He no longer moved, no longer opened his eyes, no longer needed light. Someone fed him some food or other. Cauterized with platinum rods heated to white, which were applied to his spine from the nape of the neck to the lumbar regions, and which made his flesh sizzle, he sensed only a few recollections of a world exterior to his own, to which he no longer belonged, except to perceive in his internal visions an unutterable serenity. In the angelic paradise where he dwelt in ecstasy, he pitied the doctor and his assistants who moved around his bed to operate on him, as unfortunate shades not yet afforded the gift of his restful state. They rolled him around in a wheelchair. “Where am I going?” he would sigh in a single breath. “Outdoors in the air, to stop you from moldering away on your sheets,” the nurse spat back in a gruff tone, which nonetheless charmed his ears like the chirpings from a nest.
And his blind man’s eyelids guessed of the light at the limits of his dreams, silvered by a warm beatitude. Jan, having become without knowing it the most divine of gods, Buddha, congratulated himself for at last having attained supreme wisdom, which consisted in preparing for the supreme emptiness while merely existing in the realm of life.
Marcel Roland (1879-1955) was a French writer, famous for his naturalistic works published in the prestigious magazine Le Mercure de France. Roland was first and foremost a feuilletoniste for newspapers. He is mostly remembered today for his proto-science fiction novel, Roman des temps futurs [Novel of Future Times] (1911), about the rise of apedom to supplant humanity, Gulluliou, ou, le Presqu’homme (1905), Le Déluge futur [The Coming Flood] (1910), and La Conquête d’Anthar [The Conquest of Anthar] (1913). Other genre works include Le faiseur d’or [The Gold-Maker] (1913-14) and Osmant le rajeunisseur [Osmant the Rejuvenator] (1925). He also contributed to the notorious Journal des Voyages, with Le Serpent fantôme [The Phantom Snake] (1919).
Marcel Roland: Almost a Man
CHAPTER I
Alix Forest crossed the garden, entered the small drawing room by way of the verandah and, pushing open the workroom door, called her forewoman:
“Miss Julienne!”
Before a tall, narrow mirror she began to uncoil her ample squirrel pelerine and remove her large, plush and unique mushroom-shaped chestnut-colored hat. She then collapsed on a corner of the chesterfield, her feet stretched out towards the radiator. Just then Julienne came in, exclaiming:
“Mr. Murlich, your cousin, has arrived!”
“You apologized on my behalf? You told him I very much regretted not being able to make it to the train station, because I had that urgent errand?”
“Yes, miss.”
“Poor man! I’m going to go and greet him. So, has Lucy done the honor with the back guest house? He wasn’t late? Did his trunk arrive with him?”
“His trunk! Why it was an entire shipment! Several trunks, suitcases, and packages. And then, they are two.”
“How’s that…two?” replied Miss Forest surprised. “Is someone with him?”
“Why yes, another fellow.”
“Why! What’s he like, fat, tall, short, slim, blond or brown-haired?”
“Well, you know, Lucy and I barely glanced at them.”
“That’s intriguing, I must say. Another fellow? Well, whatever, we’ll see about that later.”
Alix quickly raised her hand:
“Do tell, Julienne, while I think about it! But with whom could my cousin Wolfram-Pierre Murlich possibly have arrived, confirmed loner that he is? You know, I had, on the way, a spark of genius for the Balsamore dress…all in mushrooms my dear!”
The forewoman nodded, winding around her index finger a thread taken from her sleeve.
Alix continued.
“Eh? In a marvelous orange, crinkled silk boleti. Is that some idea? And you add a black velour belt painted in the same pattern. Can you picture it? I have it in my mind’s eye, I could sketch it for you.”
Finally, Julienne answered:
“But Bertha Balsamore will never accept such a thing, she simply won’t hear of anything with mushrooms, and certainly not in something she’d be wearing on stage!”
“Ah!” replied the seamstress with a defiant cock of the head, “she’ll be forced to wear them! Did I start this fashion for nothing? Myself, I think such a bodice would make an impression! But here we are chatting; I was forgetting my dear traveler! I’ll see you later; my idea, think about it!
She took up her pelerine, and in the same motion both young women turned their back on one another, the one to reenter the workroom, whose door in opening had allowed a laugh to filter out, the other to go down into the garden. But as Alix went out, already enveloped in the brisk cold of a January morning, she spied her cousin Murlich, approaching a few steps away.
He had changed little over the years: losing a little weight, his features becoming somewhat coarser, but still full of good humor, his skin tanned through his travels, a small, prim and proper man, with a graying beard and blue-tinted glasses. He walked upright, looking modest in his dark clothing and his soft felt hat. When they were before one another, Alix bent over to kiss him on the cheeks. Happily, they held hands for a short moment. Murlich exclaimed:
“You know, I barely recognize you. What a fine young woman you are now! To think it’s been almost 11 years since I last came! You were still in short skirts.”
They made their way to the drawing room.
“Ah! Good cousin, how was your trip?” asked Alix. “Let us sit down, why, you must be exhausted, get rid of your muffler…there!”
“I had an excellent trip. I left Basel last night, slept in Belfort, where I had a meeting with someone. This morning, I got back on the train at six, and at eight, I was in Paris, not a minute late.”
“You’ll excuse me, won’t you?” replied Alix. “Imagine, this very morning I get a frantic call from a client, asking me to come to her home.”
“I know, I know, Alix dearie, it’s not important at all. With a car there is no problem. But in France you have very fast trains: two hours from Belfort here, that’s some pace. At home in Switzerland the electric trains are still so slow, so slow compared to yours!”
“And how’s your health, cousin?”
“Good. At 58 one can’t complain.”
“You’re looking younger! And your eyes? You had written me that they bothered you?”
“Pretty much cured, thankfully. Only there’s these nasty fevers, still a few fits now and then, still…But you haven’t told me about yourself: what have you been up to, what’s happening in your life? How you’ve changed!”
With a well intentioned but scrutinizing look from behind glasses, his mouth hiding an indulgent smile tinged with irony under a pendulous mustache, the scientist looked at Alix. Her rapid movements drew rustles from the silky material of her skirt, where citrine-hued agarics lent vague spots of pale yellow to the grayish material. Her full 26 years had not altered the gaiety of her thin mobile face, irregular but not ungraceful in its features. Her artistry was revealed by a slip of brown hair which fell across her flat brow, shading her eyes. Certainly, the transparence of her ears indicated an anemic condition, but by a constant biting, which had now developed into a tic, her lips kept a healthy redness.
Alix spoke very quickly, always seeming hurried, fevered, like someone who is perpetually late. She recounted, in short choppy quips her current life, how she had rented this house with a garden, to better accommodate her sewing business. It was necessary. The population’s nexus of elegance was there, right in the middle of Auteuil, far from the noisy financial, legislative and judicial districts. The industrialized city pushed back, day by day, the inhabited regions, changing Paris into 20-storey row-houses, modeled on an expansion of the design of old barracks. Ah! it was such a shame, this need for uniformity, this decline in good taste which extended to all things, in an unhealthy obsession with practicality, and which was even felt in the world of fashion. The lovers of beauty in dress were now few. These days people preferred to buy clothing t
hat met with a common standard, in bulk, from National Store outlets, supplied by a hundred garment trade businesses. For the independents who sought to bring greater dignity to their craft, the fight was getting to be difficult: but, she couldn’t complain, she was successful in her chosen field, her profits had risen as well as her notoriety: she launched new lines and had orders, maintaining her individuality and making money, was this not the true achievement of the modern way? She was quickly becoming famous in the designer community. Just yesterday the magazine Art and Fashion had devoted an entire article to her, in the future, with her mushroom-themed innovations, her name would completely dominate the industry. For, while those jealous of her could well jeer, it was quite a find, this decorative use in fashion design of a long ignored element of the terrestrial flora.
“Why, cousin, you who are a naturalist, is it not your opinion that a number of cryptogams can rival in freshness, vivacity of hue, and elegance of form with the flowers? So then, why not?”
Murlich, smiling faintly with indulgent nods of his head, one by one examined the young girl, the mushroom-hat tossed on the armchair, the double-panes of the door and windows, through which were drawn the shivering lace of the bare trees. And while Alix spoke, he remembered the frivolous, carefree girl she had been until the day when conflicts between her parents had initiated her into the miseries of life. Very young when she thus lost her mother, a woman who thenceforth no longer existed in her life, she had been raised by her father, whose keen wit, open mind, sensitivity and taste for independence she now possessed. So when M. Forest had died, Alix, at 20 years of age, had been equipped to live independently.
“But,” exclaimed the young woman, sinking her fists into the cushions of her large couch, “here I am boring you with my stories and not talking about more interesting subjects! You know I was completely engrossed! I read your presentation to the Zurich Congress; it was incredible! How did you manage to attain such a remarkable result?”
“Simply with patience. My observations at the Basel Zoological Gardens had led me to suspect that simians of certain species, apes especially, possessed a number of vocalizations, sounds, thanks to which they could understand one another. But in captivity these animals’ behaviors were somewhat altered, so it would have been difficult to observe them as thoroughly as was necessary. It is then, as you know, that I went to study the language of the simians on-site, in their own haunts. Ah! I worked for ten years all over the place, in the Sudan, in Madagascar, in Sumatra; everywhere I went I was able to ascertain that the great apes are indeed endowed with a true language, more or less developed according to the family. But it is in Borneo where I had the greatest success, with a tribe of Wurmb’s pongos. There, I observed, from the steel cage which served to isolate me from my hosts’ activities, a very high level of civilization.”
“Of civilization?” interrupted Alix.
“Yes, of civilization, and a complete language which, after many patient efforts, I managed to learn more or less. Besides, you know all about this. We can speak of it at greater length, later.”
“Professor Murlich,” whispered the young woman sincerely, “I really admire you.”
The scientist, softly nodded his head:
“I’m not particularly remarkable, child, I simply satisfied, along with my taste for travel, an old wish to clear up the matter of these over-neglected creatures, which the great Hetking, a century ago, called our future sons.”
“And your first presentation, have you fixed a date for it?”
“In a fortnight, roughly; there’re a number of people I have to see, and besides, I’d like my friend to have time to get over the excitement of the trip.”
“Your friend?”
“The ape I have raised; he is here.”
“You have brought him here? Ah! so he’s the second traveler,” exclaimed Alix. “I thought you were to send him directly to the Museum?”
“That was indeed my intention, but truly it would be difficult to separate myself from him. I thought he wouldn’t inconvenience anyone in the guest house you reserved for me, so I brought him with me. Nonetheless, if this will disturb you…”
“But no, but no, you did well to do so, you will show him to me, won’t you? Is he wicked?”
“On the contrary, very docile and not cumbersome, well-behaved, a perfect gentleman. He can even speak. He must be brushing off my clothes. We’ll show him Paris, this young man.”
“This young…”
“A boy! Barely 13. I had him very young. The hunters hired to capture him for me, in a stupid act of cruelty, killed the mother who sought to protect him.”
“Oh! poor creature!”
“Perhaps you saw a photograph of this, some six months ago, when I brought him back from Borneo, where I had educated him.”
“Yes, I think so, in some Swiss journal. What’s his name again?”
“Gulluliou.”
“Gulluliou?”
“It’s pongo, meaning in English: son of doves” he said, smiling. “Gui-lu-liou, it’s a bit like cooing.”
“Most curious! And you speak with him.”
“And he almost as well with me. You’ll see, he’s not even missing the power of speech, I tell you.”
And, as if following a chain of thought, Murlich added more softly:
“This creature has every characteristic of man, but is only a beast to us!”
There was a moment of silence; Alix remained motionless and thoughtful. From the workshop on the right, far away laughter covered the whirring of a sewing machine; outdoors, in a light fog, a streetcar passing the corner of Lateral Boulevard rang its bell. The sparrows flew off twittering from the grillwork which bordered the sidewalk. For an instant Murlich and the young woman, in the close warmth of the drawing room, dwelt dreamily on what they had just now evoked. But Alix refolded her legs which she had spread out on the carpet, and rose nervously.
“What if we were to go and see him, huh?”
“As you wish, child, but it is awfully messy where I am, I brought a great deal of luggage.”
“You’ll have time to fix all that. I’ll tell the chambermaid. Mind the cold, cover yourself!”
They went out into the garden. It was large and open. The tasteful two storey house though recent, smiled beneath its green and blue crockery trimmings. Ivy embraced the base of the house and the limbs of the virginal vine clung to the verandah’s iron and copper banister, and thickly overgrew the clear-paned windows. At this hour a chilly sun appeared, extending its thin veils of gold between the naked branches of the chestnut and lacquer trees, warming everything to the lukewarm temperature of one’s breath. The guest house was in the back, behind the house, on the other side of the entrance gate, with its back to Lakeshore Road. This street took its name from the fact that it skirted the remains of a lake which had been dug in the middle of some rather extensive woods. These had stretched as far as the city, but were now carved up and surrounded, thus forming the rich districts of Auteuil, Boulogne, and Neuilly. Only a square portion had remained, of which the lake, filled in little by little, was a part.
“Have you looked through your windows which face the street?” asked Alix. “You have a lovely view: trees everywhere. Only at this time of year, they are seldom very green.”
The door of the guest house was open, and the sound of trunks being dragged and chairs being moved about inside could be heard.
“Listen to him,” whispered Murlich, “he’s cleaning up. He doesn’t waste any time!”
Alix felt vaguely worried. She needed the scientist’s perpetual smile to comfort her.
“Will you then present him to me?”
“Why certainly, and he will thank you himself for the warm reception you have given him.”
“I’m not altogether reassured. Go in first, eh! No, hold on, call him out here, I’d like that better.”
“Gulluliou!” Murlich called out loudly in a strange guttural voice.
The noise on the f
irst floor stopped. Something heavy made the stairs creak. A dark, wide, hunched over form entered the frame of the entrance hall, then emerged onto the threshold.
“Here he is,” said Murlich.
A little bit taller than his master when standing, Gulluliou had placed on his head, adorned with long black hairs, a red cotton bonnet. His tawny brown, hairless face bore two prominent and constantly blinking eyes, as if they feared the light. The nose was flat, the muzzle slightly projecting. The ears partly disappeared beneath his hair, but could be imagined to be small and stuck closely to the skull. A goatee framed these rather dazed and sad, but not overly bestial features. His neck was protected against the chilliness by a muffler, and a greatcoat covered his robust and gangling body. His long arms, in large apothecary’s sleeves, hung like pendulums. Beneath a worn pair of pants one discovered feet shod in boots whose loose laces interfered with his bowed pins.
The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men Page 19
