“She’s very beautiful, and worthy to be loved,” he declared, abruptly.
I started, and immediately brought the vehicle to a halt.
“Come on, my dear Dirk,” I said, deliberately, “there’s no need to play games. Who are you talking about? Are you talking about Mademoiselle Yvane?”
He drew on his cigarette awkwardly. His large round eyes were staring at me in astonishment.
“You’ve put it into third gear,” he said.
The car had stopped. He was either mad or playing the imbecile. Irritated, I shrugged my shoulders and, without persisting further, engaged the clutch again—but, disturbed by what he had said, I did indeed go into third gear, and the motor stalled. I swore, pressing the starter again. The doctor’s company must have unbalanced the poor fellow’s mind. I abstained from speaking to him again during the few kilometers that we still had to cover, and I decided privately that, instead of dropping him at the château, I would leave him on the road, where the little path that led to the summer-house branched off.
He undoubtedly understood my intention, for even before I decelerated, he said to me very politely: “Thank you for having spared me a little of the road. I’d prefer to go back in discreetly now, without mentioning that I met you. I beg you not to mention it yourself. Goodbye, and thanks.”
We were still 300 meters from the junction. He was a little premature in bidding me farewell. Having reached the path, I let him down. He bowed to me again, very amicably, but without saying a word.
Still under the influence of that bizarre scene, I arrived at the summer-house. Yvane was on the doorstep with a large armful of carnations.
“I hope I’m not being indiscreet,” he said. “I came so that the vases wouldn’t remain empty. Nothing is sadder, or even more ill-omened, than an empty vase.”
Setting the flowers down on the window-sill, she came to help me unload the car.
“Don’t you find Dirk truly bizarre?” I asked her.
“I don’t know—I scarcely pay any attention to him,” she replied.
“I’m wondering whether he hasn’t conceived a grand passion for you,” I continued, without meaning any harm.
She blushed violently. “What makes you think that? It’s certainly not true, but the thought of it makes me ashamed. Yes, the most respectful homages, wherever they come from, seem to me to be a diminution of myself.” She made a sort of angry gesture, and continued in a hurried voice: “I’d like it if no one ever noticed me, never gave me a thought, even of mere sympathy. That’s why I live a solitary existence, not seeing people of my own age. It’s an assault on my liberty for anyone to presume to dispose of me thus without my consent. It soils me—don’t you think so?”
Visibly very emotional, she stood with her arms hanging loose, in complete disarray, as if struck in a sensitive spot.
I reproached myself for me abruptness, my misunderstanding of the extreme modesty of which she gave evidence. I was too awkward, too heavy-handed for that exaggerated sensitivity. She did not appear to hear my excuses, but she collected herself gradually.
“No,” she said, “it’s me who’s ridiculous in letting myself go like that, but I can’t control myself—forgive me. Just give me your hand for a moment, without saying anything.”
I took her hand. We were leaning against the carnations lying on the window-sill. In front of us, the setting Sun was touching the horizon. The bleating of a goat rose up from a neighboring field, and all around us, the toads were already sounding their solitary note. In the calm air, the odor of flowers became more insistent.
We held hands like two well-behaved children. I respected her silence, which, as it became prolonged, gave a more serious significance to what I had thought to be only a caprice, which I did not understand. I looked at her: her eyes lost in infinity, her face turned toward the setting Sun seemed to be calling out to the languor of the evening, to the clouds stretching across the sky, to the fatigue of living. Little by little, in the rising shadows, I thought I saw her lose consciousness, becoming the soul of the night, distant and impalpable, barely alive. Becoming more emotional, I increased the pressure of my fingers. She shuddered, finally return to herself, and spoke. Her words, murmured in a soft, slightly sad voice, took on a strange sibylline resonance within the vast frame of silence that had preceded it.
“It’s getting dark. I came to put flowers in the vases, but I won’t have time to arrange them.”
The dinner bell sounded on the far side of the little valley. She took a few paces. “I can’t believe,” she went on, “that you’re going to live here.”
“Yes—tomorrow evening, I assure you, I shall be here.”
In my mind, these words only had the import of a polite reply, but on hearing them in the silence, after the long preceding scene, I was struck myself by the somewhat solemn character that they took on. It was like a promise, an engagement.
Yvane received it without saying a word, and seemed to bear it away beneath the silvery foliage of the olive-trees.
CHAPTER FIVE
Faithful to my promise, the next day, I made arrangements to leave the hotel. I had just paid the bill and emerged on to the casino plaza when I noticed the doctor’s Mercedes among the parked cars.
He gambles, then, whatever he might say, I thought.
In fact the doctor, flanked by Dirk, appeared shortly afterwards. He offered, once again, to take me back to La Colle. Dirk sat beside the chauffeur, and I took my place inside. We had scarcely moved off when the doctor declared: “We had a good morning…” Taking a thick wad of banknotes from his pockets, he specified: “422,000 francs.”
I uttered an exclamation. “Take care not to lose them,” I added, at hazard.
“I can’t lose—I’m betting on certainties.”
“What! I’d really like to know…”
He shrank back into a corner in order to stare at me ironically. “You challenged me to find a system. It’s a good thing that science is occasionally useful for something.”
My curiosity was unsatisfied. Until then it had been rather difficult to take him seriously, but the wad of banknotes obliged me to revise my initial impression. I did not hesitate to press him to be more precise. He was reluctant to do so.
“It’s a rather long story that requires appropriate explanations. Will you consent to accompany me to the laboratory?”
Desirous of clarifying the issue, I accepted the invitation. He doctor gave an order, and on entering La Colle, the car went around the main building to deposit us by a side door in the left wing. A little stairway climbed up to the first floor, opening directly into a sequence of whitewashed rooms exclusively furnished with scientific apparatus.
Very deliberately, the doctor began by putting on white smock with short sleeves. Then he donned the classic skull-cap of the surgeon. “My dear Monsieur Delambre,” he said to me, “you are not unaware that the activity of the brain is accompanied by electrical currents that are quite easy to detect?”
“My God,” I said, without allowing myself to be intimidated by the solemnity of these preparations, “I have a strong suspicion that electricity must have something to do with what goes on therein…”
He smiled at this admission of ignorance, and rang a hand-bell. A Javanese in a white smock appeared, to whom he said a few words in Malay.
“We’re going to begin with a classic experiment,” he said.
The Javanese came back, holding a large rabbit by the ears.
“Watch this animal,” said the doctor. “First I’ll put it to sleep.”
He injected the contents of a syringe beneath the rabbit’s skin; it fell unconscious on the marble table-top.
With a few strokes of a razor, rapid and precise gestures, he shaved the top of the animal’s cranium. Then he arranged his victim on a wooden block, immobilized its head, and, having connected an instrument like a dentist’s drill to the electric current, he applied it to the exposed area.
“This marvelo
us little apparatus permits any skull to be made into a skimmer,” he said. “Look, I’m making a few openings in this animal’s cranium.” Indicating a milky membrane reminiscent of the dome of a jellyfish in the middle of the hole he was cutting, he added: “And now you can see the dura mater.”
That kind of operation always has an effect; I grimaced as I watched.
“The animal is obviously ready,” the doctor declared. “You can see that it doesn’t take as long as making a stew.”
The Javanese, who was serving as an assistant, then transported the animal to an apparatus fastened to the ceiling, from which various wires hung. The doctor took one, which he introduced into the animal’s ear; then he pointed out a sort of clock-face situated in front of us.
“The mirror of this galvanometer will inform us about the electrical currents running through the circuit.”
A second wire was placed in direct contact with the brain of the rabbit, and the little mirror began to oscillate.
“Alpha waves in the occipital region,” murmured the doctor, speaking to himself. Pricking the rabbit’s paw, which caused it to shiver, he added: “Now we excite the animal. See how the motive impulse is accompanied by an electrical current indicated by a considerable deviation of the galvanometer.”
In my incompetence, I thought it was going to a great deal of trouble to make a mirror quiver on the end of a ire, but I feigned great interest. “Have similar experiments been carried out on humans?” I asked.
“Of course!” he cried. “The cranial cavity isn’t opened, of course; one simply puts the electrodes in contact with the scalp. What’s more, I have a specialized premises for the study of encephalograms.”
Abandoning the rabbit to the Javanese, to whom he gave a number of further orders that I did not understand, he preceded me into another large room in the middle of which was an armchair surmounted by a sort of crowd or helmet somewhat reminiscent of those which serve to perm feminine coiffeurs.
“I’ve acquired sufficient experience to be able to operate on myself,” the doctor said. “The experimental apparatus here is a little more delicate, but is broadly the same as the one you saw just now. If we light this little flame, its image, reflected in the mirror of the oscillograph, will be projected on to this screen, and render the pulsations of the current visible.”
Going over to the frosted-glass windows, he suddenly pulled down a black screen, which plunged the room into semi-darkness. Then, lifting off his white skull-cap with a rapid hand-movement, he sat down in the armchair and put his head inside the helmet.
“Don’t move,” he said to me. “I’ll keep quiet for a few minutes to let the murmurs of my cerebral activity die down; then I’ll make the contact, and you’ll see luminous oscillations on the screen corresponding to the rhythm of the Berger currents that are running through my encephalum.”
Meekly, I fell silent. I was intrigued, as in a cinema, torn between a muted anxiety and the satisfaction of being initiated into the esoteric scientific mysteries. The doctor did as he had said, and after a few minutes, the luminous dot began to describe broad oscillations on the screen.
“You can see, now that I’m speaking to you,” the doctor said, “the effort of attention that I have to make in order to slow down the rhythm of the oscillations that are muffled by other currents nascent in the zone of articulate language.”
The displacement on the screen had indeed slowed down; it returned to its initial amplitude when the doctor had ceased speaking.
“The experiment is particularly striking when one performs it on oneself, for one witnesses it from outside and inside at the same time, if I might put it thus. Do you want to try it?”
“It doesn’t do any harm?” I asked.
“None—it’s just like being in a seat at the theater.”
I took his place. He gently applied my head to the head-rest, and I felt two little pieces of metal come into contact with my skin behind the ears.
“The blunted electrodes pass through your hair and won’t prick you. Relax, and don’t think about anything, as if you were going to go to sleep.”
I obeyed. In the dark and silent room, the luminous dot gradually began its swaying. It was agitated by regular frissons, interrupted by calmer periods.
“Now begin a mental operation,” the doctor whispered to me. “Recite the alphabet backwards.”
I began internally: Z, Y, X… I was surprised to see the quivering of the dot on the screen die down. As I searched for the letter that ought to come after X, without finding it, the luminous dot became completely motionless, making my mental effort manifest. Before finding the letter, I had to recite the entire alphabet forwards—A. B., C, etc.—and the oscillations resumed during that facile listing. Then I resumed with W, V…and hesitated again before recovering U and T—which provoked a further interruption of the pulsations.
The doctor was right; the experiment was quite striking. The variable efforts of attention were materialized on the screen by the quivering of the dot. It was as if one could see inside one’s own head—something more impressive than seeing one’s own heart beating. To make the little will-o-the-wisp that represented the spark of thought dance on the screen, it was sufficient to try to think, or not to think. No command more tenuous and more direct could ever have permitted the external development of a phenomenon. I was like the god of that dancing patch.
“We not only have the possibility of detecting the Berger waves that reflect the activity of thought,” the doctor told me. “We can also reveal the specific currents due to affectivity.”
I felt him moving some sort of metallic comb through my hair in order to push it to the right side of my forehead, where he seemed to be searching carefully for a suitable location. The luminous patch began to describe a little circle in the middle of the screen.
“Relax.”
The luminous patch became almost motionless. Then, very softly, he breathed in my ear: “My dear Monsieur Delambre, what are your sentiments with regard to my strep-daughter Yvane?”
A surge of blood rose to my face, and I started in the armchair. On the screen, the little circle enlarged to the point of touching the edges, leading an extravagant dance.
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” I said, at hazard, my throat dry.
“Are you in love with my step-daughter?” the doctor persisted.
“You’ll permit me to keep my sentiments to myself,” I replied, with deliberate insolence.
“Alas, I fear that’s impossible,” said the doctor, whose eyes never left the screen on which the saraband of the luminous circle had lost all restraint.
“That’s treachery!” I cried, furiously, removing all the instruments sounding my skull with a single thrust.
“Calm down, my dear Monsieur,” said the doctor, removing the screens that were obscuring the windows. “My question is easily explicable. I don’t seek to uncover secrets that do not belong to me without good reason. If you were only to be a temporary friend, I would owe you the consideration due to friendship, and nothing more, but if the interest you feel for my family responds to a more profound sentiment, it’s perfectly normal for me to have confidence in you and furnish you with supplementary explanations regarding my work, under the seal of secrecy. Indeed, it would displease me now to be seen in your eyes as a person who earns his living gambling…”
My anger was not diminishing greatly.
“I don’t know how I feel myself…” I began.
The doctor made a gesture, accompanied by a smile.
“I don’t need anything more from you—what I’ve seen is sufficient. But everything that we’ve done to date is very little compared with what remains for me to tell you. You were curious to know my betting system, Monsieur Delambre, and your curiosity will be satisfied. Would you care to accompany me to my study? We’ll be able to talk more comfortably there.”
CHAPTER SIX
That session in the laboratory left me furious and somew
hat at a loss. The situation had been turned around. Dr. Mops, whom I had treated until then in a casual manner, had seized the initiative from me. I felt diminished, ready to submit to his ascendancy even though I forbade myself to do so. The thought that I might have been lured into some kind of trap also occurred to me. As soon as we had quit the experimental laboratories, he abandoned the rather solemn tone that he had adopted, quite seamlessly, to recover the polite and cordial appearance he normally manifested. That abrupt change of attitude only served to confirm that his customary joviality was an affectation, and that I had to be even more on my guard.
“A little Hollands gin?” he proposed, once we were in the study. “Schiedam is our Bordeaux, and carries the renown of the Netherlands throughout the world! My word, it’s worth as much as Rembrandt!”
I swallowed the alcohol, and felt more secure on my foundations. The doctor lowered himself into an armchair, folded his arms, and began by caressing his hairy biceps a few times beneath the short sleeves of his white smock.
“I told you, Monsieur, that I don’t want to have secrets from you. That will oblige me to remind you of certain histological data. They might not interest you, but they have their importance. A long time ago it was remarked that, unlike the ordinary cells that make up our organism, nerve-cells do not multiply. You are born with all your-nerve-cells and, their number being incapable of augmentation, they accompany you to your death. Thus from birth onwards, the material structure of the nervous system, which will support every psychophysiological edifice of your personality, is ready to play its role, to be loaded with all the knowledge that you will acquire. In other words, your brain is a blank slate that will be inscribed as you advance through life, and from which you cannot erase anything, since the particles that constitute it are always the same. That particularity of nerve-cells is rich in significance for the nature of human personality. There is no need to make any appeal to a supernatural soul to justify the conservation of the self in the midst of the general flow of things; the permanence of the cells is sufficient to explain it.
The Eye of Purgatory Page 4