“Come on, sir,” said the operator, when darkness had enveloped us again. “Tell Mademoiselle how glad you would be to have her for a fiancée—and you, Miss, tell the gentleman how delighted you would be to be his fiancée.”
No, nothing, nothing, can give an idea if the delicious charm, the supernatural charm that that first conversation in darkness, through a metal screen, had for us. It was the sincere, tender and mysterious outpouring of two hearts drawn to one another; it was love in its purest and most sublime manifestation. We had nothing to ask one another; we were each familiar with our different ways of seeing and we knew the smallest details of our projects; the conversation continued without pause nevertheless, without embarrassment, as if between two comrades of twenty years who had met up and had nothing to hide from one another.
I was no longer thinking either about the mission that my editor had entrusted to me, or about my interviews, or America, or the Milner Institute, or anything else whatsoever. My only thought was for the adorable being who was close at hand. There was no mistake; it really was love in its full force, indisputable love—and the most marvelous thing of all was that there was no doubting that the sentiment was shared by the person who was its object!
Our two hearts communicated in the same love, and our souls were fused by the mystic betrothal. A divine moment, that I, so pressed for time a little while before, would have liked to prolong indefinitely, and which the operator brought to an untoward end by announcing to us that the session was concluded.
I emerged from the introduction room like a madman, hurled myself toward Mr. Steeg and grabbed his arm forcefully. “Swear to me,” I said, “that in all of this, there’s no magic or trickery, that the cold drink you had me drink hasn’t produced these intoxicating hallucinations, that I’m not dreaming, that everything I’ve seen is real, and that I can see her again.”
He contented himself with shrugging his shoulders and smiling. “You can see her again when you wish, but not for forty-eight hours.”
“I’ll wait!”
“You understand that the doctor absolutely demands that delay, to avoid any surprise and any over-enthusiasm that might subsequently cause regrets. During those forty-eight hours, you’ll resume your normal existence, you in Denver, your fiancée in the city where she lives. If, after that brief lapse of time, you’re both in the same mental disposition, you’ll meet up again in the festival hall.”
“I’ll be able to take her by the hand? Hold her in my arms? Whisper in her ear and tell her anything I wish?”
“Of course. Come on, calm down, reflect deeply, and if you return in two days, bring relatives or friends who can serve as witnesses. Good night, sir.”
I was in the grounds. I walked straight ahead without knowing where I was. It was absolutely impossible for me to fix my attention on any idea that did not bring me back to her. Incessantly, I saw her again, close by; we were still talking. I repeated to her that I loved her, and as it was impossible for me to call her by her name—which was a cruel torture for me—I lavished the sweetest names upon her, and pronounced the number 203,005 ecstatically, so forcefully that the people who encountered me must have taken me for a madman obsessively repeating an imaginary telephone number.
I forgot meal times and bedtimes; I forgot my correspondence and the train I was supposed to catch. My professional duties seemed to be negligible. What did it matter if I were sacked by my boss, that my future was shattered? I loved her.
I still ask myself how I lived through those two days. All that I know is that at the appointed hour, I presented myself at the Love Institute, accompanied by our amiable consul, Monsieur Philémon, and his secretary.
Mr. Steeg took me to the festival hall, where a number of people were already assembled.
“Look for your fiancée,” he said, smiling, “and above all, don’t make a mistake, for you’d be liable to pay damages and compensation.”
“Have no fear!”
Monsieur Philémon and his secretary stayed with Mr. Steeg, and I made a tour of the garden with the multiple attractions that occupied the central part of the hall. I slipped through the groups of spectators, inspected the people seated in the pathways, followed the progress of games of tennis and golf and searched the booths, telling myself that she was undoubtedly devoting herself to the same investigations with a similar impatience.
After several circuits, I told myself that perhaps we were both moving in the same direction, and might continue thus without ever meeting. I turned round, and it was a good decision; after a few minutes we found ourselves face to face.
“203,005!” I cried.
“Call me Mary,” she said, daintily.
“Mary, oh my dear Mary,” I murmured, covering the hand she held out to me with kisses.
“And what should I call you, Monsieur 128,637?”
“Jean!”
“Oh! Jean—that’s very pretty, Jean; I like it a lot.” And she squeezed my hand between hers, forcefully.
My adorable fiancée seemed even more beautiful, but a trifle pale, and I became anxious about her health.
“Oh, those two days!” she said, uttering a profound sigh. “What torture!”
“Yes, but it’s over now; we won’t be apart again.”
“Oh, no, never again!”
We went into a conversation room in order to communicate to one another all the affectionate things that we had planned to say, and our hearts overflowed. Mary confided to me that it had always been her dream to marry a Frenchman. I confessed to her that, finding out Parisian dolls and the emancipated dimwits of our bourgeoisie unbearable, I had always had a weakness for American women. It was decided that we would hasten the conclusion of our marriage as rapidly as possible.
Immediately notified, Mr. Steeg took us into a room where my fiancée’s friends and relatives were already assembled, along with Monsieur Philémon and his secretary, my witnesses.
The introductions were rapidly made, and my amiable guide said to me, with a smile: “Well, now you’ll be married.”
“Immediately?”
“Immediately.”
“And there aren’t any dollars to hand over?”
“Not one.”
“That’s admirable.”
“Except that, before going into the marriage office, where almost all the formalities demanded by different nations can be completed, would you, Monsieur, and you, Miss, write rapidly in this register the following declaration: ‘I, the undersigned, freely declare that today, I take for my wife, or husband, Miss, or Monsieur…then the name…whom I love and desire to love for as long as possible,’ Sign and date. Come on, hurry up!”
I could not help remarking to the honorable Mr. Steeg that he was now the one hurrying me and reminding me a little too much that time is money.
“No,” he replied, “time is love!”
I confess that that reply, made by a pure-blooded American, left me nonplussed. You can clearly see that, as I said at the beginning, something has changed in the mores of the Union.
My guide had told me that pastors of all religions were attached to the establishment, and that we had only to choose. The various ceremonies were very rapidly expedited, and my wife and I soon found ourselves in a lunch-room, surrounded by relatives and friends addressing their sincere congratulations to us.
At that moment, I thought about Dr. Milner. I recalled the mocking skepticism with which I had come into that house, and the malevolent and odious assumptions I had made. I was profoundly sorry for that, and asked Mr. Steeg’s permission to go and offer my apologies. Perhaps, too, I had a hidden agenda, wondering whether everything that was happening around me might be a dream, and that the doctor, on seeing me again, might liberate me from the suggestion that he had imposed upon me.
I found the tall old man sitting in the same place in his study. He rotated his armchair through ninety degrees, and before I had opened my mouth, said: “Well, Monsieur Journalist, are you convinced?”
“Oh, Doctor,” I stammered, “How can I thank...”
“No,” he said, “it’s me who should thank you, for you’ve provided a striking confirmation of the excellence of my method. Goodbye.”
And he reversed the quarter-rotation in order to go back to work.
Before we separated in the entrance hall, Mr. Steeg took us to the various insurance offices. Insurance on life and love, insurance against accidents, maladies and divorce, maternity insurance with a progressive endowment at the birth of each child; we took out everything. He took us through the consultation rooms, where experienced men and women were giving useful advice on conjugal happiness to those who came to ask; then we deposited our cards in the archives, after having taken copies.
Not knowing how to thank the excellent man who had served as my guide, I embraced him with hasty affection, affirming that I would never forget what he had done for me. He assured me that the commission he would receive on all the operations I had accomplished at the Institute would be ample compensation and, wishing us bon voyage, he allowed us to go down the front steps arm in arm.
“Have a pleasant journey!”
Curiously enough, we experienced a great pleasure in linking arms like that, but were not at all tormented by the frenzy to be “alone at last” that tortures newlyweds in our country. It did not displease us at all to mingle with the general agitation. On the contrary, leaning on one another, we advanced proudly into life, sure of our love and convinced that it had the strength to vanquish all adversities.
Since that day, it has not failed for a minute, and we have already received two birth endowments.
After that, how could I not desire for my country the prompt organization of the projected Milner Institute in the vicinity of Paris? Is it not the indispensable preparation for that law of love so often talked about but impossible to apply? I have not hesitation in repeating that the man who has penetrated the arcane of the human heart with so much perspicacity, the man who has calculated so accurately the slightest stirrings of the soul and the effects of automatic suggestion, is a great businessman and, above all, a man of genius, and that future humankind will be grateful to him for what he had done for it.
VIII. The Merchant
From New York I sent the Universal Informer the following dialogue, supposedly overheard on a Parisian boulevard:
“You believe in it, then—in suggestion?”
“Yes, I believe in it—which is to say that I believe in nothing else.”
“You really think that an invisible force can be imposed upon us and make do things that we don’t want to, and perhaps even couldn’t do before? You’re a sucker!”
“I think that a powerful will, supported by a real or feigned authority and seconded by a firm aplomb, and obtain a considerable empire over a weak will. I think that miracles are almost all effects of suggestion, and that the marvelous cures still obtained today by entrepreneurs of pilgrimages in their baths of stagnant water are phenomena of the same order.”
“You’re talking about visionaries, mystics, simple minds and wise heads that cut into the supernatural and who always have been able to do it—but what about the others?”
“Witchcraft has no other causes.”
“That’s ancient history!”
“Look at what is happening today for physicians. Do you imagine, by change, that it’s their drugs that are effective? Nine times out of ten, the mere presence of the doctor soothes the patient by suggestion, and that’s so true that some sufferers, on going into the dentist’s, no longer feel toothache.”
“You’re referring to a very special category of individuals—the sick. When one’s suffering one’s ready to accept the most abominable healers’ tricks and allows oneself to be influenced by anyone. For people healthy in mind and body, though, your suggestion is nothing but a vile bluff, a charlatan’s trick. It’ll never find any application in normal life.”
“I am, my dear chap, absolutely convinced of the contrary, and that, in a future perhaps not very distant, mental energy will be distributed to homes like electrical energy. And there’ll be mental bistros on street-corners where you’ll be served small glasses of will-power, as you’re served brutishness, folly and plum brandy today.”
“Permit me, my dear friend, while awaiting more ample information, to file your certainty along with the fantastic conceptions of our fashionable humorists. When we see merchants of will-power on the boulevard, it’ll be hotter than a brick-maker’s kiln!”
“In that case, the temperature might well be going up faster than you suppose.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because there are already people in the world trading in will-power.”
“Where? I’ll run and get some.”
“Oh, it isn’t here, of course, in a backward nation on its last legs, a nation stuck in its old routines by its old fogies. You have to cross the Atlantic, to go among the people of the future, in the United States.”
“Always those damned Yankees.”
“Always them. In fact, it’s in…I can’t tell you the name of the city in the Union that gave birth to the new kind of trade; newshound as you are, you’d soon have ferreted out the businessman in question and I’d be guilty of having given him free advertising—which is unpardonable for reporters like us. All that I can certify for you is that my information is scrupulously exact and that fact I’m giving you are guaranteed authentic.”
“Go on, I’m listening.”
“So, in an American city, no less—since it has its half-million inhabitants—there is a very well-patronized merchant of will-power for ladies...”
“Why for ladies? Are they the only ones who need it?”
“No, alas—but we’re at the beginning of an industry. At present, it’s quite possible that certain gentlemen have recourse to the aforementioned merchant of feminine will-power—I wouldn’t know. Let’s get back to the ladies. These ladies, like all those in a big city’s high society, are literally monopolized by social obligations: morning sports, a succession of couturiers and suppliers, receptions, visits, exhibitions, fêtes, lunches, dinners, soirées, performances, balls and the rest. It gets to the point where they can’t find time during the day to isolate themselves in a discreet location and obtain some relief.”
“That’s of no great importance. Seven out of eight society women can easily dispense with reflection.”
“You’re not following me. It’s not, strictly speaking, a matter of reflection; take ‘relief’ in a less elevated sense, as down-to-earth as you can. It’s rather delicate to explain—please try to understand without me spelling it out. When a machine works for a long time without stopping, it gets overheated, and ends up breaking down. Well, that’s exactly what happens to these ladies.”
“Ah! Yes, yes, I’ve got it. They’re in the condition of the legendary Curé Comparet,58 who had a stubborn constipation for twenty years. It’s not a hanging matter, and it’s not rare. Fortunately, we have sovereign medications to vanquish that resistance today—exquisite waters and delicious candy, not to mention melon.”
“Oh, my dear chap, how far behind the times you are, how unready for the world of the future! Taking medicine when one already has a stomach ravaged by overly succulent fare and overly alcoholic beverages—you can’t think of that.”
“I’ve heard it said that massage is quite effective.”
“Massage? Shocking!”
“We also know, by virtue of what happened to Panurge when the cannon was fired, that ‘the retentive virtue is dissolved’ by fear, and that certain reading materials, even the sight of certain people, produces the same effect.”
“No, my dear chap, no—you haven’t got it; in this, as in everything, ‘to will is to fulfill.’ Everything depends on an effort of will. If these ladies, although wanting to, can’t, it’s because their will is insufficiently forceful. They need to find a surplus somewhere, and then they go to the will-power merchant. That honorable dealer, who i
s neither a physician, nor a pharmacist, nor a masseuse, nor a somnambulist, nor a witch, not anything similar or approximating thereto, is a woman of the world, and had no other means of action but will-power. She simply suggests to her clients a force of will sufficient to vanquish the resistance and arrive at the result their own will was unable to obtain. It only costs five dollars.”
“Twenty-five francs for a result that generally costs fifteen centimes is expensive!”
“Which doesn’t prevent the will-power merchant’s cabinet—and you’ll admit than the word ‘cabinet’ was never more appropriate59—always being full. The city’s aristocracy meets up in her salon—for people come back, the dose of will only operating once—and over there ‘one doesn’t find that so ridiculous.’60 It requires backward people like us to laugh at it.”
“I’m not laughing at it—but I’d be curious, all the same to know how the honorable lady discovered this new profession. Was it revelation, inspiration, science, calculation or pure chance?”
“I can’t enlighten you on that point; what I can certify is that, at present, she’s enjoying great success, and that, as we speak, numerous rival boutiques are probably being set up. Don’t you realize now that what is so successful in this particular case might be equally successful in a thousand other cases in which will-power is lacking? Can you see now that commerce in will-power isn’t a chimera—that it is, on the contrary, bound to have a considerable extension some day? And do you understand, finally, that suggestion isn’t a hoax?”
“Say no more, my dear chap. It seems to me that I can already see shops opening up on all sides with attractive advertisements: Unbreakable wills guaranteed. Wills of iron. Extra-Strong Wills. First-rate Wills. Big Sale of Good Wills! And in the age of apathy and cowardice we’re going through, I can see overflowing shops making scandalous fortunes in a matter of days.”
Investigations of the Future Page 21