The Doctored Man

by Maurice Renard

  “However, minimal as the electrical world still was, from my viewpoint, it nevertheless constituted an obligatory luminous spectacle. I did not have the means of separating myself from it by lowering my eyelids upon it; the electromagnetic radiation went through them! I was condemned to see those inexorable fires incessantly before me, shaded by darkenings and brightenings that rendered their perception even more tiring. To put it another way, I was condemned never to sleep again! And that provided the means by which that devil Prosope came to a reckoning with my obstinacy. He vanquished me by means of sleep.

  “After three days of insomnia, the phantasmagoria of lights having, perhaps, tripled. Prosope sold me, in exchange for a promise to talk, a pair of compact goggles. They were made by superimposing various insulators which, each one fulfilling its particular task, ultimately intercepted all the radiations. First, I slept; then, true to my word, I talked.

  “ ‘No more blackness now. A general illumination. A degraded illumination, with zones that are alternately bright or twilit. A universal luminosity, eternally undulating and vibrating, whose color passes from the sharpest blue to the most acidic red, through the intermediary of all the violets imaginable.’

  “In truth, the violet was almost uniquely sovereign, but red was dominant in the sky and blue on the ground. There was a perpetual exchange between them, a coming-and-going of effluvia, and in the air there was a continual propagation of immense wrinkles, which flowed and intersected indefatigably, while gigantic haloes formed limitless patches there, quivering with centrifugal vibrations. The nucleus of one of them appeared to me below the horizon, through the translucent thickness of the terrestrial sphere, like a sapphire hearth in which a fire was lit, and my electroscopes had an extraordinary tendency to turn toward it.

  “ ‘It’s the magnetic pole,’ Prosope told me, ‘and the other haloes are electromagnetic fields. But what is there beneath your feet, Lebris?’

  “ ‘The floors of the house; planes scarcely tinted, sheets of violet light. Someone’s lying in the room below…’

  “ ‘What about further down—the Earth, the planet…’

  “ ‘An abyss in which mists quiver, in which denser points emit brighter light…the surface, especially, concentrates the fluid.’

  “ ‘Undoubtedly. And around us—the forest?’

  “ ‘A pale moss, the color of peach-flower, almost ungraspable…ah! The moss is lighting up, sparkling, moving, becoming clearer…it’s the wind rising, isn’t it? Everything’s glowing softly. Phosphorescent plumes are following one another along the walls. The very air is filled with streaks. I can see the wind!’

  “ ‘And when I move my own body?’

  “ ‘Everything that moves surrounds itself with an ephemera flame, and leaves a brief broken wake, a gleaming fringe…’

  “ ‘In front of us…?’

  “ ‘I see a building. Lilac transparency. The angles and corners are much more accentuated than the rest. Admirable azure sprays are escaping from the pointed gables, and the lightning-conductor is giving off an inexhaustible fountain of bluish sparks. All that blue and all that red are perpetually melting into violet, and the violet is constantly busy in dissociating itself into red and blue. That’s what produces those eternal fluctuations. Eh? What are you doing? Your hair is catching fire!’

  “ ‘I merely passed my hand through it.’

  “On another occasion, Bare, I’ll describe to you everything that I described to Prosope and all the observations he made by means of my intermediation. I’ll tell you about the various transparencies of bodies, proportional to their conductivity; how certain metals are crystalline to me, although the thinnest glass is often opaque, to the extent that I can sometimes see the hands of my watch more clearly through the entire mechanism than through the glass! I’ll tell you about the electromagnetic aureoles with which we are surrounded, as if each of us were, in his tangible being, merely the nucleus of a field of radiations—with the result that, at any moment, our being may be confused with another or influence it. I’ll tell you…but we’re getting close to Belvoux, and I want to tell you the story of my escape. It was a month ago, to the day…

  “I was overwhelmed by depression. My seclusion seemed like a kind of death, and I had lost all hope of every resuming my place among the living. The house in which I was detained was in the middle of a vast deserted region. I had known for a long time that the majority of its occupants never went out. Imagine being in a crystal castle—crystal colored in various shades of amethyst—and that’s almost what it was like. The slightest electrical phenomenon made an impression on my sight through the walls.

  “Now, every object contains its dose of electricity, every action gives rise to a current; that permitted me to glimpse, at intervals, an automobile arriving and departing, securing a link between the solitary château and an agglomeration of luminous points that I estimated to be very distant—for I had acquired a sense of distance. The automobile penetrated in the heart of the buildings by way of a corridor bordered with high walls—which, continuing all around the grounds, provided it with an insurmountable barrier, supplemented externally by a moat full of water. That is, at least, what I was able to infer, after much contemplation and research, from the height of my cell or during the hygienic walks that Prosope made me take in the courtyard of his fortress.

  “It was impossible to escape the surveillance of my guardians. It was impossible to force the bolts on my door. To leap out of the window would have been suicide. I knew everything about my prison that my senses could teach me, and nothing gave me any hope of salvation. My servant remained mute. The others were strangers to me.

  “One night, when universal immobility facilitated the work, I counted the inhabitants of the place. There were 30 of us—a number that I believed to be broken down thus: 12 invalids or patients; eight physicians or engineers; and ten domestics, nurses and electricians. The silence was only disturbed by the muffled hum of dynamos. Lodged in the basement, they produced fiery sparks that dazzled me like artificial sunbursts. They sent forth the fluid compressed in heir resplendent accumulators; they launched it into the distance in a spidery web of circuits; and every evening, when the lights were switched on, the conductive wires built the paradoxical edifice of their slender incandescence around me…”

  “Forgive me for interrupting, Jean, but tell me: does an illuminated electric lamp appear more or less luminous to you than an electric wire through which a current invisible to our eyes is passing?”

  “Remember what I told you about day and night. They’re merely shades. I’ll continue…

  “One morning last month, the customary silence was disturbed by the unusual rumor of an altercation, and I distinguished two human forms standing face to face in the room next to mine. The taller one was Prosope. The smaller, with the unequally developed cerebellum, was my appointed servant. The two men were hurling abuse at one another. The wall must have been an excellent muffler because, in spite of the short distance separating us, I could only perceive confused snatches. By their attitudes and their gestures, and the flamboyances running through their nerves, however, I understood that the quarrel was violent—and the little man’s heart was beating with a characteristic precipitation.

  “Prosope, although much calmer, struck him in the face with his fist and knocked him down. I saw the slim specter get us and leave the room, with his head bowed, but so iridescent that he seemed to be bristling with light.

  “It was lunch-time. Soon, the servant slid back the bolts on my door and spread the elements of my meal on the table with his habitual meticulousness. I had often spoken to him, but in vain. This time, he replied, and I’m damned if I ever heard anyone jabbering French in a more Chinese fashion. I won’t try to imitate him. He was furious. Knowing that he would find me a sympathetic and discreet listener, he poured out his rancor, heaping the worst insults imaginable upon Prosope. The reason for their argument was trivial, but I judged the opportunity to be
propitious. Without procrastinating, I proposed that he run away with me. He opposed me solely because he, too, was Prosope’s prisoner.

  “ ‘Don’t you have keys to the house?’

  “ ‘The keys? No problem—but to get out of here’—I’m translating his unbelievable gobbledygook—‘there’s no practicable route other than the broad corridor between the walls. The locked gate? No problem—but the paving-stones in the corridor aren’t all paving-stones! Some of them are electric contacts hidden among the floor-tiles. Anyone who touches them with his foot falls down dead, electrocuted!’

  “That explained a peculiarity that puzzled me greatly. I looked down, with a smile, at the floor-tiles of the corridor, the cunning marquetry in which the contacts, hidden from all other eyes, encased sparse luminescences so far as mine were concerned, as easily avoidable as gold plates.

  “ ‘There’s only one gate at the end of the corridor,’ I remarked.

  “ ‘Yes, at the entrance to the bridge. A child could climb over it—but the corridor! They cut off the current when the automobile comes in or goes out, but the doctor is on his guard these days.’

  “ ‘We’ll leave tonight,’ I decided.

  “ ‘What about the electric contacts?’

  “ ‘I’ll deal with them. Come to find me when everyone else is asleep. I’ll take you as far as the gate. After that…’

  The supposed Chinaman, overwhelmed by amazement and veneration, kissed my hands. ‘Where is this place?’ I asked him, releasing myself.

  “ ‘Don’t ask me, Lord,’ he replied, ‘As to where we are, I’ve sworn never to say. As for escaping, that’s something else. I’m at your disposal. I’ll take you to the nearest town. I’ve got money. If you wish, I’ll accompany you to the border of your own country. Get me through the corridor and I’ll swear an oath to you to deliver you into the hands of your compatriots. Then I’ll leave you. Don’t ask anything more. I’ve sworn an oath.’

  “Nothing got in the way of our nocturnal flight. The little Asian had an incomparable dexterity in manipulating locks soundlessly. The château, padded like a dentist’s office, had a strange muffling power. Prosope, sure of his domestics, was fast asleep—I could see him in his room! There were no guard-dogs or sentries. Finally, it was raining gently, about which I was by no means complaining, as things appear much clearer to me when it’s humid. The corridor was negotiated without difficulty, the gate scaled, and we walked for five hours toward the agglomeration of luminous points that I had already located. It was the town.

  “My companion said to me: ‘If we can catch a train at daybreak, all will be well.’ And he added, with an exotic laugh: ‘The doctors back there will be asleep for a long time—at least until tomorrow evening. I also have the keys to the pharmacy…’

  “It’s Heaven that has sent me this little demon! I thought. He didn’t want to tell me his name or his nationality; I learned nothing from him about the mysterious doctors…that, too, remained a secret to be disentangled. We hurried. The night wore on. Through the diaphanous mass of our globe I followed the Sun’s progress with my eyes. To me, it was like a reddish-violet disk among the stars behind the blue fog, the source of a formidable radiance. When it passed the horizon, we were huddled in a narrow railway compartment, crammed with travelers whose unintelligible language did not enlighten me as to their nationality.

  “What point is there in describing the fatigues and vicissitudes of that trans-European journey? Toward evening, at the hour when the man I call Prosope was presumably waking up in his château-clinic, we reached the German-speaking countries. To ask questions knowing, as I did, only a few Teutonic words, would have been to call attention to myself and annoy my savior, who had not asked anything of me except to say nothing and not to try to discover anything. I therefore limited myself, as I had done until then, to remembering names and noting the configuration of mountains or monumental structures, in order to research them at a later date. Bah! For what purpose? In the morning, the word Regensburg struck my ears. We were then traveling on an express along a river as wide as a strait. I then heard Nuremburg and Karlsruhe. At the Kehl Bridge, in spite of all my efforts, the Asian slipped away. I crossed the Rhine thanks to a convoy of trucks laden with armaments surrendered to the Allies.

  “Then there were all sorts of medical examinations and military interrogations, which I got through by mixing a great many lies with a few truths. You know the rest. Officially, my adventure is closed. I’d like to believe that it’s really over, but it seems prudent to me always to carry a revolver—and I confess to you, my dear Bare, that your surreptitious presence behind that bush a little while ago gave me a fright.”

  Jean fell silent and came to a halt. We had arrived. At the other end of the garden, its open windows illuminated, the Lebris house loomed up in the darkness.

  “It’s very late!” I said.

  “Yes,” Jean replied, pointing to one place and then another in the grass with the end of his cane. “Look, there’s the Sun! And there’s the Southern Cross! I’m the first person to have seen it without leaving the northern hemisphere!”

  Then having taken them out of his pocket, he put on Doctor Prosope’s famous goggles, which, fitted to the surrounds of his eyes like those of an automobilist, completely eclipsed all phosphorescence. One might have taken those opaque lenses for smoked-glass spectacles, and nothing discouraged the assumption that Jean had to wear them from time to time, following the prescription of an oculist.

  “Now it’s necessary for me to be led,” he said. “I’m blind!”

  I guided his steps. We went up the stairs—but once he was home, I stayed there for a while, with my hand on the banister, searching with childish fervor for some invented pretext that would permit me to go up to the second floor and see Mademoiselle Grive again, if only for a moment. My heart was beating so strongly that I could hear it. The sound of voices from above rendered me as happy as a schoolboy…

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that the extraordinary blind man might perhaps be watching me through the wall, and I went away, meditating on the prodigy that he had revealed to me.

  VII. The Gymkhana

  This is the first time that I have set out to write a story. I’ve just re-read the preceding pages, and I’m amazed that I’ve carried out my task so badly. I wanted to compose a simple and brief photographic narrative. In spite of that, I’ve extended myself complacently, sometimes with regard to my amorous desires, sometimes in relation to the prodigy of the sixth sense. However, I should only open my heart to the extent required by the clarity of the story, and it would not be appropriate to talk here about Foucault currents, self-induction and hysteresis, for my technical report contains everything that Jean Lebris was able to make known to me about those subjects with the aid of his electroscopic eyes. From now on, I shall attempt to stick more closely to my brief.

  The weeks that followed Jean Lebris’ confession left me with the memory of a singularly busy and full period. Love, friendship, devotion to the sick man, scientific curiosity—I had more than one reason to associate myself with the lives of my neighbors. So, within a few days, we had become inseparable—but I recall how difficult it was for me to divide my assiduities equally and to hide the homage of an incessantly-growing passion under the appearance of banal gallantry.

  Madame Fontan and Mademoiselle Lebris, gripped by a mutual affection, were hardly ever apart. Fanny, who was free of all constraint, as avid for activity as for charity, and always ready for generosity and pleasure, divided her time between the blind man, sport and the excursions that we organized. All door opened to her gracefulness, her good humor and her misfortune, however; numerous invitations were not long delayed in assailing her. She yielded to them.

  Now, it’s necessary to know that Belvoux becomes a very fashionable location in summer, because of the country houses and châteaux in its vicinity. On Sundays, the exit from mass assembles all sorts of elegance, and the row of parked cars stretches as fa
r as the main square. Personally, being something of a sportsman and by no means scornful of the joys of the era, I’ve always frequented that fine society—in which I retain some small status as a scrupulous physician, capable of doing my bit at a bridge table or in front of a tennis net—without any hesitation.

  Mademoiselle Grive was a sensation. She was invited everywhere.

  I made no complaint about that. Most of the time, Madame Fontan remained at home in her niece’s absence, with the effect that Fanny and I often found ourselves alone at gatherings, resulting in a sort of intimacy whose sensation was most welcome to me.

  As for Jean Lebris, needless to say, he avoided every occasion that might belie his unsociability like the plague. To break down his shyness to the profit of the charming refugee, it required nothing less than Fanny’s irresistible seduction, her obliging generosity, her communicative vivacity, and the ‘fellow feeling’ that is so exquisite in a young woman endowed with such brilliance. He loved the voice of his reader, the gentility emanating from his guide. Disabled and depressed, however, he always rejected our offers when we talked about taking him to some small party or other.

  In spite of the violence of the love that overwhelmed me, Jean Lebris retained an important place in my life. I looked after him with all my heart and all my knowledge, and his gratitude was manifest in the willingness with which he lent himself to my experimental studies.