Canterel left the top of the ladder and, returning to our midst, took up a position on the right before a special facet whose center bore a very small circle marked in black. He stepped back three paces and closed one eye so as to obtain, within its tiny, dark circumference, a clear view of the column — now converted into a winning post.
On the straight the horses seemed aware that the end of the contest was at hand, for they made a supreme effort, and suddenly, to the applause of those who had backed the right one, Secundus won a decisive advantage. Canterel proclaimed him the winner, then decreed the race ended with a sharp cry to the obedient platoon, whose pace changed to a stately amble.
During this furious circuit Khóng-dk-lèn had remained apart, but, seeing peace restored, he started to chase the resplendent solar sphere like an elusive ball, which he kept patting gracefully with his paw in gentle, mischievous play.
As we turned our fascinated gaze from Faustine to the Cartesian divers and from the hippocampi to the frolicsome cat, the professor began speaking to us of the diamond and its contents.
∗ ∗ ∗
Canterel had discovered how to produce a kind of water which, thanks to a special, very potent oxygenation that he renewed from time to time, enabled any terrestrial creature whatsoever, human or animal, to live fully submerged without interrupting its breathing.
The professor determined to construct a huge container of glass so as to display properly certain experiments he had in mind, connected with various ways of turning the strange liquid to account.
At first sight, the most striking peculiarity of this water was its astounding brilliance; the smallest drop shone with blinding light and seemed, even in the shade, to sparkle with a fire of its own. Anxious to show this attractive property to full advantage, Canterel chose a distinctive many-sided shape for the construction of his container, which, when completed and filled with the flashing water, exactly resembled a gigantic diamond. The professor sited the dazzling tank on the sunniest spot in his estate, with its narrow base lying almost flush with the ground in an artificial rock; when the sun came out the whole object took on an almost unbearable radiance. The round hole which opened in the colossal jewel’s roof could be closed, when necessary, with a special metal lid. This prevented rain from getting mixed with the precious water, which Canterel named aqua-micans.
The professor was bent on selecting a graceful and fascinating woman to play the indispensable role of sea nymph and, in a letter crammed with precise instructions, he summoned Faustine, a dancer celebrated for the beautiful harmony of her poses.
Sporting a flesh-colored costume and with her magnificent, long, blond hair falling naturally, as her character required, Faustine mounted a slender and costly double ladder of nickeled metal standing beside the great diamond, then slipped into the photogenic tide.
By immersing himself, Canterel had often experienced the easy submarine breathing which his specially oxygenated water made possible, but in spite of his encouragement Faustine was very cautious about plunging in; she grasped the tank’s projecting edge with both hands and lifted her head out several times before making the final dive. At length, fully reassured by various attempts, each more prolonged than the one before, she let herself sink, and set foot on the bottom of the container.
Her mane of hair waved gently about, with a tendency to rise, as she tried out a number of sculptural poses, which were rendered all the easier and more beautiful by the fact that the liquid pressure made her extremely light.
Gradually, because of the excessive amounts of oxygen she was absorbing, she became gay and elated. Then, after a while, her hair began to give out a vague resonance which swelled or died away according to the amplitude of her head movements. Soon the strange music became deeper and more intense, each hair vibrating like the string of an instrument, and at Faustine’s slightest movement her whole head gave out long and infinitely varied enfilades of sound, like some Aeolian harp. The silky, blond threads produced different notes according to their length, with a compass extending over more than three octaves.
After half an hour, the professor, perched on a double ladder, came to Faustine’s assistance: he grasped her with one hand by the nape and hoisted her up beside him on the container’s top, in order to return to the ground.
Canterel, who had been present throughout the performance, examined the splendid mane of musical hair and discovered a kind of extremely thin aqueous sheath round each strand, having its origin in a fine deposit caused by certain chemical salts dissolved in the aqua-micans. The whole mop of hair had been strongly electrified by the presence of these invisible envelopes and had begun to vibrate under the friction of the brilliant water, which — as the professor had previously ascertained — combined great acoustical power with its incomparable luminosity.
Then Canterel asked himself what effect such a phenomenon would have on the fur of a cat, which is so easily electrified anyway.
He possessed a white Siamese tomcat named Khóng-dk-lèn* that was remarkably intelligent; he sent for it at once and immersed it in the container.
Khóng-dk-lèn sank gently, continuing to breathe in the normal way, and though frightened at first, soon became adapted to the novel surroundings. On touching the bottom he began to prowl about inquisitively.
Soon, feeling lighter than usual, he performed some great leaps, which he found most diverting. Little by little, after a sudden ascent, he learnt to delay his fall by means of skillful paw movements and thus became initiated into the art of swimming, with which he seemed destined to become speedily familiar.
The fur became electrified as expected, bristled slightly and started to vibrate; but since the hairs were short and of almost equal length, they conveyed only a feeble and confused hum. On the other hand — and here was a new phenomenon not displayed by Faustine’s hair — its tegument became covered with coarse, whitish phosphorescence, so intense as to be visible in broad daylight, standing out vividly against the sparkle of the water itself, which was already bright enough. Without their harming or hindering his swimming activities, which were still easy and continuous, Khóng-dk-lèn appeared surrounded by dazzling, lambent flames.
When Canterel observed the erethism that the water’s intense oxygenation was inevitably producing in the cat, he decided to end the experiment; reaching the top of the ladder, he called Khóng-dk-lèn, who swam to the surface. He grasped the feline by pinching the skin behind its neck and descended to place it on the ground. But, in the course of this short trip he suffered incessant electric shocks due to the contact of his hand with the white fur, each hair of which was encircled by a thin transparent, aqueous sheath.
While still in pain, Canterel suddenly had an idea that was a direct consequence of the very violence of the shocks he had experienced and which depended upon a curious fact of family history.
Philibert Canterel, the professor’s great-great-grandfather, had grown up with Danton like a brother, for he was born at the same time in the little town of Arcis-sur-Aube. Later on, during his brilliant political career, Danton never forgot his childhood friend, who was now engaged in finance and led an active though obscure life in Paris, studiously avoiding the publicity that he felt threatened him as the alter ego of the famous tribune.
When Danton was condemned to death, Philibert was able to gain access to him and receive his last wishes. Danton had got wind of certain machinations of his enemies, who seemed bent on throwing his remains into a common grave, with no indication by which they might ever be identified. So he implored his faithful friend to do his utmost, by pulling various strings, to get possession of his head at least.
Philibert went at once to find Sanson and explain the prisoner’s last wish to him.
Sanson, who was a devoted admirer of the famous orator, resolved to disobey orders in such a case. He gave Philibert the following instructions and commissioned him to transmit them to t
he condemned man. Just as he was to die, Danton, with that eloquent and emphatic bravado which would astonish no one coming from an impromptu speaker such as he, was to beg Sanson to show the people his head — using the proverbial ugliness of his features as an ironical pretext. After the knife had fallen, Sanson, in obedience to the executed man’s instructions, would lift the bloody head from the basket and display it for several seconds to the avid gaze of the crowd. Just as he let go, he was to send it, with a skillful movement of his hand, into a second basket always standing beside the first, which contained the rags used in wiping the knife as well as various tools used for sharpening the blade and making any urgent repairs the apparatus might require. On that day the two baskets would be even closer than usual and the subterfuge could hardly fail to go quite undetected.
Pleased at the outcome of his mission, Philibert went again to Danton and informed him of the executioner’s suggestions. Then the tribune voiced a touching desire: if the plot were to succeed, he wished to have his head embalmed and transmitted from father to son in his friend’s family, in memory of the latter’s heroic devotion, which was not without danger to his life. Promising to carry out his wishes to the letter, Philibert tearfully bade Danton a long farewell, for the execution was imminent.
Next day, before kneeling under the knife, Danton obeyed the instructions he had received, addressing Sanson in the famous words: “You must show my head to the people; it’s worth it.” A few moments later the blade did its work and Sanson took the head from the basket to display it to the shuddering crowd. Next, as he let it drop from a height, he had only to give it a little sideways impetus to make it fall into the tool basket, which was right beside the other. The only person to notice the deception as an attentive and forewarned spectator standing in the front rank of the crowd was Philibert.
That evening Philibert visited Sanson, who handed him the precious head in an innocent-looking parcel such as might easily be carried away without arousing suspicion.
On reaching his home, the financier tried to think of a way of embalming the head without risking the betrayal of his secret. Philibert was certain that, if he entrusted the task to professionals, Danton’s popular features would at once be recognized. So he decided to do everything himself and, to this end, bought several treatises on embalming, which he mastered to the best of his ability.
Once familiar with the method most commonly used, he submitted the head to a number of chemical baths and all kinds of preparations designed to assure its preservation.
Ever since then, in accordance with the great patriot’s will, these strange remains had been kept in Canterel’s family, cared for by five generations in turn.
But Philibert, too inexperienced in the art of embalming, had evidently performed his task imperfectly, for the tissues had slowly and gradually decayed away. The brain and facial muscles, however, had been spared and were still intact after a hundred years, though not the slightest vestige of flesh or skin was to be found.
Noticing the impeccable condition of the muscles and cerebral matter, Canterel was impelled by his inquiring turn of mind to spend a considerable time attempting to obtain some reflex movement from the whole head, using various electrical procedures. Success would have been extraordinarily interesting, quite as much in view of the remoteness of the time of death as for the important role in history which the subject had relinquished. But none of his efforts had borne fruit.
Now when the professor experienced a series of violent shocks on merely touching the wet cat, he wondered whether prolonged immersion in the diamond water might not induce in the celebrated head an electrification powerful enough to make the desired reflex obtainable under the transitory influence of some kind of current.
He carefully separated the brain, muscles and nerves from the legendary head, leaving all the bony part aside as a useless encumbrance; then, from a light non-conducting material, he cut a slender and ingenious frame to support the flaccid remains and hold them in their original shape.
The whole thing was plunged into the resplendent water at the end of a fine, pneumatically suspended cable, whose lower extremity ramified to grip the framework beneath the brain at three exterior points.
After a whole day willingly given up to waiting, even the tiniest filaments were covered with aqueous sheaths, like thicker versions of those already collected by Faustine’s hair and the fur of Khóng-dk-lèn.
Canterel removed the peculiar object and took it to one of his laboratories, where he passed a strong electric current through the brain; to his great delight he obtained several almost imperceptible twitches form the nerves that had once worked the lower lip.
Certain that he was now on the right track, he made persistent efforts to achieve greater results, but in vain. The reflex, changing its position, was no more than a barely perceptible shudder which fleetingly disturbed one or another region of the face.
Canterel could not content himself with such a feeble triumph and determined to pass a current through the head while it was actually submerged in the water’s blinding depths; for he considered, correctly, that the electricity stored at high tension in that astonishing liquid, enveloping the brain and fibers on every side, would surely tend to increase their magnetic power.
Once more he inundated the head in the great diamond, then, stationed at the ladder’s top, he placed a charged battery on the reentrant edge, the wires of which plunged down into the depths to make contact with the cerebral lobes.
The results were far superior to the previous ones; the labial nerves appeared to be attempting certain words, while the muscles of the eyes and eyebrows fluttered.
Fired with enthusiasm, the professor repeated the experiment over and over again: it was always the buccal region that went most vigorously into action. All the evidence suggested that, from a kind of habit, the brain had a predilection for operating the lips, on account of the amazing fluency for which the splendid orator had been chiefly distinguished throughout his life.
When he saw the reserve of latent energy retained, despite the passage of time, in the strange agglomeration of cells, Canterel drove himself to obtain as many effects as possible from them, at their maximum intensity. But for all his trials with various kinds of currents, constantly stepping up the power of the batteries employed, the still-immersed subfacies yielded only the same trembling of the eyes and vague sketches of words that he had noted since the first test made in the aqua-micans’s depths. The professor began to search elsewhere for some power capable of drawing greater advantage from the precious human relic he was fortunate enough to possess.
Then he recalled to mind some of his own earlier work on animal magnetism. He remembered a red substance he had invented — and christened erythrite — which, taken in quantities the size of a pinhead, would electrify the subject’s tissues, spreading through them and transforming him into a veritable live battery. To concentrate all the electricity stored in the patient’s body, it was only necessary to put his face into the mouth of a special kind of large metal horn, perforated by a few air holes; then, merely by its contact, the point of the cone was able to produce a given current or work a motor. Since this discovery had lent itself to no practical application, the professor had promptly put it aside — keeping, however, the formula of the erythrite, which he considered using afterward in his fresh experiments.
And this animal magnetism did indeed seem marked out for the accomplishment of a semi-biological experiment aimed at some kind of artificial resurrection. But the poor quality of the physiognomical reflexes so far provided by the most powerful batteries showed that only an enormous dose of erythrite would work effectively. Now the consumption of an excessive quantity of the red medicine would involve serious dangers, so that it could only be tested on an animal.
Remembering how easily Khóng-dk-lèn had taught himself to move about in the respiratory water, Canterel determined to use the
cat’s intelligence and obvious ability in some kind of prompt initiation. However, before attempting anything, he had to get rid of the thick white fur, since it was too prone to become electrified and would inevitably have produced a multiplicity of cross-currents prejudicial to the end in view. A highly active coating, with which he covered the animal’s whole body, caused all its fur to fall out painlessly by the roots.
The professor then constructed a horn, from the appropriate metal, that exactly fitted the muzzle of the cat. It had several holes bored in it here and there to enable the feline to look out and at the same time permit continual movement of the aqua-micans inside the cone where, consequently, fresh oxygen would always by circulating.
Henceforth a bizarre, pink creature, Khóng-dk-lèn, with the metal horn encircling his muzzle, was once more engulfed in the great diamond. Without as yet giving him a single atom of erythrite, Canterel patiently trained him to touch Danton’s brain gently with the tip of the cone. The cat soon grasped what was required of him and, with the aid of a few paw movements, found it easy to poise himself between two layers of water. Such was the delicacy with which he was able, before long, to contact the freely suspended head that it received no oscillatory impulse to speak of. The professor also taught him to remove the horn unaided, using his forepaws — then to pick it up from the bottom of the container by putting his muzzle into it while its point rested against the back of one of the facets.
Once these various results had been obtained, Canterel compounded a supply of erythrite. But instead of dividing the substance up into infinitesimal fractions as he had done before, he made it into strong pills in which the former dose was multiplied a hundredfold, so that a serious danger threatened Khóng-dk-lèn. The professor prudently divided up the first capsule and trained the animal progressively by giving him small amounts at first, then increasing the ration day by day.
On the first occasion that the cat swallowed an entire pill, Canterel plunged him into the radiant aquarium. Then, after allowing a few minutes for the erythrite to take effect, he gave a special signal of command. The perfectly trained Khóng-dk-lèn at once went to the bottom to mask himself with the horn, then swam to Danton’s brain and brushed it with the tip of his metallic accessory. Joyfully, the professor saw his hopes completely realized. Under the influence of the powerful animal magnetism which the cone released, the facial muscles trembled and the fleshless lips began to move distinctly, vigorously pronouncing strings of noiseless words. By lip-reading, Canterel managed to make out various syllables just from the way they were articulated; then he discovered chaotic snatches of speech following one another disconnectedly or, sometimes, repeated ad nauseam with strange insistence.
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