The Mysterious Force

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  “What does ‘epiphenomenon’ mean, Hareton?” Rebecca asked, hoarsely. “It ought to be blasphemous.”

  “It is, at least, a philosophical blasphemy, Aunt Becky.”

  “And what does that mean?” asked a young woman who was finishing eating a grapefruit, while the butler served bacon and eggs with Virginia ham. The tall fair-haired young women that once inspired the sculptors of goddesses must have been made in her image. Hareton focused his gaze on tresses shaded with amber, honey and wheat-straw.

  “It means, Muriel, that if your consciousness didn’t exist, you would continue to eat that ham and ask me questions exactly as you are doing—except that you wouldn’t know that you were eating and asking me questions. To put it another way, the epiphenomenal consciousness exists, but everything happens just as if it didn’t…”

  “The people who invented such absurdities can’t have been philosophers!” exclaimed Aunt Rebecca.

  “Yes, Aunt…they were philosophers.”

  “They ought to be locked up in a sanitarium.”

  The butler brought eggs and smoked bacon for the aunt, and toast and two small sausages for Hareton, who did not like eggs. The teapot, the hot bread-rolls, the fresh butter and the pots of jam formed islets on the sparkling table-cloth. The three diners ate religiously.

  Hareton was finishing the last piece of toast, with blackcurrant jam, when the butler brought in the mail. There were letters, a telegram and newspapers. The aunt captured two letters and a magazine called The Church. Hareton grabbed the New York Times, the Baltimore Mail, the Washington Post and the New York Herald. He opened the telegram first, and, with a half-smile whose significance remained unintelligible, said: “We’re going to see my nephew and niece from France.”

  “I ought to be horrified by them,” the aunt remarked.

  “Monique is fascinating” Muriel declared.

  “Like a necromancer who had taken on the appearance of a young woman,” said Rebecca. “I can’t look at her without a perverse pleasure…it’s a temptation…”

  “There’s something in what you say, Aunt,” Ironcastle agreed. “Think of it as if Monique’s mind had a kind of bark…a good shot of honesty and honor would put her right…”

  From an envelope that bore a Gondokoro stamp he extracted a second envelope, filthy and covered with stains, to which the wings and legs of crushed insects were still attached. “This is from our friend Samuel,” he said, with a sort of reverence. “I can smell deserts, jungles and marshes!”

  He opened the envelope carefully. His features clouded over. It took a long time to read. Occasionally, he exhaled forcefully, almost whistling. “Here’s an adventure,” he said, “that surpasses anything I thought possible on this ignominious planet!”

  “Ignominious!” his aunt retorted. “The work of God!”

  “Is it not written: ‘And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the Earth, and it grieved him in his heart’?”22

  Raising an uncertain eyebrow, Rebecca drank her black tea.

  Muriel, seized by curiosity, said: “What adventure, Father?”

  “Thou shalt be as the gods, knowing good and evil!” Ironcastle muttered, shrewdly. “I know that you can keep a secret, Muriel, if I ask for your word in advance. Will you give it to me?”

  “Before Our Lord,” said Muriel.

  “And you, Aunt?”

  “I will not invoke His name in vain; I shall simply say: yes.”

  “Your word is worth all the pearls in the ocean.”

  Hareton, who was apt to repress emotion, was more agitated than his expression showed. “You know that Samuel Darnley set off in search of new plants, in the hope of confirming his theory of cyclic transformations. Having passed through terrible places, he’s reached a land unexplored not merely by Europeans but by any living men. It’s from there that he’s sent me this letter.”

  “Who carried it?” asked Rebecca severely.

  “A native, who probably reached a British outpost. By means of which I’m ignorant, the letter got to Gondokoro, where it was thought appropriate, in view of its decrepitude, to insert it in a fresh envelope…”

  Hareton lost himself in thought, his eyes seeming empty and hollow.

  “But what has Mr. Darnley seen?” Muriel persisted.

  “Oh!” Ironcastle started. “Yes—the land where he is differs fantastically, in its plants and animals, from any other land on Earth.”

  “More than Australia?”

  “Much more. Australia is, after all, nothing but a vestige of ancient ages. Samuel’s country seems to be as advanced as Europe or Asia, perhaps more so, in its general evolution…but it has taken another path. One must suppose that, many centuries—perhaps millennia—ago, a series of cataclysms reduced its fertile regions considerably. Presently, they’re not much larger than a third of Ireland. They’re populated by mammals and reptiles of a fantastic sort. The reptiles are warm-blooded. There is also a superior animal, comparable in intelligence, but not in its physical structure or by the nature of its language, to humans. The vegetables are even stranger, being improbably complex, and actually holding humankind in check.”

  “This reeks of witchcraft!” muttered the aunt.

  “How can plants hold humans in check?” asked Muriel. “Is Mr. Darnley claiming that they’re intelligent?”

  “He doesn’t say so. He limits himself to writing that they have mysterious faculties, which don’t resemble any of our cerebral faculties. What he’s sure of is that, one way or another, they’re able to defend themselves and conquer.”

  “Are they mobile?”

  “No. They can’t change location, but they’re capable of sudden and temporary subterranean growth, which is one of their modes of attack or defense.”

  The aunt was annoyed, Muriel was astounded, and Hareton was gripped by the internal overexcitement typical of Americans.

  “Either Samuel has gone mad,” proclaimed the aunt, “or he has fallen into the domain of Behemoth.”23

  “I’ll have to see for myself,” Ironcastle replied, mechanically.

  “Christ!” protested the aunt. “You don’t mean that you’re going to go join the lunatic!”

  “I shall, Aunt Becky—or, at least, I shall try. He’s expecting me—he’s not in any doubt as to my determination.”

  “You’re not abandoning your daughter!”

  “I shall go with my father,” Muriel affirmed, placidly.

  There was anxiety in Ironcastle’s eyes. “Not into the wilderness?”

  “If I were your son, you wouldn’t raise any objection. Am I not as well-trained as any man? Haven’t I followed you to Arizona, the Rocky Mountains and Alaska? I’m as resistant to fatigue, privations and climate as you are.”

  “Even so, Muriel, you’re a girl.”

  “That’s an obsolete argument. I know that you’re going to undertake this journey, and that nothing can stop you. I also know that I don’t want to suffer for two years waiting for you to come back. I’m going with you.”

  “Muriel!” he sighed, emotional and rebellious.

  The domestic reappeared, with a shiny tray. Hareton picked up a visiting card, which read: PHILIPPE DE MARANGES. In pencil, someone had added: And Monique.

  “Here we go!” said Hareton, almost joyfully.

  A young man and a young woman were in the drawing-room.

  Men like Philippe de Maranges are found in the Cevennes, with faces in which every feature is marked with a secret ardor, in which the eyes are the color of rocks. The visitor was almost as tall as Ironcastle, but it was Monique who captured the gaze. Reminiscent of some young witches illuminated by torchlight or a pyre, she made Rebecca’s unease understandable. Her black hair, devoid of any shine, seemed to the aunt to be even more infernal than her eyes, garnished with long bristling stamens, which were all the darker for being framed by child-like sclerotics.

  Delilah must have looked like that! Rebecca said to herself, with fearful admiration.

>   An invincible attraction made her sit down next to the young woman, who emitted a faint odor of amber and lilies-of-the-valley.

  By means of indirect questions, Hareton progressed quite rapidly to the point of Maranges’ visit.

  “I need,” the latter confessed, “to go into business.”

  “Why?” asked Hareton, nonchalantly.

  “For Monique’s sake, especially. Our father has left us an inheritance debilitated by debts that are all too definite and credits that are altogether doubtful.”

  “I fear, dear boy, that you’re not cut out for business. You’ll have to abandon yourself blindly to a manager, to whom you’ll have to give a percentage of the capital. I don’t know anyone in Baltimore, but my nephew, Sydney Guthrie, might. Personally, I’m ridiculously incapable.”

  “It’s quite true,” Philippe sighed, “that I scarcely have a vocation—but needs must.”

  Hareton considered the young witch fondly. She contrasted so perfectly with the fascinating Muriel that he paused to admire the contrast. “There,” he muttered, “is an irrefutable objection to theories that extol one superior race: the Pelasgians were the equal of the Hellenes.”

  Maranges avidly savored Muriel’s proximity.

  “I seem to remember that you’re a good shot?” Hareton said. “And the war has accustomed you to ordeals. I can, therefore, make you a proposition. Would you subject yourself to the ordeals of a Livingstone, a Stanley, or your Marchand?”24

  “Don’t you know that I’ve always dreamed of such a life?”

  “We’d recoil in disgust from the majority of our dreams, if they became practicable. People love to imagine themselves in situations for which they’re not naturally cut out. Imagine uncomfortable and dangerous countries, hostile—sometimes cannibalistic—tribes and peoples, privations, fatigue, fevers. Would your dream consent to become a reality?”

  “Do you think it’s comfortable for three people to freeze at an altitude of 5000 meters in an imperfect and capricious flying machine? I’m ready, on one condition—that the adventure will provide Monique with a dowry.”

  “The land where I’m going—for I’m the one organizing the expedition—contains living treasures that won’t interest you; it also contains precious minerals in abundance: gold, platinum, silver, emeralds, diamonds and topazes. If you’re lucky, you might capture a fortune. If you’re unlucky, your bones will dry out in a desert. Think about it.”

  “Hesitation would be stupid. But do I deserve a fortune?”

  “In the wilderness, a good marksman inevitably renders immense services. I need dependable men—of my own class, and, in consequence, associates. I’m counting on recruiting Sydney Guthrie, who’s in Baltimore and planning to undertake a voyage of this sort.”

  “You mentioned living treasures?” said Philippe.

  “Forget them! That doesn’t concern or interest you.”

  Hareton became inward-looking again, as indicated by his hollow eyes.

  Aunt Rebecca smiled maliciously.

  The young women exuded the alarming and sweet charm that brought human love out of animal selection, and Philippe mingled Muriel’s tresses with the mysterious lands where he was going to rediscover the primitive life.

  Part One

  I. The Inexorable Night

  Evening was about to embrace the ancient forest, and fear, made up of fears accumulated by countless generations, agitated the herbivorous animals. After so many millennia, the forest was almost unaware of humankind. In its obscure and inexhaustible perseverance, it remade the forms engendered before the days in which the Cromlechs and Pyramids were built. The trees remained masters of the region. From dawn to dusk, by day and by night, under red and silvery rays, unvanquished by time and vanquishers of space, they maintained their taciturn realm.

  In a formidable region of the forest, branches cracked. A hairy creature detached itself from a baobab and lay down on the ground; its four black hands remained half-closed. It bore a rough resemblance to the deadly animal that had lit the first fire in the ancient darkness, but its jaws and torso were more like those of lions.

  Long numbed by an opaque dream in which the past was misted over and the future did not feature at all, it finally voiced a hoarse and soft call. Four creatures emerged: females with the same black faces, the same muscular hands and strange yellow eyes that gleamed in the gloom. Six little ones followed, full of the joyful grace that is the gift of young creatures.

  Then the male led his harem toward the Occident, where a vast red Sun, less harsh than the midday Sun, was sinking into the branches.

  The gorillas reached the edge of a clearing, hollowed out by fire from the clouds, where the stumps of burned trees persisted, with islets of grasses and ferns. On the far side of the clearing, four monstrous heads rose up among the lianas. They were contemplating an extraordinary spectacle.

  A fire! A few upright creatures were throwing branches and twigs on to it. The flames, still pale, were growing with the dying of the sunlight. In the brief twilight they became pink, then scarlet, and their life seemed ever more redoubtable.

  The male lions having roared, with elemental force; the large gorilla growled dully. The lions had no knowledge of fire. They had never seen it running through the dry grass or devouring branches; they were only familiar with the importunate light of storms. In the depths of their instinct, however, they feared the heat and palpitation of the flames. The male gorilla knew. Three times he had encountered fire roaring in the forest and spreading immeasurably. Images passed through his opaque memory, of an immense flight, thousands of terrified feet and myriads of terrified wings. He bore scars on his arms and breast, which had been intolerable wounds.

  While he paused, prey to sparse memories, his females had drawn closer; the lions, moved by curiosity and uncertainty, marched towards the unusual spectacle with light and heavy steps.

  The upright creatures watched the large wild beasts approach.

  Within the ring of fires, there were 15 men as black as the gorillas, resembling them in their heavy faces, enormous jaws and long arms. Seven white men and a woman of their race had no analogy to the anthropoid apes save for their hands. There were camels, donkeys and goats. An ancient terror was manifest in waves.

  “Don’t shoot!” shouted a tall blond man.

  The roar of a lion sounded, like the voice of primitive times; the brutal mass of the two males, with their manes and vast shoulders, testified to a terrifying strength.

  “Don’t shoot!” the blond man repeated. “It’s improbable that lions will attack us—and the gorillas even less…”

  “Improbable, no doubt,” replied one of those holding a rifle. “I don’t think they’ll come past the fires…and yet…” He was almost equal to the blond man in height, but was different in his build, his amber eyes, his black hair and ten indefinable nuances that implied another race or another civilization.”

  “Twenty rifles and the Maxim!” put in a colossus with granite jaws, whose malachite green eyes were flecked with amber and copper in the firelight. His hair was the same color as the lions’. His name was Sydney Guthrie; he was from Baltimore.

  The two male lions roared in unison; the fires lit their compact faces from the front. The anthropoids watched the upright creatures, perhaps thinking that they were captives of the fire.

  A servant had unpacked the Maxim machine-gun. Sydney Guthrie loaded his rifle—an elephant-gun—with explosive bullets. Sure of his aim, Philippe de Maranges watched the nearest lion. None of the men was positively afraid, but they experienced a thrill of anxiety.

  “In Europe,” said Maranges pensively, “when there were still bears in the Alps and wolves in France and Germany, they were only a vague reflection of the times of the mammoth, the rhinoceros and the gray bear. Here there are lions and great apes identical to those one might have encountered 50 or a 100,000 years ago…in the vicinity of a paltry human family armed with clubs, behind a pitiful fire!”

 
The lions’ advance caused the gorillas to beat a slow retreat.

  “Pitiful!” Ironcastle replied. “They were more skillful than us in making fires. I can imagine sturdy males, dexterous and muscular, behind enormous fires, who made lions tremble. They might have had miserable evenings, but they must have had magnificent ones. My instinct prefers their time to ours.”

  “Why?” demanded a fourth interlocutor—an Englishman, whose face was reminiscent of the great Shelley.

  “Because they already had the joy of being human without the infernal foresight that spoils all of our days.”

  “My foresight doesn’t make me suffer!” Sydney replied. “It’s a staff on which I lean, not a sword suspended above my head.”

  He was interrupted by an exclamation. Hareton pointed his finger at a little anthropoid that had slyly advanced toward the lions. It was chewing grass near to a clump of ferns. One of the male lions executed a six-meter bound, while the large gorilla and two females ran forward, grunting. Having reached its prey, however, the lion knocked it down with a thrust of its paw.

  “Oh! Save it! Save it!” cried a fearful voice. A young woman had stood up—one of those tall blondes who are the glory of the Anglo-Saxon race, Philippe de Maranges raised his weapon, but he was too late; the male gorilla attacked. It was quick, wild and formidable; the black hands clenched around the yellow throat, while the large predator, thrust its muzzle forward, dug its fangs into the ape’s breast.

  The monstrous beasts swayed from side to side; their panting breath was audible, and the creaking of their enormous muscles. A claw ripped shreds of flesh from the gorilla’s abdomen; the gorilla, without letting go, planted its teeth in the carnivore’s neck, near the jugular…

  “Splendid!” exclaimed Guthrie.

  “Terrible!” sighed the young woman.

  All of them, hypnotized, contemplated the large red wounds and the reactions of the colossal organisms. The passion of the Romans in the circus carried away Hareton, Philippe, Sydney and Sir George Farnham. Beasts too remained spectators: the three lions and the four female gorillas, one of which was clutching the injured infant gorilla to her breast.