The Eternal Flame

by Michel Corday

  He linked arms with François and resumed walking. “I apologize, my friend, for having been the echo of these stupid rumors, but that’s because we can take a lesson from them, all the same—belated, it’s true. If you’ll take my advice you’ll stop exposing your distant hopes to poor devils short of copy, who deform them out of malice or stupidity. Remain reserved. Contain yourself—at least while we’re still in the launch period. Oh, when we hold the world in our hands, you can cradle it at your leisure—but we’re not there yet. On the contrary; we need all our strength, more than ever.”

  “Why?”

  Chérance had stopped beside his car, whose chauffeur was holding the door open.

  “Because a serious squall is threatening us. The conspiracy of silence made a sensible impact on Sidereal Energy, but, by an irony that won’t escape you, the explosion at Bellevue brought the Starter back into the news. Everyone making electricity is inclined to use your apparatus. The success of experiments in radio-propulsion, in particular, has opened the eyes of the big oil men, stirred up their fears. You know that two rival groups can march together. In the face of peril they’ll unite against us. The competition will be fierce. We need to win.”

  And Chérance leapt nimbly into his vehicle.

  Two years before, François had been left alone in the same fashion, on the edge of the terrace, after having accompanied Chérance to his car, but then the financier had left him full of hope. Today, he had put the most anxious doubt that can haunt a human being into his mind.

  His fingernails digging into his palms, however, he stiffened himself against the vertigo. No, no, he would not vacillate. He had his invention to defend, his work to realize. Proudly, he envisaged his task. It was unique. No human being had ever assumed one like it. The planet was running through space on its invisible rail, and he was its compass. Was he going to leave it to rotate piteously until it perished of cold around a cool sun? Or was he going to permit it to launch itself into infinite space one day, toward eternal life? He really did hold human destiny in his hands, as one holds a lever.

  It was up to him, and him alone, to ignite that vast hope, that promise of immortality. He no longer belonged to himself. He no longer had the right to weaken, to let go, before accomplishing his destiny. Oh, how beautiful it seemed to him, at that moment. Founders of religions had appeared on Earth to say to humans: “I am God.” Was his role not more marvelous still, having come to say to humans: “You shall be gods.”

  VIII

  Sitting by the window open to the summer, in the small room in which he had lived until his fifteenth year, Francois remained pensive. On the table, the proofs of his article, “The Better Life,” were spread out. They had arrived that morning at Briolle, and he was wondering whether he should send them back to Terra.

  Immediately after Chérance’s visit and that brief meditation in which he had envisaged the unique grandeur of his task, when he had stiffened himself against vertigo, he had decided to leave for Briolle. It was the best means of following the financier’s advice, of escaping the journalists for whom an excursion to Bellevue had become a kind of fashionable sport.

  Should he hide the odious rumor that constrained him to flee from Marianne? He had been very tempted to do so. The imminent vacation would have been sufficient to justify the departure for the country. He would thus avoid causing his wife unnecessary anxiety. Neither of them was completely free of the unjust prejudice that weighs upon the mentally ill, as it weighs upon suicides, which gives them a shameful, inadmissible character.

  On the other hand, he would not be able to prevent the absurd rumor from reaching Marianne. As soon as the gutter press got hold of it, Laronce would come running, his pockets stuffed with newspapers, with a little gleam ignited behind his steel-rimmed pince-nez. He always appeared on such occasions. He was even capable of bounding as far as Briolle, his birthplace.

  In the end, François felt so solid and secure, and the rumor appeared to him to be so incredible, that he would be able to report it to Marianne without troubling her, and he had given in to the relief of entrusting himself to his wife.

  The “silent darling” had retained her beautiful tranquility. She had scarcely been indignant. She had understood immediately that it was a matter of denigrating the inventor in order to denigrate the invention. It was a desperate attempt by adversaries who could not resign themselves to admitting that they were beaten, who would retreat one step at a time, seeking to delay the moment of their defeat.

  They had both simply resolved to leave their parents in ignorance of the stupid calumny. What was the point of troubling the joy of the Thibaults, so radiant every time their grown-up son, their god, returned to them? As for Pierre Contal, it would have been truly superfluous to furnish him with a further opportunity to raise his arms and eyes to the heavens and repeat that “it would all end badly”—especially given that he was fundamentally good and generous, and it would have pained him to be excessively triumphant.

  How often Francois had congratulated himself on having alerted his wife and taken her for an ally! Since their arrival at Briolle the telephone and the mail had brought them echoes of the gutter press, Marianne would surely have come across them. Forewarned, she helped him to stifle them, to prevent them from reaching the Thibaults.

  And then, this morning, the proofs of “The Better Life” had arrived at Briolle—and just as he prepared to correct them, the enormous irony of fate had become apparent to him. Was he about to proclaim his faith in humankind at the very moment when humankind was about to reveal its baseness so vilely? And he hesitated before the sheets spread out on his writing-pad.

  Save for the small bed transformed into a divan, nothing had changed in François’ bedroom since his childhood. He continued to reside there gladly every time he visited Briolle. It served him as a study. Brightly-colored English engravings and framed photographs stood out against the pale blue walls: a portrait of Monsieur Thibault in his naval uniform, commanding an entire squadron; pictures of little Francois, from François in his first short trousers to François on his first bicycle, via all sorts of little François, costumed as a Norman peasant, a hunter or a clown.

  A glazed pitch-pine display-case fitted to the wall contained his treasures, the souvenirs that his father had brought back from his voyages when he was a small boy: ash from Vesuvius, stuffed hummingbirds from Brazil, Malayan madrepores, uncut rubies from Laos, Polynesian corals, fossils found in Tunisian phosphates. Perhaps it was in collecting those specimens of the planet that he had acquired a sympathy for it. While very young, he had looked at his collection with the same loving gaze with which he was later to envelop the giant globe at the Center for Studies.

  His scientific toys were dormant in a cupboard: the first microscope, the first induction coil, the first electric motor, the internal telephone, the little radio set, He had been so frequently hypnotized by them in shop windows, had desired them so strongly, had experienced so much joy in possessing them, that he had sometimes thought, in their midst, that he was living a dream in an enchanted world. They were his magic wands.

  A small Louis XVI secretaire served as his desk. It was there that, for years, for half an hour a day, his father had given him a broad view of all important knowledge in simple outlines. Monsieur Thibault had always tried to make his lessons as interesting as anecdotes, so effectively that young François, condemning an entire pedagogical system off-hand without knowing it, said: “But it isn’t work, since it isn’t boring.”

  Twenty years had passed. Now on his little school desk, proofs from the most influential periodical in the world were waiting for him. It was offering him the chance to be heard throughout the world. His corrected text would be immediately translated into English, German and Spanish for printing in four languages. But he could not bring himself to start work. He feared, in that confrontation with his written thoughts, no longer being in agreement with himself; for he had to confess that the base attacks had succeed in
disturbing him. They had not caused him any serious and continuous anxiety as to his reason—obviously, he did not doubt his lucidity—but he had begun to doubt his faith, his mission.

  Nevertheless he began to reread his text. He had first inveighed against the grievances that it was fashionable to heap upon scientific progress, even though its worst detractors, those privileged by fortune, were the most prompt to take advantage of it in all its forms. Not only did they deny it, that unfortunate progress, but even reproached it for being a regression, a reversion to barbarity.

  Evidently, François recognized in his article, technology has created a new slavery, that of the wage-earning factory worker. Evidently, the production-line and mechanization are shocking in their cruel rigor. Evidently, the reign of speed, arrogant and brutal, encourages and multiplies coarseness. Evidently, capital cities, with their congested arteries, their toxic atmosphere, their blazing signs, enfever life more than they embellish it. But so what? The machine age is less than a hundred years old. What is that? It is taking its first steps. And we know that infancy is excessive in its cries, its gestures, and all its manifestations. We are therefore subject to the excess of technology before acquiring all its advantages. One the ingrate age is over, and the first frenzy has past, it will become moderate, flexible, and disciplined.

  Then again, the adversaries of scientific progress really did leave too many benefits in the shade. There were, however, evident truths, truths to warrant the distribution of prizes, as François put it, apologizing for recalling them. That same technology, so decried, has reduced the working day from twelve hours to eight in fifty years. It has brought comfort into zones that are increasing incessantly. Medical discoveries have extended average life-expectancy by ten years in a single generation. Rapid transport and instantaneous communication, by permitting the planet to be better known, have done more in the same interval to bring individuals dear to one another together more often, and to allow help to be brought more quickly to others, have rendered life fuller, more sensitive and more concentrated. If the telephone bill were calculated honestly, in terms of what has been realized thanks to its existence, and what would not have been realized without it, it would be recognized that it has changed the conditions of life. And has not radio broadcasting modified it as much? Are not household tasks, like couture and cuisine, lightened when they are accompanied by music? When the speaker brings news of the entire world into every hearth, does it not seem to enlarge rooms and minds?

  Then François came to the real, the great problem. Having attempted to establish that material progress exists, he asked whether moral progress exists: progress in conduct. In his view, the two questions were linked. He saw material wellbeing as the necessary condition of moral wellbeing. Only a people materially favored could improve morally. It was only on the solid platform of material progress that moral progress could be edified. But would it be edified? And François gave his reasons for hope.

  First of all, he measured the road already traveled. Had not life been morally improved since the age of cave-dwellers? Was there not a difference between the rude and bestial ancestor and the scientist who dissects the atom and weighs the stars? Had not humans, along the way, distributed treasures of art and beauty sprung from their fingers and minds? Had the creatures themselves not been enriched, in making their way? Were they still primitive brutes? Had they not shown that they knew how to ornament themselves with charm and grace, elegance and nobility, that they were capable of altruism and generosity, of courage and rectitude, of so many kind or affectionate impulses, so many spiritual or chivalrous actions, that we can glimpse a gleam of a better humankind within them?

  And François envisaged another reason for hope:

  “The mass of information that we owe to science has not yet penetrated minds profoundly. That is logical, for the notions are recent; they are only a few centuries old. But the time will come when they are finally familiar to the crowd. Then they will react on morality in a favorable direction.”

  And he clarified that view with an example:

  “Astronomy ought to be the first of the sciences, because it is narrowly involved in our lives. It regulates the clock and dictates the calendar; it determines day and night, rain and good weather, leads the cycle of the seasons and explains all the celestial miracles suspended over our heads. Well, when astronomy has penetrated minds, it will deposit there the notion of interdependence. Everything in the universe is connected. The worlds are united by sensible bonds. The impact that disturbs one of them id felt by the others. Moreover, just as the worlds are connected in space, so the cells are connected in the body; when one of them overheats, the entire body is feverish. Thus, at the extremities of the microscope and the telescope, one finds the same law.

  “Now, that notion of solidarity in the infinitely large and the infinitely small has not yet struck minds forcefully. Thus, humans are poorly defended against contagion, which is the maleficent aspect of the interdependence of beings, and they are in no hurry to reap the benefits of that solidarity. The tenants in the same house, the readers of the same newspaper, the users of the same network, are not yet associated. When they do unite, however, they dictate their law. A time will come when human beings, better enlightened by science, will finally perceive that they are dependent on one another, like the cells of an organism or heavenly bodies. Then they will understand that it is in their interest to unite, to help one another, that altruism is only the prolonged flowering of egotism. Then they will conform to the great laws of solidarity, of harmony, of equilibrium that govern the universe, and will finally create a morality inspired by science.”

  No, human beings have not yet attained the limit of mental possibilities—and François suggested proofs of that.

  “Everyone has been able to observe in himself that the imagination is richer in dreams than in the waking state. One is amazed by its fantasies, and its ingenuity, its boldness in sleep. One exclaims: ‘How was I able to find all that?’ That signifies clearly that we have not yet caused all the notes of the human keyboard to resonate in everyday life. Why should humans not spread out in the light all the treasures that are only enjoyed thus far in the dark? That will come.”

  Another proof. The most innocent gulp of champagne, the slightest stimulant, enables us to see life through rose-tinted lenses, not painted in black. All intoxication teds toward lightness. Does that not signify that when our faculties are exalted, expended, they show us life as it ought to be, as it might be: the better life; the life to come?

  He proclaimed once again:

  “How can one despair of moral progress when one discovers the improvement that physical being can achieve? Think about the prodigies realized by the heart, by hearing, sight, and most of all, the human brain. The same beings that bear those marvels within them simultaneously show themselves to be so coarse, so crudely hewn. Is there not a shocking anomaly there, that must slowly disappear? Doubtless it required millions of years to bring the physical being to that level of perfection. Why should mental being, in further millions of years, not attain the same summit? Why should human beings, anatomical marvels, not become as perfect mentally as they already are physically?”

  From line to line, his enthusiasm and his confidence increased.

  “There are two beautiful human types. Why should all humans not become beautiful? There are intelligent individuals. Why should all individuals not become intelligent? Yes, these questions might appear naïve, but reflect on them. Selection, which we practice on animal and vegetable species, realizes that miracle every day. All the individuals of the same species can attain perfection. Only the reproduction of the human species is left to chance—but that aberration will be renounced. Has not the important influence of internal glands on human faculties already been established? Can we not envisage from now on a mental orthopedics founded on that discovery? There is no doubt about it: the future holds the promise of happiness.”

  And he had decided to conc
lude his article with an allusion to the infinite destiny of the Earth.

  “Alas, morose minds might think, if it existed, progress would be limited. What is the point of so much effort, since the human race must disappear on the day when the Sun will no longer warm the Earth? Well, no. The human race will not necessarily disappear. We now know that our descendants will have an inexhaustible energy-source at their disposal. Let us imagine, boldly, that they will be able to modify the orbit of the planet, launch it toward other suns that will pour new youth into it. Then, a literally-eternal humankind will be able to nourish the hope of infinite progress.”

  François pushed the proofs away. He smiled bitterly. He remembered the recent times in which he had surrendered himself to the journalists who had hastened to Bellevue, with so much confidence, joy, abandonment and radiant enthusiasm; when he had preached his faith in the infinite destiny of the Earth; when he had showed them human genius hurling its eternal flame into space.

  Oh, he had not suspected then that he was exposing his flank to his adversaries, Chérance had been right. The press that the financier called “the rags” had soon gone to work. A strange trade! It picked up scraps, scrapings, dust and excreta everywhere that the residues of life were evacuated. It transformed them, dressed them up, and sold them on, like those enterprises that process household waste, drawing motive force, fertilizer and bricks therefrom.

  Every day the post brought him those petty infamies, or the telephone notified him of them. One never remains ignorant of a disagreeable echo. Some friend, out of zeal or malice, will always send you the poisonous cuttings.

  The majority of the articles worked by insinuation. They were concierges’ whispers: “It’s said that...” “I don’t know whether it’s true, but...” Sometimes they were hypocritically deplored, with a sigh. Some, on the other hand, lied brazenly. They cited the asylums or sanitaria in which the inventor was confined. Others affected a bantering tone, joking about his nurses, his straitjacket, his cold showers, his padded cell.