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Title: The mordant

Author: Merab Eberle

Illustrator: Leo Morey


        
Release date: March 23, 2026 [eBook #78282]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: Experimenter Publications, Inc, 1930

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78282

Credits: Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MORDANT ***




The Mordant

by Merab Eberle

Illustrated by MOREY

[Illustration: “_Let us apply the mordant to the daisy in your
buttonhole.... The mordant applied would put the artificial flower
makers out of business._”]




  _There are several mechanical means, like the movie films and
  phonograph records, to preserve youthful charms or a gorgeous voice
  or expressions of brilliant minds, but there is no growth, or even
  variation. What if some scientist should discover the secret of
  indefinite prolongation of life and a young body? Off-hand such a
  discovery would seem to be a boon to humanity. But is it? Consider
  the question carefully. Our new author apparently has, and gives
  us the results of his consideration in an excellent short story of
  scientific fiction._




If the priests of ancient Egypt had discovered the mordant the
awe-inspiring mummy would doubtless have been superseded by something
more provocative of wonder--the human body preserved in its entirety.

Our museums would hold the bodies of men and women looking as though
they slept--Egyptian princesses and Pharaohs would be before us in
reality.

Without doubt, the morticians of our day would have made much of
MacDowell’s discovery of the mordant. There are still many people on
whom the idea of death has such an effect that the holding of a body in
a perpetual state of non-decay would seem to them the equivalent of an
eternal and beautiful sleep. Death to such people would be no more to
be dreaded than healthy slumber--provided they knew that they were to
remain intact, bodily.

MacDowell had different ideas about the matter. He sought for the
mordant in his quiet little laboratories in the Black Hills, not
because he wished to achieve preservation, but because he desired to
see what might happen to those to whom a life of perpetual youth was
given.

MacDowell believed in a soul and a God. Therefore he was not interested
in the desires of those who wish the body to be preserved after death
has made flesh useless.

I first met MacDowell before the world had accepted him. I knew that
a follower of the celebrated Adams was in the city. I had always been
interested in the Adams’ concept of disease and its cure. A good story,
I thought, for the paper. Therefore I made especial effort to meet the
scientist, MacDowell.

I was excited as I sped with my story to the city desk. Here was a man
who was doing much more to eradicate disease than man had dreamed could
be done. But the desk turned it down. Another advertisement by another
quack.

Time and again I attempted to place the achievements of MacDowell
before the public. No one would believe me. That is why the story
of the mordant has not been told. The public, which denounces the
newspaper for the sensational tales which it prints, would be surprised
if it should learn how conservative the editorial desk can be upon
occasion.

MacDowell in his earlier years as a scientist traveled about the
country a great deal. His tours brought him to Youngstown three or
four times a year. He always called me over the ’phone soon after his
arrival and as speedily as I could leave my work, I would hurry to his
hotel bedroom, where I would find him working, always working, with the
strange instruments he had invented.

I enjoyed intensely these talks with the quiet, wonderful man. No one,
by looking at his kindly face, would have thought of him as being above
the average in intellect and achievement. Little could they dream that
he was the greatest scientist of all time. There was no pretense in
him. Sandy Scotch hair rode stridently above a sandy Scotch face. But,
different from those of most Scotchmen, his lips were spread in an
almost perpetual half-smile of forgiveness and condonement. The human
race was hardly to be understood in its small achievement by this man
so lonely in his genius--so far in the vanguard of science that he
marched a lone soldier--often the victim of wounds inflicted by his
comrades at the rear, even ranking officers of science with epaulets
and medals of honor bestowed upon them by an appreciative public. The
human race was hardly to be understood by him, but with his half-smile
he forgave its sins of commission and omission.

“I have found a mordant,” he announced one time. The fact was of no
immediate interest to me. I knew the name “mordant” was given to a
substance which would fix a dye on cloth and give it a permanency of
color that would baffle the effects of many washings and the bleaching
rays of sunlight. Other significance I could not as yet realize.

“You can help me in testing it,” he stated. I was ready, for, having
helped him in many of his tests, my sympathy with his work made me
faithful even at times when the experiments failed to achieve the
results he anticipated.

His thoughtful face took on a quizzical look. “If you realized the
import of what I am saying you would not lie back in your chair in such
evident boredom. Many have sought what I have been seeking.” He paused
and eyed me curiously. “My mordant is equivalent to a draught from the
fountain of youth.”

I leaned forward in my chair. Here was a great story. I knew from past
experience that I could not use it--could not, though my words be
winged by fire, get it past the conservatism of the city editor’s desk,
but nevertheless, my whole being throbbed to cadences of exaltation.
Few know the fire that sings through the veins of a reporter when
something new is made accessible to him.

“But how--what is it--have you?” My words tumbled forth breathlessly
upon one another. Then calming myself I asked, half-sarcastically, “Has
the object of Ponce de Leon’s search been found?”

“Not quite,” he smiled. His manner shamed me for my agitation and for
my sarcasm. “This is nothing that can give life to a person through the
centuries. I do not say that such a treatment could not be given, but I
doubt the wisdom of perpetrating such a curse upon the human race which
has enough tragedy within a normal lifetime.”

He thrummed his long fingers idly on the arm of the chair in which he
lounged as though he were not speaking of amazing things.

“I have an ether rate which, when incorporated with any living object,
will retard the development of old age. At the same time I do not wish
to put a stop to the rich mental and spiritual development which comes
through the years. Imagine the rounded beauty of a woman grown wise
and kind with years and yet possessing the sweet grace, the bright
and flashing eyes, the rounded form of youth.” His eyes grew bright
as though he were envisioning loves of his early youth made beautiful
again.

“Have you tried it?” I, seasoned reporter who interviewed presidents
and movie stars without undue excitement, sat forward in my chair--my
heart beating with swift, rapid strokes--my mind whirling with the
thought of a race kept perpetually and beautifully young.

“On no person--on a plant. Let us apply the mordant to the daisy in
your buttonhole. It still looks in excellent condition. The mordant
applied would put the artificial flower makers out of business. The
import of my inventions is tremendous. With this machine of mine,” he
touched an instrument lovingly, solemnly, “the economic conditions of
the world could be turned upside down.”

Right here I can say that the daisy is still in my possession--is
still in very excellent condition--except where I have broken a petal
or two. Several years ago I showed it to the curator of the New York
Metropolitan Museum. He thought it was a fresh flower. I convinced him
that it was not by leaving the daisy in his possession for a month. I
had great difficulty in taking it from him. He was willing to pay me
heavily. It would have a place all its own. My name could be blazoned
across the case in which it was to be shown.

But I had enough money on which to exist and the daisy was precious
to me. I have a love for the mysterious, the unusual, which amounts to
a passion. In my possession are many strange objects assembled through
the years. Many leisure hours I have spent with them--wondering,
marveling--feeling immensity spin past me and the inscrutable approach
interpretation. And the most loved of this collection is the daisy, for
it is tied up with remembrances as well as with wonder.

“I am striving to produce a state of continuous youth in people,”
continued MacDowell. “True, I can keep them well. That I have already
demonstrated to you. But they grow old. I do not wish to keep them
from death--that is not my desire. But why should flesh become such a
wretched thing to gaze upon? The mordant, I believe, will keep youth
intact.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Within me I felt welling up a vast desire to be treated by this
mordant. Who has not felt the pang attendant upon seeing youth slip by?
I was young then--but had no desire to grow older. The man must have
read my thoughts. He had uncanny powers.

“No, it is not for you--not yet--nor for me. The truth is that I am
afraid of crippling my powers. I must do greater good in the world than
I have yet done.” He paused. His eyes peered into the distances and
then he continued slowly:

“I have tested it out already--last year upon a morning glory in my
garden in the Black Hills.” MacDowell loved flowers. They proved quiet,
unobtrusive friends and never waxed merry over what they judged to be
the futility of his experiments.

“The flower trumpets did not perish. One by one they placed their glory
on the vine. But note this well--this I feel intensely--the flowers
came to full bloom, remained in full bloom. But beyond that they did
not go. There was no seed. I am wondering if there can be a lack of
mental fruition also. I need you in this work. You have the rare gift
of intuition. Therefore the test will not be made on you.”

“But, about the morning glory,” I queried, “is it still living?”

“That would be difficult to say. It exists. The flowers are purple, but
winter winds and heavy snows have torn and bruised them. No, I should
say that it is dead--for it no longer grows and the spring brought to
it no new leaf.”

“And who is to be the fortunate victim of the mordant?” I asked, half
envious of the person upon whom the test was to be made.

“That,” he said, with his forefinger directed straight at me, “is
where I need you. I wish to do no one harm. Unless the mordant brings
good, the world is never to know of it. I have seen young, blooming
mothers, upon whom I should have liked to test it. The idea of
destroying their creative ability has deterred me. I do not wish to
arrest mental development, so I shall not approach a scholar. I have
come to the conclusion that it could be tested out to great advantage
on some woman, who depends greatly on her beauty for the earning of a
livelihood.

“I have no doubt that several of the stars of the screen would be glad
to accept the test. There are operatic singers, actresses, who might
for the sake of preserved youth be willing to undergo the experiment.
But I have no way of approach. These favored beauties would think of me
as a daring humbug. I might have difficulty in gaining access to them.
My clumsy tongue could not induce them.” There was a glint of merriment
in his eye as he queried, “Could you do it?”

Rosa Celeste was my selection. You have all heard of her--the singer
with the voice of golden fire--loved on the operatic stage for her
grace of form and her ability in acting as well as for the divine gift
in her throat.

Occasionally she would make concert tours and, as my especial lot
on the newspaper I represented at the time was that of interviewing
celebrities, I came not infrequently in contact with her.

Other stars had been made newspaper copy by me in the interim between
MacDowell’s request and my securing of Celeste, but I had been somewhat
cautious in my approach. It is not pleasing to a man to have women look
on him with disdain.

Celeste practically made the contact herself. Some chance question of
mine made her exclaim, “But wouldn’t we all want to drink of the waters
of youth? To see these arms grow flabby!” She shuddered dramatically.
“To watch wrinkles come along the face! To mark the sparkle pass from
the eyes--nothing more horrible!” Celeste’s eyes were famous. I can
recall her as she stood there. Beauty seemed to pour out in radiance
from her. What a tragedy--what a bitter tragedy--that such wonder
could perish. The dull walls of the hotel bedroom--reporters have
unquestioned access to many places--took on a glow with her presence.

“And what would you give for eternal youth?” I asked, admirably,
I thought, keeping eagerness from my voice. Her soprano rippled
off delightfully into a tenor bit of opera. Her eyes flashed at me
challengingly. Then I recognized it as Faust’s acceptance of Mephisto’s
offer. The exchange of soul for youth.

“No less than Faust gave,” she laughed. “I should be glad to give
audience to Mephisto himself.”

Here was my opening. Fortunate for me indeed. “What if a kindlier
spirit than he could give you what you wish?” queried I. My tones took
on depth, eagerness.

She caught my spirit immediately. I swung into the tale of the kindly
man who had found the fountain of youth. Told her that she could be the
one chosen for a test. Then I explained what might be the danger--told
her of the morning glory that did not bear seed.

“But it blossomed, did it not?” she laughed. “It flowered. That would
be enough for me. Who would wish their thoughts to find a full fruition
if they were to be borne on a withered plant? Seed means nothing to
me. It is not in the future that I wish to live--not in children--not
in strange new thoughts. Tell your friend that Rosa Celeste desires to
remain beautiful.” She was dramatically lovely at the moment. Light
flashed from her famous eyes. It was as though a thirsty person saw an
oasis--a poverty-stricken wretch heard that he was the inheritor of
vast wealth.

       *       *       *       *       *

She was given the mordant. For a few years there is little to record of
her. She was just as beautiful as before--just as popular--the idol of
a public which paid its tributes in large audiences and by demanding of
the press tales of a great favorite.

In ten years she was just as lovely as when the mordant was first given
her. Like the morning glory vine, she took on new splendors. Each new
blossoming of beauty added itself to the sum total. People commenced
talking of her fadeless charm. When she came to sing in Youngstown I
interviewed her and found her full of joy over the mordant--full of
eager queries as to the welfare of her benefactor. Ecstatic over the
fact that not one wrinkle detracted from the youthful contour of her
face.

“Not a gray hair, my friend. I am still good to look upon. The men
adore me. Do you not adore me? But why does the great MacDowell not
give to others what he has given to me? Is he not satisfied with his
results on me, his test tube?” She preened herself before the mirror.

“He is busy with other things at present,” I stated. “There are
little things like wars to be thwarted and plagues to be harnessed.
Nevertheless, he is interested in the success of the mordant. But he is
slow in his decisions.”

I myself am impetuous in my nature--wish things to come to a head
speedily. Never could I have watched through the years the outworking
of experiments as did this MacDowell. I could very well understand
Celeste’s attitude toward him. “When he sees so glorious a creature
as myself, how can he help but think his experiment a good one?” she
seemed to say.

In five years more of time--fifteen in all--there was a real change in
the star. Her voice, while in some respects lovelier--seemed to lack a
certain modernity. It remained impervious to the changes that come from
without--from the great down-pressing of events. There was a certain
quality to her acting which was no longer the fashion. Yet reputation
bore her along at the same high place in the world’s estimation.

She was charming--unbelievably so. Newspaper syndicates used her name
at the head of beauty columns. They paid handsomely for the privilege
of doing so. She endorsed cold creams and face powders.

“I need none of them,” she confided to me, laughing almost wickedly.
“But for those poor people who have not the mordant there is no other
hope. I give it to them. The powders and the paints, the creams and
eyebrow pencils may help for a while. But see--not a wrinkle--not a
gray hair.”

Of course her beauty was world-talk. With that I was familiar, but not
with another characteristic of which I was soon to hear. It seemed that
Celeste was becoming known for her sadness--that her face, so radiant
in years past, had almost a look of despair upon it.

So I was not surprised when she sent for me, on one of her last
appearances in Youngstown, to make inquiries concerning the mordant.
“There is something within me which does not grow. I am a creature of
utter loneliness. I am not at home with the youngsters of the day. I am
not at home with my peers in age. I am bound to the past by some hidden
force that will not let me go. Yet I keep a look of youth.”

What change had come over her? Here was a magnificent
womanhood--radiant--compelling. Yet it did not affect me with its
glory as it had done in previous years. Was my taste altering with the
passing years or had some subtle change affected the divine Celeste?
Whatever this was--whatever its origin--I felt a strange pity arise
within my heart.

It was then that I took counsel with MacDowell. He was growing old. I
felt that fact keenly. Lines had been etched upon his face by the sharp
pencil of time. Yet he was not using the mordant.

“As I feared,” he deliberated. “The mordant keeps the years from
bearing the fruit that is their right. Youth is not the thing desired
by the creator. In the seed there is a glory beyond our seeing. Of our
bodies come our children as fruit. Of our souls--growth of the spirit
and eventually immortal life. That I believe. What means the withered
husk of flesh after the fruit has ripened?”

I knew at the moment that there was a soul. The man had such a depth of
meaning to his voice that, sceptic as I was, irreligious as I wished to
be, I could not keep from thinking that there was a tremendous power
which held the world in its hand and gave heed to destiny.

Something pulled my eyes toward the man. Old, I thought, of face--old,
old and wrinkled. Yet, I paused in my thought, almost amazed that such
an idea could have come to me, here was beauty too. A beauty, different
indeed, but greater than that of Celeste’s.

What was the light that poured from his eyes? What source did this
radiant stream have within this man’s being? I gazed upon a sight as
glorious as a sunset streaming from behind dark, age-old crags.

What did this man possess? And through my mind sped the thought that
I was gazing upon a soul--a soul so great that its grandeur and its
luster could not be contained in the entirety behind the aging walls of
flesh that gave it habitation.

Then I knew what I had found lacking in Celeste. What it was that
seemed to take something of glory from her. The youth of the flesh
could not be affected without injury to the soul--without drying up the
very sources of the spirit.

The power of the heavens which has given youth its fair dwelling and
its lure of fresh, firm flesh had so designed it that the aging of the
body brought riches to the soul--or so it seemed to me at the moment.
Perhaps all the sorrows attendant on decay of outward form and all the
agonies, that come from gazing in mirroring surfaces upon faces that
are no longer pleasing to the eye, are needful to higher development.

I found my doubt of the existence of a wise God suddenly shaken at the
foundations. I trembled before my new knowledge--was shaken to the core
of my being.

       *       *       *       *       *

I was confused when MacDowell brought back my wandering mind by saying,
“I can release Celeste from the mordant--that will be easy. But will
she wish to be released? Her associates will leave her if she is kept
beneath the influence of the mordant. Unreleased, she will be as
forlorn as last year’s rose left blooming in a winter garden. Can she
forego beauty and youth? She feeds upon her power.”

“You could release her without her being aware,” I counselled. “That
would be a kindly thing to do.” I felt almost fatherly toward Celeste
now, I who had been twenty when she was thirty and I who was fifty when
she was still thirty--at least in the record of her years as placed
upon her face.

“I doubt it. In fact, I believe that it would be the sheerest cruelty
to give her over to the power of the years. I do not know what ravages
might suddenly take place after the removal of the mordant. Celeste
might suddenly become old in looks. Remember, she is fifty. To place a
woman who looks thirty in a position where she would suddenly take on
the lines and sagging muscles of half a century would not be advisable.

“It would mean that she could not grow through twenty years of
time to a place where she might accustom herself to a change both
professionally and actually. If Celeste asks for the release I shall
give it to her. If not, she shall remain fair to look upon when you and
I are withered husks.”

“Can she die?” I breathed sharply. The thought of eternal life had once
seemed sweet to me. But sorrow had made her home on my doorstep. Life
perpetual no longer seemed desirable. And life with a stunted spirit a
damnable, awful thing.

“Most assuredly she can die,” he stated. “Even as you and I. But the
body will remain intact.”

Celeste did not care to let the mordant release its power over her.
Occasionally I saw her--occasionally I heard her sing. Beautiful as
ever--her voice fresh with an eternal touch of spring--not of the
present spring, but of past and remembered springs.

“I do not wish the power to go,” she sighed. “I could not bear to watch
my flesh shrivel as I gazed into a mirror.” Her eyes dilated with a
wild terror. It was as though she envisioned such a process tearing her
glory from her.

“Not that I should mind so much being dead.” There was something almost
childlike about her, pleading, terrified. “It seems to me that only
in non-existence can I find peace.” She leaned toward me with a soft
confiding. We had grown to be friends because of the secret of which we
were a part. “Sometimes I grow extraordinarily weary of it all.”

I shuddered to myself, for I was fifty at the time--she was sixty.
The thought of supporting an ecstatic youth in the fact of remembered
trouble had little lure for me.

       *       *       *       *       *

The terrible storms on the Atlantic in my fifty-first year brought
to her the death which she had longed for. The yacht on which she,
together with several of society’s youthful favorites, had set out for
a joyous cruise was not seen again, according to the stories.

A wire came into the office, four months later, which said that the
body of a young woman, resembling Celeste, had been found on a wild bit
of the Maine coast.

I was no longer a reporter, but sat at the main desk, where the older
men are relegated. The news editor--a mere boy of thirty--barked at
me above the hurried clack of typewriters, “You knew her, didn’t you?
Suppose you get on the story. Give it a sob touch. Take a look at the
woman.”

A plane hurried me to the spot and I found the glorious Celeste lying
still and cold on a cot in a fisherman’s shack. She was a little
bruised, but still serene and beautiful. Yet her clothes were torn and
stained with many months at sea.

However, the story came to nothing, for eventually the yacht floated
in on another bit of coast--a mangled thing--bearing within its ruins
bodies made unrecognizable by time.

The newspaper would have nothing of my finding of Celeste.

Gray skies looked down upon a gray and rocky coast and the sea gull’s
cry mingled with the singing of the little band of fisherfolk, when
Celeste was laid at rest.

Just recently the curator of the museum asked me again for my daisy.

The price offered had substantially increased over that of former years.




Transcriber’s note:


  This etext was produced from Amazing Stories, March 1930 (vol. 04,
  no. 12.).

  Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
  minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.


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