Scientific Romance

by Brian Stableford

  Bakermann shuddered at the thought that Rothbein, Theresa, the neighbors and their wives were going to fall victim to mortifulgurans. And who could tell how far it might go? Hermann Bakermann’s thoughts dared not take that frightful supposition to its conclusion.

  Bakermann raced home and began a thorough disinfection of the house. Alas, what good would it to?

  Indeed, at ten o’clock, Theresa began to suffer from an intense headache. Then there was a great shiver, followed by spasms. After two hours, the malady had made terrible progress, and the unfortunate Theresa expired at midday.

  With a dry eye, Bakermann witnessed her terrible death-throes. Yes, it was definitely mortifulgurans. There was no possible doubt; all the anticipated symptoms were there, and none was lacking. What vitality there was in the microbe, though! In spite of his anguish, Bakermann could not help admiring, with all the pride of an artist, the conquering march of his microbe. As soon as it had penetrated, it triumphed. In three hours, it was all over. First the nervous system, then the respiration, then the temperature, then the heart; it was methodical, punctual, inexorable; neither quinine nor morphine could do anything. Yes, certainly, mortifulgurans was tenacious and irresistible, and all the physicians’ drugs could not defeat it.

  What could be done now? Halt the propagation of the disease? That was impossible. Let it continue its victorious march, then? That was insane—a monstrosity surpassing everything imaginable! Bakermann knew his mortifulgurans. He knew that nothing could make it retreat. It was a true microbe, that one, as superior to others as electric light was to a miserable candle. So be it! The die was cast! Mortifulgurans would spread throughout the world!

  That evening, there had already been seventeen deaths in the town: the pharmacist’s apprentice at three o’clock, then Rothbein at four, two of the pharmacist’s customers at five, four of Rothbein’s clients and five of the pharmacist’s at six, plus four neighbors—the same ones that Bakermann had seen chatting to Theresa that morning.

  The local newspaper announced the outbreak of the fatal epidemic in these terms:

  “We regret to inform our readers that a disease, originating in the Orient, has fallen upon our industrious city. At the time of going to press, seventeen deaths have already been recorded, and our specific information allows us to affirm that there are a great many sick people in various parts of the town. The illness comes on suddenly, and kills in a few hours, defying all therapeutic resources. It is probable that it is caused by a microbe that none has yet been able to study; but according to competent authorities, the malady is none other than koussmi-koussmi, a kind of infectious disease rife in Dahomey. One can only speculate as to the manner in which koussmi-koussmi was able to reach Brunnwald. The facility of communications between Africa and Germany offers some slight explanation of that propagation, but why have the intermediate countries not been affected? These are questions that our hygienists will soon be able to resolve. . . .

  “Whatever the case may be, it is a matter of a redoubtable evil. We are counting on the science of our physicians to avert it, and in the good sense of our people not to abandon themselves to vain panic.”

  Meanwhile, Professor Bakermann had plunged into a profound despair. The death of a wife is certainly cause for grief, but Frau Bakermann was mortal, after all, and in the end, one ends up being consoled. What was horrible, defying all expressions of horror, was the extension of the epidemic.

  He tried to reflect, but his head was whirling. What could be done, since mortifulgurans was invincible? Ordinarily, in an epidemic, not all those affected die; there are individuals who escape. Perhaps physicians are able to cure some of them; some people contrive to avoid the contagion. Above all, the malady comes to an end; the microbe ends up becoming less redoubtable, becoming attenuated, and thus less and less dangerous. Here, though, there was no hope of anything similar. Mortifulgurans would not be attenuated. On the contrary, it would gather new strength as it was disseminated throughout the world. It was too vigorous, too robust, too well-constructed to weaken. The human species, retreating before it, would be driven to extinction!

  A terrible unprecedented battle was joined in Bakermann’s soul. No mortal, in all probability, had ever felt such a heavy, crushing responsibility weighing upon him. If only a solemn confession could avert the disaster! But no, a confession would be futile. Whether he spoke or remained silent, the epidemic would run its course, so why speak? Yes, why? If a loud public confession would save a single victim, certainly! But it would only serve to render the name of Bakermann permanently shameful to future generations—provided that any human beings were able to survive mortifulgurans. Future generations? Bakermann smiled bitterly, as he thought that, thanks to him, there would be no future generations.

  Besides, he thought, is it really mortifulgurans? Rothbein had no hesitation. He immediately affirmed that it was koussmi-koussmi. Why should Rothbein not be right? Why contradict him, and become one’s own executioner? It is a culpable presumption for a lone man to claim to know more than the masters of a science. They have pronounced sentence—well then, their verdict is irrevocable: it is koussmi-koussmi. And after all, if I speak, I won’t save anyone. I shan’t say anything! I shan’t say anything!

  In spite of all this reasoning, the voice of conscience was stronger. “Bakermann,” the voice said to him, “you are lying to yourself. You know perfectly well that your wife died of mortifulgurans, that there is no koussmi-koussmi, that you are the sole cause of the terrible epidemic that is going to cause the disappearance of all humankind. If you want to diminish the atrocity of your crime, it is necessary to confess it freely. Be an honest man, Bakermann, for, if you keep silent, you are the most frightful villain to whom the earth ever gave birth.”

  He went out. He felt the soul of a great martyr within him, and he had made a heroic resolution.

  Yes, he wanted to drink the chalice to the dregs. He had an enemy, a mortal enemy: Professor Hugo Krankwein, his rival in microbial science; a short, bald man with a grimacing, ferrety face, very knowledgeable and very envious. It was to Krankwein that Bakermann would confess his crime.

  Krankwein lived alone in an isolated suburb. He opened his own door—but he recoiled in fright when he was confronted by the distraught face of his colleague.

  “In Heaven’s name, is it really you?”

  “It’s me,” sighed Bakermann. “My wife died this morning.”

  “Yes, I know,” said Krankwein, raising his eyes to heaven. “The poor woman was one of the first victims of the koussmi-koussmi.”

  “Don’t talk about koussmi-koussmi!” cried Bakermann. “There is no koussmi-koussmi! There’s only Bacillus mortifulgurans!”

  Well, well! thought Krankwein, not without some satisfaction. The poor fellow’s gone mad. “Come on, my dear colleague,” he said, gently, addressing Bakermann with the kind of slightly-scornful patience that one has for children and invalids, “I know the horrible story. Dear Frau Bakermann had bought an Oriental carpet that came straight from Dahomey; no more was required, alas!”

  “There is no koussmi-koussmi, I tell you!” Bakermann cried. “Can your koussmi-koussmi kill a vigorous and healthy man in three hours? Can it strike without remission? Can it resist quinine and cold baths? No, a thousand times no, it’s my microbe, I tell you, my mortifulgurans, that killed Josepha.”

  Krankwein smiled. “My dear Bakermann, pain is leading you astray; mortifulgurans is a dream of your sick imagination, and the situation is too grave for us to linger over implausible hypotheses.”

  “Hypotheses!” roared Bakermann. “Hypotheses! Do you know what you’re saying? Mortifulgurans exists. I created it, brought it out of nothing. I constructed it in its entirety, unassailable, irresistible, defiant of medicine and doctors. I’ve kept it in my phials; by means of it, I’ve poisoned Frau Bakermann, Rothbein, Theresa, and five hundred others! And you talk to me about hypotheses!”

  “Calm down, I beg you, my dear colleague,” sighed
Krankwein. “Look, tomorrow morning, if we’re still alive, I’ll come to visit you, and you’ll realize that you aren’t being entirely reasonable.”

  “Don’t you understand, then, that mortifulgurans has no effect on me . . .!”

  He had hardly finished the sentence when he had a sudden flash of inspiration. It was a dazzling lightning-bolt—one of those sublime and grandiose conceptions that cast their blinding light over the entire soul.

  “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” he cried. And, without bidding farewell to the stupefied Krankwein, he precipitated himself into the street, bare-headed.

  Thank God! thought Krankwein. Bakermann has gone mad. He certainly wasn’t strong before, but now he’s veritably insane.

  With that, Krankwein went to bed. He too was vaccinated against all epidemics, and had no fear of koussmi-koussmi. The fate of his fellow citizens was of very little interest to him. As for mortifulgurans, he had the misfortune of not believing in it.

  In the middle of the night, in the desolate streets of Brunnwald, one might have seen a man walking with great strides, his hair in the wind, gesticulating and talking aloud, without paying any heed to the snow that was falling thickly or the thick, cold slush that was covering the pavement.

  “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” Bakermann was repeating to himself. “Of course! My mortifulgurans has been cultivated on negative electricity; positive electricity ought to kill it instantly. It’s fatal, absolutely fatal, as certain as two and two make four. With positive electricity, it will be destroyed, annihilated, pulverized instantly. It will become as harmless as it was in the beginning, when I extracted it from rancid butter. What am I saying? It will be even more harmless. And people will live; they’ll have nothing more to fear. With positive electricity, the world will be saved, and humankind won’t end, and the name of Bakermann will be gratefully celebrated by innumerable future generations—for there will be future generations! Let’s go, Bakermann—to work! You’ve done harm, but you alone can repair it. To defeat mortifulgurans, it requires no less than the man who gave birth to it.”

  Meanwhile, the epidemic was making giant strides. To begin with, in the town of Brunnwald, it had broken out everywhere. In almost every house there was at least one victim, and the victims immediately found themselves in desperate straits. No remedy interrupted the march of the scourge. The consternation was universal. No one dared leave home any longer. The administration, with its invariable foresight, poured torrents of phenol all over the town, which steam pumps distributed in the streets.

  The news brought by the telegraph was very grave. On the morning of 23 December, in Berlin, ten cases of death were reported, disseminated in various quarters. A traveler who had left Brunnwald in a third-class carriage had contaminated the seven travelers in the carriage with him, and all of them had succumbed, leaving behind them the contagion of the terrible scourge.

  The rapidity with which the accursed microbe developed prevented all preventive measures; there was no possibility of quarantine, or closing borders. In twelve hours, with superheated steam trains, one could go all the way from Cadiz to St. Petersburg; it was no longer the nineteenth century, when it was difficult to travel more than sixty kilometers an hour. In one night, therefore, the entirety of Europe was poisoned.

  The town of Brunnwald was half-annihilated. Vienna and Munich already counted a few fatalities, and were probably infected at all points. Paris, London, Rome and St. Petersburg were invaded, without anyone being able to prevent the invasion, and the current evaluation was that the entire human race would be doomed within forty-eight hours. It was enough to make the greatest heroes shiver.

  Bakermann, however, was not afraid. He no longer dreaded mortifulgurans. He worked unrelentingly for the greater part of the night, and in the morning, at dawn, the astonished inhabitants of Brunnwald were able to see an immense poster that had been set up in the market-place, which read:

  PROFESSOR BAKERMANN

  CURES KOUSSMI-KOUSSMI BY MEANS

  OF ELECTRICITY

  If Bakermann had made use of the term koussmi-koussmi, it was by virtue of a craven condescension to the general opinion. In fact, the public, the newspapers and the scientists were talking about nothing but koussmi-koussmi; any other name would have been incomprehensible. Not without bitterness, Bakermann had resolved to employ the vulgar expression, which had become unanimous.

  He regretted the term mortifulgurans, which he had chosen himself, lovingly—and, after all, he had a right to give his microbe the name he preferred—but he had given way, for it was a matter of making known without delay the victorious treatment that would stop the scourge in its tracks.

  A large platform was established on which were set chairs, sofas and even beds. An electrical conductor led from this platform to an immense battery. The negative electricity, which invigorated mortifulgurans, went from there to ground, but the positive electricity, which was fatal to the microbe, went entirely into the platform. People climbed up to the platform—its dimensions were sufficient to allow fifteen of them to take up positions there at their ease—and after a few seconds, they were charged with positive electricity. They could then repel the infection.

  The first sick man to take his place on the platform was Cesar Pück. He was suffering atrociously, and his livid limbs were prey to atrocious convulsions. He was hoisted up on to the platform, in the presence of Krankwein, who was smiling sarcastically, and all his afflictions immediately ceased. The cramps, the spasms and the chill disappeared in a matter of minutes as if by a miracle. The moribund face of worthy Cesar Pück became joyful and smiling, as of old.

  On seeing this result, which he had anticipated, but about which he had still had doubts until a demonstration had been given, Bakermann was overwhelmed by joy. There had been too much emotion in such a short time, and he lost consciousness.

  He was brought round eventually. Soon, the whole world knew about the miraculous cure of Cesar Pück. The news spread in the blink of an eye. In less than half an hour, all the Brunnwaldians knew that Bakermann had cured koussmi-koussmi with electricity. Electrical batteries and platforms modeled on Bakermann’s were set up everywhere. By noon, there were no less than fifty large positive electricity platforms actively functioning.

  The death-rate diminished very rapidly. Between nine o’clock and ten there were 435 deaths; that was the maximum. By eleven, the figure had declined to 126; at noon it was no more than 32, at one o’clock eight, and finally, at two o’clock, there was only one—that of a stubborn old physician who would not hear mention of the electrical treatment, saying that it was stupid, that in Dahomey koussmi-koussmi was cured without electricity, and that he, Meinfeld, was too old to swallow the so-called discoveries of modern science.

  There was now tranquility in Brunnwald—but what a disaster further away! The telegraph brought frightful news with every passing minute. At the very moment when, thanks to the positive electricity platform, the population of Brunnwald was entirely reassured, there had been 45,329 deaths in Berlin, 7,542 in Vienna, 4,673 in Munich, 54,376 deaths already in Paris, and 58,352 in London.

  In brief, there had already been a total of 684,539 deaths in Europe.

  The Americans, on hearing news of the frightful scourge, had implemented precise measures to prevent its propagation to the new world. The fleet had been placed on a war footing, and they had taken the heroic resolution to sink any ship trying to force entry with cannon-fire and torpedoes loaded with tetranitrodynamite.

  Desolation reigned. Everyone was repeating that the end of the world had arrived. A large number of individuals, preferring a rapid death to the anguish of the painful and invincible malady, killed themselves in order to escape death. All business was suspended. There were no more railway trains, no more boats, no more police and no more administration. Few crimes were recorded. Some ordinarily-peaceful people went crazy, greeting tradesmen who tried to get into their homes with revolver shots. Human savagery, latent in us all, ha
d regained the upper hand. The civilized world, so proud of its civilization, had become barbaric again, as in the early days of humankind. It was a reversion to the paleolithic era, perhaps earlier.

  The telegraph, however, was still functioning, well enough that by noon, the whole world could be acquainted with the fact that a cure for koussmi-koussmi had been found—that a celebrated professor at the university of Brunnwald had, by a stroke of genius, discovered a means of opposing the terrible disease. Bakermann! Bakermann had invented a treatment for koussmi-koussmi! It was sufficient to place oneself for a few minutes on a platform charged with positive electricity.

  The news spread with prodigious rapidity. That same evening, in all localities throughout Europe, great and small, immense electrical platforms were at work. Floods of positive electricity spread over the terrestrial globe. Everywhere, colossal machines, gigantic electrical piles, were installed in public squares; everywhere, the marvelous effects of positive electricity were manifest.

  Thus, mortality decreased as rapidly as it had increased.

  Koussmi-koussmi had met its master. The epidemic, which might have caused humankind to disappear, had proved once more that human genius finds no obstacles, and that rebellious nature is always tamed by the superior forces of human science and intelligence.

  There were a few victims, to be sure, but all administrations had been subject to such overcrowding—three thousand applications for a single job—that the petty bloodshed, though certainly dolorous for a few families, was, on the whole, rather beneficent. Once the alert was over, koussmi-koussmi could hardly be considered a veritable calamity.

  In Brunnwald, Professor Hermann Bakermann bathed in full glory. Telegrams flooded his home. A few sovereigns deigned to thank him personally, for sovereigns value their health as much as, if not more than, other men, and with good reason. Bakermann therefore received great honors: the Orders of the Garter, the Bath, the Golden Fleece, the Black Eagle, the Red Eagle, the White Elephant, the Green Dragon and the Thistle. The name of Bakermann, which had not emerged until then from a small circle of initiates, became the greatest name in science in the space of half a day.