Martyrs of Science

by S. Henry Berthoud

  “One evening, to my great surprise, I didn’t find him there when I got home. You can imagine my anxiety. I wanted up half the night; he didn’t reappear until midnight, covered with mud, worn out with fatigue and hiding something in his bosom that he carefully concealed from my gaze. When I thought I was asleep he took out his mysterious object that he had furtively procured. It was a leaf of parchment. He wrote all night; when dawn broke, he put out the lamp, after carefully hiding his work.

  “The next day, I perceived that my master, in order to obtain the parchment, had spent part of the money that we still had. I succeeded in taking possession of the mysterious manuscript surreptitiously while Cornelius was asleep, but only saw unknown characters that seemed to have been traced at random. My poverty was too great to satisfy the desires of futile scribbling, so I took all my money with me, and, after leaving some paper on the table I double-locked the door.

  “An accident that happened that very day, justified that rigorous economy measure only too fully, alas. I was seriously injured in the leg, and it was necessary to renounce all work for several weeks.

  “To tell you what frightful suffering then came to overwhelm our poverty would be beyond human words. Kept prisoner in my paltry bed, with no linen to bandage my wound, without any bread to prevent the poor old man from dying of starvation, I dragged myself desperately as far as the landing to call for help. Either no one heard me or no one wanted to come to our aid, and we remained alone in the face of hunger and abandonment.

  “My master spent his days and night writing. He erased, recommenced and added, and only seemed to feel the need for nourishment at rare intervals. When hunger pressed him, he turned his pale face, withered by privation and suffering, toward me, and looked at me with a dolorous astonishment, putting his hands to his stomach. When the crisis passed, he returned placidly to work.

  “One morning—it was the eighth day—I found the old man lying at my feet. He was holding his manuscript in his hand, and showed it to me with a solemn gesture. Then he tried to say something to me, but his lips were hardly able to stammer the only words that madness had left in his memory: ‘The master of the weather to Paris!’

  “Then he fell back, stiff and cold.

  “Desperation gave me strength. I overcame the pain and reached the door. I let myself slide down the stairs and succeeded, by leaning on the walls, in getting as far as the Fidèle-Berger. There, out of pity, they bought the sheet of parchment you found for a few sous. I exchanged those alms for a little bread and wine, and carried those treasures back to the lodgings.

  “It took several hours to do all that, and I fainted twice before being able to get up the staircase. Finally, I got back to Cornelius. He was still there, stiff and cold on the floor. I rubbed his lips with the wine, and tried to make him drink a few drops. Nothing reanimated him. Then I threw the rest of the manuscript into the fireplace, and set fire to it—and, with the aid of the fugitive flame the paper gave me, I made one last effort to warm the poor fellow up. Alas, my efforts were superfluous, for nothing can return warmth to a cadaver.

  “There’s no need to tell you the rest of the story, sir. My master was thrown into the communal grave in a cemetery, and I went back to Germany, where I had the good fortune to enter your service.”

  Knebel left Berlin the next day to return to Ilmenau, which he never left thereafter. Always shut up in his study, he scarcely seemed to remember that he had a wife and children. He spent his days and nights meditating over the piece of parchment written by Cornelius, striving to recover the doctor’s secret. Only Frantz was allowed into the room, and was not allowed to leave it, for he had to be ready to reply at any moment to the questions that the scientist addressed to him about the form and function of the machines constructed by the master of the weather.

  One morning, Knebel came down from his laboratory, his face radiant with joy. He threw himself into his wife’s arms; he hugged his sons to his bosom and he covered all three with kisses.

  Frantz shared in his master’s joy.

  “Fortune and glory for us! Happiness for us!” said Knebel. “I’ve finally received the recompense of my courage and perseverance. I’ve rediscovered Cornelius’ sublime secret.” He added: “I have to go to Weimar to reveal my discovery to the prince and to carry out an experiment in front of him. Tomorrow, my dear Louise, tomorrow, my children, I’ll come back, and never again have to think about anything but your happiness and affection.”

  Alas, he returned sooner than he expected. An hour later, his corpse was brought back.

  The post-chaise, overloaded with instruments and apparatus, had overturned, crushing Knebel and his faithful Frantz.

  That is why the secret of the mastery of weather was lost for a second time, and perhaps forever.

  THE MADMAN

  One evening in the month of May 1828, a post-chaise harnessed to two horses came into the courtyard of a hostelry in Toulouse. No one was occupying the exterior seat, reserved for a domestic, behind the body of the carriage. There were only two travelers inside. One was an old man, seemingly a sexagenarian; the other was a young woman who could not have been more than twenty.

  The young woman signaled to one of the servants posted on the threshold of the hostelry to open the carriage door. The old man remained placidly seated in the corner in which he was huddled.

  The female traveler got down first; an observer would have noticed her pallor and beauty, while she invited the old man, by voice and gesture, to get out of the carriage. She spoke in English, and from time to time a dry cough interrupted her solicitations. The man she was addressing seemed utterly unmoved by the invitations or the unhealthy condition of the Englishwoman. His head inclined over his breast, his clasped hands resting on his knees, his legs extended nonchalantly, he remained plunged in a profound preoccupation.

  His companion looked around anxiously and pronounced a few words addressed to the hostelry’s servants. No one replied, and the proprietor, whom she appeared to be addressing in particular, replied in the most unmistakable Toulousian accent: “I don’t speak English, Madame.”

  The expression on the worthy proprietor’s face enabled the young woman understand the meaning of the reply. She seemed saddened by it, raised her eyes to the heavens, pointed to the old man and explained by means of a rapid and expressive pantomime that he was ill and that he needed help to get down from the vehicle.

  Two domestics immediately set to work. They expected to find a paralytic whom it would be necessary to lift bodily like a child. To their great surprise, the traveler opposed a keen and robust resistance to their efforts. He recoiled, pushed them away, and uttered cried of distress that the voice of the young Englishwoman could not appease. It was necessary to employ violence to get him out of the chaise. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he fell silent. The convulsive trembling agitating all his limbs gradually eased; his vague blue eyes ceased to express fear, but not suspicion. He looked around anxiously drew the large peak of the cap covering his bald head down over his face, and went to take refuge in the darkest corner of the vestibule.

  The young woman, after having paid the coachman, rejoined the old man, passed her arm gently under his, and led him, not without effort and difficulty, to the apartment that had just been prepared for them. It was then evident how much the poor child was suffering. No animation tempered the mat whiteness of her complexion, except for the cheeks, which were covered with the feverish redness particular to invalids suffering from consumption. Her large blue eyes were shining with the sinister brightness also characteristic of that malady. In order not to succumb to the oppression that was stifling her, she was obliged to stop two or three times while climbing the staircase.

  Having arrived at the first of the two rooms that were reserved for them, she left herself fall dejectedly into an armchair, and a few tears ran silently down her cheeks. In the meantime, standing in the place where the servants had left him, the old man was trying ever harder to cover
up his face.

  “They recognized me! They recognized me!” he said, finally, in terror. “Yes, they recognized me. They’ll tell everyone my name. They’ll repeat it with disgust. The local people will come to shout under my windows. They’ll break the glass, they’ll throw stones, they’ll curse me. Into the Thames! Into the Thames!”

  “No, Uncle, those fears aren’t real; stop giving into them. We’ve left England; we’re in France; no one knows us in this foreign land.”

  “No one?” he repeated. “No one! How can you believe, Diana, that my name is unknown in France? It was pronounced there with terror for a long time, when France was England’s enemy. Later, it was repeated with admiration, as in all of Europe, as in the whole world. Alas, that celebrity has changed to shame. France, Europe, the whole world believes and cries, like London: ‘Shame on him! Into the Thames! Into the Thames!’”

  “Uncle, calm these dire ideas. Cast them out...”

  “While I was sitting in the dock, before the Court of Chancery, prey to attacks of calumny and hatred, while England, to which I had devoted so much—talent, sleepless nights, fortune—played ignobly with my honor and called it into question, do you think that France remained indifferent and inattentive? No, it followed with interest the phases of that extraordinary case.”

  “But you were found innocent, Uncle; the court rejected the accusation.”

  “Yes, but the calumny hasn’t died. The lies and perfidious accusations persist in spreading everywhere, although the law forbids their loud repetition.

  “Once, when I crossed the street in London, people stopped when they saw me and said: There he is, the man who defended the cause of noble England so energetically. He alone was worth entire armies: Walcheren, Spain, Algeria, Waterloo are there to prove it. Now, they turn away from me; my best friends pretend not to see me and, if anyone recognizes me, he nudges his neighbor with his elbow and says: Shame! Shame on that old man! He’s soiled his glory and his white hair for money! Oh, Diana, Diana, my poor Diana!”

  He hid his face in his hands and remained in that desolate attitude for a few moments; then, raising his head energetically, he started pacing back and forth, and said: “And yet, I’m innocent, God knows, and the Court of Chancery recognized hat loudly. I’m innocent. Rather than submit to dishonor, I’d have preferred poverty and death. My God, how cruelly you’re making me expiate my renown, since a man who has done everything for is fatherland has been obliged to flee like a criminal, since a man who has conquered a glorious name must pay, at the price of his blood, for that name to be forgotten and erased!”

  A slight sound was audible outside. He shivered and broke off.

  “They’re coming,” he said, “they’re coming. They want to see me. They want to say to my face: Thief! Thief! Shame! Shame! Into the Thames!”

  He bowed his head, pulled the peak of his traveling-cap entirely over his face, and, walking on tiptoe, went to hide behind a curtain.

  The young woman, who had not ceased weeping bitterly during this sad scene of dementia, was seized by a violent fit of coughing, accompanied by nervous and convulsive movements.

  “My God!” she said. “My God, give me the strength to resist the disease that’s consuming me, until my care is no longer indispensable to that poor old man. If I succumb before the letter I’m going to write reaches England, if I have to die before it brings my brother to France, what will become of him, deprived of his reason and abandoned to the care of strangers?”

  She sat down at a table and wrote the following letter:

  My brother, hurry up and leave England; leave immediately for Toulouse; don’t lose a single day, nor a single hour. I sense that God will call me to him, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in an instant. And without me, what will become of the unfortunate old man to whom I’ve devoted my life? Alas, that sacrifice was beyond the strength of a poor frail and sick girl. I didn’t take long to succumb to it.

  My brother, how cruel it is to see an old man suffer thus, whom one known to be as innocent and pure as anyone! God alone knows the dolors I have endured in the presence of that intelligence, once so brilliant and now extinct, that was once surrounded by all the honors possible on earth, and is now crushed by all imaginable evils! My uncle’s terrors have only increased; his dementia is taking on an increasingly absolute character, without liberating him from the obsession that is devouring him. Only one thought still remains in his burning head: that of the infamous stain on his honor made by calumny.

  Come George, and come quickly. I shall succumb sooner or later under the burden of so such suffering. My uncle will remain alone in a foreign land, and to complete the misfortune, an unexpected incident is cruelly complicating the difficulties of his situation. The domestic who accompanied us and served as our interpreter, John, has suddenly disappeared, taking most of our luggage and all the money I possessed. I only have two hundred francs left, fortunately contained in a purse that I was carrying on my person.

  I repeat, my brother, leave immediately for Toulouse. Adieu, I dare not hope that God will grant me the mercy of letting me shake your hand before dying. If such is his will, so let it be. I shall implore his mercy in heaven for you, and above all for the noble and unfortunate old man that I shall be abandoning.

  Your sister, Diana.

  After having written that letter, she sealed it, rang, and handed it to a domestic in order that it should be put into the post immediately. Then she took out a little pocket dictionary of English and French, riffled through it, and found beside the word for which she was searching, its translation. The servant called the proprietor, who read: médecin.

  He immediately sent for the local doctor. The latter, when he came into the Englishwoman’s room, was almost frightened by the rapid and frightful ravages exercised by the malady on the young woman.

  “Do you speak English?” she asked him, in her mother tongue, as soon as she saw him.

  He replied to the question, whose meaning he deduced, with a negative shake of the head. Then he approached her in order to interrogate her, by means of sign language, about the suffering she was experiencing. The signs were almost superfluous, however, for the energetic symptoms of consumption spoke clearly enough for themselves. She pointed rapidly at her chest and the sky, as if to declare that she was not clinging to any hope of a cure, and that she knew how serious her condition was—after which she designated hr uncle with a gesture of despair.

  The old man was still hiding behind the curtains, his ears pricked, his eyes fearful, in the attitude of a man fearful of some peril. When he saw the physician advancing toward him, he covered his face with his hands and murmured: “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! I’m not the man they’ve accused of such cowardice.”

  As the insane man was expressing himself in English, the physician did not understand what he said, but it was easy to see that the old man’s reason was impaired. He went back to Diana; she started weeping bitterly. She could feel existence abandoning her, and could not even give the physician the instructions and clarifications necessary to ease the mental condition of the old man that she was perhaps about to leave alone in the world. He would die abandoned.

  Several times she tried to make herself understood by recourse to pantomime, but her gestures were insufficient to express the delicate nuances of such a malady and the mental causes that had produced such a severe intellectual shock. It did not take her long to see that the physician did not understand. She wrung her hands in distress; a violent crisis became manifest and provoked horrible fits of coughing.

  For ten minutes, the doctor, in spite to the care he lavished upon her, thought that she was about to die. Finally, he saw life gradually return—but he recognized that a further fit was inevitable and imminent, and that the first had left her too weak and exhausted for her to resist any further.

  She read those sinister anticipations in the physician’s physiognomy, and, as if to take advantage of the time remaining, tried to get up from the bed on which h
e had laid her down. She fell back.

  A second effort allowed her to seize a pen and a piece of paper. She then began to trace a few notes, in a faltering hand. The glances that she dated incessantly at the madman told the physician that the notes concerned the old man. When she had finished—and it was not without painful efforts that she had succeeded in scribbling seven or eight lines—she leaned toward the doctor, addressed a supplicant gaze to him, and handed him the sheet of paper. After making him understand that it was necessary to find someone to translate the instructions she had just transcribed, she let herself fall back on the bed, put her hands together, and waited for death.

  The old man, seeing her lying there motionless, seemed to become anxious. He overcame his terrors and, in spite of the presence of a stranger, he advanced slowly and hesitantly toward the young woman.

  It was not without a thousand precautions, and not without continuing to hide his face that he approached the bed and knelt down beside Diana’s pillow. She seemed to be reanimated on seeing the object of her devotion and her dolor so close. She reached out to her uncle, took the old man’s hand and drew him toward her, murmuring a prayer to appeal for celestial protection for him. At that supreme moment, all her solicitude was for him.

  Perhaps he understood, in spite of his troubled reason, the misfortune and abandonment that were threatening him, for he repeated, twice, in an emotional voice: “Don’t go, Diana! Don’t go!”

  She raised her head painfully and tried to smile in order to reassure him.

  “Don’t go, Diana, don’t go,” he went on. “If you go, I’ll have no one to tell them that I’m not the man they’re heaping with scorn. The people will pursue me again, they’ll throw stones at me. The people who recognize me will turn away from my path. ‘Into the Thames! Into the Thames!’”