The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II

by David G. Hartwell

  This fight has moved me profoundly. I think about it and compare it with the fights I sometimes see between our animals. I realize confusedly that the Moedigen, as a group, do not kill, or rarely kill, that the victor contents itself with increasing its strength at the expense of the vanquished.

  The morning wears on; it is nearly eight o’clock; the Zwartendam school is about to open. I gain the house in one leap, seize my books, and here I am among my fellows, where no one guesses what profound mysteries palpitate around him, where no one has the least idea of the living things through which all humanity passes and which pass through humanity, leaving no mark of that mutual penetration.

  I am a very poor scholar. My writing is nothing but a hasty scrawl, unformed, illegible; my speech remains uncomprehended; my absence of mind is manifest. The master calls out continually, “Karel Ondereet, have you done with watching the flies?”

  Alas, my dear master! It is true that I watch the flies in the air, but how much more does my mind accompany the mysterious Vuren that pass through the room! And what strange feelings obsess my childish mind, to note everyone’s blindness and above all your own, grave shepherd of intellects!

  V

  The most painful period of my life was that which ran from my twelfth to my eighteenth year.

  To begin with, my parents tried to send me to the academy. I knew nothing there but misery and frustration. At the price of exhausting struggles, I succeeded in expressing the most ordinary things in a partially comprehensible manner: slowing my syllables with great effort, I uttered them awkwardly and with the intonations of the deaf. But as soon as I had to do with anything complicated, my speech regained its fatal swiftness; no one could follow me any longer. Therefore I could not register my progress orally. Moreover, my writing was atrocious, my letters piled up one on the other, and in my impatience I forgot whole syllables and words; it was a monstrous hodgepodge. Besides, writing was a torment to me, perhaps even more intolerable than speech – of an asphyxiating slowness, heaviness! If occasionally, by taking much pain and sweating great drops, I succeeded in beginning an exercise, at once I was at the end of my energy and patience; I felt about to faint. Accordingly I preferred the masters remonstrances, the anger of my father, punishments, privations, scorn, to this horrible labor.

  Thus I was almost totally deprived of the means of expression. Already an object of ridicule for my thinness and my strange color, my odd eyes, once more I passed for a kind of idiot. It was necessary for my parents to withdraw me from school and resign themselves to making a peasant of me.

  The day my father decided to give up all hope, he said to me with unaccustomed gentleness, “My poor boy, you see I have done my duty – my whole duty. Never reproach me for your fate.”

  I was strongly moved. I shed warm tears; never had I felt more bitterly my isolation in the midst of men. I dared to embrace my father tenderly; I muttered, “Just the same, it’s not true that I’m a halfwit!” And, in fact, I felt myself superior to those who had been my fellow pupils. Some time ago my intelligence had undergone a remarkable development. I read, I understood, I divined; and I had enormous matter for reflection, beyond that of other men, in that universe visible to me alone.

  My father could not make out my words, but he softened to my embrace. “Poor boy!” he said.

  I looked at him; I was in terrible distress, knowing too well that the gap between us would never be bridged. My mother, through love’s intuition, saw in that moment that I was not inferior to the other boys of my age. She gazed at me tenderly, she spoke artless love words that came from the depths of her being. Nonetheless, I was condemned to give up my studies.

  Because of my lack of muscular strength, I was given the care of the horses and the cattle. In this I acquitted myself admirably; I needed no dog to guard the herds, in which no colt or stallion was as agile as I.

  Thus, from my fourteenth to my seventeenth year I lived the solitary life of the herdsman. It suited me better than any other. Given over to observation and contemplation, together with some reading, my mind never stopped growing. Incessantly I compared the two orders of creation which lay before my eyes; I drew from them ideas about the constitution of the universe; vaguely I sketched out hypotheses and systems. If it be true that in that period my thoughts were not perfectly ordered, did not make a lucid synthesis – for they were adolescent thoughts, uncoordinated, impatient, enthusiastic – nevertheless they were original, and fruitful. That their value may have depended above all upon my unique constitution, I would be the last to deny. But they did not draw all their strength from that source. I think I may say without pride that in subtlety as in logic they notably surpassed those of ordinary young men.

  They alone brought consolation to my melancholy half-pariah’s life, without companions, without any real communication with the rest of my household, even my adorable mother.

  At the age of seventeen, life became definitely unsupportable to me. I was weary of dreaming, weary of vegetating on a desert island of thought. I fell into languor and boredom. I rested immobile for long hours, indifferent to the whole world, inattentive to anything that happened in my family. What mattered it that I knew of more marvelous things than other men, since in any case this knowledge must die with me? What was the mystery of living things to me, or even the duality of the two living systems crossing through each other without awareness of each other? These things might have intoxicated me, filled me with enthusiasm and ardor, if I could have taught them or shared them in any way. But what would you! Vain and sterile, absurd and miserable, they contributed rather to my perpetual psychic quarantine.

  Many times I dreamed of setting down, recording, in spite of everything, by dint of continuous effort, some of my observations But since leaving school I had completely abandoned the pen, and, already so wretched a scribbler, it was all I could do, with the utmost application, to trace the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. If I had still entertained any hope, perhaps I should have persisted. But who would have taken my miserable lucubrations seriously? Where was the reader who would not think me mad? Where the sage who would not show me the door with irony or disdain?

  To what end, therefore, should I consecrate myself to that vain task, that exasperating torment, almost comparable to the requirement, for an ordinary man, to grave his thoughts upon tablets of marble with a huge chisel and a Cyclopean hammer? My penmanship would have had to be stenographic – and yet more: of a superswift stenography! Thus I had no courage at all to write, and at the same time I fervently hoped for I know not what unforeseen event, what happy and singular destiny. It seemed to me that there must exist, in some corner of the earth, impartial minds, lucid, searching, qualified to study me, to understand me, to extract my great secret from me and communicate it to others. But where were these men? What hope had I of ever meeting them?

  And I fell once more into a vast melancholy, into the desire for immobility and extinction. During one whole autumn, I despaired of the universe. I languished in a vegetative state, from which I emerged only to give way to long groans, followed by painful rebellions of conscience.

  I grew thinner still, thin to a fantastic degree. The villagers called me, ironically, “den Heyligen Gheest,” the Holy Ghost. My silhouette was tremulous as that of the young poplars, faint as a shadow; and with all this, I grew to a giant’s stature.

  Slowly, a project was born. Since my life had been thrown into the discard, since my days were without joy and all was darkness and bitterness to me, why wallow in sloth? Supposing that no mind existed which could respond to my own – at least it would be worth the effort to convince myself of that fact. At least it would be worthwhile to leave this gloomy countryside, to go and search for scientists and philosophers in the great cities. Was I not in myself an object of curiosity? Before calling attention to my extrahuman knowledge, could I not arouse a desire to study my person? Were not the mere physical aspects of my being worthy of analysis – and my sight, and the extreme sw
iftness of my movements, and the peculiarity of my diet?

  The more I thought of it, the more it seemed reasonable to me to hope, and the more my resolution hardened. The day came when it was unshakable, when I confided it to my parents. Neither one nor the other understood much of it, but in the end both gave in to repeated entreaties: I obtained permission to go to Amsterdam, free to return if fortune should not favor me.

  One morning, I left.

  VI

  From Zwartendam to Amsterdam is a matter of a hundred kilometers or thereabouts. I covered that distance easily in two hours, without any other adventure than the extreme surprise of those going and coming to see me run so swiftly, and a few crowds at the edges of the villages and towns I skirted. To make sure of my direction, I spoke two or three times to solitary old people. My sense of orientation, which is excellent, did the rest.

  It was about nine o’clock when I reached Amsterdam. I entered the great city resolutely and walked along its beautiful, dreaming canals, where quiet merchant fleets dwell. I did not attract as much attention as I had feared. I walked quickly, among busy people, enduring here and there the gibes of some young street Arabs. Nevertheless, I did not decide to stop. I wandered here and there through the city, until at last I resolved to enter a tavern on one of the quays of the Heerengracht. It was a peaceful spot; the magnificent canal stretched, full of life, between cool rows of trees; and among the Moedigen which I saw moving about on its banks it seemed to me that I perceived a new species. After some hesitation, I crossed the sill of the tavern, and addressing myself to the publican as slowly as I could, I begged him to be kind enough to direct me to a hospital.

  The landlord looked at me with amazement, suspicion and curiosity; took his huge pipe out of his mouth, put it back in after several attempts, and at last said, “You’re from the colonies, I suppose?”

  Since it was perfectly useless to contradict him, I answered, “Just so!”

  He seemed delighted at his own shrewdness. He asked me another question: “Maybe you come from that part of Borneo where no one has ever been?”

  “Exactly right!”

  I had spoken too swiftly: his eyes grew round.

  “Exactly right,” I repeated more slowly.

  The landlord smiled with satisfaction. “You can hardly speak Dutch, can you? So, it’s a hospital you want. No doubt you’re sick?”

  “Yes.”

  Patrons were gathering around. It was whispered already that I was an anthropophagus from Borneo; nevertheless, they looked at me with much more curiosity than aversion. People were running in from the street. I became nervous and uneasy. I kept my composure nonetheless and said, coughing, “I am very sick!”

  “Just like the monkeys from that country,” said a very fat man benevolently. “The Netherlands kills them!”

  “What a funny skin!” added another.

  “And how does he see?” asked a third, pointing to my eyes.

  The ring moved closer, encircling me with a hundred curious stares, and still newcomers were crowding into the room.

  “How tall he is!”

  In truth, I was a full head taller than the biggest of them.

  “And thin!”

  “This anthropophagy doesn’t seem to nourish them very well!”

  Not all the voices were spiteful. A few sympathetic persons protected me:

  “Don’t crowd so – he’s sick!”

  “Come, friend, courage!” said the fat man, remarking my nervousness. “I’ll lead you to a hospital myself.”

  He took me by the arm and set about elbowing the crowd aside, calling, “Way for an invalid!”

  Dutch crowds are not very fierce. They let us pass, but they went with us. We walked along the canal, followed by a compact multitude, and people cried out, “It’s a cannibal from Borneo!”

  At length we reached a hospital. It was the visiting hour. I was taken to an intern, a young man with blue spectacles, who greeted me peevishly. My companion said to him, “He’s a savage from the colonies.”

  “What, a savage!” cried the other.

  He took off his spectacles to look at me. Surprise held him motionless for a moment. He asked me brusquely, “Can you see?”

  “I see very well.”

  I had spoken too swiftly.

  “It’s his accent,” said the fat man proudly. “Once more, friend.”

  I repeated it and made myself understood.

  “Those aren’t human eyes,” murmured the student. “And the color! Is that the color of your race?”

  Then I said, with a terrible effort to slow myself down, “I have come to show myself to a scientist.”

  “Then you’re not ill?”

  “No.”

  “And you come from Borneo?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you from, then?”

  “From Zwartendam, near Duisburg.”

  “Why, then, does this man claim you’re from Borneo?”

  “I didn’t want to contradict him.”

  “And you wish to see a scientist?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “To be studied.”

  “So as to earn money?”

  “No, for nothing.”

  “You’re not a pauper? A beggar?”

  “No!”

  “What makes you want to be studied?”

  “My constitution – ”

  But again, in spite of my efforts, I had spoken too swiftly. I had to repeat myself.

  “Are you sure you can see me?” he asked, staring at me. “Your eyes are like horn.”

  “I see very well.”

  And, moving to left and right, I snatched things up, put them down, threw them in the air and caught them again.

  “Extraordinary!” said the young man.

  His softened voice, almost friendly, filled me with hope. “See here,” he said at last, “I really think Dr. van den Heuvel might be interested in your case. I’ll go and inform him. Wait in the next room. And, by the way – I forgot – you’re not ill, after all?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Good. Wait – go in there. The doctor won’t be long.”

  I found myself seated among monsters preserved in alcohol: fetuses, infants with bestial shapes, colossal batrachians, vaguely anthropomorphic saurians.

  This is well chosen for my waiting room, I thought. Am I not a candidate for one of these brandy-filled sepulchers?

  VII

  When Dr. van den Heuvel appeared, emotion overcame me. I had the thrill of the Promised Land – the joy of reaching it, the dread of being banished. The doctor, with his great bald forehead, the analyst’s penetrating look, the mouth soft and yet stubborn, examined me in silence. As always, my excessive thinness, my great stature, my horny eyes, my violet color, caused him astonishment.

  “You say you wish to be studied?” he asked at length.

  I answered forcefully, almost violently, “Yes!”

  He smiled with an approving air and asked me the usual question: “Do you see all right, with those eyes?”

  “Very well. I can even see through wood, clouds – ”

  But I had spoken too fast. He glanced at me uneasily. I began again, sweating great drops: “I can even see through wood, clouds – ”

  “Really! That would be extraordinary. Well, then! What do you see through the door there?” He pointed to a closed door.

  “A big library with windows . . . a carved table . . .”

  “Really!” he repeated, stunned.

  My breast swelled; a deep stillness entered my soul.

  The scientist remained silent for a few seconds. Then: “You speak with some difficulty.”

  “Otherwise I should speak too rapidly! I cannot speak slowly.”

  “Well, then, speak a little as you do naturally.”

  Accordingly I told him the story of my entry into Amsterdam. He listened to me with an extreme attention, an air of intelligent observation, which I had never bef
ore encountered among my fellows. He understood nothing of what I said, but he showed the keenness of his intellect.

  “If I am not mistaken, you speak fifteen to twenty syllables a second, that is to say three or four times more than the human ear can distinguish. Your voice, in addition, is much higher than anything I have ever heard in the way of human voices. Your excessively rapid gestures are well suited to your speech. Your whole constitution is probably more rapid than ours.”

  “I run,” I said, “faster than a greyhound. I write – ”

  “Ah!” he interrupted. “Let us see your writing.”

  I scrawled some words on a tablet which he offered me, the first few fairly legible, the rest more and more scrambled, abbreviated.

  “Perfect!” he said, and a certain pleasure was mingled with his surprise. “I really think I must congratulate myself on this meeting. Certainly it should be very interesting to study you.”

  “It is my dearest, my only, desire!”

  “And mine, naturally. Science . . .”

  He seemed preoccupied, musing. He finished by saying, “If only we could find an easy way of communication.”

  He walked back and forth, his brows knotted. Suddenly: “What a dolt I am! You must learn shorthand, of course! Hm! . . . Hm!” A cheerful expression spread over his face. “And I’ve forgotten the phonograph – the perfect confidant! All that’s needed is to revolve it more slowly in the reproduction than in the recording. It’s agreed: you shall stay with me while you are in Amsterdam!”

  The joy of a fulfilled vocation, the delight of ceasing to spend vain and sterile days! Aware of the intelligent personality of the doctor, against this scientific background, I felt a delicious well-being; the melancholy of my spiritual solitude, the sorrow for my lost talents, the pariah’s long misery that had weighed me down for so many years, all vanished, evaporated in the sensation of a new life, a real life, a saved destiny!

  VIII

  Beginning the following day, the doctor made all the necessary arrangements. He wrote to my parents; he sent me to a professor of stenography and obtained some phonographs. As he was quite rich and entirely devoted to science, there was no experiment which he could not undertake, and my vision, my hearing, my musculature, the color of my skin, were submitted to scrupulous investigations, from which he drew more and more enthusiasm, crying, “This verges on the miraculous!”