Sheppard Lee, Written by Himself. Vol. II (of 2)
TextCHAPTER VIII.
IN WHICH THE AUTHOR STUMBLES UPON AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
The doctor being accustomed to lead or drive me whithersoever he would, and I, half the time, following without question, I found myself led one day to a house in the town, where was a remarkable exhibition, or show, as our people called it, which had for two days kept the whole village in an uproar. So great, however, was the abstraction and indifference of my mind to all objects, ordinary and extraordinary alike, that I had paid not the least attention to the accounts of the matter which my sister and other persons, and especially the faithful Epaminondas, had, during these two days, poured into my ears. Hence, when I entered the exhibition-room I was ignorant of its nature, and, indeed, indifferent as to making myself better acquainted with it.
Tibbikens, however, appeared to be unusually delighted, and saying, "Now, Megrim, my lad, you shall see a wonderful proof of the strides that science is making," led me through a crowd of the villagers, old and young, and male and female, who were present, up to a large table, where, truly enough, in glass cases placed upon the same, was a spectacle quite remarkable; though I must confess it did not make so strong an impression upon me as Tibbikens expected.
It consisted of an infinite variety of fragments from the bodies of animals and human beings, imitations, as I supposed at first, in wax, or some other suitable substance, and done to the life; but Tibbikens assured me they were real specimens, taken from animal bodies, and converted by scientific processes, known only to the exhibiter, into the substances we now saw; some being stony and harder than flint, some again only a little indurated, while others retained their natural softness, elasticity, and other peculiarities of texture. There were a dozen or more human feet, as many hands, three heads (one of which was a woman's with long hair, and another a child's), a calf's head, a dog's leg, the ear of a pig, the nose of a horse, an ox's liver and heart, a rat, a snake, and a catfish, and dozens of other things that I cannot now remember, all of which were surprisingly natural to behold, especially the head of the woman with the long hair, which looked as if it had just been cut off – or rather not cut off at all, for there was no appearance of death about it whatever, the lips and cheeks being quite ruddy, and the eyes open and bright, though fixed.
"So much for science!" said Tibbikens. "Look at that boy's head! it don't look so well as the others; but who would believe it was solid stone? Sir, it is stone, and silicious stone too; for last night I did myself knock fire out of its nose with the back of my knife; and that's the cause of the nick there on the nostril. Well now, there's the man's head; its texture is ligneous, or, to speak more strictly, imperfectly carbonaceous, though the doctor calls it calcareous. But the wonder of all is the woman's head; look at that! That, sir, is neither silicious nor carbonaceous, but fleshy – I say, sir, fleshy. It remains in its natural condition; the skin is soft and resilient; you see the naturalness of the colour, of the lips, and, above all, of the eyes. And yet, sir, that head, that flesh is indestructible, unless, indeed, by fire, and strong acids or alkalis. It is embalmed, sir! embalmed according to the new process of this doctor with the unpronounceable Dutch name; and I can tell you, sir, that the man is a chymist such as was never heard of before. Davy, Lavoisier, Berzelius – sir, I presume to say they are fools to him, and will be as soon forgotten as their stupid, uncivilized system. How little they knew of the true science of chymistry! They stopped short at the elements – our doctor here converts one element into another!"
Tibbikens spoke with an air of consequence and some little oratorical emphasis, for he was surrounded by spectators, who listened to what he said with reverence. As for me, the little interest excited in my bosom by the novelty of the exhibition had begun to wear away, and I was sinking again into apathy – the faster, perhaps, for the doctor's conversation, of which I had a sufficiency every day – and I suppose I should, in a few moments, have lost all consciousness of what was going on around me, when suddenly a buzz began, and a murmuring of voices, saying, "Here comes the doctor! now we shall have the grand show!" At the same moment a grinding organ began its lugubrious grunting and squeaking, and the master of the exhibition, stalking up to the table, and making his patrons a sweeping semicircular bow, cried, in a rumbling bass voice, and in accents strongly foreigh, —
"Zhentlemens and leddees – I peg you will excuse me for keep you waiting. Vat you see here, zhentlemens and leddees, is very strange – pieces of de poddies human and animal, shanged py a process of philosophie very astonish, misty, and unknown to de multitude; some hard shtone, some shtone not so hard, and some not shtone at all. But I shall show you de representation vich is de triumph of art, de vonder of science, de excellence of philosophie! For, zhentlemens and leddees, I am no mountepank and showmans, put a man of de science, a friend of de species human, and a zhentleman of de medical profession; and vat I make dese tings for is not for show, nor for pastime, nor for de money, but for de utilitie of de vorld."
"Surely," thought I to myself, "I have heard that voice before!"
I looked into the man's face as soon as the spectators had cleared away a little – for I was too indifferent to put myself to any trouble – and I said to myself – nay, I said aloud to Tibbikens, "Surely I have seen that man before!"
"Where?" said Tibbikens.
"In Jersey," I replied, hastily; for I could not forget the tall frame, the hollow jaws, the solemn eyes, and the ever-grinning mouth of Feuerteufel, the German doctor, who had made himself so famous in my native village, and who was one of the last persons I remembered to have seen upon that day when I bade farewell to my original body.
"Come," said Tibbikens, looking alarmed at my last words, "you don't pretend to say you were ever out of Virginia in your whole life!"
"Augh – oh!" said I, recollecting myself; "I wonder what I was talking about? What – augh – what is the man's name?"
"Feuerteufel," said Tibbikens.
CHAPTER IX.
CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE WONDERFUL DISCOVERIES OF THE GERMAN DOCTOR
I was not then mistaken! It was Feuerteufel himself, only he had learned a little more English. This was the first and only one of my original acquaintances whom I had laid eyes on since my departure from New-Jersey, nearly two years before. I felt some interest, therefore, in the man, but it was accompanied with a feeling of dislike, and even apprehension. The truth is, I never liked the German doctor, though why I never could tell. But what was he doing – what could be his object going about the country with petrified legs, arms, and heads? I had scarce asked myself the question before it was answered by the gentleman himself, who had been speaking, though I know not what, all the time I was talking with Tibbikens, and while I was cogitating afterward.
He had worked himself into a fit of eloquence, warming with enthusiasm as he dwelt upon the grandeur and usefulness of his discovery. He made antic gestures with hands, head, and shoulders; he rolled and snapped his eyes in the most extraordinary manner in the world; and as for his mouth, there is no describing the grimaces and contortions which it made over every particularly bright idea or felicitous word.
"Zhentlemens!" said he, "I have discover de great art to preserve de human poddie; I can make him shtone, I can make him plaster-Paree, I can make him shuse as he is, dat is flesh– put flesh vat is never corrupt. Very well! vat shall I do mit de great discoaver? Mit de first I shall preserve de poddies of de great men – de kings, and de shenerals, and de poets, and de oder great men; and you shall see how mosh petter it is tan de statues marple. How mosh petter to have de great man as de great man look in de flesh, mit his eyes shining, his skin and his colour all de pure natural! How mosh petter dat dan de imitation! Suppose you have de painter who take de looking-glass; and when you look in him, glue down de reflection dare for ever! – de natural colour, de natural drawing, de light and de shade? How mosh petter dat dan de picture in dirty oil and ochre! (I tell you, py-the-py, zhentlemens, I do study dat art, and I hopes some day to make de grand discoaver – to put you reflection on de proper substance, like de looking-glass, dat shall hold on to de colours, and hold'em on for ever!) Vell, zhentlemens, I do de same ting mit de statue; I take de nature as I find him – de shape, de colour, de lips, de eyes, de hair, de all – and I do, py my process, make him indestructeeble, and not to alter for ever. Here is de little poy's head dat I have done in dat style. Dat is de art! dat is de art of making de shtone mummee! It shall pe de most costly, de most expense, and derefore only for de great, great men – de shenerals of war, de preshidents, and de mens in Congress vat makes de pig speech. Vell! den I shall make de oder style – de process to turn de poddie into plaster-Paree – vat I call de plaster mummee. Dat is not so dear; dat is de art for de great men vat is not so great as de oders – for de leetle great men – de goavernors, de editors of de paper, and de mens vat you give de grand dinners to. Vell! den I shall make de oder style – de style for de zhentlemens and leddees in zheneral, vat vill not go to rot in de ground like de horse and de dog – de style of de flesh unshange – vat I call de flesh and plood mummee, shuse like dis woman head mit de long hair. Dis is de sheep plan; it vill cost no more dan de price of de funeral. It vill be done in tree days. De poddie is made incorruptible, proof against de water, vat you call water-proof. It is de process for de peoples in zheneral; and I do hopes to see de day ven it shall pe in universal adopt by all, and no more poddies put into de earth to rot, and to make de pad health for de peoples dat live. It is de shtyle for de unwholesome countrees. Zhentlemens, you have know dat de Egyptians did make all dare friends mummee. Why for dey do dat? Very good reason. De land upon de Nile vas unwholesome, and de purrying of de poddies made it vorse. There vas no wood dere to purn de poddies. Vell den, dey did soak dem in de petrolium, de naptha, and oder substance antiseptique, and hide dem in de catacomb and de pyramid. Dere vas no decay, no corruption to poison de air; it vas vise plan!
"Now, zhentlemens, I have devise my plan for de benefit of America, vich is de most unwholesome land in de earth, full of de exhalation and de miasm, de effluvium from de decay animal and vegetable. You shall adopt my plan for embalm your friends, and you no have no more pad air for de fevers, de bilious, de agues, and de plack vomit. Zhentlemens, I have shuse complete my great secret; it vas de study of my whole life; I have shuse succeed. I have de full and complete specimens of de process for make de sheep mummee, de mummee of flesh and plood, de plan for de men in zheneral, vich do always love to pe sheep. I have start carry dem to de great city New-Orleans; and if de peoples do adopt him dere, dey shall have no more complain of de great sickness vat kills de peoples; for dere shall be no more rot of man's flesh in de swampy ground. Here you see de ox-heart, de catfish, de bullfrog, de six hands and feet, all done into flesh and plood mummee. Here is de woman's head. It has been done dis tree year. But you shall see de grand specimen, de complete figure, de grown man turn into de mummee, and look more natural dan de life. Dat is de triumph of mine art! It was my first grand specimen, done dere is now two year almost, and it did cost me mosh expense and money, and some leetle danger. Now you shall say de specimen is perfect, or you shall have my head; it is vat I value apove my life – de complete! de grand! de peautiful! – But you shall see!"
CHAPTER X.
CONTAINING A MORE WONDERFUL DISCOVERY ON THE PART OF SHEPPARD LEE, WITH PERHAPS THE MOST SURPRISING ADVENTURE THAT EVER BEFELL HIM
Having thus completed his lecture, or oration, of which I must confess I had begun to grow tired, the German doctor suddenly stepped to a great round box, like a watchman's box, that stood at the further end of the room, and unlocking the folding leaves of which it was composed, swung them round with a jerk, exhibiting an inner case, evidently of glass, but entirely covered over with a thick curtain. This he proceeded to remove, by tugging at a string which hoisted it to the ceiling; and as it ascended there was disclosed to the eyes of the wondering spectators a human figure within the case, clad loosely in a sort of Roman garment, and for all the world looking entirely like a living being, except that the eyes were fixed in a set unnatural stare, and the attitude was a little stiff and awkward.
A murmur, with twenty or more faint shrieks from the females present, attested the admiration with which the spectators caught sight of this wonderful triumph of skill and science; but I – heavens and earth! what were my feelings, what was my astonishment, when I beheld in that lifeless mummy my own lost body! the mortal tenement in which I had first drawn the breath, and experienced the woes, of life! the body of Sheppard Lee the Jerseyman! This, then, was its fate – not to be anatomized and degraded into a skeleton, as the vile Samuel the kidnapper had told me, but converted into a mummy by a new process, for the especial benefit of science and the world; and Dr. Feuerteufel, the man for whom I had always cherished an instinctive dislike and horror, was the worthy personage who had stolen it, what time I had myself interrupted his designs upon the body of the farmer's boy, in the old graveyard near the Owl-roost! I looked upon my face – that is, the face of the mummy – and a thousand recollections of my original home and condition burst upon my mind; the tears started into my eyes with them. What had I gained by forsaking the lot to which Providence had assigned me? In a moment, the woes of Higginson, of Dawkins, Skinner, Longstraw, Tom the slave, and Megrim the dyspeptic, rushed over my memory, contrasted with those lesser ones of Sheppard Lee, which I had so falsely considered as rendering me the most miserable man in the world.
What other notions may have crowded my brain, what feeling may have entered my bosom, I am now unable to describe. The sight of my body thus restored to me, and in the midst of my sorrow and affliction, inviting me, as it were, back to my proper home, threw me into an indescribable ferment. I stretched out my arms, I uttered a cry, and then rushing forward, to the astonishment of all present, I struck my foot against the glass case with a fury that shivered it to atoms – or, at least, the portion of it serving as a door, which, being dislodged by the violence of the blow, fell upon the floor and was dashed to pieces. The next instant, disregarding the cries of surprise and fear which the act occasioned, I seized upon the cold and rigid hand of the mummy, murmuring, "Let me live again in my own body, and never – no! never more in another's!"
Happiness of happiness! although, while I uttered the words, a boding fear was on my mind, lest the long period the body had lain inanimate, and more especially the mummifying process to which it had been subjected, might have rendered it unfit for further habitation, I had scarce breathed the wish before I found myself in that very body, descending from the box which had so long been its prison, and stepping over the mortal frame of Mr. Arthur Megrim, now lying dead on the floor.
Indescribable was the terror produced among the spectators by this double catastrophe – the death of their townsman, and the revival of the mummy. The women fell down in fits, and the men took to their heels; and a little boy, who was frightened into a paroxysm of devotion, dropped on his knees, and began fervently to exclaim,
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep."
In short, the agitation was truly inexpressible, and fear distracted all. But on no countenance was this passion (mingled with a due degree of amazement) more strikingly depicted than on that of the German doctor, who, thus compelled to witness the object of a thousand cares, the greatest and most perfect result of his wonderful discovery, slipping off its pedestal and out of his hands, as by a stroke of enchantment, stared upon me with eyes, nose, and mouth, speechless, rooted to the floor, and apparently converted into a mummy himself. As I stepped past him, however, hurrying to the door, with a vague idea that the sooner I reached it the better, his lips were unlocked, and his feelings found vent in a horrible exclamation – "Der tyfel!" which I believe means the devil – "Der tyfel! I have empalm him too well!"
Then making a dart at me, he cried, in tones of distraction, "Stop my mummy! mine gott! which has cost me so much expense! – stop my mummy!"
I saw that he designed seizing me, and being myself as much overcome with fear as the others, I made a bolt for the door, knocking down my friend Tibbikens and half a dozen other retreating spectators as I left it, darted into the air, and in a moment was flying out of the village on the wings of the wind.
I had a double cause for terror; for, first, before I had got twenty steps from the exhibition-room (for my Roman garments were in the way of my legs, and I did not run so fast as I managed to do afterward), I heard certain furious voices cry from the room – "It is all a cheat! the mummy was a living man! let us Lynch him and the doctor!" and, secondly, I could also hear, close at my heels, the voice of the doctor himself, who had escaped close behind me, eagerly vociferating, "Stop my mummy, and I will pay twenty dollare! stop my mummy!" – by both which noises it was made apparent that I was in danger of being Lynched, or subjected to a second process of mummification.
Nerved therefore by my fears, I gathered the skirts of my toga about my arms, and fled with all my might, blessing my stars that I had at last recovered that mortal tenement, which, with all its troubles, I was now convinced was the best for my purposes in the whole world.
BOOK VIII
CONTAINING THE CONCLUSION OF THE HISTORY
CHAPTER I.
SHEPPARD LEE FLIES FROM THE GERMAN DOCTOR, AND FINDS HIMSELF AGAIN IN NEW-JERSEY
The faster I fled, the faster it seemed to me I was followed by the German doctor, who, I have always believed, was driven crazy by the sudden loss of his beloved mummy, and who, I had therefore the greatest reason to fear, would, if he succeeded in retaking me, be content with nothing short of clapping me again into his glass case, were it even a needful preliminary, as, in truth, it must have been, to kill and embalm me over again. And indeed I think the reader will allow, that the fact of his following me three days and three nights, still calling me a mummy, charging everybody he met to stop me, and persisting to claim me as his property, even after I had got among my own friends, was a proof not only of insanity, but of a desperate determination to rob me of life and liberty.
Of this determination on his part I was myself so strongly persuaded, and, in consequence, so overcome by terror, that I am inclined to think I was for a time nearly as mad as himself; and I fled from before him with a speed which the reader can only conceive when I tell him, that I ran from the scene of my transformation on the banks of the Potomac to my native village in New-Jersey, a distance which I estimate at full one hundred and eighty miles, in the short space of three days and three nights, during which period I rested but once, and that on the second night, when, being very faint and weary, I lay down on the earth and slept two hours.
This may be justly esteemed a truly wonderful exploit, and it exceeds that of the great Daniel Boone of Kentucky, of whom it is related that he ran before a band of wild Indians the same distance, or thereabouts, in four days' time; but it must be remembered that I was fleeing from a raging madman, whose speed was so nearly equal to my own, that if I chanced but to flag a little in my exertions at any time, I was sure to see him make his appearance on the rear, or to hear his voice screaming on the winds to "stop his mummy." Indeed, I ran with such haste, that I took no note of the road upon which I travelled, and to this day I am ignorant how I succeeded in passing the three great rivers, the Potomac, the Chesapeake, and the Delaware, which lay in my route, and which I must have crossed in some way or other. And, for the same reason, I am ignorant in what manner I sustained existence during those three days, having not the slightest recollection of eating a single meal on the whole journey.
All that I can remember of the journey is, that I ran I knew not whither, but with an instinctive turning of my face towards the north; that I was closely followed by the German doctor; and that, about sundown on the third day, I found myself, to my unspeakable joy, rushing through the Owl-roost swamp, across the meadow, and by that identical beech-tree where I had first lost my body, in full view of my own house. The sight of that once happy home of my childhood filled me with rapture. I rushed towards it, hailed by a shout from old Jim Jumble, my negro-man, backed by another from his wife Dinah, that might have waked the dead, they were so loud and uproarious, and found myself in the arms of my dear, but long-neglected sister Prudence, who, with her husband Alderwood, and her three young children, was standing on the porch.
Then, being wholly overcome by exhaustion of body and mind, and having endured such fatigues and sufferings from hunger and thirst, without speaking of terror, as have seldom oppressed a poor feeble human being, I fell into a swoon, from which I awoke only to be assailed by a violent fever and delirium, the direct consequences of my superhuman exertions, that kept me a-bed, in a condition between life and death, for more than two weeks.
During all this period I recollect being tormented by the hateful visage of the German doctor, who, having followed me like a bloodhound, daily forced himself into my chamber, claimed me as his property, and would doubtless have carried me off, had it not been for my sister, my brother-in-law, and the faithful Jim Jumble, the first of whom watched at my bedside like an angel, while the two others opposed themselves to the enemy, and drove him from the room. His persecutions, indeed, affected me to a degree I cannot express, and were the cause that, at the end of the two weeks as above mentioned, I suddenly fell into a lethargy or trance, the crisis of my disease, in which I lay two days, and then awoke in my full senses, free from fever, and convalescent.
How great was my satisfaction then to behold myself surrounded by my friends, and in my own house; how much greater to know I was no longer to be persecuted by the odious German doctor, who, my brother-in-law gave me to understand, in reply to my anxious questions, had not only given over all designs on my person, but had actually departed from the neighbourhood, and from the State of New-Jersey, satisfied, doubtless, that I was a living man, and no longer a mummy.