On the summer afternoon of our tale a small round table as black as ebony stood in the centre of the room , sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship . The sunshine came through the window between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains and fell directly across this vase , so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old people who sat around . Four champagne-glasses were also on the table . `` My dear old friends , '' repeated Dr. Heidegger , `` may I reckon on your aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment ? '' Now , Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories . Some of these fables -- to my shame be it spoken -- might possibly be traced back to mine own veracious self ; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the reader 's faith , I must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction-monger . When the doctor 's four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment , they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an air-pump or the examination of a cobweb by the microscope , or some similar nonsense with which he was constantly in the habit of pestering his intimates . But without waiting for a reply Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber and returned with the same ponderous folio bound in black leather which common report affirmed to be a book of magic . Undoing the silver clasps , he opened the volume and took from among its black-letter pages a rose , or what was once a rose , though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in the doctor 's hands . `` This rose , '' said Dr. Heidegger , with a sigh -- `` this same withered and crumbling flower -- blossomed five and fifty years ago . It was given me by Sylvia Ward , whose portrait hangs yonder , and I meant to wear it in my bosom at our wedding . Five and fifty years it has been treasured between the leaves of this old volume . Now , would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again ? '' `` Nonsense ! '' said the widow Wycherly , with a peevish toss of her head . `` You might as well ask whether an old woman 's wrinkled face could ever bloom again . '' `` See ! '' answered Dr. Heidegger . He uncovered the vase and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained . At first it lay lightly on the surface of the fluid , appearing to imbibe none of its moisture .
Soon , however , a singular change began XXXXX be visible .
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