No, you’ll never understand that torture. You’re reasonable; you occupy yourself with your business. I love you! I don’t know why. You alone connect me—or, rather, connected me—to humankind. You have a good heart, you’re honest, you’re loyal. There are also depths in honesty; generosity holds something of infinity; you console me for the narrowness of other hearts.
When I came back, having visited that which men have visited before me, having also, for the sake of pride, scaled peaks reputed to be inaccessible, contemplated sights that no human eye has ever beheld, I consulted my heart. It was empty. No joy had come to satisfy the faculty of expansion that drew my entire being.
It was then that I made you part of my project. I found myself torn between two alternatives: death and study. Death! Why did that word frighten me? Why did I experience in pronouncing it, a sensation similar to glacial cold? Why did my own disintegration seem fearful? Oh, If I had at least been sure that, liberated from the material fibers that enlaced me like a net of steel, my thought would have been able to launch itself freely towards immateriality, to plunge forever into waves incessantly renascent of infinity...but where is the proof of that possibility?
Above all, I wanted to see, to know, to anticipate that future before launching myself into it, as the diver does who tests the sea’s depth before throwing himself into it. And then again, could not these faculties, whose existence I observed I myself, procure me the joys I sought by their exercise? Was not the instinct that guided me proof in itself that it could be assuaged? Does not the man who feels the pangs of hunger for the first time find in that very appetite the proof of the existence of aliments? Does he not then go forth to search for what does not come to him?
I resolved to dedicate myself to new studies—and you know, my friend, that, furnished with all the necessary instruments, strong in my ardor and my will, I exiled myself voluntarily from the city to install myself on the little hill that is north of Hoboken. Here, for several months now, far from the world, I no longer look at the ground; my eyes, ceaselessly turned to the sky, interrogate that immense space whose limits are imperceptible. Oh, my dear fellow, if you only knew what splendid intoxication overwhelms my entire being during those long contemplations! The whirlwind of the infinite echoes in my brain…
Who, therefore, needs opium, hashish, and all those poisonous drugs that overexcite the brain to give one a feverish joy of which one does not even have a clear consciousness? For myself, calmly and coldly, I gaze at the sky. Then the hypnotism of the sidereal profundity imposes itself on my organs, and, in a sort of cataleptic immobility, I perceive nameless splendors. My senses are multiplied tenfold. I see in those eternities the lives of worlds that move and perpetuate themselves. And what movements! Vast cascades of light, rotating, falling and rising again in a limitless circle: the tides of the ether brushing the sidereal masses, and sometimes—a frightful reminder of my weakness in the face of that force!—annihilating them like paper balls in a founder’s furnace!
Then I fall back, broken and crushed; the intoxication is too violent—the fibers of my being are compressed by the pressure of splendor!—and nature takes back its empire as I faint.
It was during one of these crises, a few days ago, that an event occurred which might have a decisive influence on my existence. It happened one afternoon. The sky was clear, save for a few vaporous clouds floating in the sky, into which the light seemed to sink as in a transparent lake. I gazed, and the splendors I sought soon presented themselves to me.
The horizon appeared to me as an immense iridescent ring, in the middle of which concentric circles in parallel layers formed luminous and ever-changing waves, admirably tinted. These waves multiplied, and the space left free by their circumferences continually diminished in extent. At the central point was a resplendent radiant spray. All of a sudden, in the very heart of that dazzling symphony of light, a creature appeared. I can’t describe her; words fail me. She was the synthesis of all beauties, the birth of all gracefulness; she was the angel, the ideal, a thought given form, a dream come to life. She looked at me; her eyes met mine…it was as if I had been struck by lightning!
Naturally, when I recovered consciousness, my first thought was that the apparition had only existed in my imagination. Besides, where could such perfection be living? I was sitting on the terrace of my house, my head in my hands, letting my eyes wander at hazard. I was taking a rest from these emotions by looking at the ground, when a strange spectacle struck my eyes. Would you believe that, throughout my sojourn in that habitation, I had not yet examined the surroundings?
I don’t need to insist to make you understand that my eyes, devoted to vision since my earliest childhood, are endowed with a faculty of perception infinitely superior to that which other men’s eyes possess. What I perceived distinctly about four miles away, which struck me with astonishment, was a sort of palace of glass, about the size of an Oriental pavilion. There was not a particle of iron or wood to be seen. Curiously enough, the plates of glass upon which the Sun darted its sparkling rays were, without exception, violet in color—a violet that is only found in the crystal named iolite.
The pavilion was situated in the middle of a garden in which, without exception, all the trees, branches and the very leaves were of that same color; the ground, the soil, was also violet.
A door opened, and a young woman appeared, dressed in long violet vestments; these vestments were made of a gauze that allowed the light to circulate around the mot admirable body of which any sculptor ever dreamed. These divine forms owed nothing of their perfection to humanity; it was like a molding of condensed vapors, so pure and soft was its beauty. A veil of the same material and the color shaded the face, whose lines ere ideally ravishing. I cried out. It was her!—the one who, a few minutes before, had appeared to me radiant with splendor and immateriality in the midst of that scintillating sky. It was her!
Ah! I understood then what Love is. I understood that overwhelming sensation that takes possession of all the forces of being, stirs them up and revives them. She! For the first time I could pronounce that word that word with an inexpressible shudder, while it resounded like an echo in all the fibers of my body. That woman, that child—for I did not know, on my honor, the detail escaped me!—was my own thought; she was my infinity…she was my life…
Finally, I existed, I felt, I loved.
She! She!
Since you take a keen interest in that which concerns me, I shall keep you up to date with what happens. Thus far, I have not been able to reach her, but I do not despair of succeeding in that. Despair, when all my vitality is concentrated in that desire! When she is waiting for me, as I am waiting for her, when she calls to me, as I call to her!
Farewell for now, my friend—for now!
VII
Master Aloysius and Master Truphemus are in their laboratory—which is to say, the cellar—but the stoves are extinct, the retorts seem melancholy, and the alembics have a contrite air.
Even more contrite and melancholy than these inert objects, however, are the two animate beings who greet one another mutually with the name of doctor.
They are sitting down, facing one another. Aloysius’ thinness in more cadaverous than ever; Truphemus is just as round. Their arms are hanging limply down, in an attitude of discouragement. They look at one another, seemingly hesitant to speak.
“Bother!” says Truphemus, finally.
“Drat!” Aloysius replies.
“That must be…”
“Evidently.”
“Human resources have their limits…”
“They have their limits.”
“That’s indisputable.”
“Indisputable…”
“Certain…”
“Sure…”
Then silence falls again. Aloysius is downcast; Truphemus is despondent.
“And yet…”
“However…” Aloysius adds.
“The theory is sound…”
“Indisputable…”
“Indisputable…”
“Certain…”
“Sure...”
A further silence.
Truphemus recovers his presence of mind first; he puts both hands on his abdomen, which he taps.
“There, there!” he says. “We mustn’t allow ourselves to be beaten…and above all, we must never lose sight of the scientific method. If you’re agreeable, my savant companion, we’ll study all the facets of the problem logically.”
“Go on,” said Aloysius, whose indifference seems to acquiesce in advance with his associate’s reasoning.
The latter is not easily troubled; he is the orator of the duo.
“So, let’s retrace the chain of our deductions one by one, and see if we might have erred in some essential particular. First, this happened: your daughter Netty seemed to be wasting away, even though we had given her a double dose of nitrogen and albumin. Is that right?”
“True!” replied Aloysius, unable to refuse this first concession.
“The child was puny, her limbs were not developing sufficiently, and I sometimes recollect the anger that Dame Tibby…”
“May God have mercy on her soul!” murmured Aloysius—which informs us incidentally, that Netty’s mother is dead. The unfortunate woman had succumbed to a fatal anemia.
“May God have mercy on her soul!” repeated Truphemus. “So I said….” He searched his memory momentarily. The inopportune invocation of the Deity had raised an obstacle to the certainty of his argument. “Ah! I said that the new problem was this: to make the development of the body march in step with its nutrition. That’s what I had the honor of revealing to one evening, if you recall, when we were shut up in our laboratory after a succulent meal. Now, here I lay claim, if I may, to a certain originality of invention. I drew your attention to a phenomenon that experience had demonstrated to us…it is the rule, in science, that one can only proceed from the known to the unknown. What was the known? That a plant, a vegetable entity, subject to the action of violet light, grows with an infinitely greater rapidity than a vegetable subject to the action of white light. The fact is known, yes or no?”
To this rather peremptory proposition, Aloysius replied with a nod of his head, the nutus of the ancients—which sufficed for the positive Truphemus, who resumed with a new ardor.
“Good! What, then, was the unknown, the X to be discovered or verified? An analogy then suggested itself. This was the unknown: would the same phenomenon be produced if it were no longer a matter of entities placed in the second echelon of nature, but of motile creatures furnished with organs of locomotion—in a word, animals…if it were a matter of human beings? When I communicated this thought to you, which I do not hesitate, in spite of my modesty, to qualify as a stroke of genius, your superior intelligence was immediately struck by all that it presented of the ingenious, and especially by the immense horizon that it opened up to science. Were you struck, yes or no?”
“I was struck,” said Aloysius, meekly.
“Now, the ideal opportunity presented itself to carry out a conclusive experiment immediately. I still recall my words: ‘Master,’ I said to you, ‘a scientist has nothing that truly belongs to him; the researcher is neither proprietor, not possessor, nor papa. Your daughter Netty is rickety, sickly, undersized. Let us try on her the experiment that has succeeded so often with plants.’ To which you replied by this eminently practical sentence, which proves that sentiment never loses its rights: ‘Is a young girl not a flower?’ I made the observation that that was exactly the issue at stake, and, with a common accord, we agreed to submit young Netty to the constant action of violet rays. As truly intelligent men, we did not wish to delay the execution of our plan, and within a few days we had the violet pavilion constructed. I had coated the trees with the same color and modified their sap. You prepared a kind of sand designed to change the color of the ground. There remained the matter of costume, and Dame Tibby, who had adopted our idea with enthusiasm….”
“May God have mercy on her soul!”
“May God have mercy on her soul! As I was saying, Dame Tibby ran up the clothes that the child would wear with her own hands. All that is undeniable, undeniable, undeniable….”
“Undeniable,” repeated Aloysius.
“Now, three months have gone by. During that entire time, young Netty has been subject to the action of violet rays; she has seen violet, thought violet, eaten violet…she is impregnated by violet, steeped in violet…and it has been clear to us that our deductions had not led us astray for a single instant…for….”
“She has grown,” murmured Aloysius.
“Grown! Grown! Say that she had sprouted more rapidly than the liveliest of cryptogams! By the end of a fortnight she had put on half a foot; a month later, she measured three feet three inches. Today,”—here there was a pause—“she stands four feet eight inches, a perfectly normal stature for a woman. In three months, we have turned a child into an admirably-constituted creature who has reached her full height. Science has vanquished nature; it has constrained it to obedience; the result obtained is admirable, exceeding our wildest hopes. However…”
“However…?” said Aloysius, shaking his head.
“As nothing in this world is perfect, there is a shadow upon our perfect satisfaction—a shadow all the more serious, I confess, because it troubles certain previously-held notions…”
Aloysius, who had listened patiently thus far, stood up so suddenly that all his joints cracked at once. One might have thought that 50 knucklebones were rattling against one another. “She’s an idiot!” he cried, raising his eyes to the ceiling with an expression of profound despair.
Once again, Truphemus was able to keep calm, and he went on softly: “Idiot, idiot…perhaps it depends on what we mean by the expression, which seems to me improper…”
“Say stupid, silly, foolish…call it what you will,” Aloysius went on, “but it’s no less true that intelligence is absolutely lacking.”
“I said ‘what we mean’—but I don’t think there’s any need to shout. If it’s necessary to raise one’s voice—which is incompatible with the calmness befitting a wholly scientific discussion—I shall reply in the shrillest tone of which my larynx is capable: ‘No, no, and thrice no!’ She is not an idiot, nor stupid, nor silly, nor foolish!”
“What is she then?”
“She’s five years old in terms of intelligence, but she’s 20 years old in body.”
“You’re talking Hebrew! Explain!”
“Nothing is simpler, though,” Truphemus continued, resuming his professorial attitude. “The cerebro-spinal nervous system is the seat of sensibility and the source of voluntary movement; the action of the brain is indispensable to the perception of sensations and the manifestation of will—but where our knowledge stops is when it is necessary to decide whether the encephalic apparatus is the producer of thought or only the activator of faculties originating from a source other than the working of the system. When I told you just now that what happened today threw me a little, it was because until now I had been a partisan of the former hypothesis—which is to say, the production of thought by the cerebral apparatus. In the case that concerns us—that of Netty—the apparatus has developed, but thought has remained stationary. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” said Aloysius. “What can we do, then?”
“I’ve no idea,” replied Truphemus. “What about you?”
“No idea,” Aloysius said.
At that moment, a loud noise was heard outside, like numerous pieces of glass breaking.
The two scientists raced out of the house into the grounds.
“Where’s Netty?” cried Aloysius.
The violet pavilion had been built in the middle of the garden; it was a cage of large dimensions, in which a few indispensable items of furniture had been disposed, all covered in cloth of the same color. It was there that the child on whom the two chemists had tried their serious experime
nt lived. It was from there that the noise had come. A large pane of glass had broken.
But where was Netty? The two men looked everywhere, in vain. There was no one. They set out to make a careful tour of the garden, each taking one side, bending down to inspect every clump of foliage.
“Here she is!” cried Truphemus.
And from a bush beneath which she was concealed, the scientist drew out Aloysius’ daughter Netty by the hand.
Certainly, anyone who had seen her three months earlier would not have believed that he had the same creature before his eyes. Netty, the puny child, had become, under the influence of the Truphemic regime, a sturdy young woman, who appeared to be at least 18 years old. And she was, in fact, an admirably beautiful creature. It was certainly her that the young dreamer had seen from the heights of his open-air observatory, and his enthusiasm was justified. Her body was an assembly of all the physical perfections; she was life in its most complete and symmetrical manifestation.
Taken by surprise, the young woman leaned back to resist Truphemus’ grip—and, in truth, it seemed that it would only require an abrupt gesture to extract herself therefrom—but under the influence of shame and fear, she began to cry, letting loose piercing cries: “No! No! It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!”
Aloysius came running, his legs clicking. “Don’t hurt her!” he shouted to Truphemus.
“But I haven’t touched her!” replied the fat man, letting go of the young woman’s hand.
The latter realizing that she was free, immediately ran to a corner of the pavilion, where she crouched down and curled up. She raised her elbow level with her forehead, and continued whimpering and protesting.
“Let’s see! Let’s see! My little Netty!” said Aloysius. “There’s no need to get upset like this. Oh well! After all, it was an unfortunate accident. No one’s going to eat you!” And he teased her blond hair with the crooked tips of his bony fingers.
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