Over that impoverished nature reigned a veiled daylight, uniformly gray in color, through which no rays of sunlight filtered, not dissimilar to the dull winter days that precede long polar nights on Earth.
That residue of life so strangely conserved on the dead surface of the Moon was exceedingly sad and melancholy. In the eyes of Rugel and the Diemides who accompanied him, however, it seemed delightful and charming. It offered a striking contrast with the arid regions they had traversed, which gripped their imagination. Since leaving the observatory, they had been living in an environment in which everything was hostile and inhospitable. It seemed to them now that they had rediscovered a corner of their native planet, such as it was in ancient days, before the revolutions of the satellite had obliged its inhabitants to take refuge in its core.
Marcel and his two companions experienced quite different sensations. What was dominant in them was the joy of having, at the price of countless fatigues, resolved a problem that no one had even thought accessible. They had before them, on the ever-invisible part of the Moon, one of the depressions at the bottom of which they eyes of a few obstinate astronomers thought that they had recognized traces of vapor and vegetation.
Marcel’s mind, however, reached beyond that. What was unfurled before his gaze was one of the last phases of the life of a world. In this remote corner where, by virtue of exceptional circumstances, the evolution of the planet had been delayed, he was, in a sense, witnessing the death-throes of the world.
Before reaching the state of complete dereliction that reigned over the whole surface, Earth’s satellite had passed through successive transformations, and, at a given moment, it had all been similar to the miserable valley where the last glimmers of life seemed on the brink of extinction. With the diminution of the central heat, the slow disappearance of water and the atmosphere, the conditions necessary for life had gradually weakened; the cold had invaded everything, and everything still alive had ended up disappearing. And it was like a miracle to see this fragment of the world belatedly alive, as if forgotten at the moment of universal destruction.
And his thoughts returned to the Earth.
This, he said to himself, is the fate that awaits our planet. In a few thousand centuries, it too will see the evolution whose beginnings we are witnessing today come to an end. While the central fire diminishes, the sun that lights and heats its surface will become weaker. The polar ice-caps will extend and confine the human race to a progressively more restricted area. In time, life will be concentrated in a narrow strip around the equator, and the debris of humankind, not having, like the inhabitants of the Moon, the recourse of taking refuge in the bowels of the globe, will perish miserably, cursing the Earth that has become impotent to nourish them, and cursing the miserly heavens that are refusing them light and heat.
Meanwhile, the travelers had completed the descent of the mountainside and reached the valley floor.
They were all in a hurry to take off the apparatus in which they had been imprisoned for so long and to breathe open air, but it was necessary not to leave anything to chance.
Thanks to Rugel’s foresight, measuring instruments had been brought in the luggage carried by the Diemides. They were consulted.
The metallic barometer indicated a pressure of 528 millimeters, still inferior to that of the city of Quito on Earth. The centigrade thermometer marked three degrees. That was undoubtedly a little low, but supportable. It was nevertheless evident that it would drop considerably during the 354-hour night, and paralyze the momentum of life.
The results were satisfactory, and on their leader’s order, the Diemides took off their costumes.
Marcel, Jacques and Lord Rodilan had not waited, so great was their haste to recover the ease of movement and the free use of speech.
“Ah!” said Lord Rodilan, stretching delightedly and breathing in long draughts of air, which seemed so sweet to him. “How good it is to breathe easily! I was beginning to weary of that artificial atmosphere with which we’ve been obliged to content ourselves since our departure. Chemical air and chemical nourishment are all very well, but I’ve lost the taste for them, and if I ever get back to Earth, I shall swear a mortal hatred against chemistry, all its practitioners and all its inventions.”
“Don’t speak so ill of chemistry, my dear lord,” replied Marcel, laughing. “Without it, neither of us would be here, and I’m sure you’d regret not having followed to the end a voyage so fecund in astonishing discoveries.”
The troop of Diemides had spread out along the edge of the lake, the opposite shore of which could barely be distinguished in the distance. It did not appear to have any great depth; the surrounding region was flat and smooth. The forces of nature had been active; the rain and running water, incessantly drawing the friable particles toward the bottom of the valley, had gradually filled it up, and only a thin liquid layer remained, which evaporation was incessantly decreasing, and would not take long to disappear.
Silence reigned everywhere; there was no birdsong to be heard, nor the rustle of alarmed beasts. Apart from the languishing plants slowly perishing in this corner bound for death, nothing seemed to be alive.
Some distance away, a fairly extensive wood was visible, toward which they headed. The ground on which they were walking was covered with short coarse grass, growing as if regretfully on the thin layer of humus that was still resisting all the causes of destruction.
They went into the wood. They light was duller and more somber there that outside, and the sight of the strange, melancholy and lugubrious forest inspired a profound feeling of sadness. There was none of the bushy undergrowth that forms in Earthly forests, populated by so many various species, forming a backcloth so easy on the eye. The blackish trunks stood up rigid and bare. They were conifers of some sort, similar to those that grow on Earthly mountain-sides. Only toward the top were a few etiolated branches covered with sparse foliage.
A damp and penetrating cold reigned beneath that dome of verdure; they went through it in a hurry. When they emerged on the other side the voyagers found themselves on the bank of a stream running over a bed of mud, without producing the joyous murmur that is so conducive to reverie when one pauses to breathe the perfumed evening breeze after a warm summer’s day in the country.
The stream descended through a narrow valley seemingly hollowed out in a pleat in the ground. While Rugel and his three friends lay down in the grass to take a little rest, a party of Diemides set off to explore.
“We’ve now reached the goal that we set ourselves,” Marcel said. “We’ve verified the accuracy of your old legends, and we can report to your scientists who are interested in the problem the certainty that, if residues of life still subsist in remote areas of the lunar surface, they’re on the point of disappearance, and that death will soon have extended its somber empire everywhere. What are your plans now, friend? Do you intend to stay here for long?”
“We’ll doubtless require a long enough interval to explore the region in its full extent, study its layout and collect a few specimens of this dying flora.”
“How large do you think the dimensions of this strange valley can be?” asked Lord Rodilan.
“It’s difficult to measure exactly,” said Rugel, “But as far as it’s possible to judge by the curve of the kind of cliff that encloses it, the valley, if oblong in form, doesn’t seem to be more than fifteen or twenty of your terrestrial leagues in its longest diameter.”
“One of our French départements would have difficulty fitting into it,” said Jacques, “And it’s not probable that the exploration we’ll undertake has any great surprises in store for us. There are no very significant changes in the terrain: no hills, no major watercourses, and no large forests. We haven’t found any trace of animal life thus far, and it doubtless won’t take long to complete our research. But in order to return to our departure point we still have long fatigues to endure, and in spite of the strength of resistance of which we’ve given evidence thus far,
I think it would be appropriate to stay here for some while, in order to recover our strength and enable us to confront the ordeals that wait us.”
“Wisely spoken,” said Lord Rodilan. “The place pleases me, and if I could only hunt hare and snipe, I’d gladly get used to it.”
“Incorrigible gourmand,” said Marcel. “You always remain subservient to the material, and can’t rise above those vulgar needs and gross enjoyments that weigh the soul down and turn it away from the contemplation of the ideal.”
“You say that very casually, Marcel, and are easily disgusted, but I’d like to see you in the presence of one of those plates of venison that smell so good and have such a flavorsome taste. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The ideal is doubtless very jolly, but plunging into it with an empty stomach doesn’t seem at all cheerful to me. After a good meal, when my stomach is satisfied and a few glasses of a generous wine have warmed by blood, when I see everything in a rosy light, I’m disposed, as you are, to let my mind wanted in the blue yonder, but when I’m hungry, my ideal is limited to having that good meal.”
Marcel and Jacques could not help laughing at that sally. Rugel looked at the Englishman, not without surprise.
“So,” said Jacques, “you’ve never envied the condition of our friend Rugel and those like him, who are freed from the ever-troublesome care of replenishing bodily strength by means of nourishment? You haven’t admired the way that their minds, liberated from those preoccupations, could become subtler and finer? They’ve attained the degree of perfection glimpsed by our ancient philosophers of having no needs, of not having to labor to satisfy them and not having to suffer when they’re unfulfilled.”
“Oh, no,” replied Lord Rodilan. “Doesn’t all the charm of life consist of being able to increase the sum of one’s enjoyments, and isn’t the man who is most needy also the one whom, in satisfying all his needs, procures the greatest sum of pleasures? You make fun of me in condemning mine, but what are you doing when you’re impassioned about science, when you expend your efforts to enrich it with some new conquest or unexpected discovery? You’ve created artificial needs and you’re striving to satisfy them. One of your sages said that people ought to live in conformity with their nature. Now, my nature wants me to eat and drink; it doesn’t urge me to find out what’s happening on Jupiter or Saturn; so I’m closer than you are to veritable wisdom.”
Jacques laughed frankly.
“That,” said Marcel, “is an entirely unexpected application of the maxim of the Stoics, and old Zeno would certainly be surprised to find himself rallying to the banner of Epicurus. Materialist as you are, though, haven’t you ever thought of distinguishing the noble needs of the spirits from the base appetites of the body”
“Bah!” said Lord Rodilan. “I don’t know any philosophical maxim that’s worth as much, when one’s hungry, as a slice of roast beef and a pint of claret.”
Rugel had listened to that discussion attentively. “I have no entitlement,” he said, “to intervene in this debate, since, in his sovereign wisdom, the Author of all things has simplified the conditions of material life for us. If appears to me, however, that the joys whose lack our friend feels so strongly—which I cannot appreciate, never having known them—don’t merit so much regret. To judge by what I know of your mode of existence and the organization of your terrestrial societies, the satisfaction of these needs is not achieved, for the greater number of the inhabitants of your planet, without effort and suffering of every kind, and what you call the struggle for existence appears to me to comprise more sadness and bitterness than veritable joys. It seems to me that it costs very dear to buy a few pleasures of short duration, and if one compares them with the pure joys of the mind, the choice can scarcely be in doubt.”
They were chatting in this fashion when they saw some of the Diemides who had gone upstream coming back. Their expressions were strangely troubled.
“Master,” said one of them, “We’re not alone in this valley; we’ve just seen a human creature here.”
XIII. The Last Family
With a single movement they all got up and surrounded the Diemide.
He told his story: “We’d been following the course of the stream for some time, and we’d just gone around the small hillock you can see from here, when we saw something unexpected. Some distance from the bank, on the hillside, we made out a mass of stones that we mistook at first for a landslide. When we got closer, though, we realized that it was the remains of a construction, evidently built by human hands, with regular walls and symmetrically-pierced openings. It was half-destroyed; the roof had collapsed and its debris was strewn on the ground. A few wild plants were growing in the midst of the ruins, which had been abandoned for a long time.
“That discovery excited us profoundly. There was no doubt about it; human beings had lived in this place, which we thought uninhabitable, for a long time, and we wondered how long it had been since the last representatives of that forgotten race had died. We went on, and the traces of an anterior life became more frequent: more ruined walls and devastated habitations appeared, and our feet even encountered a few recognizable fragments of instruments that had served the functions of life. Our emotion increased; we were only advancing hesitantly, somewhat troubled, through those remains of a past that still seemed recent, when we suddenly stopped, struck by amazement.
“Some distance away, a human being appeared. With his back to a fragment of a wall, he was standing still, seemingly insensible to his surroundings. He was wearing a thick, dark-colored garment, and his silhouette stood out clear against the whiteness of the stone.
“No sound had betrayed our approach; he had neither seen us not heard us. Gripped by astonishment, we were contemplating him, not daring to take another step, when the stranger straightened up and, without looking in our direction, suddenly disappeared from view. All that happened so rapidly that we hardly dared believe our eyes. Some of my companions wanted to run after him, but I stopped them, wanting to tell you about the discovery first and letting you decide what we ought to do next.”
That story plunged Rugel and his three friends into amazement. Reflections full of anxiety and hope presented themselves to their minds in confusion.
The debris of a human race still survived! They had been able to discover the descendants of ancient ages, conserved on the surfaces of the world, where everything seemed to have perished! What could these vestiges of lunar humanity be, reduced to living in such wretched conditions? Had they retained anything of the intellectual culture of the civilization of old? Had they, on the contrary, reverted to primitive barbarity, fully occupied in defending themselves against the nature that was oppressing them?
The explorers were agitated by a poignant emotion; an entirely new interest had just appeared to them.
While they had believed the place to which their spirit of adventure had led them to be deserted, they had been unable to defend themselves against the impression of sadness it communicated. Now, everything was animated. Beings like them were living here. It was necessary to see them, to hear the story of the mysterious past through which their existence had been prolonged from their own mouths—and perhaps to rescue them from the death that threatened them.
“It’s necessary to find that man at all costs,” exclaimed Marcel. “Doubtless he’s not alone, and if there are some of our fellows here, our duty is to save them.”
“Yes,” said Rugel, “and if this voyage, which we’ve undertaken in order to satisfy scientific curiosity, is to conclude with an act of humanity, if we can save some of our siblings from misery and death, we will have the finest of rewards for our efforts and fatigues.” He turned to Jacques and Lord Rodilan. “Don’t you agree?”
Jacques’ only response was to shake Rugel’s hand,
“As for me,” said Lord Rodilan, “it hasn’t often been given to me in life to do much good, but since the opportunity is presenting itself to accomplish something virtuous, I’ll seize i
t gladly. It will make a change.”
“You’re ever ready to slander yourself,” said Marcel, “but you’re worth as much as the best of us, you know. Let’s go, without further delay.”
They selected the most alert and most vigorous of the Diemides, because they did not know how long the search would take and over how large an area it would have to be extended. The rest of the troop was to set up camp on the bank of the stream and guard the baggage.
Under the guidance of the Diemide whose story had excited them so much, Rugel and his three companions set forth.
They soon arrived at the place where the inhabitant of the rugged country had appeared. The voyagers went through the ruins that had once been human habitations but were no longer anything but scattered vestiges. In any other circumstances they would have paused to search for relics of times past, but they were animated by a more powerful interest. They were in haste to know what these human creatures were who were surviving, against all expectation, the death-throes of a world.
Impatient as they were, however, they thought it necessary to advance with the utmost precaution. They did not know what sort of beings they were going to find; it was as well to guard against surprises, and they were also afraid of frightening the unknown creatures. It was necessary to try to approach them without alarming them, and without having anything to fear from them.
They had passed through the destroyed village and were advancing along the floor of a narrow valley, at the end of which the plain seemed to broaden out, when they suddenly saw a man emerge from a small clump of trees to their right, weighed down by a heavy load of wood.
They all stopped.
“That’s him,” said the Diemide.
The stranger had seen them. Dropping his burden, he stood there motionless, as if frozen by amazement.
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