The Eternal Adam and other stories

by Jules Vernes

  ‘But,’ he told us, ‘our work has had to stop for the moment, because I have already put up some of my new buildings between the first and last excavations, where the two extremities of the skeleton were uncovered.’

  ‘But are you sure,’ someone asked, ‘that the two ends of the animal are joined together under the unexplored area?’

  ‘There isn’t the slightest doubt about that,’ Hopkins assured his questioners. ‘Judging from the bone fragments we have dug up so far, the creature must be gigantic – much, much bigger than the famous mastodon that was discovered in the Ohio valley some time ago.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ exclaimed a Mr Cornut, who was a naturalist of sorts, and ‘did’ science in the same way as his fellow-citizens did business.

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ replied Hopkins. ‘The monster’s structure shows that it obviously belonged to the order of pachyderms, for it possesses all the characteristics so well described by Mr de Humboldt.’

  ‘It’s really a shame,’ I interjected, ‘that the whole skeleton can’t be dug up.’

  ‘And what’s stopping us?’ Cornut asked excitedly.

  ‘Why ... the buildings that have just been put up ...’

  I had hardly uttered these words, which seemed to me nothing more than plain common sense, when I found myself surrounded by a circle of disdainful smiles. To these worthy merchants, it seemed a very simple matter to tear everything down, even the largest of buildings, in order to unearth a creature that dated from the time of the flood. No one was surprised, therefore, when Hopkins announced that he had already given orders to that effect. Everyone congratulated him heartily, and opined that fortune was right in favouring bold and enterprising men. For myself, I offered him my warmest compliments and promised to be one of the first to come and see his marvellous discovery. I even offered to go to Exhibition Park (a term that was by now in the public domain), but he asked me to wait until the excavations had been completed, for it was still too soon to estimate how huge the fossil really was.

  Four days later, the New York Herald published new details about the gigantic skeleton. The carcass was not, the writer declared superciliously, that of a mammoth, or a mastodon, or a megatherium, or a pterodactyl, or a plesiosaurus. The remains of all the above-mentioned creatures belong to the tertiary era, or to the Mesozoic at the very earliest, whereas the excavations that Hopkins was directing went right to the primal layers of the earth’s crust, in which no fossil had ever been discovered before. This display of science (of which the American merchants understood very little) aroused considerable excitement. What other conclusion could be drawn but that this monster – since it was neither a mollusc, nor a pachyderm, nor a rodent, nor a ruminant, nor a carnivore, nor a sea mammal – was a man? And that this man was a giant more than forty metres tall? No one could now deny the existence of a race of titans older than homo sapiens. If this were true (and everyone agreed that it was), even the best established geological theories would have to be changed, for fossils had been found well below the diluvian deposits, indicating that they had been buried there before the flood.

  The New York Herald article created a tremendous sensation. It was reprinted in full by every newspaper in the United States. This topic of conversation was soon the order of the day, and the most complicated scientific terms were being pronounced by the prettiest lips in the New World. Great discussions opened up, leading to deductions that were highly flattering to America, for it was here, rather than in Asia, that the cradle of humanity was to be found. In conventions and academies, it was clearly proven that America, which had been inhabited since the beginning of the world, had obviously been the starting point of a series of migrations. The honours of antiquity passed from the Old World to the New. Voluminous dissertations, inspired by patriotic ambition, were written on this very serious topic. Finally, a meeting of scientists, the minutes of which were published and commented on by every newspaper in the United States, proved beyond all shadow of doubt that the earthly Paradise, bounded by Pennsylvania, Virginia and Lake Erie, occupied at one time the territory that is now the state of Ohio.

  I must confess that all this daydreaming fascinated me beyond measure. I pictured Adam and Eve in command of packs of ferocious beasts that actually existed in America, whereas on the banks of the Euphrates not the slightest trace of them is to be found. In my mind’s eye, the tempting serpent took on the form of a boa constrictor or a rattlesnake. But what surprised me most was the slavish and uncritical credence given to this discovery. It never entered anyone’s mind that this famous skeleton might be a fraud, a bluff, or as the Americans say, a humbug. Not one of these keen scientists thought of going to see with his own eyes the miracle that was causing such a commotion in his brain. I mentioned this to Mrs Melvil.

  ‘Why bother?’ she said. ‘We’ll see our precious monster when the time comes. Everyone knows what it looks like, because you can’t go a mile anywhere in America without coming across a picture of it in one form or another. Some of the pictures show a lot of imagination, too.’

  That was indeed the true genius of the speculator. Augustus Hopkins had been very close-mouthed about his proposed Exhibition, but when it came to planting the idea of his miraculous skeleton in the minds of his fellow-Americans, he used all the zeal, inventiveness, and imagination at his command. He could do whatever he wanted, because his eccentricities had already attracted the attention of the public.

  Before long, walls throughout the city were covered with coloured posters showing the monster in a wide variety of shapes and forms. Hopkins used every kind of poster known to man, and in the most striking colours. He plastered them on walls, on dockside parapets, on tree trunks along public walkways. On some, the lines were printed diagonally, on others, the message was spelled out in broad brush strokes, which no passerby could possibly miss. On every street there were men walking up and down, wearing jackets and coats bearing pictures of the skeleton. In the evening, immense transparencies projected its black outline against a brilliantly lit background.

  But Hopkins was not satisfied with such everyday American publicity methods. Posters and page four newspaper advertisements were not enough for him. He devised a course of studies in ‘skeletology’, in which he quoted Cuvier, Blumenbach, Backland, link, Stemberg, Brongniart, and a hundred other palaeontologists. His courses were so well attended and so highly applauded that one day two people were crushed to death at the door.

  Needless to say, Mr Hopkins arranged magnificent funerals for them. The flags in the funeral procession displayed, once again, the ubiquitous outline of the currently fashionable fossil. All these publicity stunts worked very well in and around the city of Albany, but now the important thing was to expand the campaign throughout the entire country. When Jenny Lind was making her debut in England, a Mr Lumley offered to give the soap manufacturers free moulds, depicting the portrait of the eminent prima donna. The offer was accepted and produced excellent results, since people were now using the famous singer’s face to wash their hands. Hopkins employed a similar method. He contracted with cloth manufacturers to have them produce material for clothing that would appeal to the good taste of customers by displaying an illustration of his prehistoric creature. It was printed on the inside of hats, and even plates were decorated with the outline of the amazing phenomenon! And so on, and so on. It was impossible to escape it. You could not get dressed, put on a hat, or eat dinner, except in this interesting company.

  All this high-pressure salesmanship had a tremendous effect. And so, when newspapers, drums, trumpets, and volleys of musket fire announced that the miracle would shortly be put on display for public admiration, a cheer went up on all sides. Preparations were begun for building an enormous hall, large enough to hold, as the advertisements put it, ‘not only the myriads of enthusiastic spectators, but also the skeleton of one of those giants who, according to legend, attempted to climb up to heaven’.

  I had only a few more days to spend in Al
bany. I was bitterly disappointed at not being able to extend my visit long enough to attend the opening of this unique spectacle, but since I did not want to leave without seeing something, at least, I made up my mind to pay a secret visit to Exhibition Park.

  Setting out one morning with my gun on my shoulder. I walked north for about three hours without finding any information about my desired goal, but five or six miles farther on, as I was looking for the site of old Fort William, I reached my journey’s end.

  I was standing in the middle of an immense plain, one small part of which had been disturbed by some recent, but not extensive, excavations. A fairly large area was tightly sealed off by a wooden fence. I had no idea whether this fence marked out the site of the Exhibition, but that fact was confirmed for me by a beaver hunter whom I met in the neighbourhood as he was on his way to the Canadian border.

  ‘It’s here all right,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know what’s going on, because just this morning I heard a lot of rifle shots.’

  I thanked him and continued my search.

  I saw not the slightest trace of any work going on outdoors. The unbroken plain, to which gigantic construction works were supposed to bring life and movement, lay wrapped in total silence. Since I could not satisfy my curiosity without getting inside the fence, I decided to walk around it and try to find a way in. I walked for a long time without seeing anything that resembled a door, and had decided, in my disappointment, to settle for a crack or a hole that I could put my eye to, when I noticed, at a corner of the fence, some boards and posts that had been knocked down.

  I quickly scrambled into the enclosure, and found that the ground under my feet had been completely torn up. Huge pieces of rock lay scattered wherever the gunpowder blasts had deposited them. The area was dotted with little mounds of earth that looked like waves on an angry sea. Finally I came to the edge of a deep excavation, at the bottom of which lay a large quantity of bones.

  There, before my eyes, was the object of all the fuss and advertising. There was certainly nothing unusual about what I saw. It was a heap of bone fragments of every kind, broken into a thousand pieces. On some, the breaks appeared to be fairly recent. I did not recognise any major human bones which, according to the dimensions that had been announced, would have had to be of a tremendous size. With the help of a little imagination, I could have believed that I was in a boneblack factory and nothing more.

  Needless to say, I was still very confused. For a moment I thought I had been on a wild-goose chase. Suddenly, on an embankment covered with footprints, I noticed a few drops of blood. I followed the trail of blood back to the opening, and there I found more bloodstains that I had not seen when I came in. My glance fell on a scrap of powder-blackened paper lying beside the bloodstains. It had probably come from the wad of a firearm. Everything fitted in with what the beaver hunter had told me.

  I picked up the piece of paper and painstakingly deciphered a few of the words scribbled on it. It was a bill for materials supplied to Mr Augustus Hopkins by a certain Mr Barckley. There was nothing to indicate the nature of the items supplied, but I found more scraps of paper scattered here and there, which provided the missing information. In spite of my disappointment, I had to laugh. I was indeed in the presence of the giant and its skeleton, but it was a skeleton made up of very heterogeneous parts, which since time immemorial had roamed the plains of Kentucky under such names as buffalo, heifer, cow, and bull. Mr Barckley was an ordinary New York butcher who had delivered enormous quantities of bones to the famous Mr Augustus Hopkins. Those fossils had certainly never piled Pelion on Ossa to scale Olympus! Their remains owed their presence there to the efforts of the illustrious scam artist, who had known all along that he would discover them by chance in the course of laying the foundations for a palace that would never exist!

  I had reached that point in my reflections, and my hilarity (which might have been more sincere if I had not, like my hosts themselves, been the victim of this incredible humbug) when I heard shouts of joy coming from outside the fence.

  Hurrying back to the opening, I saw Mr Augustus Hopkins in person running up, rifle in hand, obviously very pleased about something. When I walked towards him, he did not seem at all perturbed at finding me on the scene of his exploits.

  ‘Victory! Victory!’ he shouted.

  The two black servants, Bobby and Dacopa, followed him at a distance. Experience warned me to be on my guard, in case the audacious master of mystery should decide to use me as a target.

  ‘I’m in luck,’ he said, ‘I have a witness to what has just happened to me. You see before you a man returning from a tiger hunt.’

  ‘A tiger hunt!’ I mimicked, determined not to believe a word of it.

  ‘And a red tiger at that,’ he added, ‘also known as the cougar, renowned for its cruelty. As you can see, the damned thing got into my enclosure. It broke through these gates, which up until now have kept out the curious public, and smashed my wonderful skeleton into a million pieces. As soon as I saw that, I decided to track it down and kill it. I caught up with it in a thicket about three miles from here. When I looked at it, it stared back at me with its two savage eyes and jumped. But it never finished its leap, because I dropped it with a bullet just behind the shoulder. That was the first time I ever fired a gun, by God! It will be quite a trophy for me. I wouldn’t sell it for a billion dollars!’

  ‘Now the millions will start to come back,’ I thought to myself.

  Just then the two black servants came up. dragging the carcass of an enormous red tiger, an animal that is almost unknown in this part of America. Its coat was of a solid tawny colour, except for its ears and the tip of its tail, which were black. It made no difference to me whether Hopkins had killed it or whether it had been supplied to him already conveniently dead (or maybe even stuffed) by some Barckley or other. What struck me was the carefree and indifferent tone with which my speculator friend talked about his skeleton. And yet, this whole affair must have cost him more than 100,000 francs.

  Not wanting to let him know that I had stumbled onto the secret of his mystery – he would have been perfectly capable of giving thanks to Providence for it – I simply said, ‘How are you going to get out of this fix?’

  ‘What the devil do you mean by "this fix"? No matter what I do now, I can’t lose. A wild beast has destroyed the wonderful fossil that would have won the admiration of the entire world, because it was absolutely unique, but it has not destroyed my prestige or my influence. I still enjoy all the advantages of being famous.’

  ‘But what will you say to your enthusiastic and impatient public?’ I asked in a serious tone.

  ‘I’ll tell them the truth, nothing but the truth.’

  ‘The truth!’ I exclaimed, wondering what he meant by that word.

  ‘Of course,’ he explained, as calmly as could be. ‘Isn’t it true that the animal got into my enclosure? Isn’t it true that it smashed up these wonderful bones that I went to such lengths to dig up? Isn’t it true that I tracked it down and killed it?’

  ‘Now there,’ I said to myself, ‘is a whole host of things that I wouldn’t want to swear to.’

  ‘As for the public,’ he went on, ‘What more can they expect? Now they’ll know all there is to know about the affair. I’ll even get a reputation for bravery. In fact, I don’t see anything that I won’t be famous for.’

  ‘But what good will it do you to be famous?’

  ‘If I play my cards right, I’ll be rich. A man who is well known can get away with anything. He can hope, he can dare, he can undertake whatever he likes. If George Washington had decided to put two-headed calves on display, after the battle of Yorktown, it’s obvious that he would have made a lot of money.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I answered seriously.

  ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ retorted Augustus Hopkins. ‘My only problem is to decide what I should put on display.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s a difficult choice. The tenors are worn
out, the dancers are past their prime, and what’s left of their legs is priced out of reach. The Siamese twins have had their day, and the seals, despite the best efforts of the distinguished professors who are teaching them, still can’t talk.’

  ‘I won’t concern myself with spectacles like that. No matter how worn out, exhausted, dead, or speechless the seals, Siamese twins, dancers, and tenors may be, they are still too good for a man like me, because I’m worth so much just for myself. I think, my dear sir, that I will have the pleasure of seeing you in Paris.’

  ‘Do you expect to find some cheap object in Paris,’ I asked him, ‘and make it famous on the strength of your reputation?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied seriously. ‘If I come across a doorman’s daughter who has never been accepted by the Conservatoire, I’ll turn her into the greatest singer in the Western Hemisphere.’

  On that note, we took leave of each other and I returned to Albany. That same day, the awful news came out. It was generally assumed that Hopkins was ruined. Large subscriptions were taken up for his benefit. Everyone went to Exhibition Park to assess the extent of the disaster, and this too put a goodly number of dollars in the speculator’s pocket. He got a ridiculously high price for the pelt of the cougar that had brought him to such a timely ruin and thereby saved his reputation as the most enterprising man in the New World. As for me. I went back to New York and from there to France, leaving the United States richer (without knowing it) by one more superb humbug. And I brought back with me this conclusion: that artists with no talent, singers with no voice, dancers without a leg, and jumpers without a rope would have a dismal future before them if Christopher Columbus had not discovered America.

  Doctor Ox’s Experiment

  1

  How it is useless to seek, even on the best maps, for the small town of Quiquendone