The Mysterious Fluid

by Paul Vibert

  10 The Franco-Prussian War of 1870.

  11 Victor Cousin (1792-1867), Théodore Jouffroy (1796-1842) and Pierre-Paul Royer-Collard (1763-1845) were all what the terminology of the day would have called spiritualiste philosophers—philosophers of mind, in today’s parlance—who were interested in the study of consciousness per se rather than its perceptions of the external world.

  12 The reference is to a character in Rabelais’ Pantagruel, who was fond of using such words as obtempérer [to comply] and equipollent [of equal value or significance]

  13 “Attic salt” (sel attique in French) is a fancy expression for lively wit, as credited to the Athenians of the Classical era.

  14 By the time Vibert wrote this preface, this title had been applied to collections by numerous writers, but he means the pioneering collection of translated tales by E. T. A. Hoffmann that became an enormous influence of French fantastic fiction in the 19th century.

  15 Goncourt Academy member Pol Neveux (1865-1939) became better known for his study of Guy de Maupassant, which was used as a preface to both French and English editions of Maupassant’s collected short stories, than for any of his own works.

  16 The famous lion-tamer Jean-Baptiste Pezon (1827-1897).

  17 The dramatist and librettist Paul Siraudin (1813-1883)

  18 A semaphore system invented by Claude Chappe (1763-1805), whose establishment began in 1792; it became a vitally important carrier of information during the Napoleonic War and remained in use until it was displaced by electric telegraph systems. Chappe committed suicide because he felt (rightly) that his invention had been stolen.

  19 Paul de Kock (1794-1871) was an enormously popular writer of light romantic fiction.

  20 There is an untranslatable pun here; the term I have translated as “fittest” is plus valides.

  21 The French for mammoth is mammouth, so the original substitutes the N for a U. “Mammonth” is, in fact, an alternative spelling, still used in some place names in North America. As in English, the Biblical “Mammon” is used in French as a synonym for wealth or its worship.

  22 Even as late as the end of the 19th century it was widely believed that the characteristics of animal offspring were entirely determined by their sire, the dam merely providing a sort of incubator; this why Vibert assumes that “mammonth” sperm impregnating a female elephant would produce a mammonth, while a female mammonth would be useless for breeding purposes in the absence of a male.

  23 Alfred Otto Herz was an entomologist, but he took part in mammoth-hunting expeditions financed by the Grand-Duke Nicholas Romanoff, perhaps the model for Prince D*** in the story. Pfitzmeyer is a more obscure figure, but his paper on mammoth morphology is widely cited. These two newspaper excerpts are accurately cited, although many of the supposed quotes contained in the bodies of the stories are paraphrases seemingly rendered from memory.

  24 The pioneering paleontologist Georges Cuvier (1772-1838) proposed two principles (the law of organic subordination and the law of formal correlation) that allowed him—or so he claimed—to deduce the entire form of a prehistoric animal from a small number of fossil bones. There has always been a certain account of skepticism regarding the reliability of the method, but modern paleontologists still engage in similar extrapolation.

  25 The narrator inserts a footnote here: “I believe that they are, in fact, merely the great-grandchildren of ancestral climbers, contemporaries of the vanished races, and, in consequence, the simple and faithful custodians of philological traditions dead for centuries.”

  26 The psychologist Auguste-Henri Forel (1848-1931), father of the artist after whom the present-day Forel Museum in Morges is named.

  27 This joke does not translate; the French propre [own] also means “decent” or “clean.”

  28 Colas Reduction was an application of a mechanical technique devised by the artist Alphonse Colas (1818-1887) for copying statues, which could produce reduced-scale versions as well as identical copies; it was a great boon to the souvenir industry.

  29 The Roman orator Cicero famously complained “How long, Catiline, will you abuse our patience?”

  30 The ship in question was the USS Nemo, which recorded that depth-sounding in what is now called the Mariana Trench (Vibert refers to it as the Aldrich Trench) in 1899.

  31 After the oceanographer Sir John Murray (1841-1914) took part in the Challenger expedition of 1872-76 he published 56 volumes of scientific results derived therefrom.

  32 Laquedem is one of the surnames conventionally attributed to the Wandering Jew, normally coupled with the forename Isaac. In chapter V of the story Vibert appears to forget that he has substituted the forename Jacob and starts referring to his own character as Isaac Laquedem, but I have used Jacob throughout.

  33 The word Vibert has in mind in leaving this word unfinished—a device he will repeat in other stories—is presumably “fichu” [done for] but English readers will doubtless be able to think of a suitable alternative that an old sea-dog might well employ.

  34 Sanchuniathon was a supposed Phoenician author of great antiquity, credited with three lost works, whose contents are cited by the early Christian writer Eusebius, allegedly summarizing a second-hand account by Philo of Byblos that was also lost. The suggestion that he believed humans to be descended from fish is highly dubious.

  35 A pharmaceutical extract of the plant Quassia amara, renowned for being the most bitter substance known, fifty times as bitter as quinine.

  36 At this point Vibert adds an exceedingly long footnote, inspired by his delight in having anticipated the use of sodium peroxide in diving apparatus; I have moved it to the end of the chapter for the sake of convenience, as he usually does with his more substantial addenda.

  37 A. Desgresz and V. Balthazard, as they signed the relevant report, seem to have no other claim to celebrity, although Charles Bouchard (1837-1915), in whose lab they carried out their experiments, was much better-known

  38 I have retained the spelling in Vibert’s text, as it is presumably taken from the Aurore’s pages, but the reference is to Georges Jaubert.

  39 Jean-Baptiste Berlier (1841-1911), the inventor of the Parisian pneumatic tube postal system, inaugurated in 1866, and a pioneer of the Paris Metro.

  40 Paul Doumer (1857-1932) was the Governor-General of French Indochina when this story was written, involved in continual negotiation with the Emperor Tu Duc.

  41 i.e., not via formal education.

  42 This pun, based on the contrast between the metaphorical use of sabler [to drink avidly] and its literal meaning [to sprinkle with sand], does not translate.

  43 Jean Richepin’s story-collection Morts bizarres was published in 1877. Vibert did not publish a volume entitled Morts étranges but might have contributed a series with that title to a periodical.

  44 Yellow fever.

  45 Alfred Grandidier (1836-1921) made his first voyage to Madagascar in 1865, returning in 1866 and 1868.

  46 An untranslatable pun: the French call giant clams bénitiers, after the vessels containing holy water provided in churches.

  47 The eponymous hero of Alphonse Daudet’s comic novel Tartarin de Tarascon (1872) is supposed to be an archetypal Provençal, whose adventures as a big-game hunter have a certain Munchhausenesque quality about them. In two sequels to the novel he becomes a mountaineer and an explorer of the South Seas.

  48 Vibert means a “shiver down the spine,” although that is not exactly what the Marquis de Sade meant by petite mort.

  49 The Cannebière [literally “hemp-field”] is the central dock area of Marseilles, named after its main street.

  50 Which, inevitably, doesn’t translate; hué [booed] is phonetically identical to Hué, the name given by its French conquerors to the capital of Annam, now part of Vietnam.

  51 The historian Ernest Renan (1823-1892) was considered unorthodox by many, brilliant by some, but his unorthodoxy did not match that of Théodore Vibert, who loathed him.

  52 The references
are to Charles Rollin (1661-1741) and Jacques Amyot (1513-1593). The pedantic point at issue would have been quite irrelevant to Vibert’s readers.

  53 The veiled reference is to a celebrated pornographic novel, Venus in India (1889) published in Brussels and signed “Charles Devereaux.”

  54 The slogan of a famous mid-century cabaretier, which became a popular saying.

  55 The Cours Belsunce is the main street of a district in Marseilles adjacent to the Cannebière.

  56 The gist of this complex play on words is evident, since flambé has been translocated into English culinary parlance, but if f… is read in the same way as before, “lambé” recalls lambeau [shred], so the term could be read as something like “[expletive] torn to shreds,” while the term that I have rendered as “dish” is actually “plat-c…”—which might be the beginning of plat-chaud [hot dish] but might also be suggestive of an unspecified expletive.

  57 I have translated this phrase literally, to conserve the joke, but what it really means is that Fougasse manufactured carousels.

  58 Presumably Lysius Salomon (1815-1888), President from 1879-88, who attempted to modernize Haiti.

  59 The cave in question is better known as La Voute de Minguet.

  60 The Grotte des dames is so-called because of two large stalagmites that allegedly resemble saints, not because of any legend remotely similar to the parody of European travelers’ tales that Vibert is about to develop.

  61 Because a bock is a small glass of beer, and Boucairol obviously intends to have a large one.

  62 Carcassonne was the heart of the region where the “Cathar crusade” took place in the 13th century and thousands of alleged heretics were burned.

  63 The original text emphasizes the first two letters of résonnes [sound] to emphasize its phonetic kinship with raisonnes [reason], in recognition of the double meaning of mines, which can signify “looks” as well as “mines”—a theme picked up by Castagnat.

  64 The Mirage, in Istres, is one of Marseilles’ leading hotels.

  65 Cakya-Mouni was the most significant incarnation of the Buddha; Vibert uses the same appellation elsewhere.

  66 Alfred Durand-Claye (1841-1888) was he chief engineer in charge of sanitary provision in Paris; Francisque Sarcey (1827-1899) was a journalist nowadays best known for his drama criticism. Vibert is not exaggerating the fervor of this battle in the least; the companies responsible for emptying the cesspools of Paris had become highly significant capitalist enterprises, which fought tooth and nail against the introduction of modern sanitation.

  67 The effect would be to change finaux [final] into finaud [sly].

  68 The Bal Bullier was one of the most popular dance-halls in Paris. In both the instances cited in this brief exchange “blown up” is intended be construed metaphorically.

  69 The author inserts a footnote: “Some time in 1893, if I remember rightly.”

  70 Jacques-Arsène d’Arsonval (1851-1940) was a significant pioneer of electrophysiology, while Alexandre Lacassagne (1843-1940) was a criminologist who opposed the theories of Cesare Lombroso, insisting that criminality was the product of social conditions rather than heredity.

  71 I have translated Club des refroidis slightly oddly, in order to conserve something of the double meaning by which refroidi can also mean “murdered.” Cool Club and Chilled Club would, in any case, give the wrong impression in the context of modern slang.

  72 Literally, advantageous or disadvantageous

  73 François-Vincent Raspail (1794-1878) is best known for pioneering cell theory, but is here being cited for his support of antisepsis.

  74 Actually, hebdomadairement [hebdomadally] does exist in French, and did not need inventing; its English equivalent is even less common—most people are quite content to say “weekly.”

  75 French routinely distinguishes between male and female followers of the same profession, as with embaumeur and embaumeuse, but English rarely does—even “actress” is nowadays falling out of usage—so I have been forced to improvise.

  76 Claire Léris (1723-1803), alias Mademoiselle Clairon, was the most famous tragedienne of her era, while Anne Boutet (1779-1847), alias Mademoiselle Mars, was the most famous comedienne of hers.

  77 A kind of portable gas-heater.

  78 In French, braquer—which has no obvious connection with braque [scatterbrained].

  79 Fires traditionally lit in some parts of France in celebration of the saint’s day (June 24).

  80 Vibert continues to vacillate between future and past tenses, quite uncertain as to how to frame this conjectural essay; for the sake of tidiness, I shall stick to the past tense from now on.

  81 Vibert inserts a footnote here to explain that his Russian scientists had chosen a French word (bonjour) because it seemed preferable to use the scientific and literary language most familiar throughout the world—but the English would undoubtedly have contested that claim, so the argument applies just as well to the translation.

  82 The person is question is identified in most contemporary and retrospective reports as “A. Mercier” of the French Astronomical Society; his proposal apparently made news by virtue of its blatant eccentricity, in suggesting the use the Eiffel Tower as a billboard and that signals might be projected on to the Moon.

  83 Image-projection devices were frequently discussed under his label (telephote in French) in the late 19th century; there is an elaborate description of a hypothetical telephot in Comte Didier de Chousy’s Ignis (1883) which is available in a Black Coat Press translation (ISBN 9781934543887).

  84 I have left this name as it is given in the original, as it is presumably copied from another source, but the prize in question was actually endowed by Clara Guzman in honor of her son, who had been a great admirer of Camille Flammarion. Interestingly, communication with Mars was excluded from the qualification for the prize, as it was held to be too easy. The prize was eventually awarded in 1969 to the crew of Apollo 11.

  85 Charles Malato (1857-1938).

  86 Soon after making this mistake, Andrew Ellicott Douglas (1867-1962) fell out with his boss, Percival Lowell, and William Henry Pickering (whose name is misrendered here as Perkering) when he called the Martian canals into question. He went on to found the science of dendrochronology.

  87 The minor plant Eros had been discovered in 1898 and caused much excitement by virtue of the near approach of its orbit to that of Earth; a worldwide project was organized to measure its parallax during its opposition of 1900-01.

  88 Literally, “to their ancestors”—i.e., they murdered them.

  89 The French fumiste [heating engineer] is also a slang term for a fraud.

  90 Vibert inserts a long footnote, which cannot be moved to the end of the chapter, where there is an even longer one: “This is so true that, at least two years after writing this story, I found a further proof in the following letter, published in the July 8 issue of the Aurore:

  We have received this very interesting letter from Mulhouse, which our readers will find it fruitful to read:

  Mulhouse, July 5, 1900

  To the Editor of L’Aurore,

  I read in your July 4 number an article regarding the transformation of phosphorus into arsenic, which M. Fittica claims to have achieved. This fact, if true, would indeed be of the highest importance, but thus far, unfortunately, nothing seems to confirm it. It is sufficient, for a chemist with access to a laboratory, to read M. Fittica’s original memoir attentively to become skeptical. His demonstrations are not at all rigorous. Clemens Winchler, one of the foremost German chemists, has demonstrated that commercial phosphorus contains arsenic, and that the method employed by M. Fittica for the alleged transformation of phosphorus into arsenic only furnishes the quantity that was originally contained therein. For my part, I am occupied in verifying M. Fittica’s experiments, and thus far nothing leads me to give them credence. I believe that the artificial production of arsenic will join in well-deserved forgetfulness M. Strindberg’s synthesis of iodin
e and M. Emmens’ transformation of silver into gold.

  It is annoying that work so poorly executed is published, for it can only bring science into discredit. I will also add that, in principle, the transformation of one simple substance into another does not seem to me to be impossible; I am not, therefore, rising against M. Fittica in horror on the basis of a preconceived and dogmatic idea. I merely claim that he experiments do not prove anything and that those of Winchler nullify them completely.

  Accept, Monsieur the Editor, the assurance of my distinguished consideration.

  E. NOELTING

  Director of the Mulhouse School of Chemistry.

  Naturally, I have not given my opinion of this fraud, so well-judged above; I am content to observe it.”

  The references in the letter are to the German chemists Friedrich Fittica (1850-1912) and Clemens Winkler (1838-1904); to the celebrated Swedish playwright August Strindberg, who took a break from literary work to conduct experiments in chemistry and occult science during the 1890s; and to Stephen H. Emmens, who published Argentaurana in 1897, claiming to have discovered a new element of which gold and silver were derivatives; his claim to have made a considerable quantity of gold from Mexican silver dollars and sold it to the US Mint made headlines in 1899.

  91 The mysterious Stourdza had published Les Lois fondamentales de l’univers in 1891.

  92 Julio Cervera Baviera was sent by the Spanish army to visit Guglielmo Marconi in 1899 and study his experiments; he subsequently develop a wireless telegraphy system of his own, which was adopted in Spain.

  93 This notion, with several of the details extrapolated here, is recapitulated in the future history mapped out by Gaston de Pawlowski in the book translated as Journey to the Land of the Fourth Dimension, q.v.

  94 This is probably be an invention; the most recent star-catalogue published when Vibert wrote this story was the second Washington catalogue compiled by J. R. Eastman; I cannot find evidence of any involvement in a recent catalogue by anyone named Janssen or Jansen.