The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men

by Georges T. Dodds

  He had to face the facts; these people were not yet at the stage of considering God. Beyond food and drink and letting Nature provide for them, the only thing which worried them was the extinction of their race.

  They had managed to explain quite clearly that they were the last of their species, and that notwithstanding their diligent efforts they had not borne any children, and that their name, which for them was the equivalent of their species, was going to be forgotten and lost in nothingness. It was through a feeling of pride, born from the remarkable things they believed they had done, that pretty much inexplicable instinct, which pushes our middle-class to wish for a boy in order to perpetuate the family name but which only really manages to perpetuate their misery.

  When, finally, the missionary became disillusioned as to the efficacy of his zealous preaching and he saw, more clearly than ever, the dangers of this ménage-à-trois, he resolved to part from his friends. The anthropologist took the upper hand; he foresaw a mission to accomplish, that of going to announce to the scientific world what he had seen, that is the very truth regarding the theory of evolution. His self-esteem was excited by the importance of such a mission, and with all the tenderness one can convey in gestures, he opened up to his friends.

  The woman was greatly saddened, a rather human emotion, for one knows that a man will most regret the departure of his mate’s friend, while the woman will rather more cry over the departure of her own friend.

  On the day of their separation, the goodbyes were touching and even, miraculously, at certain moments, tears wetted his hostess’s eyelids; the man was awestruck, he had never seen the likes of it, neither he, nor his mate, nor any of his species had ever cried.

  It was the first sobs of the race and it was love which had brought them on! The poor unfortunate went sadly back to her nest and then only his friend remained to escort him back out.

  They followed each other in silence, but already the split had occurred in their hearts. The steps they took together tread on the ground of parting, the ground which separates, the ground which draws apart; memories interposed between them as one made his way back to the land of men and the other, in spirit, turned back to the lonely place where his mate waited for him.

  In such a manner they reached the crypt. The wild man stopped and the brother understood that this was the spot which he had tacitly chosen as the farthest point he would go. The brother made it understood with friendly gestures that he would have been well pleased were he to walk along farther with him, but in vain. By other gestures the primitive man made him to understand that this cemetery represented the ends of the earth to him, and that none of his race would ever consent to go beyond the territory where his ancestors had settled for eternity, that it was an intangible law not to see beyond the death, and it would have shown a lack of respect for them to go on.

  Thus the cult of the past and the sadness of love which had been recently manifest in the spouse, these two characteristics of our civilization, the brother realized, the great apes knew and were subject to already.

  There was nothing that could be done, the reasons were among those one does not discuss; the moment of parting had arrived. Friend held out a hand to the friend who placed his in it; the priest lifted ceremoniously his right hand and was going to make the sign of the cross over the ape’s head, when the latter, taken by who knows what fear, turned suddenly and disappeared into the jungle.

  After much trials and tribulations and yet more dangers, the brother had finally reached Pontianak.

  His spiritual headquarters was the Capuchin convent where he found Father Palud, his director of conscience, in flourishing health. He had been anxious to see him again, especially since such great but fearful things had occurred in his shaken soul, and that he felt the need to retemper his faith in the strong, perhaps somewhat sectarian faith of his confessor, and to draw from it that blind confidence in God that one loses too easily when alone with Nature.

  He had just given a truthful account of his incredible adventure, increasingly apprehensive of Father Palud’s obstinate silence, when the latter, in a curt, cold voice which cut like a knife, cried out in irritation:

  “What you have done is a crime. You have betrayed the Church’s eternal truth for the adulterous love of worldly truth. You have picked the forbidden fruit and I understand that you would wish other men to bite into it.

  “For the sake of simple scientific curiosity you would abandon all your spiritual learning. This will not happen! Even if it is the death of me, I will save the eternal truth. Follow me!”

  “But.”

  And without further delay, the monk, shoving in front of the sad and discouraged missionary who dared not further disturb Father Palud’s stubbornness, left the convent in tow and headed into the jungle, retracing step by step the unbelievable and dangerous route the brother had already covered twice, full of hope upon leaving, with the scientist’s pride of having discovered upon his return.

  It would take too long to tell of this expedition. Every day they got lost, the brother could barely make out where he was going now that the monkeys were no longer there.

  What was it then which cried betrayal from the bottom of his heart? Yes, he was committing an act of betrayal, and though it wasn’t clear to him if it consisted in the great ape or science, he understood that he had not behaved in a loyal manner. But his soul was that of a child and the hard, severe monk was pressing upon it with the fierce ardency of his faith.

  The few times Father Palud broke the silence it was to utter harsh rebukes:

  “What exactly drew you to that damned couple?”

  “It is said that we descend…”

  “Ah! I know! Common ugly traits have led atheists to believe…But it is rank falsehood! It contradicts the Scriptures.”

  “I believed I was drawing near to the Truth, that is God himself.”

  “Shut up! God cannot contradict the Church, and that truth, differing from that of the Church, can only be in opposition to God!”

  “But, Father, can there not be two truths?”

  “Indeed! There is the devil’s truth; and there is that of God! Mere physical appearances can be deceiving, but the latter is nothing before the one, clear, eternal truth of the Church. This truth is simple, well ordered, complete; it forms a system which has passed all the tests the best scholars have put it to. And what are your scientific observations, those hunches of the intellect, those dispersed crumbs, compared to the bastions of theology, built upon the greatest minds?”

  “Father, I thought that the eternal truth was made up of thousands of small truths that one gathers up along the way like little white pebbles, as Tom Thumb did in order to find his way, and that these small truths, they too, were eternal; that they fill the world and surround us, but that we don’t always perceive them, undoubtedly because of their very smallness.”

  “Blasphemer! Those are material truths, truths of the flesh, truly pebbles compared to pure crystal; in a word, the devil’s work! God’s truth cannot be found on the open road, but in the soul; not in Nature, but in the purely spiritual.”

  “Yes, but, Father, it is precisely that I perceived the soul of my two friends being in some many ways akin to the human soul. Thus, when I preached to them…”

  “Eh! What? You dared bring the word of God to such creatures?”

  “Did not St. Francis preach to the animals?”

  “Yes but they were birds, chickens, ducks, geese, all sorts of inoffensive lower forms of life, simple farmyard animals, and not huge, vile apes, barely covered with hair, abominable brutes, entirely abnormal creatures which resemble man!”

  “This is true,” the brother had to agree, in spite of his scientist’s hopes.

  “But I am thankful that I am mistaken,” added the monk, “how could you have spoken to apes?”

  “I admit it was difficult; but through gesture…”

  “Oh! gestures, they are meaningless…”

  “That’s to
be seen, to my mind, it was through gestures that they best understood me. In this regard, I often wondered if it is not rather with gestures than words that one should try to convey the Infinite. This is to some degree what people do anyway, for have you not noticed how quickly one reverts to gestures in exchanges of this sort? Thus is it not clear that the symbol and image are but thoughts which make motions and would well love to be understood? When I want to convey by speech what transcendent inspirations reveal to me of the absolute, I first realize that the words’ meaning changes as they flow from my mouth; my sentences obscure the precision of my thought and in the end come to express the opposite of that I thought myself to be revealing. Thankfully the arms got involved and at least indicated the general direction of my thought; were one to simply add a few images and symbols which, in turn, display gestures, things would be much clearer.”

  He is insane, thought the monk. He is a simpleton. God will pardon him!

  The brother put a finger to his lips; the monk understood.

  The moment grew in solemnity; the time was coming; they were coming to the end of their expedition.

  Though they had not crossed through the crypt—the brother had more than once lost his way—the bower, the famous bower opening on the clearing was only a few steps away. They took them, these steps, but how slowly and carefully were they taken, and in what silence! Both their hearts were beating and a light sweat cooled the monk’s brow.

  Suddenly, a shot went off, over the brother’s shoulder and the pithecanthrope which had just appeared between the parted branches of its suspended home, dropped, face forward, at the foot of the family tree.

  The brother caught the monk’s arm, wishing to protect the female he believed was still hidden, but not another leaf stirred.

  “Father, what have you done?” the brother asked sadly.

  “I have saved God’s creation.”

  It was only after a long search that they found his mate, but she was dead and lying on a bed of leaves, her head resting against a tree, still holding tightly in her hand the tiny crucifix which the brother, naive as he was, had left her upon his departure after explaining to her as best he could the salvation that would come to her through it.

  “A profanation!” Father Palud screamed, while the brother, in his simple way, was rather proud to see that his mission had not been entirely in vain.

  There was nothing further for them to do there, but make their way back.

  And so, there followed the return to Pontianak, a mournful, silent, lugubrious journey, during which the brother saw the strength of his apostle’s faith dwindle little by little. No longer knowing where his duty lay, in doubt as to whether he had sinned or acted meritoriously towards God, having lost from his soul that clarity which calls and guides vocations through great sacrifices, like the little light in the woods which brings hope to the lost, the brother wept more than once over himself, the fruitlessness of his work, on his shattered faith and on the growing antipathy between his conscience and science.

  Disillusioned, wishing only to rest, like aged sailors after their last trip, he asked to be repatriated and donned once again the robes of a parish priest, hoping to find, as a country vicar in some remote provincial place, forgetfulness of his adventure and aspirations.

  Unfortunately, his sufferings were not over, and the last trial would be the hardest.

  Barely disembarked in Marseilles, he found out that an anthropological congress was to hold an extraordinary session and that brother Buissonnire would be the speaker. That was enough for him to wish to attend.

  When the day arrived it was clear that the assembly was prey to an extraordinary excitement. An unforgettable day was to be inscribed in the annals of anthropology. So, when brother Buissonnire rose, a stirring of attention, like a wave on the sand, expired into silence; the very air of the hall seemed steeped in solemnity.

  Having quickly reviewed his previous discoveries, after saluting the authors which led him to them, brother Buissonnire began the description of his own finds.

  Levrai was worried. He wondered if the speaker had indeed remained the orthodox brother which he had known, or if, like so many others, he had ended up falling into the Darwinian abyss. His worry was short-lived; Buissonnire, as if he had sensed it, quickly dissipated it.

  “But before I tell you what my discovery was, I feel I must clear up a certain amount of ignorance, which while absent from those assembled here, nonetheless merits attention and is worthy of the respect of a priest, such as I am.

  “Some overzealous polemists, neglecting to keep up with the new teachings of Rome, go from door to door spreading their hatred and contempt for evolutionism.

  “It is time that they learn that this theory is now nothing less than highly orthodox, and that it is the opinion amongst our best theologians that God might well have contented himself in creating the first cell, foreseeing in his wisdom and eternal will, the successive stages through which his creation would evolve over the passage of time.

  “I wished to bring this up to restore things to their proper perspective and avoid that, in the future, God’s ministers, such as myself, do not pass in the eyes of certain among the faithful as impious or renegades and become victims of an underhanded persecution when they undertake the noblest function of their calling, which is the preaching of the truth.”

  Levrai was crimson! So, his perilous travels in the jungle, the pithecanthropes’ cemetery, the days spent among his hosts, all that was not the devil’s truth, as Father Palud had stated. Instead it was his second expedition and the ensuing massacre which were affronts to the truth?

  Levrai thought he would choke.

  “Are you feeling poorly?” asked his neighbor.

  “It’s nothing, just a little dizziness.”

  “This isn’t all,” continued the orator, “and if I thought it necessary to admonish rather severely those on my side, I have a few words for those—in the other camp—who make themselves out to be the virtuosos and cultivators of doubt.

  “Certain scientists are averse to any new theory, simply because it is new, or because it too closely describes factual observations and Nature. They will gladly accept a philosophical principle as long as they believe it to be a simple witticism, that is to say doubtful, but they rebel as soon as they are asked to admit as genuine, facts and phenomena whose recognition would make a scientific truth of the theory to the exclusion of all other systems. Oh! then they retreat in orderly, serried ranks.

  “Thus was it that, at first, they found evolutionism rather to their liking; however, they added that such a theory would not be of value until specific facts came to confirm it.

  “And they dozed off, convinced that such facts would not be forthcoming, since nothing of the sort had been seen in centuries.

  “Man, one might say, fears the truth; his instinct is to avoid any knowledge of it; he avoids it as much as he can with the excuse that doubt is the scientist’s top attribute. He denies like someone on the stand, demanding proof and more proof, only giving up when he senses himself caught in the web of truth, like a fox in a trap or the starling in a snare.

  “Truth be told, truth envelops us on every side in a huge net of which natural phenomena form the mesh. However, this mesh is not so tight that the rankest stupidity cannot escape. Must we have counted one by one all the elements of the mesh before agreeing that the net exists?

  “There are theories before which one is struck by a sense of their truth, just as one has feelings of love when presented with Beauty. Indeed, such feelings are not sufficient to consecrate theories, for, in such a case, the faith of a coal-miner would be a sufficient criterion, but it is not rash to assert that, without this sense, no intellect is capable of understanding, completely and in its universality, a concept of such scope. The entrenched sectarian doubt is a form of mental short-sightedness which bars one from distinguishing simultaneously the whole and the details of a concept.

  “It has been said that
to believe or to deny everything are equally easy, for they dispense with thought. They are the two subterfuges of the lazy—and, it is time to state it—man bears in his inherited traits the monkey’s main fault: laziness.

  “But let me return to my subject.

  “We were told: ‘Show us vestiges of the intermediate race, and we will believe.’ Until then nothing will fill the abyss which separates man from the beast, and this abyss is as unbridgeable as the faults which split open entire mountain ranges, forming with their debris the continents between which, today, the Oceans circulate. And the scientists dozed off again with the conviction, the great number even with the hope, that the absence of proof would wear down with time the grandeur and the attraction of the Darwinian principle.

  “To better circumscribe the problem, with the ulterior motive of rendering it unsolvable, they went as far as outlining in advance the conditions of their surrender.

  “You know these conditions: walks upright—erectus—cranial volume, etc.

  “And the faithful disciples began to look. They scratched through—one after the other, so far as to wear down their nails—the geological strata, which for so many centuries had come to accumulate on the primitive Earth.”

  The brother outlined chronologically the remarkable discoveries made in the last 50 years, a half-century of heroic patience.

  “But,” he added, “all these skulls, all these sets of bones, as convincing as they might be, had the defect of presenting themselves completely naked, without any accessories which might denote some progress towards civilization, as, for example, a tool, a weapon, in a word, an irrefutable vestige of comfort and intellect.

  “Well, I won’t hesitate to state, I believe I have found it.

  “It is in the mysterious Corrèze cave, near the Monkey’s Chapel, that I discovered the venerable remains which are now before your eyes!