Table of Contents

Title Page

© Digi-Book Magyarország Kiadó, 2022

DR. HEIDEGGER’S EXPERIMENT

DR. HEIDEGGER KÍSÉRLETE

Jegyzetek

A BORÍTÓT A DIGI-BOOK KIADÓ TERVEZTE

Nathaniel Hawthorne

DR. HEIDEGGER
KÍSÉRLETE

Fordította
Reichard Piroska

BUDAÖRS, 2022

DIGI-BOOK MAGYARORSZÁG KIADÓ

www.digi-book.hu

ISBN 978-963-559-651-5 EPUB
ISBN 978-963-559-652-2 MOBI

© Digi-Book Magyarország Kiadó, 2022

A mű eredeti címe:
Dr. Heidegger’s experiment

első kiadás: 1837.
az elektronikus változat az 1925. évi
magyar nyelvű kiadás alapján készült

a borító Eduard Veith (1858 – 1925) festménye
részletének felhasználásával készült

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DR. HEIDEGGER’S
EXPERIMENT

That very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the Widow Wycherly. They were all melancholy old creatures, who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor^1 of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic speculation, and was now little better than a mendicant. Colonel Killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in the pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout, and divers other torments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least had been so till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present generation, and made him obscure instead of infamous. As for the Widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day; but, for a long while past, she had lived in deep seclusion, on account of certain scandalous stories which had perjudiced^2 the gentry of the town against her. It is a circumstance worth mentioning that each of these three old gentleman, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, were early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting each other’s throats for her sake. And, before proceeding further, I will merely hint that Dr. Heidegger and all his four guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves, - as is not unfrequently the case with old people, when worried either by present troubles or woful recollections.

«My dear old friends,» said Dr. Heidegger, motioning^3 them to be seated, «I am desirous of^4 your assistance in one of those little experiments with which 1 amuse myself here in my study.»

If all stories were true, Dr. Heidegger’s study must have been a very curious place. It was a dim, oldfashioned chamber, festooned^5 with cobwebs, and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and blackletter^6 quartos, and the upper with little parch mentcovered duodecimos. Over the Central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates,7 with which, according to some authorities,8 Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, 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-lengh^9 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 chamber maid 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!»