“Now it is the nature of gold that wherever and however it be cut, or powdered or melted or broken, the surface presented is yellow; and the delicate arrangement of particles that in other metals presents other colours than this needs to be overcome; for, without this, transmutation is not accomplished. And but for this colour the changing of lead into gold were amongst the easiest of all the traffickings men have with material things. And if the vulgar would accept as gold what is truly gold in its essence, although it be black, the business were easy enough; but it has been ascertained that in regard to this they are stubborn.”
Then, taking up a piece of iron pyrites, he explained how by mingling various metals together the student could acquire the colour of one, the hardness or softness of another, and so blend them that the weight of the whole mass should be what was desired; and it should be in all respects most suited to undergo those changes that were to be caused by the use of the philosopher’s stone.
The lecture that he delivered that day, with all the metals before him, upon the preparations for transmutation, has probably seldom been surpassed; for he had for the material of his discourse the wisdom of those ages that had preceded him, while a few centuries later the study of the philosopher’s stone fell much into desuetude. Yet who shall estimate the relative excellence of lectures on transmutation, seeing that they have ever been given in gloom and secrecy to classes of ones and twos?
And Ramon Alonzo listened docilely; not, as might have been thought, because to learn transmutation was the object of his sojourn in that dim house, but because he awaited a favourable opportunity, an amiable mood in the magician, when he might ask for leave once more to return to the fields of frivolity. And not till evening came and the magician banished him from his sacred room, in order that, as Ramon Alonzo knew, he might play some secret game with his captive shadows, did the young man learn with shrewd intuitions of youth that he cared far more for the fee that he had in his box than for any learning he might impart as his part of the bargain.
He did not look for Anemone that evening, for he saw that the sight of his shadow troubled her, believing her overwrought by the loss of her own, and deciding to renew the magician’s offer in a few days when she was calmer. That she should have a shadow again he was determined, and walk without hurt or taunt in her Aragona.
As he went to his room that night up the stairway of stone, with a candle all blobs of tallow and ragged wick spluttering within a lantern, he had an idea for a moment on one of the steps that there was something wrong with his shadow; but he looked again, holding the lantern steadier, and the idea or the fear passed.
X
The Exposure of the False Shadows
The work of the morning was to learn the correct application of the smooth philosopher’s stone to the surfaces of metals that had been already so blended that they approached in texture and colour to the texture and colour of gold, and were thus already prepared to receive the changes to be given their element by the touch of the stone. “Without this preparation,” the magician warned his pupil, “the change in the element is too violent, and has in former times not merely wrecked, but entirely transmuted, the houses of certain philosophers; whereby the world has lost such store of learning as may in no wise be estimated.
“Nor is it well to attempt the change of the element in too great a bulk at one time, as men have done when too greatly drawn by the lure of material things, seeking to change whole mountains; which, far from bringing them gold, has been the cause of volcanoes.
“Now the application of the philosopher’s stone is made in this manner: having chosen suitable metals to avoid too enormous a change, in such bulk as will cause no calamity, pass this stone over the surface with the exact rhythm that there is in the spell you use. There are many spells as there are many metals.” And he brought from a box in two handfuls a bundle of small scrolls.
Ramon Alonzo, who had believed he was about to be shown the secret, saw then, as the magician slowly sorted the scrolls, that there was still much to be taught. He had been patient all the day before; but now the light that shone through the volume of leaves, coming down cliffs of greenness, called to his inner being with so imperious a call, that it almost seemed as though Spain and the musical summer, and the mighty sun himself and the blue spaces of ether, all longed for Ramon Alonzo to wander to Aragona to toy with the idle maidens through empty hours of merriment. And a bird called out of the wood, and Ramon Alonzo felt that he must go.
“Master,” he said, “may I go once
