“Tell me, Ralph—what is it?”
The master of the lightning turned to Mrs. Parker with the smiling eyes that characterize phlegmatic Yankee good humor. “A surprise!” he said, his cigar still moving.
There were four of us in the hall: Parker, his wife, his nephew Teddy and me.
“Oh, Ralph! Why make me wait?”
The illustrious old man started laughing silently, and his turquoise eyes, in his clear face, gazed with infinite tenderness at the delightful creature who was brightening his declining years. He took her child-like hand and kissed it.
Teddy examined the screen in his turn in a disinterested manner. To tell the truth, all of his uncle’s science left him indifferent. He was a colossal young man, an athletic sportsman, who always seemed to be fresh from the bathroom after a game of polo or rugby. I knew him through the tennis club, and he was the person who had introduced me to Parker a year before. “Radiography?” he suggested, however.
Randolph Parker, more cheerful than I had ever seen him, exclaimed: “You too, Teddy! Well, in a little while, I’ll reveal the surprise! But first, if our friend would like to follow me, I’ll show him something that wouldn’t interest a little girl or a young heavyweight boxer. It’s upstairs, in my laboratory. Have a little patience, Mary. We’ll be down again in five minutes.”
I followed him. The elevator took us up, and we went into the laboratory.
Parker was radiant. He took me by the arm and said: “The finest hour of my life!”
I studied him curiously, transported myself by a contagious cheerfulness, because I liked him very much and because I knew that only some immense good fortune could have given him that radiant face.
“A discovery?” I asked him.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “Yes, naturally. Randolph Parker’s great discovery! Look. Here, next to the telephone: this little screen, exactly similar to the one in the hall—which, you might have noticed, is also next to a telephone. The two telephones enable us to communicate directly—my wife and I—when she’s in the hall and I’m here in my laboratory.
“The surprise is the same one that I’ll reveal later to Mary and Teddy. My friend, you’re about to witness a veritable scientific event: an invention that everyone has been seeking avidly; a marvel that humankind has been awaiting feverishly since the progress of science made the promise to its appetite, ever since it has become possible to transmit engravings and drawings electrically…”
“Vision at a distance!” I exclaimed.
“You’ve said it. I only have to unhook the speaker. Immediately, at the moment when the customary bell rings in the hall, my image will appear on the screen downstairs, as if that screen were a mirror, and as if I were standing in front of that mirror! And at the same instant, this screen here will reflect the hall for our eyes, and you’ll see the image of my wife there! Watch!”
Parker had placed his white hand, marbled with glorious burns, on the nickel-plated receiver.
I could not retain an impulsive gesture that I will regret forever. With an instinctive promptness that surpassed the speed of my thought, I seized the scientist’s wrist in order to immobilize it.
“What are you doing?” he asked, astonished.
“Nothing…” I replied. “The emotion…”
I released him—for, after all, my gesture was stupid. It betrayed Mrs. Parker more surely and more definitively than the consequences that might not even have followed! Who could tell whether the lovers had taken advantage of Parker’s brief absence? Who could tell whether the screen in the laboratory might not reflect the most innocent scene in the world?
Alas, the stupidity had been committed! Parker, who was staring at me, suddenly went pale. Then he lowered his head silently—and I found nothing to say to him, for I thought him greater than he was.
Greater, certainly. I had not suspected that love could be so forceful in that old wounded heart, and that Parker was about to do what he did.
“My friend,” he said to me, dryly, “would you care to go downstairs. Tell them that the surprise is not ready, that my invention is not complete, contrary to what I had hoped. You may add, to console Mary, that I have made a discovery even more important…”
So saying, Parker set about dismantling the screen with a trembling screwdriver.
I was in despair.
“Go on!” he said. “I beg you—and have no regrets. All things considered, you see, our discoveries have done more harm than good. Then again, such discoveries are always ‘in the air’ at a certain moment. Vision at a distance…someone else will invent it tomorrow.”
“But what about the glory?” I stammered.
“Go!” he repeated.
But I had detected a brief indecision in his movements of demolition—and ever since, having returned to France, I have been waiting for the newspaper fanfare telling the world about Parker’s discovery to let me know that I have been forgiven.
THE TRUTH ABOUT FAUST
Doctor Faust, a graying quinquenagarian, looked at his visitor thoughtfully.
Mephistopheles was sitting very comfortably in a large winged armchair, the leather of which was burning slowly, with a nauseating odor, in response to contact with his person. The Devil was tapping the arm-rests with a clawed hand, which left marks like a hot iron. He affected to be waiting, not without impatience, for the alchemist’s decision, and scanned the surroundings with an indifferent gaze.
Shadows were massing in the laboratory. Rain pattered on the panes of the arched window. The embers of the furnace, which projected a red light, could be heard crackling amid the retorts. Occasional drops of water fell from the humid vault, and whenever one of them touched the Demon, steam and a hissing sound advertised the fact.
“Decide, Doctor,” said Mephistopheles. “Once again, what do you need? It’s not that I’m in a hurry—eternity awaits me—but I’m as fearful of catching a chill as anyone else. Then again, I’ve warned you—if you meditate for as much as another quarter-hour, the armchair will be burned through, and you’ll have to get it repaired, or sit on the trunk…”
The indecisive Faust, his arm extended upon a thick table-top, mechanically rotated the cup that was filed with the poisoned beverage.
“You have a famous flaw,” Mephistopheles went on. “And that, meaning no insult, is thinking too much. My word, you’ve cut a hair from a woman’s head into four—which is quite remarkable, in is day and age.”
Perplexed, Faust ran through the notions of his philosophy in his head. What should he ask for, by virtue of the pact? The fulfillment of what wish would restore his desire to live?”
“I’m off!” said the Devil, getting up. “Au revoir, Doctor—I’ll come back another time. Between now and then, you’ll have come to a decision.”
“No!” cried the thinker. “Stay! Just a moment! One more moment!”
“All right!” accepted the Devil, sitting down again.
Faust offered him a chocolate box. “Would you like a bonbon?” he asked.
“Gladly.” Neglecting the candy, however, the Devil delicately selected a still-ardent ember and crunched it between his teeth.
Shrugging his shoulders, Faust murmured: “Show-off!”
And nothing more was heard, save for the downpour and the furnace.
To distract himself, Mephitopheles drew smoking arabesques on the arm of the chair with the tip of his claw. “Pyrogravure,” he said, improvising the word.
“Pardon?” said Faust.
“Nothing, Doctor. Anticipation.”
“No more whimsy—I’ve found it!”
“Archimedes said that in Greek.”
“I know what I want!”
“Go on.”
“Youth.”
“Damnation, Monsieur! Anything but that!”
“More than that,” said Faust, with a penetrating gaze.
“More than that?” said the Evil One, bewildered. “Me!”
“What do you mean by that ‘Me!
’ Master of Obscurity?”
“I said ‘Me!’ as you might say ‘The Devil!’ And you must recognize that one might swear for less. What! Youth and more than youth!”
“Listen,” Faust retorted. “If I were an old man, and old man abandoned by desire, you know as well as I do that the recovery of youth would have no attraction in my eyes. But I’m 58 years old, if I’m not mistaken, and my soul is often troubled by desires that the state of my body prevents me from satisfying…”
“Yes,” the Devil interrupted, with a smile that might have been described as licentious, “but youth alone…”
Faust stamped his foot. “Incorrigible goat!” he protested. “Understand me, then! The best part of youth is neither its strength nor its seduction, but the future that extends before it!”
“In truth,” Mephistopheles remarked, “it’s you that’s being obscure. I know a witch who can give you back your twenties. Do you consent? With that done, what will your happiness lack?”
“The consciousness of being young. The sentiment of the future. I remember, you know. I was handsome. My limbs were powerful, my brain contained a world. Life and happiness were the same thing. But listen: I didn’t appreciate it. Young men don’t know…the joy of their spring-time is unknown to them, O my guest, until the first snows of their winter fall. And it’s only today that all the grace of my past is resplendent in my old memory. For one does not know that one is young; and does that which one does not know really exist?”
“In brief,” Mephistopheles concluded, “you want to be young and not to be young at the same time. You’re a wise man and a madman. Wise, when you imagine the dream of which you speak, mad when you want to realize it. Oh, Monsieur! To enclose your soul, full of experience, in the dazzling flesh of a juvenile body! To make, in combination, knowledgeable youth and powerful old age! What an admirable monster you would be within Creation! But don’t you think that such a prodigy is impossible, even for…the Other, up there, who did not wish that the color black could become white and yet remain black?” And as Faust remained somber, he added: “Come on, Doctor, it’s not that I’m reluctant to perform. A pact is a pact—but no one can do the impossible. And if I were to give you some advice—listen to me, in your turn—then you must choose: either one is young, without, as you put it, knowing it, or one is no longer young, and able to savor one’s youth. Which will you plump for, in the end? To recover your twenties without taking pleasure therein, or to remember gladly having lived them?”
Discouraged by a sullen silence, he made a dismissive gesture, and took a few steps away.
“Prosit!” said Faust.
The Spirit of Evil turned his head, and saw the philosopher drink a draught from the poisoned cup.
“As you please!” groaned the Devil. “Much good may it do you!” And he retired, presumably, whence he had come. No one knows how.
THEM
They had a very nice house in Passy. Florine walked very carefully through the garden, with its neat lawn and hortensias, which separated the little house from the laboratory building. Midday had just sounded. Philippe’s two assistants came out of the outbuilding. They bowed to Madame Chambrun with respectful briskness, visibly surprised by the familiar but unexpected sight of so much grace and elegance. She replied with a pretty and benevolent smile and headed for the staircase in the shade of the corridor.
At the very top, a door opened on to a hall of vast dimensions. It had once been a painter’s studio, but rows of chemical vats and sets of electrical apparatus now made it a place of science—redoubtable, to be sure.
“You’ve changed the door!” said Florine. “Is it because of air currents? Indeed, it must be…”
She closed the rubber-lined door behind her; it made a muffled sound as it sealed itself with a rigorous exactitude.
Philippe Chambrun laughed. He was just as the newspapers depicted him from time to time: tall and bony, with lively and kindly eyes and a broad forehead surmounted by rebellious hair that stuck out oddly. All sorts of multicolored stains spattered his white smock. He was pouring a bluish liquid into a glass flask, which he was holding up in order to see it better.
Without ceasing to laugh he put down the glassware, took off his glorious stains and came to meet his wife, whom he took by the shoulders in order to contemplate her before embracing her.
She was exactly 23 years old. He was 40. They had been married for 18 months.
Florine looked up at him sulkily and muttered: “I know perfectly well that it isn’t because of air currents.”
“What is the cause, then?” he set, leaning his head maliciously to one side.
Suddenly—which almost never happened—femininity got the upper hand. Caprice possessed Florine. She pulled away and said, peevishly: “You’re mocking me. Let me go! Why don’t you want to tell me what you’re doing? Do you think I’m incapable of understanding?”
“Oh, Florine!” he said, reproachfully.
“Or of keeping a secret?”
Disconcerted, he looked at her, searching for an explanation. “Come on, Florine, my love, you’re not serious? What’s got into you?”
There are days when the most reasonable of women are only temperamental little girls. This one, habitually so affectionate, and in reality so wise, abruptly burst into tears. Someone other than Philippe—less of a scientist, perhaps—would have understood what kind of annoyance had caused those tears to flow He only saw someone shedding them upon herself because she thought herself stupid, odious and pitiful. He believed her words, since she had not retracted them—and he was distressed to see his little Florine so strangely unhappy.
He reflected. His face became extraordinary grave and pensive. “All right, I’ll tell you. Are you satisfied?”
“Yes,” she said, with an exquisite smile, wiping her eyes. “And I swear that I’ll keep your secret. For there is one, isn’t there?”
“A secret—yes, a truly strange secret,” he murmured. And he began to march hither and yon, without saying anything further, seemingly perplexed.
“So,” she said, pointing at the apparatus, “all of this…”
As he was about to speak, though, he seemed to be seized by a sudden dread. “Not here! Not here! It would doubtless be more prudent…”
In her turn, Florine looked at him curiously. “Come on, Philippe—we’re alone! Your assistants have gone. We are alone, aren’t we, Philippe?”
“Does one ever know?” he said, in a bizarre tone.
Anxiety took hold of Florine. She no longer felt safe in the laboratory—and she was painfully amazed by that.
“Let’s go,” Philippe went on, more calmly. “I presume you came to fetch me for lunch.”
“Yes…”
She dared not interrogate him during the meal. He continued in his silence. He pondered and reflected, sometimes screwing up his eyes, as if to follow the imaginary curve of his thoughts through space. Then his gaze returned to Florine and, relaxing, he smiled at her—but he was still absorbed.
Once, while the domestic who was serving them was out of the room, he said: “My assistants…they don’t know anything. I haven’t confided anything, thus far, to anyone. And it’s noticeable that I’ve worked in peace, which seems to prove…seems to prove…”
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he relied, frowning.
She had the impression that he was still afraid that someone was listening to them, and, while a disagreeable frisson made her shudder, she made a proposal: “Speak English!”
He shrugged his shoulders, and fell silent again. After a pause, he resumed, fixing her with an anxious gaze. “To modify the atmosphere of the laboratory. There it is. By operating the transformation from the viewpoint of…” He stopped, his finger on his lips, his eyes furtive.
“I don’t understand at all,” she admitted.
“Evidently. You can’t understand like that. Listen, we’re going out. Spare me any comments. We’ll get the car and go for a d
rive…a long drive. We’ll come back this evening, late.”
“Good,” she said.
Many times over, she had already told herself that it would definitely be better to give up on knowing the secret of Philippe’s research. She could not go back now, though. Not because she wanted to take things far enough to find out whether she ought to suspect some derangement of that splendid intelligence—no such thought ever entered her head—but because she was prey to a passionate curiosity, which it was necessary to satisfy.
The car was easily capable of an average speed of 70. At 5 p.m., Monsieur and Madame Chambrun were installed beneath an arbor on the bank of the Loire, taking tea.
“230 kilometers,” said Philippe. “That’s quite something. Perhaps, however, the precaution was entirely unnecessary. Enough! After all, it’s doubtless preferable that I should no longer be the only one with the secret. If it’s a matter of my approval, the thing is, in any case, certain.”
But he seemed as anxious as he had been in Paris, regarding the consequences of an explanation.
“I’ll try to make you understand as rapidly as possible, with the fewest words. Don’t speak. Listen to me in silence. Act exactly as if it were certain that someone were spying on us.”
He paused then for several minutes, preoccupied with his deliberations, and finally took from his pocket one of those little portable slates from which one can erase in the blink of an eye, by the flicker of a shutter, the words that one has traced. It was thus that he wrote, piece by piece, what Florine read by degrees behind the screen of his hand.
Our senses feeble. Not very numerous. Can only allow us to perceive an infinitesimal part of nature. Would be absurd to think that only the things we can see and touch exist. Odds strongly favor that we are living amid a multitude of invisible and impalpable beings. If they exist, what are they? Mystery. Perhaps they, too, are unsuspecting of our existence. Perhaps, on the contrary, they exercise all sorts of influence upon us. One might even suppose—at the worst—that they control us without our knowing it. What if it’s to them that we sometimes—or always—owe what happens to us, even our maladies? That when we die, it’s they who kill us.
The Doctored Man Page 24