Scientific Romance

by Brian Stableford

  “Now, to fuse these three propositions into one: suppose that I take a man, and, by removing the brain that enshrines all the errors and failures of his ancestors away back to the origin of the race, remove all sources of weakness in is future career. Suppose that, in place of the fallible intellect that I have removed, I endow him with an artificial intellect that operates with the certainty of universal laws. Suppose that I launch this superior being, who reasons truly, into the hurly burly of his inferiors, who reason falsely, and await the inevitable result with the tranquility of a philosopher.

  “Monsieur, you have my secret. That is precisely what I have done. In Moscow, where my friend Dr. Duchat had charge of the new institution of St. Vasili for hopeless idiots, I found a boy of eleven whom they called Stepan Borovitch. Since he was born he had not seen, heard, spoken or thought. Nature had granted him, it was believed, a fraction of a sense of smell, and perhaps a fraction of the sense of taste, but even of this there was no positive ascertainment. Nature had walled in his soul most effectually. Occasional inarticulate murmurings, and an incessant knitting and kneading of the fingers were his only manifestations of energy. On bright days they would place him in a little rocking-chair, in some spot where the sun fell warm, and he would rock to and fro for hours, working his slender fingers and mumbling forth his satisfaction at the warmth in the plaintive and unvarying refrain of idiocy. The boy was thus situated when I first saw him.

  “I begged Stepan Borovitch of my good friend Dr. Duchat. If that excellent man had not long since died he should have shared in my triumph. I took Stepan to my home and plied the saw and the knife. I could operate on that poor, worthless, hopeless travesty of humanity as fearlessly and as recklessly as upon a dog bought or caught for vivisection. That was a little more than twenty years ago. To-day Stepan Borovitch wields more power than any other man on the face of the earth. In ten years he will be the aristocrat of Europe, the master of the world. He never errs, for the machine that reasons beneath his silver skull never makes a mistake.”

  Fisher pointed downwards at the old custodian of the tower, who was seen toiling up the hill.

  “Dreamers,” continued Dr. Rapperschwyll, “have speculated on the possibility of finding among the ruins of the older civilization some brief inscription which shall change the foundations of human knowledge. Wiser men deride the dream, and laugh at the idea of scientific kabbala. The wiser men are fools. Suppose that Aristotle had discovered on a cuneiform tablet at Nineveh the few words survival of the fittest. Philosophy would have gained twenty-two hundred years. I will give you, in almost as few words, a truth equally pregnant. The ultimate evolution of the creature into the creator. Perhaps it will be twenty-two hundred years before the truth finds general acceptance, yet it is not the less a truth. The Baron Savitch is my creature, and I am his creator—creator of the ablest man in Europe, the ablest man in the world.

  “Here is our ladder, Monsieur. I have fulfilled my part in the agreement. Remember yours.”

  *

  After a two months’ tour of Switzerland and the Italian lakes, the Fishers found themselves at the Hotel Splendide in Paris, surrounded by people from the States. It was a relief to Fisher, after his somewhat bewildering experience at Baden, followed by a surfeit of stupendous and ghostly snow peaks, to be once more among those who discriminated between a straight flush and a crooked straight, and whose bosoms thrilled responsive to his own at the sight of the star-spangled banner. It was particularly agreeable for him to find at the Hotel Splendide, in a party of Easterners who had come over to see the Exposition, Miss Bella Ward, of Portland, a pretty and bright girl, affianced to his best friend in New York.

  With much less pleasure, Fisher learned that Baron Savitch was in Paris, fresh from the Berlin Congress, and that he was the lion of the hour with the select few who read between the written lines of politics and knew the dummies of diplomacy from the real players in the tremendous game. Dr. Rapperschwyll was not with the baron. He was detained in Switzerland, at the death-bed of his aged mother.

  The last piece of information was welcome to Fisher. The more he reflected upon the interview on the Mercuriusberg, the more strongly he felt it to be his intellectual duty to persuade himself that the whole affair was an illusion, not a reality. He would have been glad, even at the sacrifice of his confidence in his own astuteness, to believe that the Swiss doctor had been amusing himself at the expense of his credulity. But the remembrance of the scene in the baron’s bedroom at the Badischer Hof was too vivid to leave the slightest ground for this theory. He was obliged to be content with the thought that he should soon place the broad Atlantic between himself and a creature so unnatural, so dangerous, so monstrously impossible as the Baron Savitch.

  Hardly a week had passed before he was thrown again into the society of that impossible person.

  The ladies of the American party met the Russian baron at a ball in the New Continental Hotel. They were charmed with his handsome face, his refinement of manner, his intelligence and wit. They met him again at the American Minister’s, and, to Fisher’s unspeakable consternation, the acquaintance thus established began to make rapid progress in the direction of intimacy. Baron Savitch became a frequent visitor at the Hotel Splendide.

  Fisher does not like to dwell on this period. For a month his peace of mind was rent alternately by apprehension and disgust. He is compelled to admit that the baron’s demeanor toward himself was most friendly, although no allusion was made on either side to the incident at Baden. But the knowledge that no good could come to his friends from this association with a being in whom the moral principle had no doubt been supplanted by a system of cog-gears kept him continually in a state of distraction. He would gladly have explained to his American friends the true character of the Russian, that he was not a man of healthy mental organization, but merely a marvel of mechanical ingenuity, constructed upon a principle subversive of all society as at present constituted—in short, a monster whose very existence must ever be revolting to right-minded persons with brains of honest gray and white; but the solemn promise made to Dr. Rapperschwyll sealed his lips.

  A trifling incident suddenly opened his eyes to the alarming character of the situation, and filled his heart with a new horror.

  One evening, a few days before the date designated for the departure of the American party from Havre for home, Fisher happened to enter the private parlor which was, by common consent, the headquarters of his set. At first he thought that the room was unoccupied. Soon he perceived, in the recess of a window, and partly obscured by the drapery of the curtain, the forms of the Baron Savitch and Miss Ward of Portland. They did not observe his entrance. Miss Ward’s hand was in the baron’s hand, and she was looking up into his handsome face with an expression which Fisher could not misinterpret.

  Fisher coughed, and, going to another window, pretended to be interested in the affairs of the Boulevard. The couple emerged from the recess. Miss Ward’s face was ruddy with confusion, and she immediately withdrew. Not a sign of embarrassment was visible in the baron’s countenance. He greeted Fisher with perfect self-possession, and began to talk of the great balloon in the Place du Carrousel.4

  Fisher pitied but could not blame the young lady. He believed her still loyal at heart to her New York engagement. He knew that her loyalty could not be shaken by the blandishments of any man on earth. He recognized the fact that she was under the spell of a power more than human. Yet what would be the outcome? He could not tell all; his promise bound him. It would be useless to appeal to the generosity of the baron; no human sentiments governed his exorable purposes. Must the affair drift on while he stood tied and helpless? Must this charming and innocent girl be sacrificed to the transient whim of an automaton? Allowing that the baron’s intentions were of the most honorable character, was the situation any less horrible? Marry a Machine! His own loyalty to his friend in New York, his regard for Miss Ward, alike loudly called on him to act with promptness.

&n
bsp; And, apart from all private interest, did he not owe a plain duty to society, to the liberties of the world? Was Savitch to be permitted to proceed in the career laid out for him by his creator, Dr. Rapperschwyll? He, Fisher, was the only man in the world in a position to thwart the ambitious program. Was there ever greater need of a Brutus?

  Between doubts and fears, the last days of Fisher’s stay in Paris were wretched beyond description. On the morning of the steamer day he had almost made up his mind to act.

  The train for Havre departed at noon, and at eleven o’clock the Baron Savitch made his appearance at the Hotel Splendide to bid farewell to his American friends. Fisher watched Miss Ward closely. There was a constraint in her manner which fortified his resolution. The baron incidentally remarked that he should make it his duty and pleasure to visit America within a very few months, and that he hoped then to renew the acquaintances now interrupted. As Savitch spoke, Fisher observed that his eyes met Miss Ward’s, while the slightest possible blush colored her cheeks. Fisher knew that the case was desperate, and demanded a desperate remedy.

  He now joined the ladies of the party in urging the baron to join them in the hasty lunch that was to precede the drive to the station. Savitch gladly accepted the cordial invitation. Wine he politely but firmly declined, pleading the absolute prohibition of his physician. Fisher left the room for an instant, and returned with the black bottle which had figured in the Baden episode.

  “The Baron,” he said, “has already expressed his approval of the noblest of our American products, and he knows that this beverage has good medical endorsement.” So saying, he poured the remaining contents of the Kentucky bottle into a glass, and presented it to the Russian.

  Savitch hesitated. His previous experience with the nectar was at the same time a temptation and a warning, yet he did not want to seem discourteous. A chance remark from Miss Ward decided him.

  “The baron,” she said, with a smile, “will certainly not refuse to wish us bon voyage in the American fashion.”

  Savitch drained the glass and the conversation turned to other matters. The carriages were already below. The parting compliments were being made when Savitch suddenly pressed his hands to his forehead and clutched at the back of a chair. The ladies gathered around him in alarm.

  “It’s nothing,” he said, faintly. “A temporary dizziness.”

  “There is no time to be lost,” said Fisher, pressing forward. “The train leaves in twenty minutes. Get ready at once and I will meanwhile attend to our friend.”

  Fisher hurriedly led the baron to his own bedroom. Savitch fell back upon the bed. The Baden symptoms repeated themselves. In two minutes the Russian was unconscious.

  Fisher looked at his watch. He had three minutes to spare. He turned the key in the lock of the door and touched the knob of the electric annunciator.

  Then, gaining the mastery of his nerves by one supreme effort of self-control, Fisher pulled the deceptive wig and the black skullcap from the baron’s head. Heaven forgive me if I am making a fearful mistake, he thought, but I believe it to be best for ourselves and for the world.

  Rapidly, but with a steady hand, he unscrewed the silver dome. The Mechanism lay exposed before his eyes. The baron groaned. Ruthlessly, Fisher tore out the wondrous machine. He had no time and no inclination to examine it. He caught up a newspaper and hastily enfolded it. He thrust the bundle into his open traveling bag. Then he screwed the silver top firmly upon the baron’s head, and replaced the skullcap and the wig.

  All this was done before the servant answered the bell. “The Baron Savitch is ill,” said Fisher to the attendant, when he came. “There is no cause for alarm. Send at once to the Hotel de l’Athenée for his valet Auguste.”

  In twenty seconds, Fisher was in a cab, whirling toward the Station St. Lazare.

  When the steamship Pereire was well out at sea, with Ushant five hundred miles in her wake, and countless fathoms of water beneath her keel, Fisher took a newspaper from his traveling bag. His teeth were firm set and his lips rigid. He carried the heavy parcel to the side of the ship and dropped it into the Atlantic. It made a little eddy in the smooth water, and sank out of sight. Fisher fancied that he heard a wild, despairing cry, and put his hands to his ears to shut out the sound. A gull came circling over the steamer—the cry may have been the gull’s.

  Fisher felt a light touch upon his arm. He turned quickly around. Miss Ward was standing at his side, close to the rail.

  “Bless me, how white you are!” she said. “What in the world have you been doing?”

  “I have been preserving the liberties of two continents,” slowly replied Fisher, “and perhaps saving your own peace of mind.”

  “Indeed!” she said. “And how have you done that?”

  “I have done it,” was Fisher’s grave answer, “by throwing overboard the Baron Savitch.”

  Miss Ward burst into a ringing laugh. “You are sometimes too droll, Mr. Fisher,” she said.

  * * *

  1 Nikolay Pavolvich Ignatyev, known in contemporary American newspapers as Nicolai Ignatieff (1832–1908), became an important Russian diplomat in 1856, after the Crimean War, and was the Russian ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1864–1877, a posting concluded by the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78, the eventual treaties of which he negotiated. Czar Alexander II, dissatisfied with the result of the war, then shifted him to a minor domestic post.

  2 Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) was the British Foreign Secretary in 1879; he had played a leading role in the Congress of Berlin, a meeting of the Great powers held after the end of the Russo-Turkish War to revise the preliminary treaty negotiated by Ignatyev. Pyotr Shuvalov, usually known in contemporary American newspapers as Count Peter Schouvaloff (1827–1889) was in charge of negotiations between Russia and Britain before and after the Congress.

  3 Alexander Mikailovitch Gorchakov (1798–1883) was the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs in the 1860s and 1870s.

  4 Henri Giffard (1825–1882) invented the Giffard dirigible, a steam-powered airship that was the first to carry passengers; it was moored in the Place du Carrousel before a much-publicized ascent in July 1878.

  JOSUAH ELECTRICMANN

  ERNEST D’HERVILLY

  Ernest d’Hervilly (1838–1911) was a prolific French journalist and writer in various genres and media. Although he was a friend of Victor Hugo and Paul Verlaine, acquainted with most of the participants in the fin-de-siècle Decadent Movement, almost all of his own fiction and work for the theater was in a cheerfully humorous vein, much of his imaginative fiction being written for younger readers.

  “Josuah Electricmann,” first published in the Petit Parisien in 1882, is one of numerous French stories reacting with envious sarcasm to the fame won in America by the inventor Thomas Edison. Most of the humorists dabbling in scientific romance during the 1880s and 1890s reflected on that celebrity, several even featuring Edison as a character in their stories, but Hervilly’s satirical character study was one of the earliest and was certainly the most extravagant in its depiction of gadgets yet to be invented that would surely claim the attention of such a prolific utilitarian. It is frequently the case that in reaching for absurd extremes, humorists not only showed more imagination than more earnest extrapolators, but more foresight, as the prudent inevitably underestimated the actual pace of future technological progress. “Josuah Electricmann” retains its absurdity with ease, but also its satirical relevance, as a lurid but ironically plausible depiction of the way the world still seems to be going.

  Everyone knows that Josuah Electricmann, the prodigious American scientist, has just announced that he is on the point of inventing a machine destined to take the place of the father of a family in society, and which he has already named the Household Galvanomaster.

  One of my friends, who lives in New York, has been asked by me to visit the astonishing inventor of the photoplumographer.

  This is the portraitgram that ou
r distant friend has sent us:

  Thirty-seven years old. A heart much further to the right than Molière thinks.1 A black beard. Excellent eyes. They were once poor, but he has improved them by replacing them after their ablation under ether—an operation that is a veritable pleasure party—with a double hooked prunelloglass, his first invention: an instrument that permits one to be, at will, myopic for micrographic studies, or presbyopic for the manipulation of colored disks on railway lines.

  I found that unparalleled man sitting in the middle of his vast study on a seat (patented in Paris, London, Philadelphia and Vienna) that can, according to need, be transformed into a parrot’s perch or a bottle-rack, and which can also serve as a sled in snowy weather or a linen-press on washing day. It is extremely comfortable.

  The walls of the tireless inventor’s study are dotted with innumerable constellations of ivory buttons, the departure-points of an immense network of conductive wires connected to all the telegraphic stations in the world.

  Its only ornament, in the middle of a panel replete with electric switches, is a vast golden border framing a polished mirror on which, thanks to the next-to-last inventions of the celebrated electrician, the colorofix and the vultugraph, one is able, whenever one has the desire, to have the most marvelous picture in the world painted instantaneously: living and animate pictures of the most incontestable naturalism.

  Thanks to that magical combination of the two items of apparatus, which are reminiscent at first sight of two obscure irrigators, Josuah Electricmann enjoys an unrivaled collection of splendid panoramas and delightful urban scenes.