by Primo Levi
“No idea about what?”
“About the eels. As you well know, they’re not insects, but they, too, migrate in schools, thousands upon thousands, every year. He made a deal with them without my knowing, that scoundrel: as if I had kept him from making money. He bribed them with some dead flies and they came to the water’s edge, one by one, before setting off for the Sargasso Sea. Two grams of heroin in each of those little balls, tied to their backs. Naturally, Rick Papaleo’s yacht was waiting for them when they arrived. Now, I told you I’ve been cleared of every suspicion; however, my entire enterprise was discovered and I have the tax office on my case. They imagine that I earn who knows how much money; they’re making inquiries. The same old story, right? Invent fire and give it to mankind, then a vulture gnaws at your liver for eternity.”
The Sixth Day
Characters
ARIMANE
CHEMISTRY ADVISOR
MECHANICAL ADVISOR
ORMUZ
SECRETARY
ANATOMY ADVISOR
ECONOMIST
MINISTER OF THE WATERS
PSYCHOLOGY ADVISOR
THERMODYNAMIC ADVISOR
MESSENGER
The stage, as far as possible, is open and deep. A massive, rough-
hewn table, chairs made from blocks of stone. An enormous clock
ticking very slowly and loudly, and, in place of the hours,
the face has hieroglyphics, algebraic symbols, zodiac signs.
A door at the back.
ARIMANE (in his hand, open, is a letter with many seals; his manner is of someone in mid-conversation): Distinguished gentlemen, it is therefore a matter of concluding, I would even say crowning, our hard-won achievement. As I have had the honor of demonstrating to you, the Management, despite some minor reservations, and suggesting some nonessential modifications to our operation, is generally satisfied both with our organizational plan and with its current management. Earning particular praise was the elegant and practical solution to the problem of oxygen regeneration (he nods toward the THERMODYNAMIC ADVISOR, who bows in thanks); the felicitous process proposed and realized by the Chemistry Advisor (nod and bow as above) for the closure of the nitrogen cycle; and, in another field, no less important, the development of the wing beat, for which I am pleased to pass on the Management’s highest praise to the Mechanical Advisor (nod and bow as above), along with the directive that those who assisted him—the person in charge of the birds and the person in charge of the insects—should also share in the praise. Finally, though their manufacturing experience cannot be said to be extensive, I must laud the diligence and skill of the employees, thanks to whom waste material, units that failed inspection, and production discards were reduced to more than satisfactory margins.
In its daily communication, the Management (shows the letter) most explicitly expresses its continued insistence on a prompt conclusion to the design work regarding the Man model. We shall therefore start resolutely probing into the details of the project in order to better conform to our superiors’ directives.
ORMUZ (a sad and downtrodden character. During ARIMANE’s entire speech he showed signs of anxiety and disapproval; on several occasions he attempted to speak, then, as if he didn’t dare, he sat down. He speaks in a timid voice, with hesitations and pauses, as if he found himself at a loss for words): I would like to beg my distinguished colleague and brother to give a public reading of the motion approved some time ago by the Council of Executive Directors, regarding the subject of Man. Much time has passed, and I fear that some of those concerned no longer remember its content.
ARIMANE (visibly annoyed: he makes an ostentatious display of looking at his wristwatch and at the large clock): Colleague Secretary, I must ask you to search among the records for the most recent draft of the motion regarding Man. I don’t remember the exact date, but you should be able to find it among the papers from around the time of the first Placentalia test reports. I beseech you to do this immediately; the fourth glaciation is about to begin and I wouldn’t want to have to postpone everything yet again.
SECRETARY (he has in the meantime searched for and found the motion in a voluminous file; he reads in an official voice): “The Council of Executive Directors, persuaded that (incomprehensible muttering) . . . ; considering (as above) . . . with the intention of (as above) abiding by the superior interests of the (as above) DEEMS IT APPROPRIATE for the design and creation of an animal species distinct from those which have so far been realized, and meeting the following requirements:
(a) a special aptitude for creating and using instruments;
(b) the capacity to express himself articulately, for example, through signs, sounds, and whatever other means each relevant technician deems fitting to this end;
(c) suitability to life under extreme working conditions;
(d) a proclivity for community life, to a level that will be experimentally determined for optimum value.
The technicians and the qualified departments are strongly requested to take maximum interest in the problem above stated, which is of the utmost urgency, and for which a swift and brilliant solution is desired.
ORMUZ (abruptly rises to his feet and speaks with the haste of the shy): I have never concealed the fact that I have been opposed from the start to the creation of the so-called Man. Already at the time when the Management, rather superficially (murmuring: ORMUZ takes a deep breath, hesitates, then continues), formulated the first draft of the motion just read, I pointed out the dangers associated with this so-called Man’s integration into the equilibrium of the existing planet. Naturally, understanding the importance that for more than obvious reasons the Management attaches to the problem in question, and the proverbial obstinacy (murmuring, comments) of the same Management, I realize that it is by now too late to instigate the withdrawal of the motion. I’ll therefore limit myself to suggesting case by case and in a purely advisory capacity only those modifications and those mitigations to the Council’s ambitious program which, in my opinion, will allow for its realization without excessive trauma in either the short or the long term.
ARIMANE: Fine, fine, distinguished colleague. Your reservations are well-known, as is your personal skepticism and pessimism, and, finally, your interesting report on the questionable result of similar experiments conducted by you yourself in different eras and on other planets, at a time when we all had a freer hand. Between ourselves, those attempts of yours at Superanimals were so packed with reason and common sense, from inception so jammed with geometry, music, and wisdom, that they made even the chickens giggle. They reeked of antiseptic and inorganic chemistry. Anyone with a certain firsthand knowledge of things in this world, or in any other world, for that matter, would have understood their incompatibility with the surrounding environment, an environment necessarily at once putrid and florid, teeming, chaotic, mutable.
I will take the liberty of repeating to you that it is precisely because of such failures that the Management insists, indeed urges, that this by now ancient problem be steadfastly faced up to, with seriousness and competence (he intentionally repeats himself), I said with seriousness and competence; and that our long-awaited guest (lyrically), the master, the connoisseur of good and evil, make his appearance—he, that is, whom the Council of Executive Directors has elegantly defined as the being composed in the image and likeness of his creator. (Sedate, official applause)
Back to work then, gentlemen, and once more permit me to remind you that time is running out.
ANATOMY ADVISOR: I ask leave to speak.
ARIMANE: Our colleague the Anatomy Advisor will now take the floor.
ANATOMY ADVISOR: Insofar as my specific expertise allows, I will briefly formulate the problem. In the first place, it would be illogical to start from scratch, ignoring all the good work that has been done up until now on Earth. We already possess an animal and plant world more or less in equilibrium; I therefore recommend to our colleagues in design that they abstain from ov
erly intrepid changes and from overly bold innovations on models already realized. The field is already far too vast. If I were to permit myself indiscretions verging on the limits of professionalism, I could keep you here quite a while listening to the numerous projects that have accumulated on my desk (not to mention the ones that find their way into my trash can). Mind you, the material in question is often rather interesting and, in any case, original: organisms designed for temperatures varying from –270° to +300°C, studies on colloidal systems in liquid carbon dioxide, metabolisms without nitrogen or without carbon, and so on. One guy even proposed a line of exclusively metallic live models; another, an ingenious, almost perfectly self-sufficient vesicular organism that was lighter than air, because it was inflated with hydrogen extracted from water by means of a theoretically flawless enzymatic system, and used the wind to navigate the entire surface of the Earth without notable energy expenditure.
I mention these curiosities essentially in order to give you an idea of the so to speak negative aspect of my duties. In several cases, we are dealing with potentially fertile ideas; but it would be, in my opinion, an error to let ourselves be distracted by their indisputable fascination. It seems to me unquestionable, if for no other reason than time and simplicity, that for the project under discussion the point of departure should be sought in one of the fields in which our experience has been tested most successfully and for the longest duration. This time, we cannot permit ourselves trials, do-overs, corrections: we must heed the warning of the disastrous failure of the great Sauria, which on paper was really very promising, and which, fundamentally, wasn’t so far off the traditional schemes. Leaving aside, for obvious reasons, the plant realm, I would like to bring the Mammalia and the Arthropoda to the designers’ attention (prolonged rustling, comments), and I will not conceal that my personal predilection is for the latter.
ECONOMIST: As is both my habit and my duty, I shall intervene unsolicited. Colleague Anatomist, tell me: what, according to you, should Man’s dimensions be?
ANATOMY ADVISOR (taken unawares): But . . . truly . . . (he calculates in a low voice, scribbling numbers and sketches on a piece of paper in front of him) let’s see . . . here, from about sixty centimeters to fifteen or twenty linear meters. Compatible with the unit price and with the requirements for locomotion, I would opt for the larger dimensions, ensuring, it seems to me, a greater chance of success in the inevitable competition with other species.
ECONOMIST: Given your preference for Arthropoda, are you thinking of a Man around twenty meters tall with an external skeleton?
ANATOMY ADVISOR: Certainly: allow me to remind you, in all modesty, of the elegance of my innovation. With a supporting external skeleton, a single structure satisfies the requirements for support, locomotion, and defense; the difficulty of growth, as has been noted, can easily be avoided through a kind of artificial moult, something I have recently developed. The introduction of chitin as the construction material . . .
ECONOMIST (steely): Are you aware of how much chitin costs?
ANATOMY ADVISOR: No, but in any case . . .
ECONOMIST: That’s enough. I have sufficient information to firmly oppose your proposal for a twenty-meter arthropod man. And, on further thought, not one measuring even five meters, or even one meter. If you want to make an arthropod, that’s your affair; but if it’s going to be bigger than a stag beetle, I won’t have anything to do with it, and the budget will be your problem.
ARIMANE: Colleague Anatomist, the Economist’s opinion (besides being in my view more than justified) is, unfortunately, final and without appeal. Furthermore, it seems to me that, aside from the mammals to which you referred a moment ago, the vertebrate series presents even more interesting possibilities among the reptiles, the birds, the fish . . .
MINISTER OF THE WATERS (a lively old man with a blue beard and holding a small trident): Hear, hear, listen up. It is inconceivable, in my opinion, that so far no one in this room has mentioned the aquatic solution. Even the room itself is desperately dry: stone, concrete, wood, not a puddle—what am I talking about? There’s not even a faucet. It’s enough to make the blood curdle!
And yet everyone knows that water covers three-quarters of the Earth’s surface; and furthermore the land above sea level is a surface that has only two dimensions, two coordinates, four cardinal points; while the ocean, gentlemen, the ocean . . .
ARIMANE: I wouldn’t have any objection in principle to a Man either wholly or partially aquatic; but subsection (a) of the Man motion speaks of tools, and I wonder what materials a floating or subaquatic Man would use to make them?
MINISTER OF THE WATERS: I don’t see any difficulty. An aquatic Man, especially with coastal habits, would have at his disposition mollusk shells, the bones and teeth of all species, various minerals, many of which are easy to manipulate, algae made of tough fibers—in fact, in this regard, all it would take is one little word from me to my friend in charge of vegetation, and in several thousand generations we could have available in abundance any material similar to, for example, wood, or hemp, or cork, given our specific requirements, remaining, naturally, within the limits of good sense and technical capability.
PSYCHOLOGY ADVISOR (dressed as a Martian with a helmet, enormous spectacles, antennae, tubes, etc.): Gentlemen, we are—rather, you are—off track. I have heard just now talk of a coastal Man as if such a thing were utterly normal, without anyone standing up to point out the extreme precariousness of life the creatures living between land and sea are subjected to, exposed as they are to all the hazards of both environments. Just think of all the troubles the seals have had! But there’s another thing: it seems clear to me, from at least three of the four subsections of the directorial motion, that Man is tacitly intended to be rational.
MINISTER OF THE WATERS: And what is that supposed to mean! Are you by chance insinuating that one cannot reason underwater? And if so what would I be doing there, I who spend almost all my working hours in the water?
PSYCHOLOGY ADVISOR: I beg you, distinguished colleague, calm down and let me speak. There is nothing easier than to unfurl a large roll of drawings, in plain view and cross section, with all the construction details, for the design of a great beast or a small one, male or female, winged or not, with fingernails or horned, with two eyes or eight eyes or a hundred and eighty eyes, or perhaps with a thousand feet, like the time you made me sweat blood in order to tidy up the nervous system of the millipede.
Then a small empty circle is drawn inside the head and next to it is stenciled: “Cranial cavity for encephalon placement,” and the chief psychologist has to make do. And up until now I have made do, no one can deny it, but, I ask you, don’t you realize that, if someone is going to have a say on the subject of aquatic Man or Earth Man or flying Man, it should be me? Tools, articulated language, community life, all in one blow, and immediately (I would bet) someone will probably still find something to criticize because his sense of direction is weak, or someone else (he purposefully looks at the ECONOMIST) will protest because by the kilo he will cost more than a mole or a caiman! (Murmuring, approbation, some dissent. The PSYCHOLOGY ADVISOR takes off his Martian helmet in order to scratch his head and dry the sweat, then puts it back on and continues) So, listen to me, and if someone wants to carry the message to those upstairs, so much the better. One of three things: either you take me seriously from now on, and stop presenting me with projects that are already signed, sealed, and delivered; or you give me a reasonable amount of time to figure out this mess; or I will resign, and then, in place of the small empty circle, our Anatomist colleague can put into the heads of his most ingenious creations a packet of connective tissue, or a reserve stomach, or, best of all, a big lump of extra fat. I’ve said what I have to say.
A contrite and guilty silence from which ARIMANE’s
persuasive voice finally emerges.
ARIMANE: Distinguished Psychologist colleague, I can give you formal assurances that no one in this meeting has
ever undervalued even for an instant the difficulties and responsibilities of your work. Furthermore, you are teaching us that solutions involving compromise are more of a rule than an exception, and it is our communal duty to seek to resolve individual problems in the spirit of the greatest possible collaboration. In the case under discussion, then, the preeminent importance of your opinions is clear to everyone, and your specific competence has been well noted. I therefore give the floor back to you.
PSYCHOLOGY ADVISOR (instantaneously appeased, takes a deep breath): Gentlemen, it is my opinion, which, by the way, can be amply documented, that in order to put together a Man who corresponds to the prescribed requirements, and is altogether viable, economical, and reasonably long-lasting, it would be necessary for us to start over from the beginning, and to construct this animal from definitively new building blocks . . .
ARIMANE (interrupts): No, no, don’t . . .
PSYCHOLOGY ADVISOR: All right, distinguished colleague, the objection of urgency was foreseen and taken for granted. I will, in any case, permit myself to denounce the ulterior motives that yet again disrupt what could have been (and it happens so rarely!) an interesting little task; besides, this seems to be the fate of us technicians.
To return then to the basic question, I have no doubt that Man is a terrestrial being and not an aquatic one. I will briefly show you the reasons. It seems clear to me that this Man must possess mental faculties that are rather well developed, and that this, in the present state of our knowledge, cannot be realized without a corresponding development of the sense organs. Now, for an animal who is submerged or floating, the development of the senses meets with grave difficulties. In the first place, taste and sense of smell would obviously become merged into only one sense, which would still be the lesser problem. But consider the homogeneous, even monotonous conditions of the aquatic environment; I don’t want to speak for the future, but the best eyes so far constructed cannot explore more than around ten meters of clear water, and a few centimeters of turbid water. So either we’ll provide Man with rudimentary eyes or they will become such from non-use in a few thousand centuries. The same, or almost, can be said about the ears—