Monsieur and Madame Futural left. Almost immediately, the young schoolboys withdrew discreetly, not without having reassured their new fellow pupil of their good dispositions in his regard.
Marcel remained alone with Blas.
“What are we going to do now?” he asked him.
“I believe,” Blas replied, after a moment’s reflection, “that the most urgent thing is to rid you of the uncomfortable and complicated clothes in which you’re wrapped, and which must hinder you considerably. I don’t think I could live swathed like that.”
Marcel followed his companion meekly out of the room. They found themselves in a vast vaulted gallery paved with shiny stones.
“One might think they were sapphires,” Marcel remarked.
“They are, in fact, sapphires,” replied Blas tranquilly. As Marcel manifested his astonishment, he went on: “There’s nothing that should surprise you in that. Chemists have been manufacturing precious stones for centuries, of any size that they please, and nothing has become less rare. We make use of them in our buildings because of their inalterability and their splendor.”
From the pavement of sapphires rose tall columns. Through arched bays, broadly open like those of a cloister, Marcel saw a grandiose landscape deployed at his feet. Porcelain towers of all covers sprang from clumps of verdure. One might have thought that the world had become an immense park strewn with fantastic architecture, the turrets, minarets and corbels of which surpassed everything that had been created of the most sumptuous and the most complicated of Gothic architecture and that of India.
Blas extracted Marcel from that contemplation, which had rendered him mute and dazed with wonderment.
“You can admire all that at your leisure and in detail. For the moment, it’s a matter of changing your costume, and then having breakfast.
Marcel, who was increasingly convinced that he was moving through a dream of enchantment, followed his guide along arcades, lingering involuntarily before the magical horizon that, thanks to the circular form of the gallery, was renewed at every step.
Finally, having arrived at the extremity of a vaulted corridor. Blas drew a curtain and a spacious vestry appeared. Hanging in good order on platinum and burnished gold pegs, hundreds of shiny chlamydes were aligned.
At that moment, Marcel could not retain a cry of fright. He had just perceived a strange individual standing beside him. He was completely molded from head to toe in a gutta-percha garment; of the face, nothing could be seen. The head was completely surrounded by a helmet, furnished with two crystal lenses and a latticed opening for the mouth.
Marcel drew closer to Blas, fearfully. “What is that person?” he asked, in a low voice.
Bas suppressed a burst of laughter. “Have no fear,” he said. “This individual is the most pacific in the world. I have the honor of introducing you to the honest Mastif. He’s a trifle surly and abrasive, but he’s an excellent fellow regardless.”
“So much the better,” exclaimed Marcel, with a sigh of relief. “I confess that I wasn’t reassured. Why is he wearing that singular accoutrement?”
“It’s necessary to tell you,” Blas replied, “that almost no one works manually nowadays. The items of electrical apparatus of which we make use in the school require little care and scant surveillance. Mastif is in charge of their maintenance. That’s why you see him dressed from head to toe in an insulating costume of gutta-percha. His work requires him to spend part of the day in the basements and the attics, in the midst of a redoubtable intersection of electrical currents. If he were dressed in any other way it wouldn’t be long before he was electrocuted.”
While this dialogue was taking place, Mastif had drawn away, muttering.
A few moments later, Marcel Vernoy, rid of his millenarian costume, for which he no longer had anything but a profound disdain, was dressed in the fashion of the year 3000, in a dazzling orange glass-fiber chlamys.
It was time for the morning meal.
Blas and Marcel soon arrived in the refectory, which groups of schoolboys were entering and leaving incessantly.
The room was decorated in white and gold stucco. The simplicity, richness and good taste of that decoration delighted the young man. He took his place at a small table of blue marble veined with gold, which he recognized as lapis lazuli
“You know,” Blas explained, “that it costs our chemists no more effort to produce agates, onyx and rare marbles than precious stones, cheaply and in abundance.”
“In my time,” Marcel replied, with a comically piteous expression, “lapis lazuli wasn’t so common. The proof is that we only made cravat pins and the stones of rings out of it.”
“We make use of it to make tables and build walls.”
While speaking, Blas lifted the lid of a large crystal urn placed in the center of the table, and with the aid of a small gold scoop, very simple in form, but practical, he served Marcel a few spoonfuls of a blue paste. Then, from a jug sculpted in the same substance as the urn, he poured an amber liquid into Marcel’s cup.
At that moment the latter experienced a certain hesitation. He could not help saying to his guide: “I confess that I have no idea what the foodstuff and the beverage you’re offering me might be.”
“I’ll bring you up to date briefly. In your time, people were obliged, in order to nourish themselves, to have recourse to substances directly prepared by nature. I’ve read that they devoured, barbarically, animals and plants, which contained a host of products useless or harmful to nutrition. We’ve simplified that, like everything else. The aliment you see is absolutely complete and perfectly assimilable. You’ll observe, moreover, that it doesn’t have a disagreeable taste.”
“Indeed! It’s exquisite,” replied Marcel, who had already expedited the whole portion of blue jam that he had been served.
“What an appetite!” said Blas, astonished. “Empty your cup. You can tell me now what you think of our elixir of Bacchus.”
Marcel set his cup down without having left a drop of the liquid therein. “Your elixir,” he said, “is a marvel. It concentrates and synthesizes the different flavors of wine, cider, tea, beer and hydromel.”
“You have delicate taste. The elixir of Bacchus does indeed contain the beneficent principles of all the liquids you’ve just named. Only alcohol is almost completely banished from it; there is only an infinitesimal dose therein.”
“For what reason?”
“What! You can ask that, having lived in a epoch where the pitiful monsters with human faces called alcoholics still existed? The study of history, informing us of the wars, maladies and misery caused by that terrible scourge, has put us forever on guard against it. The disappearance of alcoholism has been the signal of an immense progress in humanity.”
Meanwhile, Marcel had taken more of the marvelous azure jam. He had the sensation of never having eaten anything better. The most delicate fish, the finest game and the most succulent fruits seemed insipid and indigestible by comparison with that nutritious and perfumed essence. He was about to take a third helping when Blas dissuaded him gently.
“My dear friend,” he said, “be careful. Your stomach isn’t accustomed to such generous nourishment. You’ve seen that I’ve been content with a few spoonfuls. If you continue to feed yourself so copiously, you won’t feel hungry for two or three days.
Marcel blushed at being caught in flagrante delicto in gluttony. The spatula that he was about to raise to his mouth stopped half way. He remained silent for some time, seemingly giving all his attention to the music that was being played by an invisible orchestra.
Monsieur and Madame Vernoy, who were fervent music lovers, had taken their son to the Opéra and great concert halls several times, but Marcel had never heard such harmony. The music was neither insipid not noisy. It poured forth torrents of delight, calm and serenity, without fatigue for the listener, and an impression of beauty, courage and fortunate strength emanated from it. Certain melodic phrases arrived as clearly at his und
erstanding as the verses of a poet of genius or the cadenced sentences of beautiful prose.
“How admirable that music is,” Marcel exclaimed.
“Yes. The melodies are already old. They were composed in 2700 by the master Arachnus, one of the masters of our modern music. The fragment you’ve just heard is taken from a symphonic poem entitled The Delight of Living. But Arachnus is particularly and universally celebrated for his cantata Redemptive Science.”
Marcel remained silent. The refectory was gradually emptying.
“We can leave now, if you wish,” Blas proposed.
“One more question,” said Marcel, whose attention had been attracted by the prismatic reflections of the cups, urns and plates. “Of what substance are these utensils made?”
“They’re carved in large crystals of pure carbon, artificially manufactured. It is, if I’m not mistaken, what you once called diamond.”
Marcel did not reply. He had decided not to be astonished by anything henceforth.
Following his guide, he went back into the circular gallery, to which the doors of the refectory opened, and which linked all the rooms of the school, from the bedrooms to the amphitheaters, the museums and the libraries.
The center of that ensemble of buildings, disposed in a sequence in the form of an ellipse, was occupied by a vast garden. It was filled with trees that Marcel did not recognize, refreshed by fountains and springs of fresh water, the crystalline waters of which flowed over a bed of metallic powders and gems. The perfumed calices of giant flowers swayed.
Marcel Vernoy did not ask any more questions. He had arrived at the point at which admiration can no longer find words to express itself, and he contented himself with following his guide, looking around and listening attentively.
He noticed for the first time that everything was admirably clean. Nowhere, on the floor, the ceiling or the walls, was any trace of dust to be seen, nor of the mildew that presently dishonors the interior of our most beautiful edifices. Everywhere, the sandstone, the porcelain and the stucco were shining, as if they were brand new. It would have been impossible to discover the smallest cobweb or the tiniest stain.
Once again, Marcel had recourse to his guide. “Howe do you keep everything here so clean and bright?” he asked.
“Notice,” said Blas, “That as we have banished wood, calcareous stone and oxidizable metals from our houses nothing is easier to maintain. Their walls don’t present any sharp angles or complicated moldings, veritable nests of dust and microbes. Everything is smooth or rounded. At night, artificial electrified rain washes the exterior of buildings; by day the interiors automatically receive the same kind of aquatic cleaning.
“But your clothes must get wet,” Marcel objected.
“It doesn’t matter. They’re glass fiber. Water doesn’t do them any harm.”
“And how do you dry all that?”
“With the greatest ease, almost instantaneously. It’s sufficient, thanks to our electrical heating apparatus, to raise the temperature momentarily. Everything is dry again and perfectly sterilized. That’s one of the reasons why we’re almost never ill.
While talking, Blas and Marcel had arrived outside the study room.
“This is where I’m taking you,” said Blas. “Come in with me. You’ll see how we work.”
VI. Study
Blas had moved aside the curtain of polychromatic glass fiber that took the place of a door. The two young men went into a hall where about sixty pupils were gathered. The tables at which they were seated seemed to Marcel to be made of shiny and richly veined wood.
“I thought you had entirely banished wood and oxidizable metals from your constructions and furniture,” he said to Blas.
“I beg your pardon,” said Blas, “But this isn’t, properly speaking, wood. It’s a kind of artificially manufactured lignite, absolutely incorruptible, and as hard as granite.”
Each work table was separated from its neighbor by a space of about a meter. All around the study room, high semicircular bays allowed floods of oxygen and light to penetrate.
“A long time age,” said Blas, “we renounced uncomfortable desks and long, narrow, uncomfortable tables, where schoolchildren were packed together. Dark, smoky and malodorous rooms have had their day. Here, everything is sacrificed to hygiene, and we do very well in consequence.”
None of the pupils had raised their eyes when Marcel and his guide arrived.
Blas installed Marcel at a table next to his own, which was unoccupied, like many others, at the back of the room. Marcel sat down, slightly surprised not to see any pens, ink, books or paper on the petrified mahogany tabletop. In front of him, there were only three machines with ivory keyboards, reminiscent of miniature pianos.
Observing his friend’s astonishment, Blas anticipated the questions that the other wanted to ask.
“The first apparatus, to the left,” he said, “is a much-improved writing machine. It only requires ten minutes of application to master its manipulation perfectly. In any case, the machine is already beginning to fall into disuse. In many establishments it has been replaced advantageously by the logophone, a direct descendant of your ancient phonograph.
“I can imagine what the advantages of that machine’s employment might be, but the other two intrigue me more—the one in the middle, for instance, which has six keys at its base and the upper part of which is entirely garnished with porcelain buttons bearing numbers. As for the third, it seems to me to be even more complicated.
Blas smiled. “They’re both quite simple,” he replied. “The first is a calculating machine, which saves the brains of the pupils the fatigue of absolutely mechanical operations By the year 2400 people were able, with a little habituation to multiply, divide or obtain a square root while thinking about something else. From reflex action to automatic movement there is only one step, which we cross easily. Now, pupils no longer consume long hours in mechanical mathematical exercises, whose effect is depressing for the intelligence and the imagination.”
“That’s marvelous.”
“As for the last, it is, to tell the truth, a little more complicated than the others, with its numbers, its letters and it colored plaques. It’s the Logical Reasoning Machine, for resolving inductions and deductions with no chance of error.”
“That’s frightening!”
“Less than you imagine. In order to construct the apparatus, old Aristotle’s Logic was employed. The universitarian theories of the Middle Ages, with their syllogistic reasoning, had almost succeeded in rendering certain mechanisms of human reasoning automatic. The work of philosophers of the twenty-third and twenty-fifth centuries completed the task. The machine has two modes of operation, one for induction and the other for deduction. In deduction, as in induction, one composes, with the characters of the first set of keys, a phrase containing the general idea whose consequences one wishes to ascertain. A series of triggers operates and a phrase is soon inscribed on the porcelain tablet that you can see, giving an exact and mathematical solution to the question. If necessary, the machine furnishes two, three or even four consequences of the principle proposed. The most recent machines constructed can go as far as six or seven conclusions.”
“But if your machine is asked questions or given proposals that are too abstract,” Marcel objected, “what happens then?”
“In that case, the porcelain tablet remains blank; no triggering has taken place. I will add that the machine only has any utility when concrete problems of reasoning are submitted to it. It has rendered incalculable services in science.”
There was an absolute silence beneath the cupola of the study room. Nothing could be heard but the slight sound of the machines and, from time to time, the faint whisper of a conversation in low voices. Marcel looked around in surprise.
“Where is the study master?” he asked. “Is he invisible? In my time, the pupils, even the most serious, threw paper pellets at one another, played tunes on the elastic of their boots, ate sweetme
ats or read novels. Even the master wasn’t safe from practical jokes; his chair was coated with shore-polish or glue, the rim of his top hat cut into saw-teeth or the back of his frock-coat ornamented with discourteous inscriptions.”
Blas burst out laughing. “Study masters!” he exclaimed. “My God, that takes us back a long way. In fact, I’ve learned of the existence of those modest functionaries from treatises in pedagogical prehistory.”
“In my time,” Marcel replied, slightly vexed, “the situation of study masters had been considerably ameliorated. Almost all of them, grave, learned and irreproachably clad, were laborious scholars, future professors, preparing for their license, or even a degree....”
“As many forgotten titles and terms, like ‘study master’ itself. By the twenty-fifth century, study masters—pawns, as you used to call them—had disappeared. An attempt was made to replace them with nickel steel watchmen, which you can see in the automata section of the galleries of any museum, but it only had a paltry success. The schoolboys of that time, full of hereditary malice and stupidity, played a thousand tricks on their steel pawn. They altered the motivating electrical current surreptitiously at a fixed time, unscrewed the feet, the head or the arms.
“One pawn—the anecdote is historical—was completely dismantled by indelicate schoolboys and sold to a second-hand dealer, who expiated his lack of respect for the law by means of a severe sentence. The government—I’m still reporting memoirs of the period—was obliged to reform matters so scantly respected. The State budget that had been allocated to that perilous experiment experienced a deficit of several hundred millions.
“The automatic pawns, sold off cheap were acquired by horticulturalists desirous of keeping the birds away from their peas. They believed that they had reached the culmination of progress in transforming them into improved scarecrows. Unfortunately, the results were deplorable; the automatic pawns were rusted by the rain, brought down fruits that had scarcely begun to ripen with their jerky authoritarian gestures, demolished the glass panels of hothouses and cucumber frames, and trampled the flower-beds and seed-nurseries with a supreme carelessness.”
Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions Page 18