The Nickel Man

by Brian Stableford

  These calumnies had certainly only been invented by the jealousy of a few rivals. What could not be denied was that Homunculus was generally liked. His absence of heart facilitated the means of worldly success. He was especially able to attract the sympathy of women, and thanks to their protection, which he owed to the sentiments that he was clever enough to inspire in them, he shone in all their salons. To conquer their favors, he had begun by making each of them believe individually that he only burned with passion for her, whereas even the most beautiful was incapable of awakening an elevated love in him. His speech only expressed false sentiments; he could repeat the same nonsense to all women, without running the risk of being caught in the nets of his own lies. His natural indifference always made him the master of the situation. By means of that conduct, which derived from his constitution, it did not take long for him to be invited everywhere.

  A great lady, very fashionable then for her supreme elegance and also vary sensible although she was no longer very young, having no fear, in spite of her recent widowhood, of showing that Homunculus had conquered her heart, and she put the cap on his success. Soon, the other women were competing with her to excite the attention of the automaton. From that moment on he was so sought after that he became the object of all conversations, and it was regarded as an extreme favor merely to receive a note in his handwriting.

  The perseverance of the beautiful widow carried him away. Homunculus, faithful to his nature—which is to say, his mechanism—had remained insensible for a long time; the exhaustion of his money finally advised him to allow himself to be touched by so much love. He consented to marry the great lady, declaring in a negligent tone to his friends that it was not because he loved her, but because he was madly loved himself, that the marriage had been decided.

  By virtue of Homunculus’ indifference, the union that he had contracted was untroubled by any cloud. His wife adored him and lavished care and attention upon him. She never perceived, fortunately for her, that no heart was beating within her husband’s breast. The only thing that she found strange in him was that sleep never came to close his eyes. After a few months, however, she had succeeded in getting used to the phenomenon, and as Homunculus did not begin to waste away, she ended up congratulating herself for having found a second husband who combined with so many other qualities that of never sleeping.

  Three years had gone by since Homunculus’ escape, and he had become he father of two delightful children, who took after him and their mother. They resembled her externally, but, having no heart, the same insensibility and egotism was found in them as in their father.

  Albert the Great had had time to console himself, apparently at least, for the irreparable loss that he believed that he had suffered. He was now attempting other inventions, without thinking overmuch about creating a second automaton.

  Around that time, the story of an unusual event came to trouble the ordinary quietude of the cloister. It was said that the inhabitants of the nearest big city had suddenly risen up against a gentleman of noble birth, and that public tranquility had briefly been in danger, but that calm had been restored. The fact, however, were sufficiently important for them to have spread of their own accord all the way to the silent walls of the cloister.

  One feast day, in one of the busiest streets of the city, an aristocrat’s carriage had run over a child. Members of the crowd had immediately hurled themselves in front of the horses, and in spite of all the coachman’s efforts, exciting them with words and the whip, had succeeded in holding on to them. Furious people had scaled the carriage, uttering cries of vengeance. The great lady who was inside the carriage was terrified; as for the gentleman sitting beside her, his face had not been pierced by any emotion. He had contented himself with throwing a few handfuls of gold into the crowd, in a negligent and impassive fashion. At the sight of that magic rain, the common people had suddenly calmed down. The horses had been released, and the coachman had taken advantage of that to drive away rapidly.

  The manifestation seemed to be concluded, and would have been, in fact, but for an unexpected incident. At the moment when the carriage set off again, the lady, who had recovered her composure, had said a few words to her husband; the latter had replied, in a loud voice and in the most indifferent tone with a remark that had, unfortunately, been overheard by a number of people: “There are enough children in the world without that brat.”

  That cruel comment had run from mouth to mouth. Toward evening, the crowd had pressed, like the turbulent waves of the ocean, beneath the windows of the house inhabited by the man who had pronounced such harsh words in public. People were crying vengeance, and several agitators were already trying to break down the main door. In order to reestablish order and tranquility, it was necessary to have recourse to armed force, and there had been casualties, some of them fatal. Gradually, however, the multitude had dispersed and the night had rendered calm to minds—except that the gentleman was advised not to show himself in the streets of the city for some time.

  When that tale reached the ears of Albert the Great, a sudden flash of enlightenment passed through his mind; his face cleared; the expression of his features, melancholy or a long time, became cheerful, and he cried, full of enthusiasm: “My work is not lost! By that absence of heart, I recognize my automaton! Homunculus lives; I shall go to recover him.”

  He left for the great city that same day, accompanied by two brothers. In less than twenty-four hours they had arrived at their destination.

  Rightly presuming that their habits might alarm the automaton, they disguised themselves as men-at-arms and went, the very next day, to Homunculus’ house. Albert, transformed into a knight, asked to speak to the master of the house. Far from inspiring suspicion, their disguised served to facilitate their passage, because, since the recent events. Homunculus had been put under protection of the army.

  When Albert was in the presence of the pretended gentleman, he recognized his automaton joyfully. As soon as the valet who had introduced him had withdrawn, he ran to his creation and, rapidly pressing the hidden switch that was known to him alone, immobilized Homunculus immediately.

  In a matter of minutes the automaton was dismantled, and, the two brothers, who were waiting at the door, having come in, each of them hid several pieces of the machine under his cloak. Albert took the head and shoulders, and thus, as Roman senators had once caused their first king to disappear, the monks carried poor Homunculus away without being seen.

  A few days after that event, the automaton was installed in the cell again, submissive as in the past to the orders of his master and inventor. As before, he fulfilled the double function in his regard of secretary and domestic. Albert was radiant with joy, and now kept watch on his work with jealous care. There was no more chance of escape for the unfortunate Homunculus henceforth. Fortunately for him, his lack of a heart spared him from all regrets and all sadness.

  A month after that forced return, the celebrated Thomas Aquinas, nicknamed the Great Ox of Wisdom,30 came to render a visit to the Dominican convent; he had undertaken the voyage with the objective of seeing Albert and appreciating his marvelous inventions for himself. Scarcely had he arrived than he asked for the celebrated magician. A brother indicated to him the cell he inhabited and then withdrew.

  Thomas Aquinas having knocked on the door, Homunculus, following his master’s orders, immediately came to open it. At the sight of him, the man inspired by the Lord was gripped by fright; he had immediately sensed the absence of the heart, and divined the artificial man in the Dominican’s domestic. He must even have mistaken Homunculus for the spirit of evil, for, having raised a knotty oak staff that served him as a support, he struck the automaton on the head with a blow so violent that, this time, the machine was permanently destroyed.

  The arguments that followed the automaticide were violent. Albert did not spare the future saint, but all his anger was futile. The master’s work was irredeemably annihilated.

  Why had Thomas
Aquinas not come to the convent before Homunculus’ escape? What annoyances poor humanity would have been spared!

  In time, the Dominican succeeded in resigning himself and almost consoling himself for the loss he had suffered. It was not the same for the wife of the automaton. The great lady could not explain her husband’s sudden disappearance. Incapable of reconciling herself to that inconceivable separation, she set everything in motion to find him.

  Her research was devoid of result. Albert maintained an obstinate silence and the brothers who had lent him their aid in the abduction of the automaton were also constrained to silence, because the Dominican had compelled them under the most severe menaces. It was only after his death that they talked, and it is to them that the relation of this story is owed.

  Many years have gone by since that epoch. The events recounted above have been partly forgotten, but the automaton’s descendants are still alive, alas. The two sons he had by his marriage have perpetuated his race. Sometimes it seems to be extinct, but suddenly, be the power of the phenomenon of atavism, individuals entirely identical to the first Homunculus reappear on the world stage.

  You ask with astonishment: “Where are they encountered?” Without looking very far, you can find marvelously accomplished specimens; they can be seen in all ranks of society; each sex counts its representatives, and it will be particularly easy for you to find examples among courtiers and men of the world.

  Louis Gallet: The Death of Paris

  (1892)

  So, this is what the Seer said:

  For twelve centuries Paris had been expanding at the foot of the metal tower that remains almost the sole vestige of the former city, which a very ancient tradition names the Eiffel Tower, without anyone knowing exactly where the name came from, the archeologists having failed completely to reach agreement on the matter. The city was immense, sheltering in its ten-story houses crowned with vast terraces a population of six million souls. Its prosperity was great, although it had no longer been the capital of the United States of Europe for a long time. It had, however, remained famous throughout the world for its worship of pleasure. All the peoples driven away from the North by the invasion of the ice had their representatives there, no longer forming any but a single nation.

  Powerful Russia had flowed like a river into Asia; Germany only existed as a memory; all of noble Europe was asleep in polar silence.

  The United States of Europe then had Marseille as a capital; those of Africa had Algiers.

  Mediterranean and aerial communications already being very rapid in those days, the two cities in question exchanged their correspondence and newspapers several times every day, always full of stories about the admirable Paris that, although then situated at the northern extremity of Europe, dispossessed of its political suzerainty, was still the astonishment of the world. Science nevertheless expressed serious anxiety in its regard. The earth was subject to a cooling whose zone was describing increasingly large circles around the pole. But Paris, well-heated, abundantly provided with all industrial riches, laughed at the prophets of doom. The great city had always had enormous depths of skepticism.

  And, in truth, the strength of Paris was marvelous then, able to inspire a boundless confidence in its duration, or at least in its means of salvation if, perchance, the existence of its inhabitants should one day be compromised. Gigantic airships with ten rows of propellers striped its sky with rapid flight; smaller ones, as elegant and gilded as royal galleys, crossed paths in daylight or, by night, fitted at the prow with multicolored beacon lights, constellated the sky like a dust of wandering stars.

  In streets sixty meters wide, pedestrians circulated without fear between the tall houses. There were only a few electric carriages by then, airships being much more convenient and less dangerous than terrestrial vehicles. As for horses, they had been ameliorated to such an extent over the centuries that none remained, except for a few specimens absolutely pure in form but incapable of any service. Those masterpieces of plasticity were preciously conserved in zoological museums. Perhaps a few still exist today, but nobody knows where they are. The Museum of Algiers has one, but it is stuffed, exhibited alongside the last elephant, another species vanished in the wake of the pitiless hunting once carried out for the collection of ivory, which has been so advantageously replaced today by compressed paper products.

  In numerous gymnasia the population incessantly maintained flexibility with the rudest exercises. The race had become very beautiful, no trace of senility appearing on faces, the incessantly-functioning skin admitting no wrinkles, so it was difficult to distinguish an old man from a young one. As for women, it was as if they were uniformly fixed at the age of twenty, and it was not rare, even at close range, for a grandmother to be mistaken for her granddaughter, so much progress had the art of preservative ointments made.

  All of that population, communally rich in amiable intelligence, was admirably healthy. For a long time there had been no more physicians; they had been replaced by chemists and simple physiologists. Having penetrated all the secrets of nature and catalogued all the microbes, those scientists had then rested, sagely content to watch humanity live and die.

  There were no longer any public libraries or museums, literature and art having no reason to exist in a society that was attached above all to the materiality of things and had long since done away with sentimental speculations and esthetic theories. The language, moreover, had become very simple, although it was composed of all the ancient languages once spoke by the various races of the two worlds. From the exchange of vocables, syntax and formulae of abbreviation, a universal language had been born, in which the verb only played a minor role, giving ground to the precious noun and the adjective, the only ones indispensable, in sum, to the relations of practical life.

  Thus, once-enormous newspapers had been reduced to the dimensions of a minuscule sheet. A few sentences gave the political news or recounted the most recent events; there had been no commentary for a long time, and all polemic had been suppressed. An item announced a fact, nothing more; the readers drew their own conclusions. The old argumentative journalists had been replaced by gymnasiarch-reporters whose renown was that of the aeronef moving with the greatest rapidity and flying most speedily to the theater of events.

  A little music was still made in great halls: music in which research and the collision of enemy sonorities was pushed to the highest degree of refinement, and which produced, in the nervous system of its listeners, sensations of an extraordinary acuity.

  In sum, the people were happy, and grateful to be so, which is rare. As long as no one spoke to them about God, death or amour, which engender pain, nor about the family, whose affections and proofs are subversive of all tranquility, they confessed themselves content; they went through life with a philosophical egotism that made them as beautiful and as joyful as their rich means permitted.

  When it was too cold in Paris, when the snow became too frequent, the ordinary people found shelter in the winter gardens, immense palaces of glass in which spring was restored to them; the richest flew away in some pleasure airship to Algiers, or, if the temperature in Algiers seemed too low, all the way to Lake Chad, already bordered with magnificent habitations. That was a matter of a few hours. Many of those holidaying in Algiers returned to Paris once a week to take care of business.

  Over the last few years the cold had increased markedly in the middle of each winter, and the snow had fallen with greater force. Snowstorms had been photographed in which the flakes seemed to touch one another and, so to speak, fuse together. But those snowfalls did not last long, and powerful apparatus loaded with special products melted them instantaneously and sent them in seething streams into the drains, all the way to the Seine, which transported them seawards.

  One day, after an entire week of weather so spring-like that a few Japanese plum-trees had flowers in the gardens, which caused Parisians, eternally inclined to enthusiasm, to anticipate an exceptionally mild season, the
sky was suddenly covered with exceedingly opaque clouds, so low that the summit of the metal tower disappeared, no longer allowing anything to be seen at night but the glow of its beacon, displayed like a bloodstain in the shifting darkness.

  The public airships were obliged to modify their service, and, at times, to suspend it entirely, being unable to travel in the almost-constant darkness without danger of collision. Only a few private craft took the risk; for two hours there was a criss-crossing of vague streaks of colored light in the dirty sky, and the loud blaring of sirens sowing alarm in the air, as sinister as the cries of murdered monsters.

  Many accidents occurred; two airships, each carrying a hundred passengers, crashed and fell, broken, on the hills of the Point-de-Jour, bristling with cupolas and iron steeples, from which bloody human rags were soon suspended in a sinister fashion.

  A police edict then forbade all circulation, until the menacing clouds had dissipated. The temperature was mild. A slight breeze sometimes rose up, and then a whiteness would appear in the sky, and snow would begin to fall, slowly, in large flakes widely separated at first, but then thicker, so thick that within an hour there would be more than sixty centimeters in the streets. The snow-melting machines immediately went into action then and torrents of water flowed toward the river.

  That lasted throughout the whole of one night, the snow falling incessantly and pitilessly, and the machines sweeping it away with mathematical regularity. In private meetings, in elegant clubs, the frightened faces of men and women could be seen at the windows, against the bright background of red wallpaper, gazing at the white shroud falling like an endless bolt of cloth, wondering whether it was going to last forever, and whether they would ever be able to go home. The sage were already asleep, ignorant of the event. A few enraged gamblers laughed, forgetting in the fever of baccarat the vague emotion, the fear of the inevitable unknown that had already gripped the souls round them.