“Don’t get annoyed! My research rests on theories so new, so troubling and so extraordinary that they almost escape our sense and reason. To make a palpable and so to speak, mechanical proof of them demands the help of higher mathematics, the integral calculus, because there alone can the notion of infinity be distinctly clarified. I’ll spare you that demonstration, but in order that you can grasp it, I’ll attempt a vulgarization by enunciating the as-yet-vague results in which the future laws of chemistry and physics are based.
“Inorganic ferments exist, which play in matter the role that microbes play in living beings. In consequence, large-scale effects—or, if you prefer, powerful reactions—can be produced by very small quantities of substance, possessed of an appropriate power of dissociation...”
Taking me by the arm, Roger led me to the tank in which the mixture of radium and Omega acid was crystallizing.
“Look! You have before your eyes a striking example of what I’m saying. What is nowadays known as radioactivity is, more simply, the dematerialization of matter.” With a hint of pride, he went on: “The other evening, I reminded you that water vapor in suspension in the atmosphere opposes the intrusion of the cold of space, just as the panes of a window protect a room from the effects of the exterior temperature. Well, I’m breaking a pane of the atmospheric greenhouse in which we live like fragile plants. I’m shattering the glass of the sky—and this is my stone!”
He took a droplet of the blue- and violet-tinted liquid, and made the gesture of throwing it violently into the air. Then he went on:
“My Omega acid completely dissociates the water vapor with which it comes into contact, by fixing the oxygen and liberating the hydrogen—which, by reason of its weak density, rises up to the upper limit of the atmosphere and is probably lost there. But a remarkable fact gives my discovery its full range: after the adjunction of radium, the dissociation produced at ground level simply by exposing the liquid to the exterior air is transmitted from one particle to another. Every molecule of water vapor attacked decomposes its neighbors, and so on, with a speed proportional to the extent of the radiant surface. If you like, compare that action, of which radium is the principal agent,36 to that of a trail of powder. Remember too that the extraordinarily intense phenomenon discovered by me, will be exercised equally from sea level all the way to the highest atmospheric layers.
“As an immediate consequence, no more evaporation of water! And evaporation, which constitutes the great thermic regulator of the globe, is as necessary to the life of the planet as respiration is to us. Conclude!”
But it was the madman who, in a tone without reply, provided the hallucinatory conclusion himself:
“Given the surfaces of radiant acid that I shall employ, six months will suffice to lower the temperature of the globe to a hundred and fifty degrees below zero. I estimate that no living organism will be able to resist such a climate.
“On the other hand, the surprise will be too abrupt for any organization to be made against such cold. All the heat and protection furnished by present habitations or vestments would become illusory. In any case, what would one eat? No more animals to butcher, no more running water. All movement impossible!
“From that moment on, after a brief struggle, life will disappear without there being any need to wait for the next year, when the temperature will drop a further hundred degrees, or the next century, when the advance of the ice will complete the covering of the entire globe.”
In truth, it was horrific, that tale in the fashion of Edgar Poe, which Livry developed with an indisputable appearance of scientific precision.
Roger triumphed over my emotion. He had undoubtedly found the means to test my shaken suspicion.
“Have you grasped now the colossal phenomenon of the dematerialization of matter—a phenomenon characterized by an extraordinary liberation of energy? Here, I’m employing that energy to destroy the water vapor in the atmosphere, and indirectly, to produce cold. Jobert is thinking of using it in another way, to destroy chalk…but let’s leave that; the energy can manifest itself in thousands of forms. You know at least some of them...”
As I opened my eyes wide in astonishment, Roger smiled ironically. “Of course! You must have heard mention of heat, electricity and light!”
“I understand,” I murmured.
I could not help being gripped by the grandeur of those magisterial views; I completely forgot that the speech-maker was mad!
But I was troubled even more when Roger declared, in his modest tone: “After all, I only have the chance of putting these theories into practice, of giving them the consecration of experiment—and what an experiment! But I don’t have the merit of having invented them; they were proposed by Gustave Le Bon. And let me just remind you of a sentence written by that great physicist in his book on The Evolution of Matter: ‘The scientist who finds a means of liberating economically the forces that matter contains will instantaneously change the face of the world.’”37
And Roger sniggered.
“My insolent fortune, as Jobert puts it, has permitted me to pay the price—but I have found it!”
I lived a fearful moment then; a horrible conviction imposed itself on my mind: sound in body and mind, Roger was telling the truth! Had I not unknowingly witnessed the beginning of the titanic and mortal experiment of which the world was about to die?
No! It was too absurd.
If I had abandoned myself to it, I would rapidly have acquired the tremulous mentality of a man of the year one thousand, terrorized by legends and predictions.
Alas, my perplexities were, as yet, only at their beginning.
The next day I was woken up by Livry’s triumphant shouting.
“Hey Paul! Come down quickly! Come and look: the temperature has already dropped three degrees since yesterday at the same time.”
In fact, on setting foot in the courtyard, I felt a chilly wind strike me in the face.
He was exultant, and at eight o’clock he declared, with a proud joy: “Six degrees below normal. That’s not bad for a start.”
In truth, the weather seemed to be complicit with his mania. By the end of the day, we had the impression of a veritable cold snap. In the course of the night, I found myself obliged to add a traveling rug to my light bedcovers; I was freezing.
In the two days that followed, the cold got worse. A bitter north wind blew outside. That was abnormal for the middle of August, but in sum, the seasons to which we have become accustomed in recent years have similar whims.
On the morning of the third day, Roger could not retain his joy on observing that the short grass was covered by white frost.
In the course of the afternoon, however, an unexpected blow put a brake on that enthusiasm. Roger was cheerfully getting ready to go for an excursion by automobile—in order to take temperature readings in the surrounding area, he said—when a telegraphist came to the door. He held out a dispatch. Roger broke the gummed seal with an expression of ill humor. “Why won’t they leave me in peace?” he grumbled.
As soon as he had read the telegram, however, his physiognomy revealed a violent emotion.
“The wretch!” he murmured. “He’s gone stark raving mad, then!”
As my gaze sought an explanation, he passed me the blue paper.
In my turn, I was choked by indignation and dolor after having read the frightful lines:
Public prosecutor, Seine, to Roger Livry, chemist, Mourmelon.
Property Fontenay burgled last night by unknown malefactor. Custodian murdered. Please return urgently.
“Jobert!”
The name escaped my lips, containing a formal accusation in itself.
“Yes, the rogue has put his threats into action. He’s stolen my radium!”
“What are you going to do, then?”
“Return to Paris. It’s necessary. I want to be sure about Philippe’s fate. Poor fellow!”
His real affliction gave way to a burst of egotistical ill-humor. “T
o be disturbed like this at the most interesting point of my experiment!”
“You can interrupt it, to resume it later.”
“No! Here, everything will remain in place. The phenomenon will proceed without us, for years if necessary. No one will suspect it, and the house can look after itself. All the same, it’s vexing!”
Half an hour later, after having locked up the rickety château as best we could, we were speeding along the road to Paris.
VII. The Cold
The sad voyage is accomplished without a word being exchanged.
At six o’clock we arrive outside the gate of the villa in Fontenay. The house is full of agents of the Sûreté. The examining magistrate is completing his investigation in the laboratory.
All the luxury of the property is contained in that large low building behind the villa, in the middle of a veritable park that extends between the railway line and the Bois de Vincennes. There, Roger has realized a marvelous installation, equipped with the most advanced and most costly apparatus. To science he has been unable to refuse anything, not even an electric furnace that burns three thousand francs’ worth of current an hour every time it is switched on.
We head in that direction, but as we approach the door, amazement nails me to the ground. The frame of carved stone—of millstone—in which the solid grille and the thick battens of the door were enclosed, has completely disappeared. The battens and the metal hinges are lying on the ground, leaving an opening excavated in the supporting brickwork; one might think it a construction at its outset.
“Walk!” whispers Roger, in a low voice. “And above all, stop looking astonished!” And as my bewilderment is not dissipated swiftly enough for his liking, he adds, impatiently: “Better than anyone else, I ought to understand how Jobert got in there. A simple dissociation of the calcareous stone sustaining the door, with the aid of the Omega acid. Have you forgotten my explanations already?”
Shivering, I followed my comrade.
Reciprocal introductions with the magistrate are followed by the latter’s explanations.
“The door of your laboratory was being repaired, which facilitated the malefactor’s intrusion” says the magistrate, without hesitating over what seems to him to be an evident observation.
Roger nods his head. At the same time, a glance instructs me to keep quiet. The magistrate continues is reconstruction of the crime.
In the middle of the night, the murderer climbs the wall of the property. Then he introduces himself into the laboratory through the open breach, goes straight to the strong-box; removes a steel panel with the aid of an explosive—a chlorated powder, according to the experts.
In spite of the care taken by the burglar to cover the front of the strong-box with blankets, the noise of the explosion is heard by old Philippe, the villa’s guardian. He comes running, but on the threshold of the laboratory he falls, pierced with two thrusts of a dagger. The poor man is dying at the Hôpital Saint-Antoine. Nevertheless, thanks to the light of a lantern, he thinks he has recognized his attacker; he has designated Jobert, the former laboratory assistant of the master of the house.
“Everything indicates, in any case, that the crime has been committed by someone very familiar with the habits of your house,” concludes the examining magistrate. “Had you, then, large sums of money in that strong-box?”
“Not a centime of cash, but ten grams of radium, representing a value of more than two millions.”
The judge started. I stifled a cry of amazement. Had Roger really spent such a sum buying radium?”
Without excitement, however, the chemist proceeded with a rapid inventory.
“He has also stolen a demijohn containing twenty-five liters of Omega acid,” he murmured in my ear. “And that’s more serious...”
The last observations having been made, the examining magistrate retired, declaring that Jobert would be placed in the ranks of the most dangerous criminals; all the police forces would be launched on his heels.
“Will they succeed in arresting him?”
I formulated that question a few moments after the magistrate’s departure, solely to break the somber silence in which Roger seemed to want to confine himself.
“I hope not!” he fulminated.
As I manifested a legitimate surprise in my expression, he explained: “I have no desire to see the Law doing chemistry on my back!”
“What do you mean?”
“That Jobert possesses a specimen of my acid, that he’s divined too much of my work. I’d prefer that he doesn’t talk, so, I want him to escape the searches.”
“But he’s a murderer! He merits a punishment!”
Roger shrugged his shoulders. “Like all of us, he’s condemned to death. The Law can do no better.”
I did not feel any desire to prolong that conversation, both idle and painful. I understood the urgent necessity of reaction.
To begin with, I wanted to liberate my mind from the doubt into which, reluctantly, Roger’s extravagant claims had plunged me, on the subject of his purchases of radium.
That same evening, while my friend was at the Hôpital Saint-Antoine with his wounded servant, I went to the principal merchants of chemical products in the Latin quarter.
Livry had made large purchases from all of them.
From the very start, the merchants allowed me to discover that my friend’s affirmations were still below the truth. Three months before, had he not concluded, in good and due form, an unusual contract for the supply of fifty grams of radium? At the current price of one million two hundred thousand francs per gram, he had thus engaged himself, with regard to the various producers of France and abroad, for a sum of about sixty million—a full half of his fortune.
On returning to the villa, I found Roger occupied with tidying up his laboratory. Without waiting any further, I could not master the impulse that drove me to try to talk some sense into him.
“Wretch!” I exclaimed. “Do you want to ruin yourself, then?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“In a few months, we’ll no longer be here. Do I still have to repeat that to you? So, tomorrow I’ll go to my notary to tell him to sell my immovable property. Then, if necessary, I’ll mortgage the villa at Fontenay...”
I let him talk. What was the point of countering such arguments? I would only try to see his notary, secretly, in order to prevent that irremediable eccentricity, which would put the unfortunate on the streets.
But would those officious precautions of a devoted friend be sufficient, against the obsessions of a willful individual like Roger?
No: at the rate things were going, very soon, circumstances would give me a duty to have resource to a dolorous extremity.
On the day when I found that it was impossible for me to defend Roger against himself, I would become culpable by keeping the secret of his folly; then, only one solution would appear possible: the internment of the poor fellow.
For some time already, would it not have been better to give the scientist the care required by his sick brain?
But our thoughts and our resolutions are truly submissive to strange oppositions!
From the moment that I began to encourage myself increasingly to take a decisive step, Roger seemed to be determined to adopt an absolutely normal attitude. And with regard to whom? With regard to the very people who might be called upon to judge his mental condition!
In the course of the Jobert affair he was summoned to numerous interviews with the examining magistrate, the head of the Sûreté, and the police commissioner of Vincennes. Was there an effort on his part to appear natural in order to remove any inclination on the part of the law to occupy themselves with his affairs? At any rate, I had never seen my friend Roger so amiable, such a brilliant conversationalist, so far from lunacy. The magistrates marveled at his logic and his intelligence. Behind his back, they addressed themselves to me to consecrate Livry as a superior man, a powerfully organized mind, a scholar of the first order.
&n
bsp; He made the same impression on Dr. Revard, the celebrated surgeon and most prominent member of the Académie de Médecine. Roger had made his acquaintance at the bedside of poor Père Philippe, who was still battling between life and death. Quite naturally, the two men had allowed their conversations to stray on to scientific terrain. One day, to summarize his enthusiastic judgment on the subject of my friend, Revard, who was not reputed to be lavish with praise, whispered in my ear:
“Remember my diagnosis—your friend will be Galileo, Edison or Pasteur!”
After that, could one see me going to request the detention of Livry in an asylum? It would be me who was at risk of being treated as a madman and seeing myself locked up right away.
And yet, I retained the certainty that my friend was not cured. On the contrary, his strange ideas were becoming more profoundly rooted. Every morning, Roger came into my room brandishing the newspapers.
“I believe that’s that, eh? Yesterday, fifteen degrees below normal. Winter temperatures at the beginning of autumn. The vines frozen in Champagne. Poor devils of vine-growers! If I could tell them how vain their lamentations are...
“And the meteorologists! Oh, it’s necessary to hear them! They’re serving us the cold wave, the perturbation of the regime of the winds, or even the sunspots! All the old majors are being worked to death. They’re also accusing the Moon, of course. She has a broad back, the gentle Phoebe!
“Anyway, observe for yourself the unexpected activity with which the Omega acid is eating the water vapor. Since my cold machine has been functioning at Mourmelon, not a drop of rain—a sky purged of any trace of humidity.”
In fact, a singular coincidence encouraged the extravagant fantasy of the destroyer of the world.
In the months since we had quit Mourmelon, the weather had cooled in a very abnormal fashion for the time of year. There was a veritable cold snap: a bitter north wind was blowing, as in December. Everywhere, that the popular sentiment could be grasped, on autobuses, at the restaurant, at street-corners, the plaints burst forth. On the doorsteps, housewives were affirming that the seasons had “turned round.”
On the Brink of the World's End Page 25