Homo-Deus

by Félicien Champsaur

  Huguette was not fatigued, but she was in haste to be alone. In her room, the windows, with turquoise curtains, overlooked the garden, and the sculpted woodwork, lacquered with pale lilac heightened by silver threads, was a princely vestige of olden days. Huguette de Virmile, an only daughter, dreamed that evening in her solitude, and her gaze often encountered, on a small rosewood Louis XV desk, in an outrageously modernistic frame garnished with green lizard-skin, a portrait of the fashionable sorcerer Homo-Deus cut out of an illustrated newspaper: a monochrome image, an agreeable obsession. She murmured: “Marc, I love you...”

  The firmament, infinite in its purity, scintillated with the innumerable dots of the constellations. A light wind brought a breeze through the wide open windows embalmed by new blossoms: lilies of the valley, syringas and violets. The garden—one could have said park—in which vagabond fireflies were clustering, had tall chestnut trees, clumps of box-trees and elders, and a row of old linden-trees for a backcloth.

  The magnificent trees are quivering in their thousands of emerald leaves. A perfume of fresh sap inundates the room; one might have thought that all the sticky efforts of the vegetation have been captured there, in order to stimulate the young and forceful senses of the sensitive child. Yes, the entire nocturnal and mysterious spring is buzzing and singing at that belated hour. The malicious zephyrs are dancing a hectic farandole, drawing the songs of birds and crickets, stimulated themselves by the lusts of the new season. The red, yellow and crimson roses are embalming the entire park and the sacred hymn of the flowers, from the enormous proud poppies to the white lilies, appeal amorously to the young virgin; on the edge of a stream, black irises, speckled as if with flesh and a furry down, are heavy with torpor.

  Huguette de Virmile, who has undressed, as usual, without the aid of her chambermaid, has put on a white lace nightgown, retained at the waist by a silver cord. With a sigh, she comes to lie down on the sofa facing the French windows in the middle; thus placed, she can see the marvels of the sky through a wide gap in the foliage, and abandons herself to the caresses of the breath of the park, in which the active fermentation of seeds and saps in full activity is sensible. In her, there is no anxiety concerning the marriage that is being prepared around her. Homo-Deus has promised to watch over her, and that promise is sufficient, from the man she adores as a god. She therefore allows her prayer to be borne away toward the One in which she has placed all her confidence, all her hope: the one whose masculine and intelligent visage is central in her mind’s eye: Homo-Deus.

  The supple creases of the nightgown emphasize all the harmonious beauties of a faultless body. Sometimes, her dream lights up in a smile; then, her eyelids open and her pupils launch a kind of luminous ray; she tilts her tomboyish head with short black hair backwards. Chastity and purity, in a young woman, are not always completed by stupidity or hypocrisy. Huguette, thinking about Marc Vanel, anticipates the impetuosity and gentleness of his embrace; finding ordinary life flat and despairing in its monotony, she loves the dream.

  That dream, in which Marc Vanel bathes her with his thoughts, is soon mingled with an entirely external impression. What human fluid is mingled with the vesperal night breeze, the aroma of corollas, the acrid odor of rising saps and the magnetism of the vegetable lusts? A male is advancing. Who?

  Him.

  And, hidden in the shadow of the branches, a nightingale sings, giving with its crystalline trill a definitive quality to the different scales of the spring melody. For Huguette, all the little winged composer’s notes spell out the three syllables of the divine name: Marc Vanel. Then, in the phantasmagoria of the dream, the emanations of things and the individuality of the beloved man whose approach corporealizes the spring and amour are combined. All the lust of the world fuses in an imaginary being who, insensibly, becomes real, while remaining invisible. She feels the friction of a masculine force close at hand, imposing itself on her purity, which no longer desires to be, impressing her entire being, in the utmost intimacy, like a material presence—as if, in sum, he were there.

  It was true. The invisible satyr—the skeptical and the disillusioned—had had that fantasy. Everything in that night in which June was bursting forth with a fantastic exuberance celebrated the triumph of life and sexual intercourse: not only the romantic love created by humans in order to idealize the grossness of that reproductive act, but the brutal and sensual love ordained by nature, with the unique objective of the propagation of the species.

  Homo-Deus sensed the intimate communion that links all beings together, everything that is, from the infinitely small, the constitutive atom, to the innumerable suns that populate the universe. And Marc Vanel told himself that every star has a soul, a directive spirit, that each of those globes circulating in space lives, like a human, like an animal, like a plant, a special life, and that all of them have a birth and a death, like the humblest insect.

  What is time? A lapse that humans measure by their own existence—but in the universal life, the star that lives for thousands of centuries, and the ephemeron that lives for a few hours, have lived the same amours, the same needs for reproduction. Of what humans do not know, that which is can be deduced. The domain of human knowledge expands incessantly; one day, they will understand the language of plants, of inferior beings, and on that day, they will be very close to knowing that of planets and suns.

  Saturated by an extraordinary magnetism, Homo-Deus sensed the soul of worlds palpitating within him, and, wanting to share that act of communion with the young woman, with suggestive movements and rhythmic movements, as rhythmic as a dance, he imposed the divine poem of universal love upon her.

  Huguette de Virmile’s eyes were closed, but she was not asleep. Possessed by an invisible being, in an ineffable intellectual penetration, which had nothing terrestrial about it, she floated above humanity, receiving without any possible control the suggestions of the Initiator.

  Now, the tension of Homo-Deus was such that he feared for his state of invisibility, and he was afraid of seeing the charm broken, as on the night of his visit to Simon d’Armez. Meanwhile, Huguette had drawn closer to the windows. The rays of moonlight, sly and curious, undressed her entirely beneath the veil of transparent silk. All of nature, at that vision of a virginal enchantress, quivered and whispered: “Love…! Love…!”

  Over that vegetal orgy, in the increasingly profound sky, the stars are multiplying. What God is throwing into infinity his mantle of azure sewn with myriads of diamonds? Huguette is excited, and in a spasm, would have liked to give herself entirely to that mysterious nature, to be the queen and spouse of that immense perfumed debauchery.

  Troubled, the Virgin, comes back into the room. The zephyr follows her, Nature surrounds her, intoxication bewildered her. All the roses quiver toward her. Then, with a previously-unknown sensuality, she undoes the silver cord of the lace night-gown, which falls around her and forms a snowy lotus on the soft carpet. The virgin is naked, beneath a chemisette of white muslin.

  Huguette, her senses confused, throws herself then onto her adolescent’s bed. The sculpted amours seem to be continuing the amorous frolic of that delirious nature. Homo-Deus approaches. She divines his presence. The moon is already veiling herself at the nascent spectacle, but soon returns, curious. And suddenly, in the great silence, the nightingale trills repeatedly, spelling out the syllables Marc Vanel. And the entire orchestra of spring resumes playing a languorous waltz, in which the perfumes of roses twirl.

  Homo-Deus crosses the room with a light step, smiles, and, like a radiant sylph, shapes around the virgin awaiting the eternal dance of the stars.

  He dances around the bed, where that human lily awaits the kiss; pausing, he contemplates the supine Huguette for a long time, and then, in a mad leap, turns round, bounds toward the window, toward the park whose orchestra is accompanying his invisible nuptial mass. From the depths of the garden of Eros, the arbor of Apollo, he returns swiftly in a waltz of fantastic adoration to that young body of pa
le marble, transparent and radiant through the light muslin, his arms laden with multicolored roses, which he strews around the room, drawing with him, like Pan, all of nature drunk on voluptuousness, lust and germination, and, with a conquering gesture, stops at the foot of the virginal bed.35

  And the moon smiles.

  The birds, the crickets and the flowers are anxious.

  Homo-Deus, with grace and devotion, plucks the petals from roses over the adolescent with the short hair, exquisitely naked, in repose and dreaming. Then, very gently, religiously, he applies his lips, flushed with ardent blood, to those of the svelte young woman’s sacred flower.

  Huguette, with a smile of appeasement, seems to wake up. Her beautiful eyes of jet black gaze into the dark room. Promise passes enchanted fingers over her face, and then her gaze widens with fear of pleasure. What can she see? Two opal-green eyes: translucent emerald eyes staring at her.

  “Marc,” she murmurs, “is that you?”

  His eyes are about to betray Homo-Deus. He resolves to rcoil in a retreat. The emerald eyes draw away, are extinguished, after a final glance at the young woman whose arms are extended toward the invisible lover.

  Then, with a gesture of superhuman amplitude, Homo-Deus gathers and condenses the combined fluids of the universal forces and impregnates the brain of the young woman, saying mentally, with his formidable power:

  Huguette, no matter at what moment, nor wherever in the world you might be, you will come at the mere appeal of my thought.

  Yes, she says, her eyes wide open, as if she could see the Invisible.

  They were, henceforth, fluidically linked to one another. No human force could any longer break the bond that united them.

  Meanwhile, silvery clouds hid the fat, round moon, under which roses in folly opened their calices.

  A huge lily swells up—and wakes up—in the first light that is pricking the sky, while Homo-Deus reaches the window and launches himself, with a prodigious leap, into the garden.

  Huguette has an impression of that departure; standing up on her bed, her face ecstatic, she blows a kiss, with both hands, toward her dream.

  VIII. The Surprises of the Invisible

  Marc left the Hôtel de Virmile shortly before dawn. To his astonishment, he did not find Mardruk’s limousine at the rendezvous. It was the first time that the Hindu had ever failed in his duty. Marc had an inkling that something extraordinary had happened at his home. From the Hôtel de Virmile it was scarcely half an hour’s journey to go home on foot. The Invisible set out.

  At that early hour there were only street-sweepers and rag-pickers about. Without any fear of colliding with a passer-by, he was able to accelerate his pace. As soon as he entered the Rue de l’Yvette he perceived the automobile parked outside his house, without having attracted the attention of a policeman in that remote corner of Passy. He could not retain a cry on perceiving the inanimate body of Mardrunk lying inside the vehicle.

  First of all he put the car in the garage. He closed the door of his house—which he found ajar—behind him. Then he carried the Hindu into the studio and examined him.

  He’s not dead, but I’m just in time.

  The body, laid bare, allowed the sight of two wounds, both in the chest. Rapidly, the savant lanced the wounds in order that the blood could run out and would not choke the injured man. A few minutes later, the two projectiles had been extracted, the wounds were bandaged, and the victim was lying on the divan. The most urgent thing done, Homo-Deus went down to the invisibility room and came back shortly thereafter, returned to his normal appearance.

  He back went to the injured man, and made him absorb a cordial, which must have had astonishing properties, for the invalid opened his eyes two minutes later.

  “Don’t worry,” said Vanel. “You’re safe. Just tell me what happened, as briefly as possible.”

  “I came back from the Hôtel de Virmile, where, according to your instructions I was to return in order to wait for you at daybreak. I stopped outside the house and was about to open the door when men surged forth and shot me. I fell, losing consciousness.”

  “Did you recognize them?”

  “Only the voice of one—Walesport.”

  “Ah! The bandit suspects me? The other must have been Vauclin, then.”

  “It seemed to me that there was a third.”

  “Ah!” Marc sniggered. “The complete trio. They must have burgled the house, then.”

  He made a rapid examination, and observed that locked drawers had been broken open. Papers were scattered. Three Hindu daggers were missing from a panoply.

  Suddenly, a terrible suspicion crossed Marc Vanel’s mind.

  At that moment, the telephone that he had linked directly to the Fortin house rang. He bounded to the receiver.

  “Hello! It’s me, Fortin. Come quickly, Marc! Quickly!”

  “Jeanne!” cried Marc.

  A faint voice replied: “Help me, Marc! Help!”

  Homo-Deus uttered a roar of dolor and wrath..

  “Oh, damn them!”

  “Go, Master—the car is full of fuel.”

  Homo-Deus darted a glance at the wounded man. He could wait.

  Two minutes later, the limousine was speeding along the road to Saint-Cloud, toward the Red Nest.

  IX. The Commander’s Vengeance

  This is what had happened.

  Walesport judged that by striking swiftly, he would surprise his enemies in total safety. In the course of the evening, he went to Georges Baruyer’s house. As on the preceding days he found the député in a confused state, completely at a loss, devoid of ideas and energy, his mind wandering. At the sight of his accomplice, a gleam came to his eye. Walesport had promised to discover those who had caused his ruin, and that thought alone had sustained him a little.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  “I’ve identified the bastards who rolled us over: the Fortins and Marc Vanel.”

  “But I don’t know those people.”

  “That’s possible, but they know you. I don’t know them either. Diabolically strong types, scientists who have marvelous means, they resuscitated Julien de Vandeuvre, whom Vauclin and his wife had killed. It was them again who turned the Barsac affair against us and pocketed our millions.”

  “Our millions!” Baruyer roared, leaping out of his armchair.

  “Ah! That’s woken you up—yes, and doubtless those accursed scientists caused Albert to kill your mother by suggestion. Dr. Fortin has been seen in a full session of the Académie accomplishing disconcerting feats of suggestion. These people are diabolical. They appear to have a bee in their bonnet about punishing rogues and great thieves like us.”

  “So? What do we do?”

  “Hit back! If not, we’re already ruined, hunted and driven into a corner. They’ll do with us as they please, as they killed your mother, your brother—very nearly, as he’s mad—and as they killed Vauclin’s wife yesterday. Are we going to offer our throats to be cut, like sheep? Before they strike us, let’s strike them first.”

  “I’m in.”

  “Good! Vauclin’s hiding at my place. The three of us will see it through to the end.”

  At about eleven o’clock, three shadows slipped along the garden walls of the Rue de l’Yvette, where Marc Vanel lived. Walesport, prudent and fearful that the scientist’s dwelling might be protected by electricity, had equipped himself with rubber gloves. No lights were burning in the house. Marc Vanel had left in the car for the Hôtel de Virmile. After having driven the Invisible there, Mardruk was to come back in order to get some sleep before going to collect him at daybreak. The Hindu maidservant had been in hospital for a week, having caught flu. Marc Vanel was caring for her, but as it was inconvenient for him to have a sick woman in the house, he had installed her elsewhere. The house was thus absolutely empty when the three villains arrived.

  “Too quiet!” said Walesport. “Let’s be wary.”

  They went along the railings that surrounded the house
.

  “We could force the gate,” the American went on, displaying a heavy crowbar that he had brought with him, “But I think it’s more prudent to climb over. There might be tricks in this box to snap back. Vauclin, keep watch, and you, Georges, help me to climb over.

  As the three of them were getting ready to attempt the venture, an automobile came around the corner of the street.

  “Look out!” said Walesport, who was directing the expedition. “If it’s his car, we’ll jump him.”

  It stopped in front of the house, and the unsuspecting Mardruk got ready to get out.

  “Shoot!” commanded Walesport.

  He and Vauclin fired at the chauffeur, who fell onto the sidewalk.

  “The windows! Fire at will!”

  All three rapidly took up positions at the vehicle’s windows, but it was empty.

  “No luck!” said Walesport. “We’ll have to wait in the house. Shh! No noise.”

  They hid in the shadow of the vehicle. A window had just opened in a nearby house. Two heads appeared, looking into the street.

  “It’s Dr. Vanel’s car,” said a voice. “A tire must have burst.”

  They went back in; the window closed again. Now they were tranquil and masters of the situation. They searched Mardruk and found the keys to the house. After having put the inanimate body back in the vehicle, they went into the house.