An Unknown World

by Pierre de Sélènes

  Such was the question that imposed itself on Lord Rodilan’s mind, and caused him to envisage the future anxiously. He was definitely not made for this superior world.

  Rugel’s daughter had not failed to notice the change that had overtaken Marcel’s humor and character. She could not read the depths of his heart, because the inhabitant of Earth was deprived of the subtle sense that established such a close connection between speech and thought in the lunar world that no one there could hide anything. By virtue of the expression of Marcel’s gaze, however, the tender inflections of his voice and the disturbance that afflicted him when he was in her presence, she ended up comprehending the sentiment of which she was the object.

  At first, she had not seen in Marcel’s desire to seek out her society anything but the manifestations of gratitude, something akin to the unconscious gratitude that a child experiences for the woman who watches over his cradle, smiles at his joys and soothes his suffering. Gradually, however, as Marcel’s affection became more pressing his moods more changeable, she had become anxious.

  When she saw that he had lost sight of the objective of his voyage, no longer talking about his great endeavor, seemingly enclosing his life in the narrow circle of that new intimacy, she observed him more attentively, and did not take long to become certain of the nature of his feelings for her.

  That was a painful discovery for the young woman.

  Certainly, she felt a profound sympathy for the hero of such a marvelous adventure, especially for one whom her care brought back to intelligence and the life of the heart, but her soul was too noble and her nature too superior for her to be able to abandon herself, in the presence of the love she felt, to the puerile joy of satisfied vanity.

  There was no place in her heart for pride, and it was with sadness that she saw Marcel suffering thus from a love without any possible issue.

  From then on, she strove to heal that wounded soul.

  Far from seeking to irritate Marcel’s passion by avoiding him, she created opportunities to encounter him and to talk to him, to bring him back, by showing him the serenity of her heart, to a more accurate sense of reality, to dissipate the chimeras that might be cradling his mind, and to revive the lofty ambitions to which he had initially devoted his life.

  Together they strolled in the delightful gardens that surrounded Rugel’s house; they wandering along the edge of the lake, where they sometimes climbed into a small boat and allowed themselves to be gently rocked by the perfumed breeze that floated over the tranquil water.

  “Friend,” she said to him, “does it not seem to you that the time has come, now that you’ve completely recovered your health, to resume the attempts that were so abruptly interrupted? Your friends on Earth are anxiously waiting for the response to the signals they’ve addressed to you. Do you intend to leave them any longer in such cruel uncertainty?”

  “Oh,” replied Marcel, with a movement of impatience that he could not dissimulate, “why snatch me thus from my enchanted dream? Since I’ve been living in your presence, Orealis, I feel happier than I have ever hoped to be. Are you already so weary of my presence, then? What have I done that you should seek to get rid of me like this?”

  “Dispel such thoughts, friend,” the young woman replied, gently. “if you could read my heart, you would see a profound affection for you there, and it’s precisely because you’re dear to me that I’m anxious about this unworthy repose in which you’re forgetting yourself. I love your great plans, and the audacity of your enterprise, but I also love the glory that awaits you, and which I don’t want you to renounce.”

  “Yes,” said Marcel, vehemently, “you love in me that which now has little value in my eyes. What I’d like to see you love is me, my heart, full of you—for I can’t retain any longer the confession that’s burning my lips. Orealis, I...”

  “Stop, friend,” the young woman interrupted, swiftly, emphasizing the word friend, which seemed to ring false in Marcel’s ears. “I know what you’re going to say. Your secret has been known to me for some time, and I’ve made every effort to ensure that the sentiment you possess remained restricted by the limits of a sincere and honest friendship. Nothing else, in fact, can exist between us. Even if we were not separated by insurmountable obstacles, you know that I cannot respond to your love. I do not belong to myself; my faith is pledged to a man that you ought to love and respect. My heart has confirmed the choice of my reason, and it is solely from the man who has judged me worthy of him that I must expect the share of happiness to which every human being has the right to aspire. I don’t know how things happen in the world from which you come, but here, our souls cannot pass from one love to another, and once our hearts have spoken, it is forever.”

  “Oh, you’re torturing me,” Marcel murmured. “What you’re saying I’ve repeated to myself a hundred times; and it’s only in being vanquished by the excess of my loved for you that I’ve let the secret escape that I would have rather retained in the depths of my soul. What breaks my heart is the sovereign virtue, the serenity of soul that sets you so far above our terrestrial passions, and perhaps it’s because I know that you’re inaccessible to my desires that I feel myself more violently attracted to you.”

  “Child,” said Orealis, smiling. “It’s always the impossible that tempts you; it’s that desire to attain the unrealizable that drove you this far, and it’s the same hope that is leading you astray today. To the same extent that the first ambition was noble and generous, the passion you’re suffering now is regrettable and deadly. It will become wretched if it distracts you any longer from your great endeavor.”

  “Eh? What do you want me to do now that you’ve dashed the only hope that attached me to life and could give me the strength to carry on until the end?”

  “What I want you to do is to be a man: to rid yourself of the vain chimeras that are obscuring your mind and troubling your will; to march with a form stride, enslaved to the duty that you’ve imposed on yourself, without looking back at the path you’ve traced, to pursue without weakness the realization of your fecund endeavor.”

  She became more animated. “Oh, I’m dreaming of a great and noble destiny for you. After having explored our world, I want you to return to the people of Earth, to tell them that an entire humankind exists here, eager to enter into communication with them. I want you to be the first pioneer of that route, into which human genius will enter. And my heart will follow you; I shall be proud when I think about you, and it will be pleasant for me to believe that the desire to merit my esteem and admiration has not been unconnected with the efforts that you have made to being that glorious design to a conclusion.”

  While she was speaking, her face had been transfigured, becoming radiant with enthusiasm; her eyes seemed to be flashing, her bosom was swollen with pride; she seemed magnified. One might have thought that she could already see in her mind’s eye that brilliant future in which the two worlds, united in fraternal thought, would go side by side at an equal pace toward enlightenment and progress.

  Marcel looked at her in surprise. She had never appeared to him so radiant and so beautiful; he had not suspected such a nobility in her sentiments, such an elevation in her soul. But he also understood how far distant from him such a perfect nature was. He felt the abyss that separated him from her hollowing out, becoming deeper and more insurmountable. And confused sentiments agitated his heart.

  To renounce the love that had been cradling his life so tenderly for dome time seemed impossible. On the other hand, how could he not strive to be worthy of the magnificent hopes that Orealis has conceived?

  The conflict raging within him was visible in his face.

  Finally, that which was good and noble in his heart got the upper hand. “Well, so be it,” he said. “It shall be as you demand. I renounce the hope of being loved by you. I’ll content myself with your friendship and your amity. But I want them entirely, and since it’s necessary, in order to obtain and keep them, to devote myself unreserved
ly to the completion of the work I’ve begun, that’s what I shall do.”

  III. Stupidity and Routine

  “Nothing again,” said the astronomer Mathieu-Rollère, regretfully tearing himself away from the ocular of the telescope. “Three months have already gone by since our friends revealed their presence; I’m beginning to fear that some misfortune has befallen them and that we’ll be forced to renounce the hopes that seemed so magnificent.”

  “Bah!” replied the Burnett, with his American phlegm. “It’s necessary not to despair until it’s demonstrated absolutely that success is impossible.”

  “Undoubtedly, but if they were able to make the first signals that you perceived, why haven’t they done it again?”

  “Why? How do I know? A thousand accidents might have occurred of which it’s impossible for us to have the slightest idea, any one of which might suffice to explain their silence. Remember that, from now on, the mere fact that they were able to reach the surface of the Moon, and from there to put themselves in communication with us, even if only once, has brought science the solution to important problems.”

  “Yes, but I wish...”

  “You’re too impatient, my venerable friend. Isn’t it already a great deal to know that life is possible on the surface of the satellite? And on that point, no further doubt is permissible. There’s air, if not all around the Moon, at least in certain parts of it, since our friends are alive there and have been able to send us their signals.

  “As for the signals themselves, it’s difficult to be precise about their nature. To judge by their form and deliberate intermittence, they seem to be electrical in nature. But how were our voyagers, with the limited resources at their disposal, able to produce them? The response to that question is rather embarrassing. How were they able to make contact with lunar humankind? Thus far, we don’t know anything about that, and only further signals can inform us.”

  “That’s true, but it’s precisely that absence of new signals that desolates me. If they could make the first ones, nothing prevents them from doing it again. Even supposing that one of them had perished, the others could have repeated the experiment. For nothing to appear, I’m afraid that all three of them must have been killed. And, I’ll confess to you frankly, my dear friend, that thought is tormenting me obsessively. It’s me who pushed my nephew to associate himself with that reckless enterprise; I wanted to realize, for him, for myself and for my country, a sublime conquest; I’ve separated Jacques from the woman he loved.

  “My daughter hasn’t lost confidence, she still remains sure that she’ll see her fiancé again—but if my fears are, alas, well-founded, as I anticipate, and Jacques doesn’t come back, what will become of me in the presence of her despair? Oh, I sense today the terrible responsibility I’ve assumed; in my mad scientific pride I didn’t think about that, but now it weighs upon me with all its weight, and I ask myself with terror whether I haven’t committed sacrilege in tempting Heaven thus.”

  “Don’t worry, my friend; what they’ve done for us is a guarantee of what they might yet do. For myself, I have a profound conviction that after a pause that we can’t estimate at present, they’ll give us more manifest evidence of their presence. Isn’t everything about this incredible odyssey marvelous? Have you ever wondered how our voyagers, whom we saw disappear into a fissure at the foot of the crater Aristillus, were able to transport themselves into the vicinity of the crater Hansteen—which is to say, about sixty degrees, or more than four hundred and fifty leagues of four kilometers each?”

  “That’s true,” murmured Mathieu-Rollère. “I didn’t think of that.”

  “Well, if they’ve been able to travel such a distance in the conditions that exist on the surface of the Moon, according to the astronomical evidence, it’s difficult to believe that they succeeded in doing so by means of their own resources—it’s evident that they were helped. By whom? How? It’s impossible for us to know. All that we can conclude, and we already know it from the discovery of the ball that determined their departure, is that the Moon really is inhabited and that our friends have been able to enter into communication with the beings, whatever they are, who live there.”

  “But how is it, then, that with the powerful telescope we have at our disposal, which permits us to distinguish objects nine feet long, we’ve never perceived anything that denotes the presence of living and intelligent beings?”

  “That’s certainly something inexplicable—or, rather, unexplained, for everything comes with time. For the moment, what is certain is that our friends have arrived on the Moon, have survived there, have crossed a considerable distance and made signals whose existence we can have no doubt. If you think that isn’t a magnificent result, you’re very hard to please. Let’s not begrudge them time, and wait patiently.”

  The assured tone in which the American astronomer had spoken had a salutary and comforting effect on the somewhat troubled soul of the aged scientist. So it was with an entirely youthful ardor that he occupied himself, in company with the engineer Georges Dumesnil, in preparing the large signaling installation designed to ensure future communications. They hastened to return to France.

  It had been agreed that during their absence and every time the moment was favorable, Sir William Burnett would renew, at regular intervals, the signal already sent and as yet unanswered. The three voyagers would thus understand that their message had been received and that further communications on their part were awaited. If anything new showed on the surface of the satellite, the director of the Long’s Peak Observatory would immediately inform Mathieu-Rollère.

  With everything thus arranged, the old astronomer set forth resolutely on campaign.

  It was a matter, it will be recalled, of obtaining permission from the French government to arrange in a plain in southern Algeria the electric apparatus necessary to the production of signals, and also to persuade the Observatoire de Paris to dispose funds in favor of the enterprise that would be allocated under the rubric of “scientific research.”

  The authorization was obtained, but not without difficulty. While the scientist had been in America the Ministry had been overthrown yet again. The powerful friends on whom he had been counting had been turned to the peace of private life. Under the pretext of purification, the entire senior administrative staff had been renewed, and the astronomer no longer knew anyone. In consequence, things did not go as quickly as he had expected. At the first step be bumped into the customary routines of bureaucracy.

  To begin with, no one understood what he was asking. When they understood, it was necessary to decide to which ministry the authorization ought to be granted. It seemed that it was within the purview of Public Education, but as it was a matter of an installation on the territory of a French département, that might well be the concern of the Interior. On the other hand, the plain chosen was in the zone submissive to military authority, so it was difficult to by-pass the consent of the Ministry of War. The documents that required to be piled up, the requests to be redrafted, the journeys to be made and the steps to be taken would be incomprehensible to those who have not had the ill luck to have to deal with those infatuated autocrats, as peevish as they are unapproachable, who, because they behave self-importantly, believe that they have some importance.

  The unfortunate scientist ran breathlessly from one ministry to another for several weeks, and was able to verify for himself the exactitude of the saying of a man who was very familiar with the administration that Europe is wrong to envy us: “It takes longer for a dossier to cross the Seine than for a sailing ship to cross the Atlantic.”

  Finally, a day came when the fortunate authorization, decorated with all the seals, stamps, signatures, countersignatures and visas required by a formalism as puerile as it is inquisitorial found its way into Mathieu-Rollère’s hands.

  It was now necessary to occupy himself with the problem of money. That was something else entirely.

  At the first overture that the astronomer made
to the director of the Observatoire de Paris, the latter, while not disapproving of his project, declared that the attribution of funds was outside his prerogatives, and dependent on a committee without the decision of which nothing could be decided. He did, however, declare that he was willing to convene the committee.

  The discussion was stormy. The objections to the project proposed by Mathieu-Rollère were numerous and passionate. What was this visionary doing, whose fantasies flew in the face of all official science? Had it not been agreed for a long time that the Moon, devoid of air and water, was uninhabited and uninhabitable? What was he saying about human beings having reached the moon, survived there and manifested their presence? If that were true, damn it, it would be known, and nobody knew anything about it. It was him, Mathieu-Rollère, who was on the Moon; it was necessary to leave him there and not occupy themselves with such follies.

  In the midst of that unleashing of furious clamors, a few timid voices rose up. Why condemn thus, without wanting to examine it, a proposition that might be serious? If they did not want to trust the word of the American observer, they could nevertheless grant some credence to the more reserved affirmations of the director of the Observatoire de Nice. He was certainly no hoaxer; he had certainly seen something. Was that not a precious indication? Was it worthy of an assembly of French scientists to pass by disdainfully without wanting to attempt anything? What would become of the good renown of France, which had always been proud of marching at the head along the path of scientific discovery? What shame would not rebound on her if some other nation, shrewder and bolder, stole the glory of such an initiative from her?