Martyrs of Science

by S. Henry Berthoud

  “At that moment, the watch patrol passed by. The officer in command had the old woman surrounded by his soldiers. ‘I’ve been hunting for you for three days, you damned witch,’ he said. ‘Thank God I can finally arrest you and deliver you to the law—which will, it’s necessary to hope, liberate the city of Rouen from your evil spells.’

  “The old woman allowed herself to be tied up by the soldiers, not putting up any resistance. Except that, when the led her away toward the prison she turned to the window where Salomon was standing and let out a burst of laughter that chilled the apprentice with terror.

  “Without hesitation, he picked up the cooking-pot and went to throw it into the Seine.

  “The next day, Madame Gertrude came home with a copper cooking-pot under her arm. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ve just struck an excellent bargain. I bought this cooking-pot, just for the price of the copper, from some fishermen who had just found it in the Seine.’

  “A month later, the witch was burned in the main square of Rouen. When she was led to the pyre, instead of repenting and thinking about the salvation of her soul, she proffered the most horrible blasphemies, and when the flames began to bite her limbs, she howled: ‘That young man’s got a fine cooking-pot!’

  “Then she expired.”

  Jean interrupted himself again and said: “My lips are very dry. Nothing tires you out and gives you a thirst like talking next to the fire. Give me a drink, I beg you.”

  And he held out his glass to me.

  I pretended not to see Jean, and yet, my eyes couldn’t turn away from him. I could no longer find in that poor devil his habitual manners. His figure, previously curbed by humility, had now taken on an attitude full of pride, and he was carrying his head proudly, which had no lack of expression.

  For the first time, I noticed the aquiline form of his Grecian nose, the sarcasm of his thin mouth, and the bitter smile of his lips, of a bright red that went marvelously with an energetically-tilted chin and a neck solidly planted on powerful shoulders. The light that fell vertically on his bald cranium rendered legible there, in the mysterious characters that Gall was the first to teach us to read, the projection of a keen intelligence, a powerful memory, a poetic imagination and an ardent love of the marvelous. In sum, there was nothing, from his hands, withered as they were by rude and abject labor, to his bare feet, emerging from the sabots that shod them, in which one did not observe, in an undeniable fashion, the particular characteristics of a man of pure race ad superior organization.

  His soft voice, the elegant and well-chosen expressions of which he made use, the animation of his large blue eyes, and the singular energy of his gestures, full of distinction, added further to my surprise and caused me a sort of embarrassment. I sought in vain for the inferior that I was accustomed to treating as a kind of machine, appropriate at the most for carrying out, under an external impulsion, some elementary task. I found myself face to face with an equal, who was perhaps soon about to display before me a superiority of which he was conscious.

  So, when the storyteller turned to me, and said to me with the cool and casual manner of a friend: “Send for some champagne, then!” I got up mechanically to order an attendant to go and find a second bottle and bring it to me. The worthy fellow hesitated for a few seconds, for the rain was falling heavily, and the tempest was roaring furiously. It was necessary to go across the courtyard and walk at least two hundred paces to reach the wine merchant’s shop. Nevertheless, he armed himself with resolution, wrapped himself up in an old cloak, and left.

  Satisfied, Jean resumed his story.

  “At the sight of the fatal talisman that Madame Gertrude had brought back to the house, and learning of the strange manner in which it had been recovered, Salomon felt full of mortal anxiety. The witch’s words on the pyre did not serve to reassure him, and he resolved to make a further attempt to get rid of such a deadly utensil. A few days before his wedding, he got out of bed in the middle of the night, took the cooking-pot and went to deposit it on the far side of the city, in a district inhabited by poor workers.

  “It’s impossible, he told himself, that anyone would not be tempted to appropriate a copper cooking-pot and keep it for their own use; thank God, I’m rid of it now!

  “He had not yet reached home again when a frightful din caused him to turn his head and look behind him. A huge dog was running after him at a frantic pace, dragging behind it the fatal cooking-pot, which street-urchins had tied to its tail. The animal, exasperated by pain, impatience and rage, was howling, and its lips were flecked with bloody foam. A man tried to stop it, but the dog leapt at his throat and tore it out. Five or six other people made similar attempts, but had to give up after receiving serious bites that put the out of action.

  Salomon, in despair at being the involuntary cause of such great misfortune, resolved t put an end to it, even at the risk of his life. He took out a little dagger that he then had the habit of carrying on his person, armed himself with a knotty stick, commended his soul to the Blessed Virgin, and ran straight toward the dog.

  “Then a battle began between the two adversaries during which Salomon nearly succumbed several times. It required a great deal of composure and the most resolute courage to stand up to the monstrous hound, whose enormous mouth, armed with long fangs, broke the apprentice’s enormous club like a frail stick.

  In the end, determined to triumph or perish, the young man wrapped his first in a handkerchief and threw himself upon the dog, engaging it bodily, and struck it so fortunately in the heat that the redoubtable animal fell dead on the spot.

  “Salomon got to his feet covered in blood, but safe and sound.

  “Immediately, the acclamations of the crowd that had witnessed the rude combat saluted enthusiastically the athlete who had fought so well and triumphed so courageously. People pressed around him, shook his hands, embraced him, and ended up taking him back to his house with the greatest honor, amid resounding cheers.

  “Insensible to these testaments of admiration rendered to his bravery, Salomon, his heart full of remorse, reproached himself bitterly for the evils caused by his imprudence. Thank God, he thought, at the price of my blood and my remorse, at least I’m free of that infernal cooking-pot!

  “That wish seemed to have been granted, because, for an entire week, he heard no mention of anything. And that week ended with his wedding celebration.

  “Finally, as he was about to extend his hand to conduct his fiancée to the altar, his father-in-law said to him: ‘Salomon, forgive me for having tested you and made sure by means of a ruse of the honesty of your character and the sincerity of your love for Diane. I’m not ruined, as I told you, my son; far from it. You’ll receive a dowry of ten thousand gold écus, and I’ll also cede you the exploitation of my pharmacy, for I’m rich enough, my dear boy, to retire from commerce and live henceforth on the income from my investments.’

  “At these soft and benevolent words, Salomon surrendered himself freely to the joy of his happiness. The fatality that was pursuing me, he told himself, has finally ceased to harass me, thank God. So, during the marriage ceremony, he prayed with fervor and gratitude.

  “When they came out of the church, all the young people of the town, in their best clothes, were waiting for the married couple to honor them and escort them back home. They formed a cortege, with cries of ‘Long live the beautiful Diane!’ and ‘Long live the courageous Salomon!’ And arquebuses mingled their explosions joyfully with those affectionate clamors.

  “It was necessary, to please the general enthusiasm, that the wedding-party, instead of returning directly to Maître Daupats’ house, parade in pomp through the principal streets of the city. The most illustrious ladies were on their balconies, from which they threw bouquets to the newlyweds; poor people clapped their hands. Such a fête had never been seen before.

  “That wasn’t all. When the cortege arrived at the Hôtel-de-Ville, the aldermen in their robes were standing on the threshold, and two ushers cam
e to ask the newlyweds to come before the magistrates. They obeyed urgently. When they had answered the demand, the Maire invited them to sit on crimson velvet armchairs that had been prepared for the ceremony, after which he made a long speech, in which he spoke, in savant and complimentary terms, about the courage of which Salomon had so nobly give proof a week before. He compared him to the demigod Hercules, the tamer of wild beasts, the conqueror of the Nemean Lion and the Lernean Hydra.

  “‘The city of Rouen,’ he added, in conclusion, has charged its magistrate to give you a reward, bit what can we offer you, who are marrying a young woman as rich as she is beautiful? What can remunerate the service that you have rendered your compatriots? We therefore resolved to have the cooking-pot that was the cause of the misfortunes afflicting Rouen, to which you put an end by your intrepidity, gilded. The city wanted you engrave on it the following words:

  THE ALDERMEN AND TOWNSPEOPLE OF ROUEN

  TO SALOMON DE CAUS

  XI MAI MDC...

  “Look,” said Jean, interrupting his story and showing me the cooking-pot. “One can still read that inscription clearly. Only the last figures of the date have been effaced.

  “When the magistrate had finished his speech, trumpets set about sounding glorious fanfares, and the young people took possession of the cooking-pot, which they carried solemnly in front of Salomon. The Maire offered his hand to the bride, to the sound of bells, fanfares, arquebuses and acclamations.

  “Maître Daupats and Madame Gertrude blessed God for having given them such a son-in-law. Diane looked at her husband with eyes full of tears of affection and pride.

  “Salomon was the unhappiest of men. The fatal cooking-pot that was being carried before him seemed, like the sword of Damocles, to be disaster and death suspended above his head. He sensed that henceforth, no tranquility was possible for him in this world. The threats and vengeance of the witch were only too real. That diabolical talisman, of which there was no means of liberating oneself, was sufficient proof of that. The unfortunate fellow felt doomed to misfortune forever.

  “When they arrived at Maître Daupats’ house, the young people who were carrying the gilded cooking-pot hooked it to the ceiling in the hall of the nuptial feast. The guests took their places around the table, and the Maire and his aldermen were invited to the banquet, which went on, as was the custom in that good old epoch, long into the evening.

  “During the meal, Salomon incessantly expected the cooking-pot to detach itself from the ceiling and fall on to his wife’s head. Nothing happened, however, and calm finally returned to the young man’s heart when it was permitted to him to leave the dining-room, in which he swore never to set for again.

  “There is no impression so sharp that it does not end up eventually fading from our memory. Eight years later, not only did Salomon go back into the room whose door he had sworn never to open again, but he did not even think about the witch’s cooking-pot. It had been relegated to some forgotten corner of the house, where it lay covered with rust and dust. Salomon, a happy husband and an even happier father, was rich, honored and beloved by his fellow citizens, who had raised him to the dignity of an alderman. He had acquired a brilliant reputation by the publication of several scientific works.

  “Heaped with honors, overwhelmed by business affairs, and charged in addition with the administration of Rouen, it was perfectly natural that Salomon de Caus should have forgotten the terrors and superstitions of his youth.

  “Besides which, he had many other reasons more powerful than business, fortune and renown; there was his wife Diane, whose beauty time had only augmented; there was an only daughter nine years old, baptized with the sweet name of Marie, of an angelic grace, whom he loved madly. In order not to be separated from those two cherished females, he refused the seductive offers that were made to him on several occasions by kings and princes desirous of attaching such an eminent scientist to their households.

  “He submitted to municipal honors because every citizen owes to his homeland the tribute of his experience and his enlightenment, but he would gladly have abdicated them in order to devote himself entirely to the ineffable joys of his tenderness and domestic bliss.

  “One morning he came out of the Hôtel-de-Ville in Rouen and hastened his pace in order to get back to the house sooner and kiss his wife and daughter, whom he had not seen all day. He noticed at a distance an unusual agitation in his house. The apprentices were running back and forth fearfully in the pharmacy. His heart gripped by ominous presentiments, he broke into a run.

  “The bewildered Diane was hugging little Marie to her bosom, and the child was crying: ‘Mother! Mother! I can’t see!’

  “Full of terror, he asked Diane for explanations. She scarcely had the strength to give them to him. While playing in the kitchen, Marie had imprudently come close to a cooking-pot on the boil; a few drops of scalding water had splashed into the child’s eyes, and she had been blinded.

  “Salomon looked at the fireplace, and saw the witch’s coking-pot there. ‘Woe!’ he cried, “woe! Why is use being made of that diabolical utensil?’

  “‘Today is the anniversary of the heroic deed that once earned you the gratitude of the entire city. I wanted to remind you of it, my love, by preparing the soup and having it served in that cooking-pot, which bears such a glorious inscription.

  “Salomon took his daughter in his arms, and set about examining the poor little creature’s eyes with minute care. He was trying to see whether any hope remained of curing her.

  “At that moment, an explosion rang out. The cover of the cooking-pot, launched into the air by the force of the steam, had just struck the ceiling, and it came to land at the scientist’s feet.

  “At the sight of that phenomenon, he forgot everything—everything, including his wife’s grief and his daughter’s blindness. He fell into a profound reverie; the hands that were embracing Marie were detached from the child, and Diane spoke to him several times without him replying, or even having heard...”

  “Here’s the wine you asked for,” said the attendant, opening the door and placing two bottles of champagne in front of Jean.

  The latter gave an order to the astonished attendant—who nevertheless obeyed it mechanically—to bring a second glass. After which, he uncorked the bottle and did the honors himself, pouring me a glass. Then, refilling his own glass, he raised it to his lips with the slight salutation of the head, full of elegance and distinction that is commonplace among Englishmen and Germans.

  Jean swilled another glass of champagne and continued his story.

  “After the fatal days whose details I have just related, nothing could extract Salomon from the profound melancholy into which the accident suffered by his daughter had thrown him. As for the poor mother, she put all her faith in God; she spent almost every day at the church, invoking the Virgin on behalf of her child.

  “Diane explained her husband’s preoccupation to herself by the desire that was devouring him to cure little Marie and return her sight to her. Salomon, she said to herself, is studying the causes of the evil in order to be able to combat it effectively and triumph over it.

  “It was not the same with Salomon’s neighbors, for they accused him of madness—and, in fact, one could not abstain from sharing that supposition in the presence of the changes that overtook the behavior of Marie’s father. Pale and thin, his complexion wan and his hair unkempt, dressed in a negligent fashion, there was a strange gaze in his distracted eye that only belongs to the insane. Six months had aged him ten years. Already, white hairs were mingled with the long curls that fell in disorder about his neck, and profound wrinkles were hollowed it on his once-cheerful and expansive forehead.

  “Furthermore, in the midst of that absolute forgetfulness of real life and the gravest interests, an unprecedented activity devoured him. He did not have a minute to devote to the duties of his profession, the concerns of his business or the direction of the community of which he was an alderman. He scarcely re
membered that he was a husband and father, but spent his days and nights consuming himself in meditation and study. He continually undertook long and distant journeys. He left for Germany, for England, for Italy, suddenly and without any apparent reason.

  “Before separating himself from them, he scarcely fond time negligently to embrace his wife and his daughter—his daughter, who could no longer see him and held out her arms to him, weeping.

  “When he quit his house and family like that he often forgot to take the necessary underwear; often, he even set off without any money—but he never neglected to take the witch’s cooking-pot. It accompanied him on his slightest excursions; he was scarcely able to consent to be separated from it when he was only leaving the house for a few hours. Always hunched over that instrument of evil, he seemed to be attached to it by a magical power.

  “The abandonment to which Salomon yielded his fortune did not take long to bear fruit. The neglected pharmacy gradually lost customers, and an accident soon discredited it.

  “One day, when Diane’s husband chance to be at his counter, a local resident brought in a prescription written by one of the city’s most renowned physicians. Salomon prepared the medicament personally. An hour later, the invalid, who had previously only experienced a slight indisposition, died in the most frightful agony.

  “The medical examiners summoned declared that a pharmaceutical error committed by Salomon had killed the unfortunate victim of culpable distraction. The guilty party was ordered to pay considerable compensation. Two months later, a similar error with a similar result occurred again.

  “This time, a parliamentary warrant was issued, which prohibited Salomon from continuing to exercise the profession of apothecary and ordered him to sell his establishment within three months, on pain of seeing it confiscated by the government.

  “Diane’s tears and prayers were unable to persuade Salomon to take care of his business and comply with the parliamentary warrant. Three months later, the pharmacy was closed; government agents carried out the confiscation, and set about liquidating the assets in order to make compensation payments. Nothing extracted Salomon from his apathetic preoccupation. When the desolate Diane showed him the poverty that was advancing with rapid strides toad them and their child, he traced cabalistic figures on the wall, carried out geometrical operations in the sand with his foot, and, making no reply, went to shut himself away with the gilded cooking-pot in a little room that he had rented in order to establish a laboratory there.