The World Above The World

by Brian Stableford

  “No, no,” said Henri, swiftly. “And that’s why I didn’t want to complain in front of her. There would have been something indelicate about explaining my annoyance to her—but that doesn’t prevent it from being well-founded. This cohabitation irritates me, wounds me. And whatever you say, there’s a means of putting an end to it. Since this Dajan-Phinn is so intelligent, he’ll assimilate our customs rapidly. There’s no need for him to remain on the leash any longer, like an exotic animal that can’t be set free. Let him live near his master, but not in the same house. And I beg you to say a few words to Monsieur Bro, since he thinks himself so far above these wretched details…if, however, it’s out of disregard for consequences that he’s inflicting this unpleasant ordeal on me…”

  “What do you mean?” Madame Bro interjected, sharply.

  Evidently embarrassed by the presence of the painter, Henri continued: “Nothing. I don’t want to say anything about which I’m not certain. I might be wrong. Anyway, will you accept the commission?”

  “I promise,” she said.

  He got up, relieved.

  She escorted him as far as the door and there, lifting up the curtain while he set off down the stairs, she said: “How anxious you are, and what chimeras you conjure up. Can’t you enjoy your engagement in peace?”

  “It’s exactly because I want it to be unshadowed, protected from any incident and any complication, that that I beg you to send away the overly handsome souvenir of Dr. Bro’s voyage.”

  “The poor boy,” she said. “He’s no trouble though.”

  He raised his head and wagged his finger at her while going down the stairs. “Oh, I suspect you of having a little weakness for him.”

  Leaning toward him and laughing, she admitted: “That’s true.”

  In her generosity, she felt drawn toward him by maternal instinct. He seemed to her as isolated as a lost child. Dr. Bro remained mute as to his protégé’s origins, but she knew that he had no family and no ties. His admirable features retained the astonished mildness of early infancy, but they were gradually becoming charged with melancholy. On seeing him, one thought of a beautiful lily bowing on its stem—and the hesitation that marked the beginning of his speeches, which left his mouth partly open and his eyelids hesitant for a moment, added a further measure to his touching timidity.

  Not that he was embarrassed in his movements, or ignorant of our customs. On the contrary, he possessed every finesse. In addition, he occasionally revealed a surprising erudition.

  “So you know everything, Monsieur Dajan-Phinn!” Madame Bro sometimes exclaimed.

  In fact, his culture was very extensive. No human knowledge seemed entirely strange to him. He was certainly a worthy pupil of Dr. Bro. Far from deriving vanity from his knowledge, he seemed confused by it. In order for him to give proof of it, one was obliged to press him and interrogate him, as one turns the pages of a dictionary to extract its science. In the same way, being clever with his hands, capable of putting on paper a sketch, or even a water-color, of playing a piano pleasantly, he disdained his gifts. In brief, he had no passion for anything. He lacked the internal fire of enthusiasm.

  Madame Bro attributed that lack of ardor and indolence to homesickness. She had tried to distract the young foreigner, but her attempts had scarcely been encouraging. In vain, she had put into his hands novels of which she was very fond. In vain, she had taken him to the theater. Books and plays nourished by love did not move him, did not draw him out of his melancholy. She was, in consequence, apprehensive about abandoning him to himself, as Henri Richard wished. Nevertheless, faithful to her promise, she explained the umbrageous fiancé’s request to her brother-in-law that same evening.

  At the first words, Dr. Bro manifested a wild gaiety. His eyes shining, he jeered; “Oh! The young man is jealous of Dajan-Phinn! Look at that! But it’s perfect, perfect…”

  “What?” queried Madame Bro, somewhat nonplussed.

  He went on: “But that proves, quite simply, that he loves my daughter. Besides, it’s of no importance whatsoever. An amorous fantasy. Don’t insist, my dear friend, don’t insist. I intend to keep Dajan-Phinn with me, you know, and nothing will separate me from him.”

  She dared not press the point. Her very duty as a hostess obliged her to be discreet. As her husband had remarked, the whole set-up would only last until the departure of the doctor and his protégé. Momentarily, she thought of having a word with Dajan-Phinn himself, but in case of success she would have arrived at an identical result: if the pupil left, the master would follow. She therefore renounced that vain and delicate step.

  She was not very proud, therefore, when Henri Ruchard asked for news of her embassy two days later. Everything was conspiring to exasperate the suspicious young man. The professor and his son, who were bringing the engagement ring, had arrived a few minutes in advance of the agreed time. Suzanne had not come back. And—an aggravating circumstance—she had gone out in company with her father and the inseparable Dajan-Phinn.

  Madame Bro received the two men in the Louis XV drawing-room. Sincerely affected, as a woman who, in her generosity, only wanted to see smiling faces around her, she allowed the admission of her failure and Suzanne’s absence to be extracted from her by degrees.

  Henri controlled himself, but his features contracted with anger. Through clenched teeth, he said: “That’s all right. I’ll have a word with Monsieur Bro myself.”

  Madame Bro made one last conciliatory effort. “Don’t you fear poisoning everything? Remember that in a month, you’ll be married, and you’ll laugh at these petty nothings.”

  She turned to the professor in quest of his agreement, but he maintained a severe expression and sketched an evasive gesture. He certainly did not approve of his friend’s behavior.

  At that moment, Dr. Bro’s loud voice became audible in the vestibule. He came in alone, extending his hands.

  “Ah! Here’s Henri, seething with impatience. His fiancée is behind me. She’s…”

  Henri cut in: “Pardon me—a word before she comes in. Madame Bro tells me that you’ve refused my request. Agree that it appears more legitimate than ever, on the day when you have gone out with your daughter and Dajan-Phinn…in such a way that someone in the street might be deceived and mistake that handsome young man for Mademoiselle Suzanne’s fiancé!”

  Dr. Bro, perched on his short legs with his hands in his pockets, swayed back and forth between his heels and his toes, jovially, and retorted: “What difference can that make to you, since she isn’t deceived about it?”

  Henri started. “I can see nothing in your inappropriate joke than your desire to push me aside, but I won’t allow myself to be deflected from my goal. Monsieur Bro, you know that I’m anxious and jealous, rightly or wrongly—and yet you have no hesitation, by actions like today’s excursion, in provoking me further. Such conduct certainly has its reasons. I beg you to tell me what they are.”

  “And what if I don’t want to?” Dr. Bro said, mockingly.

  “Then I’ll tell you what they are myself and you’ll be forced to recognize that I’ve seen through them.”

  “I’m curious to hear them.”

  “You’ll be satisfied,” he young man declared, dryly. “From the first day, your attitude has seemed strange to us. I say us because my father shares my anxieties and suspicions. Your very consent, following your long silence, appeared to him too facile not to have any hidden motive. You forgot your former grievances against him too easily. As for me, the presence of this so-called laboratory assistant has always seemed shady. How can you explain it, if not by your desire to make your daughter love him? He’s the fiancé of your choice! Thanks to his prodigious beauty, and his merits, of which you boast incessantly, and the continued intimacy that you maintain between him and Mademoiselle Suzanne, do you not count on him supplanting me? You would already have succeeded had she been less constant. And you would have succeeded, had I not seen through your ruse. Oh, it was a good plan. This way you w
ould have evicted me while avoiding the annoyance of a direct refusal—and your vengeance would have been even more complete and more refined. You would precipitate me from a higher position, since, after having given me your daughter, you would have had her stolen away by a rival.”

  Dr. Bro’s attitude was incomprehensible. He laughed, rubbed his hands, and seemed overwhelmed by jubilation.

  “Ha ha! You’ve worked all that out by yourself! Or rather, you’ve done it together. My compliments. Well, my lad, you’re on completely the wrong track…”

  Disconcerted, Henri stammered: “But…if I’m mistaken…which I hope with all my heart…at least justify your conduct…”

  Very gravely, the professor lent his support. “Yes, Bro, explain yourself. Explain to us why you have bought back that individual, why you keep him under your roof, and why you persist even when you know that your daughter’s fiancé is suffering…”

  Bro was no longer laughing. He walked toward to two men. His phosphorescent eyes were gleaming in the hollows of their blue-tinted orbits. His obstinate head swelled up. His entire face was grimacing with malice and intense satisfaction.

  “Oh, you both want an explanation! Well, so be it—you shall have one. It wouldn’t have been long delayed anyway. Since you offer me the opportunity, I’ll take it. On one sole point you’ve seen clearly. Yes, it’s true, I haven’t forgotten the past. The defeat that you inflicted on me, Ruchard, is as sensible to me as on the first day. I lost my case thanks to your speech, but not without appeal. Except, as I told you, the happiness of our children has nothing to do with our quarrels. No, my lad, I haven’t plotted to evict you. Beaten on the scientific battleground, it’s on the scientific battleground that I wanted my revenge. But it had to be absolutely crushing. My adversaries had to be annihilated forever. Well, I have it, I have the means…”

  He was excited. Uplifted, magnified by triumph, he was fearful to behold.

  “Ha ha! You’re jealous of Dajan-Phinn, angry Henri. And you share his dread, grave Richard! You see in my pupil a rival worthy of you, umbrageous fiancé. You do him the honor of hating him. You’re afraid of him. Well, you’ve both fallen into the trap I set for you, which I’ve been preparing for you for seven years…and you’ve fallen into it even more deeply than I dared to hope. Oh, one can’t make life! Oh, it’s impossible for a man to create an organism! Oh, my plants were just puerile games! Well, know then that the odious Djann-Phinn emerged from my hands, that the detested rival is artificial, and that, to sum it all up in one word, Henri is jealous of an automaton!”

  Dr. Bro wanted to annihilate his adversaries; he had succeeded. The painter’s wife and the two Ruchards stood there, overwhelmed by amazement. The professor was tragic; one might have thought him a felled oak. He was, however, the first to speak, saying: “What? You claim that this Dajan-Phinn…”

  But Suzanne came in then, animated by happiness. Suddenly confused by those petrified faces, she murmured: “What’s the matter?”

  The doctor, radiant, stroked her cheek and said: “Your fiancé will tell you that.” Then, taking the arm of his friend Ruchard, he drew him toward the garden. On the threshold, he turned round and said, authoritatively: “Not a word to Dajan-Phinn, all right?”

  Scarcely had he closed the door to the garden when Madame César Bro went upstairs to tell her husband the sensational news. The two young people remained alone.

  “What’s happening?” Suzanne said. “Tell me quickly.”

  Glossing rapidly over his own suspicions, Henri repeated the astonishing revelation. It was the young woman’s turn to stand there astounded. Her fiancé had to repeat the doctor’s last words to her. In her, however, admiration was soon mingled with surprise.

  “I was sure that he would end up triumphant, that he’d never ceased being right. What a reply, and what a revenge!”

  “You’re certain, then, that this Dajan-Phinn emerged from his hands…?”

  She cut him off, with a reproach in her limpid eyes: “Since he says so…”

  “Oh, for my part,” he protested, “I’m not in any doubt…”

  Indeed, everything encouraged him, everything drove him to consider Dr. Bro’s unexpected assertion as true. It reduced to nothing his jealous anxieties. It explained everything. The web of intrigue that he had thought woven against him, the rival by whom he believed himself threatened—all that disappeared.

  But what about his father? Would the professor accept the miracle as easily? A champion of scientific orthodoxy, victor in the first round, utterly convinced of the justice and the grandeur of his cause, would he given in without a fight this time? If, on the contrary, he resisted, the contest between the two men would be resumed, more bitterly and violently than ever.

  And as the young woman, slightly intoxicated with filial pride, tried to imagine the resonance of such a discovery, he gazed distractedly through the window, following the two scientists as they strolled around the garden.

  Dressed casually in a yellow suit, coiffed with a shapeless straw hat baked by the sun, Bro was hanging on to his companion’s ample frock-coat. From an inside pocket he had taken a thick portfolio, and he was parading an entire series of pieces of paper before his friend’s eyes. From time to time, they paused. Bro’s gestures became more pressing. The professor slowly passed his hand over his forehead, like a man seeing to dissipate the smoke of his dreams.

  Dusk crept up on them in the garden. Henri was burning with the desire to know the result of that long conversation. So, as soon as he found himself alone again with his father in the street, he interrogated him with a word in which all his haste was concentrated:

  “Well?”

  “That man makes one dizzy,” murmured the professor. “One loses one’s footing. One is submerged beneath the flood of his words. Seven years, according to him, he’s been keeping his secret! For more than a month he’s been resisting the temptation to deliver it to us. Then he overflows, explodes.”

  “Finally, do you believe in this discovery?”

  The professor, ordinarily sober in his gestures, waved his arms desperately. “I don’t know any more…I don’t know. It’s necessary to believe everything, or believe nothing.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “He told me that he’s been preparing his great work for seven years. He intended, in the case of success, to bring his Dajan-Phinn to France, to make him live among us, and, when we had taken well and truly taken the bait and believed in the reality of the individual, to reveal his nature to us. He had almost reached his goal, it appears, when our petition for marriage reached him. It was a trump card in his game. The period of engagement would bring us closely together, and put us in continual contact with his Dajan-Phinn. But he still wanted to be perfectly sure of his success, to be absolutely ready—hence his delay in replying to us, still according to him. Finally, he made the decision to take the boat. And once in France, the anxiety and irritation that the unknown inspired—and which Bro claims to have anticipated—would complete his ambition. Your jealousy was a homage to the perfection of his work…”

  By the tone in which his father reported his friend’s words, the young man sensed that her was hesitant, undecided. He persisted: “But after all, has he explained his method, furnished with technical details?”

  Again, the tearful professor raised his hands toward the heavens. “Technical details! But to follow that man, it’s necessary to forget everything one knows, to rid oneself of all one’s convictions. One flounders in the unknown, the fantastic. Yes, he’s explained his method to me. Yes, he’s shown me photographs of his experiment at different stages. The only witnesses, moreover, for Bro claims to have acted alone, with no other auxiliary than a Hindu, a sort of semi-artist, semi-sorcerer, who only aided him from the plastic viewpoint. Oh, he has an answer for everything, naturally—but on what can one found a serious controversy when one advances on inconsistent ground, in an atmosphere as dark, beyond the solid ground and clear sight of sci
ence.”

  “So?”

  “So, either we’re confronted by the boldest trickery, and Bro is nothing but a poor madman unhinged by his past disappointments, or…he’s telling the truth.”

  He pronounced the final words in a slightly ashamed voice, as if he blushed—he, the orthodox scientist, the famous professor—to admit the possibility of such a prodigy even momentarily.

  “In the end, how can we know?” Henri queried.

  “By studying Dajan-Phinn at close range now that we’re aware of Bro’s stupefying affirmation. By subjecting him to a rigorous close investigation that will end up revealing the truth to us.

  Then, life in César Bro’s house took a singular turn. With a common accord, the initiates had decided to keep the secret. Professor Ruchard had been particularly insistent that no news of the events should be spread outside. He dreaded, in the case that the investigation should turn out to his friend’s disadvantage, the mockery of his colleagues. What! The grave Ruchard had been able to consent to examine such ridiculousness—and, in consequence, to take it seriously for a moment. What outbursts of laughter! And if, on the contrary, the implausible was true, would it not be better for the professor to be the first to announce his conversion, with considerable ceremony, before his colleagues could take possession of the question and constrain him to admit that he had been defeated.?

  As for Dr. Bro, sure of his conclusive victory, indulgent to the last resistance of his old companion, he accepted with a good grace the examination demanded by Ruchard. He declared that, having waited for seven years, he could easily be patient for a few more days. Relatives and friends, touched by his faith, would become ardent disciples during this interval—and the news would break all the more violently upon the world for having been longer contained.

  Even Dajan-Phinn—Dajan-Phinn especially—ought to remain in ignorance, for he knew nothing about his mysterious origin. Dr. Bro explained that very clearly. Before Dajan-Phinn became the object of discreet investigations, he had emphasized this point heavily.