Doctor Lerne

by Maurice Renard

  The cavern opened in the flank of the wall like a prodigious gaping mouth. In the course of an ancient avalanche, cyclopean blocks of stone had rolled further forward than the rest and were strewn around the clearing, deeply embedded.

  With lighted torches, all of us—including Saurien—went into the bosom of the lava, beneath a high and tortuous vault.

  “Observe that the declivity of the terrain persists,” Gambertin said to me. “We’re still walking on the bed of the ancient sea, rising gently toward the shore like a funnel. By chance, the rocks have left voids beneath their accumulation. We’re in one of those voids, and these corridors, which give entry hereabouts to every level of the walls, are also unfilled interstices.”

  We arrived in an immense circular space, the ground of which was partly excavated. Several black holes pierced in the surrounding wall were evidence of as many subterranean ramifications.

  “Watch out for the ditches!” Gambertin recommended.

  When I had made a tour of the crossroads, it was impossible for me to recognize the fissure through which I had arrived with my guides. It was necessary for someone to point it out to me.

  “It’s here that I’m digging,” Gambertin announced. “Once again, watch out for the trenches.”

  “I was more hopeful of your grotto,” I said, mopping my brow. “Coolness isn’t its dominant virtue. One might think we were still in the woods.”

  “Well, you can assume that in these volcanic regions, the internal fire is rather close to the surface—and we’re not exactly doing what’s necessary to get away from it. We’re heading toward it…or, at least, toward the chimney of the sealed crater. Damn! But don’t be afraid—more than fifty kilometers separates us from that.” After a pause he added: “This chamber marks the extreme limit of the Jurassic terrain, and the galleries opposite to the one that brought us extend inwards horizontally. They must run along the ancient schist beach.”

  “You haven’t explored them, then?” I asked.

  “What for? Schist underfoot, lava all around—it’s sterile matter.”

  My timidity risked the shadow of a fissure. The unknown brushed me with its tenebrous robe; the entrance to that virginal darkness teased me madly; I imagined phantasmagorias within, and my hair stood up on my scalp.

  “Be quiet,” I said, in a low voice. “I can hear…a sound…I can hear a stream…very small, or a considerable distance away…”

  “I know,” said Gambertin. “It’s a rather banal phenomenon. Where do you think springs come from? Come on, dreamer—to work!”

  The work satisfied my need for activity. I grabbed a spade, maneuvering it as best I could, and soon became indifferent to surrounding threats: all those entrances open to conjecture, which might, after all, serve as exits…although—rationally speaking—what could possibly have come out of them? So I dug zealously, while listening to Gambertin.

  “Follow my guidelines,” he said. “That bone, a fragment of which you see buried in the ground, is an indication of a large skeleton. For my part, I can see one side of it here. First we’re going to isolate the cube of earth in which the entire animal is contained; then, without breaking the fossil, we’ll divide the cube into numbered clods, capable of being transported one by one on the cart. At home, the mass will be reconstituted in its integrity as the parts arrive. We’ll still have to scrape away the envelope to lay bare the fragile bones. In order to avoid pulverizing them, we’ll coat them with whale-blubber as soon as they appear. It’s not very difficult.”

  Without interrupting his lecture, Gambertin set about digging with mole-like impetuousness. His thin form was distorted by the torchlight into that of a gnome. His shiny pince-nez reflected fiery glints.

  “What is it?”

  “You’ve brought me luck. We’re dealing with a pterodactyl, with a fine wingspan! I was afraid it might be another iguanodon.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’m not looking to possess more than one representative of the species, and this corner is overflowing with iguanodons. In my opinion, an entire family fleeing the eruption must have gone into a treacherous zone of the marsh and become bogged down there, as at Bernissart.”7

  “Good for the ptero…what’s-it’s-name,” I gasped, between two thrusts. “What’s that beastie?”

  “What? You’re starting to bluster now.”

  “Me? Have I been trembling, then, to your knowledge?”

  “It’s all right—don’t fight it; I’ve been through it myself. As for the pterodactyl, it’s the first flying creature: an aerial saurian, a slender iguanodon and a forerunner of bats, which will give you some nice surprises.”

  “Tell me more…”

  “Bah! Let’s get on with it. The less time you waste, the sooner you’ll be informed…”

  We returned to the cavern 30 days running, until May 12 or thereabouts. When the work was interrupted, it was only two-thirds complete. This is why.

  The heat grew steadily worse. Even the night air was scorching. The daily journey thus became exhausting, and the starving Saurien turned into the specter of the Apocalypse. On the other hand, the interior of the cave was no longer bearable; the temperature there also rose day by day, even more quickly than outside, and the reigning humidity was insupportable.

  Gambertin remained calm. He explained the fact by a renewal of effervescence of matter in ignition, the anodyne fury of a senile volcano. Indeed, as one advanced through the corridors of lava and schist, one could feel the atmosphere heating up with every step. Once, brandishing a torch I ventured into one quite deliberately, resolved to explore it as far as the first branch, when a muffled rumble of thunder forced me to retreat. Deep down, I was not sorry to have the excuse.

  “Did you hear the storm?” I asked.

  “Yes—it will refresh us very nicely.”

  As Gambertin said that, a sequence of rumbles extended. The peasants laughed with pleasure at the thought that the ruinous drought was about to end and, as a sign of contentment, thumped one another on the head, all shouting at the same time. We could not do otherwise than abandon work in order to go partake of a little rain.

  None was falling, and there was not a cloud gliding in the violet-blue sky. The dry, still air cooked the lungs. A further groan, scarcely perceptible, reached our ears through the orifice of the lair, and then it seemed to me that a wave passed beneath my feet. I shuddered. The others executed similar somersaults as if on command.

  Still impassive, Gambertin proclaimed: “Earthquake!”

  I never saw the four peasants again. They fled as fast as their legs could carry them—and yet, that insignificant tremor was not to be renewed.

  For a week, Gambertin, Thomas and I returned courageously to the grotto. As the subterranean temperature was now excessively high, however, we took the decision to wait until it decreased and to get busy, in the meantime on the compsognathus.

  Well, I admit it; I envisaged that as a deliverance.

  IV.

  A month went by, peaceful for us, without any incident that is not familiar to everyone. June strung out its days, murderous by virtue of being sunny. The heat took on the proportions of a scourge. Everyone was choking. In the parched and dusty fields work shut down, all labor being as impossible as it was futile. The obstinate were felled by sunstroke; there were cases of madness; it was said that even the miserable brains of the livestock were becoming unhinged. Shade was at a premium; the herds of swine now came to forage the moss in the woods, and the general calamity gave birth to a certain animation around Les Ormes.

  The compsognathus took shape, but the orangery, exposed to the sun’s glare, rapidly became uninhabitable, and we were obliged to cease all activity. Idleness was sovereign—manual idleness, at least, for Gambertin was still educating me and we read treatises on paleontology together in the depths of the library, with the windows, shutters and curtains closed, by lamplight. We even went so far, at the height of summer, as to descend into the cellars
.

  In the evenings, we went out. At dusk, there was an interval of relative coolness; and we took rapid advantage of it, the heat becoming severe all night long as soon as the transition was complete. We encountered a few rare strollers then, who were likewise savoring that respite. Many snakes imprudently came out of their crevices, and eagles soared overhead, having come far in search of a little water; thirst gave them back the forgotten insolence necessary to come near human beings.

  That wasn’t all. A fiery wind began to blow—a devastating sirocco.

  The country folk began to pray incessantly then, convinced that the end of the world had been ordained by a cataclysm inverse to the Deluge.

  Thomas, ever incredulous, limited himself to watering the debris of the park dutifully. In spite of the blinding assault of the solar radiation, he pumped away intrepidly, as it became less and less abundant, at the water that a tap in the orangery wall poured out into its basin. One morning, he came into the library, his face anxious. I was now familiar with his dialect, and I shall translate it.

  “Monsieur,” he said to Gambertin, “the disaster is complete. Now we have the locusts!” He clenched his teeth. “Oh, the thieves! They’ve eaten my most beautiful catalpa!”

  “Go take a look, if you want to, Dupont,” said my host. “For myself, I’ll stay in the cool.”

  The slightest detail of rustic life has its attraction for a city-dweller. I followed Thomas.

  The tree retained no more than a bouquet of its formerly-luxuriant foliage, the leaves highest from the ground. Of others one could still see the principal rib, pointing like a pitiful green bristle. The branches resembled the bones of a fish.

  “Why did they leave those?” Didymus repeated. “The bitches! Why didn’t they devour the lot, the sluts?”

  The disaster offered nothing that could retain me for long. I went back in.

  “Well?” said Gambertin.

  “Well,” I replied, “the park is a Turkish bath, but what a superb spectacle! That Oriental azure, that air which caresses you like a feverish creature! It’s palpable, that air; it’s visible too and vibrates before the eyes…one sees it shimmering with waves of emotion. One might think, Gambertin, that an immense hidden harp were making it tremble in its entirety—a harp whose music is too low-pitched to be perceptible.”

  “La la la! A fine speech in the mouth of a paleontologist! You were born to make an excellent negro, or rather a perfect dinosaur—that’s all that proves.”

  “What?”

  “I shan’t say it again. The centigrade thermometer stands at 50 degrees. The climate we’re enjoying is, therefore, that of the torrid zone and of the Secondary period—for, in that period, the present temperature of the equator extended over the entire surface of the globe, without any alternation of seasons. What would you have said then, in the midst of titanic forests of ferns and araucarias, lost beneath a mushroom as beneath the dome of Les Invalides? It’s true that the Sun, still nebulous, illuminated landscapes less clearly, and it’s true that it was partially veiled by water vapor—but what a crushing enormity it would have been, all the same, to sing its praises like you. Prideful man sagely made his appearance later! Can you see me as a freak among the pygmies, sneaking through those forests? We would have been the aphids of those ferns!”

  He was letting off steam. I took infinite pleasure in hearing him talk, with the result that we gave no more thought to the locusts for the time being.

  The insects continued their misdeeds with despairing regularity and a bizarre method. In ten nights, as many catalpas were deprived of their lower leaves, but every time, the damage extended slightly higher, and the 11th tree—they were very nearly the same height—was stripped bare.

  Intrigued by these facts, Gambertin finally decided to cross the scorched lawn to observe them for himself. After a few minutes of reflection, he said: “It must be a species of cricket that arrived from Africa with the sirocco. The little lateral ribs have been eaten, which is odd…as are the tufts that they left, but aren’t leaving any longer…and the nocturnal activity. It’s necessary to tackle it wholeheartedly, Dupont. Tonight, we’ll lie in ambush, to settle it once and for all.”

  I dared not refuse, but, in my opinion, Les Ormes were too often the theater of abnormal scenes. One didn’t find the security necessary to good digestion there, and I would gladly have left. Courtesy alone retained me.

  “All right,” I said. “We’ll spy on the crickets.”

  “Poor leaves,” Gambertin continued. “Poor defenseless leaves…”

  “You wouldn’t want them to be armed from top to toe,” I said, forcing a laugh.

  “They are, my friend; they bristle with claws, and when a reckless insect settles upon one, the claws grip and the leaf eats it.”

  “No!”

  “There, again, is of Nature’s trials—a model which, after experimentation, she decided it would be as well not to generalize.”

  “What? A carnivorous plant?”

  “Remember, Dupont, that organic entities originate from a single maternal matter, from which we all descend, you as well as that sprig of moss. We and they are separated today by colossal but measurable distances, and your respective antecedents, at a contemporary stage, were less differentiated one from another the closer they were to the original ancestor…”

  “The jelly,” I said, disgustedly. “The jam…”

  “Yes, the protoplasm.”

  I was about to make a few observations, but Thomas came running toward us. “Monsieur,” he said, tremulously, “the old cistern in the farm is empty. I tried to draw water from it just now, because my well ran dry this morning. Not a drop of water!”

  “Well, it’s the heat…”

  “Monsieur, it was full to the brim last week. There’s no sun capable of emptying such a basin in a week! Especially as it’s in the shade after midday.”

  I tried to make a joke, saying without conviction: “Perhaps it’s the crickets…”

  Gambertin shrugged his shoulders, though. “I tell you it’s the heat.” Then he went back to the château.

  The cistern was, indeed, reduced to a vast rectangular ditch carpeted with aquatic algae. At the bottom, frogs were hopping around in viscous mud. I was going away to get back to the shade when a whinnying attracted my attention to the stable. The unfortunate Saurien hardly ever came out any longer, since the suspension of the excavations. I went to stroke him. He had the mattered hair of a horse that has just completed a long run, and I strongly suspected Thomas of neglecting his grooming.

  I raised the matter frankly with Master Jacques. “Monsieur,” he replied, “my Saurien has not been in harness for a long time, and he’s better cared-for than a child. If he’s still thin, it’s because he doesn’t put on weight, for he has ample rations. Do you know, though—perhaps it’s the fault of the heat again—every time I take him his first truss of hay in the morning, I find him like that, covered in sweat.”

  “When we were leaving for the cavern, though,” I said, “it was very early, and the horse hadn’t a moist hair, in spite of the temperature…”

  “No—it only started happening a week ago.”

  “A week!” I cried. “But what’s been happening here this last week?”

  I’ve seen horrible things in my time, but I don’t remember ever shaking with fear as I did then. Something was wrong. I could no longer suppose otherwise. That coincidence of duration linked together incidents without any apparent connection, but nevertheless offering one common factor: strangeness. They had to constitute effects of the same cause. What was it? And could that cause be anything other than extraordinary itself?

  For God’s sake, what was happening?

  I remembered the crickets. It was necessary to catch them at their dark work, at all costs.

  While the day passed slowly, anxiety took hold of me and I was unable to remain sitting next to Gambertin. I wandered feverishly around the château, mulling over the most implausible hy
potheses. Everyone who has been forced to wait for a vital response will understand my state of mind. An imminent and mysterious condemnation was hanging over us, and I could not have trembled any more.

  Dinner was silent. Gambertin didn’t succeed in pulling me out of my preoccupation. I longed for nightfall with all my heart, hoping that it would give us the solution to the enigma. We hadn’t been at table for ten minutes when Madame Thomas was already serving the cheese.

  At that moment, a distant noise made me prick up my ears. Gambertin looked at me. The noise started again—the poignant appeal of the wheels of a railway-carriage as they grind on the rails when taking a bend too rapidly.

  “You’re very pale, Dupont—are you ill?”

  “The…that noise. Where’s it coming from? Can one possibly make out the noise of trains from here?”

  “Oh, calm down, my dear Dupont—you have the nervous system of a young bride! Perhaps…yes, perhaps, if the wind is blowing from the station…a whistle-blast. How do I know? The plain is full of more-or-less noisy enterprises.”

  “It came from the mountains, I’m certain of it. I could have mistaken it for the echo of a train, but…”

  “Pull yourself together, you poltroon. Drink a glass of unadulterated wine and shut up.”

  Three hours later, the luminous night found us crouched on the edge of a thicket, not far from the catalpas that were still intact. In the open air, one would have thought one was in an oven. Our eyes never left the sky, watching out for the arrival of crickets. The stars were twinkling competitively.

  We chatted in whispers. Gambertin told me that the heat was continuing its ravages; it had caused the loss of several pigs. Whether the sun had injured their brains or the forest had tempted them to the vagaries of feral existence, some of them had not returned to their sties at nightfall. Moreover, shortages were beginning to make themselves felt and famine was inevitable in the winter.

  In spite of this conversation, we felt the torpor of the summer night numbing us. The crickets were not showing themselves, but the stars were hypnotizing us.