The Revolt of the Machines

by Brian Stableford

  “I have all that in my traveling medical kit,” Hélène replied.

  “A wise precaution, Mademoiselle. One should never go traveling without a first aid kit. I’d wish that in every château, the Mairie of every village, even the humblest hamlet, a doctor could have the saving cordial to hand. How many deaths or serious illnesses could be avoided thus. I’ve written a pamphlet about it…but I’m not here to boast about my merits…I beg your pardon. Alas, the simplest things are often difficult to get adopted. So we were saying, then: a dilute infusion of lime, into which you’ll pour, at the moment of drinking, four drops of laudanum. Then I’ll answer for the sleep, and I hope that tomorrow morning, there’ll be nothing to worry about…physically, at least. Bear up, Monsieur Noirmont. Goodbye, Monsieur, Mademoiselle…. In any event, I’m at your disposal.”

  “The brake will take you back to Laigle, Doctor.”

  “Very kind Mademoiselle; I accept gratefully, for my legs are like me…no longer young. Your servant, Messieurs…keep calm, and all will be well.”

  And the good doctor left, murmuring: “Solid as an oak…otherwise he’d be finished. Elasticity…hmm…I believe some good news would do more good than all the potions in the world. Nine times out of ten the best medicine is mental!”

  An hour later, under the effect of the narcotic, Monsieur Noirmont was sleeping like a log.

  Hélène, comforted by the hopeful words that her fiancé had lavished upon her, completely reassured with regard to her father’s health, consented, on Paul’s urgent insistence, to get some rest.

  The young man installed himself, alone, in the engineer’s room.

  “I’ll spend the night with him. He might wake up, and…one never knows. It’s more prudent for me to be there.”

  The next morning, at eight-thirty, Cordeau and Lesécant, in their best clothes, took the train to Laigle from the Gare de Montparnasse. Hazard—often malicious—had lodged them once again in the same compartment. Before the departure they both had the same thought, of changing carriage, but as they had got to their feet simultaneously, they sat down again the same way.

  Why should I run away from him? Cordeau thought.

  To go because he’s there, Lesécant said to himself, would be a weakness.

  And they stayed.

  During the first few kilometers they limited themselves to looking at one another “like china dogs.” But when the train had gone past Dreux, Lesécant, no longer containing himself, planted himself on the banquette opposite, and said in a hissing tone: “It’s doubtless to Laigle that you’re going, Monsieur?”

  “I surely am, Monsieur,” Cordeau riposted, “unless you have the power to stop me.”

  “I’m very glad, on the contrary, for I’ll enjoy seeing your defeat.”

  “As for me, with what joy I shall salute yours!”

  “You’re wrong to persist in your folly, Cordeau; I have weapons that you don’t possess. Hélène will be my wife.”

  “Mine—I love her and I shall have her. Noirmont owes me three hundred thousand francs.”

  “You’ll be reimbursed, wretch. I, too, am the engineer’s shareholder….”

  “False brother!”

  “Tartuffe!”

  “Pork butcher!”

  “Old fool!”

  It would not have taken much for the two friends to seize one another by the throat; but they contained themselves, fearful of disturbing the harmony of their costume.”

  “Ah!” muttered Lesécant. “If I weren’t obliged to be polite…!”

  “Believe me, it’s only for that reason that I’m holding myself back.”

  A little before the arrival in Laigle, Cordeau, his face up against the stout Lesécant’s nose, grated through clenched teeth: “If she chooses you. I’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll have your hide if you marry her!” Lesécant vociferated, beside himself.

  It was the first time that they had ever addressed one another as tu.

  At Laigle, they each took a cab and gave orders to their driver to get there ahead of the other. Arriving at the same time, they ran to the gate. Their gazes met, furiously, but the terror of a crumpled shirt front tamed them.

  “Let’s make peace.”

  “Call a truce, rather.”

  “So be it.”

  Together, they rang the electric doorbell. Together, they handed their cards to the domestic. Together, they presented themselves at the door of the drawing room where Noirmont was waiting for them.

  The engineer was pale; the blow he had received the day before had contracted his features; only his eyes remained brilliant, and energy could be read therein: the determination to fight, no matter what, until the end.

  The surgeon and the psychologist, struck by the change on the physiognomy of the villa’s owner, enquired as to the state of his health. He smiled and apologized for a slight fatigue. And, as they were astonished not to see Mademoiselle Noirmont, he said: “She’s not feeling well.”

  “Ah! But I’m a physician….”

  “We’re physicians,” Cordeau rectified.

  “Oh, you do so little,” Lesécant chaffed.

  Noirmont stifled the nascent quarrel. “Hélène has no need of the aid of science. A slightly excessive irritation obliges her to stay in her room; I hope you’ll forgive her for not coming to greet you.”

  “Willingly…”

  “Beauty has the right to our indulgence.”

  After a silence, Cordeau attacked first. “You received my letter, my dear friend?”

  “Mine too?”

  “Yes, Messieurs, and I confess that I was unpleasantly surprised. I’m no longer in a position today to repay your loans. This is what has happened.” Noirmont held out the telegram informing him of the catastrophe at Chittingham. He was expecting recriminations, but, to his great astonishment, he saw Cordeau smiling and Lesécant radiant.

  After returning the telegram to him, they sat down, and their voices overlapped:

  “So you’re….”

  “Ruined….”

  “So much the better….”

  “You need us more than ever….”

  “You’re aware of the love….”

  “The passion that I feel for….”

  “Mademoiselle….”

  “Your daughter….”

  “Give her to me….”

  “Grant me….”

  “For my wife….”

  “Her hand…”

  “And I’ll give you a release….”

  “Quits….”

  “And I’ll reimburse….”

  “I’ll buy out….”

  “Cordeau.”

  “Lesécant.”

  The engineer was astounded. In spite of the gravity of the situation, he could not suppress a smile.

  “Messieurs,” he said, after a moment’s reflection, “You’re forgetting one thing. I don’t have the right to dispose of my child in this way, to sacrifice her.”

  “You’re scarcely polite to us, my dear chap.”

  “Oh, I’m far from wanting to offend you, believe me. I’m struggling with a frightful crisis; you know that Hélène is engaged.”

  “Oh, it’s very probable that the catastrophe will change the face of things. An artist….”

  “Adieu the dowry, adieu the suitor!” Lesécant advanced, brutally.

  Noirmont had got to his feet, ready to defend Paul, when a domestic announced: “Monsieur Rémois.”

  The painter had seen the two colleagues arrive. The open window of the drawing room, directly below the room he occupied at the villa, had permitted him to follow the conversation closely. Since the previous evening he had been thinking hard, looking at the situation from every angle, and had concluded that the only thing to do was to gain time, making use of the shareholders. The letters written a few days earlier by the two “suitors” had enlightened the young man as to their character. Monsieur Noirmont was faint-hearted; he took scrupulousness too far. Well, he would be saved in
spite of himself!

  The alternation of raised voices had indicated to the young man the moment to make his entrance.

  His face calm, with a hint of melancholy, he bowed to the engineer and saluted Lesécant and Cordeau very ceremoniously.

  “I beg your pardon, Messieurs; perhaps I’m interrupting a very serious conversation.”

  “You’re not superfluous, Rémois; we were discussing Hélène’s marriage.”

  “And these Messieurs were doubtless telling you that my duty, in the circumstances, is to release you from your promise….”

  While Lesécant and Cordeau, suffocating, red-faced to the extent of crimson, opened their mouths to protest, the painter had the time to make a sign of intelligence to Hélène’s father.

  “The Messieurs are right.”

  “But….”

  “Let me speak, I beg you. A ruinous catastrophe, compromising Mademoiselle Noirmont’s future, has perhaps put you in an awkward position relative to…ferocious shareholders.”

  “We won’t permit….!” Cordeau howled.

  “Such impertinence!” finished Lesécant.

  “Well, Messieurs, have I spoken for you?”

  “Perhaps you don’t know, Rémois, that my friends each have three hundred thousand francs in the enterprise that is going under,” Noirmont put in, fearing that the young man was going too far. “They’re proposing to me, if I grant one of them Hélène’s hand, to cancel their credit and to reimburse, in my stead, the one rejected by my daughter….”

  “That’s noble. It’s relief for you, happiness for your child.”

  Noirmont considered Rémois admiringly.

  Persuasively, seductively, the young man had soon “enveloped”—almost hypnotized—the two doctors.

  After some hesitations and wrangling, they came to an agreement. Lesécant and Cordeau were talking about nothing less than a duel, after which only one of them would remain. It was Rémois who had brought them into agreement.

  “The weapon for men like you, Messieurs, is science. Whichever of you, within a year, has made the more sublime discovery and has supported it with an indubitable experiment—that’s the duel you require.”

  Lesécant and Cordeau, doubtless to their great joy, approved the idea, and it was concluded, providing for all eventualities that if, within an interval of one year, Monsieur Noirmont had been unable to reimburse Messieurs Lesécant and Cordeau the sum of 300,000 francs each, plus interest at 5%, Mademoiselle Hélène Noirmont would marry whichever of the aforementioned Lesécant and Cordeau had revealed the discovery most useful to the wellbeing of humankind. A communication to a learned assembly, which would judge the respective merits of the competitors, would be made by the aforementioned contenders, with supportive experiments, if any had taken place.

  The engagement having been written in triplicate, in due form, and duly signed by the three interested parties—although there were really five—they went their separate ways.

  Lesécant and Cordeau, after having asked Noirmont to present their affectionate salutations to Hélène, took their leave and, launching a last challenging glance at one another as they emerged from the Villa Moderne, climbed back into their cabs in order to return to the Laigle railway station.

  On the way, Cordeau sang joyfully: “She’s mine, she’s my wife! Oh extreme joy…Noirmont will never get out of the mire, and I’ll be damned if I don’t have my psychic sera ready within a year. It’s all a matter of finding a case study, an extraordinary specimen who’ll consent to treatment.”

  For his part, Lesécant, who was less musical, was following an analogous reasoning. “I’ll have the trophy, and the child with the velvet eyes. Papa won’t get out of it without me. Cordeau’s nothing but a donkey. Me, I’ll excavate my third eye, damn it! I’ll unearth a docile subject. I have the money…the sinews of war…and the science!”

  Then a common reflection occurred to them, with regard to Rémois.

  It’s wrong to judge on first impressions. That’s a fellow I misunderstood. Either he’s employed an adroit fashion of taking his leave for reasons of misfortune, or he has the bump of devotion...and he’s an imbecile.

  Let us, reader, leave our two “lovers” to return to Paris, hearts on fire and heads full of dreams, and return to the Villa Moderne.

  Noirmont, Hélène and Rémois were in conference.

  While the engineer and his daughter expressed their dreads for the future, the young man strove to reassure them, and to give them the vigor necessary to emerge victorious from the struggle.

  “We’ve gained time,” he said. “That’s the essential thing. In a year, one has the time to do a great deal. Within three weeks, I’ll have the funds necessary to get the Chittingham enterprise going again.”

  “And if I fail….”

  “We’ll think again. I assume, Monsieur Noirmont, that you only have one desire: to reimburse your shareholders….”

  “Yes, my friend; however, if, for their part, they put me under an obligation to execute…the contract…”

  “Oh!” murmured Hélène, fearfully.

  “Don’t worry about that. For great evils, small remedies….”

  “I’m afraid,” said the young woman. “Afraid for us, Monsieur Rémois. Although they’re ridiculous, their science….”

  “You haven’t observed them then,” the painter interjected. “Scientists, those two! They believe they know a host of things they’ve seen in other people’s books. Like mirrors, they reflect—but as for creating, that’s another matter. If they were true scientists, they wouldn’t have acted as they have. The sincere man of science works with a vision of the goal to be attained, but he’s careful not to fix a date for the completion of his endeavor, the coronation of his achievement.”

  “Which signifies, my dear Monsieur, that you consider Messieurs Lesécant and Cordeau to be….”

  “Charlatans,” concluded the young woman.

  “All well and good,” Rémois continued, “but hazard might aid them…how can one tell?”

  “Oh, I’d never have had the courage to call Monsieur Lesécant or Monsieur Cordeau….”

  “Sursum Cordeau…not Corda!” declared Rémois, joking. “If those Messieurs are working for their greater glory, and very little for that of science, I’m free—the contract doesn’t bind me—and I promise you that I won’t be inactive…for love and for mercy….”

  “Thank you,” Hélène murmured, extending a little trembling hand to her fiancé, on which he deposited a very delicate kiss.

  “They still have to succeed! But what are you thinking, Monsieur Noirmont?”

  “I think, my dear boy, that you’re my savior, and that I’ll never be able to pay you back.”

  “Come what may,” said the painter, looking at Hélène, “I’ll still be your debtor.”

  Three weeks later, after having left his daughter with distant relatives he had in Paris, whom Rémois was authorized to visit, Monsieur Noirmont, armed with a check for two hundred thousand francs, set off for America.

  IV. The Third Eye

  In his study at the Villa Paré, Dr. Lesécant was stamping his feet, his fists clenched, his eyes ablaze, his cheeks red and his garments in disorder. He circled like a beast in a cage, trampling the books and papers with which the parquet was strewn. One might have thought that the small room, ordinarily so well ordered, had just been the theater of a combat and that the adversaries had employed the books on the shelves and the papers in the writing desk as ammunition. And indeed, Lesécant had been battling, battling against his hopes, which he saw disappearing.

  In his impotent rage he had first taken it out on his devoted and patient manservant, old Jérôme, a former laboratory assistant, who had fled under the avalanche of reproaches, abandoning his feather duster. Armed with that machine, with whose manipulation he was unfamiliar, the surgeon, at the height of his wrath, had struck out in all directions, breaking his inkwell and scattering pieces of paper; then the turn of the vol
umes had come, innocent victims, which he trod underfoot in his frenzy.

  “Three months!” he muttered. “Three months…and nothing. Nothing! What use are all these journals? Advertising? Humbug! I’m not asking for the moon, though! One blind man…to whom I’m assuring a comfortable existence…and sight! Everything’s ready, though. I have marvelous carbo-pepto-ferro-azotic tablets…the ideal nourishment, no impediments…and not so much as a cat presents itself. Time’s passing. Of course! I see them here, the others, the academicians…they’re laughing at me…and all because I don’t have a subject.”

  Then, after a further crisis, which cost half a dozen octavo volumes their binding, he went on: “And Cordeau, out there, where is he in his idiocies? That charlatan’s capable of…of, but no! No, no! He shan’t have her! It’s me—me, Lesécant—who will earn the glory and….”

  The sound of the doorbell cut off his virulent monologue.

  “Should I answer it, M’sieu le docteur?”

  “No!” howled Lesécant. “I’m not in! You know that very well...blockhead….”

  As Jérôme escaped, having no desire to suffer the terrible anger of his employer, the doorbell rang violently, without interruption. Lesécant called his servant back.

  “Jérôme!”

  “M’sieu le docteur?”

  “Have you seen the people who are ringing?”

  “Yes—there’s a young monsieur and another monsieur…also young…that the first one is leading by the arm….”

  “My God! A blind man! What are you waiting for, imbecile? Open the door. I gave you orders an hour ago….”

  “M’sieu…told me to….”

  “M’sieu! Hurry up, then! What if they leave? Show the gentlemen into the drawing room. I’ll be there directly…just time to tidy myself up a bit…a blind man! Finally!”

  And Lesécant hurtled into his dressing room like a whirlwind, where he repaired the disorder of his attire feverishly.

  Jérôme, not understanding anything, went to open up. While going toward the garden gate, the worthy servant muttered: “True as true, if m’sieu isn’t going mad! I’ve got to leave…for three months it’s been Hell here.”