by Jerry
“You can rise, if you wish,” said the face.
I slowly did as it suggested.
“Drink this,” said the Chief Adapter.
He handed me a glass full of red liquid. It was like drinking fire, and made me spring to my feet as though I had received a galvanic shock.
“Ah—that makes you feel alive—eh? Now, listen to me. From an examination of your papers I gather that you are an American. Moreover, you are known to me by repute as a traveller. I have had to call together a special meeting of the Circle to decide whether you should be allowed to die or be revived and allowed to reside here amongst us. Only by a very small majority, it has been decided to give you a chance. My own reasons for keeping you alive are purely scientific. Meanwhile, I may as well inform you that the laws of this country prohibit aliens of any description. I will call my daughter to bear you company for an hour until my return.”
He was standing close to me while speaking, his three legs set at the apexes of a triangle on his barrel-like body. We were in a circular room, with several oval windows, and the doorway was about 16 ft. from where we stood. Suddenly, without turning round, an arm emerged from one side of his body, stretched out with incredible swiftness to the door, and pulled it open. Then, withdrawing his legs and arms into his shell, his body gently subsided on to the floor, and he rolled slowly across the room and out through the doorway.
I sat down, because my legs refused to support me, and I was staring at the doorway when it was filled with a vision of such entrancing loveliness that I was almost bereft of what few senses I had left.
“So you are my father’s guest?” said the vision, at last, after looking at me for some time with an indescribable expression in her eyes. “What is your name?”
“Montmorency Merrick,” I replied.
“Why do you sit on the floor?”
“I don’t know,” I answered idiotically, attempting to rise. “But,” I added, looking around me, “there are no chairs to sit on.”
She smiled.
“We do not need chairs here. We use our own shells instead; but, of course, this is all strange to you. You are very handsome.”
I blushed.
“You—you are lovely!” I blurted out.
“I came to see you like this because I did not want to startle you,” she replied, laughing. “It is not my natural form. But tell me, do I seem at all strange-looking?”
“Only very beautiful,” I said enthusiastically.
She did not seem to be in the least embarrassed at the boldness of my compliments, but rather pleased.
“I think I do it very well,” she said. “You see, I sometimes forget your system of bones and joints and things, and then I bend my arms the wrong way—like this.”
As she spoke, she bent her right arm at the elbow backwards.
“Or I let my eyes stare too much—like this.”
Her eyes suddenly stood a couple of inches from their sockets and then returned again. I sprang up from the ground in alarm.
“Ah!” she exclaimed. “I forgot you did not understand, but my father will give you a little account of our habits and customs after dinner, and then I will get you to tell me all that goes on in New York. I have never been allowed to go there as yet. My pulp is not developed enough.”
With this astonishing remark she smiled again, and it seemed to me that she had too many teeth.
“I will give instructions about your room.” And with an indescribably graceful bow she left me.
I must have sat there for half-an-hour, thinking hard, when the Chief Adapter came rolling in through the doorway. He stopped in front of me, shot out some legs and arms, then said:
“Well, has Clarice been in?”
“A lady has been to see me,” I said doubtfully. “She said you were her father.” I looked hard at his three legs. “But she does not greatly resemble you, that is—I beg your pardon.”
“Pooh!” said the Adapter. “I suppose she has been up to her tricks again. It is a very curious example of the enormous difficulty we have experienced in endeavouring to eradicate the old inherited instincts. Even my daughter, who has had the benefit of living in communion with some of the greatest intellects the world has ever seen, cannot refrain from personating what you would no doubt call a beautiful woman. I think I had better give you an outline of the history of this country to prepare you for what you will see. I noticed, when I was cleaning your brain, that your powers of deduction were somewhat undeveloped and the reasoning faculty was almost entirely absent.
“To begin with, we are human beings—with a difference. It is some three centuries since our revered ancestors first reached this country. They were men and women constituted as you are. It is needless to go into the whys and wherefores of their coming, but pre-eminent among them was a brilliant scientist, whose statue you will see in the National Museum. He had conceived the idea of modifying the human structure to an extent deemed impossible by his old colleagues, who had endeavoured to prevent him by force from carrying out his experiments in England. Hence he decided with a few followers, who believed in him, to search out some unknown country where he could work unhindered by the interference of the feeble-minded.
“The result of his work you see before you. Look at me! I represent the triumph of mind over matter. I have no bones—they are needless, and, in fact, superfluous. I can progress on foot as well as you, or I can move as swiftly as a motorcar, and in a like manner. My brain is not hampered by being inclosed in a skull like yours. I can do practically what I like with my features.” (Here he made some perfectly horrible contortions). “The number of legs and arms I possess is only limited by my will” (he waved at least half-a-dozen flabby arms in my face), “and the term of years which I shall live is also, to a great extent, under my control. But I have told you enough for the present. If you remain here you will see for yourself what an inestimable boon has been conferred upon his descendants by our founder. Now—come along with me.”
I followed him along a passage, sloping downwards, and winding in a spiral, until we reached another circular chamber, where a table was laid with various utensils.
There were no chairs—but for my convenience a box had been placed at one end.
The Chief Adapter motioned me to sit down. He up-ended himself, first withdrawing all his legs, and in that position, which, though distinctly ungraceful, was certainly secure, the meal commenced.
It did not last long. My host’s enormous mouth did a proportionate amount of work, and the food, consisting entirely of fruit, quickly disappeared. Then he stretched his arm right across the room in a manner with which I was becoming familiar, to a tap. He filled a large vessel with wine (at least a quart), which he placed before me. He drank an equal portion himself without an effort, and the dinner was finished. From first to last it occupied three minutes. I had managed to eat one pear and a bunch of grapes. I succeeded, however, in secreting several apples about my person, and I drank most of the wine.
“You see,” said the Adapter, “we do not waste time eating and drinking; at least, the more cultured among us do not. I am sorry to say, however, that there is still a certain clique who prefer material pleasures to intellectual ones. My own appetite is small” (he had eaten at least half a hundredweight of fruit), “but there are some who regard eating and drinking as an art, and, if I mistake not, one of them is now approaching.”
As he spoke an unwieldy object waddled into the room. His barrel must have measured at least three feet in diameter, and his face entirely filled one end. He was balanced on the three legs which I afterwards found to be the usual number in use for everyday purposes. The face was quite repulsive, being closely marked with pimples, and very fat and blubbery.
I took an intense and instinctive dislike to him on the spot.
“I have come to have a look at your latest freak, my dear Adapter,” he observed, looking at me with some surprise. “Is this the creature?”
“This is Mr Montmor
ency Merrick, a citizen of the USA, who has accidentally found his way here,” replied my host, who spoke slowly and impressively. “I am sure you will remember to treat him with courtesy, Tennyson.”
“Oh, certainly, certainly,” replied the monstrosity, in a greasy voice. “Your friends are mine. How is the beautiful Clarice?”
“My daughter has gone to pay a visit to the wife of the Governor of the Incubator House, and will be away for a few days. As you are here I shall be obliged to you if you will do me the favour to take Mr Merrick out and show him some of the features of interest.”
“Shall be delighted, my dear Adapter. Come along, Merrick, old buck!”
He stretched out a tentacle with a handful of gross and misshapen fingers, and clapped me on the back.
“I’ll tell you what—I’ll take him over the Museum. There is an excellent dining-room there, and I need replenishing.”
“Bring him back about ten o’clock,” said the Adapter. “Remember he is in your charge, and you will be responsible for him.”
With which remark the Chief suddenly withdrew all his feelers and rolled rapidly out of the room.
The monstrosity turned to me and grinned.
“Bit peremptory, eh?” he observed. “So you’re a man, are you? What do you think of us—eh?”
He grinned again, and I had a feeling of nausea.
“Can you roll?” he asked.
“Certainly not,” I replied.
“Oh, well, I’ll walk with you, though it’s a confounded nuisance. This way.”
He led me out of the house along a smooth pathway inclined at a slight angle downwards, through a garden of amazing flowers and trees, and then suddenly a view of the city lay before me, and I stopped to gaze.
The general effect was certainly beautiful—the architecture was bizarre and bewildering; there did not seem to be one building like another. I soon perceived that the predominating feature of all of them was an almost entire absence of straight lines and angles. Curves, curves everywhere, and fine pointed spires with globes on their summits, winding streets, and a general glare of sunlight, which after the darkened room dazzled my eyes.
Presently I became aware of innumerable cylinders rolling at varying speeds along these silent streets, for the usual hum of a great city was lacking. Only here and there I saw some of the inhabitants walking on legs. Some of the cylinders must have been 12ft. in diameter, and these were moving with the speed of a motor-car, steering with an astonishing skill in and out of the traffic. Once I saw one of them roll right over a cylinder moving in the opposite direction, but no notice was taken of this—it appeared to be a customary procedure.
“You seem to be struck dumb, Monty,” said the gross creature at my side. “By Jove, what a rum little face you’ve got! No offence, you know; we all speak the truth here. Bit strange after New York, eh? However, I shall get used to you in time—just at present I can’t say I cotton on to you, but possibly you don’t appreciate exactly what you do look like. See here!”
He actually twisted his features, after several hideous contortions, into a grotesque caricature of my own, and as I stared at him the likeness became more and more faithful, until I begged him to desist.
He grinned complacently.
“I’m a bit of a dab at that,” he remarked. “In fact, Clarice and I are stars in the imitating line; but we must be moving. See that big gold-coloured building, that’s the Museum. We had better have a roller.”
He whistled suddenly—like a locomotive—when two of the big wheels I have referred to rolled up to the gate. I then saw that the hub of each consisted of a creature like the others, and the big external diameter was formed by attaching spokes to the outer casing and fixing a flexible tyre. The two wheels pulled up alongside each other. Between them they carried a kind of seat into which my companion hoisted me, as though I had been a portmanteau. He got in after me.
“Museum, sharp!” he roared.
There was a violent jerk, which nearly flung me out, then a wild rush through the air, which brought tears into my eyes. Then they stopped so suddenly that I shot right out of the seat and landed on something soft, which instantly threw me off again.
“What the devil are you doing, sir?” said a choleric voice.
“I beg your pardon,” I began –
“Surely you could see I was not in my casing, sir; but, good gracious! you must be the American?”
By this time I had succeeded in recovering my wind. I looked at my interlocutor, whose face I could not perceive.
“You see I am not used to your modes of locomotion,” I began.
“Confound it, sir—do not speak to my hide—speak to me!”
The voice came from my right. I turned round and beheld what looked like a jelly-fish lying on the ground. It had a face, all flabby and quivering. Several gelatinous looking arms and feelers were waving and vibrating in the air. Its eyes were glaring at me with suppressed fury, and it seemed to swell and contract alternately like a bladder blown out by some mischievous boy.
Standing a few feet away was my obese companion, his face convulsed with laughter, and tears pouring from his cod-like eyes.
“You fell into the middle of him,” he gasped, “and knocked his wind out. Never mind, Percy, old boy, he didn’t mean it and couldn’t help it: besides you shouldn’t come out of your shell and stand about like that.”
“It’s all very well to talk,” replied the jelly-fish angrily. “Who was to know that some blundering idiot was going to jump into one like that. He nearly punctured my cupella!”
It wobbled up to the cylinder which I had mistakenly addressed and poured itself into one end, shot our three legs and then withdrew them again, and extended several arms in the same manner—it was as if he was trying on a coat—and finally rolled sedately away along the road.
My conductor was grinning grotesquely at me when I turned round.
“If you want to see the Museum, you must hurry up,” he said. “I can’t go round with you, but I’ll hand you over to one of the custodians.”
He called out to a spider-like creature who was gazing at me with a look of considerable astonishment.
“Billy—take this gentleman round the museum and point out the various exhibits. I shall be in the refreshment-room when you want to find me—by-by, Merrick.”
He waddled off down a long corridor and I turned to Billy. I should have liked to have gone into the refreshment room myself. I wanted a pick-me-up, but I had no notion of their money exchange and did not see how to manage it.
There were many extraordinary things in the museum, but I have no time to enumerate them. What interested me most of all was a series of pictures, made by the founder of these amazing people.
I had wondered how they managed to roll along the ground without getting giddy, and how they kept their faces in a vertical position while doing so. The secret was out when I had examined the drawings. A section through the middle of one of them showed that the outer shell or casing was loose and had an internal row of rough rachet-shaped teeth. The pulpy stuff of which they were made had a number of external fleshy pawls, which geared with the teeth and imparted a rotary motion to the casing.
Long descriptions written in quaint English were attached to each drawing—parts of these I read, but had great difficulty in comprehending them. The phraseology reminded me strongly of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I remember one sentence very distinctly. It went thus: –
“And it shall be that the extensors may be thrust in from any given direction, either internally or externally, fortifying the indirect tissue of the cupella by a series of cords of ultimate elasticity equal to a hundredth portion of a ton for every oneeighth of a square inch of section.”
I was told afterwards that this meant that these beings could produce legs and arms in almost any number, and could vary the shape of their bodies when out of their shells to an almost unlimited extent.
I spent three or four hours walking about the
building, which had no staircases, but inclined planes as a substitute, and I saw the celebrated statue of the founder. He was a short, thick-set man with a hydrocephaloid head, small, deep-set eyes under shaggy eyebrows, and an indescribably bestial-looking mouth.
It was a fascinating face and reminded me of the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, with the Hyde predominating.
Underneath was written:
“All that can be imagined by man can be achieved—but each achievement shall cost him more than the worth thereof.”
The Chief Adapter told me later that this inscription was part of an epitaph written by the only one of the founder’s original companions who survived him, and who was supposed by many to have been opposed to his extraordinary aims.
At the door of the refreshment-room I was greeted by the monstrosity, with a vacuous laugh.
“I have eaten and drunk and feel good and happy. What do you think of the Museum—beastly dry, isn’t it? Come and have a drink.”
I went with him. He ordered wine—at least a quart. As I was afraid of offending, I drank it all, with the result that I became somewhat light-headed and I have no distinct recollection of how we spent the intervening time before returning to the Chief Adapter’s house. I do remember calling the monstrosity an “overgrown octopus,” at which he laughed immoderately. I believe I was put to bed by the Adapter’s servants, who had an altercation with the monstrosity about me, but I cannot recall what they said.
I must have slept for several hours, when I was awakened by a nasal voice singing to the accompaniment of some stringed instrument. The voice seemed near at hand and I slipped off the mattress on which I was lying and crossed the room to the circular window. It was early morning. I could just see over the edge of the aperture into the road beneath. Standing on three short legs, with his hideous face uppermost, was the monstrosity. He was gazing with an imbecile expression at the window parallel with mine. He had a stringed instrument resembling a guitar in one of his hands, and was singing at the top of his voice “Love me and the world is mine.”