The Missing Link and Other Tales of Ape-Men

by Georges T. Dodds

  “One has to beware of winter weather with such creatures. It might only be a bad cold on the lungs. I’ll write you out a prescription, downstairs. But, as you know, one must be very careful!”

  “Don’t worry, doctor.”

  “Have him lie down right away, he should amuse himself sitting up, with the temperature he’s running. And let him sweat, give him steaming hot herb-tea.”

  Murlich had repeated the doctor’s instructions to Gulluliou. When he told him to lie down, the animal weakly shook its head:

  “Triouou,”30 he whispered.

  “No, it’s now! Let’s go, hurry up, we are waiting to see you laying down before we leave.”

  Gulluliou signaled his dissent. His hoarse coughing resumed.

  “Why do you not wish to?” asked Murlich.

  Gulluliou did not answer, but looked over at the doctor.

  “Would you believe it,” said Murlich, “he’s shy to do so in your presence! He does not want to undress before you!”

  “Well, I’ll be, my dear professor,” answered the other, who like many of his contemporaries did not lack in exclusivism, and had only recently recognized Gulluliou’s remarkable intelligence, “you don’t really expect me to think that your ape, however highly evolved he may be, could exhibit such a strong sense of modesty!”

  “Well, see for yourself!”

  Gulluliou had risen from his chair in a skilful motion and was spreading out his nightgown. Then, when everything was ready, he came back and sat down, looked at the two men once again, as if to say: “What, you’re still here. Can’t you see I’m going to go to bed, so leave!”

  “Well then, so be it, let’s leave him alone, if that’s what he wants!” declared the doctor with a skeptical smile.

  He extended his hand to the ape, who bent over to shake it. They left the room and went downstairs.

  Murlich gloated over his triumph in silence; every day brought a new confirmation of what he had attested to the week before in the museum’s amphitheater: Gulluliou was becoming more and more civilized, more and more a human being. He had once again, in the presence of a critical witness, shown proof of the delicacy of his feelings.

  Ah! admittedly, he could not yet, with his rudimentary vocabulary, translate into words all that went on in his humble soul, but that which his voice was unable to express, his eyes did. Murlich had learned to read those eyes, constantly hidden by the blinking of his eyelids, but whose dark waters were stirred by inner eddies. Murlich had taken on the fascinating task of unraveling the tangled skein of Gulluliou’s soul. In watching the blossoming of this ape when exposed to humans, he was filled with the pride of a partial creator. Like an artist, he loved his creation, dreamed of its coming completion, already seeing it upright, complete and perfect. This was why, in the week during which the ape had been coughing, Murlich had become more and more worried; and, fearing finally that it might be the start of a serious affliction, he had asked Darembert, the noted chest specialist, whom he knew, for a consultation.

  “Well then, doctor,” he asked in the small sitting room, “you have hopes that it will not be serious?”

  “Ah! One never knows, you know. If it were a man I was dealing with, I would say yes. I’ll give him a shot of serum.”

  “Antituberculin?”

  “Yes, and I would swear by it. But this is not the case; would he suffer such a shot? Furthermore, would the toxin work in such a creature?”

  “But, doctor, tell me frankly, do you think he has tuberculosis then?”

  The other, the corners of his mouth lowered in a pout which augured poorly, answered:

  “Hmm, for now it is not sufficiently progressed to make a determination, but I think it can be nipped in the bud if one takes great care. I reiterate, beware the winter weather! When the animal shall be capable of going out, cover him as warmly as possible.”

  “He wears a fur coat.”

  “Good. Besides, I will see him again before that. And, especially, be sure to overfeed him. He eats meat, does he not?”

  “Very little, doctor.”

  “He must eat some. And every two hours a granule of hydrated albumin. As for the rest, follow these instructions to the letter.”

  He had just written out the prescription, and handed it to Murlich.

  “So,” the latter insisted, “you don’t think it necessary to give Gulluliou a serum injection? Even if he doesn’t need it, I can’t see that it can do any harm. It would reassure me.”

  The doctor, bantering, smiled with his shaven mouth:

  “It’s understood, I’ll bring my bag tomorrow; you are a father, and you are concerned for your child’s health!”

  Murlich was very serious when he replied: “Why yes,” in his soft, deep and friendly voice. “What do you expect? Given all of my values I have imparted to him, I see more in him than merely a vulgar beast; he is a kind of son to me. Besides, he is so affectionate and so innocent: a true child!”

  Above them, muffled by the floor and carpet, Gulluliou’s coughing could be heard.

  The doctor, notwithstanding his poorly hidden skepticism had remained thoughtful before Murlich’s spontaneous and heartfelt declaration.

  “Come on,” he said, “go up and see how he’s doing. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll give him the injection, don’t you worry, we’ll get him through!”

  Murlich, once alone, returned to his student’s room. He saw him stretched out in the narrow bed, only his eyes peeking out. The ape was not sleeping. He watched Murlich come in and make his way over to him, standing at his bedside.

  Neither Gulluliou nor Murlich moved as they considered each other in the silence of their mutually mysterious and unfathomable affection, seemingly reading in each other’s eyes the futility of speech in understanding one another.

  Gulluliou remained in bed for almost a week; the fevers had been difficult to overcome, all of Dr. Darembert’s know-how had been required to stop this bout of bronchitis in its early stages. Plaintive and shivering during this period, he had been nursed like a human being by Murlich and Alix. When the naturalist had to go out for errands or other necessities, the young woman remained at the patient’s bedside, encouraging him to drink herbal infusions and potions with a sisterly hand. What struck one with the animal was the resignation with which he suffered. Finally the cough quieted down, and he was less tired by the weight on his chest.

  Darembert believed that the injection, given as soon as the first symptoms had manifested themselves, had been able to stop its progression. He allowed Gulluliou to get up. The ape spent a few days on a sofa, in a large quilted dressing-gown, near the window which opened on the garden’s bare trees. A succession of picture books went through the convalescent’s distracted fingers. His greatest joy was a doll, which Alix, his devoted friend, brought him one afternoon. On the pongo’s long dark hand the doll swung, stiff and pink. He named it Minnili, after the name of a little bird from his home, thus named for its call. For hours on end, the Son-of-Doves rocked Minnili, with all the paternal tenderness in his simian soul.

  Visits distracted him from his days of boredom in the half-light of late January. Since the seminar at the Museum, the public’s about face had made the ape almost famous, and an acrimonious discussion of his case and of Murlich’s doctrine had been carried out in the newspapers. The excitement born that night had propagated itself, the supporters now equaled the detractors, and all that had been needed for the animal to acquire the right to claim itself human was a few tears. Murlich brought his friends to the pavilion in Auteuil. Maximin, who had come to know the naturalist had also wished to meet Gulluliou. The poet saw in Murlich a capacity for speculation which bore a dreamlike quality, and which he felt comfortable with: they became friends. But Maximin was more and more overwhelmed with his play’s rehearsals, which were not going altogether well, and by all the negotiations to rent a hall in which to present it. He was only able to visit the convalescent once, promising that he would attend the premiere
of The Triumph of Man, announced for the 10th of February. Gulluliou had a week to wait.

  The ape spoke little during these indolent days. He did not like to play under the light of the lamps, and as soon as the twilight came, wan and snowy or under worsening rain, he let Minnili sleep in a chair, got awkwardly into his dressing-gown, hunched over like a little old man, his arms hanging to the carpet. At night, Murlich and Alix remained with him a little while. He was content to watch them, but each in a different manner: with a dull but confident calm in the case of his master, and with a stranger, more piercing look in the case of the young woman.

  Once, having remained alone, she had become uneasy about this look, about these wild, haunting, yet good-natured eyes which stared at her. But it was over in a flash; Gulluliou, like someone who made an effort to control themselves, had taken up his doll again, cajoled it between his chest and his bent arm, singing in his guttural voice an old tune which his mother had no doubt taught him long ago:

  Minnili, Minnili, the little

  Bird hops about the branches,

  And tick, tick goes his little tail

  With his little wing that beats…;

  Tick, tick,

  Minnili, Minnili,

  Little friend, sing me again

  Your song!

  In the corner the great palm leaf shifted heavily back and forth above the heat duct, as if still animated in the manner it had been in its native climes. Gulluliou watched it distractedly for a moment, put the doll down again, and drew his long body up from the sofa to go to bed.

  CHAPTER V

  The last line had rung out, echoing from the twilight-drowned stage to the entire silent crowd. Sparse applause greeted the curtain coming down, and immediately, from the orchestra to the cupola, the sound of voices abuzz.

  Maximin left the edge of the fore-stage from whence he had watched all of the first act of The Triumph of Man; he turned to his friends, who extended their hands to compliment him.

  Alix Forest was there, almost pretty under the lively glow of the stage-light, the very delicate skin of her pale neck emerging from the neck of her russet-brown dress, where huge white umbels recalled the young woman’s strange obsession. On her hat, covered in dead leaves of the same color as her dress, a scattering of tiny mushrooms rose in a flexible tuft. With her perky yet refined smile, she immediately expressed her joy over the lovely verses whose strong harmony still stirred them. Murlich, who was there too, in the back, silent, applauded discretely, as it behooves a man of science who is not entirely indifferent to poetry. At the back of the box, Gulluliou, motionless, watched, searching for answers in Murlich’s demeanor with hesitant eyes. Suddenly he understood the meaning of Murlich’s actions, his palms were struck together, timidly at first, then in a mischievously rough and childish manner.

  But Casot-Dorlys the critic, tilted his flushed face, and allowed a glowing review to pass his thick lips.

  “Admirable,” my dear friend, “and so well played this act of yours.”

  Maximin surveyed the crowd at length, and shook his head:

  “Let’s hope it fills up, there’re empty seats!”

  “But people are still coming in,” said the critic with a burr. “Don’t worry, you’ll have a full house for the climax! Ah! Maximin, the Arts owe you such a beautiful, such a great night! Soon you shall triumph!”

  Alix said:

  “It’s already a success!”

  The poet’s nervous hands were shaking.

  “The battle is not yet won. There should be more people. I’ll go see at the ticket office. Besides, the people need only come in. Albani was good, wasn’t he? He was made for the role.”

  “Oh! remarkable,” added Casot-Dorlys. “His voice is warm and sonorous, just the voice for your verse! Does Balsamore play in the second act?”

  “Yes, a short appearance,” answered Alix in lieu of Maximin who was temporarily distracted, “but it’s mostly in the third act that she gives it everything. And you’ll see the wonderful set!”

  In the hubbub which rose towards the great light fixture, the critic said excitedly:

  “It will be a triumph I tell you!”

  Casot-Dorlys, a big man of some 40 years of age, radiated good-natured joviality and sincerity. His strong uncanny taste for art had tied him to Maximin, with whom he shared the hope of waking the minds of his contemporaries. The admiration he professed for the poet, was entirely reciprocal. For if Casot-Dorlys, hands on his hips and features alight, proclaimed Maximin’s genius amongst the groups, Maximin was not without making a great deal of Casot-Dorlys’ critical sense. He was, in a different manner than Alix, another person in which he confided.

  Taking up his hat, the poet said, in a very fevered state:

  “I must at least go over there for a little while. Will you come along, Casot?”

  “Yes, yes, certainly. Pardon me, miss, duty before everything! We’re off to get the troops warmed up!”

  Maximin turned towards Alix and Murlich:

  “At the next intermission, we’ll go backstage together, shall we not?”

  The two friends slipped into the hallway where the main hall sent the overflow of its conversations. The attendance included middle-class people and the author’s invited guests for whom this evening had long been a matter of passionate discussion, and amongst whose families bourgeois values had not yet entirely stamped out other feelings. As well, there were random spectators, people who had been passing on the street, craftsmen and employees, those whom the lighted marquis had attracted, and who had come in, having nothing better to do and because it was free. The latter, in a stunned silence, wandered about like fish out of water. They had not been the ones applauding before, those had been the tuxedo crowd. But the general public, they alone would make the play a success, if they understood it. Maximin knew that his verses must wake sleeping embers within them, or the play would be a failure.

  They moved along, their passage interrupted here and there by friends and acquaintances. Very loudly, Casot-Dorlys praised the play left and right, so all around would hear. He flashed victorious smiles, waved his short arms about as he spoke, in rapid fire sentences, of the wonders of the acts to come.

  “You’ll see, you’ll see, yes a factory set. O! truly gripping! My dear Maximin, allow me to present you to an admirer.”

  The poet moved on quickly, thanking and greeting people. For a moment, his friend stopped to exchange a few words with a colleague, Gribory, a critic as slim and jaundiced as Casot was round and pink. Maximin went on without him as he was in a hurry to reach the ticket office to have one foot on the sidewalk, to see if people were coming in and if the hall was filling. He need not have gone so far, as a press of arrivals pushed him back; he returned reassured. People were coming in the large door which led directly into the hall, bright with its fresh gold ornamentation and red balconies.

  As he wondered whether he would have time to go on stage and watch over the installation of the set, he once again ran into Casot-Dorlys, who had just left off with his colleague.

  “Well then,” the playwright asked, “what did Gribory have to say about me?”

  “O! One never knows with him if it’s fish, flesh, or fowl. He has no opinion; he wants to see the whole play before pronouncing himself.”

  “He’s right,” admitted Maximin.

  Casot, with his usual sanguine enthusiasm, burst out:

  “Why, yes, he is right. But he’s never been one to allow himself to admit to being carried away over anything!”

  Maximin dismissed it with a gesture; one would see tomorrow.

  Around them people moved about hurriedly, the intermission was finishing. They returned to the front of the stage, where, from a distance, Alix was showing Murlich, in the boxes and on the floor, the marvelous impact of the style she was launching. Here and there mushrooms were sprouting up from the fabric of skirts and bodices, hairdos heavily decorated with their various hues. The young woman, beneath Gulluliou’s
fixed stare, named off her client list to Murlich who smiled archly.

  Before a now full house, the curtain released a burst of fresh air from the stage, where, representing present times, stood a great glassed-in hall. Machines shook it with their silent motions. Man was there, creator of these machines, through which his muscles were spared all work, all physical exertion. Busying himself solely in the planning of other machines for other tasks, immersed in his cold mathematics which nonetheless led to a solution to his problems, he remained unfulfilled, unconscious from the get-go as to what was missing. Finally he saw clearly and cried out his need for an ideal:

  What to do now? I have seen everything,

  None of the ancient civilizations’ secrets are beyond my grasp,

  I have discovered the key to their bygone mysteries

  O! Earth, my science could recreate thee!

  Yet, the greatest enigma resides within me,

  Ah! to know all, to compute everything!

  What then, when I reached the bottom of this abyss?

  My heart will be no less oppressed,

  My brow no less beating itself against the walls of my prison.

  Where reason, my blind jailer, would hold me.

  But to escape, the birds have their two wings,

  The torrent drops alone from the eternal peaks,

  The forest can rustle beneath the caresses of the wind,

  And I, how shall I be free?

  [The Nature-sprite’s voice]:

  By dreaming.

  In a while, a blue light filled the rear of the set, presaging a new dawn, and the Nature-goddess, played by Berthe Balsamore, showed herself for a moment, announcing the anticipated redemption. The curtain fell on the upward motion and smile of this lovely woman, whose blonde hair shed a sunny cheerfulness over the stage. It was so well received, this time, as to augur success. The applause continued, woke long dormant echoes in the hall. Maximin, waiting in the wings, thrilling to every verse, to every movement of his characters, felt that all the awkwardness with which the night had begun was dissolving away, was evaporating under the breath of his poetry. The fever which had held sway over him for days rose under a certainty of success.