The Mysterious Fluid

by Paul Vibert

  Admit, though, what a joy there would be in being able to return at will to the earth, after a century, or two, or ten, in feeling oneself again. What a joy for the curious, for the scientists who would observe the progress of humankind, what intoxication!

  But that’s not all, and I shall indicate in the next chapter the fecund consequences that will inevitably stem from my discovery.

  II. Different means of transmission. A new honeymoon.

  Various schemes within the range of rich people.

  I have said that it will require new legislation to authorize notaries and the Banque de France to do what it necessary to fulfill the indispensable formalities; that’s understood—but taking responsibility for all this material red-tape cuisine, if I might put it thus, would surely require great establishments analogous to our present-day life-insurance companies, which could offer you the most varied and interesting schemes.

  I don’t want to cite them all, but, for example, rich men who do not care about the expense, and who are happy at home, could arrange to include their wives in the scheme, in such a manner as to return to earth at exactly the same time, after two or three centuries; and those who are extremely rich will be able to commission the company specifically to have their wife-soul reincarnated in a younger body. Those who fancy a change, by paying a further price for the expenses of the correspondence, would be able to have the ineffable joy of comparing different carnal envelopes and ensuring the survival of their spouse, at a fixed date, in a black, Japanese or Chinese woman.

  It goes without saying, of course, that, should the occasion arise, one would be able to offer the same truly regal gallantry to one’s mistress, if one had the misfortune still to be a bachelor.

  It seems to me that there’s no need to go on; the benevolent reader will have understood me without it being spelled out, and there’s no doubt that the establishment in question would be able to offer its clientele the choice—if, again, I might put it this way—of schemes infinitely more seductive than those presently imagined even in New York.

  It now remains to elucidate a very serious point, with regard to which I humbly confess, in spite of all my research, that I have not yet settled—although I may say, at present, that everything seems to permit me to hope for a happy solution.

  The point is, in fact, grave, delicate and interesting. This is what it amounts to: can a man, if he wishes, retain his soul-fluid in his way in order to be reincarnated and live again in a woman’s body, and a woman in the body of a man? It’s obvious that this would be infinitely more interesting, from points of view as varied as they are different. Suppose momentarily that a man of Zola’s stripe were to find himself thus returned in the body of a woman. The great psychologist, having analyzed the sentiments of man, would be able to analyze those of woman—after a certain lapse of time, it’s true—with equal sincerity and self-knowledge…which is invaluable if one wants to write pages on our poor humanity that are sincere and truly lived.

  Once again, however, I repeat, I am continuing my research and I have not despaired in the least of vanquishing this difficulty. It would not generate a true Androgyne, since the phenomenon would only be produced in time, successively not simultaneously, and in the long term—but what a world of marvelous speculations for a thinker, a philosopher, an attentive and resourceful observer. How interesting it would be, for instance, to know from experience to which sex it is more amusing to belong, during the divine moment in which two souls exchange a supreme kiss!

  I don’t want to deflower the subject; nevertheless, it might be permissible for me to observe that, if I arrive at this superb and definitive result, my discovery will be perfect…and when I say that, it’s not out of a sentiment of misplaced pride, but simply because I believe, with a very clear and precise consciousness, that in recent years I have taken a huge step forward in this interesting field of the physical and natural sciences concerned with the two mysterious agents, still misunderstood at present, but which rule the universe nevertheless: the material-electrical fluid and the soul-electrical fluid—which is to say, the moral fluid.

  That is the future, and I shall be happy and proud if I have been able to cast a little light on the ardent and passionate researches of science in this respect.

  The Chemical Life of the Future

  I. How everything will be sold in bottles or in powder form.

  The simplification of existence. A few curious examples.

  I have already observed more than once that there is nothing that stimulates the bee that we almost all have, more or less dormant, in our bonnets like an Exposition Universelle. It’s a stimulant almost as powerful for the minds of inventors, researchers and discoverers as a great cataclysm or a great national crisis—a war, for example.

  I recently found myself at the Exposition with one of these birds, which are less rare than one might imagine, and as we were dining peacefully on the terrace of one of the restaurants in the Trocadero, vaguely watching the fireworks at the Château d’Eau through the fumes of our cigars, my companion broke the silence.

  “Will you go to see the next Exposition in eleven years, in the Bois de Boulogne?”

  “They say there won’t be another one.”

  “Yes there will, for there will be new needs and new ambitions to satisfy after that time. But that’s not the question…don’t interrupt me. The other evening, I was at your lecture on the Exposition. You explain magisterially how it is based on genuinely new elements, on a framework of iron and wood—rejuvenated—on reinforced concrete, the patisserie for making all these palaces with a little plaster and stucco, and, finally, electricity…”

  “You flatter me.”

  “Not at all. You’ve made a host of true and curious observations—but in eleven years, my dear chap, the Exposition Universelle du Bois de Boulogne will be even newer, because it will be primarily chemical.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s quite simple. You’ve told me a hundred times that you consider electricity to be the unique agent of the universe, and I’m in absolute agreement with you. Have no doubt about it. But there are chemical transformations as well, often by means of electricity: chemistry is the great science of the future, you see.”

  “Perfectly, but I don’t quite see…”

  It’s very simple. You’ll admit its considerable progress eleven years from now, or twelve if you wish?”

  “How could I not?”

  “Then we’re in agreement. By that time, life will be singularly simplified, thanks to recent chemical discoveries, and that will be the whole of the scientific progress that the Exposition’s mission will be to show us—we know this already—or, rather, to gather before our eyes in an admirable and dazzling synthesis. Is that clear?”

  “Very nearly. Examples?”

  “Examples? There’s a swarm of them. There won’t be any more need for combustibles, stoves in winter or ice for refreshment in summer, because, either in bottles or in powder form, warmth, cold, wind, air, etc., etc., will be on sale whenever you want at your local grocer’s shop.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Wait, that’s not all. He will also sell you light and darkness in equally small volume, weighing very little and easy to slip into your pocket, for use according to the needs of the moment—which will be infinitely convenient.

  “Thus one can be scornful of the sun, day and night, the seasons, the poles and tropics alike, and everywhere on Earth will be a veritable paradise, thanks to my bottled warmth and cold. That’s nothing, though, to the services that light and darkness will provide. Thus, if I lose my wallet on the stairs at night, I take two drops of light from my bottle and there it is, found again.

  “In a railway train or on an omnibus, I catch sight of a delightful young woman who makes me go weak at the knees. Pop! I spread two drops of darkness around us, and silently, as a man of the world, I steal a kiss without anyone having seen anything.

  “I think that the chemical life
of the future, thus comprised, will certainly not lack charm, and that’s why I’m convinced that its simultaneous synthesis and analysis will have a great success at the next Exposition Universelle de Bois de Boulogne. Are you beginning to be persuaded?”

  “Entirely?”

  “Good. Well, since that’s the case, I take you fully into my confidence. I’ll admit to you that I’ve sworn to keep my secret to myself, but you’ve wormed it out of me.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  “Not at all, that’s you. I’ll go on. Thus far, I’ve only talked about warmth, cold, air, wind, light, darkness, etc.—which is to say, all the ambiences in which we move around. That will undoubtedly be a great revolution in itself, but since you want to listen, I’ll explain to you what the chemical life will be in direct relation to the human body, by the time of the next Exposition. It’s absolutely marvelous, as you’ll see!”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  Eleven o’clock was chiming at the Palais de la Femme, however, and the Château d’Eau was about to put an end to its incandescent nocturnal marvels.

  “It’s late, and I want to listen to you with jealous attention. How about dinner tomorrow, here, at the same time?”

  “Agreed.”

  And my brave interlocutor wandered off, after shaking my hand, as if subjugated by his intense interior vision, still murmuring, as he went downstairs: “Chemical life—that’s the future!”

  II. After the external world, the body.

  The nourishment of the future.

  A curious transformation.

  The next day, he continued in these terms:

  “I’ve just revealed that warmth, cold, light and darkness will soon be sold in bottles, as well as void, compressed air and wind. That’s it for the external world, for the ambiences that surround us. Today, I’ll say something about the direct transformations that the chemistry of tomorrow will impose, first on our nourishment, and then on our bodies.

  “When the alchemists were always talking about the unity of matter, pearls made of hardened light and morning dew changed into crystal and diamond by salamanders, sylphs and gnomes, their poetic divagations weren’t as extravagant as all that, all things considered.

  “You’re familiar with Darwin’s theory of transformation, and, without wanting to agree with him completely, we can take It for granted that it won’t take long to get going, as the Canadians say, and take a giant step forward—and it’s chemistry that will enable that.

  “Anyway, these idea aren’t new: nil novi sub sole;101 and it’s with reason that, again into the mouth of an alchemist, the amiable fantasist Anatole France puts these words:

  “‘Man’s teeth are a sign of his ferocity. When we are able to nourish ourselves properly, those teeth with give way to some ornament similar to the pearls of salamanders. Then it will be inconceivable that a lover will any longer be able to see canine teeth in his mistress’s mouth without horror and disgust.’”102

  “That’s curious,” I said. “If my memory serves me right, about thirty-five or forty years ago, a literary colleague of my father’s under the Empire, the Vicomte de Maricourt—the grandson of one of the three valets de chambre who followed Louis XVI to the scaffold, Baron Hue, I believe—published a prophetic pamphlet on the same subject.”103

  He went on: “Today, however, thanks to the incessant progress of chemistry, all that is becoming more precise, and yesterday’s dreams will not be long delayed in becoming today’s tangible reality.

  “Soon, chemistry, in the matter of alimentation, will no longer be the monopoly of preserves—which are manufactured, as everyone knows, with by-products of coal—but will become common usage in everyday life.

  “As we know the chemical make-up of all the solid substances, organic or vegetable—meat, fruit and vegetables—that we absorb, the day is not far off when that abundant and cumbersome cuisine will be replaced by one pill that we swallow in the morning for breakfast and one in the evening for dinner. We will still be able to keep beverages and liquids, temporarily, but truly refined, distinguished and elegant minds—to use the fashionable term—will not take long to replace them, gradually, with the inhalation of perfumes.”

  “The most fortunate and fecund transformations will be immediately produced in the world, but as I don’t want to write a whole book on that subject, I shall content myself with briefly identifying the most important, sure that my benevolent readers will be able to deduce the others for themselves, if I ever write it.

  “To begin with, first in line, it is appropriate to place the economy of time and money, which will be so colossal that the social question will be resolved completely, at a stroke.

  “With heat, light, cold, void, etc., sold in bottles or in powder form, according to circumstances, there will be no more stoves, lamps or freezers, but only very simple apparatus, even simpler than an electric light-bulb. But it’s in the matter of bodily nourishment, most of all, that the economy will be admirable and he transformations over the next century or two incalculable.

  “In the same way that we will no longer have any need of coal for heating, no longer having the need to nourish ourselves with anything but two or three pills comprised of all the chemical products that we absorb so grossly and bestially today, in the form of meat or vegetables, we shall no longer kill animals in order to eat them and will cease to be the murderers of our inferior brothers. It will be a Golden Age, ameliorating mores.

  “All today’s merchants of comestibles—grocers, butchers, pork-butchers, fruiterers, tripe-sellers, greengrocers, dairymen, restaurateurs, café-owners, etc., etc.—will have disappeared, giving way to the shops of alimentary chemists, who will be obliged to pass examinations, like pharmacists, in order that there should be no fraud in the good quality of nutritive pills.

  “It’s unnecessary, though, to grieve too much over those poor people without employment, firstly because the transformations will be accomplished in successive stages, and secondly because the majority will be able to make use of their aptitudes in other branches of human activity. Thus, the grocers will be able to go into politics or literature spiced with licentiousness, butchers into the army, pork-butchers into medicine, lemonade-makers into the ranks of sappers and firemen, etc., etc.

  “But where the consequences will be truly admirable and strange, according to Darwin’s theories, will be in the human body. However, I can see that the subject will take me much longer, for it still requires a few brief developments—and that will be for the next dinner.”

  III. Consequences for the human body.

  The modification of organs.

  The ideal age of humankind.

  On the same terrace of the same restaurant in the Trocadero, at the same time on the third evening, when our dinner was over, my terrible interlocutor picked up the thread of his story, just at the point where he had left it the previous evening, as in a tale in the Thousand and One Nights.

  “You’ll think, my dear friend, that I’m taking a long time, but I assure you that I’ll have finished by the time you’ve finished your cigar.

  “So, after the ambiences, we’ve seen how the nourishment of the human body, in the form of pills and a pinch of powder, will become purely chemical. That’s a given, to which we have no need to return.”

  “Of course.”

  “Yes, but one last point remains to which I ought to draw your attention, in order to see whether, in this matter too, you think as I do.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s quite simple. If you admit, as I do, that the future of humankind, for a host of economic and other reasons, which we have no ne to revisit here, will necessarily reside in the chemical nourishment of human beings, it is also necessary to admit, as a logical and inevitable consequence, that the said nourishment will lead to profound modifications of the human body.”

  “Really?”

  “What do you mean, really? Definitely—you’re not unaware that when an organ is no longer used,
it gradually atrophies, and may even end up disappearing completely. Thus, the most eminent scientists have affirmed for a long time that the spleen is merely a witness, today useless and idle, of unknown ancestral functions. Well, follow my reasoning…”

  “Of course; I’m drinking in your words.”

  “Thus, with the chemical nourishment of the future, not only we have no need of the cow’s belly, as the peasant’s say, but the stomach itself. People in need might perhaps be able to sell their stomachs to tanners, leather-manufacturers if you prefer, to make purses or handbags for ladies…”

  Then, lowering his voice, my poor friend, carried away by his subject, suddenly said to me: “And then, what will be the tangible triumph of transformism, of the Darwinian method? It’s quite evident that the greater part of our intestines, without employment, will inevitably lose length. There will be a simplification of the human machine, and as we are talking as men, let me add that you, who have defended mains drainage all your life, will be well satisfied.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Why, naturally, with chemical nourishment in the form of the infinitesimal pills dear to homeopaths, it’s clear that it will put a final end to cesspool-emptiers…”

  “That’s true.” And, on thinking about that aspect of the question, I let out a burst of laughter that almost turned into a veritable attack of nerves.

  Meanwhile, still calm and placid, continuing the implacable development of his ideas, the inventor added: “Dead ducks, so to speak! And see how, immediately, at a stroke, human life will be purified, magnified and ennobled. From the moment when there is no more heavy and solid nourishment, and chemistry and perfumes provide everything, not only will there be no more stomach- and belly-aches, but no more gout, and almost no more need for sleep, for of all the other fatigues, it’s the table that kills people and forces them to send half their lives in that temporary and tyrannical death called sleep.