''L'Élixir de longue vie'' (

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

"The Elixir of Life") is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

Honoré de Balzac Honoré de Balzac ( , more commonly ; ; born Honoré Balzac; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. The novel sequence ''La Comédie humaine'', which presents a panorama of post-Napoleonic French life, is ...

. It was published in

1830 It is known in European history as a rather tumultuous year with the Revolutions of 1830 in France, Belgium, Poland, Switzerland and Italy. Events January–March * January 11 – LaGrange College (later the University of North Alabama) ...

and is one of the ''Études philosophiques'' of ''

La Comédie humaine (; English: ''The Human Comedy'') is Honoré de Balzac's 1829–48 multi-volume collection of interlinked novels and stories depicting French society in the period of the Restoration (1815–30) and the July Monarchy (1830–48). ''La Com� ...

''.

Plot summary

The story starts in 16th century

Ferrara Ferrara (; ; ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Emilia-Romagna, Northern Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main ...

in Italy. Don Juan Belvidero, the spoiled young son of wealthy nobleman, Bartolommeo Belvidero is having dinner with friends in the family palace, when he is told by a servant that his father is dying. He goes to his father's room. There his father tells him to fetch a phial of liquid from one of the drawers. His father orders Juan to rub this liquid over his body after he is dead, saying that it will restore him to life, and make him young again. Bartolommeo then dies. Juan does not immediately obey his father. After informing his guests of his father's death and seeing them off, he returns to his dead father's room, and puts one drop of the liquid from the phial on his father's eye. The eye comes back to life. After his initial shock, Don Juan kills his father's eye. Having inherited his father's wealth, Juan continues his life of debauchery. He also secretly becomes an atheist. In his 60s, he settles down in

Andalusia Andalusia ( , ; , ) is the southernmost autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain, located in the south of the Iberian Peninsula, in southwestern Europe. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomou ...

in Spain, and marries Dona Elvira, and they have a son, Felipe. He also chooses the Abbot of San-Lucar to be the confessor of his wife and son, and Felipe is raised to be religiously devout. On Juan's death bed, he tells his son Felipe about the phial of liquid, claiming that it is

holy water Holy water is water that has been blessed by a member of the clergy or a religious figure, or derived from a well or spring considered holy. The use for cleansing prior to a baptism and spiritual cleansing is common in several religions, from ...

. He orders his son to pour it over his body after he is dead. Felipe follows these orders, first pouring the liquid on his father's head, then on one of his arms. Juan's now living arm then grasps Felipe by the throat. A shocked Felipe faints, and the phial drops to the floor and breaks and all the rest of the liquid is lost. People rush into the room when they hear the noise, and see Don Juan's body with the head and one arm bought back to life and youth, and the rest still dead. They proclaim it to be a miracle. The Abbot of San-Lucar claims that the miracle means that Don Juan is to be canonised as a saint. The half living body of Don Juan is then taken to the abbey church, and put into a

reliquary A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', ''Chasse (casket), chasse'', or ''phylactery'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary, or the room in which one is stored, may also be called a ''feretory''. Relics may be the purported ...

. The Abbot celebrates a mass for Don Juan which is attended by many people. The angry head of Don Juan shouts blasphemies during the mass, detaches itself from the body, and then kills the Abbot by biting deeply into his head.

Source

According to an introduction added to the story by Balzac, the idea for the story came from a friend of his who had read it in a short story collection. Balzac was not certain who the original author was, and thought that it may have been

E. T. A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist.Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in ...

References

External links

"The Elixir of Life", translation (by Clara Bell and James Waring) at Project Gutenberg (full text)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elixir De Longue Vie 1830 short stories French short stories Books of La Comédie humaine Short stories by Honoré de Balzac