Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases , the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos , and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos . Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates , with which , according to some authorities , 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-length 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 chambermaid 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 ! '' Such was Dr. Heidegger 's study . 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 , XXXXX a sigh -- `` this same withered and crumbling flower -- blossomed five and fifty years ago .
Above Between In On by that through to with within