Tales and Stories

Mary W. Shelley
Tales and Stories (1891)

Publicado pela primeira vez em 1891, quarenta anos depois da morte de Mary Shelley, Tales and Stories reúne dezassete contos, a maior parte dos quais aparecidos em The Keepsake, um anuário publicado nas décadas de 20 e 30 daquele século. Apesar de Frankenstein ofuscar a restante obra da escritora, os seus trabalhos em pequeno formato foram particularmente ignorados, e só muito tempo depois ganharam o reconhecimento devido. Grande parte dos contos aqui reunidos têm por cenário a Itália ou a Grécia — inspiração por certo das viagens que fez com Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron e Claire Clairmont pelo continente europeu —, recorrendo também a ambientes medievais ou ao "gothic tale", tão ao gosto do romantismo, onde se inscreve a sua obra.
O excerto escolhido pertence a The Mortal Immortal, a história curiosa de um discípulo de Cornelius Agrippa que, bebendo impulsivamente aquilo que julgava ser um filtro de amor, que pusesse fim aos seus sofrimentos de apaixonado, ingere na realidade um elixir destinado a proporcionar a imortalidade.

Five years afterwards I was suddenly summoned to the bedside of the dying Cornelius. He had sent for me in haste, conjuring my instant presence. I found him stretched on his pallet, enfeebled even to death; all of life that yet remained animated his piercing eyes, and they were fixed on a glass vessel, full of a roseate liquid.
“Behold,” he said, in a broken and inward voice, “the vanity of human wishes! a second time my hopes are about to be crowned, a second time they are destroyed. Look at that liquor—you remember five years ago I had prepared the same, with the same success;—then, as now, my thirsting lips expected to taste the immortal elixir—you dashed it from me! and at present it is too late.”
He spoke with difficulty, and fell back on his pillow. I could not help saying,—
“How, revered master, can a cure for love restore you to life?”
A faint smile gleamed across his face as I listened earnestly to his scarcely intelligible answer.
“A cure for love and for all things—the Elixir of Immortality. Ah! if now I might drink, I should live for ever!”
As he spoke, a golden flash gleamed from the fluid; a well-remembered fragrance stole over the air; he raised himself, all weak as he was—strength seemed miraculously to re-enter his frame—he stretched forth his hand—a loud explosion startled me—a ray of fire shot up from the elixir, and the glass vessel which contained it was shivered to atoms! I turned my eyes towards the philosopher; he had fallen back—his eyes were glassy—his features rigid—he was dead!

Li anteriormente:
Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)