“If you aren’t yet convinced, the story I’m going to tell you will dissipate your doubts,” and immediately I gave him a complete account of my adventure.
When I was finished, Debert, who was deep in thought, said to me:
“We must get to the bottom of this affair.”
Thanks to my recollections, I was able to find the path I had followed in escaping the homicidal bullets. There was the wall I climbed over in the wet soil, one could still see signs of my footsteps, and those of another, those of the old man, desperate to see me dead.
But where was the house? I could see only ruins. Nothing was left but a few unstable walls and some calcinated beams. The old man had kept his secret by blowing himself up with his son, the ape-man. Debert and I looked at one another.
“It is a shame,” he muttered. “What a lovely presentation we could have made to the Academy of Sciences.”
The old man kept his secret
Grégoire Le Roy (1862-1941) was a member of the Ghent group of Belgian Symbolist writers whose name is often encountered in connection with that of Maurice Maeterlinck. He is known especially for his collections of poems La Chanson du Soir [Evening Song] (1887) and Le Rouet et la Besace [The Spinner and the Bag], which he illustrated, and which deals with the sufferings of the poor. Short story collections include Contes d’après-minuit [After Midnight Stories] (1913) and Joe Trimborn (1913).
Grégoire Le Roy : The Strange Adventure of Brother Levrai
To my friend, brother Levrai,
among the incurables at the public lunatic asylum.
Sleep-walkers interest us; we flee from the insane. Nevertheless, the mysterious kingdoms of their subconscious are remarkably similar to one another.
As for me, I have always been keenly curious about certain forms of insanity and I remain the last friend of the poor brother who was locked up at Petites-Maisons.
This is his story.
I tell it as a composite of several talks we had together. If I do not present the story in the teller’s own voice it is that I had to put some order amongst certain details and place in chronological order generally disjointed and episodic facts and remembrances, such as poor lunatics generally provide.
The words may be different, but I have maintained intact the meaning and intention, which represent the understanding of a story.
One may complain that the story is full of crazy and improbable things. How could it be otherwise?
Besides, wisdom can draw more than one lesson from lunacy, just as the man of wit discovers, in his neighbor, what makes him an idiot and from which he only differs in that he avoids allowing others the same perspective.
Rome had not yet admitted as orthodox the theory of evolution. She reserved judgment, in her obliging attention to all that relates to knowledge, and closed her eyes on the battles raging around the great principle.
Without having given safe haven to the working hypothesis that God had perhaps contented himself in creating the first cell, leaving in its care the perfection of his work, it neither encouraged nor discouraged anyone. Like a mother watching over her children’s gambols, if ready to intervene at the first sign of danger, she measured the risks incurred, in such intellectual games, to those of hers who were following the new doctrine.
She was conscious of her authority and that she would know, at the appropriate time, to either draw them back to a respect of the doctrine or make it conform to scientific necessities, if the clear interests of the church required such a sacrifice.
In the favored shadow of this maternal tolerance, brother Levrai had given himself, body and soul, to questions of anthropology, and later, tempted by the example of the glorious adventurers who had exiled themselves to India in the hope of finding the vestiges of the putative ancestor, he had exchanged his secular priest’s cassock for the earnest missionary’s frock and had shipped out to the mysterious lands of the Malay archipelago.
Driven by his hankering for knowledge—to experience, as he put it, Truth fulfilled—and strong in the priest’s vocational sacrifice which extends to the sacrifice of one’s life, he scornfully ignored the already explored regions of Borneo, to rush off, enraptured in faith and science, into the most fearsome jungles of a fearful land.
To say that in his scientist’s soul he had forgotten God would be to misrepresent the sincerity of his faith, but it would be equally true to state that he did not choose the most inhabitable regions, when other regions could have, with greater likelihood, been presumed to house tribes in need of conversion. When the scientist and the believer are at odds over things which are so closely related, it is very rare that one does not come to lead the other on.
Furthermore, having met with truly isolated troglodytic races, consumers of raw roots and meat, which supplanted the less and less numerous hordes of Dayaks and Papous; having descended step by step the scales of barbarity, the brother had eventually lost all traces of humanity.
The mystery of the jungles deepened along with the rising dangers associated with wild beasts, these as much to be feared as were men. But Nature beautified herself so solemnly; the vegetation transformed the Earth into a marvelous world; the interlaced lianas and flowers formed such wild and fantastic arabesques; the clearings which suddenly opened up into fairyland chambers were the site of such fascinating silence that all notion of fear, all instinct of self-preservation was extinguished under the intoxicating influence to share in the multifaceted life of dominant and virginal Nature. And the brother had ever pressed forward, towards the heart of the mystery, untouched by any other emotion, living off the few roots which science helped him identify as being able to satisfy his hunger.
Only night was worrisome, for then the monkeys would chase him, their numbers growing daily, accumulating in living garlands hanging from the trees to the left and right of his path, advancing with him and only stopping at night, no doubt curious of his sudden stop, and then only to burst out in such a racket that sleep would not close his tired eyelids.
Thus, for many days was it an extraordinary existence in which even his consciousness dwindled as he distanced himself from humanity, as he left it behind, as he thought, much as one leaves a country behind.
Amidst this prodigious and incredible vegetation, he soon no longer conceived of his individuality from the rest of Nature. He ended up seeing himself, in a conceptualization that was only in part under his control, as only one more unit in this bewildering profusion of wildlife and vegetation.
Like his inferior fellows, did he not live at the whim of the Unknown? Like them, had he not lost his sense of self- preservation, only to find it again when suddenly face to face with impending danger? Yes indeed, it was their awe and wide-eyed surprise before all things, their continuous ecstatic state, softly slipping into an underlying unconsciousness, pushing him towards blissful animality.
On occasion he would remember his mission, which he somewhat neglected; but in absolving himself he reasoned that perhaps God would one day show him the marvelous things which bear within them the science behind all creation. Then, having beheld such a thing face to face, he would draw from his soul lyrics worthy of the loveliest hymn to God, words which would proclaim his Truth.
This one thought, almost a hope, was enough to retemper his will; he would move on again fresh and renewed, like the greatest seekers of knowledge, against all odds, even ready to undergo a missionary’s martyrdom, for, in the end, were he not the one to bring truth to others but rather he who seeks it unto death, would he be any less a missionary of Truth?
Thus discovering in his passion the very justification for his passion, he once again considered the other goal of his mission: to find the mysterious link which ties man to his unknown ancestor, the pithecoid, in a word, that which represents the Holy Grail of the anthropologist’s science, the yet inviolate tabernacle of revealed truth.
The brother, lifting his eyes to those accompanying him on his way, cried out: “A bit more than you, a wee bit more
! I couldn’t even express what, but, well…that something, that nothing which nonetheless differentiates you from us…”
Upon this, the monkeys afforded him their sympathy and forgot their nightly carousing. Who knows, he thought, perhaps they are angels which the Lord has sent to lead me as he once did Toby; they are perhaps to me what the star was to the Wise Men! In his simplicity, it had never occurred to the brother that he could have guessed so accurately.
A few days later, as he proceeded on his way, following his supernatural guides, these—as the Wise Men’s star did when they were in sight of Bethlehem—suddenly stopped; their raucous cries were muffled; soon there was only a great whispering as if the wind, unknown in this thick jungle, had begun to blow the reeds and palms.
The brother stopped. What did his angels want? Left and right, all there was were thousands of glittering, apprehensive eyes. The monkeys, oscillating in counter-point the garlands of their intermingled bodies and interlaced tails, slowly, very slowly drew back and disappeared, one after another, in the direction whence they had come.
The brother felt abandoned, alone, terribly alone, as if his guardian angel had forsaken him. What could he do, it was not time to retire to sleep; definitely, he would not go back. Besides, some vague prescience warned him that great things were going to happen.
Night was not yet complete; he went on, less assuredly perhaps, hesitating as to which direction to take. Finally a sort of winding passage among the lianas opened up before him. It was almost a path, but a path arched over by the tree canopies. Surprisingly, the leaf litter showed signs of trampling! But now, a few paces farther, a clearing opened up, where, for reasons known only to Nature, the vegetation had reined in its exuberant growth. It was a veritable green-walled and roofed crypt whose twilight sparkled with myriads of phosphorescent insects. The smells of moist soil and succulent flowers thickened the warm air.
The brother stopped, intimidated, composing himself as when he entered a church. A greenish half-light obscured the clarity of things—his eyes were acclimating to it—he soon was able to distinguish, along with the walls and columns the jungle simulated, a few raised beds upon which were strewn sets of bones. It was a cemetery, the catacomb of a new species. He moved forward a step at a time, dumbfounded.
His anthropologist’s eye could not deceive him.
This cranium! These femurs! These jaw-bones! He began to measure them, to estimate their volumes, and who knows what else? His heart was pounding, his hands clenched the bones; he held truth! And suddenly he trembled. Was it not a sin to know so intimately what God had seemingly wished to keep hidden for so many eons, that which he had so carefully hidden! Truth! Was this not God’s treasure, and did man truly have the right to appropriate it in this manner, through patience and perseverance?
Ah! How difficult it was to distinguish good from evil!
How clearly he comprehended the huge import of the parable of the forbidden fruit! God and the devil were right; the Lord because it was true that man in eating of the fruit of science transgressed upon the mysteries which surrounded him; the devil because it was true that through science man attained absolute wisdom.
What was he to do? And, like Hamlet, he held a skull in his hand; and, like Eve, he thought he held the forbidden fruit in his hand; he hesitated.
Hamlet won out. Besides it was too late, since he already knew. He had measured and estimated the volume of everything. He was convinced; he even wondered if he would go further, for this cemetery led to the unavoidable conclusion that a colony of pithecanthropes was present.
He would go on! But which way? His angels were no longer there. It was only a passing hesitation; a mysterious certainty drove him as if, having so distanced himself from humanity and come closer to his less evolved fellows, an innate sense of direction had been added to his other faculties. Besides, the path took up again on the far side of the clearing, and as he straddled roots monstrously twisted and knotted like the coils of a giant serpent, how his soul took flight! His attention was soon entirely devoted to the silence which, in these impenetrable jungles, was of an unusual nature: it is not the silence of the plains or mountains, where the slightest sound expands infinitely through space or echoes and dies out; it is a living silence, alive with thousands of imperceptible sounds which an innumerable, invisible fauna creates through the efforts of their hidden but continuing life.
However, a remarkably regular series of blows, muffled by their distance, broke through the silence. The brother went on. The blows became more distinct, and, had it not been for the improbability of such a supposition, Levrai would have taken them to be the sound of a hammer or axe.
This was also the call of the Unknown, echoing through the missionary and scientist’s heart. Was he going to find himself among an unknown people? How would the first meeting unfold? Bloody visions of martyrdom clouded his eyes.
The blows had suddenly stopped. The brother took a few quiet, tentative steps, careful not to disturb the cover of silence which spread out around him. And again he found himself in front of a clearing; frozen, he tried to peer in. No one! Had they fled at his approach? And notwithstanding his earlier visions of torture and death, he was wracked with regret. The words gorilla, orangutan trembled on his lips.
But here it was that his eyes suddenly stopped, awestruck, on some sort of huge nest built of screw-pine leaves and woven branches, a genuine hut supported on the main limbs of a tree and reaching to the upper limbs for support as it circled about the trunk.
O! What minutes of anticipation! The anticipation of the big game hunter who sees the tiger’s head emerge from the jungle like a blossom suddenly bursting open. The nest’s leaves were suddenly thrust apart; a sudden leap, and an extraordinary creature, half-man, half-beast was standing there erect, right in front of the brother. A tragic moment, for ape or man, it held a great club in its hand.
Their eyes met and the anger burning in the ape’s eyes died out while it observed the brother’s humble, not to say pitiable aspect.
On his side, the brother, seeing the gradually mellowing mood of the…man and wishing to ensure his goodwill, said to him in his most fawningly sympathetic voice, nonetheless tinged with his overwhelming emotion:
“Good day, my friend…”
He would have preferred something better suited to the solemnity of the occasion, but nothing had come to him.
The ape, on his part, replied with an inarticulate grunt, which nonetheless indicated his seemingly great forbearance for the inoffensive and hang-dog look of the one engaging him in an exchange.
The brother was already saying to himself that he had here, at hand, the celebrated mystery of human history, the truth regarding creation. His emotions overwhelmed him; the large ape appeared beautiful to him, particularly in terms of moral beauty, for, when all was said and done, if he had wanted to, he could have sent the brother sprawling ten feet away with one blow of his club.
How shameful to think that a man would have acted thus! He was so overwhelmed that had the brave anthropologist dared, he would have given the ape a great big hug, but he did not even risk a handshake. But such moments cannot last forever, as impressive and eternal as the first meeting between man and his ancestor might appear in the eyes of Levrai. Again he would have liked to have something grand, unforgettable to say, words which would have consecrated this unique instant of Eternity but he was too awestruck to be inspired.
“Good day, my friend…” he repeated with a smile.
The ape affectionately took hold of his arm, and drawing him towards the tree, made a soft little cry. His mate showed herself.
Levrai, for all that he was a priest, could not help but find her somewhat attractive. She was not overly hairy—for that matter, her husband was not either—more so than ordinary women, certainly, even those with the most abundant hair, the bushiest eyebrows, the most shadowed lips, but this detail only proved a greater attraction to him. The brother was going to look her over in even g
reater detail when he remembered his youth and saw himself on the slippery slope of covetousness, or worse, even perhaps adultery!
He nonetheless had some difficulty during the days which he stayed with his new hosts, to avoid, without offending her with a blunt rebuff, to the ever mounting attentions of his hostess. He thought, more than once, he could read in his friend’s eye a small glint of jealousy. He was wrong; everything pointed to the male being above such feelings, but the brother saw with bitterness that the sins of lust and adultery were older than man, and that no bloodline went back far enough, for these sins sank their roots even into our ancestral animality. How well he now understood the inefficacy of laws and religions in proscribing physical love!
It was only these matters of the flesh which troubled the fortnight he spend among his hosts—like those cold, nasty winds which sometimes mar a lovely spring morning. Besides, he quickly regained his composure, and, his missionary’s conscience regaining the upper hand, he tried, at every appropriate opportunity, to draw the exchange into the domain of his apostolate. It was rather difficult; they understood each other so little, not to mention the difficulty in discussing the divine in a place yet so close to primeval nature.
To the brother, however, they were men, rough and uncouth, but men! He even had to admit, to his disarray, that they understood him better in all things than he did them. But every time he had said to himself: “now is the right moment to broach the great question,” and had begun to talk, by gestures as much as by words, of the Infinite, while his hosts’ eyes had indeed followed the mysterious signs of the Absolute he traced out in the air, when, carried away with his subject, he tried to have them understand the great questions of the faith, he had found his listeners distracted, dozing off, just like peasants during a Sunday sermon. His flock even had the unfortunate habit, at the most solemn moments, for example when he extolled the supreme importance of only considering one’s salvation in the hereafter, of scratching with their fingers the sores which plagued the brother’s neck.
The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men Page 31
