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

look so corpse-like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that
some magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad
inscriptions which Father Time had been so long engraving on their
brows. The Widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a
woman again.

"Give us more of this wondrous water!" cried they, eagerly. "We are
younger- but we are still too old! Quick- give us more!"

"Patience, patience!" quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat watching the
experiment with philosophic coolness. "You have been a long time
growing old. Surely, you might be content to grow young in half an
hour! But the water is at your service."

Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of
which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people in the
city to the age of their own grandchildren. While the bubbles were yet
sparkling on the brim, the doctor's four guests snatched their glasses
from the table, and swallowed the contents at a single gulp. Was it
delusion? even while the draught was passing down their throats, it
seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. Their eyes
grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery
locks, they sat around the table, three gentlemen of middle age, and a
woman, hardly beyond her buxom prime.

"My dear widow, you are charming!" cried Colonel Killigrew, whose
eyes had been fixed upon her face, while the shadows of age were
flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.

The fair widow knew, of old, that Colonel Killigrew's compliments
were not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran
to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman
would meet her gaze. Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such
a manner as proved that the water of the Fountain of Youth possessed
some intoxicating qualities; unless, indeed, their exhilaration of
spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal
of the weight of years. Mr. Gascoigne's mind seemed to run on
political topics, but whether relating to the past, present, or future
could not easily be determined, since the same ideas and phrases
have been in vogue these fifty years. Now he rattled forth
full-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory, and the
people's right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other, in a sly
and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could
scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured
accents, and a deeply deferential tone, as if a royal ear were
listening to his well-turned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this
time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle song, and ringing his
glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward
the buxom figure of the Widow Wycherly. On the other side of the
table, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and