“Estelle Lacombe, of Lauterbrunnen-Station, Switzerland, also an engineer, or very nearly, for my father, an inspector of the Alpine Beacons, intends me to join his administration...”
“I’m glad, Mademoiselle, of this chance connection, which has at least permitted me to reassure you somewhat—for you were very frightened, weren’t you?”
“Oh yes! I’m alone in the house with Grettly, our maid, who was even more frightened than me. She’s been in a corner of the kitchen for two hours with her head under a shawl, and won’t move. My father’s on a tour of inspection and my mother left by the quarter-past-twelve Tube to make a few purchases in Paris. As long as nothing’s happened to her, please God! My mother was due back at five-seventeen, and it’s already seven thirty-five...”
“Mademoiselle, the Tubes will have suspended all departures during the electric storm, but the delayed trains will depart in due course, and your mother will certainly be back before long...”
Mademoiselle Estelle Lacombe still seemed very anxious; the slightest sound made her shiver and from time to time she went to look anxiously at the sky through a window that seemed to look out over a deep alpine valley.
To calm her down, Georges Lorris embarked on a long explanation of tornadoes, their causes, and the accidents that they produced, sometimes analogous to natural earthquakes. As she made no reply, and still remained pale and agitated, he spoke for a long time, giving her a veritable lecture, demonstrating to her that such tornadoes were becoming less and less frequent, by reason of the scrupulous precautions taken by the electrical personnel, and less terrible in their effects, thanks to the progress of science and the improvements made on a daily basis to the apparatus designed to prevent the fluid from leaking.
“But you know all that as well as I do, since you’re an engineer like me,” he said, finally concluding his speech, which seemed to him to have been somewhat marred by pedantry.
“No, Monsieur, I still have a final examination to pass before obtaining my diploma, and…I have to confess that I’ve already failed twice. I’m continuing to follow the course at the University of Zurich by phonograph, and I’m preparing to take it for a third time, and I’m working hard and growing pale over my notes, but without making much progress, it seems. Alas, I don’t find it easy to get my teeth into all that, but I need my diploma to go into the Alpine Beacon Administration like my father. It’s my career that’s at stake! I’ve understood what you’ve told me very well, though; I’ll make a few notes while it’s still fresh in my mind, for it’ll all be blurred tomorrow.”
While the young woman, somewhat reassured, searched among the pile of books, notebooks and phonographic recordings that covered her work-table and scribbled a few notes, Georges Loris gazed at her, and could not help noticing the grace of her movements and the natural elegance of her entire person, in her simple and modest costume. When she raised her head again, he admired the delicacy and symmetry of her features, the graceful curvature of her nose, her deep pure eyes and broad forehead, over which magnificent blonde curls descended like a golden helmet.
Estelle Lacombe was the only daughter of a functionary in the Swiss section of the Alpine Beacon Administration. Because of the vast increase in aerial navigation, it had been necessary to illuminate our various mountain peaks in order to identify them to navigators of the atmosphere. The mountains of the Auvergne, the Pyrenean chain and the Alpine massif thus had series of lights at different height, an altitude of five hundred meters being indicated everywhere by colored lights a kilometer apart, and similarly for superior altitudes, at intervals of five hundred meters. Rotating lights signaled passes and the mouths of valleys. Finally, higher still, on every peak and spur, first-class lights shone, brilliant stars lost in the pale region of snows, which people of the plains confused with the celestial constellations.
For eight years, Monsieur Lacombe, the regional inspector of Alpine Beacons, had been living at Lauterbrunnen-Station, in a pretty chalet on the summit of Lauterbrunnen Mountain, near the beacon, a thousand meters above the beautiful valley directly opposite Staubach Falls. An engineer of some merit and a conscientious functionary, Monsieur Lacombe was very busy. All of his days and many of his evenings were taken up by his inspection tours, reports and supervision of work on the regional beacons. Madame Lacombe, a Parisienne by birth, and something of a socialite before her marriage, considered herself to be in exile in the magnificent location of Lauterbrunnen-Station, where a new village had been established a thousand meters above old Lauterbrunnen, with an aerial annex for air cures—which is to say, a casino that went seven or eight hundred meters further up in the afternoon, and then came back down again after sunset.
In the chalet at Lauterbrunnen-Station, suspended like a balcony from the mountainside, during the summer, and in an equally comfortable chalet, lower down at Interlaken, during the winter, Madame Lacombe grew bored and missed immense and tumultuous Paris. There was, however, no shortage of distractions. Every day, a considerable number of airships and yachts passed by; the London-Rome-Cairo Air Express called four times in every twenty-four hours, always depositing a few travelers making their little tours of Europe; furthermore, the aerial casino of Lauterbrunnen, which was very busy during the summer months, threw a big party for its invalids once a week, and a put on a concert or dramatic performance every night via the Tele.
Even so, Madame Lacombe was bored, and took advantage of every opportunity and every possible excuse to return to her beloved Paris. Weary of only taking part by Tele in the little gatherings of her friends in Paris, she took the Electropneumatic Tube Train or the Air Express from time to time in order to rejoin the social whirl for an afternoon, to show herself at one of those elegant six o’clock sessions in which people lend an ear to all the gossip of the day and absorb all the malicious slanders that are floating around, while taking fashionable anti-anemics.
At other times, Madame Lacombe would go to have a little flutter on the Bourse, trying to add buoyancy to her budget, which was often excessively weighed down with expenses, with a few profits obtained there. The broker who advised her often misled her, and the household budget became very difficult to balance. Monsieur Lacombe’s only income was his 35,000-franc salary, and his lodgings—just enough to live on in the country if one made severe economies: a harsh necessity, all the more so, because Madame Lacombe also liked to shop, and instead of having the clothes and fabrics that she and her daughter needed shown to her by Tele, without disturbing herself, she preferred to look around the big stories in Paris and take the Tube or the Air Express for the slightest reason, such as a bit of ribbon with which to bind her hair.
This modest situation would have been improved if Madame had had any qualifications. Unfortunately, in her youth, in 1930, when the exigencies of life were less demanding, her education had been neglected. She was not an engineer; only possessing baccalaureates in letters and sciences, she had not been able to go into the Beacons with her husband.
Only too well aware of the difficulties of life, Monsieur Lacombe had wanted a complete education for his daughter. He had destined her for the Administration. At twenty-four, when she would have finished her studies and would have her diplomas, she would start as a supernumerary engineer at six thousand francs a year, with the certainty of reaching the inspectorate one day, at the age of about forty. Then, whether she remained a spinster or married one of her fellow functionaries, her living would be secure.
Since the age of twelve, Estelle had followed the courses of the Institute of Zurich without leaving her family, entirely by Tele—an important advantage for families living far from any population center, who were no longer forced to board their children in regional schools or colleges. Estelle had taken all her classes by Tele without leaving home, without stirring from Lauterbrunnen. She followed the courses of the Central Electricity College in Paris in the same fashion, and also took private lessons by phonograph for a few renowned masters.
Unfortunate
ly, she had not been able to take her examinations by Tele; the obsolete regulations forbade that—and in confrontation with her examiners, a slight timidity that she had inherited from her father had worked to her disadvantage.
III
Now that the young woman had nearly recovered, Georges Lorris could perfectly well have taken his leave of her; nevertheless, without attempting to take account of the motives that retained him, he stayed by the Tele chatting to her. They talked about applied science, education, electricity, new morality and scientific politics.
When she realized that chance had put her in the telephonoscopic presence of the son of the great Philox, Estelle Lacombe naively assumed the attitude of a pupil toward Georges, which made the young man laugh.
“I’m the son of the illustrious Philox, as you say,” he said, “but I’m only a very poor disciple myself, and since you’ve been kind enough to confess your lack of success to me, you might as well know that just now, when the tornado burst, my father was in the process of administering what is known as a first-class dressing-down—which is to say, a jolly good scolding—and reproaching me for my scientific inadequacy...and it was, I admit, only too well-deserved...”
“Oh, no, no! What the great Philox Lorris can treat as scientific weakness is still strength to me—overwhelming strength. Oh, if I could only reach the first grade in engineering!”
“You’d be glad to say oof! and leave your books alone thereafter,” said Georges, laughing.
The young woman smiled without making any reply, mechanically fidgeting with the mountain of books and papers that covered her desk.
“If it would be of any use to you, Mademoiselle, I could send you some of my notes, and the phonograms of a few of my father’s lectures to the engineers in his laboratory.”
“Many thanks, Monsieur! I’ll try to understand—I’ll do my very best.”
Abruptly, a bell rang and the Tele went dark. The image of the young woman disappeared. Georges was alone in his room. The damage caused at the central exchange by the tornado having been repaired, the normal functioning of the apparatus had resumed and temporary connections were broken everywhere.
Consulting his watch, Georges saw that time had gone by rapidly during his conversation and that it was time to go to the laboratory. He pushed a button; his bedroom door opened of its own accord and an elevator appeared. He leapt into it and was transported in a quarter of a minute to the upper landing-stage, a high belvedere on the roof sheltering the main entrance to the house.
The concierge’s lodge—now positioned beside the upper door, on the landing platform, in all houses because of aerial circulation—had been replaced in Philox Lorris’ house, like the concierge himself, by an electric console in which all services were ensured by a system of push-buttons.
An aircab, which had emerged from the aerial garage by itself, moving on an iron rod, was already waiting for Georges at the platform. Before leaping into it, the young man cast an eye over the immensity of Paris extended before him in the Seine valley, as far as the eye could see, all the way to Fontainebleau, overtaken by the southern outskirts. The air traffic suspended during the storm was resuming its course; the sky was already streaked by vehicles of every sort: airship-omnibuses following one another in single file, trying to make up lost time; aerofleches of the provincial or foreign lines traveling at all speeds; aircabs and aircars swarming around the Tube stations, where the delayed trains were following one another almost without intervals. To the West, blurred by the distant mist, a gigantic South American airliner was advancing majestically, having almost been caught up in the tornado and adding one more chapter to the history of great disasters.
“Let’s go to work!” said Georges, finally, disengaging the aircab from the rod. He was soon heading for one of the Philox Lorris laboratories, established with its experimental workshops on a piece of land forty hectares square in the fields of Gonesse.
Meanwhile, at Lauterbrunnen-Station, Estelle Lacombe, left alone, quickly left her exercise books and ran to the window in order to interrogate the horizon anxiously. Had something happened during the storm to her mother, on her journey to Paris, or to her father, on his tour of inspection? Everything on the mountain was tranquil; the aerial casino, having come down to Lauterbrunnen-Station at the first alarm signal, was slowly rising up again to the upper layers, in order to give its guests the spectacle of the sun setting behind the snowy summits of Oberland.
Estelle did not remain anxious for long; an aircab coming from Interlaken, suddenly appeared, and the young woman, with the aid of binoculars, recognized her mother leaning out of the window and urging the driver to hurry. Immediately, the Tele bell made Estelle turn around, and she uttered a cry of joy on seeing her father on the screen.
Monsieur Lacombe, who was in a Beacon-house, looking like a man in a great hurry, hastened to speak. “Well, Daughter, is everything all right? Nothing broken by that diabolical tornado, eh? Good! Hugs and kisses! I was worried. Where’s Mama?”
“Mama’s coming. She’s been to Paris.”
“Again!” said Monsieur Lacombe. “To Paris! During that torment! I’d have been very anxious if I’d known.”
“Here she is...”
“I don’t have time! Scold her for me! I’ve been stranded during the tornado at Beacon 189 at Bellinzona. I’ll be back home at about nine o’clock—don’t wait dinner for me...”
Ding! He had already disappeared. At the same moment, Madame Lacombe set foot on the balcony and hastily paid for her cab. The balcony door opened at the good lady, laden with packages, collapsed into an armchair.
“Oof! How frightened I was, my dear. I’ve seen several accidents, you know...”
“I’ve just spoken to Papa,” Estelle replied, kissing her mother. “He’s at 189, at Bellinzona. He’s all right—no accidents. What about you, Mama?”
“Oh, me, my child—I’m dying. What a storm! What a frightful tornado! You’ll see the details in this evening’s telejournal. It’s frightful! You know, after due consideration, I didn’t change the pink hat. Can you imagine that I was at Babel Stores when the tornado burst; I stayed there for three hours, my child, terrified, literally terrified…I took advantage of it to see what was new in fourteen-franc-fifty demi-silks. Aerial debris fell on Babel Stores—there were so many accidents! Then I found something delightful in the lace for sleeves and collars… and very cheap! Yes, my child, I’ve seen, with my own eyes, from the Babel Stores platform, an airship landing in the midst of lightning-flashes when the fluid went by…it was horrible. Let’s see, haven’t I forgotten one on the packets... No, it’s all here. And I was anxious, my poor dear; I hurried into the Tele room as soon as I could, to see you and give you a host of things to do, but the screens were out of order. What a service! What ridiculous machines! And they call that science! I arrive, I try to make a connection. Ding! I see the inside of a barracks, with a major in the process of explaining the theory of machine-gun pumps to his men. Oh, I know all about it now…and the swearing, my child, frightful oaths, because there was one of the men, a damned fool—look, I’m talking like the major now!—who couldn’t get the hang of the mechanism. Oh, there was nothing but similar scenes in the shop’s twenty-four Teles—connections that couldn’t be cut. What a service!”
“Yes, I know,” said Estelle. “During the necessary repair work, random connections were set up for all subscribers.”
“And here, my child?—I hope you weren’t afflicted by some disagreeable connection.”
“No, Mama, on the contrary!” Estelle blushed. “That is to say, we were connected to a very polite young man...”
At these words, Madame Lacombe started. “A young man! Tell me more—you’re making me anxious. My God! What a ridiculous service the Tele is! Are they ever embarrassed about their errors or their accidents? It’s easy to see that their employees are young scatterbrains who think about nothing but chatting and gossiping and making fun of the subscribers, laughing at any l
ittle secrets they can get hold of. A young man! Oh, I’m going to complain.”
“Wait, Mama! It was the son of Philox Lorris!”
“The son of Philox Lorris!” exclaimed Madame Lacombe. “You didn’t run away, did you? You talked to him?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“I’d have preferred the great Philox Lorris himself—but anyway, I hope you didn’t lower your head like a little fool, the way you did before those examiners?”
“I was very frightened, Mama; the tornado had terrified me…he reassured me...”
“I suppose you showed him, though, by means of a few witty but technical remarks about the electric tornado, that you’re very well up in your sciences, that you have your diplomas...”
“I’m not too sure what I said…but the gentleman was very amiable; on the contrary, he realized my insufficiency, for he’s going to send me some notes and phonograms of his father’s lectures.”
“His father’s! The illustrious Philox Lorris! What luck! These Teles sometimes do good with their errors, I’ll admit that…all the same...one’s sending you phonograms. I’ll pay a little visit to say thank you; I’ll tell him about your father, who’s stuck in a junior position in the Alpine Beacons... I’ll get a recommendation from the great Philox Lorris, and your father will get promoted. I’ll take charge of everything—give me a kiss!”
Ding! Ding! It was the Tele. Monsieur Lacombe appeared on the screen again.
Electric Life Page 3
