Homo-Deus

by Félicien Champsaur

  That went on for years. Princess Nadinska, leaving her son in the care of an experienced guardian, made long voyages abroad. Then, for a while, she seemed fatigued. Eventually, she became involved with a very distinguished chemist, Pierre Vanel, who married her and recognized her son. The princess brought not a sou of dowry to her husband, but she furnished the regulation papers, which established indisputably that she was a Russian princess. She died not long afterwards, and no one ever knew what she had been, nor whose son Marc was.

  By virtue of his attachment to the supremely intelligent and beautiful wife that he had adored, the chemist Vanel devoted himself entirely to young Marc’s education. The child, moreover, was astonishingly precocious, and amazed his adoptive father by his love of study and avidity for scientific matters. More than anything else, the chemist’s work caused the boy to marvel, and the lovely Russian’s former husband was flattered by having awakened in his stepson a passion for the science in which he had made his name.

  Unfortunately, the scientist had not been long delayed in dying too, leaving his friend Fortin the care of watching over the child. The fortune he possessed at this death permitted Marc to be given a very advanced education. The remainder, about a hundred thousand francs, was to be handed over to him when he came of age.

  At twenty-three, having finished his military service, Marc was superb, overflowing with strength and intelligence. He had devoted himself to medical science, but his brain was so avid for knowledge that one branch was not sufficient for his activity. That was why Marc, while climbing the usual steps of medicine, had made parallel studies in chemistry, the first notions of which had been given to him by his father. Soon, chemistry no longer being sufficient for him, he turned to mechanics and ended up becoming passionate about electricity. Then, combining those studies with the ones he was accomplishing in the medical domain, he had made, while still young, astonishing discoveries regarding the properties of high frequency currents and ultraviolet radiation.

  Encouraged by Fortin, whose research was in the same area as his own, he announced himself as a future genius. That was the era when Jeanne, having returned from boarding school, was already taking part in the scientific endeavors of her father and Marc. The latter had immediately noticed the young woman’s extraordinary intelligence, her cold, splendid beauty and her genius for discovery. But as she did not go to the expense of any coquetry toward him, they only became comrades and true friends—and life had continued like that for some time.

  One day, abruptly, Vanel had fled. Having become somber and choleric, European humankind disgusted him, and he had resolved to deprive himself of its contemplation, at least for some time. He had gone to India.

  There he had lived unforgettable years. He recognized the enervating perfumes of an old magic, and, closing his eyes, saw once again the Brahmins, the Hindu gods, the bayaderes, the corteges of warriors and the sacred elephants. He became the companion of fakirs, and lived their life for three years, speaking their language, thinking their thoughts, and subjecting his body to cruel necessities. He learned secrets that justified the mortifications he endured.

  With their science he combined his own science, and he obtained amazing results—but he dreamed of new skies, new décor, unseen faces and launched himself, avid for sensation, through the most varied races. He traveled across Africa, where he found nothing to interest him, reached South America, and then, heading northwards again, lived for some time among the last Sioux tribes. He finally washed up in San Francisco.

  In that city he made the acquaintance of Sun Yat-Sen, a small Chinaman of prodigious intelligence, who subsequently became the founder of the Chinese Republic. The two men had immediately reached an understanding; as they were both doctors of medicine, they recognized common scientific preoccupations and affinities that testified to the identity of their aspirations.27

  By that time, Marc Vanel no longer had any money. He knew days of poverty and tasted the bitterness of hours of hunger. Living in the Chinese quarter with his friend, he helped him in his slow work in favor of a future republic that would liberate the ancient Middle Kingdom. The two men, nourished on a little rice and tea, spent days preaching to the yellow men and caring for them. Still together, they were able to reach London by obtaining employment as stokers on an English cargo ship. Then the Chinaman left him in order to go to Peking to realize his dream, an astonishing ascension.

  In London, Marc Vanel lived on his medical art. He took advantage of it to install himself in a small house near Kew Gardens, not far from the capital, where he found the calm he had long sought. His desire for that calm was ardent, because an idea was now haunting him: a mad, presumptuous, grandiose idea, which, if he realized it, would make him the equal of a god, finally permitting him to be, beneath the most agreeable form, the sarcastic misanthrope that he intended to remain.

  Liberated from material cares, rich in scientific treasures accumulated over the years, he had attached himself to a formidable endeavor whose success would give him the means to withdraw from humankind but to remain an amused, arrogant, invisible spectator.

  XII. The Mesmoth Experiment

  Invisible! To be invisible! Could a man ever find, in the resources of his science, the fabulous means of abstracting himself from the gaze of his fellows? And yet… humans had invented the telephone; they had succeeded, thanks to wireless telegraphy, in manifesting life at a distance—a great distance—in spite of obstacles: mountains, seas and abysses. Thirty years before, could anyone have supposed that a day would come when a discharge of electrical force, propagating through space by means of waves, would be realized wirelessly beyond the oceans? Would anyone have had the temerity to think that human beings, mounted in machines of canvas and steel, would surpass the speed of a royal eagle soaring over the mountains? That a Frenchman would travel by air, in forty days, from Paris to Tokyo?

  Why, then, should he, Vanel, be insane to devote his youth, his intelligence, his Mirandolaesque knowledge and his marvelous divination of the secrets of chemistry and electricity to research the supremely precious discovery of invisibility? What a dream! To participate in actions without betraying one’s presence! To be—like a god—the unknown cause of punishments and recompenses; to know the worst secrets; to see crimes being prepared and prevent them, or allow them to be accomplished in accordance with his own moral law; to savor coldly and impassively the joy of witnessing hypocrisies, humiliating baseness, degrading misery, improper favors, ignoble ploys, debaucheries, passions and vices! To be, in sum, the invisible observer of the human comedy…yes, what a dream, and what enjoyment!

  In his little cottage near Kew Gardens, Marc Vanel had installed a secret laboratory hidden in his basement. The room was clean, well lit by powerful electric lamps, and no one knew of its existence except Mardruk, the faithful Hindu who had followed Vanel ever since the doctor had left Asia.

  Thanks to bold surgical operations carried out on his clientele, Vanel had earned some money with which he was able to complete his installation and procure the indispensable instruments. Now he dedicated himself entirely to his problem.

  He worked relentlessly, seeking by means of calculations, mixtures, analyses and syntheses. Always coldly scientific, even when his probing led him to seemingly-incoherent trials, Marc Vanel spent months equilibrating formulae, attempting experiments on substances equivalent to those making up the human body. He ended up finding the right track. He had acquired the mathematical certainty of the discovery; the figures, the mixtures, the voltages—everything ended up being checked, coordinated and harmonized, and he was convinced that the hypotheses were faultless.

  Among solid invisible bodies there is one—glass—that is only betrayed by the reflection of light from its surface; and yet, glass is only vulcanized sand. The human body, naturally, could not be subjected to a similar proof or a similar temperature, but it was necessary to find an equivalent, and it was primarily in the radiation of the obscure rays of the spectrum tha
t Dr. Vanel searched.

  The rays in question have chemical properties, some of which are known; x-rays, which render a part of the human body invisible, only allow the bones and certain parts of the viscera to appear. Thus, the flesh, muscles, blood—life, in sum—is blurred and effaced. Marc pursued his research in that direction; he discovered that, far beyond the ultra-violet rays, invisible rays exist which nevertheless leave marks of their existence on ultrasensible plates. One day, he had the idea of combining those obscure rays with the fluidic influence of magnetism and electricity. Then, when he projected certain rays, he observed, depending on the substances struck by the rays, gaps—which is to say, parts that became invisible. Once, an entire section of his operating table disappeared, along with the objects placed on it. He searched for them, and they remain invisible in his hand. He was in possession of the theoretical verity.

  One day, Marc Vanel felt that his ideas were clear and luminous, to the point that he astonished himself, with slight anguish, with his sudden enlightenments after so many painful hours spent before the deceptive enigma, after so many false hopes in which he had thought that he had grasped the secret pursued. Now, obscure formulae, painfully elucidated and extracted from the Limbo of science, emerged from his groping, bursting into magnificent radiation.

  There were surges of joy, and then grave anxieties took hold of his questing soul once again. Finally, in the closed laboratory with the padded windows, under the glare of a powerful lamp, among the acrid odors escaped from overheated vessels, the biological chemist Marc Vanel sensed that he was the rival and the peer—even the master—of the most ancient doctors. He was conscious of being a Flamel or a Lull, an elucidator of mysteries; he understood that he had a terrible force at his disposal.

  The previous day, he had procured anatomical specimens, entire limbs conserved by freezing. Patiently, with a prodigious skill, in spite of the trembling of his excited hands, he had treated them in accordance with his definitive formulae—and his eyes had ceased to make out the form and colors of the inert flesh that he knew to be present, whose frigid, gripping reality his fingers were touching. Feverishly, Marc started pacing back and forth in the laboratory. He listened to the silence, and then made sure that the door was bolted and checked the fabric covering the ventilation shafts.

  The breakthrough troubled him, without, however, taking away anything of his exacerbated faculties. He thought hard. Dead flesh had served for the experiment; doubtless it was identical to living flesh, but it was, even so, inert, useless matter. It was necessary to attempt the experiment on a living animal. His cat was prowling around.

  Marc Vanel was still thinking. For him, the experiment was not decisive; might not the warmth of blood, of life, along with the army of microbes inhabiting the organism, oppose the combined action of the drugs, vapors and currents? Might not the palpitation of tissues, the moistness of living skin and the continuous transformations of juices interfere with the work of the mixtures? Might not the various liquids and gases distributed throughout the human body, the majority of which were unknown and fulfilled ill-defined roles, such as the secretions of certain glands, disrupt the effects of foreign external applications?

  “No,” he said, aloud, “because the electric fluid will penetrate everywhere. There is not a single atom in nature that is not to some degree electrified. Oh, the marvelous vehicle…!”

  He wanted to begin again immediately. He activated the plates of a strange machine, and sparks suddenly blazed forth, spurting in a crackling firework display and striking blue and red reflections from the polished steel of the supports.

  On a copper stand, Marc isolated a woman’s arm, delicate, white and inert. The stand rested on a large disk of thick glass. Then the operator closed a contact. Immediately galvanized, the fingers clenched convulsively, and then, rhythmically, struck the insulator, stretching and moving. Marc then communicated heat and life to that artificially living flesh.

  The cat, which was watching, sitting in an attentive attitude and purring, did not miss any of his actions. From time to time it turned its head as its master passed from the right to the left of the machine, or blinked its eyes when excessively bright sparks blinded it. When it saw the fingers of the dead hand taping the glass disk, it thought it was an invitation and moved closer. Suddenly, wanting to play, it leapt onto the stand—but a blue spark sprang forth, and the frightened cat fled to a table in a distant corner and curled up into a ball, its fur bristling, swiveling its eyes, yellow and green by turns.

  Marc Vanel now applied the necessary lotions, the action of which, under the effect of the current, ought to provoke invisibility.

  In the calm atmosphere, in which the mysterious souls of the fire, liquids and ether were singing, the delicately pink-tinted white form of the arm melted away. It was the exact opposite of what happens during the development of a photographic print, the same operation carried out in reverse.

  A misty mass, soon similar to a transparent gelatin, replaced the human limb. Then that homogeneous mass apparently disintegrated, beginning with the edges. The tips of the fingers disappeared completely, and nothing any longer remained but a kind of fleecy gray nucleus, around which a halo remained, similar to mist. The nucleus melted in its turn; the light gray fog remained visible for a few seconds above the glass disk, and then, definitively, no trace of matter subsisted. Nothing of the human debris was any longer manifest to vision, and a mirror placed nearby reflected nothing but emptiness, or jars, alembics and retorts.

  Marc Vanel sighed then. He was pale and anguished, but retained all of his grim determination. He perceived the cat, which had taken refuge in a corner of the laboratory, gazing at him fearfully. He approached it, and caressed its black, curved back, whose magnetic fur crackled at the touch.

  “Be good, Mesmoth!” he murmured. “You’re going to have the first fruits of my glory, old chap!”

  He stroked the animal, but the cat remained anxious, even though it raised its head so that Marc could tickle it under its chin. Then, in an imploring and resigned manner, in response to its master’s touches, it set back its delicate ears, instinctively sniffing trouble.

  Adroitly, Vanel had brought the animal to the machine. While multiplying his caresses, he prepared the experiment, and Mesmoth, amused, was reassured. Mischievously, while the operator was setting up the contacts, it bit his hands. And then, as in the experiment a short while before, the form of the animal became misty and shrank.

  Soon, the cat no longer had a head, nor feet, nor a tail; all that remained of its image was a gelatinous center surrounded by transparent mist. And, as with the woman’s arm, everything eventually disappeared, quite rapidly, and no appearance remained of Mesmoth, now absolutely invisible. Marc Vanel could feel the supple fur beneath his hands, the warmth of the body, and could hear the animal purring.

  At that moment, Marc felt a profound anguish; he was about to do something that might shatter all his illusions, destroy his considerable effort or procure him the most delirious joy, and the pride of the most striking triumph. He was, in fact, about to remove Mesmoth from the apparatus, abstract him from the effect of the currents, the cause of the cat’s invisibility. And he feared that, after that fatal action, he might see the image of the cat abruptly reappear.

  He hesitated for some time, wanting to enjoy his initial success first, and then made his decision. Mesmoth was lifted up, carried to a table, and finally released. And Marc Vanel uttered an exclamation: the cat was still invisible. Then, strangled by emotion, he collapsed in a chair.

  Suddenly, from a crucible forgotten on the fire, vapors rushed with a whistling sound. A pan fell from the table where Marc had placed Mesmoth, and further away flasks were knocked over. The noise and the odors had doubtless frightened the animal, which had run away, bounding. The sound of light muffled footfalls became audible in the laboratory.

  Although it was the consequence of the work he had intended, the presence of an invisible being was distur
bing. The moment was grave and disquieting. The animal leapt about, uttering hoarse miaows as he pursued it at hazard. He sought with his hands, where he believed he had hard it, the fabulous being superior to him—to him, who had given it its astonishing power. Objects fell, knocked over in passing by the frightened cat. The master’s extended hands seemed to want to seize it in order to administer punishment, and the frightened animal fled those haggard hands. Retorts broke; the contents of an entire shelf laden with flasks and various utensils crashed down with a frightful noise, accompanied by a dolorous plaint uttered by the terrorized Mesmoth. Sweat was running down Vanel’s temples.

  “Mesmoth! Come here, Puss!”

  Nothing moved. Now, silence reigned in the laboratory. No further sound of muffled footfalls could be heard. The electric machine had stopped. All that Marc could perceive, with his anxious ears, was the beating of his heart and the slightly hoarse sound of his respiration.

  He looked around; neither on the table nor among the numerous objects scattered around the basement was there the slightest movement betraying the presence of the cat. It was doubtless huddled in a dark corner.

  Abruptly, in a corner, two emerald phosphorescences appeared: Mesmoth’s eyes.

  Quickly, Marc extinguished the lights. Then, the green gleams in the blackness hone more intensely, and the master moved, softly, toward the irises.

  Just as he was about to seize it, the cat bounded away, mewling lugubriously and desperately, knocking over other objects, which broke. Angrily, Vanel ran after the animal; it escaped him incessantly; now, its diabolical irises, moving in the darkness of the laboratory, sometimes appeared to the right and sometimes to the left, high up and low down—everywhere—and Marc thought he saw dozens of them, which stared at him anxiously or danced in the darkness like fire-follets in a cemetery.