Meanwhile, an aristocratic and Tanagrean virgin, Huguette de Virmile, Jeanne Fortin’s cousin, was also thinking of him, dreamily, captured by the emprise and domination of his gaze.
VI. Genius Akin to Madness
Frédéric, the scientist’s factotum, was pacing up and down in Dr. Fortin’s laboratory, in the company of the victim of amour, Georges Garnier, whom he was guiding, holding him under the arms like a puppet of flesh and bone.
“Come on, Monsieur Georges, a little further—there! There! I’m going to let go of you...” He let go, and only just had time to catch the marionette. “Oops! A moment longer and he’d have been on the floor. Oh, I’m beginning to have had enough of the society of this young man. To think that a few weeks ago he was reasoning as well as me, and now, like a child a few months old, he can hardly stand up. Come on, sit down. There…bend your knees. What a simpleton! He doesn’t understand anything about anything. What the devil have they made him swallow to put him in this state?
“It’s a fine thing, Science; like Amour, it brutalizes a man. And in the meantime, the other one, the former dead man, is walking, coming and going, speaking and acting in his stead. Truly, there’s something to be proud of in that rascal, for it would make all the sly swine in the Faculté des Sciences swallow their tobacco if they could see that Mr. Punch!
“Come on, it’s necessary to feed him now. What a chore! I’d rather have a dozen nurslings. They wail and whine, but that’s understandable, whereas he, damn it…! It’s necessary to stuff the grub into him. And he’s no help! On the contrary, he’s the most stu…pid... Come on! Open your beak! Now, swallow!”
Frédéric forced George Garnier’s mouth, introduced an esophageal syringe into it, and made him absorb the contents. “You’re looking well, old man,” he continued. “You’re even putting on weight—but that doesn’t mean that I’d like to be in your shoes. There! Now go bye-bye in your corner...”
At that moment, Jeanne Fortin came in with the double man—which is to say, Julien de Vandeuvre’s body playing host to Georges Garnier’s soul—in the company of Marc Vanel.
“Leave him there, Fred,” said Jeanne. “We might need him. You’ve earned a break. Go get some rest, my friend.”
“Bah! It’s not very tiring, after all, and I’d prefer it if he were a little more turbulent, for it hurts me to see Monsieur Georges this way, like a wax figurine.”
“Be patient a little longer, Fred. I hope to be back in my skin soon,” said the mind of Georges Garnier, via the smiling mouth of Julien Vandeuvre. “Thanks, old chap.”
After Fred’s departure, the three strange individuals surrounded Georges Garnier’s body.
“Nothing new,” said Marc Vanel, after having examined the lamentable human wreck attentively.
“What are you waiting for in order to return me to myself?” said the double George-Julien, irritatedly. “The body of this Vandeuvre is horribly embarrassing...”
“Do you find it ugly, then?” said Jeanne Fortin, teasingly.
“On the contrary. I’m afraid that you’ll get too accustomed to this face and end up falling in love with it. This lady-killer I’m living in is odious to me, and I’m in haste to get back to my clothing of an honest man. This Vandeuvre, in whom you’ve installed me like a hermit crab in someone else’s shell, has committed regrettable actions—not those that society reproves, but ones of which a conscience like mine cannot approve. When, on your order, Jeanne, I recovered possession of my…of his…apartment, the sight of familiar objects, and the reading of a journal that he kept quite regularly, filled in all the lacunae that subsisted in my memory, and the mind of Julien de Vandeuvre was entirely revived within me. Since then, these two souls have been influencing my actions, often against my will. The spirit of Julien de Vandeuvre steers me and draws me toward ideas that my own spirit, Georges Garnier, only envisages with scorn and repulsion. The life and character of that socialite, infatuated with himself, his birth, his fortune, his appearance and his chic, accustomed to find flatterers and accomplices among other men and easy conquests among women, are antipathetic to me.
But it seems to me,” Jeanne said, “that your thoughts don’t always have that inclination, since you’re criticizing them yourself.”
“That’s because I’m in the presence of my own self here, collapsed in a corner, and that presence drives de Vandeuvre’s spirit away, temporarily.”
“Although you’re in haste to recover possession of your envelope, I’m not yet ready for that restitution. I still need Julien de Vandeuvre’s body for the realization of a certain project.”
“Why aren’t you telling me what you want to do?”
“If there were only Georges Garnier’s spirit in you, I’d tell you right away, but it’s still mixed, in your fleshy enveloped, with Vandeuvre’s, like water with wine.”
“And that,” cried Georges-Julien, the double man, “is why I’m in haste to quit this accursed carapace. Do you think I can’t see that you’re no longer treating me in the same way? I no longer have your confidence. You don’t trust me.”
“Not you, Georges—it’s the other, Julien de Vandeuvre, who serves as your host, that I don’t trust.”
“But you know full well that it’s not him who’s talking to you at this moment.”
“Remember what you said a little while ago,” Marc Vanel put in. “Would it be reasonable for Jeanne to confide her secrets to a man who, once out of here, under other influences, can become the man that Georges Garnier despises?”
“You’re right—but this partly double existence is weighing upon me. Hurry up, Jeanne, for I’m afraid... I’m afraid…afraid...”
“Don’t worry,” Jeanne assured him. “We’ll succeed.” She indicated Homo-Deus and added: “There are three of us now.”
“It’s not just a lack of success that I’m afraid of. You know, Jeanne, how much I love you. Well, I’m jealous—jealous of the other, this ladies’ man.” He slapped his chest. “Do you understand?”
“My poor Georges!”
“How could it be otherwise, when it’s a Don Juan you’re talking to, while I can see myself, my wretched body, forgotten in a corner, like a living pile of rags.”
“Don’t say that!” said Jeanne. “Your body is of inestimable value to me. For me, it’s the means of succeeding in the discovery and capture of the human soul.”
“Yes, what does my suffering matter? Science—which is to say, the love of the unknown, the search for the impossible—fills your soul and renders it insensible to any other passion.”
“Words, words!” said Jeanne, impatiently.
“You’re cruel.”
“No—at least, not unnecessarily. But that’s enough time wasted in idle chat. Have you done what I told you to do?”
“Yes—I’ll come to collect you this evening, at nine o’clock, and I’ll bring the evening suit that you commanded.”
“Thank you.” She added: “Go, my friend, and don’t be annoyed.”
“Annoyed, no. Sad, yes.”
Jeanne held him back. As the conversation was going on too long for the liking of Homo-Deus, he had gone back to the lamentable body of Georges Garnier, reminiscent of a broken marionette, and appeared to be examining it attentively.
“Sit down here beside me,” said Jeanne to the elegant young man harboring the soul of Georges Garnier. “You think I’m cruel. I can prove to you that I’m nothing of the sort. You detest Julien de Vandeuvre, whose actions and thoughts are so different from yours. The revelation of the fellow’s resurrection is impossible for us. You know the circumstances in which his cadaver fell into our hands. His death hasn’t been officially recorded; as far as Parisian society is concerned, he isn’t dead. No matter! Once I’m certain of success, I’ll repeat the experiment on another subject. But since I have an initial subject of observation in my power, I want to utilize him to the profit of our social projects, since I can’t use him as a subject of demonstration.
“The
character of Julien de Vandeuvre inspires disgust in you; that’s because it’s despicable. We’re going to punish him, Homo-Deus and I, by making him repair, with your help, the evil actions of his past life. Do you understand, now, why I need your envelope?”
“I’d prefer it if you abandoned Julien de Vandeuvre.”
“And think, my friend, how interesting the study might be, for us, of your two such different natures combined in the same individual, and what results we can extract from it in future.”
“Study!” sighed the young man. “Always study! In the end, though, studying together might trigger the commencement of love.”
“I promise you,” Jeanne said, gravely, “that on the day when you resume possession of your body, I’ll give you my virginity to thank you for your sacrifice.”
“And that would be, in your turn, a sacrifice. That promise, which ought to give me joy, almost drives me to despair. You’ll give yourself to me, Jeanne? Do you not know yourself? You only love science, and that nuptial gesture would be one more physiological study.”
“What if it is?” said Jeanne, impatiently. “What more can I offer you?”
“The impossible, alas. Your love.”
“Again!” exclaimed the young woman. “Oh, what do you understand by that ludicrous word, Love? What sentimental dream is driving you? Hey, over there, do you hear, Marc? You, who are strong, tell him that he’s the dupe of all the poetic drivel spouted since the dawn of civilization for the deification of woman. Do those sighs, those tears, those dreams disguised as poetry, lyric dramas or whatever, composed for the sublimation of lust, have any other goal, any other result, than the final spasm, the need imposed by nature for the fecundation and reproduction of the species?” She turned back to Georges-Julien. “You love me? You say so; if necessary, like David, you’d sing the Song of Songs. You weary my ears with oaths, amorous protestations, and your imaginary eulogistic comparisons, in order to elevate and embellish, in your own eyes, a little slit, and poeticize the materiality of the repulsive final act.”
“Jeanne!” murmured the young man. “Dare you blaspheme like that?”
“I’m offending you, I know; but you’ve learned to know me, and if I expressed myself otherwise, you’d be convinced of my hypocrisy. Although a virgin, I’m not innocent. The true name of chastity, at my age, is ignorance or imbecility, and as the majority of young women are far from stupid, it’s only, on their part, a false ignorance, which they exploit to the advantage of social conventions—conventions that serve to mask all the lies and the cupidity.”
“Stop it, Jeanne!” exclaimed Marc Vanel. “I confess that you’re right, up to a point, but amour is not, in humans, merely a carnal need; it’s also a spiritual need, and that’s one of the ways in which we’re distinguished from the rest of animality. In that, I, too, share Georges’ opinion. A man cannot be content with physical possession. What he wants, what he seeks, above all, is the communion of souls that is so very difficult, alas, to encounter.”
“No,” proffered Jeanne violently. “You’re also a dupe of social convention. The amour idealized by men ought not to exist. Only material love, necessary to the conservation of the species, is useful. All other love, which seems designed to excite pride and vanity—all other love—is verbiage, poetry as hollow as a little bell, and futile. What ought the sage to think of the adulation pushed to baseness by certain lovers? Too many males sacrifice the most brilliant of their faculties to their passion for a being who is their intellectual inferior. How often does one see notoriously stupid women enchain to their caprices men of an infinitely superior intelligence and judgment, and who, bound by the conventions admitted on the subject of amour, shamelessly allow themselves to be duped by dolls devoid of intelligence?
“Look, let’s take for example this conversation: it’s an hour wasted in idle words. And you, Georges, how many hours that might have been usefully employed has your foolish amour wasted in hollow dreams? Confess that, out of pity for you—note, Vanel, that I don’t say for his love, which I reprove—I shall give myself to you. Do you think me capable of responding to that love, such as you understand it, of following you in your poetic ramblings, of encouraging a pastime unworthy of us? You understood just now when you, whose scientific brain I esteem and appreciate, said that I would give myself to you out of curiosity. I shall give myself to you bodily, yes, but spiritually, never.”
“So be it,” said Georges-Julien. “I thank you for your frankness.”
At that moment, Dr. Fortin came in. He saw Marc Vanel leaning over the wretched puppet devoid of his soul.
“So, you’re at the Red Nest again? What’s new?”
“Georges is asking to move house, to go back to his former dwelling.”
“Bah!” said Fortin, laughing and pointing at Julien de Vandeuvre. “Isn’t he satisfied with this one? Don’t his trousers have an impeccable crease?”
“Don’t joke, Master—you who are making use of me in an experiment that might have cost me my life. I daren’t regret it, since it’s Jeanne’s will, but I’m suffering by virtue of lending myself to it for so long, and by virtue of your prolonging that situation excessively.”
“Patience, my friend. Your ordeal is reaching its conclusion. A few more days and we’ll attempt a definitive operation.”
“Can’t you tell me what you’re up to?”
“What do you think, Jean?” asked Dr. Fortin.
“My first idea was to act in secret with regard to Monsieur de Vendeuvre, but our conversation just now has changed my mind. At the point that Georges has reached, he might as well know everything.”
“To work then,” said Marc. And, going to fetch Georges, he lifted him up, brought him to the worktable and, having sat him on the floor, maintained him there between his knees. The double man, Julien de Vandeuvre with Georges Garnier’s soul, was following all the movements of his body with anxious interest.
Jeanne and Fortin had drawn nearer.
Homo-Deus lifted up the apparatus sealing puppet-Georges’ skull.
“Look: the encephalum, initially depressed, has resumed its ordinary volume, and the cells their activity. We’ve going to assure ourselves of their functioning by influencing them separately…pass me the Voltaic pile. We’ll commence with movement.” He touched one of the circumvolutions of the brain; George raised his right arm and rubbed his eyes. “You see—the first instinctive gesture is directed toward sight. Look, he’s gazing, and this time, his eyes can see...”
Indeed, the patient appeared to recognize the familiar faces; he smiled at Jeanne, who was leaning toward him.
Marc Vanel changed the location of the electrode.
“The voice,” he said.
Georges pronounced, distinctly: “Jeanne! Jeanne!”
“Enough!” cried Julien-Georges, the elegant socialite. “This spectacle is terrifying for me.”
Marc reclosed Georges’ skull. “You see, my dear Georges: your body is in good condition; a few more days of patience...”
“But will that reconstituted brain have the same qualities as the old one?” interrogated Julien-Georges, the chic Monsieur.
“I’m sure of it,” said Jeanne. Matter is one, but its combinations are incalculable. By decomposing particular substances we eventually obtain the universal synthesis. That’s what I’ve done for blood. Today, from combination to combination, I’ve obtained the culture of the cerebra cell. Step by step, Homo-Deus, my father and I will study the entire human body, and obtain by means of a molecular culture the creation of an artificial being, alive and thinking.”
“Be careful!” exclaimed Georges Garnier, via the mouth of Julien de Vandeuvre, the chic Monsieur. “Be careful—such conceptions lead to madness.”
“Get away!” replied Jeanne, excitedly. “Why hesitate? Why hesitate? The goal, the only honorable goal of life, is the work, the research that, until now, has been insoluble, but which the future race will discover. Then, humans will have conquered immortality
, and will identify themselves with God.”
“God?” Marc queried, with a certain irony.
“God!” Jeanne exclaimed. “God, which, in spite of the indifference, the deceitful indifference of matter, I sense in everything and everywhere: God, the creative force of the universe; God, which created the primordial atom; God, the force, the impulsion that makes everything out of everything, the organic from the inorganic; God, not a being similar to a human but the ensemble of all the physical forces. Intelligences are numerous; God is their sum: the all, the goal, the self!”
“Pan,” said Marc, disdainfully.
“Well yes, since humans have put a name to everything: Pan, the God of All; but that name doesn’t render it any more comprehensible.”
“Time’s passing,” said Fortin. “Let’s get back to Georges. Today, we’re going to attempt the first experiment to render life to him completely. This is a human body from which the soul is absent—which is to say, deprived of thought-fluid. It’s inadequate to any function. The organism, abandoned to itself, operates uniquely by molecular labor. The cellular material reconstitutes itself mechanically, following the universal laws that reign over matter on the surface of the globe. The body of this Georges Garnier is incapable of action; it only obeys external impulsions. It’s impossible for it to act by itself. It can neither move, nor see, nor hear; it’s therefore necessary to return its soul—which is to say, the motor of its actions”
“By decoupling the double soul of George-Julien?” asked Marc Vanel.
“That was my first idea,” Jeanne replied, “but I haven’t yet found it practical to bring about that separation. How, in the brain that, although it contains two such different spirits, has not increased in volume, can the mind of Georges or that of Julien be collected for separation? I was obliged to renounce that, and, unable to do it, thought that it would be preferable, for our synthesis, to create or revive Georges’ empty brain. I have, therefore, by means of a similar substance composed of the same elements, reestablished the molecular action in the skull. Today, that reconstitution, as you can see, is perfect, to the point that it’s impossible to distinguish it. The proof that we have the secret of the cerebral molecule is that in the fresh state of the organ, which, in the month that it has been exposed would have decomposed if it had not found the conditions necessary to its life and its molecular reproduction.”
Homo-Deus Page 14