The Revolt of the Machines

by Brian Stableford

  …The clock, chiming midnight, extracted me from my reverie. The intervals between each of the strokes seemed long to me; the chime, metallic and sonorous, was lugubrious. I understood that the hour in question really does have something solemn about it; on hearing it fall into the heavy silence of my last night, I understood why it is designated for crime. And I told myself that it was necessary to finish it. In any case, I had nothing more to do: no testament, since my succession would probably be swallowed up by a deficit; no letters, since those I loved did not love me and would learn of my death with dry eyes.

  I only wrote, on a piece of paper that I left in a prominent place: Today, 26 June 1854, I have killed myself. I signed it. As midnight had just sounded, I had hesitated slightly before writing the date.

  [That piece of paper, which had initially gone astray, was found by the judiciary investigation several days after Dr. Z*** had communicated his notes to me, and removed all doubts concerning Monsieur van Gelt’s demise.]

  My decision was firmly made. I retained all my calmness, but it seemed to me that I was acting in a dream, that nothing that was happening was definitive, that I might suddenly wake up with new horizons before me, as in a splendid dawn—and without having to do anything for that.

  Then I sank back in my armchair, my eyes glued to the weapon, the barrel of which was gleaming in the lamplight, hypnotizing me. A great torpor invaded me. Increasingly vague visions floated before me, occasionally making me smile. I would have liked to stay like that eternally, letting time go by without losing consciousness of its duration and yet without feeling any more, without thinking any more….

  Then, suddenly, the memory of the resolution I had to carry out returned to me; reality reasserted itself. I shook myself, like a man about to go to sleep who suddenly remembers something he has forgotten to do and makes an effort to chase sleep away.

  It was almost mechanically that I opened my jacket, my waistcoat and my shirt. I sought the location of the heart, which started beating violently under my hand, as if to affirm by its precipitate beats the strength of its life. At the same time I felt a glacial chill running through my veins; I believe that my teeth were chattering, although my brow was inundated with sweat. I made gestures of anguish; I was suffering like a patient on whom some painful operation is about to be carried out, who is afraid but desires to proceed even so, and who is pushing away the surgeon while crying to him: “Do it, then!”

  Will-power triumphed, however, over the last revolts of instinct in a supreme contest, so rapid and passionate that it seemed to me to be a spasm; I was able to take the revolver, the ivory butt of which was burning my hand. I placed the muzzle slightly above the place where my heart was pounding, taking care to leave a little space between my flesh and the barrel of the weapon, which was trembling so much that I was obliged to steady it with my left hand. Finally, in a shudder of my entire being, dominated by a frightful terror of the unknown that loomed up before me, suddenly gripped by a desire to live as poignant as remorse and by regrets sharper than any pain, I pressed the trigger.

  Truly, I believe that my will-power, at that precise moment, was annihilated, consumed as it had been by its final effort: the abandoned nerves simply carried out the action of their own accord, and movement commenced.

  I felt an atrocious pain, but did not lose consciousness; undoubtedly, I had only broken a rib; I had to start again. But I was seized by a kind of delirium: mechanically, I pressed the trigger twice more without hearing the sound of the detonations. The last shot struck home, for I felt my heart stop beating, my blood pause in my veins, and a great rigidity stretch my limbs, like the hand of an invisible giant….

  …I’m dead, there’s no doubt about it. By what miracle, then, are Thought and Sensation obstinate in persisting within me? My eyes can no longer see, but I have a marvelously precise vision of what surrounds me; my ears can no longer hear, but the slightest sounds—the fluttering of a moth trapped in the room, the distant murmurs from outside, the sputtering of the lamp on the brink of going out—seem to me to be reverberating within me by virtue of a crystal clear echo; my limbs are already stiff, but I feel, scarcely muffled by a thick carpet, the hardness of the parquet onto which I’ve slid; I can even perceive the odor of powder that fills the room.

  I analyze my situation with a lucidity superior to any I’ve ever deployed before. “Undoubtedly,” I say to myself, “this state won’t last long; my thoughts will gradually stop, as my limbs are becoming cold and stiff”—that double sensation of cold and stiffness is excessively painful to me—“and my entire being will fall asleep in a benevolent final repose.”

  The memory even returns to me—for my faculties continue to operate as they did a little while before, perhaps better—of having heard in a lecture an account of the effects of curare poisoning, and I think that a phenomenon of the same kind is taking place in me, that I’m not dying in an instant, that it’s necessary to be patient….

  …But no! No appreciable diminution in my physical suffering, not the slightest disturbance in my reasoning; and that cold, the terrible cold that chills me to the marrow without my being able to shiver as I once could, when I was young and went to bed in a room without a fire!

  And now those sensations are becoming more precise, as a poignant anxiety is added to them: what if this is the immortality of the soul that people talk about? What if it’s necessary to remain like this throughout the cycle of the eternal ages, simultaneously dead and alive, Thought persisting in a stiff, cold body that is decaying? Who can tell? Perhaps God exists; perhaps this is the last torture that He inflicts on us; perhaps He punishes in this fashion those who have been unable to glimpse His infinity or who have transgressed His mysterious laws? Are there prayers that might touch Him…?

  …The minutes and the hours elapse with an indescribable slowness. I start thinking about cataleptics who are buried alive, who wake up in the grave with howls stifled by the earth, gnawing their firsts, and convulsed by the pangs of asphyxia. What if, by virtue of some strange lesion that has never been produced before, of which surgery has no suspicions, I’m only in a state of catalepsy? What if I wake up in three or four days, or a week, convulsively, with an immutable weight on my chest…?

  But no, it’s impossible. I’m dead; I’m really dead. The human body is submissive to precise laws; it has been dismantled piece by piece, like a machine whose smallest mechanism is familiar. I felt the bullet pass through my heart; hence, I have nothing more to fear; my ideas will gradually calm down, silence will fall within me. My present state is logical; doubtless all the dead experience it, all of them have experienced that same anguish—and all of them have calmed down, as I shall calm down….

  …Meanwhile, daybreak is beginning, in wan gleams that are trailing over me. There are noises outside in the street, reaching me as if through a thick wall. A few more minutes and my manservant, accustomed to waking me up early, will knock on the door, and, on receiving no reply, will come in. He’s a worthy man, who has served me for ten years. I’ve been good to him in several circumstances; perhaps he’ll miss me….

  Then my wife will enter in her turn, and my nephew….

  And I feel a frisson pass through me at the idea that I’ll soon be able to measure their affection irrevocably….

  Someone knocks on the door; for ten years, the same raps have been struck every morning, and it was my voice that replied. As no response is forthcoming, the knocking is repeated, more loudly.

  The door opens.

  Jean goes as pale as I must be, stifles a cry, makes a movement to go out, hesitates on the threshold, comes in and closes the door carefully….

  He comes over to me, puts his hand over my heart, listens….

  He carries me to my bed. Why is he looking at me with such a fearful expression? Why is he turning me to face the wall? I can see regardless, since my faculties are in some way disengaged from my senses, since I’m living a superior and independent life, since my vis
ion is vaster in spite of the fixity of my eyes….

  What is he going to do?

  He goes to my writing-desk, to which I’ve given him a key. He opens it. He rummages in the drawers, striving to release a secret compartment whose mechanism he doesn’t know, where the money is kept. I hear the dry click of gold coins in his hand….

  And, the theft accomplished, although his legs are unsteady, although his teeth are still chattering with fear, utterly distressed, he runs out of the room shouting for help. People will say: “The domestic was very fond of his master, very faithful; one doesn’t find his kind any more today….”

  After all, he’s a poor man. He would never have had the courage to steal from me while I was alive, and perhaps never had any such idea—and yet, the sight of my cadaver frightened him more than the law, to which he gave no thought. He must, therefore, be driven by a very powerful motive; undoubtedly he has immediately deduced the causes of my suicide, he has been struck by the sudden and clear awareness of his situation; he’s no longer young, he was counting on remaining in my service for as long as I could provide him with a small income, or, if I died before him, that he’d be provided for in my testament. Instead of that, the hazard of seeking employment is emerging; all of the placid arrangement of his life has been disturbed….

  Then again, who knows what school he has passed through previously; who knows what circumstances have rendered him sinful or defiant? Perhaps days devoid of bread have developed appetites in him stronger than his conscience, which would have bent him sooner or later to their irresistible domination. He has lived with me for ten years without my ever asking him about his life; perhaps he was abandoned as a child, or his father beat him without a reason, or his mother didn’t love him….

  And then, after all, I have no further need of the money that he’s taken. It requires an effort of memory for me to recall that I’ve worked all my life to earn it, that I’ve killed myself because I was about to lack it, that others kill themselves for the same reason and live as I am living.

  Two days ago, if I’d found the slightest irregularity in Jean’s conduct, I’d have fired him without hesitation; for the slightest misdemeanor, I’d have dragged him pitilessly before the courts, because I was rigid, one of those who regarded it as a duty for honest men to pursue the guilty. Now, I’d like to be able to get up in order to tell the man, whose conscience is doubtless in torment, that I forgive him.

  It’s likely the beginning of detachment, or perhaps things are appearing to me in a different light?

  My wife comes into the room, and says: “Leave me alone.”

  Now we’re face to face, the torturer and her victim, and death has inverted the roles: she’s the one who’s suffering now. I can see the traces of her emotions and here remorse passing over her face; it’s me who is placid and tranquil now.

  She approaches me slowly, as if fascinated; she closes my eyes, whose fixity doubtless makes her feel uncomfortable; then she steps back….

  I’ll never know what she’s thinking.

  Perhaps I, who wanted her to be happy, made her unhappy. I remember how sad she was before the marriage, and that it didn’t worry me; I said to myself: “It’s the unknown of her new life that’s troubling her….” Her parents forced her into it, I’m sure. Perhaps she was in love with someone else, with the omnipotent chastity of first love, and I doubtless wounded her virginal delicacies as I overturned her young woman’s dreams. She must have cursed me….

  She draws closer to me, very pale. She touches my hand. She recoils again with a movement of dread, as if that icy hand had burned her….

  I don’t reproach her at all, though, because I acted like other men: egotism blinded me; I thought I’d make her happy by taking her; it’s a common illusion. She suffered because of me; what does it matter? Nothing remains of her tears any more than anything will remain of her regrets. I, too, have wept for her; already I can scarcely remember…and who knows…?

  The door opens again; it’s my nephew.

  He stops a few paces away from her; then he comes closer. They’re both grave. I’ve never calculated their struggles, never thought that their sin has doubtless cost them dear; that they loved one another, and took account of what they called their infamy, but that love conquers all, in accordance with the law of nature; that the things that the living find monstrous would appear quite natural to them if the passions of the moment didn’t blind them….

  Meanwhile, she rests her head on his shoulder with the gracious movement of a woman soliciting protection; and, her throat full of sobs, she says “He was very good, though!”

  Was I good? I don’t believe so. I only applied, no more and no less, whatever the circumstances, the rule that measured my actions against the common standard. I gave to beggars and I let the poor starve; according to the caprice of circumstances, I felt my heart ready to melt with pity, or as hard as stone; I respected the law, but I also made use of it for the defense of my interests; between two courses of action, I always chose the one to which I was more forcefully driven by the motives tyrannizing my will.

  In sum, now that I can judge my life in its entirety, I don’t regret any of what I’ve done and wouldn’t want to have done anything differently—and yet, my activity seems to me to have been limited, futile and fatal.

  After a silence, my nephew replies: “He was a true father to me.”

  I was mistaken on his account, therefore. I thought him ungrateful; he was unhappy.

  She continues: “My God, how guilty we are!”

  And they stand before me, ashamed.

  Then she throws herself into his arms, weeping….

  Oh, I wish I could get up and say to them: “Love one another! Love one another! Certainly not for the enjoyment of love, which isn’t worth the pain, but because it isn’t worth the pain, either, of struggling against one’s desires!” They’re young, they’re handsome, the blood is seething in their veins; what right do I, an old man who has already had my share of joys, have to want to separate them…?

  …The hours go by. It seems to me that a modification has taken place in my condition; I no longer feel any physical discomfort; the sensation of cold has disappeared; I even think that I’m enjoying lying down, as if after heavy fatigue, and the ideas that continue to pass through me no longer trouble me.

  People come: old friends who mourn me. One of them, my oldest friend, stayed by my bedside for a long time without saying anything, shaking his head from time to time, doubtless thinking that it would soon be his turn, and dreading it. The indifferent have composed themselves at the door as they rang the bell, putting on distressed expressions as they took off their hats. The employees of the company have filed past one by one, buttoned up in worn frock coats and poorly gloved. They’ve been told that it was an apoplectic fit; they seemed anxious.

  Candles are burning; a nun mumbles prayers by my bedside, which she interrupts with a sulky expression every time someone arrives….

  I remember that once, when I was out walking, I sometimes saw a swarm of gnats swirling, flying in all directions like specks of dust, and didn’t know whether they were following a common goal or whether chance alone determined the sum of their movements. Truly, it’s the same for so many comings and goings, for those contradictory anxieties that I read on all the faces, for the warmth of the hands that touch mine fearfully and leave me with a vague impression of fever.

  The human face no longer strikes me as anything but a distant memory; the people who pass around me seem like shadows moving in a mist. When I compare their agitation to my immobility, the sound of their footfalls, which they stifle as if they were afraid of waking me up, and the murmur their voices, with my silence, and the animation of their eyes with the fixity of mine beneath my permanently lowered lids, I wonder where the reality of existence is. Between their condition and mine, between being and non-being, is there really such an imperceptible nuance?

  I contemplate life as a traveler who has just
passed over a mountain and casts a glance behind him; he has been walking for a long time, his feet have been bruised by sharp stones, he has hesitated before many obstacles; but now, the torrents that barred his path are only thin white lines beneath his feet, the rocks that loomed up before him are black dots, he can no longer see the chasms into which he nearly fell, and the distance traveled seems to him to be such a little matter that he thinks he could touch the nearby peak with his finger.

  Then, the shadows of evening rise up, everything is drowned and disappears into a uniform shade; space no longer exists.

  Night falls. My wife has decided to keep vigil with the nun. They’ve both fallen asleep. In the efforts of their respiration, I hear painful thoughts, poorly allayed, or heavy dreams pursuing them. The idea of their actions, which they’re judging sinful in their imperfect consciences, is still troubling them, and also concern for things that they believe to be important.

  In my slumber, which is better than theirs and devoid of nightmares, nothing similar is happening. Of forgotten cares nothing remains in me but indifference, and I understand irresponsibility….

  …At times, my brain stops: I’m no longer thinking….

  …The second day begins. My vision of the things surrounding me is not as clear; the golden dots of the candle flames are fading. Noises are muffled; and the sensation of blindness and deafness that is invading me, instead of being painful, is full of charm.

  My son has arrived. He has fallen into a chair at the foot of my bed, without speaking. I don’t know where he has come from, or how the news of my death reached him; perhaps he learned about it from a newspaper in some café. Anyway, I have no curiosity in his regard, although I judge him differently as well. Instead of letting his youth develop, I compress it, wanting him to work as I had worked, without taking account of the difference in our situations, “on principle,” as I put it. I opposed him in his inclinations, to the extent of preventing him from pursuing the career of his preference. From childhood, I measured out his pleasures sparingly, under the pretext of showing him the miserliness of life’s joys. Was it astonishingly that his youth burst forth?