Scientific Romance

by Brian Stableford

  “This being now beyond any doubt, we returned to the stern of the ship and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. Together we cleared out and cleaned two of the cabins; and after that I made examination whether there was anything eatable in the ship. This I soon found was so, and thanked God in my heart for His goodness. In addition to this I discovered the whereabouts of the fresh-water pump, and having fixed it, I found the water drinkable, though somewhat unpleasant to the taste.

  “For several days we stayed aboard the ship, without attempting to get to the shore. We were busily engaged in making the place habitable. Yet even thus early we became aware that our lot was even less to be desired than might have been imagined; for though, as a first step, we scraped away the odd patches of growth that studded the floors and walls of the cabins and saloon, yet they returned almost to their original size within the space of twenty-four hours, which not only discouraged us, but gave us a feeling of vague unease.

  “Still we would not admit ourselves beaten, so set to work afresh, and not only scraped away the fungus, but soaked the places where it had been with carbolic, a can full of which I had found in the pantry. Yet, by the end of the week the growth had returned in full strength, and, in addition, it had spread to other places, as though our touching it had allowed germs from it to travel elsewhere.

  “On the seventh morning, my sweetheart woke to find a small patch of it growing on her pillow, close to her face. At that, she came to me, so soon as she could get her garments upon her. I was in the galley at the time lighting the fire for breakfast.

  “ ‘Come here, John,’ she said, and led me aft. When I saw the thing upon her pillow I shuddered, and then and there we agreed to go right out of the ship and see whether we could not fare to make ourselves more comfortable ashore.

  “Hurriedly, we gathered together our few belongings, and even among these I found that the fungus had been at work, for one of her shawls had a little lump of it growing near one edge. I threw the whole thing over the side, without saying anything to her.

  “The raft was still alongside, but it was too clumsy to guide, and I lowered down a small boat that hung across the stern, and in this we made our way to the shore. Yet, as we drew near to it, I became gradually aware that here the vile fungus which had driven us from the ship was growing riot. In places it rose into horrible, fantastic mounds, which seemed almost to quiver, as with a quiet life, when the wind blew across them. Here and there it took on the form of vast fingers, and in others it just spread out flat and smooth and treacherous. In places, it appeared as grotesque stunted trees, seeming extraordinarily kinked and gnarled—the whole quaking vilely at times.

  “At first, it seemed to us that there was no single portion of the surrounding shore which was not hidden beneath the masses of the hideous lichen; yet, in this, I found we were mistaken, for somewhat later, coasting along the shore at a little distance, we descried a smooth white patch of what appeared to be sand, and there we landed.

  “It was not sand. What it was I do not know. All that I have learned is that upon it the fungus will not grow; while everywhere else, save where the sand-like earth wanders oddly, path-wise, amid the gray desolation of the lichen, there is nothing but that loathsome grayness.

  “It is difficult to make you understand how cheered we were to find one place that was absolutely free from the growth, and here we deposited our belongings. Then we went back to the ship for such things as it seemed to us we should need. Among other matters, I managed to bring ashore with me one of the ship’s sails, with which I constructed two small tents, which, though exceedingly rough-shaped, served the purpose for which they were intended. In these we lived and stored our various necessities, and thus in a matter of some four weeks all went smoothly and without particular unhappiness. Indeed, I may say with much of happiness, for . . . for we were together.

  “It was on the thumb of her right hand that the growth first showed. It was only a small circular spot, much like a little gray mole. My God, how the fear leapt to my heart when she showed me the place! We cleansed it, between us, washing it with carbolic and water. In the morning of the following day she showed her hand to me again. The gray warty thing had returned. For a little while, we looked at one another in silence. Then, still wordless, we started again to remove it.

  “In the midst of the operation she spoke suddenly. ‘What’s that on the side of your face, dear?’ Her voice was sharp with anxiety. I put my hand up to feel.

  “ ‘There! Under the hair by your ear. A little to the front a bit.’ My finger rested upon the place, and then I knew.

  “ ‘Let us get your thumb done first,’ I said. And she submitted, only because she was afraid to touch me until it was cleansed. I finished washing and disinfecting her thumb, and then she turned to my face. After it was finished we sat together and talked awhile of many things, for there had come into our lives sudden, very terrible thoughts. We were, all at once, afraid of something worse than death.

  “We spoke of loading the boat with provisions and water and making our way out on to the sea; yet we were helpless, for many causes, and . . . and the growth had attacked us already. We decided to stay. God would do with us what was His will. We would wait.

  “A month, two months, three months passed and the places grew somewhat, and there had come others. Yet we fought so strenuously with the fear that its headway was but slow, comparatively speaking.

  “Occasionally we ventured off to the ship for such stores as we needed. There we found that the fungus grew persistently. One of the nodules on the maindeck became soon as high as my head.

  “We had now given up all thought or hope of leaving the island. We had realized that it would be unallowable to go among healthy humans, with the things from which we were suffering.

  “With this determination and knowledge in our minds we knew that we should have to husband our food and water; for we did not know, at that time, but that we should possibly live for many years.

  “This reminds me that I have told you that I am an old man. Judged by the years this is not so, but . . . but. . . .”

  He broke off, then continued somewhat abruptly: “As I was saying, we knew that we should have to use care in the matter of food. But we had no idea how little food there was left of which to take care. It was a week later that I made the discovery that all the other bread tanks—which I had supposed full—were empty, and that, beyond odd tins of vegetables and meat, and some other matters, we had nothing on which to depend but the bread in the tank which I had already opened.

  “After learning this I bestirred myself to do what I could, and set to work at fishing in the lagoon, but with no success. At this I was somewhat inclined to feel desperate until the thought came to me to try outside the lagoon, in the open sea.

  “Here, at times, I caught odd fish, but so infrequently that they proved of but little help in keeping us from the hunger which threatened.

  “It seemed to me that our deaths were likely to come by hunger, and not by the growth of the thing which had seized upon our bodies.

  “We were in this state of mind when the fourth month wore out, when I made a very horrible discovery. One morning, a little before midday, I came off the ship with a portion of the biscuits which were left. In the mouth of her tent I saw my sweetheart sitting, eating something.

  “ ‘What is it, my dear?’ I called out as I leapt ashore. Yet, on hearing my voice, she seemed confused, and, turning, slyly threw something towards the edge of a little clearing. It fell short, and a vague suspicion having arisen within me, I walked across and picked it up. It was a piece of the gray fungus.

  “As I went to her with it in my hand, she turned deadly pale, then rose red.

  “I felt strangely dazed and frightened. ‘My dear! My dear!’ I said, and could say no more. Yet at my words she broke down and cried bitterly.

  “Gradually, as she calmed, I got from her the news that she had tried it the preceding day, and . . . a
nd liked it. I got her to promise on her knees not to touch it again, however great our hunger. After she had promised she told me that the desire for it had come suddenly, and that, until the moment of desire, she had experienced nothing towards it but the most extreme repulsion.

  “Later in the day, feeling strangely restless, and much shaken with the thing which I had discovered, I made my way along one of the twisted paths formed by the white, sand-like substance which led among the fungoid growth. I had, once before, ventured along there, but not to any great distance. This time, being involved in perplexing thought, I went much further than hitherto.

  “Suddenly I was called to myself by a queer hoarse sound on my left. Turning quickly I saw that there was movement among an extraordinarily shaped mass of fungus close to my elbow. It was swaying uneasily, as though it possessed life of its own. Abruptly, as I stared, the thought came to me that the thing had a grotesque resemblance to the figure of a distorted human creature. Even as the fancy flashed into my brain, there was a slight, sickening noise of tearing, and I saw that one of the branchlike arms was detaching itself from the surrounding gray masses, and coming toward me. The head of the thing, a shapeless gray ball, inclined in my direction.

  “I stood stupidly, and the vile arm brushed across my face. I gave out a frightened cry, and ran back a few paces. There was a sweetish taste upon my lips where the thing had touched me. I licked them, and was immediately filled with an inhuman desire. I turned and seized a mass of the fungus. Then more . . . and more. I was insatiable. In the midst of devouring, the remembrance of the morning’s discovery swept into my mazed head. It was sent by God. I dashed the fragment I held to the ground. Then, utterly wretched and feeling a dreadful guiltiness, I made my way back to the little encampment.

  “I think she knew, by the marvelous intuition which love must have given, as soon as she set eyes on me. Her quiet sympathy made it easier for me, and I told her of my sudden weakness, yet omitted to mention the extraordinary thing which had gone before. I desired to spare her all unnecessary terror.

  “But, for myself, I had added an intolerable knowledge, to breed an incessant terror in my brain; for I doubted not but that I had seen the end of one of those men who had come to the island in the ship in the lagoon; and in that monstrous ending I had seen our own.

  “Thereafter we kept from the abominable food, though the desire for it had entered into our blood. Yet our drear punishment was upon us, for, day by day, with monstrous rapidity, the fungoid growth took hold of our poor bodies. Nothing we could do would check it materially, and so . . . and so . . . we who had been human, became . . . well, it matters less each day. Only . . . only we had been man and maid!

  “And day by day the fight is more dreadful, to withstand the hungerlust for the terrible lichen.

  “A week ago we ate the last of the biscuit, and since that time I have caught three fish. I was out here fishing tonight when your schooner drifted upon me out of the mist. I hailed you. You know the rest, and may God, out of His great heart, bless you for your goodness to a . . . a couple of outcast souls.”

  There was the dip of an oar . . . another. Then the voice came again, and for the last time, sung through the slight surrounding mist, ghostly and mournful.

  “God bless you! Goodbye!”

  “Goodbye,” we shouted together, hoarsely, our hearts full of many emotions.

  I glanced about me. I became aware that dawn was upon us.

  The sun flung a stray beam across the hidden sea, pierced the mist dully, and lit up the receding boat with a gloomy fire.

  Indistinctly, I saw something nodding between the oars. I thought of a sponge . . . a great gray nodding sponge. . . .

  The oars continued to ply. They were gray—as was the boat—and my eyes searched a moment vainly for the conjunction of hand and oar. My gaze flashed back to the . . . head. It nodded forward as the oars went backward for the stroke. Then the oars were dipped, the boat shot out of the patch of light, and the . . . the thing went nodding into the mist.

  THE SINGULAR FATE OF BOUVANCOURT

  MAURICE RENARD

  Maurice Renard (1875–1939) was the French writer most enthusiastically inspired by translations of H. G. Wells; he became an ardent propagandist for “scientific marvel fiction,” which he distinguished from the relatively staid French tradition of Vernian fiction. His first novel, Docteur Lerne, sous-dieu (1908; tr. as Dr. Lerne, Subgod) is a melodramatic account of extraordinary surgical transformation, but the novel with which he followed it up, the satirical microcosmic romance Un Homme chez les microbes (tr. as A Man Among the Microbes), proved difficult to place, and he rewrote it several times, eventually advertising the version he published in 1928 as the “fifth edition.” He fared much better with the classic mystery story Le Péril bleu (1911; tr. as The Blue Peril).

  Renard had several more works in progress when the Great War broke out, but when he was released from the army five years later, his family’s property having been destroyed by the German invasion, he was obliged to move into the more popular field of crime fiction in order to make a living, although he did reprocess one of his abandoned works in that context as Le Maître de lumière (1933; tr. as The Master of Light). All of his generic work is available in English in five volumes published by Black Coat Press in 2010.

  “La Singular destinée de Bouvancourt,” first published in his second collection, Le Voyage immobile suivi d’autres histoires singulières (1909; tr. as The Motionless Voyage and Other Singular Stories) was one of two stories Renard produced featuring the adventurous physicist in question, the other being “L’Homme au corps subtil” (1913; tr. as “The Man with the Rarefied Body”). Like much of the French scientific romance of the era, it develops its central idea flamboyantly, while maintaining an interest in the particular psychology of scientific endeavor, reminiscent of S. Henry Berthoud’s pioneering endeavors.

  During my absence from Pontargis, Bouvancourt had got a new housekeeper. The new servant insisted that her master had gone out, but she was deceiving me, inasmuch as I could hear my friend’s voice trumpeting in the laboratory at the end of the corridor, so I took the liberty of shouting: “Bouvancourt! Hey, Bouvancourt! It’s me, Sambreuil. Can I come in, in spite of your orders?”

  “Ah, my dear doctor, what a pleasure it is to see you again!” the scientist replied, from off-stage. “I’ve never had such a keen desire to shake your hand, Sambreuil, but there’s a snag. I’ll be shut up in here for half an hour. It’s impossible for me to open the door just now. So go through the drawing-room into my study, I beg you; we can chat through the door, as we can here, and you’ll be more comfortable there than in the hallway.”

  I had been familiar with the layout of the little apartment for a long time. The residence was dear to me because of the resident, and, as the Louis XV drawing-room was the usual venue of our conversations, I took pleasure in seeing it briefly once again, even though the furniture was singularly pretentious in its banality. Bouvancourt, in fact, believed himself—quite mistakenly—to be first and foremost a master decorator. He spent his leisure time nailing, sawing and hanging things, and it was not, in the eyes of the great physicist, his slenderest entitlement to glory to have designed and constructed those chairs and bracket-tables “to complement a set of authentic fire-irons.”

  With an affectionate glance, therefore, I honored the horrible imitation furniture, the woodwork sculpted with a stamp, and the specious tapestry cynically pretending to be an Aubusson—and it never even occurred to me to be shocked, so familiar had that ugliness become. Bouvancourt’s ridiculous pretension, however, was vividly recalled to my mind once I was in his study. He had brought the most frightful embellishment thereto.

  In order to make the room seem larger by means of a trompe-l’oeil, he had set a large mirror against the wall separating the study from the Louis XV drawing-room. It was a simulacrum of a door, and matched the actual door; it was a mirage of sorts, reminiscent of the booby-trap
s that one finds in the Musée Grévin.1 The large mirror was supported by the floor itself and, in order better to deceive the eye, it was framed by large claret-colored plush curtains similar to those at the widows and other doorways. Oh, those curtains! I knew immediately whose hands had molded them into pleats, inflated them in billows, precipitated them in torrents, and which infernal upholsterer had tied them up with those tasseled cords! And I stood in front of that terrible lambrequin, whose cords twisted its fabric in a ferociously ingenious embrace, quite speechless.

  “Well, doctor,” said the laboratory door, in Bouvancourt’s muffled voice, “are you there yet?”

  “Yes—but I was admiring your sense of decoration. You’ve got a mirror here—magnificent!”

  “Isn’t it? How do you like the drapery? It’s my own work, you know. The study seems enormous, doesn’t it? It’s very fashionable just now. Isn’t my study chic?”

  In truth, the room did not lack “chic,” certainly not because of the objects designed to furnish it, but for the reason that it served as an annex to the juxtaposed laboratory, and concealed a chaotic crowd of astonishing machines of all shapes, sizes and materials, for practical work and demonstration. Two windows, one looking out on the boulevard and the other on the street, illuminated the corner room, sprinkling glitters, gleams and flashes over the ebonite, the glass and the copper. Thus more-or-less lit up, various balance-pans, disks and cylinders were visible. Manuscripts were heaped up on the desks, as if thrown there in a glorious fever of genius. An algebraic problem whitened the blackboard. Science exhaled its chemical aroma. In all sincerity, I exclaimed: “Yes, Bouvancourt, old chap—yes, it’s chic, your study!”

  “Excuse me for receiving you in this fashion,” he went on. “It’s Saturday today. My laboratory assistant. . . .”