Hira Green pronounced these words with such authority that I could find no response. She was truly dominating me and I felt that before her I was nothing but a schoolboy, a little scamp. I nodded my head.
“For that reason, I have reestablished the division of the sexes; those who ought to obey will no longer mingle with those who ought to command; familiarity engenders disrespect and authority becomes more powerful the less one sees of it—as is the case with God.”
I nodded again, without formulating the slightest reservation.
“Your objection has its merit,” she continued, parading her irony superbly before me. “Women have smaller brains than men, that’s notorious, so how can they develop a greater intelligence? You’re unaware of the physical, not to say physiological, means that we possess.”
“Ah yes: gymnastics and sports.”
The directress looked at my pityingly and scornfully—but it was a beautiful expression, all the same—and then she continued.
“It has been a long time since we abandoned sports, which develop the muscles at the expense of the brain and were the cause of countless maladies of the heart. The physical agents that we employ are surgical in nature; trepanning and craniotomy permit us, by undoing the sutures of the cranium, to give the skull the capacity we desire. Think about the enormous quantity of knowledge that has to be stored today—knowledge whose abundance is increasing further every day; the old brain is no longer sufficient, we need a larger one. So that minor operation, very simple and free of danger, is obligatory, like a vaccine, for all the girls who come here, voluntary for the boys.
That was Professor Fuss sunk!
I made no reply, but my silence doubtless had an eloquence that I did not suspect, for my Amazon, as if stung to the quick, exclaimed: “Oh yes, you’re telling yourself that by thus deforming the head, we’re destroying the appropriate proportions of the body, the harmony of the face, and thus rendering ugly those who ought to tend to perfection in their entire being. Well, look at me!”
She took a few steps, with her head held high and her back arched, with undulating movements of the rump and tensions of the hock that reminded me of a large chestnut filly, superb in appearance and perfect in form, that I had once known very well. I declared the ensemble irreproachable.
“Now feel my skull,” she said, lowering her had toward me. “I was one of the first to have the operation.”
Not without a certain tremulousness, I plunged my fingers into the gold of the mahogany tresses and felt a skull that was evidently a little larger than average, but which did not present, I can attest, any bumps or depressions, and was of a rather fortunate brachycephaly. But what gave me pause was the nape of the neck. Oh, those American napes! Very pale and exquisitely shaped, they lurk beneath the brown fleece, appealing for a kiss, which I certainly would not have hesitated to deposit, if it had not been a matter of a dominatrix who might have taken that humble tribute for the bloodiest of insults.
Hira Green stood up disdainfully, continuing to reply to remarks that I had not made.
“You’re right; capacity isn’t everything: what a beautiful head, but brain, none! What is, in sum, the cerebral matter? A triglycerylglycophosphate of trimethylethylammonium, of which it’s sufficient to make the human organism produce a greater quantity.”
“Yes,” I hazarded. “It’s been claimed for a long time that the human body is a laboratory.”
“It’s a nonsensical claim. The human body is a continuous reaction, and we have to combine the nutritive elements in view of that reaction. That’s why the alimentation of our pupils is regulated in such a manner that the elements they absorb, in reacting with one another, produce cerebral matter in abundance.”
A distant memory came to mind; how pitiful, I thought, in comparison to these chemical products, must be the effect of the modest haricot beans responsible in our boys’ and girls’ schools for furnishing the cerebral matter of the pupils.
“Once we’ve prepared our students in that manner, instruction may begin; the terrain is appropriate to intensive culture. You are of the opinion, are you not, that the brain must primarily play the role of an accumulator?”
I protested that such had always be the idea at the back of my mind.
“To inform is to charge that accumulator. This is how we proceed in that task. We begin from the observation that all infants like things that stir and move, going from one point to another: dancing puppets, animals, boats, railway trains, etc.—that, in sum, they are passionate about motion.”
“Many so-called reasonable people have that same passion nowadays,” I put in.
“They’re big kids, that’s all. Add that an infant registers much more by means of the eyes than by means of the ears. We therefore make as much use of the cinematograph as possible, which has the advantage of going quickly, for instruction in history, geography, natural history, etc. The phonograph can be combined with it; it renders greater services in the study of languages. For reading, writing, drawing, calculation and all the exact sciences we use machines successfully. They have the great advantage over teachers of amusing children instead of boring them and demanding less mental tension by materializing, so to speak, the most abstract notions. Machines are more precise, constant in their regularity; they can repeat the same thing a hundred or a thousand times without becoming impatient—and I can’t imagine how mathematics can be taught in any other way.”
I took advantage of a pause to remark that this intensive culture only applied to what might be called the passive component of education; that the storage of ideas wasn’t everything; that it was also necessary for the mind assimilating them to produce new ones.
“Patience, Monsieur; I’m getting to that,” was the reply I received, in a rather dry tone. “Until today, assimilation, as you call it, had been horribly difficult; pupils forgot as quickly as they learned; only memory labored and knowledge evaporated, so to speak, without having penetrated the brain, without even having impregnated it. that’s because achieving assimilation requires a effort of intelligence and will, an effort often repeated because of fatigue, anemia and decline, the atrocious overwork that causes the finest faculties to deteriorate. We have avoided those dangers, and, while pupils learn more, they suffer less fatigue. For that, we simply employ hypnotic suggestion; you see how facile it is. No more recalcitrant intelligence, no more ill will, nor idleness; our students assimilate without effort—unconsciously, as it were—the most arduous knowledge. The method has the enormous advantage of only enabling the assimilation of useful knowledge and suppressing a host of accessory nonsense that only serves to envelop an idea as the sugar-coating envelops an almond in a box of candy. We get straight to the facts and only inspire thoughts that are elevated and practical—American, in a word.”
“And good too,” I added.
“Of course. But there we touch on the part of education that consists of making the brains of our pupils productive: the goal of intensive culture. That’s utterly straightforward. When the brain is left to itself, the secretion of thought requires a considerable effort, with an elevation of temperature and disturbances in circulation—congestions that often cause very serious disorders. We therefore have recourse to the indicators that act upon the senses, such as paintings, music, perfumes, etc., the stimuli that act on the nervous system: differences in temperature, pressure, light, electric effluvia, X-, Y-, Z-, A-, B- and C-rays etc., and also to certain physical exercises—marching for example—and certain aliments, certain beverages like coffee and the products of fermentation, even on occasion to hashish and opium. We thus produce a kind of erethism of the imagination; and when the imagination is ready, the sentiments are set in motion and the reflex of consciousness regularized.”
“The reflex?” I queried, think that I had misheard.
“Yes, consciousness is only a reflex—everybody knows that. Our subject thus advances in the given direction with her own means, according to the assimilation and consciousne
ss she has stored. We have obtained amazing results in his way and produced absolutely remarkable women: inventors, mathematicians, financiers, economists, merchants, agriculturalists—even actresses.”
“And directresses,” I added, with a gallant smile, which was greeted rather coolly.
“You know as well as I do, now, the basics of intensive culture in practice; the only delicate matter consists of bringing the various instruments into accord with the character of the individual—for we have a horror of uniform education, which cannot take account of the qualities and faults inherent in every individual. And we would be very discontented if, in making an abstraction of natural gifts, all our pupils were educated according to the same model.”
“I suppose, in fact,” I said, “that you must include in the number good housekeepers, who know how to cook, do laundry, set a table, care for children...”
Hira Green looked me up and down with a scornful smile. “All that is men’s work!”
Then, turning her back on me, she went out, telling me to wait a minute. She reappeared a few moments later, this time followed by a dozen young girls, to whom the amiable directress introduced me thus:
“This is an individual of the French race—which is to say, a rare specimen of the decrepitude of our species. Interrogate him; make notes. I leave him to you.”
The pupils had surrounded me, opening their eyes wide, rather as if they found themselves in the presence of an anthropomorph. The situation would have been amusing if it had not seemed too grotesque. I was, moreover, less than reassured in being a prisoner of these Amazons, all modeled on their directress, and who did not seem to want to comprehend the joke.
Fortunately, as soon as Hira Green had turned her back, their physiognomies changed as if by enchantment; the faces became smiling and impudent, and the compassed reserve was succeeded by an amiable impishness. The jostled one another politely, like young hinds in a narrow passage, each wanting to be the first to question me. They rivaled one another in suppliant grace; their voices were as soft and lively as birdsong; and their wide eyes obstinately sought mine, in order to ask me to reply to the questions that they were all asking me at the same time.
I, who had interviewed so many people in the United States, was interrogated in my turn by a dozen Yankee girls at the same time. And what was terrible in my situation was that those women of the future were all absolutely charming, and I did not know to which to address myself by preference.
The injunctions became pressing, however. They took on a slightly more imperious tone, and I sensed all of the distance that would soon separate American women from the men. To tell the truth, their hauteur and scorn did not surpass in its impertinence that of our coquettes; the latter subjugate us by the charms of their sex; the former were dominating me by the vivacity of their intelligence, but were no more disagreeable for that—quite the contrary.
I asked them humbly to be so kind as to interrogate me one after another, promising to do my best to answer. The questions they asked me were in the vein of the following. Was it true that in France it was still young men who chose their wives? Was it true that women there had to obey their husbands? That a husband had the right to kill his wife? What was meant by French gallantry? What did it mean to amuse oneself? Was love really the only preoccupation of the French? How did they understand it? Etc., etc.
It was really not worth the trouble of enlarging their craniums, of stuffing them full of any kind of phosphates, of inculcating them with the exact sciences by means of machines, cinemas and phonographs, of suggesting new ideas to them and employing indicators and stimuli, in order that they too should arrive at questioning me about love!
That sentiment, which seemed to them to be an obsolete archaism, about all of whose effects and ill-effects they knew historically and scientifically, and which was for them the amiable accomplice of maternity, resumed all the allure of forbidden fruit. Those great-granddaughters of Eve had the curiosities and ingenuous anxieties of the good old days.
As every theoretical instruction is completed by practical exercises, they drew nearer to me in a feline manner, their gazes suppliant, offering me their cheeks. There was no scope for hesitation; I kissed them all and ran away, as if I had thirty-six thousand devils on my heels.
At the extremity of a corridor Hira Green appeared before me, blocking the way.
“What about me?” she cried.
“You?” I replied. “I have a very bad character, and never do anything when I’m ordered to.”
“In that case,” she said, softening, “I beg you.”
I could only oblige, and I believe that my kisses commenced on the cheek were prolonged as far as the nape of the neck—but this time, I got away, while the directress of the establishment of intensive culture shouted after me: “Au revoir!”
V. The Engineer
I had learned in Denver that John Eddy had installed himself some time before in a territory that was very sparsely populated. Once in the Far West, I immediately set out I search of the celebrated engineer, very hopeful of obtaining from my visit a few useful notes about the organization of the world of the future. In that region, barely furrowed by few poor trails that marked out occasional embryonic villages, it is difficult for a traveler to obtain information. Moreover, John Eddy, having retreated so far in order to avoid the curiosity of his compatriots, carefully concealed his address. So it was by chance that I picked up his trail. I immediately hired a guide, who, for an immoderate price, consented to take me through the mountain country the bordered the prairies, and we left.
After a long day of exceedingly difficult travel, we arrived at a farmhouse, similar to three or four that we had previously encountered, but better constructed. According to the directions, it had to be John Eddy’s. We introduced ourselves as travelers asking for shelter for the night.
I was allowed into a hallway where I saw the conditions of hospitality pinned up in three languages: English, German and Italian. It was afforded according to a fixed but high tariff. I obtained tickets for our rooms and supper, and for fodder and stabling for our horses, from automatic distributors. After briefly freshening up, we sat down at table.
No one asked who we were or what we wanted. Serving-women busied themselves with their occupations without paying any more attention to us than they would if they had known us for a long time. We had encountered those alert and vigorous female servants everywhere, in the hallway as well as the dining-room and the stables. It is necessary to say that a nearby waterfall had singularly simplified the service, for electricity was distributed in abundance and in all its forms: light, motive force, heat, ventilation, telephones, etc.
When we were sufficiently restored, my guide felt the need to go to bed, and I allowed him to retire alone, counting on taking advantage of being alone with the serving-woman in order to question her and find out from her how to get to see her master. At hazard, I had filled my pockets with the catalogues of illustrious French manufacturers, and although it was improbable that a French company had ever had the audacity to send a commercial traveler to the Far West, I introduced myself as such to the serving-woman.
Without pausing in clearing the table, she was letting me speak with the indifference of a deaf-mute, when a tall fellow came in, in short sleeves, who looked like some kind of civil servant. I called to him and asked him whether the boss—whose name I was careful not to pronounce—might like to see some quite extraordinary models of dynamos.
“No,” he replied, in a tone so lacking in courtesy that I countered, rudely:
“How do you know? Are you going to ask him?”
“No,” he said, a second time, with equal affability, and turned his back on me.
“Oh!” I exclaimed, getting to my feet. “Why don’t you want to go?”
“Because I’m the boss.”
“What?” I stammered. “You’re John Eddy, the engineer?”
“I’m Mr. Eddy, the famer.”
“Presently,
perhaps—but you’re the author of works on radiant matter of which I’ve heard mention even in France.”
“You’re French!” he said, with a smile, demonstrating that he was flattered, all the same, to know that he was appreciated by a modest commercial representative from the Old World. But it was only a flash; his face immediately darkened again. “Don’t talk to me about my works. Since Joe’s death, I don’t want to her any more mention of them. As for your dynamos, you can send them for scrap—the French manufacturers are fifty years behind ours.”
I made the remark that there had been very few dynamos fifty years ago; he replied that it was America that was fifty years in advance, and turned his back on me a second time. Then, abandoning French industry completely, I deplored the death of Joe, which would deprive humankind of unsuspected discoveries. I expressed astonishment that the death of a friend or relative, even a son—the foreseen and inevitable fate of everyone alive—could suppress a scientific mind as distinguished as that of John Eddy.
“Joe was more than my son; he was the child of my mind, the finest of my works.”
“There are no exceptional beings; you’ll find someone else.”
“It’s possible. But Joe’s death was more to me than the disappearance of an individual; it was the death of my ideas, the negation of my theories, the contradiction of my experiments; it was error! Error—do you understand all the horror there is that word for someone who believed himself master of the truth? Joe’s death, for me, was the death of truth.”
“A disaster?”
“A very great disaster!”
“Disasters aren’t always irreparable. Look at San Francisco, more flourishing now than ever. It will be the same for your discovery, I’m convinced, on seeing the man that you are.”
I had, in fact, been admiring for some time his fine build—than of a blond athlete in the prime of life—and his bony face, with a determined chin and dark blue yes, as profound as a night sky in which a first magnitude star is shining.
Investigations of the Future Page 17