It was a diary crammed with notes and hasty diagrams sketched in pencil. It appeared to be the day-by-day record of some research project: a laboratory journal. The figures held no significance for my eyes. The text consisted mostly of German words, with some French ones, one or other language being chosen at the hazard of inspiration. The whole told me nothing. However, under the previous day’s date, a piece of writing less chaotic than the others was displayed, which I thought I recognized as a summary of the preceding pages.
The meanings of some French words, and the sense they acquired when put together awoke in me, at a stroke, the incurable detective and a newborn linguist. These substantives, linked to one another by Teutonic words, were: transmission, thought, electricity, brains, and piles.
By means of a dictionary lifted from my uncle’s room, I deciphered the quasi-cryptogram, in which, luckily, the same expressions recurred frequently. A translation follows; I reproduce it for what it may be worth, unskilled as I am in such tasks, and impelled to haste as I was by the necessity of returning the notebook as soon as possible.
CONCLUSIONS AS OF THE 30TH
Goal pursued: the exchange of personalities without the exchange of brains.
Basis of research: old experiments have proved that everybody possesses a soul. For the soul and life are inseparable, and all organisms, between their birth and their death, enjoy a more-or-less developed soul, according to whether they are themselves more-or-less organized. Thus, between humans and mosses, passing through polyps, every living being has its own soul. Do plants not sleep, breathe, digest? Why should they not think?
This demonstrates that there is a soul even where there is no brain. Thus, the soul and the brain are independent of one another. In consequence, souls must be capable of being exchanged without the transposition of brains.
EXPERIMENTS IN TRANSMISSION
Thought is the electricity of which our brains are the piles, or the accumulators—I don’t know that yet, but what is certain is that the transmission of the mental fluid works in a fashion analogous to that of the electric fluid.
The experiment of the 4th proves that thought can be transmitted through conductors, that of the 10th that it is transmitted without conductors on etheric waves.
The experiments that have followed indicate the defect that I describe here.
A soul that is projected into an organism unknown to the latter compresses, so to speak, the soul that is already there without being able to expel it, and the projected soul-soul removed from its body—remains inexplicably connected to its own organism by some sort of mental pedicle, which nothing, thus far, has been able to sever.
If the two beings are consenting, the reciprocal transmission fails for the same reason. The major part of each soul installs itself securely in the organism of its partner, but the troublesome mental pedicle prevents each of them from completely quitting the body from which it is attempting to detach itself.
The simpler the destination organism is, relative to the projecting organism, the easier it is for the latter to enter into the receptacle, whose previous contents are so slight, and the pedicle connecting it to the projecting body is, so to speak, thinner—but it still exists.
On the 20th, I introduced myself mentally into Johann’s body. On the 22nd I incarnated myself within a cat, on the 24th, an ash-tree. Access became easier each time, the invasion increasingly complete, but the pedicle remains.
I thought that an experiment on a cadaver might succeed, because no inconvenient fluid would already be present in the recipient to be filled. I had not considered the fact that death is incompatible with the soul, the inseparable companion of life itself. The result was unsatisfactory, and the sensation abominable.
Theoretically, what is required for the pedicle to be destroyed? A destination organism that has no soul at all—in order that one can lodge one’s own soul there entire—but which is not dead; in other words, an organized body that has never been alive. That’s impossible.
Thus, in practical terms, our efforts must be devoted to the destruction of the pedicle by means of some indirect expedient that I have yet to perceive…
Not that the experiments of this period haven’t yielded interesting results, since we’ve made the following observations.
Firstly, the human brain discharges itself almost entirely into that of a plant.
Secondly, between humans, with mutual consent, an almost complete transfer of personalities is effected, apart from the matter of the pedicle, which makes the souls siblings of a sort: mental Siamese twins…
Thirdly, between humans, without mutual consent, the subsidence of the destination soul under the pressure of the other produces, in spite of the imperfection of the procedure, a partial and temporary avatar of the projecting individual—a very interesting avatar, for it already satisfies some of the criteria of desirability that need to be fully satisfied if I’m to attain the envisaged goal.
It seems inaccessible.
This, therefore, was the aim of the universal studies that my uncle had extolled so extravagantly!
The theory was disconcerting. I should have been dumbfounded. There was a curious tendency to spiritualism therein, anomalous in a materialist like Lerne, and the new doctrine was presented in such a phantasmagoric light that it would have made many a learned eye widen behind its spectacle lens, erudite pince-nez or peremptory monocle. As for me, I did not discover all the subjects for admiration therein immediately, being still slightly unwell at the time. Nor did I realize that I had translated a Franco-German mene mene tekel upharsin relevant to myself.41 My attention was concentrated on two facts: that the organized being that had never been alive did not exist and that, on the other hand, the professor doubted that he would be able to destroy the pedicle. Thus, he had failed. Given his former prowess, I expected all kinds of miracles on his part; one thing alone could astonish me: his impotence.
I went in search of my uncle in order to return his notebook. I ran into Barbe, her bosom bulging over her belly, who told me that he had gone for a walk in the grounds. I did not find him there, but I saw Karl and Wilhelm on the edge of the pool, gazing at something in the water. I had conceived an aversion for the two rascals because of their interchanged brains; their presence usually caused me to draw away, but on that day, I was curious to see what they were looking at from the water’s edge.
The thing that they were looking at leapt out of the water, with a splash of diamond droplets; it was a carp. It shook its fins as it leapt up, beating the air as if they were wings. One might have thought that it was trying to fly away….
The unfortunate creature! It really was trying to do that! I had before me the fish that Lerne had endowed with the soul of a blackbird. The captive bird, prey within its scaly flesh to the aspirations of its original species, and weary of its blue diet, was launching itself toward the impossible heavens.
Finally, in consequence of a more desperate leap, the animal fell on the bank, its gills panting. Then Wilhelm seized it, and the assistants drew away with their catch. They were abusing it and amusing themselves with it like grown-up guttersnipes, whistling a parodic version of the blackbird’s song. Then, in the guise of laughter, a loud whinny emerged from their throats, and, without being aware of it, they rendered a imitation of a horse’s call much better than that of the winged flute.
I stayed there, thoughtfully contemplating the pond: that liquid cage in which the enchanted monster had suffered haunting dreams of flight and nostalgia for the nest. The fluid sheet, momentarily disturbed by its bounding fury, would only have resumed its dull flatness when the creature was dead. Its martyrdom would end in the frying-pan. How would that of the other victims end? The animals that had escaped…and MacBell? Oh, MacBell! How might he be saved?
The final ripple extended its circle on the calm, torpid water, and the abysm of the firmament was hollowed out in its reconstituted mirror. The evening star was shining in its utmost depths, millions of leagues away
…but it was sufficient to make the effort to imagine, on the contrary, that it was floating on the surface. And the variously-shaped foliage of the water-lilies—circles, semicircles and crescents—seemed to be reflections of the moon in its successive phases, which had remained there, trapped in the sleep-frozen water.
MacBell! I thought, again. What can be done for MacBell?
At that moment the bell at the distant front gate rang. Someone calling at this hour! A visitor? No one ever came…
I went back to the château at a run, asking myself for the first time what would become of Nicolas Vermont if agents of the law mounted a raid on Fonval.
Hidden behind the corner of the château, I peeped out. Lerne was standing in the doorway, reading a telegram he had just received. I came out of hiding.
“Look, uncle,” I said, “here’s a notebook that belongs to you, I think. You left it in the automobile.”
The rustle of petticoats caused me to turn my head. Emma was coming toward us, utterly radiant in the light of the setting sun, from which her hair seemed to draw a new provision of red gleams every evening. She came with a tune on her lips, like a rose between her teeth, and her lithe step was almost a dance. The sound of the bell had intrigued her too. She asked about the telegram.
The professor made no reply.
“Oh, what’s the matter?” she said. “My God, what is it now?”
“Is it really so serious, uncle?” I asked in my turn.
“No,” Lerne replied. “Donovan’s dead, that’s all.”
“Poor chap!” said Emma. Then, after a pause, she added: “But isn’t it better to be dead than mad? It might be for the best, after all. Come on, Nicolas, don’t make faces like that…come here!”
She took my hand and drew me toward the château. Lerne went off in another direction.
I was devastated. “Let go of me! Let go of me!” I cried, all of a sudden. “It’s too horrible! Donovan! The poor wretch! You don’t understand, you can’t understand…just leave me alone!”
A frightful dread had overtaken me. Having got free of Emma, I ran after my uncle and caught him up at the entrance to the laboratory. He was talking to Johann and showing him the telegram. The German disappeared into the house just as I accosted the professor.
“Uncle, you haven’t told him anything, have you? Anything at all—to Johann?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh! But he’ll repeat it to the others. He’ll tell them that MacBell is dead…and Nelly will know, uncle! That’s certain! They’ll tell her. Oh, you have to understand me: Donovan’s soul will learn that it no longer has a human body! It mustn’t! It mustn’t!”
With irritating calmness, my uncle said: “There’s no danger, Nicolas. I guarantee that.”
“No danger? Is that what you think? These men are scoundrels; they’ll spill the beans, I tell you. Let me avert…the risk…time’s passing…let me in, I beg you! Please! Let me in…just for a moment…I beg you. Damn it, I’m coming in!”
I took advantage of lessons learned from the bull; I charged, head down. Butted in the stomach, my uncle fell flat in the grass, and I opened the door, which stood ajar, with a blow of my fist. The worthy Johann, who was on watch behind it, collapsed with a bloody nose. Then I went into the courtyard, firmly decided to take the bitch away, whatever the cost, and never to be separated from her again.
The pack piled into the kennels. I saw Nelly immediately. She had been given a separate kennel. Her huge, emaciated, hairless, pitiful body was lying alongside the fence.
“Donovan!” I called.
She did not move. The dogs; eyes gleamed in the depths of their dark hovels. A few growled.
“Donovan! Nelly!”
Nothing.
I had an intuition of the truth. Here, too, the grim reaper had plied his scythe.
Yes. Nelly was cold and stiff. A chain, twisted around her neck, seemed to have strangled her. I was about to make sure of it when Lerne and Johann appeared on the threshold of the courtyard.
“Brigands!” I cried. “You’ve killed her!”
“No—on my honor, I swear it!” my uncle declared. “She was found this morning, exactly as you see her.”
“Do you think, then, that she did it deliberately? That she has killed herself? Oh, what a horrible end!”
“Perhaps,” said Lerne. “There’s another possibility, though, that’s more likely. In my opinion, it was a final convulsion that twisted the chain. The body was very ill. Hydrophobia became manifest several days ago. I’m not hiding anything from you, Nicolas; I’m not exonerating myself in any way—you can see that.”
“Oh,” I murmured, fearfully. “Rabies!”
Calmly, Lerne continued: “There might also be another cause of death that we don’t know. The bitch was found at 8 a.m., still warm. Death must have taken place about an hour earlier…” The professor consulted the telegram, and added: “And MacBell died at 7 a.m., at exactly the same instant.”42
“Of what?” I said, in a choked voice. “Of what did he die?”
“Of rabies, likewise.”
XIII. Experiments? Hallucinations?
Emma, Lerne and I were in the small drawing-room after lunch when the professor had a dizzy spell.
It wasn’t the first time; I’d already noticed similar disturbances in my uncle’s health—but this one was clearly characterized. I was able to observe all its details, and the bizarre symptoms accompanying it. That’s the main reason why I mention it.
A witness who was not forewarned would have attributed these accidents to intellectual stress. In truth, my uncle had been overworking. The laboratory, the greenhouse and the château, were no longer sufficient for him; he had annexed the grounds too. Now, all Fonval was bristling with complicated poles, abnormal masts and unusual semaphore-towers. When some trees hindered his experiments, a crew of woodcutters was commandeered in order to fell them. The joy of seeing freedom of circulation restored to the property consoled me in respect of this sacrilegious act.
The professor was seen moving feverishly back and forth through the basin, now an immense workshop, from one building to another, from one machine to another, doggedly determined to destroy the fatal pedicle. Sometimes, however, he weakened, under the influence of one of these exceedingly peculiar fits of dizziness to which he was subject.
The attacks always occurred while he was thinking deeply, his eyes fixed on some object, while his brain was fully active. He would then become paler and paler…until the color gradually came back into his cheeks of its own accord. These crises left him devoid of energy and strength. They robbed him of his sturdy confidence, and I heard him complaining after one of them, murmuring in a discouraged tone: “I’ll never get there—never, never, never!” I had often been on the point of speaking to him about it; that day I made up my mind to do so.
We were drinking coffee. Lerne was sitting in an armchair by the window, with his cup in his hand. We were chatting, in an increasingly desultory fashion. For want of any worthy subject, the conversation languished; little by little, it died away, like a fire going out for lack of fuel.
The clock chimed, and we saw the woodcutters going past on their way to work, their axes on their shoulders. I imagined the as ragged but stern lictors, on their way to arrange the execution of the trees.43 Which of my old comrades would perish today? That beech? That chestnut? I could see them from the window, laden with all the blond shades of autumn, from the deepest copper to the palest gold, each one displaying its patches of brown or russet among the variegation of all those yellows. The fir-trees were getting blacker. Leaves were falling of their own accord, for there was no wind.
The leafless summit of a colossal poplar loomed above the crowns like a cathedral spire. I had always know it thus—monumental—and its contemplating stirred up my childhood memories. A panicked flock of small birds suddenly burst forth from it. Two crows flew away, croaking. A squirrel leapt from branch to branch, taking refuge in a neighboring walnut
tree. Some stinking beast, climbing up the tree, had doubtless frightened them. I could not make it out; besides, a clump of bushes concealed the lower part of the poplar from me. I was painfully surprised, though, to see it shudder from top to bottom and shake once or twice, slowly swaying its branches. One might have thought that a wind had risen, blowing for it alone.
I thought about the woodcutters, without forming a very clear impression of the role they might be playing in the drama. Has my uncle, I wondered, ordered them to execute the poplar—that venerable patriarch, the king of Fonval? That would be too much! And it was then, wanting to ask Lerne about it, that I perceived that he had fainted.
Immobility, pallor, fixity of gaze—I verified the distinctive signs of his illness, and succeeded in determining that he was staring with somnambulistic persistence. Now, what he was staring at was the poplar, that animated tree, whose present appearance was so frighteningly reminiscent of the amorous or battling date-trees in the greenhouse. I remembered the notebook. Might there not be some significant connection between the absence of the man and the life of the tree?
Suddenly, the sound of an axe on a trunk rang out dully. The poplar shuddered, twisted…and my uncle started. He dropped his cup, which broke on the floor-tiles, and while his cheeks regained their color, he quickly reached down to his ankles, as if the axe had struck the man and the tree with the same stroke.
Lerne gradually recover, however. I pretended that I hadn’t seen anything, except for his fainting, and I told him that I he should take better care of himself, or these repeated fits would end up laying him low. I asked him if he knew what caused them. My uncle nodded his head. Emma was fussing his armchair.
“I know,” he said, eventually. “Palpitations… syncopes… cardiac problems… I’m treating them.”
Doctor Lerne Page 25
