by Frank Norris
All the projects he had formed for the future were to come to nought. He was about to drop out of the race of life. “This is death.” The great revolving cycle of life had flung him off its whirling circumference — out into the void. He was to die like the millions before him. He had to face it alone. And after? — Oh, the horrible blackness and vagueness of that region after death. He was to see for himself the solution of that tremendous mystery that for ages had baffled far greater intelligences than his. “This is death.” Every person who had lived upon the earth had passed through this same experience, everyone who lived at that time was to undergo it likewise. “This is death.” What time was it? He heard the river below him gurgling. Let us see, today was Wednesday — no, Thursday — that was it. Thursday, the fifteenth of August. That was to be the date of his death. It would read that way upon his gravestone— “Killed upon the Grand Pont on the fifteenth of August.” Or would he have any gravestone? Perhaps they might throw his body into the river. When he had first entered the schools, Marcellot had said to him — what was it he had said to him? He wore a long black gown; everybody in the room wore long black gowns — Stop, stop — his mind was wandering. With a sudden effort he steadied himself.
A feeling as of cold, commencing at his feet, began to creep upward upon his body. “There, it’s coming now,” he said; and again he repeated, “This is death; I am dying now; this is what death is like.” He found it hard to get his breath; suddenly it grew dark. “It’s almost here,” he said expectantly and aloud. He felt his heart begin to beat violently. “When it stops I shall be dead,” he thought. How long it was to come! He felt so cold. It was very hard to think. His lower jaw dropped.
He was dead.
It was about half-past four o’clock.
II
How terrible death must have seemed before it had been given a name! How fearfully it must have dawned upon the minds of our first fathers. Picture to yourself the awe and horror with which man must have looked upon the first corpse, and think how that mysterious negative state of body and mind must have overwhelmed him with fear and wonder. Life had been suddenly cut short; what was the matter with his friend that he could not speak, could not see, could not live? And this was to continue forever! Where was his friend now? What was this mysterious, dreadful force that had brought him to this state?
Some such thoughts as these incessantly filled the mind of Jacquemart de Chavannes, Doctor of Medicine and lecturer on chemistry at the Ecole de Boissy, as he watched at the bier of Lauth two nights after the riot upon the Grand Pont. His prolonged reflections upon death in course of time naturally suggested the opposite state of being. “Yes, there was one thing more mysterious than death. That was life. Life, oh, what was it?” Did he, Chavannes, or anybody know what it was? After all, the greatest wonder in life was life itself. “We know that it is,” he said, half aloud, “not what.” And it is everywhere. From the mightiest limbed oaken giant to the tiniest blade of grass; from the stag of ten to the red ant, is this marvellous force that we call “life,” this unknown motor that animates inanimate bodies, teeming and fulfilling that end to which it was destined since the beginning of time. Life, life, everywhere life, and we who enjoy it in its highest development can never understand it. What is it? What is its nature? In what way and through what means does it animate our bodies? It is a force, too, completely under our control; formulate in the mind the desire to stretch forth the arm, and straightway it is done.
And when we are dead, he continued, what becomes of this life, this force? Science will tell you that, like matter, force is inexhaustible; where then does it go after quitting its earthly tenement? Is it one of the demonstrations of a soul? Is it the soul itself? “And God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Is it then a form of the Deity that enters into our composition, yet obedient to our will? And does it, after death, return again to God, and, reabsorbed into the great Giver of all life, thus attain to a second and immortal existence, upon which the shadow of death never falls?
By and by, in the smaller watches of the night, he found himself looking at the question from another point of view. All forms of life were but the same; the vivifying spark that had once fired the body of Lauth was, in nature, no way different from that which flashed in the eye of a spirited horse, which gleamed in all the lower forms of animal life, which smouldered in the trees and vines, and slumbered, sluggish and all but extinguished, in the mollusk and the sponge. Man did but possess life in its highest development. Soul? There was no soul. What mankind called soul was but life. There was no more hope for man than for the horse, the trees, or the fish. The life each enjoyed was the common life of all; each but possessed it in greater fullness than his fellow next lower to him in the scale of creation.
There was no soul but life. Immortality was a myth.
Such was, and long had been, his creed; but now, in the solitude of the night, as he sat there in the presence of the dead, old doubts, old perplexities, old uncertainties, sprang up to vex and to harass him. What went with life after death? It must go somewhere, for life was a force, and force was inexhaustible. And yet he could not believe in immortality. His whole nature, training, and mode of thought, revolted from such an idea. Yet in the case of sudden death like that of Lauth, where had gone that life that but a few days ago had so gloriously and perfectly filled his body and mind? Something more than a span below the breast was a little hole, blue around the edges, and scarce larger than a finger tip. There was no blood, no ghastly display of torn and mangled flesh; and yet this ounce of metal in this tiny puncture had blotted out his friend from existence among men; had in an instant annihilated and rendered naught an intellect, the highest and last development of creation, which countless prehistoric ages had been building up; and of a being who loved, hoped, remembered, and thought, had made a mass of perishable matter, a dead and lifeless weight, which a few hours would turn to putrefaction. What was it that had gone forth from that small circular opening and had left him thus! Something must have gone forth. That something must be either the soul or life.
But the theory of the soul he at once rejected. “It is, it must be life, and life alone,” he said aloud. Yet life was an inexhaustible, immortal force, and he would not accept the doctrine of immortality. How was he to reconcile these two theories? Again and again he put this question to himself. If life and not the soul animated the body, if there was no hereafter, and if, indeed, death ended all, where, after death, went that eternal force called life?
At length he found himself driven to a last conclusion. Rising to his feet he said aloud: “If, then, life is eternal, and if it cannot exist after death, then must it exist in death itself.”
Life, then, even after apparent death, must exist in the body. Impossible! Yet, hold — was this impossible? The proof of such theory must be the resuscitation of a physical body after apparent death, and twice this had already been done. But God had accomplished this, not man. Yet was this conclusive proof that man could not do the same? If man could end life, why could he not begin it afresh?
As some lightless and limitless ocean the great “Perhaps” slowly unrolled itself before him. Might it not be so? Might not the dead be recalled to life? Might not the world be tending toward some such stupendous discovery that was to uproot and overthrow the whole fabric of society?
Once let a tody be resuscitated after death, and the two theories of the soul and life would not be difficult of reconciliation. Here then would be the logical realization of those dreams of immortality to which men so obstinately clung, and an immortality to which, as adjustable to the laws of science and reason, Chavannes would cheerfully subscribe. Indeed, might not all those mysteries and conflicting prophecies of the scriptures regarding life after death be pointing directly toward this conclusion? The grandeur of the conception filled him with a certain terror, and before it he remained almost appalled as the Magus before the being himself has evoked.
By earliest morning he was immutably convinced that Lauth was not dead.
But if, then, life existed in death, with what awful responsibility were the living weighted! It remained for them to revive and rekindle the embers of existence before it was too late. How many millions of human beings at that moment lay crumbling in the earth for the want of that very knowledge upon the part of the living! But he saw clearly enough now what he must do.
He turned and looked upon the corpse of Lauth.
Yes, even if he failed, the trial must be made. The blast of duty never called louder than this.
He had uttered these thoughts aloud; and as he spoke the last words, the white dawn came growing upward over the towers of Notre Dame and stealing athwart the lozenges of the deep-set window, expanded throughout the room like an almost perceptible presence.
‘“It is an omen,” he said.
III
“But, in spite of that,” said Anselm, “I must condemn the whole thing as altogether repulsive and wicked. Still, though I do not believe in your success, I nevertheless confess to no little curiosity to witness the attempt. Yes, I will help you — but, remember, even if you should succeed in — whatever happens, I shall regard it from a purely scientific, not from a religious standpoint. To me it is an experiment in physiology, not in psychology. I believe the soul, and only the soul, is the motor of existence.”
“No,” answered Chavannes, “it is life. I do not claim,” he went on, “any mysterious or wonderful qualities for the draught I propose to administer. It is merely a compound of natural stimulants, so combined as to produce the strongest possible effect. It is not an elixir in any sense of the word; for, understand me, I do not propose to create but to recall life. You know yourself that when your patient has fainted or momentarily lost consciousness certain drugs will revive and reinvigorate him. I consider death as only a certain more pronounced form of unconsciousness. We may fail in this experiment, Anselm, or if we succeed, our success may be only partial. Our means are limited. Medical science is in its earliest infancy. But that we shall recall some kind of life to this seemingly inert body I am firmly persuaded. But even if restored in all its fullness, who can say what manner of life it shall be? Will the new remember the old? Does the moth remember the chrysalis? Will the new creature retain its former personality? Will it look, think, and act, like the old? Or will he return to us out of this terrible ordeal a perfectly new being, having an entirely different nature, character, and personality? Who shall say?”
Anselm shaded his eyes with his hand and was silent. After a moment Chavannes continued:
“I know that I have grasped this great truth but imperfectly. We are here in this world, Anselm, as in a deep and rayless cavern, full of crossing passages. I do not know — who can tell why? — but some mysterious impulse drives us to seek the paths that lead upward. We can but grope. All is dark and obscure, but we feel the ground rise or fall beneath our feet, and we know whether we are holding toward the right or wrong. The passages may be circuitous, difficult, and at times apparently trending directly away from that direction that we can but feebly guess to be the right; but only our path be tending upward, and leave the rest to that mysterious Being who first implanted in our hearts the desire to seek it. Anselm, I am on such a path now; I feel the ground rising under my feet as I advance; I cannot see the end. The blackness moves before me as I go and closes fast about my footsteps behind. Everything is dark and vague and very terrible; but go on, go on always, for, thank God, the path is leading upward.”
Anselm rose and thoughtfully paced the floor for a few moments; then he came and stood before Chavannes: “Who shall say?” he repeated in a low voice. “All science is perhaps.”
For several minutes neither of them spoke; then Anselm said suddenly, as though breaking into a train of perplexing thought:
“Ah, well — at what time do you expect your friends?”
“Very shortly. Talhouet holds a lecture at the École de Chartres until ten; Marcellot was to come with him. They will be here in a little while.”
A large crate stood in the middle of the floor by the dissecting table. From it, while Chavannes spoke, there came the sound of a slight movement, and a low, muffled, and very plaintive cry. Anselm crossed the floor and stood looking down thoughtfully between the willow bars and withes.
“Poor, gentle little creatures,” he said. “What right have we to sacrifice your lives? The God that made us made you as well, if it is as you say, Chavannes,” he continued without turning, “if all life is the same in its nature, men may do murder upon these innocent sufferers as well as upon each other.”
“But, do you not see,” answered Chavannes, “where in some cases the death of a man by his fellow is not only justifiable but even praiseworthy? What is the death of a man or sheep provided such a tremendous principle as that which we now have at stake is evolved and proved?”
“Then why not inject human blood into the veins, as they say they did to our eleventh Louis, instead of that drawn from these sheep?”
“Because it is not my object to refresh the body with new blood, but only to restore and assist the circulation of the old, held in check by death. The forced injection of any healthy blood whatever will drive his own to flow again. This once accomplished, and the vitality which I hold is still within the body will be sufficient to carry it on. Remember,” he continued with emphasis, “I do not pretend to induce life of any kind by my own exertions. I merely arouse and assist those forces that are now held bound and inert. Have you ever seen the rescue and revival of a half-drowned man. Apparently he is dead. To all ends and purposes he is dead. He has ceased to breathe; the heart no longer beats; and yet if sufficient impulse be given to the wheels of life, they will finally carry on, of their own accord, those motions and functions of existence that at first were artificial. Such theory I propose to put into practice in this case.”
“You may recall life of some kind — that is, you may induce the limbs to move by their own volition, the blood to flow, the lungs to inhale; but the brain, the soul, that which loves, which remembers—”
“There is no soul; has a dog a soul? And yet is he not capable of a love that at times may well put man to shame? Has a bird a soul? Yet see how they remember the precise location of the last year’s nest. But here are our friends.”
Hour after hour through the lengthening watches of that night the lights burned low in Chavannes’s lecture room. Around him and his three companions rose the tiers of empty benches, while on the dissecting table lay the body of Lauth, worked over and watched by them with the most intense interest. How long the operation might continue none of them could guess. It might last hours or days; they did not know.
From a small metal bottle which he kept tightly corked, and which at times he warmed between his hands, Chavannes administered to Lauth a pungent, thick, and colourless liquid. It was the draught of which he had spoken to Anselm. The two sheep, their feet tied together and a narrow strip of leather wound around their muzzles, were placed near at hand.
A large air pump was set at the head of Lauth, and his nostrils connected with it by a tube of light steel. Then, while Talhouet placed his palm firmly over the dead man’s mouth, Chavannes grasped the handle of the air pump, depressed it, and sent a volume of air into the lifeless lungs. Talhouet removed his hand, and all bending over the body watched and listened. No returning exhalation came from between the lips, and the dead chest lay cold and inert. But on the third trial the entrance of the outer air perceptibly swelled the breast, and Marcellot, placing his hand thereon and pressing it slowly down, made the blue lips at first pout and then part, while through the tightly clenched teeth came a faint hissing of escaping air.
“Open his teeth,” said Chavannes. Marcellot did so, but the shrunken maxillary snapped them together like a spring. Chavannes passed him the handle of a broken scalpel, and with this he wedged the teeth apart.
The operation was recommenced and conti
nued as before; as soon as Chavannes had pumped enough air into the body, Marcellot aided the lungs to discharge it by pressing down the chest, as one would expel the air from a filled bellows.
When this had gone on for upward of an hour, Chavannes raised his head and said to Talhouet, “Now — the sheep.”
Talhouet drew them out from the crate, cut the thongs from their feet, allowed them to stand, and tethered them to the leg of the dissecting table.
Marcellot, who had been busy with his instrument case, approached Lauth, and with a delicate lancet opened the carotid artery, close up under the ear. The end of a thin tube was inserted in the opening, and the other end passed to Talhouet. In another incision, made under the right arm-pit, a second tube was inserted.
The critical point of the experiment had now arrived. The wool had been sheared away from the neck of one of the sheep, and as Anselm held fast the struggling, terrified creature, Marcellot laid open one of the larger veins in its throat.
“Quick,” said Talhouet.
Marcellot caught the end of one of the tubes, thrust it well into the opened vein, and bound the outer flesh tightly around the tube itself.
The sheep bleated out piteously.
“Poor little brute!” said Anselm.
The other sheep was treated in the same fashion.
It was now well past midnight. They had nothing left to do but to wait, and each felt a creep almost of horror as thought for what.
Marcellot cleansed his hands and, returning to the table, touched one of the tubes. It was already warm: the blood was flowing freely.
The hours dragged slowly past; two and three o’clock sounded from the neighbouring chimes of St. Germain. The four hardly spoke among themselves, and no sound was heard but the faint movements of the air pump, or an occasional half-stifled cry from one of the lambs. The neck and face of Lauth immediately about Marcellot’s incision had long been warm, and at length the heat began to spread to the neck and shoulders.