"Hawthorne, Nathaniel - Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hawthorne Nathaniel)

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