The Revolt of the Machines

by Brian Stableford

  “All that,” I said, seems clear and logical to me.

  Saint-Denis took me by the arm and drew me away. “Come on, come on,” he exclaimed. “Let’s verify the singularity of all this further. Let’s make a tour of the lake.”

  For his age, my old master still had solid legs and good lungs. He led us at a good pace to the end of the first pond, as far as the raised causeway extending between the two lakes. Surprise, in the absence of fatigue, suddenly immobilized him at that point in the excursion. He turned toward me, pointing at the second pool, smaller and separated from the other by a curtain of trees.

  Above that second expanse of water a second firework display, identical and symmetrical, was continuing to expand its sprays over the verdure that framed it. Rockets were succeeded by sunbursts and multicolored bouquets of a splendor and variety that were identical in every respect, if one could believe the rhythmic cries of surprise and joy of the incessantly increasing crowd that was acclaiming the progressive marvels in the distance.

  I hardly had time to manifest my astonishment; Saint-Denis, who, in order to draw me toward that new spectacle, had turned eastwards, in the direction of the house, remained frozen in his posture. Again his arm extended toward that point on the horizon, while his gaze fixed on me, bleak and stupefied—for there, too, a third explosion of pyrotechnics was setting the sky ablaze, causing its luminous rain to stream down on the placid roof that sheltered the studious retreat of my scholarly master.

  This time, it was impossible for me not to laugh at the scientist’s discomfited expression.

  “You’re being heaped with revelations.” I told him, gaily, “and whichever way we turn, we’re incapable of discovering the slightest trace, on the edges of these ponds or in their reeds, of any practical joker or the most modest artificer….”

  “Eh!” said the old man, drawing nearer with vivacity. “Let’s leave the joking there. On reflection, it’s easy to understand that the image, affecting our senses, is displacing with us, and the people over there who are witnessing the spectacle don’t suspect that they could see it by turning toward any corner of the sky. It’s possible that at this very moment, those fireworks are simultaneously illuminating Versailles, Batignolles. Sainte-Menehould and Vladivostok…but listen to them.…”

  The clamors of the crowd now assembled in compact rows along the balustrade were positively taking on a festival delirium. The ohs, ahs and prolonged cries were saluting an uninterrupted succession of roman candles, serpents, balloons and Bengal fires; monstrous sunbursts were spinning, succeeded by ever-more expansive sprays and flamboyant cataracts, which seemed to be opening up in the sky as many blazing Niagaras.

  “It must be a matter of an event of a superior order,” Saint-Denis remarked, “And also that the fête must be that of a population for whom expense is no object—for, after all, limited as my experience is such matters might be...oh! Wow!”

  To that exclamation, extracted by surprise, a frightful clamor responded from some of the spectators who had flocked to the edge of the lake. The mysterious artificers who had been burning all that multicolored powder in the air for half an hour had just set fire to the final piece. For the first time since the beginning of the firework display, a muffled sound of crackling detonations accompanied the conflagration of a large panel, in the center of which an individual with an energetic face was positioned, whose eyes were sheltered behind a lorgnette. Clad in a jacket, braced with a movement of authoritarian enthusiasm, he raised into the air a purple cushion ornament with golden tassels, on which lay a newborn child, already smiling, arms extended toward the cheering crowds. Two flags striped with red and blue, and decorated in one corner by a rain of stars, made up a symbolic group against an emphatic background of Americanism.

  “Heavens!” cried Saint-Denis. “Isn’t that a portrait of Monsieur Roosevelt? Is it possible that what we’re seeing is on the other side of the Atlantic?”

  As for me, I turned swiftly toward Sourbelle, who was standing behind us, his mouth wide open in admiration.

  “Let’s see,” I said to him. “Can you, who’ve just arrived from over there, explain to is what all this means? Why that child? What does that portrait of the president of the United States signify?”

  At first, the traveler with the green cloth cap did not seem to understand my question. Although he was mechanically lending an ear to our sporadic conversation, he was far from suspecting the extent of our conclusions.

  Finally, he stammered: “Damn! Wait, though…when I left New York, it seems me that I heard mention that Mrs. Longworth, the president’s daughter, was on the point….”27

  Saint-Denis did not let him finish.

  “I understand!” he cried. “Madame Longworth has given birth to a child, and it’s the birth of that child that is being celebrated with one of the most prodigious firework displays ever…this is coming from New York or Washington, and that image is being transmitted to us over a distance of twelve hundred leagues.”

  Meanwhile, the crowd of idlers was beginning to spread out in all directions along the edge of the lake, and commenting in their fashion on the abnormal apparition that had just immobilized several hundred milkmen, grocers, butchers and laundrymen, in that place for half an hour, mingled with housewives and maids on their way to markets and cyclists out for a spin.

  I felt my hand gripped. Saint-Denis drew me toward his house. While walking, he sighed.

  “Distance vanquished…the consequences of this are innumerable….”

  “What are we going to do now?” I asked him.

  By the glance full of flame that he darted at me, I understood that in his turn, he was in haste to reveal these prodigious events to the scientific world; then again, the proof had become too conclusive; individual hallucination had given way to collective, and the facts themselves were driving us.

  I sent Sourbelle away; his evidence had become superfluous. A few minutes later, in my old professor’s study, we began to draw up the definitive witness statement that it was a matter of communicating to the Institut without delay.

  The following day was Monday. That is the day when the Académie des Sciences holds its meetings.

  Before going to that eternally memorable session, Saint-Denis came to share our family dinner, to the great disturbance of Madame Forbe, who was obliged to bring her duties as mistress of the house into accord with her personal emotions. A telegram from her mother had confirmed the exactitude of her incendiary vision the previous evening; no stone remained atop another in the house in which my poor wife had been born.

  I had bemoaned that accident with her—about which I hastened to inform my master as soon as he arrived, by way of completing the experiment. The conversation was facilitated by that, since the subject thus responded to general preoccupations.

  V

  At exactly three o’clock we went into the session hall of the Académie des Sciences. Green banquettes were set out against the walls.

  “Sit down there,” my master said to me.

  In the form of a long rectangle, with its paintwork of fake ebony as if made with a comb, its bronze candelabra and its vast oval table cut lengthwise by smaller tables uniformly covered in old green cloth, it is not what the imagination would naturally evoke as a temple of science. Little idols are suspended from the walls in the form of busts, status and painted icons, eternalizing various cults. Buffon, Montesquieu and Louis David face Lagrange, Lavoisier and Jean Goujon; statures of Racine, Puget and La Fontaine furnish the corners, and that of Corneille, behind the presidential chair, dominates the debates.

  In sum, though, there was no solemnity and a great deal of bonhomie among the few visitors that I saw gathering, meeting and greeting one another, chatting and strolling from one table to another, generally careless of artifices of costume, remaining more faithful than one might expect to underwear that was not fresh, trousers that were too short and elastic-sided boots.

  Their voices, individually feeble, for
med a collective buzz insistent enough not to weaken at all when the president, taking his place between his permanent secretaries in front of the elevated table, said in an indifferent tone: “The session is open, Messieurs.”

  I was sitting beside two journalists, professional habitués of those little fêtes of which they published accounts in the daily newspapers. Mechanically, I listened to their conversation.

  “Who’s in the chair?” asked one.

  “Duvernier, the mathematician. He’s as deaf as a post. Look, there’s Bérard going up to him.”

  “Who’s Bérard?

  “The professor of botany—the little thin chap with the lorgnette, a full beard and eczema.”

  After a brief conference in a loud enough voice the president got to his feet and declared: “Messieurs, before giving the floor to the permanent secretary for the reading of the correspondence, I am pleased to welcome our eminent colleague from Baltimore, Mr. Hughes Mitchell, whom I am surprised to see among us, as we believed him to be retained far away by the professional demands of his course in mineralogy at Harvard University.”

  Having said that, Monsieur Duvernier turned to the right hand side of the hall, which was absolutely empty, and nodded his head three times, very affectionately, punctuating the gestures with a very graceful bow. Then he added: “The permanent secretary has the floor.”

  At the first words spoken by the president, a few heads turned in the indicated direction, trying to see the eminent Hughes Mitchell; not succeeding in doing so, a number of Academicians got up from their seats, and then sat down again, interrogating one another with their gazes, in the midst of a certain unease. Leaning toward one another they queried in whispers:

  “Where is he, then?”

  “Where indeed?”

  “Can you see anyone?”

  “But…there’s no one there.”

  Meanwhile, the voice of the permanent secretary was heard, no longer feeble and indifferent but authoritative and perfectly distinct. Raising his voice in order to make himself better understood, he leaned toward the president’s ear in such a fashion that everyone could hear what he was saying.

  “Excuse me, my dear President, but I believe that I ought to point out an error of identification, of which I’m sure you must be unaware. The person that you have mistaken for Mr. Hughes Mitchell is, in fact, our colleague from Berlin, Professor Hoch.”

  These words, which were supposed to remain secret, reached my ears very clearly and made me smile. Again, everyone turned toward the corner of the room indicated by the president and started searching for the person concerned, and the whispers recommenced.

  “Well…but….”

  “Can you see Hoch?”

  “No more than Mitchell.”

  Although neither of those illustrious individuals was familiar to me, at least in regard to their appearance, I had stood up and searched the empty part of the hall with my gaze in vain. When I turned round again, my eyes met those of Saint-Denis, who was on his feet. He gave me a knowing wink and applied a finger forcefully to his lips.

  I nearly uttered an exclamation. Moving around the tables, I drew closer to the elevated table, where a lively argument had put Monsieur Duvernier at odds with the botanist Bérard, whom he was accusing of having induced him to make a mistake. Then, suddenly, redirecting his gaze toward the back of the room, the president started smiling, raised his arms to the heavens helplessly while throwing his upper body backwards, and stood up again.

  “Messieurs,” he concluded, with an air of satisfaction, “I apologize for an omission and I have the pleasure of greeting, alongside Mr. Mitchell, our colleague from Berlin, Professor Hoch, whom I did not see come in.”

  In order to emphasize his apology, Monsieur Duvernier, without any solemnity, strode across the room, heading toward the table that remained obstinately empty so far as the rest of us were concerned. He was then seen to pause successively in front of two chairs on which no one was seated, extend his arm and exchange two exceedingly cordial handshakes with invisible colleagues.

  After that, he came back to sit down in his armchair, and the permanent secretary, after having addressed two smiles and amiable nods of the head to the empty corner, began to read the correspondence.

  Little attention was paid to the formal statement. How can one describe the welcome given to the reading of the correspondence? Turned to one another, in pairs and in groups, the members of the audience, preoccupied by the strange incident that had just occurred, were agitating in contradictory movements, in which amazement was manifest in interjections and various gestures. Glances were cast at President Duvernier, the permanent secretary—an illustrious and venerable chemist—and the botanist Bérard, and people were tapping their foreheads in a pitying and very expressive fashion.

  From the place where I was sitting I had a perfect view of the whole scene, and I could follow all the various and changing movements. After a few minutes, I saw several of the audience members, who had not ceased to observe the hall, suspend their mimes and, suddenly serious, lean toward one another hesitantly. I heard murmurs all around me:

  “However…my dear colleague….”

  “On looking harder….”

  “Isn’t that…?”

  “But yes…that really is Hoch. I recognize him—I met him in Turin at the tuberculosis conference.”

  “He’s not alone—who’s that sitting next to him?”

  “Do you know Hughes Mitchell?”

  “No.”

  “I know him, and I saw him almost immediately. He’s that little old fellow, clean shaven and fat, with the exceedingly red face.”

  And even I, after having stared ardently at their empty seats, ended up seeing them, those men I did not know at all, and whom everyone now condescended to see in their places, motionless and serious, in a silence of which I measured the impressive grandeur. I looked at Saint-Denis again, and saw him get up, very pale, and slowly advance toward the presidential table, where the reading of the scientific communications was continuing, unheeded by all.

  Step by step, Saint-Denis had drawn closer. Taking advantage of a pause, during which the permanent secretary, tired of reading in the midst of general inattention, took a sip of water to clear his throat, the philosopher extended his hand, signaling that he wanted to speak.

  “Monsieur le Président, he said, in a voice that was slightly tremulous. “Excuse me for interrupting the order of the day, but the communication that I desire to make is of such immediate interest…Hoch! Hoch, my dear fellow, why are you leaving?”

  Hurrying toward the place where everyone had ended up observing the visible presence of the great German entomologist, Saint-Denis, stammering, stopped half way and turned to the audience with a desolate expression.

  Then, in a loud voice, he said: “Messieurs, please respond without hesitation: Can any of you still see our colleague Hoch on that chair or anywhere in the room?”

  Standing up and looking hard, the Academicians inspected the hall. They ended up looking at one another anxiously, shaking their heads negatively, and a few of them summed up the general sentiment by saying aloud:

  “There’s no longer anyone there.”

  Satisfied and tranquil, in the midst of the general excitement, Saint-Denis resumed walking toward the corner where Professor Hoch had just mysteriously disappeared.

  Having arrived at the extremity of the vast oval table, at the place where it curved and rounded ours, he stopped, and turned toward the audience again, the members of which were following his movements curiously.

  “Messieurs,” he went on, “please observe what I am about to do, and forgive the rudeness of the proof that I am going to attempt, but in sum, tell me whether it would be possible if that chair were occupied by a real person. Everyone observes the presence in the chair of Mr. Hughes Mitchell? Good. Watch, Messieurs.”

  Sitting down casually on the celebrated mineralogist from Harvard University, whose face was illuminate by a smil
e full of good grace, Saint-Denis placed himself on the chair, through the visible image and, after standing up, let himself down again, in such a manner as to make the proof quite evident. As he was almost equal in stoutness to the illusory Hughes Mitchell, he hid the image momentarily, but such was the luminous strength of the apparition that in a matter of seconds, the specter had penetrated the sensible form of my old master and had entirely substituted itself—with the result that while the voice of Saint-Denis was speaking, it was the upper body of Hughes Mitchell alone that was visible on the chair.

  “Messieurs,” said the professor of psychotrity, “is it not obvious that if Mr. Mitchell were really in this chair, I could doubtless sit down on him, but not directly upon the chair, as you have just seen me do?”

  A deathly silence hung over the assembly; one might have thought that curiosity had been vanquished by terror. Only the permanent secretary dared to speak. He leaned over toward the president and, pointing his finger at Mr. Hughes Mitchell, he cried, in order to take him as a witness: “After all, you shook his hand!”

  His attitude and the tone of his voice seemed still to suspect the general evidence, and what he could see with his own eyes.

  It was Saint-Denis who replied.

  “I am ready, Monsieur Permanent Secretary, to furnish the Académie, for want of a scientific explanation, a proof of the perfect possibility of such abnormal facts. But let’s proceed in order. There are, on this side of the room, the…appearances of six of our colleagues, who are, if I’m not mistaken, Messieurs Mitchell, of Baltimore; Helms, of Munich; Rockstritt, of Boston, habitually distant from us; Lenfant, Boullage and Bellecombe. Can you see them as I do?

  “We can see them perfectly,” said the permanent secretary. “I don’t contest it.”

  “Good. Messieurs Mitchell, Helms, Rockstritt, Lenfant, Boullage and Bellecombe, can you also see us?”