by Mike Ashley
Spying without the slightest risk on one’s enemies, on one’s rivals, to discover their secrets, their projects; spying likewise on one’s friends, to discover whether they are well and truly such; spying for ever and a day – even on women in their privacy. I know your temperament: no more so than myself, you will not suffer that a female resists you. Henceforth, if one should reject you, you can take her by force without fearing the vengeance of a father or an outraged husband. I know I will not shock you by telling you that as for myself, whose age and scarred face frighten away young women, I have hardly been the measure of restraint.
All of that you will be able to carry out with impunity. However, if you should take to theft you must exercise the greatest prudence. I do not refer here to the villainous thefts of the common people, from which our wealth distances us; there do arise, however, circumstances in which the most honest man is constrained to steal the belongings of others in order to avert the darkest plots. In my own case, this has proved particularly so in regard to the notes of envious colleagues, for ever on the look out for that which could harm me. If you should find yourself pushed to such extremes, you should be aware that all the objects which you seize upon will not disappear. Slipping them under your clothes will solve the problem, you tell me? No, my son. If it were so, your own silhouette would mask everything behind it, which would outline it clearly, making its invisibility useless. And since we are speaking of clothing, be certain to wear nothing but an immaculate white, for your clothing cannot drink the potion, and the radiance will not work in the slightest on coloured fabric. The least mark will be likely to betray you; thus, you will not be truly safe save in the simplest apparel, but I grant you that this can prove impractical, especially in cold weather.
There, it seems to me, you have all I have to say to you. I hope from the bottom of my heart that my messenger will reach you in time for you to return to Spremberg before my death and allow me the joy of seeing you for one last time. If this is the case, I will myself give you all the preceding explanations. If not, my notary will pass on this letter.
I remain, no matter what should come to pass, your affectionate father,
Otto Storitz.
2
One would judge M. Jules Verne too harshly by reproaching him for having lied in the matter of Wilhelm Storitz. The inexactitudes of his tale after all only concern points of detail, and the truth, if he ever knew it, was too unlikely, too horrible and too shocking to be revealed to an audience primarily composed of adolescents, at the dawn of the twentieth century. As for myself, I only learned of it later, when the letter from Otto Storitz to his son, discovered in the depths of the old family château which I had innocently acquired, provoked my researches.
Before progressing any further, it is appropriate that I should introduce myself: I am he who that monstrous individual which was Storitz called “Ishmael”. I was therefore, albeit unwillingly, one of the principal causes of this lamentable tale, and I am compiling this account in part to relieve my conscience, although I do not know whether it will ever be read.
The events which occurred at Ragz, in Hungary, between April and July 1757, are, thanks to Verne’s novel, too well known to make it necessary for me to give more than a brief summary of them here. A French portrait painter, Marc Vidal, asked for the hand in marriage of a young Hungarian woman of a good family, Myra Roderich, and was accepted by her as well as by her relatives. Wilhelm Storitz, another of Myra’s suitors – this one rejected, which does not surprise me in the least if, in addition to belonging to a nationality for which the Magyars had only contempt, he possessed a quarter of his father’s personality – did everything possible to prevent this union, aided, of course, by his famous “secret”: invisibility. Not the least of his revolting machinations was to render Myra herself invisible, causing her relatives to believe that he had carried her off. Verne records that Storitz’s miserable existence found its end under the sabre of the young woman’s brother, and that he thus became visible due to a massive loss of blood. As for Myra, while still invisible she married her fiancé and, ten months later, gave him a child. The loss of blood which she then underwent returned her too to her normal state, so much so that the Vidal family lived happily from then on.
Even if they are inspired by authentic happenings, novelists, those professional liars, seldom hesitate to enhance these. I am well-placed to know, my own biographer having passably well retouched the tale which I told him before passing it off as a work of fiction. In the case which concerns us, however, Verne perhaps acted in all innocence: without a doubt his inspiration came from the memoirs of Henri Vidal, Marc’s brother, who was a witness to the events – memoirs to which he remains completely faithful. This autobiographical work, of which only fifty copies were published by the author in 1782, and which must already have been quite elusive by Verne’s time, contained enough details for our author to judge any further research pointless – except from a purely geographic point of view, for he liked to sow his novels (a bit too liberally for my taste) with precise descriptions of the countries traversed by his protagonists.
That Henri Vidal himself may have misrepresented the facts to a certain extent is quite conceivable. One should remember that these took place in the mid-eighteenth century: the only dynamos existing at that time were those I had manufactured under duress for Otto Storitz. Perhaps Vidal did not know of them. Perhaps he knew of them, but was unable to guess at their function – which the uneducated servant Hermann would have been incapable of explaining, although he was sure to have seen them in action. Whatever the case may be, the engineer nowhere makes mention of them and attributes the quality of invisibility entirely to an improbable potion. Not too improbable, however, that it couldn’t satisfy several generations of readers.
Since only the chemical aspect of the ‘secret’ was cancelled, it goes without saying that after their haemorrhages, Storitz and Myra did not regain their normal appearance: they became a kind of monster with transparent skin, through which arteries and veins could be seen, as well as a good number of their organs, not to mention the foodstuffs which circulated in their digestive system. A horrific vision, to be sure. The archives which I have been able to consult reveal that Myra Vidal died three months after her confinement; my conviction is that she ended her life after having passed once too often in front of a mirror. All these details, it must be admitted, could not feature either in the memoirs of a respectable engineer in 1782, nor in a novel for the young in 1910.
However, there is worse. The same archives prove without refutation that Vidal’s child was born not ten, but eight and a half months after their marriage. Certainly, one can imagine a slightly premature birth, even conclude that passion had brought the two lovebirds to anticipate the consent of society and the Church to their union – this second hypothesis amply justifies the discretion of those that recounted their lives. Nonetheless, a much more sinister possibility springs to mind, one supported by the fact that following the death of his wife, Marc Vidal placed his child with a tutor and never again wished to hear tell of him. In my opinion, the following occurred:
The secret of invisibility, one should remember, only acted on a perfectly white material. That Wilhelm Storitz himself made use of clothing in white fabric or leather is probable. That Myra Roderich was likewise wearing an immaculate costume the day he entered her home with the purpose of making her invisible is on the other hand more than doubtful. What then did he do? He compelled her to drink the potion, and without doubt a soporific, then to undress completely. And thus, this man who is described to us as completely amoral, ready to perpetrate anything to satisfy his vices, found himself in the company of the woman he had desired for months, naked and at his mercy. Should we believe that he reclothed her in a chaste white gown and respected her virtue? I believe instead that he abused her and that this detestable union brought forth fruit. The dates concur.
And it is this image, that of the monster leaning over his innocen
t victim, that haunts me by night when sleep eludes me, for without me, this ignoble act would never have taken place.
I now arrive at the manner in which I came into possession of the three famous notebooks with the aid of which I perfected the technique that allowed Otto, then Wilhelm, Storitz to give free rein to their baser instincts. Contrary to the chemist’s insinuations in his letter – he easily lends his own vices to others – this was not by theft: I quite simply purchased them.
This came about some time before the events which my biographer recounts in fictionalised form in the book consecrated to myself. Upon returning from a study trip, I stayed one evening in a small hostelry that I knew near to Port-Stowe, whose landlord, a jovial individual named Mr Marvel, never failed to amuse me with his colourful conversation. Exceptionally, that evening I found him morose. Since I was more or less his only client, he sat at my table without hesitation and, while we dined, he explained the reason for his sombre mood. His establishment was in jeopardy: two other inns had opened in the vicinity. One, which was more respectable than his own, was favoured by the bourgeoisie and their wives; the other, which was much less so, attracted heavy drinkers and light women en masse. A few old faithfuls hardly sufficed to keep things going, and because they were old in all senses of the term, the day would not be long before this small clientele disappeared in its turn. Marvel had therefore decided to pack his bags and, weary of England, to seek his fortune in the Americas. Alas, having found no buyer for his doomed inn, he had not managed to put together the necessary sum to pay his passage.
Over after-dinner drinks, when he had brought a bottle of his best whisky to the table, on the house, he declared that I could help him to realize his project, assuring me straight away that he was not asking for charity, but that he possessed an item which would without a doubt be to my benefit to acquire. Did I recall that invisible man that had sown terror in the region several years earlier, before being beaten down by a furious crowd? How could I not remember it? I had followed the affair in the newspapers and since then Mr Marvel himself had regaled me with it each time I had stayed at his inn, which was, moreover, named The Invisible Man. He liked to boast that he had played a part in it which, although minor, gained in importance each time he related the story.
I realized much later that my biographer, always in search of out-of-the-ordinary events, had by a curious coincidence produced another novel drawn from this occurrence, a novel as yet unpublished at the time of my stay in Port-Stowe – luckily for Marvel, as the indiscreet author revealed within it that Marvel had in his possession the notes made by Griffin, the invisible man, which had never been found by the authorities.
When the inn-keeper suggested selling them to me, intrigued, I asked to examine them. Having refilled my glass and his own, he rose with an expression on his face which was the most solemn he could adopt, and went to open the locked drawer of a sideboard, which held a small coffer from which he drew three volumes bound in brown leather and, it must be said, somewhat worn in appearance. He set them in front of me as though they were sacred relics, swearing by all that is holy that he had never before shown them to anyone, which I could well believe. I later learned that there had been at least one exception, but my biographer had always known how to get what he wanted.
Although I leafed through them without close attention, this brief glance convinced me that they came from the pen of a scholar: the equations I discovered there seemed well-balanced and not in the slightest fantastical. Perhaps they would at least give me material for reflection. Led astray by the whisky, and desiring to be of service to my host, I enquired as to the price he wanted, bargained a little on principle, and quickly concluded the deal.
The next day I returned home. Too preoccupied by my current work, I put the books away in my library, where they remained for some long months.
As for Mr Marvel, I learned later that he well and truly left for the New World. There, the ex-vagabond and ex-landlord of the inn made a name for himself in the state of Kansas, where he became a travelling fortune-teller under the name of Professor Marvel.
There remains to explain how, to my great unhappiness and that of so many others, I came to encounter Otto Storitz.
If the events related by my biographer make me appear a greater hero than I ever was, they do remain at least generally accurate. Upon my return I was devastated, depressed by the loss of Weena, universally disgusted by the world and by humanity. I decided to occupy myself from then on with myself alone, and wished to change my environment as a symbol of this new existence. However, when I left, this was not intended to be a new voyage into a distant future, but a simple journey of several weeks, designed to exhaust the patience of my friends and to ensure that there would be no further risk of their presenting themselves at my door. This done, I organised my departure discreetly. I took only what was strictly necessary; a few personal effects, my machine, and the contents of my library. Trusting my new place of residence to chance, I put on a blindfold and threw a dart at a planisphere. It landed in the very heart of Germany, and it was thus for Germany that I departed.
Once there, I realized that I was hardly content, no more so than I had been in England, and doubtless no more so than I would have been in any other European country, where a strained political situation produced the incessant threat of war. I had known enough violence; I only hoped for peace.
Then an idea came to me. I suspected that nowhere in the world would have brought me what I desired during my time, but, of all men, I was the sole one not constrained by the immutable course of time.
Suppressing my scruples, thanks to my machine I had no difficulty in gaining fabulous riches on the horse tracks. After having changed my winnings for gold, the only currency I presumed eternal, I began the long process which would end in the discovery of the peaceful era in which I live at the present time of writing, an era which I have no intention of identifying here, except to say that it can be found in a future not too far distant from that which I had left.
While I was hesitating between remaining in Germany, where fate had led me, and returning to England (two nations that however no longer existed as such), my atten tion was caught by the auction sale of a superb medieval château in old Spremberg. I had, I admit, always dreamed of owning one, and the temptation was too strong. Money being no problem, I carried off the auction with a high hand and went to install myself in my new domain, after having had part of it restored in order to make it habitable. I left the rest as it was for the pleasure of the sight.
This new existence brought me all the happiness of which I had dreamed. Several months later I fell in love with a young woman of the region, married her, and undertook the task of begetting children. We now have three, two boys and a girl, who are our pride and joy.
My unhappiness was brought about by a mixture of curiosity and idleness. One evening, when my wife and our then only child had gone to visit her parents for a week, I was bored to death and, after several glasses, the idea came to me to make use of my machine again. I had never, after all, explored the past. What harm could be done by a rapid foray into the memories held by these old stones which surrounded me? Perhaps I could even visit my own château at different periods, from the time of its construction, and on my return write a dissertation on its history using firsthand information . . .
Decisions taken quickly, after one has drunk a little, are often foolish, and this was no exception to the rule: my machine held pride of place in the large room which was formerly a dining-room, but which now served as my laboratory, so I was able to depart that very evening. I had no fear that my absence would be noticed, having the firm intention of returning the instant following my departure. Since I had, however, no idea how long I might be spending in the past, I decided to take some reading matter. It was upon exploring my library that I came upon the three notebooks bought from Mr Marvel, the existence of which I had almost forgotten. I stowed them into my bag thinking they would provide a welcom
e source of intellectual stimulation.
The rest can be imagined. Following two or three visits to past times where I wisely avoided being noticed, I arrived in 1753. Finding the château deserted, I was preparing to explore when Otto Storitz surprised me. I then committed the error of desiring to speak with him, rather than throwing myself on to my machine and departing. It is well-known what this cost me.
Upon my return, older by more than a year and still having no idea of the wrongs caused to innocent people by my thoughtlessness, I did not dismantle my machine: I purely and simply destroyed it.
Since I discovered the misfortunes of the Vidal family, I have come to regret this gesture, and to believe that on returning to the time just before these events took place I could influence their course. The desire to construct another machine, however, leaves me as quickly as it arrives: it is too dangerous to wish to change history, and I have already brought about too many catastrophes. Who knows if the remedy would not be worse than the disease? For as much as this weighs upon me, I must continue to live with my guilt, hoping that on Judgment Day God will see fit to pardon he whose incomplete and inexact, but unique biography names only –
– The Time Traveller.
Translated from the French by Finn Sinclair
THE SHOAL
Liz Williams
In 1978 the City of Nantes, where Verne was born, opened a Jules Verne Museum in celebration of Verne’s achievements. There is no doubt that Verne was a major influence in popularising science and causing men of science to look to the future. The following story was inspired by a visit to the Museum and, in its vision and outlook, is a fitting conclusion to our own celebration of the works of Jules Verne.
He knew that something was wrong as soon as he looked into the mirror. His own face, dark and secret-filled, seemed curiously transparent, as though the light of the meagre room was shining through it. He knew what it meant and a great elation, coupled with fear, raced through him, filling his veins with ice and fire. The past snapped at his heels, ready to tear him back, and he was ready to go. But leaving meant that he would have to make it back to the rift, and he did not know yet how he was going to accomplish this without the vessel.