A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  When Nathanael awoke he felt as if he had been oppressed by a terrible nightmare; he opened his eyes and experienced an indescribable sensation of mental comfort, whilst a soft and most beautiful sensation of warmth pervaded his body. He lay on his own bed in his own room at home; Clara was bending over him, and at a little distance stood his mother and Lothair. “At last, at last, O my darling Nathanael; now we have you again; now you are cured of your grievous illness, now you are mine again.” And Clara’s words came from the depths of her heart; and she clasped him in her arms. The bright scalding tears streamed from his eyes, he was so overcome with mingled feelings of sorrow and delight; and he gasped forth, “My Clara, my Clara!” Siegmund, who had staunchly stood by his friend in his hour of need, now came into the room. Nathanael gave him his hand—“My faithful brother, you have not deserted me.” Every trace of insanity had left him, and in the tender hands of his mother and his beloved, and his friends, he quickly recovered his strength again. Good fortune had in the meantime visited the house; a niggardly old uncle, from whom they had never expected to get anything, had died, and left Nathanael’s mother not only a considerable fortune, but also a small estate, pleasantly situated not far from the town. There they resolved to go and live, Nathanael and his mother, and Clara, to whom he was now to be married, and Lothair. Nathanael was become gentler and more childlike than he had ever been before, and now began really to understand Clara’s supremely pure and noble character. None of them ever reminded him, even in the remotest degree, of the past. But when Siegmund took leave of him, he said, “By heaven, brother! I was in a bad way, but an angel came just at the right moment and led me back upon the path of light. Yes, it was Clara.” Siegmund would not let him speak further, fearing lest the painful recollections of the past might arise too vividly and too intensely in his mind.

  The time came for the four happy people to move to their little property. At noon they were going through the streets. After making several purchases they found that the lofty tower of the town-house was throwing its giant shadows across the market-place. “Come,” said Clara, “let us go up to the top once more and have a look at the distant hills.” No sooner said than done. Both of them, Nathanael and Clara, went up the tower; their mother, however, went on with the servant-girl to her new home, and Lothair, not feeling inclined to climb up all the many steps, waited below. There the two lovers stood arm-in-arm on the topmost gallery of the tower, and gazed out into the sweet-scented wooded landscape, beyond which the blue hills rose up like a giant’s city.

  “Oh! do look at that strange little grey bush, it looks as if it were actually walking towards us,” said Clara. Mechanically he put his hand into his sidepocket; he found Coppola’s perspective and looked for the bush; Clara stood in front of the glass. Then a convulsive thrill shot through his pulse and veins; pale as a corpse, he fixed his staring eyes upon her; but soon they began to roll, and a fiery current flashed and sparkled in them, and he yelled fearfully, like a hunted animal. Leaping up high in the air and laughing horribly at the same time, he began to shout, in a piercing voice, “Spin round, wooden doll! Spin round, wooden doll!” With the strength of a giant he laid hold upon Clara and tried to hurl her over, but in an agony of despair she clutched fast hold of the railing that went round the gallery. Lothair heard the madman raging and Clara’s scream of terror: a fearful presentiment flashed across his mind. He ran up the steps; the door of the second flight was locked. Clara’s scream for help rang out more loudly. Mad with rage and fear, he threw himself against the door, which at length gave way. Clara’s cries were growing fainter and fainter,—“Help! save me! save me!” and her voice died away in the air. “She is killed—murdered by that madman,” shouted Lothair. The door to the gallery was also locked. Despair gave him the strength of a giant; he burst the door off its hinges. Good God! there was Clara in the grasp of the madman Nathanael, hanging over the gallery in the air; she only held to the iron bar with one hand. Quick as lightning, Lothair seized his sister and pulled her back, at the same time dealing the madman a blow in the face with his doubled fist, which sent him reeling backwards, forcing him to let go his victim.

  Lothair ran down with his insensible sister in his arms. She was saved. But Nathanael ran round and round the gallery, leaping up in the air and shouting, “Spin round, fire-wheel! Spin round, fire-wheel!” The people heard the wild shouting, and a crowd began to gather. In the midst of them towered the advocate Coppelius, like a giant; he had only just arrived in the town, and had gone straight to the market-place. Some were going up to overpower and take charge of the madman, but Coppelius laughed and said, “Ha! ha! wait a bit; he’ll come down of his own accord;” and he stood gazing upwards along with the rest. All at once Nathanael stopped as if spell-bound; he bent down over the railing, and perceived Coppelius. With a piercing scream, “Ha! foine oyes! foine oyes!” he leapt over.

  When Nathanael lay on the stone pavement with a broken head, Coppelius had disappeared in the crush and confusion.

  Several years afterwards it was reported that, outside the door of a pretty country house in a remote district, Clara had been seen sitting hand in hand with a pleasant gentleman, whilst two bright boys were playing at her feet. From this it may be concluded that she eventually found that quiet domestic happiness which her cheerful, blithesome character required, and which Nathanael, with his tempest-tossed soul, could never have been able to give her.

  GLIMPSES OF OTHER WORLDS

  Sir Thomas Charles Morgan

  “One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine.”

  Young.

  ONE FINE STARRY night I was taking a solitary stroll, “nescio quid meditans nugarum,” when feeling somewhat fatigued, I leaned against a grassy bank, and gazing upwards, gradually fell into a reverie. How long it lasted I cannot tell, but it seemed to be gradually sliding into a slumber, when methought it was interrupted by the appearance of a venerable old man of strange aspect, standing before me. His few scattered hairs, and his beard, were of a silvery whiteness, and Time had ploughed many a deep furrow in his brow. But independently of baldness and wrinkles, (for these I knew were the attributes of most Octogenarians,) there was a peculiar stamp of Antiquity in his physiognomy; he seemed the very prosopopaeia of Old Age; nor should I have been surprised to have heard that he had numbered more centuries than one. His form nevertheless was tall, and tolerably erect, and his features contemplative and regular—save that his nose seemed, by some unaccountable accident, to have been curtailed of its original fair proportions.

  “What are you staring at?” he somewhat unceremoniously asked.

  A little startled by the abruptness of the interrogatory, I replied that I delighted to indulge in a survey of the nocturnal sky, and to admire

  “Those bright millions of the heavens

  Of which the least full Godhead had proclaimed

  And thrown the gazer on his knee.

  All on wing,

  In motion all, yet what profound repose!

  What fervid action—yet no noise—as awed

  To silence by the presence of their Lord!”

  “Twaddledum-dee,” replied he with a contemptuous drawl; “and pray how much do you know about ‘those bright millions?’ how much––”

  “Perhaps,” retorted I, waxing indignant, “perhaps all that I do know, and all that you do not know, would make together a very thick book.”

  Hereupon a sort of chuckling sound, like a hysterical giggle, proceeded from his lips, (or rather, his throat,) and fell with so demoniacal an insolence upon my ear, that the tips of my fingers tingled with a longing to give his epitomized nose a hearty tweak. “Boy!” said he, “you know not what you say, nor whom you address. Before your great grandfather was christened, I had unravelled more of the celestial arcana than Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, or Newton. They sat ensconced in their closets and observatories to watch through their telescopes the motions of distant worlds. I took a nearer station, and required but my naked ey
e. Nature herself intended me to be the phoenix of travellers and discoverers. At my birth the bumps of inquisitiveness and locomotiveness were so fully developed in my phrenological conformation, that I narrowly escaped being exhibited as a lusus naturae with two heads. What are all the wanderings of your travellers and navigators compared with my peregrinations? Your travels in Bokhara, forsooth—your tours of Spain and Italy—your wanderings in New South Wales—your overland journeys to India—or your overice journeys to the North Pole? Why before I was out of my teens, I had explored every nook of our little globe, and then—as Alexander wept because there were no more worlds to conquer—I wept because there were no more to visit.”

  “Quite a toss up which of you was the greater baby,” said I, nettled at his conceit.

  “The Fates had decreed, however,” he continued, “that my travelling mania should not be balked. My guardian genius appeared to me, and presented me with this cap, ycleped a GOLGOTHA,videlicet, the place of a skull.” (Here he pulled from his head a very odd-shaped concern, apparently made of Indian rubber, with a poke or leaf behind and before.) “This was to be a preservative against all sudden and extreme changes of temperature, according as this leaf—or that—was worn in front; the leaves being, as you see, marked ‘hot’ and ‘cold,’ like the spouts of a bath.”

  “Well!” said I, “I have seen many varieties of travelling-caps, but never aught like this. Your guardy should have taken out a patent for his invention, and advertised its wonderful properties in the Timesor the Morning Herald.”

  “I forgot to add,” he continued, “that my genius, in promising to gratify my taste for travelling, furnished me with a time-glass, warning me that the running out of its sands should mark the period of my sojourn in each world. We happened just then to be standing on the shores of the Lake of Geneva; a boat crowded with people was just pushing off. ‘Jump into that boat,’ said my genius, ‘and when you are half way over—fear not—and upset it.’ ”

  (“O! the savage!” said I aside.)

  “I followed my instructions to the letter, and presently some score of poor devils were struggling for their lives in the blue waters of the Leman Lake. For my own part I felt myself sinking rapidly through the eddying abyss—deeper and more deep––”

  “Facilis descensus Averni!” I exclaimed; “you must have thought yourself in a fair way indeed of visiting another world!”

  “For myself,” he replied, “I had little apprehension; but I much fear my ill-fated fellow-passengers very soon found themselves in a world, which amid all my various pilgrimages I have not yet visited. Ere long, I reached my destination—even the interior of our own earth, a world undreamt of by the most fanciful of our theorists—unsuspected by the profoundest of our philosophers;—though we have carried it in our bosom since first our orb was sent whirling through space. And yet—is its existence any thing to be marvelled at? Shall each drop of water teem throughout with life and motion, while the globe itself is animated but at its external shell?”

  “Pshaw!” said I somewhat impatiently, “a truce to philosophizing. Tell me what you saw. What were the inhabitants like? ‘Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders.’ ”

  “Not at all,” he replied; “they very much resemble ourselves—perhaps a better-looking race of men. The complexions, especially of the subterranean ladies, are brilliantly fair. There is no sun to scorch by day, nor moon to smite by night!”

  “Faith,” said I, “notwithstanding the resulting improvement to the complexions of the natives, I can scarcely conceive the absence of those luminaries a mighty blessing.”

  “Your remark only shows your ignorance, my friend,” observed the old gentleman coolly. “What should they want with a great flaring sun, I should like to know? Their world is a snug amphitheatre, not more than a hundred miles broad—you may see across on a fine day—so that it may be imagined the crust which envelopes them is of no slight thickness, and as good as an extra blanket. Besides, it would do your heart good to see the fires they keep up in their national stoves—of a magnitude undreamt of in your philosophy. You may have seen indeed the tops of their chimney funnels, called by learned men in these upper regions AEtna, Vesuvius, and Hecla. When that mighty eruption buried in ruins the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, the innocent subterranean natives had only piled on a few additional sticks to commemorate the birth of an heir apparent to the throne.”

  “By Jupiter! Then,” exclaimed I, “it is to be hoped you gave them a hint to make no more such bonfires. What may be sport to them is death to us! But tell me—how do they manage to illumine your lower world?”

  “It illuminates itself,” he replied, “without the aid of sunbeams or gaspipes—oil lamps or tallow candles. The whole arched ceiling of the internal empire is studded with diamonds, carbuncles, and the rarest gems; while in the midst is suspended a colossal chandelier ‘of one entire and perfect chrysolite,’ which emits and reflects a splendour, that would dim the glories of our meridian sun.”

  “Still,” said I, “this artificial glare must be very inferior to our glorious sunshine.”

  “All moonshine!” returned he contemptuously. “Verily in this fair and happy world my time sped on rapid wings; but—do not laugh at me—shall I confess my weakness?—I fell in love! Ere I was on my guard the bright form of a subterranean houri captivated my too, too susceptible heart! Ah! she was in truth passing lovely—such as your gross senses can never picture—her soft eyes of cerulean blue—her skin whiter than drifted snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster—her lips—”

  “As red as a peony, and her hair as dark and glossy as Warren’s blacking,” I chimed in, cutting short the matter; for the old beau was getting intolerably common-place and sentimental. “There are similes for your paragon of loveliness. I haven’t a doubt she was excessively pretty; but pray spare me the detail of her charms.”

  “So be it, then,” said he, sighing most heart-breakingly, from the very depths of his stomach. “It is very certain I was an egregious ass thus to plunge head over ears in love. Full well I knew that the years of my brief sojourn were numbered from the beginning. The sands of my glass had already well nigh run out, and my genius appeared to prepare me for my departure. Mine was indeed a cruel, but inevitable lot! I beheld my lady-love for the last time—our interview was heart-rending—we bade each other a long—an agonizing farewell, and exchanged vows of eternal love, and locks of hair. My genius reconducted me to these upper regions, through a well-concealed trap-door, which opens among the newly-discovered caves near Mitchelstown, County of Cork, Ireland.”

  “I dare say” (was my most unfeeling remark) “you were extremely glad to return, and quickly forgot your vows and your lady-love.”

  “You do me grievous wrong,” he replied with earnestness. “Those scenes—that face (though full more than a century has since elapsed) still live vividly in my recollection.

  ‘The hallowed form is ne’er forgot

  Which first love traced,

  Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot

  On memory’s waste!’

  If I thought, by upsetting another bark—ay, were it on the deepest of lakes—that I should be enabled to revisit those lovely regions, upset it I would, though it were freighted with all England!”

  “By the powers!” said I, “then, thank you for the hint. I shall take especial care, my friend, how you and I are ever fellow-voyagers in the same wherry!”

  “To drive away my melancholy,” resumed the traveller, “I projected a trip to the moon. The diversion was very à propos; for such was my despondency, I fear I might otherwise have become alunatic. My indefatigable genius speedily provided me with a mode of conveyance in the shape of an oxyhydro-safety-high-pressure-steam-balloon, of one-thousand-and-one-elephant-power. Accordingly, on a fine evening in the merry month of May, I set out on my aerial voyage, with a fair breeze, high spirits, and three days’ prog. At day-break on the third morning the pale cliffs
of the Moon hove in sight on my weatherbow. I can see them now,” he continued, looking upward at the bright orb; “do you not see the corner of that island-like spot near the centre? Before noon I was safely moored at the foot of Mons Pentakusiakron, in north latitude 53° 47’, and in longitude 25’ west of Munchausenopolis, the Lunar capital. I proceeded to the city, and having delivered my letters of introduction, I was soon most comfortably established in the forty-second story of one of the grandest mansions which the metropolis could boast.”