In 1965

by Albert Robida

  In 1965

  and Other Stories

  by

  Albert Robida

  Translated, annotated and introduced by

  Brian Stableford

  A Black Coat Press Book

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction 4

  MOTORING IN 1950 9

  AVIATION IN 1950 12

  IN 1965 15

  CENTAUR ISLAND 134

  FRENCH SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY COLLECTION 221

  Introduction

  “En 1965” by Albert Robida, here translated as “In 1965,” was originally published as a ten-part feuilleton serial in Les Annales politiques et littéraires between 26 October 1919 and 18 January 1920 (there was no episode in the 14 December issue, which was the special Christmas number). It was the only long story in Robida’s series of quasi-futurological visions of life in the mid-twentieth century that was not reprinted in book form. The same periodical had previously published a pair of vignettes by Robida, “L’Automobilisme en 1950” and “L’Aviation en 1950” in the 27 December 1908 issue, and Robida was presumably commissioned to write “En 1965” as an extended companion-piece; the two items are translated here, as “Motoring in 1950” and “Aviation in 1950,” in order to provide prologues to the serial. The second novella added to the present volume as a makeweight, L’île des centaures, was originally published in 1912 by Henri Laurens, and was reprinted in 1931.

  The present volume is the sixth volume of translations of works by the writer and illustrator Albert Robida (1848-1926) to be published by Black Coat Press, following The Clock of the Centuries (2008; also containing “Yesterday Now”), The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul (2009), Chalet in the Sky (2011; also containing “A Schoolboy in 1950”), Electric Life (2013) and The Engineer von Satanas (2015; also containing both versions of “War in the Twentieth Century”). Collectively, the six volumes contain all of his contributions to the genre of roman scientifique except Le Vingtième siècle (1883) a translation of which was published as The Twentieth Century by Wesleyan University Press in 2004.

  Perhaps the most remarkable thing about “En 1965” is its stark contrast to Robida’s previous futuristic novel, the grim apocalyptic fantasy L’Ingénieur von Satanas, published earlier in 1919. That novel had been a radical break from the futurological series constituted by Le Vingtième siècle, La Vie électrique (La Science Illustrée 28 November 1891-30 July 1982; book 1892; tr. as Electric Life) and “Un Potache en 1950” (Mon Journal 8 September-22 December 1917; tr. as “A Schoolboy in 1950”), and “En 1965” was, in effect, a return to that “main sequence” of his futuristic visions.

  L’Ingénieur von Satanas had, however, been a continuation of a spinoff series consisting specifically of visions of future warfare, which had begun with one of the episodes in his long chronicle of the Voyages très extraordinaires de Saturnin Farandoul dans les 5 ou 6 parties du monde et dans tous les pays connus et meme inconnus de M. Jules Verne (1879; tr. as The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul), in which Saturnin Farandoul and Phileas Fogg end up on opposite sides in a war fought between the North and South of the Disunited States of Nicaragua, in which heavily armored “locomotives of war” (i.e., giant tanks) mount fearsome charges, gigantic cannons launch unprecedentedly powerful shells, “submarine cavalry” mount a daring raid to capture the transatlantic cable, and chloroform bombs play a crucial role, before a climactic battle takes place between two fleets of war-balloons.

  Many of those images of future warfare cropped up again in a short documentary story that Robida wrote as a kind of advertisement for Le Vingtième siècle, “La Guerre au vingtième siècle,” which appeared in the 27 October 1883 issue of the magazine he edited, Le Caricature. A different short story with the same title was published as an illustrated book by Georges Decaux in 1887, reiterating much of the same imagery in a different geographical context. Although the detail of the author’s anticipations had only been slightly modified in L’Ingénieur von Satanas to take aboard the scientific and technological innovations of the intervening years—many of which he had anticipated—his attitude to the prospects in question had shifted markedly, the tone of wry black comedy adopted in the stories from the 1980s with one of furiously bitter criticism and dire pessimism.

  None of that is visible in “En 1965,” which is a conscientiously amicable and breezy work, with only a slight macabre edge in its comedy—considerably slighter than the trenchant satire of La Vie électrique, the technological innovations of which it recapitulates and updates faithfully, and also slighter than the ominous implications of the final work in the sequence, Un Chalet dans les airs (1925; tr. as “Chalet in the Sky”), which was written for a juvenile audience, like “Un Potache en 1950,” but is markedly darker in the pattern of its anticipations. The history of the twentieth century sketched out in the previous texts is, of necessity, modified in order to accommodate the Great War, the aftermath of which plays a considerable part in the back-story of “En 1965,” but there is no mention of the fundamental assumption of L’Ingénieur von Satanas, which is that the armistice of 1918 was merely an interruption, and that the war would soon resume, completing the total obliteration of civilization. Obviously, in the 1965 envisaged by the new story, that could not have happened, but it seems, on the contrary to be a world from which war has been completely banished, apparently having become unmentionable as well as unthinkable.

  The reason for that drastic change of tack, and the consequent extreme moderation, is presumably that “En 1965” was commissioned by Adolphe Brisson, the editor-in-chief of Les Annales politiques et littéraires, and the author was writing in accordance with a specific instruction to maintain a light tone appropriate to a Parisian society many of whose members wanted to put the terrible legacy of the Great War firmly behind them, and to look forward resolutely to better times that might lie ahead. Brisson must have had the two 1908 vignettes very much in mind, and presumably requested that their themes be extrapolated in a kindred spirit.

  Brisson’s editorial pressure was probably also responsible for the fact that the plot of the serial seems to betray its initial robust political intentions, and to conclude in a fashion that is bound to seem craven to modern feminists. One suspects that the author cannot have planned that himself, and that the forced dereliction of intent might have been partly responsible for the fact that the text and its illustrations remained unreprinted.

  Because its plot veers so awkwardly off course, “En 1965” is undoubtedly the weakest component of the twentieth-century series, but its futurological elements remain interesting, and introduced several significant innovations to supplement the imagery of the telephonoscope and the multiple social adaptations to the commonplace use of private aircrafts featured in La Vie électrique. Some of those innovations, notably the flying houses first mentioned in passing in “L’Automobilisme en 1950,” were to be further developed in Un Chalet dans les airs. The Sacred Forest is an intriguing idea, albeit very much of its time, and the snapshots of underwater tourism are striking, although the porpoise-hunt would no longer be considered politically correct. The depiction of synthetic food reproduces an idea already broached extensively by other writers of roman scientifique, but does so in a suitably flamboyant fashion.

  The relative flaccidity of the plot of “En 1950” is hopefully somewhat compensated in the present volume by the translation of “L’Île des centaures,” which is a more well-rounded and effective story, and a fine example of modern Gulliveriana. Although the central hypothesis of a centaur civilization is fanciful, the story qualifies fully as an item of roman scientifique because of the role played in the lot by the two centaur scientists, whose appalling conduct holds up a satirical mirror to some of the less savory features of the sociology of Europ
ean science. In that regard, the story has something in common with Edmond Haraucourt’s classic satire “Le Gorilloïde” (1904; tr. in the Black Coat Press collection Illusions of Immortality as “The Gorilloid”1), which might well have played some part in its inspiration.

  The comedy in “L’Île des centaures,” although much broader than that in “En 1965,” is also considerably sharper. The two novellas do, however, share a similar utopian philosophy and sarcastic distaste for certain aspects of modern civilization, which unites them in spite of the drastic variance between the imagery of their backcloths and the markedly different narrative strategies required to accommodate those different kinds of imagery. That combination of similarity and contrast enables the two novellas to form an interesting, appealing and eminently readable diptych.

  The translation of “En 1965” was made from the relevant issues of Les Annales politiques et littéraires reproduced on the Bibliothéque Nationale’s gallica website. The translations of the two vignettes were made from the facsimile reproductions contained in the 1995 Apex Periodica edition of La Locomotion Future. The translation of L’île des centaures was made from the copy of the 1931 Laurens edition reproduced on the gallica website.

  Brian Stableford

  MOTORING IN 1950

  What a beautiful sunny day the first Saturday in June 1950 was! The previous day’s storm had cleared the atmosphere, the Great Central Station for the Capture of Atmospheric Energy having decanted all the energy from the north-eastern region—an economy for energy production—and everything was set fair for a fortnight. And I was very glad to grant myself two weeks of vacation near Bayeux with my friend B***, in order to forget a few headaches, nervous excitations, stomach troubles and other petty inconveniences of the hectic life we lead.

  The boulevard was heaving—more traffic than other days, naturally, because it was Saturday. In spite of the good organization of the circulation, the crossing facilities, the stages detours at the intersections, the subterranean passages and the elevated refuges for vehicles parking, the causeway was vibrating and still too narrow, in spite of being considerably widened at the expense of the sidewalks—which were almost useless, since there are no longer any of those insupportable pedestrians who used to clutter up the roads of olden days.

  In the auto with my friend we threaded a path through the middle of the host of vehicles: merchants’ delivery vehicles, picturesque in form by virtue of habit, adopted by way of advertisement, of arranging the vehicle in a form symbolizing the kind of industry or commerce; heavier autotrucks; elegant autocabs; family limousines, autofiacres; electric tricycles; light and coquettish autobuses; autocoupés and various autocars. All of that was flowing in two files, without any disorder, in truth, without the infernal obstructions at intersections that people used to curse so much, and almost without the disk-agents in tricars posted every twenty-five meters, who had too many opportunities to raise their white detonation-stocks to call some driver to order.

  “And people once claimed that motoring was a sport!” said my friend. “It was a sport fifty years ago, like aviation, in the days of the conquistadors of the road and the atmosphere; but today, it’s just the practical utilization of new forces.”

  We went past the elevators of the aerial station in the Boulevard Haussmann. All those people! Half way up, some were taking the suburban electric tubes2 for Rouen, Tours or Compiègne, others were going all the way up to the embarkation platform of the airships for Brittany, Normandy, the Vosges and the Midi.

  “Look out!” I said. “Let’s try not to receive anything on our heads—there are so many people who might drop a trunk, or a simple umbrella.”

  “Get away! Distracted people in today’s society? There are none left—they were all crushed before reaching the age of fifteen. Dreamers and poets? The last ones were suppressed in 1910 or 1912 by the crushbuses of those days, in the explosion crisis of the great congested cities. Don’t worry, though, verses get made just the same. No worries! My son and daughter are coming back from school in their usual little auto—an autoflea, as it’s known—one from Sévigné-Pontoise, the other from Condorcet-l’Isle Adam. They’ll take the eight thirty-five airship and arrive at the villa at about ten o’clock...”

  We rolled for a long time through open country on the rubber road, behind many other people going to their country houses at various distances from busy Paris. We could already see trees. We crossed paths with market gardeners’ autocars brings their vegetables to Les Halles, sometimes from a long way away, removal autos carrying furniture to country houses, a long fifty-seat autocar taking a company of anglers to Caudebec, even longer autocars taking schoolchildren from Paris to spend a long weekend in the woods, and numerous limousines loaded with families of shopkeepers—father, mother, children, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, cousins of both sexes, etc. I even saw a little carriagette carrying a lady and gentlemen already clad in shrimp-fishing costumes, with their nets over the hood...

  Further along there was a veritable convoy: twelve auto-trucks laden with sacks of flour; then we went through a returning free market, fat farmers in their little autos, grocers’ and butter-merchants’ trucks and a few cows on an autotrolley. Then, installed on one side of the road, near a charming river, camping enthusiasts, five or six auto-caravans or housecars making their tour of France, disdaining hotels: a charming tableau, the kitchens fuming, ladies in bright dresses setting trestle-tables, children playing…and tomorrow they would all be camping two hundred kilometers away, in another pretty location...

  Finally, as night is falling, we arrive. The Cherbourg tube is passing over a viaduct; we can hear the hum of electric trains inside. Up above, a few dirigibles are cleaving the air, going to scatter among the coastal resorts; the sea is shining ahead of us. Here come the woods, a long line of cliffs, lighthouses illuminating, and here’s the villa that will shelter us for a few days...

  AVIATION IN 1950

  “Oof! Let’s take off our goggles and fur coats.”

  “Sapristi! Let’s have a look at the Telejournal... Hello! Hello! Questions were asked in the Chamber today. The Minister of Highways and Aerial and Terrestrial Communications was on the spot…a matter of rubberization. The Midi’s demanding…we’ll see. Hello! Hello!”

  Lively discussion…virulent speech by…drinn, drinn, let’s skip the speeches... Motion of censure…1,246 votes to 342… That’s it, the Ministry has gone off the rails...

  In the air, at the aerial bar of an electric station. Down below, a few autos are stationed, recharging their accumulators. Half way up, under the big hangars, and garages, various vehicles are waiting: a little hired dirigible, two airbuses, three airplanes and a balloonette.

  Three gentlemen, two ladies and three children aged between ten and fifteen are finishing lunch. The weather is superb, the sun is shining. People are talking about the previous day’s storm.

  “Only four accidents, one quite serious...”

  “There are so many imprudent people, young men who launch fourth, in order to show off, in racing airplanes, and other poor devils, on the contrary, for want of money, in four-sou contraptions devoid of solidity, nailed together any old how! Parents really ought to keep better watch on those refugees from college.”

  “Oh, my dear, nowadays, since they do flying and gliding at school, as my grandfather used to do canoeing…anyway, Gaston here, if he passes his bac next year, I’ll by him a little twelve-hundred-franc airdart; he’ll be able to take reasonable little trips. He knows how to drive, too, going out in the dirigible every Sunday. He has his pilot’s license...”

  “That’s not too dusty!” said young Gaston.

  “Oh, no, Papa!” say the two girls in chorus.

  “Look at that old worm-eaten airboat arriving from the south-south-east. What an antique! It must date back to 1930! They built things to last in those days.”

  “But it’s scarcely moving. Look, it’s crossing paths with the Saint-Malo autobus; it needs an
effort of the engine to avoid a collision...”

  “By the way, did you hear what happened last week in the forest of Fontainebleau, beyond Barbizon? Thieves brought off a double coup. They’d just burgled a big villa by forcing the door of the upper landing pad—the owners were at the theater in Paris—and they were flying over the forest with their loot when their dirigible encountered a tourist plane going to Italy for a honeymoon trip. Harpooning! Terror! The poor fellow tried to resist, but the young lady fainted. Robbed of everything in two minutes!”

  “Well, thieves have a good time with planes, in spite of all the surveillance...”

  “It’s the same for smuggling. Might as well get rid of the customs...”

  “You know how marvelous a plane is for discovering in monuments beauties unknown to spectators on the ground! Well, there are indelicate people who abuse that. They unbolt highly-perched statues. An Englishman was arrested the other day who, under the pretext of admiring Reims cathedral, was carrying away souvenirs.”

  “Oh, these collectors!”

  “Dear Madame, I saw something very droll three months ago in Egypt: races of gliders, airplanes and airdarts, with the pyramids as obstacles, to be jumped one after another. I did it, but I nearly caught a Bedouin as I came down. I avoided him by a sideways leap, bat my propeller broke on the head of the Sphinx. If business is good I’ll go in November with an agency airship to spend twelve days hunting in Abyssinia…lions, panthers...”

  “Oh!” said the young schoolboy, admiringly.

  “Provided, of course, that there isn’t a war between now and then. Airfleets are increasing everywhere. People are constructing, constructing…”