CHAPTER V.
THE FINDING OF THE BACILLUS.
If I have dwelt so long upon the laboratory and its master, it isbecause there the great blessing came that has glorified my wholeexistence. This was the way of it.
One day I asked Prof. Darmstetter some question about the preparationof a microscopic slide from a bit of a frog's lung.
"Vait!" he snapped, "I vill speak vit' you aftervards."
The girls prophesied the terrible things that were to happen, as theylingered in the cloak room, waiting their turn on the threadbare spotin the rug which a rich girl had bought to cover the threadbare spot inthe carpet in front of the mirror. "Now you'll catch it!" the last onesaid, as she carefully put her hat straight with both hands and ran outof the room.
When I returned to the laboratory Prof. Darmstetter motioned me to achair and took one opposite, from which he fixed his keen eyes upon myface. Again he seemed weighing, judging, considering me with uncanny,impersonal scrutiny.
"How I despise t'ose vomen!" he said at last, throwing up his handswith an impatient gesture.
Used to his ways, I waited in silence.
"I teach t'ose vomen, yes; but I despise t'em," he added.
"If you do, you ought to be ashamed of it," I retorted hotly. "But Idon't believe you really despise them. Such a bright lot of girls--why,some of them are bound to be heard from in science some day!"
"In science? Bah!"
"Why not? There was Mary Somerville and--and--and Caroline Herscheland--well, I can't think of their names all in a minute, but I'm proudto be one of the girls here anyway."
"You are not one of t'em," he cried angrily. "T'ey are life failures.You fancy t'ey are selected examples, but t'ey are not; t'ey are t'erejected. T'ey stood in t'e market place and no man vanted t'em; orelse t'ey are fools as vell as failures and sent t'e men avay. You knowme. I am biologist, not true? I hate t'e vord. I am physiologist,student of t'e nature of life--all kinds of life, t'e ocean of life ofv'ich man is but a petty incident."
"You were speaking about--"
"Ach, so! Almost t'ou has t'e scientific mind t'at reasons andremembers. I said, I am physiologist. I study v'at Nature is, v'at shemeans to do. V'en Nature--Gott, if you vant a shorter name--makes amistake, Gott says: 'Poor material; spoiled in shaping, wrong in t'evorks; all failures; t'row t'em avay. Ve haf plenty more to go on vit'.You know. You study Nature, also, a little. You know she is law, she ispower. To t'e indifidual pitiless, she mofes vit' blind,discompassionate majesty ofer millions of mangled organisms to t'egreater glory of Pan, of Kosmos, of t'e Universe. She vastes life. Andhow not? Her best vork lives a little v'ile and produces its kind, andt'e vorst does not, and t'ey go down t'e dark vay toget'er and Natureneit'er veeps nor relents Kosmos is greater t'an t'e indifidual and amillion years are short.
"T'ose young vomen--Nature meant t'em to desire beauty and dream oflofe. Vat is lofe? It is Nature's machinery. T'ose vomen are old enoughfor lofe, but t'ey haf it not. So t'ey die. T'ey do not reproduce t'eirkind, not'ing lifing comes from t'em, to go on lifing, on and on,better and better--or vorse, as Nature planned--vit' efery generation.If a voman haf t'e desire of lofe and of beauty, and lofe and beautycome not to her, t'en I pity her, because I am less vise and resoluteto vit'hold pity t'an Nature is. Efen if she haf not lofe, but only t'eambition of power or learning or vealt', I might pity her vit' equalinjustice, but I cannot. She vill not let me. She does not know t'atshe is a failure. She prides herself upon being so mis-made. She cannothelp t'at; neit'er can I help despising her. Such vomen are abnormal,monstrous, in a vord, failures. Let t'em die! You, I t'ink, are not so.You study to bide t'e time. You haf a fine carriage. You comb t'e hair,you haf pretty ribbons, you make t'e body strong and supple, you lookin t'e glass and vish for more beauty. Not so?"
"Of course I do," I cried angrily, wondering for the moment if he hadlost his senses. It seemed as if he knew little about women for a manwho professed to make all life his study. If there were one of hisdespised girls who lacked the desire of beauty and the dream of love, Iam much mistaken. But I came to see afterward that he understood themas well as myself.
"I t'ought so," he mused, his eyes still upon my face. "And you are nottoo beautiful now; t'ey could not doubt. Yes; I vatch you, I study you.Seldom I make t'e mistake; but it is fery important. So I vatch you alittle v'ile longer yet. T'en I say to myelf: 'Here is t'e voman; yes,she is found.'"
And he chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together as I had so oftenseen him do.
The thought flashed across my mind that this extraordinary manmeditated a proposal of marriage, but I dismissed the notion asridiculous.
The Professor leaned forward and, fixing me with his eye, spoke in ahoarse whisper, tense with excitement:--
"Mees Veenship, I am a biologist; you are a voman, creature of Nature,yearning for perfection after your kind. I--I can gife it you. You cantrust me; I am ready. I can gif you your vish, t'e vish of efery normalvoman. Science--t'at is I--can make you t'e most beautiful being in t'evorld!"
Another Sunday school lesson! Miss Coleman and her unforgotten lectureupon beauty flashed upon my mind. But this man was promising me morethan she had done, and his every word was measured. What was themystery? What had he to say to me?
"T'e most beautiful--voman--in t'e vorld," he went on in a slow,cadenced whisper. "Do you vish it?"
His glittering eyes held mine again. No, he was not jesting at myexpense; rather he seemed waiting with anxiety for me to make somedecision upon which much depended. He was in very serious earnest.
But was ever a question more absurd? Who of women would not wish it?But to get the wish--ah, there's a different matter! I thought he mustbe crazed by over-study, and I could only sit and stare at him,open-mouthed.
"Listen!" he went on more rapidly, as if to forestall objection. "Youare scholar, too, a little. You know how Nature vorks, how men aid herin her business. Man puts t'e mot'er of vinegar into sweet cider and itis vinegar. T'e fermenting germs of t'e brewery chemist go in vit'vater and hops and malt, and t'ere is beer. T'e bacilli of bread, t'eyeast, svarming vit millions of millions of little spores, go into t'ehousevife's dough, and it is bad bread; but t'at is not t'e fault oft'e bacilli--mein Gott, no!--for vit' t'e bacilli t'e baker makes gootbread. T'e bacilli of butter, of cheese--you haf studied t'em. T'eexperimenter puts t'e germs of good butter into bad cream and itbecomes goot. It ripens. It is educated, led in t'e right vay.Tradition vaits for years to ripen vine and make it perfect. Sciencefinds t'e bacillus of t'e perfect vine and puts it in t'e cask of freshgrape juice, and soon t'e vine drinkers of t'e vorld svear it is t'erare old vintage. T'e bacillus, inconceivably tiny, svarming vit' life,reproducing itself a billion from one, t'at is Nature's tool. And t'ephysiologist helps Nature.
"See now," continued Prof. Darmstetter. "I haf a vonderful discoferymade. I must experiment vit' it--_experimentum in corpore vili!_Impossible, for the subject is mankind. I must haf a voman--a vomanlike you, healt'y, strong, young--all t'e conditions most favourable.She must haf intelligence--t'at is you. She should know somet'ing ofbiology, and be fery brave, so t'at she may not be frightened, but mayunderstand how t'e vonderful gift is to come to her; and t'at is you.She should not be already beautiful, lest t'e change be lessconvincing. Yes, you are t'e voman for t'e test. You may become morefamous in history fan Cleopatra or Ninon, and outshine t'em and all t'eot'er beauties t'at efer lifed. Do you vant triumphs? Here t'ey are.Riches? You shall command t'em. Fame? Power? I haf t'em for you. Youshall be t'e first. Aftervard, v'en beauty is common as ugliness isnow--ah, I do not know. Efen t'en it vill be a blessing. But to be t'efirst is fame and all t'e ot'er t'ings I promise you. Now do you trustme? Now do you beliefe me? Vill you make t'e experiment? I haf--let metell you!--I haf discofered--"
Cautiously Prof. Darmstetter looked about the room. Then he leanedtoward me again and added in a hoarse whisper:--
"I haf discofered t'e Bacillus of Beauty."
Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day Page 10