I have been strongly tempted to write against that English author, but, his memoir not seeming to me to have been inflated, I have refrained. At any rate, I hope that there will be no more such calculations to be made—but to whom will we have the obligation?
It is to you, Voltaire, as is evident, albeit with the precautions of sometimes putting on mittens; it is to Jean-Jacques, of whom you were jealous; it is to Mably, whose name you have malevolently mounted in your overly pompous verses; to the example of Boileau, whom you scolded on that article, but who merits inclusion here since he mocked the stupid martyrs of a diphthong.48
Immortal philosophers! You have all been in accord; you have all said: “Humans are born to help one another and to love one another.” Would that our honest rural curés might say as much! Would that they read from the pulpit that summary of our stupidity to the hundred thousand peasants that they reproach for not being able to read. Thus the Bishop of Ypres and the Eponymous Archonte, leader of the gribourdonique49 Sabbat would lose the fruits for which they hope from their bloodthirsty preaching.
Jean Rameau : Future Mores
(1887)
Prologue
Until now, writers have generally had the bad habit of recounting things that have already passed. It is time to break with that deplorable mania and set about recounting events that will occur in the future.
Here, therefore, is a story that will be realized faithfully, believe us, in the first half of the twenty-third century.
I.
Characters: Monsieur 517,383, series L, section R; and Madame 491,536, series M, section K.
(The reader has divined that in the twenty-third century there are no more of those absurd names and surnames, causes of so much equivocation, and the people simply have a registration number, which renders any error impossible.)
So, Monsieur 517,383, who had married the young and charming Mademoiselle 491,536, suddenly conceived, three weeks after his marriage, violent doubts regarding the fidelity of his wife and, penetrating unexpectedly into the apartment reserved for the said 491,536, found her, or thought he found her, in criminal conversation with an individual of the masculine gender.
The unfortunate husband, who had an excessively sanguine temperament, fell upon the unknown man.
“Who are you?” he demanded, his eyes injected with blood.
“I’m number 87,329, series B, section F,” replied the stranger, calmly.
“Wretch!” roared the husband—and he discharged at the individual in question his pocket electric machine-gun, the revolver having had its day.
II.
“Monsieur,” said number 87,329 to the husband, when he had got to his feet and had his wounds patched up, “you have lodged two bullets in my back because you believed that your wife was deceiving you with me?”
“Yes, Monsieur.”
“Is she had been deceiving you, you would, indeed, have had the right to kill me, in accordance with existing laws; but that is not the case.”
“What are you saying?” demanded the husband, going pale.
“I’m saying that I’m Madame’s corset-maker, that I came to take measurements for a corset, and that you have not been dishonored in the slightest. I shall prove it to you...”
And he did, in fact, prove it.
“But in that case…!” cried the husband, nonplussed.
“In that case, Monsieur, you will be arrested and condemned to a few years in prison and a few tens of thousands of francs damages and compensation. That’s inevitable.”
“The husband turned poppy-red, green, yellow, violet, peony-red...
“Damn! How am I going to get out of this!” he exclaimed, putting his head in his hands.
“There’s only one means, Monsieur,” said the corset-maker, after having reflected momentarily. “Give me an entitlement conferring the right to take the thing for which I have been wounded, and we’ll be quits.”
The husband went peony-red, violet, yellow, green and poppy-red again, reflected on the scandal of the assize court, prison, damages and compensation, the dishonor of his entire family...
“Well, yes!” he sighed. “There’s no alternative.”
And he handed over the entitlement demanded.
III.
Three weeks later, the same husband, having the same violent suspicions, entered his wife’s apartment armed with the same pocket electric machine-gun.
He found his other half in the arms of a man he had never seen before.
“Blood and thunder!” he howled—that sanguine temperament again—“what are you doing, Monsieur?”
“Monsieur, I’m making love to your wife.”
“You admit it? You both admit it?”
“Indeed.”
Bang! Bang! The electric machine-gun is discharged in the blink of an eye, and the new stranger falls to the ground.
“Monsieur,” he says to the husband, with his dying breath, “you’ll be condemned to death.”
“What!” says the husband.
“I had a perfect right to make love to your wife; I have an entitlement to her, signed by you. Here it is.”
The husband ran forward, his eyes bulging.
“An entitlement?”
“Endorsed by Monsieur 87,329 in my favor. Here’s the endorsement.”
The husband uttered a cry of despair.
“All is lost!” he said.
And he threw himself upon his machine-gun, reloaded it and put the barrel to his temple in order to blow his brains out.”
IV.
“Stop!” cried his panic-stricken wife, snatching the weapon from his hand.
“All is lost, I tell you!”
“No! All is saved!”
“What are you saying?”
“That document,” said the young woman, blushing slightly, “has no value; the negotiator had nothing more to take.”
“Can it be?” said the husband, to himself, hope returning.
“Yes, my love.”
And, rummaging in a drawer labeled Miscellaneous, she took out a piece of paper duly signed and stamped.
“Here’s the receipt…paid in full,” she added, in a low voice, turning her head away slightly.
“Angel!” cried the husband.
And, his eyes inundated with tender tears, he threw himself at the feet of Madame 491,536, series M, section K, and embraced her effusively.
Epilogue
And after that, having taken the trouble to put a little more order in their accounts, they were very happy and had lots of children.
Jean Rameau: The Transportation of Forces
(1887)
I.
In those days—1987 years after Jesus Christ, 63 years after Blagheston, the immortal scientist whose apparatus for transmitting and storing forces, an apparatus applicable to all things and permitting the usage of the slightest wasted movements, revolutionized the world—Monsieur and Madame Arthur Brack learned that their refinery was no longer functioning, because of the exhaustion of motive forces.
“We need to see about that!” sad the spouses, with a common accord.
And they sent out a thousand invitations to a grand fancy dress ball, to be held at their home, in their vast fourteenth-floor apartment in the Boulevard Gamehut.
II.
The dancers of both sexes arrived in a crowd.
“Let the party begin!” ordered Arthur Brack, at precisely half past eleven.
And immediately, the couples started trampling the carpet with a rare verve.
Two hours later, Monsieur Brack, who had had the fine inspiration of placing Balagheston transmotors under the parquet, observed with pleasure that each dancer had produced an average force of three and a half horsepower, which, for the entire company, was 2,534 horse-power.
“By dawn, I’ll have enough to enable my refinery to function gratuitously for a week!” he said, rubbing his hands.
III.
Suddenly, as he was about to go and slake the thirst o
f such conscientious guests, Brack perceived a bald man who was inactive in a corner.
“Monsieur isn’t dancing?” he asked.
“No, Monsieur.”
“Would you like me to inscribe you for a waltz with my wife?”
“All my regrets, Monsieur. I’m a poet.”
“A poet? Bah!” exclaimed Brak, who had a sudden idea. “Would you care to recite some verses for me?”
“Gladly, Monsieur.”
And the poet recited.
IV.
Louder. I beg you, and a few more gestures!” begged Brack.
But he placed transmotors in all directions around the poet in vain; the latter’s vocal outbursts and deep breaths only produced an insignificant force: a twelfth of a horse-power at the most.
“Ha ha! Not famous, your verses, not famous!” Brack concluded.
“I can dedicate them to you, Monsieur, then!” the poet riposted.
Clack!
Brack could not retain himself; he gave the insolent individual an enormous slap.
The poet did not say anything. He merely took a transmotor, which he had rapidly placed on his cheek when he saw the slap coming, and consulted it with a certain satisfaction.
“Ha! Enough to grind my coffee for three weeks!” he reflected.
And he went out, with dignity.
V.
But Brack’s mother-in-law had seen everything.
“That’s shameful, Monsieur!” she said to her son-in-law, coming in like a thunderclap. “One doesn’t treat a poet like that!”
“But Madame...”
“The force expended on his cheek, applied to one of our transmotors, Monsieur, would have been sufficient to operate the turnspit for six months. Oh, men! Oh! Oh…!”
But the mother-in-law went pale.
She perceived that, while she was uttering her exclamations, her son-in-law had shut her in a special chamber whose walls were covered in transmotors, and that it was her who had been powering the house elevator with her sighs for three years.
Hideous!
And the mother-in-law fainted.
VI.
Meanwhile, Arthur Brack, quite enervated by those two successive scenes, was walking feverishly through the ballrooms.
He soon remarked that his wife, an inconsiderable person of 112 kilograms (net weight) was not visible among the dancers.
“That’s a very regrettable loss of force,” Arthur said to himself, frowning.
And he set out in search of his wife.
VII.
He did not find her. He ran through all the drawing rooms, all the bedrooms, all the corridors. Nothing.
“What does this mean?” Brack muttered, anxiously.
Suddenly, he uttered a cry.
There…behind a screen…that woman allowing herself to be embraced…her!
“Unworthy creature!” the deceived husband vociferated.
And he rushed upon his wife—because he loved her, the poor fool!
VIII.
The beautiful Madame Brack did not try to deny it. Terrified, she fled, her hair in the wind.
Brack set out in pursuit of her.
“Unworthy creature!” he was still howling.
Madame Brack ran through the bedrooms, the drawing rooms and the corridors, opened a window, took refuge on a balcony and then, seeing that she was still being tracked by her husband, uttered a terrible cry and hurled herself into the void.
The husband shuddered. He saw the 112-kilogram body fall from a height of fourteen stories!
“Concierge!” he cried, at the top of his voice. “A transmotor on the sidewalk! Quickly!”
Too late. Madame Brack arrived at her destination before the apparatus was in place.
“Wretch that I am!” exclaimed the unfortunate husband.
And he lost consciousness, exhausted by so many emotions.
IX.
Arthur Brack did not get up again.
He died four days later, prey to a frightful delirium in which he talked of nothing but dishonor, alexandrines and mothers-in-law.
However, he calmed down toward the end of the fourth day, and, sensing that death was coming, he said to his son in a faint voice: “John, it’s necessary not to waste anything. A transmotor, quickly!”
“Here you are, Papa!” replied the son, his eyes full of tears.
X.
And with his father’s last sigh, piously collected, John had enough to beat an omelet for his lunch.
Jean Rameau: A Poisoning in the Twenty-First Century
(1887)
I.
It was in the year 1934 that the French, slowly poisoned by their suppliers of comestibles and the sickening odors that, after having infected Paris, spread rapidly over the whole of France, perceived that their nature and their needs had completely changed, and that, new Mithridates, they were not only armed against the poison but also had the need to absorb it three times a day, or die of starvation.
That state of things, thanks to the progress of adulterators, could only get worse, and in the year 2056, they were obliged to build villas and cottages in the sewers of Paris, for the use of socialites of both sexes, who, abandoning the spas and the unhealthy countryside, experienced the need to steep themselves, for a few weeks, in the beneficial effluvia of the great collector.
II.
In June 2083, the epoch in which this story is set, foreigners and tourists were very numerous in the Paris sewers. All the villas were occupied, and the rent on a simple cottage in the vicinity of the Saint-Denis fecal depository was crazy.
Let us enter into one of those villas—Microbe Villa, situated in the Avenue Lesage—and witness the magnificent dinner that two young newlyweds, who had hastened to the sewers in order to spend their honeymoon there, were offering to the whole of elegant high-class Parisian society.
III.
The table of the splendid dining room is regally garnished. And everywhere there is light, crystal and flowers: rare and distinguished flowers, artificial flowers exhaling the healthiest and most recommended perfumes, in which asafetida and valerian are dominant.
Suddenly, a loud cry.
The young husband falls under the table.
“Heavens!” clamor a hundred voices.
People hasten, take a look, and observe that the young husband’s face has taken on a violet hue, like certain cadavers of old that had absorbed certain venomous juices.
“Oh! My husband has been poisoned!” cried the unfortunate wife.
And she fell in a faint.
IV.
He had, indeed, been poisoned.
A woman’s vengeance!
But poisoned by what? With the aid of what redoubtable substance? That was what the investigation could not establish immediately.
“Examine all the aliments, all the beverages!” instructed the inconsolable widow as soon as she recovered consciousness.
And her instructions were carried out.
The wine was taken to the municipal laboratory.
The municipal laboratory replied:
“Wine finest quality. Composition: 23 parts Seine water, 57 parts vitriol, 17 parts decoction of old leather gloves, 3 parts essence of turpentine; the whole constituting an excellent Château Léoville, 2046.”
“Analyze the vinegar, the oil, the vegetables!” ordered the widow, intent on knowing how her husband had died.
But all those products were found to be irreproachable.
The green peas came from one of the best factories in Grenelle and contained 49% copper acetate.
The pepper was furnished by an entrepreneur of demolitions and contained nothing but extra-pulverized brick.
The vinegar was rich in ammonia and eau de javelle.50 As for the oil, the Compagnie d’Orléans had only ever employed the best to grease its machines.
“What poison, then, has killed my poor husband?” the tearful widow asked herself.
V.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, suddenly. “That ha
lf-full glass from which the dead man drank—what is that?” She presented the glass to the experts.
The latter had no sooner cast their eyes upon the beverage than they went pale with fear.
“Get back, Madame!” they proclaimed, their minds traversed by a terrible suspicion.
And, having covered their hands with impermeable gloves and their faces with glass masks, they set about analyzing the mysterious beverage. They had guessed right.
“Oh, Madame,” they said to the desperate widow, who was getting thinner by the day, “what an abominable crime!”
“It’s a frightful poison?”
“A deadly poison.”
“Which?”
“Pure water.”
And the servants who overheard that fled in terror, their teeth chattering.
VI.
But the unfortunate widow did not flee.
Sublime, she approached the chemist.
“Give me the rest of the poison,” she said.
“Why, Madame?”
Then, adorable in her grace and affliction, she said: “I’ve sworn to die the same death as my husband.”
But the chemists refused. They had a deep hole dug and threw the redoubtable liquid into it.
“Curse you!” cried the poor young woman.
And, maddened, she started running through the streets of Paris, in search of someone who would give her the alms of a few drops of pure water.
The Mirror of Present Events Page 7
