his hubris of invincibility. What shall he whistle into a cage? See him peer upon the shade of Gargoyles decorating mossy walls, consigned to measurements of electuary, bone-ash and orpiment beneath