Scientific Romance

by Brian Stableford

  He produced, as he spoke, what seemed to be a jewel box. It was carved richly out of ebony by his own hand, and inlaid with a fanciful tracery of pearl, representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly, which, elsewhere, had become a winged spirit, and was flying heavenward; while the boy, or youth, had found such efficacy in his strong desire that he ascended from earth to cloud, and from cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the beautiful.

  This case of ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place her fingers on its edge. She did so, but almost screamed as a butterfly fluttered forth, and, alighting on her finger’s tip, sat waving the ample magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled wings, as if in prelude to a flight.

  It is impossible to express by words the glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were softened into the beauty of this object. Nature’s ideal butterfly was here realized in all its perfection, not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of paradise for child-angels and the spirits of departed infants to disport themselves with.

  The rich down was visible upon its wings; the luster of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered around this wonder—the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and outstretched hand on which it rested with a white gleam like that of precious stones. In its perfect beauty, the consideration of size was entirely lost. Had its wings overreached the firmament, the mind could not have been more filled or satisfied.

  “Beautiful, beautiful!” exclaimed Annie. “Is it alive? Is it alive?”

  “Alive? To be sure it is,” answered her husband. “Do you suppose any mortal has skill enough to make a butterfly, or would put himself to the trouble of making one of them, when any child may catch a score of them in a summer’s afternoon? Alive? Certainly! But this pretty box is undoubtedly of our friend Owen’s manufacture, and really it does him credit.”

  At this moment the butterfly waved its wings anew, with a motion so absolutely lifelike that Annie was startled, and even awestricken, or, in spite of her husband’s opinion, she could not satisfy herself whether it was indeed a living creature or a piece of wondrous mechanism.

  “Is it alive?” she repeated, more earnestly than before.

  “Judge for yourself,” said Owen Warland, who stood gazing at her face with fixed attention.

  The butterfly now flung itself upon the air, fluttered round Annie’s head, and soared into a distant region of the parlor, still making itself perceptible to sight by the starry gleam in which the motion of its wings enveloped it. The infant on the floor followed its course with his sagacious little eyes. After flying about the room, it returned in a spiral curve and settled again on Annie’s finger.

  “But is it alive?” exclaimed she again, and the finger on which the gorgeous mystery had alighted was so tremulous that the butterfly was forced to balance himself with his wings. “Tell me if it be alive, or whether you created it.”

  “Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?” replied Owen Warland. “Alive? Yes, Annie; it may well be said to possess life, for it has absorbed my own being into itself, and in the secret of that butterfly, and in its beauty—which is not merely outward, but deep as its whole system—is represented the intellect, the imagination, the sensibility, the soul of an Artist of the Beautiful. Yes, I created it. But”—and here his countenance somewhat changed—“this butterfly is not now to me what it was, when I beheld it afar off, in the daydreams of my youth.”

  “Be it what it may, it is a pretty plaything,” said the blacksmith, grinning with childlike delight. “I wonder whether it would condescend to alight on such a great clumsy finger as mine? Hold it hither, Annie.”

  By the artist’s direction, Annie touched her finger’s tip to that of her husband, and after a momentary delay, the butterfly fluttered from one to the other. It preluded a second flight by a similar, yet not precisely the same, waving of wings as in the first experiment; then, ascending from the blacksmith’s stalwart finger, it rose in a gradually enlarging curve to the ceiling, made one wide sweep around the room, and returned with an undulating movement to the point whence it had started.

  “Well, that does beat all nature!” cried Robert Danforth, bestowing the heartiest praise that he could find expression for, and, indeed, had he paused there, a man of finer words and nicer perception could not easily have said more. “That goes beyond me, I confess. But what then? There is more real use in one downright blow of my sledge hammer than in the whole five years’ labor that our friend Owen has wasted on this butterfly.”

  Here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of indistinct utterance, apparently demanding that the butterfly should be given to him for a plaything.

  Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at Annie, to discover whether she sympathized in her husband’s estimate of the comparative value of the beautiful and the practical. There was, amid all her kindness toward himself, amid all the wonder and admiration with which she contemplated the marvelous work of his hands and incarnation of his idea, a secret scorn—too secret, perhaps, for her own consciousness, and perceptible only to such intuitive discernment as that of the artist.

  But Owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen out of the region in which such a discovery might have been torture. He knew that the world, and Annie as the representative of the world, whatever praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel the fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a material trifle—converting what was earthly to spiritual gold—had won the beautiful into his handiwork. Not at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of all high performance must be sought within itself, or sought in vain.

  There was, however, a view of the matter which Annie and her husband, and even Peter Hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would have satisfied them that the toil of years had here been worthily bestowed. Owen Warland might have told them that this butterfly, this plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith’s wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have purchased with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the jewels of his kingdom as the most unique and wondrous of them all. But the artist smiled and kept the secret to himself.

  “Father,” said Annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old watchmaker might gratify his former apprentice, “do come and admire this pretty butterfly.”

  “Let us see,” said Peter Hovenden, rising from his chair, with a sneer upon his face that always made people doubt, as he did himself, in everything but a material existence. “Here is my finger for it to alight upon. I shall understand it better when once I have touched it.”

  But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when the tip of her father’s finger was pressed against that of her husband, on which the butterfly still rested, the insect drooped his wings and seemed on the point of falling to the floor. Even the bright spots of gold upon its wings and body, unless her eyes deceived her, grew dim, and the glowing purple took a dusky hue, and the starry luster that gleamed around the blacksmith’s hand became faint and vanished.

  “It is dying! It is dying!” cried Annie, in alarm.

  “It has been delicately wrought,” said the artist, calmly. “As I told you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence—call it magnetism, or what you will. In an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him who instilled his own life into it. It has already lost its beauty; in a few minutes more its mechanism would be irreparably injured.”

  “Take away your hand, father!” entreated Annie, turning pale. “Here is my child; let it rest on his innocent hand. There, perhaps, its life will revive and its colors grow brighter than ever.”

  Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. The butterfly then appeared to recover the power of voluntary motion, while i
ts hues assumed much of their original luster, and the gleam of starlight, which was its most ethereal attribute, again formed a halo round about it. At first, when transferred from Robert Danforth’s hand to the small finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful that it positively threw the little fellow’s shadow back against the wall. He, meanwhile, extended his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother do, and watched the waving of the insect’s wings with infantine delight. Nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity that made Owen Warland feel as if here were old Peter Hovenden, partially, but partially, redeemed from his hard skepticism into childish faith.

  “How wise the little monkey looks!” whispered Robert Danforth to his wife.

  “I never saw such a look on a child’s face,” answered Annie, admiring her own infant, and with good reason, far more than the artistic butterfly. “The darling knows more of the mystery than we do.”

  As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not entirely congenial in the child’s nature, it alternately sparkled and grew dim. At length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an airy motion that seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the ethereal instincts with which its master’s spirit had endowed it impelled this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere.

  Had there been no obstruction, it might have soared into the sky and grown immortal. But its luster gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite texture of its wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay glimmering on the carpet. Then the butterfly came fluttering down, and instead of returning to the infant, was apparently attracted towards the artist’s hand.

  “Not so, not so!” murmured Owen Warland, as if his handiwork could have understood him. “Thou hast gone forth out of thy master’s heart. There is no return for thee.”

  With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the butterfly struggled, as it were, toward the infant, and was about to alight upon his finger, but while it still hovered in the air, the little child of strength, with his grandsire’s sharp and shrewd expression in his face, made a snatch at the marvelous insect and compressed it in his hand.

  Annie screamed.

  Old Peter Hovenden burst into a cold and scornful laugh.

  The blacksmith, by main force, unclosed the infant’s hand, and found within the palm a small heap of littering fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever.

  And as for Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life’s labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes, while his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality.

  * * *

  1 Although correct about the imaginary automata credited by legend to Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon, Owen is mistaken about those credited to Jacques de Vaucanson, who did indeed construct them for the amusement of Louis XV’s court.

  2 Washington Allston (1779–1843) was the pioneer of the American Romantic Movement of landscape painting. Hawthorne’s wife, Sophia Peabody (1809–1871), whom he married in 1842, was a painter, and was strongly influenced by Allston.

  WHAT WAS IT?

  FITZ-JAMES O’BRIEN

  Fitz-James O’Brien (1828–1862) was a journalist born in Limerick, who settled in New York after emigrating in the early 1850s in the wake of the great famine provoked in Ireland by potato blight. He died young, of wounds sustained while fighting in the Union Army during the Civil War, and his poetry and fiction was not collected until long after his death. His most famous story, “The Diamond Lens” (1858) is a striking fantasy about a microscopic femme fatale glimpsed through the eponymous artifact. “How I Overcame my Gravity” (1864) is a dream fantasy featuring a gyroscopic flying machine.

  “What Was It?” was first published in the March 1859 issue of Harper’s Monthly, with the signature of its narrator, Harry Escott, and was subsequently reprinted in The Poems and Stories of Fitz-James O’Brien (1881) edited by William Winter. It is the most earnest of O’Brien’s fantastic stories, flatly refusing any supernatural embellishments or any apologetic escape writing off the experience as a dream. It thus became one of the most striking and intriguing early accounts of an encounter with the alien; the key motif of an invisible creature was echoed in several subsequent stories, most famously Guy de Maupassant’s classic “The Horla” (1887) and Ambrose Bierce’s “The Damned Thing” (1893), but O’Brien’s version has a particular forthrightness. That feature extends into a strange kind of tunnel vision, as the narrator conspicuously fails to ask the other questions corollary to the one employed as a title, most notably “Where did it come from?” and “How did it get here?”—enigmas left for the reader to pose, and from which to construct intriguing hypotheses, provoking further speculation in a fashion characteristic of the best scientific romance. Some twentieth-century reprints of the story are censored, all the references to opium smoking having been removed; the version reproduced below, taken from the 1881 collection, is identical to the Harper’s Monthly version save for the final note, which was probably added by the magazine’s editor.

  It is, I confess, with considerable diffidence that I approach the strange narrative which I am about to relate. The events which I purpose telling are of so extraordinary a character that I am quite prepared to meet with an unusual amount of incredulity and scorn. I accept all such beforehand. I have, I trust, the literary courage to face unbelief. I have, after mature consideration, resolved to narrate, in as simple and straightforward a manner as I can compass, some facts that passed under my observation in the month of July last, and which, in the annals of the mysteries of physical science, are wholly unparalleled.

  I live at No.—— Twenty-sixth Street, in this city. The house is in some respects a curious one. It has enjoyed for the last two years the reputation of being haunted. It is a large and stately residence, surrounded by what was once a garden, but which is now only a green enclosure used for bleaching clothes. The dry basin of what has been a fountain, and a few fruit-trees, ragged and unpruned, indicate that this spot, in past days, was a pleasant, shady retreat, filled with fruits and flowers and the sweet murmur of waters.

  The house is very spacious. A hall of noble size leads to a vast spiral staircase winding through its center, while the various apartments are of imposing dimensions. It was built some fifteen or twenty years since by Mr. A——, the well-known New York merchant who five years ago threw the commercial world into convulsions by a stupendous bank fraud. Mr. A——, as everyone knows, escaped to Europe, and died not long after of a broken heart.

  Almost immediately after the news of his decease reached this country, and was verified, the report spread in Twenty-sixth Street that No.—— was haunted. Legal measures had dispossessed the widow of its former owner, and it was inhabited merely by a caretaker and his wife, placed there by the house agent into whose hands it had passed for purposes of renting or sale. These people declared that they were troubled with unnatural noises. Doors were opened without any visible agency. The remnants of furniture scattered through the various rooms were, during the night, piled one upon the other by unknown hands. Invisible feet passed up and down the stairs in broad daylight, accompanied by the rustle of unseen silk dresses, and the gliding of viewless hands along the massive balusters.

  The caretaker and his wife declared that they would live there no longer. The house agent laughed, dismissed them, and put others in their place. The noises and supernatural manifestations continued. The neighborhood caught up the story, and the house remained untenanted for three years. Several persons negotiated for it, but somehow, always before the bargain was closed, they heard the unpleasant rumors, and declined to treat any further.

  It was in his state of things that my landlady—who at that time kept a boarding house in
Bleecker Street, and who wished to move farther up town—conceived the bold idea of renting No.—— Twenty-sixth Street. Happening to have in her house rather a plucky and philosophical set of boarders, she laid down her scheme before us, stating candidly everything she had heard respecting the ghostly qualities of the establishment to which she wished to remove us. With the exception of two timid persons—a sea captain and a returned Californian, who immediately gave notice that they would leave—all of Mrs. Moffat’s guests declared that they would accompany her in her chivalric incursion into the abode of spirits.

  Our removal was affected in the month of May, and we were all charmed with our new residence. The portion of Twenty-sixth Street where our house is situated—between Seventh and Eighth Avenues—is one of the pleasantest localities in New York. The gardens back of the houses, running down nearly to the Hudson, form, in the summer time, a perfect avenue of verdure. The air is pure and invigorating, sweeping, as it does, straight across the river from the Weehawken heights, and even the ragged garden which surrounded the house on two sides, although displaying on washing days rather too much clothesline, still gave us a piece of greensward to look at, and a cool retreat in the summer evenings, where we smoked our cigars in the dusk, and watched the fireflies flashing their lanterns in the long grass.

  Of course we had no sooner established ourselves at No.—— than we began to expect the ghosts. We absolutely expected their advent with eagerness. Our dinner conversation was supernatural. One of the boarders, who had purchased Mrs. Crowe’s Night Side of Nature for his own private delectation, was regarded as a public enemy by the entire household for not having bought twenty copies.1 The man led a life of supreme wretchedness while he was reading this volume. A system of espionage was established, of which he was the victim. If he incautiously laid the book down for an instant and left the room, it was immediately seized and read aloud in secret places to a select few. I found myself a person of immense importance, it having leaked out that I was tolerably well versed in the history of supernaturalism, and had once written a story, entitled “The Pot of Tulips,” for Harper’s Monthly,2 the foundation of which was a ghost. If a table or a wainscot panel happened to warp when we were assembled in the large drawing-room, there was an instant silence, and everyone was prepared for an immediate clanking of chains and a spectral form.