UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL
S'
iODIES
FOR OLD
The Strange Experiments of
Dr. Lerne
by
^)
To the once beautiful Chateau Fonval,
hidden away in a lonely, wooded section of the
Ardennes— now the retreat of the famous
surgeon-scientist, Dr. Lerne— comes Nicolas
\'crmont, the great man's nephew. From the
moment he is usJiered into the secret Ufe of
Konval, a series of truly startling incidents
occur.
Associated with Dr. Lerne are two famous
German scientists. The world has whispered
about the mysterious experiments going on
behind Fonval's locked and guarded gates, so,
though prepared to be surprised, young
.Xicolas is left aghast at the horrors and won-
ders which, despite his uncle's caution, are
biot to be concealed.
From these marvels, this profanation of Na-
ure, he turns away with his blood cold to
nd a - beautiful girl held prisoner in the
:hateau. She warns him that other men have
isappeared mysteriously from Fonval, that if
^ e stays, he will end up in the laboratory.
The net closes about him, but kis aiTection
for the girl holds him. And. his fate? For
[hcer thrill nothing to equal it has happened
~ fiction since Poe.
^ Mystery lurks at every turn ; baffling situa-
tions confront the reader continually; and of.
only less interest is the love story of the
strange girl who through her sex appeal exerts
- xh a powerful influence over the inhabitants
•'' Fonval. And Dr. Lemes goal—? It stag
.,ris belief, and by comparison the Steimacl
i-itnd transference seem trivial.
-v foi
m
THE LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
THE LIBRARY OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF
NORTH CAROLINA
ENDOWED BY THE
DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROPIC
SOCIETIES
PQ2635
.E5
DATE DUE
k
NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2011 with funding from
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
http://www.archive.org/details/newbodiesforoldOOrena
NEW BODIES
FOR OLD ^il^^^
A/y
BY
MAURICE RENARD
({' V:! ft^-WlfJj 5/ f^rKhc^ I
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
Copyright, 1923
By MAURICE RENARD
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DEDICATION
To H. G. Wells:
I beg you, Sir, to accept this book.
Of all the pleasures that its writing gave me,
that of dedicating it to you is assuredly not the
least.
I conceived it under the inspiration of ideas
that you cherish, and I could have wished that it
had come nearer to your own works than it does,
not in merit — that would be an absurd pretension
— but, at any rate, in that pleasant quality shown
in all your books, which allows the chastest minds,
as well as those that exact the greatest realism, to
have communion with your genius — a communion
which the ablest people of our time can acknowl-
edge without feeling its charm lessened by such
considerations.
But when Fortune for good or ill allowed me
to discover the subject of this allegorical novel, I
felt bound not to set it aside because of a few
audacities which a faithful rendering involved and
which an arrest of development alone — that is, a
crime against the literary conscience — could avoid.
vi DEDICATION
You now know — you could have guessed as
much — what I should like people to think of my
work, If by chance any one did it the unexpected
honor of thinking about it at all. Far from de-
f siring to arouse the creature of instinct in my
reader and amuse him with scandalous descrip-
tions, my work is addressed to the philosopher
anxious for Truth amid the marvels of Fiction and
for Orderliness amid the tumult of imaginary
Adventures.
L That, Sir, is why I beg you to accept it.
M. R.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction 9
CHAPTER
I Nocturne i6
II Among the Sphinxes 38
III The Conservatory 65
IV Hot and Cold 84
V 'The Madman" loi
VI Nell — the St. Bernard 117
VII Thus Spake Mlle. Bourdichet . . 136
VIII Rashness 154
IX The Ambush 171
X The Circeean Operation . . . . 192
XI In the Paddock 217
XII Lerne Changes His Method of Attack 235
XIII Experiments! Hallucinations! . . 253
XIV Death and the Mask 262
XV The New Beast 279
XVI The Wizard Finally Dies .... 300
NEW BODIES FOR OLD
NEW BODIES FOR OLD
INTRODUCTION
It all happened on a certain winter evening
more than a year ago, after the last men's dinner-
party I gave to my friends in the little house
which I had taken furnished in the Avenue Victor
Hugo.
As my projected move was nothing more than
the gratification of my vagrant fancy, we had cele-
brated my house-MWwarming as joyfully as we had
celebrated the warming of yore, and the time for
liqueurs having come (and also the time for jokes)
each of us did his best to shine — more especially
of course, that naughty fellow Gilbert, Marlotte,
our paradoxical friend, the "Triboulet" of our
band, and Cardaillac, our licensed wizard.
I cannot remember now exactly how it came
about, but after an hour spent in the smoking-
room, somebody switched off the electric light, and
urged us to have some table-turning; so we
grouped ourselves in the darkness round a little
table. This "somebody" (please observe) was
9
10 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
not Cardalllac; but perhaps he was In league with
Cardaillac — if indeed Cardaillac was the guilty
party.
We were exactly eight men in all, eight skeptics
versus a little insignificant table which had only
one stem divided off at the end into three legs, and
whose round top bent under our sixteen hands
placed on it in accordance with occult rites !
It was Marlotte who instructed us in these rites.
He had at one time been an anxious inquirer about
witchcraft, and familiar with table-turning, though
merely as an outsider, and as he was our custom-
ary buffoon, when we saw him assume the direc-
tion of the seance, every one just let himself go in
anticipation of some excellent clowning.
Cardaillac found himself my right-hand neigh-
bor. I heard him stifle a laugh in his throat and
cough. Then the table began to turn.
Gilbert questioned it, and to his obvious stupe-
faction it replied by dry cracklings like those made
by creaking woodwork, and corresponding to the
esoteric alphabet.
Marlotte translated in a quavering voice.
Then everybody wanted to question the table ;
and in its replies it gave proof of great sagacity.
The audience became serious; one did not know
what to think. Queries leapt to our lips, and the
replies were rapped out from the foot of the table,
near me — as I fancied — and towards my right.
INTRODUCTION 1 1
"Who will live in this house in a year's time?"
asked in his turn he who had proposed the spirit-
ualistic amusement.
"Oh, if you question it about the future," said
Marlotte, "you will only get back thumping lies,
or else it will hold its tongue."
"Oh, shut up," interposed Cardaillac. The
question was repeated — "Who will live in this
house in a year's time?"
"Nobody," said the interpreter.
"And in two years' time?"
"Nicolas Vermont."
All of us heard this name for the first time.
"What will he be doing at this very hour on the
anniversary of to-day? Tell us what he is doing
— speak."
"He is beginning ... to write here . . . his
adventures."
"Can you read what he writes?"
"Yes . . . and also what he will write."
"Tell us the beginning, just the beginning."
"Am tired — alphabet too tedious — Give type-
writer . . . will inspire typist."
A murmur went round in the darkness. I rose
and went to fetch my typewriter, and it was placed
upon the table.
"It's a 'Watson' " said the table. "I won't
have it. Am a French table. Want a French
machine . . . want a 'Durand.' "
12 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
" 'A Durand?' " said my neighbor on the left,
In a disillusioned tone. "Does that brand exist?
I don't know it."
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
We were much vexed at this untoward circum-
stance, when the voice of Cardaillac said slowly:
"I use nothing but a 'Durand,' would you like
me to fetch it ?"
"Can you type without seeing?"
"I shall be back in a quarter of an hour," said
he — and he went out without answering.
"Oh, if Cardaillac is going to take it up," said
one of the guests, "we shall have a merry time."
However, when the lights were turned up, the
faces seemed sterner than one would have ex-
pected. Marlotte was quite pale.
Cardaillac came back in a very short time — an
astonishingly short time, one might have said.
He sat down In front of the table facing his
"Durand" machine, and darkness was once more
established. Suddenly the table declared: "No
need of others. . . . Put your feet on mine
. . . type."
One heard the tapping of the fingers on the
keys.
"It's extraordinary I" exclaimed the typist-
INTRODUCTION 13
medium, "It's extraordinary I My hands are
writing of their own accord."
"What bosh!" whispered Marlotte.
"I swear they are, I swear it," said Cardaillac.
We remained a long time listening to the tap-
ping of the keys which was every now and then
broken by the ringing of the bell at the end of the
line and the rasping of the carriage. Every five
minutes a sheet was handed to us. We decided
to retire to the drawing-room and to read them
aloud as Gilbert, getting them from Cardaillac,
handed them to us.
Page 79 was deciphered in the morning light
and the machine stopped.
But what it had typed seemed to us exciting
enough to make us beg Cardaillac to be good
enough to give us the sequel.
He did so. And when he had passed many
nights seated at the little table with his typing
keyboard, we had the complete story of M. Ver-
mont's adventures.
The reader shall now be told them.
They are strange and scandalous; their future
scribe is bound not to think of printing them.
He ivill burn them as soon as they are finished; so
that, had it not been for the complaisance of the
little table, no one would ever have turned the
leaves. That is why I, convinced of their au-
14 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
thenticlty, consider It piquant to publish them
beforehand.
For I hold them to be "veridical," — as the elect
call it — although they have some of the character-
istics of wild caricature, and rather resemble an
art-student's funny sketch penciled by way of com-
mentary on the margin of an engraving represent-
ing Science herself.
Are they possibly apocryphal? Well, fables
are reputed to be more seductive than History,
and Cardaillac's will not seem inferior to many
another one.
My hope, however, is that "Dr. Lerne" is the
truthful account of real happenings, for in that
case, since the little table uttered a prophecy, the
tribulations of the hero have not yet begun, and
they will be running their course at the very time
that this book is divulging them — a very inter-
esting circumstance indeed.
f At any rate I shall certainly know In two years'
time if M. Nicolas Vermont lives in the little
house in the Avenue Victor Hugo. Something
assures me of it in advance — for how can one ac-
cept the idea of Cardaillac — a serious-minded and
intelligent fellow — squandering so many hours
in composing such a fable? That is my principal
argument in favor of its truthfulness.
However, if any conscientious reader desires
to find reasons for the faith that is In him, let
INTRODUCTION 15
him betake himself to Grey-l 'Abbaye. There he
will be informed about the existence of Professor
Lerne and his habits. For my part I have not
got the leisure for that, but I entreat any one who
may undertake the search to let me know the
truth, being myself very desirous of getting to the
bottom of the question whether the following tale
is a mystification of Cardaillac's, or was really
typed out by a clairvoyant table.
CHAPTER I
NOCTURNE
The first Sunday in June was drawing to a
close. The shadow of the motor-car was fleeting
on ahead of me and getting longer every moment.
Ever since the morning, people had been look-
ing at me with anxious faces as I passed, just as
one looks at a scene in a melodrama. With my
leather helmet which gave me the look of a bald
skull, my glasses like port-holes, or the eye-sockets
of a skeleton, and my body clothed in tanned
skin, I must have seemed to them some queer seal
from the nether regions, or one of St. Anthony's
demons, fleeing from the sunlight towards the
night. In order to enter therein.
And to tell the truth, I had almost a soul like
that of one of the Lost; for such is the soul of a
solitary traveler who has been for seven hours at
a stretch on a racing-car. His spirit has some-
thing like a nightmare In It; In place of thought,
an obsession is settled there. Mine was a little
peremptory phrase — "Come alone, and give no-
tice" — which, like a tenacious goblin, worried my
16
NOCTURNE 17
lonely mind, overstrained as it was with joltings
and speed.
And yet this strange injunction "come alone
and give notice" doubly underlined by my Uncle
Lerne in his letter, had not at first struck me ex-
cessively. But now that I was obeying it — being
alone and having given notice — and rolling along
towards the Castle of Fonval, the inexplicable
command insisted, so to speak, on displaying all
its strangeness. My eyes began to see the fateful
expression everywhere, and my ears made it sound
in every noise in spite of my efforts to drive away
the fixed idea. If I wanted to know the name of
a village, the sign-post announced "Come alone";
"Give notice" followed in the wake of a bird's
flight, and the engine, unresting and exasperating,
repeated thousands and thousands of times:
"Come alone, come alone, come alone, give notice,
give notice, give notice." Then I began to ask
myself the wherefore of this wish of my uncle,
and not being able to find the reason, I ardently
longed for the arrival which should solve the
mystery, less curious in reality about the doubtless
commonplace answer, than exasperated by so
despotic a question.
Fortunately I was drawing near, and the coun-
try growing more and more familiar spoke so
clearly of the old days, that the haunting question
relaxed its insistence. The town of Nanthel,
1 8 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
populous and busy, detained me, but on coming
out of the suburbs I at last perceived, like a vague
and very distant cloud, the heights of the Ardennes
Mountains.
Evening draws on. Desiring to reach the goal
before night I open out to the full. The car
hums, and under it the road is engulfed in a
whirl; it seems to enter the car to be rolled up in
it, as the yards of ribbon roll themselves up on a
reel. Speed makes its hurricane wind whistle in
my ears ; a swarm of mosquitoes riddle my face like
small shot, and all sorts of little creatures patter
on my goggles.
Now the sun is on my right ; it is on the horizon ;
the acclivities and declivities of the road, raising
me up and sinking me down very quickly, make the
sun rise and set for me several times in succes-
sion. It disappears. I dash through the dusk as
hard as my brave engine can go — and I fancy that
the 234 XY has never been excelled. This makes
the Ardennes about half an hour away. The
cloudy offing is already putting on a green tinge, a
forest color, and my heart has leapt within me.
Fifteen years I I have not seen those dear great
woods for fifteen years — they were my old holiday
friends.
For it is there, it is in their shadow that the
chateau hides in the depths of an enormous hol-
low. ... I remember that hollow very distinctly
NOCTURNE 19
and I can already distinguish its whereabouts — a
dark stain indicates it. Indeed it is the most
extraordinary ravine. My late aunt, Lidivine
Lerne, who was fond of legends, would have it
that Satan, furious at some disappointment, had
scooped it out with a single blow of his gigantic
hoof. This origin is disputed. In any case the
metaphor gives a vivid picture of the place, an
amphitheater with precipitous walls of rock, with
no other outlet than a large defile opening on the
fields. The plain in other words penetrates into
the mountain like a gulf of the sea ; it there forms
a blind-alley, the perpendicular walls of which rise
as It spreads, and whose end is rounded off In a
wide sweep. The result is that one gets to Fonval
without the least climb, although it is right in the
bosom of the mountain. The park is the inner
part of the circle, and the cliff serves as a natural
wall, except in the direction of the defile. This
latter is separated from the domain by a wall into
which a gateway has been let. A long avenue
leads up to it, straight, and lined with lime trees.
In a few minutes I shall be in it . . . and soon
after I shall know why nobody must follow me to
Fonval — "come alone and give notice" — why
these orders?
Patience. The mass of the Ardennes cleaves
itself Into clumps. At the rate I am going, each
clump seems in motion; gliding rapidly; the
20 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
crests pass one behind the other, draw near or
draw off, seem lower and then rise again with the
majesty of waves, and the spectacle is incessantly
varying like that of a titanic sea.
A turn in the road unmasks a hamlet, I know It
well. In the old days, every year, in the month of
August, It was before that station that my uncle's
carriage, with Biribi in the shafts, awaited m.y
mother and me. We used to go there for the
holidays. All hail Grey-l'Abbaye ! Fonval is
only three kilometers distant now. I could go
there blindfold. Here Is the road leading
straight to the place, the road which will soon
plunge Into the woods and take the name of
Avenue.
It Is almost night. A peasant shouts some-
thing at me — insults probably. I'm accustomed
to that. My hooter replies with Its threatening
and mournful cry.
The forest! Ah, what a potent perfume it has
for me — the perfume of the old-time holidays !
Can their memory bring any other odor than that
of the forest? It Is an exquisite odor. ... I
should like to prolong this festival of scent.
Slowing down, the car goes on gently. Its
sound becomes a murmur. Right and left the
cliff walls of the wide gully begin to rise. Were
there more light, I should be coming Into sight of
NOCTURNE 21
Fonval at the end of the straight line of the ave-
nue. Hullo! What's up? . . .
I had almost upset; the road had unexpectedly
made a bend.
I slackened off still more. A little further on
another bend — then another. . . .
I stopped.
The stars one by one were beginning to shed
their luminous dew. In the light of the Spring
evening I could see above me the high mountain-
crests, and the direction of their slopes astonished
me. I tried to back, and discovered a bifurcation
which I had not noted in passing. When I had
taken the road to the right, it offered me after
several windings a new branching-off — like a
riddle; and then I guided myself in the Fonval di-
rection according to the lie of the cliffs that ran
towards the chateau, but new cross-roads embar-
rassed me. What had become of the straight
avenue? . . . The thing utterly puzzled me.
I switched on the head-lights. For a long time
by the aid of their light I wandered among the
criss-crossing of the alleys without being able to
find my way, so many various offshoots joined the
open places, and so balking were the blind-alleys.
It seemed to me I had already passed a certain
birch-tree. Moreover the cliff walls always re-
mained at the same height; so that I was really
turning in a maze and making no advance. Had
22 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
the peasant of Grey tried to warn me ? It seemed
probable.
None the less, trusting to chance, and piqued by
the contretemps, I went on with my exploration.
Three times the same crossing showed in the field
of light of my lamps, and three times I came on
that same birch-tree by different roads.
I wanted to call for help. Unfortunately the
hooter went wrong, and I had no horn. As for
my voice, the distance which separated me from
Grey on the one side and Fonval on the other
would have prevented its being heard.
Then a fear assailed me ... if my petrol gave
out! ... I halted in the middle of a cross-road
and tested the level. My tank was almost empty.
What would be the good in exhausting it in vain
evolutions ! After all, it seemed to me an easy
thing to reach the chateau on foot through the
woods. ... I tried it. But wire-fences hidden
in the bushes blocked the way.
Assuredly this labyrinth was not a practical
joke played at the entrance of a garden, but a de-
fensive contrivance to protect the approaches of
some retreat.
Much out of countenance, I began to reflect.
"Uncle Lerne, I don't understand you at all,"
thought I. "You received the notice of my ar-
rival this morning, and here am I detained in the
most abominable of landscape-gardens. . . . What
NOCTURNE 23
fantastic idea made you contrive it? Have you
changed more than I thought? You would hardly
have dreamt of such fortifications fifteen years
ago."
. . . "Fifteen years ago, the night, no doubt,
resembled this one. The heavens were alive with
the same glitter, and already the toads were en-
livening the silence with their clear short cries, so
pure and sweet. A nightingale was warbling its
trills as that one now is doing. Uncle, that eve-
ning of long ago was delicious too. And yet my
aunt and my mother had just died, within eight
days of one another, and the sisters having dis-
appeared, we remained face to face, one a wid-
ower, and the other an orphan — you, uncle,
and I."
And the man of those far-off days stood before
my mind's eye as the town of Nanthel knew him
then, the surgeon already celebrated at thirty-five
for the skill of his hand and the success of his
bold methods, and who in spite of his fame, re-
mained faithful to his native town — Dr. Frederic
Lerne, Professor of Clinical Medicine at the
"Ecole de Medecine," corresponding member of
numerous learned societies, decorated with many
divers orders, and — to omit nothing — guardian of
his nephew, Nicolas Vermont.
This new father whom the Law assigned me I
had not met often, for he took no holidays and
24 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
only passed his summer Sundays at Fonval. And
even these he spent In work — ceaseless and secret
work. On those days his passion for horticulture,
suppressed all the week, kept him shut up in the
little hot-house with his tulips and his orchids.
And yet, in spite of the rarity of our meetings,
I knew him well and loved him dearly.
He was a sturdy man, calm and sober, rather
cold perhaps, but so kind. In my irreverent way
I called his shaven face an "old wife's face," and
my jesting was quite misplaced, for sometimes he
would turn it into an antique visage, lofty and
grave, and sometimes into one of delicate mockery
("Regency" style). Among our modern shave-
lings my uncle was of the few whose head and
face by their nobility prove their legitimate de-
scent from an ancestor draped In a toga, and a
grandfather clothed in satin, and would allow
their scion to wear the costumes of his ancestors
without putting them to shame.
For the moment Lerne appeared to me decked
out in a black overcoat rather badly cut, in which
I had seen him for the last time — when I was
setting out for Spain. Being a rich man, and
wishing me to be one too, my uncle had sent me
Into the cork business as an employee of the firm
Gomez & Co. of Badajoz.
And my exile had lasted fifteen years, during
which the position of the Professor had certainly
NOCTURNE 25
become better, to judge by the sensational opera-
tions he had performed, the fame of which had
reached me in the depths of Estremadura.
As for me, my affairs had come to grief. At
the end of fifteen years, despairing of ever selling
safety-belts and cork on my own account, I had
just returned to France to seek another trade,
when Fate procured me that of an independent
man. It was I who won the lucky number for a
million francs, the donor of which wished to re-
main incognito.
In Paris I took comfortable rooms, but without
luxury. My flat was convenient and unpreten-
tious. I had the bare necessaries plus a motor-
car and minus a family.
But before founding a new family, it seemed to
me the right thing to renew relations with the old
— that is to say with Lerne, and I wrote to him.
Not but what after our separation a regular
correspondence had been established between us.
At the beginning he had given me wise advice and
had shown himself pleasantly paternal. His first
letter indeed contained the announcement of a
Will in my favor hidden in the secret drawer of a
desk at Fonval.
After the rendering of his accounts as guardian
our relations remained as before. Then, sud-
denly, his messages became different in character,
and grew fewer and fewer, their tone becoming
26 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
that of boredom, then of annoyance. The matter
was commonplace, then vulgar, and the phrasing
awkward; the very writing seemed to alter. Each
time he wrote, these things became more marked,
and I had to limit myself every ist of January to
sending my best wishes. My uncle replied with
a few scribbled words. . . . Wounded in the only
affection I possessed, I was much afflicted.
What had happened?
A year before this sudden change — five years
before my return to Fonval and my wanderings in
the labyrinth— I had read in the "Epoca" :
"We have received the news from Paris that Professor
Lerne is saying good-by to his patients in order to devote
himself to scientific research begun in the hospital of
Nanthel. With this aim that excellent physician is retir-.
ing to the neighborhood of the tov^^n in the Ardennes, to
his chateau of Fonval M^hich has been arranged for that
purpose. He is taking with him among others, Dr. Klotz
of Mannheim and the three assistants of the Anatomisches
Institut founded by this latter at 22, Friedrichstrasse,
which has now closed its doors — when shall we have
results?"' ' ■
Lerne had confirmed this event to me in an
enthusiastic letter, which, however, added nothing
to the bald facts in the paragraph. And it was a
year later on, I say again, that the change in his
nature had taken place. Had twelve months of
work ended in failure? Had some bitter disap-
pointment so gravely affected the Professor that
NOCTURNE 27
he should treat me like a stranger and almost as if
I were a bore? . . .
In defiance of his hostility I wrote respectfully
and with the utmost possible affection from Paris
the letter in which I told him of my good fortune,
and I asked his leave to pay him a visit.
Never was invitation less engaging than his.
He asked me to give him warning of my arrival
so that he might order a carriage to go and fetch
me from the station. "You will doubtless not re-
main long at Fonval," he added, "for Fonval is
not a gay place. We are hard at work. Come
alone and give notice "
But, Heavens ! I had given notice and I was
alone ! — I who had considered my visit as a duty !
Well, well, that was merely a piece of stupidity
on my part.
And I gazed in bad humor at the star of light
on the roads where the exhausted head-lamps were
casting no brighter an illumination than a night-
light.
Without doubt I was going to pass the night in
that sylvan jail; nothing would get me out of it
before day. The toads of the pool in the Fonval
direction called me in vain; vainly the steeple
clock of Grey rang out the hours to tell me of
the other resting-place — for belfries are really
sonorous lighthouses — I was a prisoner.
A prisoner! It made me smile. Long ago
28 NEW BODIES FOR OLD •
how frightened I should have been ! A prisoner
in the Ardennes ! At the mercy of Broceliande,
the monstrous forest which with its cavernous
shade held a world in darkness between its bound-
aries, one being at Blois and the other in Constan-
tinople ! Broceliande ! that scene of epic tales
and puerile legends, country of the four sons of
Aymon and of Hop-o'-my-Thumb, the forest of
druids and goblins, the wood in which Sleeping
Beauty fell into slumber* while Charlemagne kept
watch! What fantastic stories had not its
thickets for a stage — were not the trees them-
selves living persons? "Oh, Aunt Lidivine," I
murmured, "how well you* could give life to all
those nonsensical tales every'evening after dinner!
The dear lady! Did she ever suspect the influ-
ence of her stories? Aunt, did you know that all
your astounding puppets invaded my life by pass-
ing through my dreams? Do you know that a
flourish of enchanted trumpets still sounds in my
ears sometimes ; you who made my nights at Fon-
val resound with the oliphant of Roland and the
horn of Oberon?"
At that moment I could not check a movement
of vexation; the head-lamps had just gone out
after an agonized throb. For a second the dark-
ness was total, and at the same time there was
such a profound silence that I could well believe I
had suddenly become blind and deaf.
NOCTURNE 29
Then my eyes gradually became unsealed, and
soon the crescent moon appeared, shedding its
snowy light on the cold night. The forest became
lit up with a frozen whiteness. I shivered. In
my aunt's lifetime it would have been with terror;
I should have beheld in the darkness, where the
vapors were creeping, dragons wallowing and ser-
pents- gliding. An owl flew off. I should have
considered that bird the winged helm of a paladin
— an.enchanted paladin. The birch tree, standing
straight up, shone with a lance-like gleam. An
oak tree — a son perhaps of the magic tree which
was the husband of the Princess Leelina — quiv-
ered. It was huge and druidical — a bunch of
mistletoe hung on its main branch, and the moon
cut through it with a shining sacred sickle.
Assuredly the nocturnal landscape was like an
hallucination. For want of something better to
do, I meditated on it. Without understanding
why as well as I do to-day, I used to experience all
its suggestiveness, and at nightfall I only ven-
tured out unwillingly. Fonval itself was, I think,
in spite of its countless flowers and its beautiful
winding alleys, a most forbidding place. Its
pointed windows, its hundred years old park in-
habited by statues, the stagnant water of its pond,
the precipice which closed it in, the Hell-like en-
trance, all these things made that ancient abbey
((transformed into a chateau) peculiar even in
30 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
daylight, and one would not have been surprised
to learn that everybody there talked in fables.
That would have been his real language.
That at any rate was how I talked, and still
more how I acted, during my holidays. These
were for me a long fairy tale in which I played
with imaginary or artificial personages, living in
the water, in the trees, and under the earth oftener
than upon it. If I passed the lawn galloping with
my bare legs, my air clearly showed the squadrons
of knights were, in my fancy, charging behind me.
And the old boat I masted for the occasion with
three broomsticks, on which bellied nondescript
sails, served me as a galleon, and the pond became
the Mediterranean bearing the fleet of the Cru-
saders. Lost in thought and looking at the water-
lily islands and the grass peninsulas, I proclaimed:
*'Here are Corsica and Sardinia I . . . Italy is in
sight. . . . We are sailing round Malta. . . ."
At the end of a minute I cried "Land!" We
were landing in Palestine — "Montjoye and St.
Denis !" — I suffered on that boat sea-sickness and
home-sickness ; the Holy War intoxicated me ; —
I learnt in it two things — enthusiasm and
geography. . . .
But often the other characters were repre-
sented. That made it more real. I remembered
then — for every child has a Don Quixote in him
— I remembered a giant Briareus who was the
NOCTURNE 31
summer-house, and especially a barrel which be-
came the dragon of Andromeda. Oh, that barrel I
I had made a head for it with the help of a squint-
ing pumpkin, and vampire wings with two um-
brellas. Having ambushed my contraption at the
bend of an alley, leaning it up against a terra-
cotta nymph, I set out in search of it more valiant
than the real Perseus, and, armed with a pole, I
went caracoling on an invisible hippogriff. But
when I discovered it, the pumpkin leered at me so
strangely that Perseus almost took flight, and the
umbrellas owed it to his emotion that they were
broken to pieces in the yellow blood of the face-
tious vegetable.
My puppets did indeed make an impression on
me by reason of the role I assigned them. As I
always reserved for myself that of protagonist,
hero, conqueror, I easily surmounted that terror
during the day, but at night, though the hero be-
came little Nicolas Vermont, an urchin, the barrel
remained a dragon. Cowering under the sheets,
my mind excited by the story which my aunt had
just finished, I knew the garden was peopled with
my terrifying fancies, and that Briareus was
mounting guard there all the time, and that the
dreadful barrel, resuscitated, hiding its claws with
its wings, watched my window from afar.
At that age I despaired of ever being, later on
in life, like other people, and able to face the dark.
32 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
And yet my fears did vanish, leaving me impres-
sionable no doubt, but not a coward; and it was
indeed I who found myself without dismay lost in
the lonely wood — all too empty, alas, of fairies
and enchanters.
I had just reached this point in my reverie,
when a sort of vague noise arose in the Fonval di-
rection; an ox's lowing, and something like a dog's
long mournful howl. That was all — and then the
sleeping calm returned.
Some minutes elapsed, and next I heard an owl
hoot somewhere between myself and the chateau;
another raised its voice not so far away as the
first; and then others took flight from places
nearer and nearer me, as if the passage of some
creature were scaring them.
And indeed a light sound of steps like the trot
of some four-footed animal, made itself heard
and drew nearer on the roadway. I listened for
some time to the beast moving to and fro in the
labyrinth, losing itself like me perhaps, and then
suddenly it appeared before me.
One could not mistake its spreading antlers,
the height of its neck and the delicacy of its ears;
it was a stag of ten. But hardly had I perceived
it than it made off in a sudden volte-face. Then —
had it gathered itself in to spring? — its body
seemed to me strangely low and paltry, and was
it a mere reflection? — seemed to me to be of a
NOCTURNE 33
white color. The animal disappeared in a twin-
kling, and its little galloping steps died quickly
away.
Had I at the first glance taken a goat for a stag?
Or had I at the second glance taken a stag for
a goat? To tell the truth, I was much interested
and puzzled; so much so that I asked myself
whether I were not going to resume the soul of
the child I had been at Fonval.
But a little reflection made me realize that
hunger, fatigue and sleepiness, helped out by
moonshine, may easily cause one's eyes to be
deceived, and that a ray falling on an object and
transforming it is no unwonted phenomenon.
I rather regretted it; for, having lost my terror
of the mysterious, I had still kept my love for it.
I am one of those who are sorry that "Philosophy
has clipped an angel's wings," and yet I cannot
let a mystery remain a mystery for me.
Now this beast was really a very extraordinary
beast.
Wandering as it was through the incomprehen-
sible labyrinth of the wood, it seemed to me an
elusive riddle in a problem, and my curiosity was
aroused.
But utterly wearied as I was, I soon fell asleep
pondering detective ruses and subtle logical
methods of investigation.
34 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
I awoke at dawn, and immediately I had a
glimpse of a possible end to my imprisonment.
Not far from where I was, some men, hidden
by the underwood, were walking and talking.
Their steps came and went like those of the
stag(?) treading, doubtless the same winding
ways. At one moment they passed, still hidden,
a few paces away from my car, but I could not
understand their conversation — it seemed to be
in German.
At last they stood before me at the very place
where the animal had appeared. There were
three of them, and they were bending down as
if they were following a trail. At the spot where
the beast had turned, one of them uttered an
exclamation and made a gesture as if they should
go back. But they perceived me and I advanced
towards them.
"Gentlemen," said I smiling my best, "could
you kindly show me the way to Fonval? I have
lost myself."
The three men looked at me without replying,
in an inquisitive and shy way.
They were a very remarkable trio.
The first possessed on the top of a massive and
squat body a round and calamitously flat face, the
thin pointed nose on which, as if it had been
shoved into it, made the disc into a sundial.
The second had a military air and was twist-
fJLrJ
NOCTURNE 3 5
ing his mustache, which was on the German im-
perial model, and his chin stuck out like the toe
of a boot.
A tall old man with gold spectacles, gray curly
hair and an unkempt beard, made up the trio. He
was eating cherries in a noisy way, as a bumpkin
eats tripe.
They were obvious Germans, doubtless the
assistants from the Anatomisches Institut.
The tall old man spat out in my direction a
salvo of cherry-stones, and in the direction of
his comrades, one of those Teuton phrases, in
which a hail of shrapnel-like words mingles with
other nameless noises.
They exchanged in their own way some re-
marks which resembled so many broadsides, with-
out paying the least attention to me, and then
after cleverly imitating with their mouths the
sound of a battle going on beside a waterfall —
having held a council, in fact — they turned on
their heels and left me astounded at their rude-
ness.
But I had to get out of that fix somehow or
other. My adventure became hourly more
ridiculous. What was the meaning of all this?
What comedy was I playing? Was I being made
a fool of? I was furious. The would-be secrets
I had fancied I scented now seemed to me mere
childishness caused by weariness and the dark.
36 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
The thing was to get away — to get away at once.
Raging and without reflection I made the con-
tact which set the car going, and the 80 horse-
power engine started to work in the bonnet with
the humming of a hive of bees. I seized the
starting lever — and then a great guffaw of laugh-
ter made me turn round.
With his cap over his ears, in blouse of blue,
and with his letter-bag on his shoulder, hilarious
and triumphant, a postman came on the scene.
"Ha, ha ! I told you last night that you would
lose your way," said he in a drawling voice.
I recognized my villager of Grey-l'Abbaye, and
bad temper prevented me answering him.
"It's to Fonval you want to go, is it?" he went
on.
I cursed Fonval in some very profane language
in which I consigned it and its inhabitants to the
Devil.
"Because," went on the postman, "if you are
going there, I'll show you the way. I am taking
the letters there. But make haste, I have double
load to-day; for this is Monday and I don't come
on Sunday."
While saying this, he had drawn his letters
from his bag, and was arranging them in his
hand.
"Show me that," I cried sharply, "Yes, that
yellow envelope."
NOCTURNE 37
He looked me up and down distrustfully and
then let me look at It from a distance.
It was my letter — the announcement of my
arrival, which followed it by a night, instead of
preceding it by a day!
This untoward circumstance absolved my uncle
and drove away my rancour.
"Get in," I said. "You shall show me the way
and then ... we shall have a talk!"
The car set off in the freshness of the morning.
A mist was just melting away, as if the sun
after whitening the dark had still to dissolve it,
and as if this faint fog, now almost nothing, were
a portion of the darkness remaining in the form
of vapor, an evanescent remainder of the night
within the day, the vanishing specter of a van-
ished phantom.
CHAPTER II
AMONG THE SPHINXES
The car slowly wound its way among the twists
and turns of the labyrinth. Sometimes in pres-
ence of a cluster of roads the postman himself
hesitated for a moment.
"Since when have these zigzags taken the place
of the straight avenue?" I asked.
"Four years ago, Sir — about a year after the
settling in of Mr, Learne in the chateau."
"Do you know the meaning of them ? You may
speak freely. I am the professor's nephew."
"Oh, well, he's . . . he's, well an eccentric
man."
"What sort of unusual things does he do?"
"Oh, well, nothing. One hardly ever sees him.
That's just the funny part of it. Before he took
this higgledy-piggledy into his head, one met him
often. He used to walk about in the country,
but ever since then . . . well, he does take the
train to Grey once a month."
So all my uncle's eccentricities came to a head
at the same epoch ; the maze and the different style
38
AMONG THE SPHINXES 39
of his letters coincided as to date. Something
at that time had profoundly influenced his mind.
"And what about his companions?" I went on,
"the Germans?"
"Oh, as for them, Sir, they are invisible.
Moreover, although I go to Fonval six times a
week I do not remember when I last clapped eyes
on the park. It's Mr. Lerne himself who comes
to the gate for his letters. Oh, what a change I
Did you know old John? Well, he's gone, and
his wife too. It's as true as I'm talking to you.
Sir. No more coachman, no more housekeeper
... no more horses."
"That's been so for four years, you say?"
"Yes, Sir."
"Tell me, postman, there's game about here,
is there not?"
"Faith, no. A few rabbits, two or three hares
— but there are too many foxes."
"What, no roe-deer? no stags?"
"Never."
And now I felt a strange thrill of joy.
"Here we are, Sir 1"
After a final bend, the road did open out on
the old avenue of which Lerne had kept this little
bit. It was fringed by two rows of limes, ^ and
from the end of the two rows they formed, the
door of Fonval seemed to be coming towards us.
40 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
In front of it, a carriage-sweep in the shape of
a half moon widened the avenue, and beyond that
one saw the outhne of the blue roof of the
chateau against the green of the trees, and the
trees themselves standing out on the somber
flanks of the gully.
In the midst of the wall which joined the cliffs
on either hand stood the door with its tiled porch.
It had aged, and the stone of the lintel was worn
away; the wood of its panels was worm-eaten
and crumbling into powder here and there; but
the bell had not changed. It's sound came from
my distant boyhood, so bright and clear that I
could have wept at it.
We waited for a few moments.
At last some wooden shoes clattered.
"Is that you, Guilloteau?" said a voice with
a trans-Rhenish accent.
"Yes, Mr. Lerne."
Mr. Lerne ! I looked at my guide with eyes
wide with wonder — What! Was that my uncle
speaking like that?
"You are early," went on the voice. There was
the metallic sound of moving bolts; then the door
was opened ajar, and a hand was passed through
it.
"Give me them."
"Here they are, Mr. Lerne. But there is
AMONG THE SPHINXES 41
some one with me," said the postman in an In-
sinuating and timid way.
"Who Is it?" cried the other — and In the fis-
sure formed by the hardly opened door, he
appeared.
It was my uncle Lerne. But life had laid hand
on him, had made him much older, and turned
him into this wild unkempt individual whose
straggling gray hair covered his shabby clothes
with dirty grease. He seemed smitten with
premature old age, and there was an unfriendly
gleam in the evil eyes which he fixed on me, from
under their knitted eyebrows.
"What do you want?" he asked me rudely.
He pronounced the words like a German,
I had a moment of hesitation. The fact was
that his face could no longer be compared to that
of a kind old woman; It was a Sioux visage, hair-
less and cruel, and at the sight of It I experienced
the contradictory sensations of recognizing It and
not recognizing it.
"But, Uncle," I stuttered finally, "it's I . . .
I have come to see you — according to leave given
by you. I wrote to you; but my letter . . . here
it is ! my letter and I arrive together. Excuse my
carelessness."
"Ah, you should have told me. It Is I that ask
pardon of you, my dear nephew."
A sudden change this ! Lerne showed eager-
42 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
ness to welcome me ! he blushed and seemed con-
fused and almost servile. This embarrassment,
misplaced with regard to me, shocked me.
"Ha ha ! youVe come with a mechanical car-
riage," he added. "Hum, there's a place to put
it in, isn't there?"
He opened both folding-doors.
"Here one has often to be one's own servant,"
he said, while the old hinges creaked.
Thereupon he burst into an awkward sort of
laugh. I could have wagered, looking at his per-
plexed expression, that he had no desire to do so,
and that his thoughts were far away from joking.
The postman had taken his leave.
"Is the coach-house still there?" I said, point-
ing to the right at a brick building.
"Yes, yes. I did not recognize you because
of your mustache — hum! Yes, your mustache.
You hadn't one long ago . . . had you? Well,
and how old are you?"
"Thirty-one, uncle."
At the sight of the coach-house my heart
stopped.
The dog-cart was moldering there, half buried
under logs, and there, as in the neighboring stable
which was full of odds and ends, the spider webs
were hanging whole or in shreds.
"Thirty-one, already," went on Lerne in a
vague and obviously distracted manner.
AMONG THE SPHINXES 43
"But, Uncle, say tu and tot to me, as long ago."
"Ah, yes, dear . . . Nicolas, eh?"
I was very ill at ease, but he did not seem more
at his ease than I was. My presence clearly
annoyed him.
It is always an interesting thing for an intruder
to learn why he is so, — I seized my valise.
Lerne observed my gesture and seemed to form
a sudden resolve.
"Let it be — let it be, Nicholas," he said in a
tone of command. "I'll send to fetch your lug-
gage shortly. But first we must have a talk.
Come for a walk."
He took my arm and drew me towards the
park. He was still reflecting, however.
We passed near the chateau. With few ex-
ceptions the shutters were closed. The roof in
many places was sinking in, sometimes even
broken, and the moldy walls from which the
whitewash had disappeared in large flakes here
and there showed their masonry. The plants in
boxes still surrounded the house, but, to tell the
truth, for several winters no one had thought of
putting the verbenas and orange-trees and laurels
under cover. Standing in their battered and
rotten tubs they were all dead. The sandy
carriage-drive, of yore so carefully raked, might
have imagined itself a second-rate meadow, there
was so much grass growing there mingled with
44 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
nettles and hemlock. It was like the castle of
"Sleeping Beauty" on the Prince's arrival. Lerne,
clinging to my arm, walked without further talk.
We got to the other side of the dreary pile,
and the park lay before our eyes. A jumble. No
more baskets of flowers, no more wide, sandy
paths like winding ribbons. Except just in front
of the chateau, the lawn — which had been meta-
morphosed into a paddock fenced with wire and
given up to some cattle to feed in — had been en-
croached on by the valley which had relapsed into
its wild state. The garden was no more than a
great wood with open spaces and green paths in
it. The Ardennes had reassumed their usurped
domain.
Lerne thoughtfully filled an immense pipe with
feverish fingers, lit it, and then we went under
the trees into one of the alleys that were like long
caves.
Once more I saw the statues and with a dis-
illusioned eye, the statues which a former master
of Fonval had erected in profusion. Those mag-
nificent dumb personages of my dramas were as
a matter of fact wretched modern figures, sug-
gested to some commercially-minded magnate of
industry of the Second Empire by Rome or
Greece. The tunics of concrete swelled out Into
crinolines, the drapery of the cloaks was like that
of a shawl, and the divinities of the woods —
AMONG THE SPHINXES 45
Echo, Syrinx, Arethusa — wore low chignons which
filled their bag-like nets — in the Benoiton man-
ner. Those hideous representations of exquisite
fantasies, of forest charms transmuted into
Dryads, were to-day more passable In their
mantles of virgin-vine and clematis, although
certain heroes were no more than ivy-clad figures
of fun, and although a mere moss-clad attitude
represented Diana.
After walking for some time, my uncle made
me sit down on a bench of stone covered with
a coat of lichen, under the shade of flourishing
hazels.
A little crackling sound made itself heard in
the bower right over our heads.
Lerne jumped convulsively and raised his head.
It was merely a squirrel watching us from the
top of a branch.
My uncle darted a ferocious glance at it, fix-
ing it as if he were taking aim at it; then he
began to laugh in a reassured sort of way.
"Ha, ha, ha ! it's only a little . . . thing," said
he, unable to find the word.
"Really," thought I within myself, "how queer
one may become as one gets old. Environment,
I know, is the cause of many evolutions; one
adopts the ways and manner of speech of one's
familiars in spite of oneself; the surroundings of
Lerne might suffice to explain why my uncle is
46 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
dirty, expresses himself ill, speaks with a German
accent and sm^okes that huge pipe. . . . But he
has ceased caring for flowers, he no longer looks
after his property, and at this moment looks
extraordinarily nervous and preoccupied. If one
adds to that the happenings of last night, it all
seems something less than natural."
Meanwhile the Professor looked at me in a
disconcerting way, and eyed me up and down as
if here were sizing me up and had never seen
me before. I began to lose countenance. A fierce
debate was going on within him which was re-
flected on his face. Every moment our looks
crossed, but at last they met, and joined, and my
uncle, not being able to hold his peace any longer
appeared for the second time to make up his mind.
"Nicolas," he said, patting me on the thigh,
"I am a ruined man, you know."
I understood his plan, and was revolted.
"Uncle, be frank with me ; you want me to go !"
"I want you to go ! What an idea !"
"I am quite sure of it. Your invitation was
rather discouraging, and your welcome hardly
hospitable. But, uncle, you must have a very
short memory if you think me avaricious enough
to have come here merely for your money. I see
you are no longer the same — your letters indeed
made me fear that — and yet it utterly bewilders
me that you should have thought of this clumsy
AMONG THE SPHINXES 47
subterfuge intended to drive me away. For dur-
ing these fifteen years / have not changed. I have
never ceased venerating you with my whole
heart, and have deserved better at your hands
than those icy epistles and, above all, better
than this insult."
"There, there! Gently!" said Lerne, much
annoyed.
"Moreover, if you want me to go, just say
the word and I'm off. You are no uncle of mine
now."
"Don't talk such blasphemous nonsense,
Nicolas." He said that in a tone of such alarm
that I tried intimidation.
"And I shall inform against you, uncle, you
and your acolytes and your mysteries."
"You are mad, you are mad. Hold your
tongue. There's an idea for you!"
Lerne began to laugh loudly, but I don't know
why, his eyes frightened me, and I regretted my
phrase.
He went on.
"Look here, Nicolas, don't get excited! You
are a good fellow. Give me your hand. You
shall always find in me your old uncle who loves
you. Listen, it's not true; no, I am not ruined,
and my heir will certainly get something; — if he
acts as I desire. But, as a matter of fact, I think
he would do better not to stay here. . . . There's
48 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
nothing here to amuse a man of your age, Nico-
las; personally I am busy all day long."
The Professor might talk as he liked now.
Hypocrisy showed itself in every word; he was
nothing but a contemptible Tartuffe; he was fair
game. I determined not to leave till I had com-
pletely satisfied my curiosity. So, interrupting
him, I said in a tone of deep dejection:
"There you are making use of the inheritance
business again to make me decide to leave Fonval.
You have clearly no trust in me."
With a gesture he deprecated the idea. I went
on:
"No, allow me to remain in order that we may
renew our acquaintance. We both need to do
so."
Lerne knitted his eyebrows, then he said in a
mocking tone :
"You insist on renouncing me?"
"No; keep me beside you, otherwise you will
hurt my feelings deeply; frankly," this in a banter-
ing tone, "I should not know what to think."
"Stop," rejoined my uncle with energy, "there
is nothing wrong to suspect here — far from it."
"No doubt. All the same, you have secrets —
as you have every right to have. If I speak to
you of them, it is because I must resign myself
to assure you that I shall respect them."
"There is only one! A single secret. And its
AMONG THE SPHINXES 49
aim is noble and salutary," said my uncle sen-
tentlously and with animation: "One only, I
tell you — that concerning our work; a blessing
to humanity — glory too and gold ! But we must
have silence assured us. Secrets ! Everybody
knows we are here, that we are working. The
newspapers have said so — there is no secret in
that."
"Keep calm, uncle, and tell me how I am to be-
have in your house. I am entirely at your dis-
posal."
Lerne resumed his inward debate:
"Well," said he, raising his brow, "it is agreed-
Such an uncle as I have always shown myself to-
wards you cannot possibly drive you away. That
would be belying all my past. Remain then, but
on the following conditions :
"We are pursuing researches here that are
about to come to their fulfillment. When our dis-
covery is a fait accompli the public will hear of
It In its entirety. Till then, I do not wish It to be
Informed of uncertain attempts whose revelation
might raise up rivals capable of anticipating us.
I do not doubt your discretion, but I prefer not
to put it to the test, and I entreat you In your
own interests not to try to surprise any secrets,
rather than to be obliged to hide them. I say,
'in your own interests' ; not merely because it Is
easier not to pry than to hold one's tongue, but
so NEW BODIES FOR OLD
also for the following reasons: Our business is
a commercial one at bottom. A man of business
like you will be very useful to me. We shall be-
come rich, nephew — millionaires! But you must
let me forget the instrument of your fortune in
peace, you must show yourself a man of tact and
respectful of my orders — in a word, the man I
want as an associate. You must know, I am not
alone in this enterprise. They might make you
repent of your acts, if you transgressed the rule
I am laying down for you — cruelly repent — more
cruelly than you imagine. So practice indiffer-
ence, my dear nephew. See nothing, hear noth-
ing, understand nothing, in order that you may
become very, very rich — and remain alive !"
"Oh, indifference is not so easy a virtue at
Fonval. There have been things going about
here since last night which should not be here and
only find themselves here through some bit of
carelessness."
At those words an unexpected rage seized
Lerne. He flung out his fists and growled:
"Wilhelm! Fool! Ass!" What I now felt sure
of was that the secrets were considerable and
would give me fine surprises were they discovered.
As for the doctor's promises, and his threats, I
did not beheve in either, and his speech had
neither aroused covetousness nor fear in me — ^the
AMONG THE SPHINXES 51
two passions that my uncle wished to make my
counselors to obedience. I rejoined coldly:
"Is that all you ask of me?"
"No. But the next prohibition is of another
kind, Nicolas. You will be presented to some-
body in the chateau; it is a young girl I res-
cued ..."
I made a movement of surprise, and Lerne
guessed my Imputation.
"Oh!" he exclaimed, "she is like a daughter —
nothing more. But her friendship Is precious to
me, and it would b? painful to me to see it lessened
by a sentiment v'liich I can no longer inspire. In
short, Nicolas," he said quickly and with a cer-
tain shamefacedaess, "I ask you to swear not to
pay court to my protegee."
Astounded at such a degraded view, and still
more so at such a want of delicate feeling, I told
myself, however, that there is no jealousy with-
out love any more than there is smoke without fire.
"What do you take me for, uncle? It is suffi-
cient that I am your guest."
"All right — I know my physiology and how to
use It. May I trust you? You swear It? Very
well."
"As for her," he added with a crafty smile,
"I am easy for the time being. She has lately
seen my way of treating suitors. I advise you
not to make trial of It."
52 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Having got up, with his hands in his pockets,
and his pipe between his teeth, Lerne looked me
up and down in a jocular and provocative manner.
This physiologist inspired me with an unconquer-
able aversion.
We continued our walk round the park.
"Ah, by the way, do you know German?" said
the Professor.
"No, uncle; I only understand French and
Spanish."
"No English either? That's not much for a
future merchant prince, ^ou have not been
taught much, I fear.'*
"Tell that to the Marines, uncle," said I to
myself. "I had begun to keep wide open those
eyes you commanded me to keep shut, and I saw
just then that your satisfied expression gave your
words the lie."
We reached the end of the park by way of
the foot of the cliffs and came in front of the
chateau which seemed stretching its two wings
towards us and dominating the underwood with
its ruinous facade.
And it was at this exact moment that my eye
was caught by an abnormal bird, a pigeon, which
was wheeling in the air, and flew upwards with
ever-narrowing and giddy circles.
"Just look at those roses on that long branch
of briar; they are pretty and interesting," said my
AMONG THE SPHINXES 53
uncle, "Left to grow wild, they have become
dog-roses again."
"What a curious pigeon !" I said.
"Just look at those flowers," insisted Lcrne.
"One would think there was a drop of lead in
its head. That happens sometimes when one is
out shooting. It will tower and tower, and then
fall from as high as possible."
"If you don't watch your feet, you will fall
head over heels into the thorn-bushes. It's a
breakneck place, this, nephew."
This useful bit of counsel was growled out in
a menacing tone that sounded strangely out of
place.
Then the bird attained the center of its spiral
and began not to mount, but to come down with
wild tumblings, and whirling over and over. It hit
a rock not far from us and fell, an inert thing,
into the thick herbage.
Why did the Professor suddenly become more
restless? Why did he hasten his steps? That is
what I was asking myself, when the big pipe fell
from his mouth. Having dashed forward to pick
it up I could not restrain a look of stupefaction;
he had snapped it off sharp with a furious bite.
The scene ended with a German word— doubt-
less an oath.
As we returned in the direction of the chateau
54 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
we saw running towards us a fat woman who
seemed bursting out of her blue apron.
She was evidently unused to such athletic
exercise and it went against the grain, for it shook
her dangerously, and as she trotted along, she
kept herself together by means of her arms and
hands as if she were pressing some precious, huge
and unwieldy burden against her person. At the
sight of us, she stopped all of a piece — a thing
that seemed almost an impossibility — then she
ssemed to want to retrace her steps. However,
she came on with a guilty look on her kindly face,
a look as of a school-girl caught in a fault. She
awaited her fate.
Lerne scolded her:
"Barbel What are you doing here? You
have forgotten. I forbade you to go beyond the
paddock. I'll end by sending you packing, Barbe,
after punishing you — you know."
The fat woman was very much afraid. She
tried to bridle, made a mouth as if she were going
to lay an egg with it and excused herself — she
had, from her kitchen, seen the pigeon fall and
thought she might brighten up the bill of fare with
it. "You always have the same dishes to eat."
"And then," she added stupidly, "I did not
think you were In the garden, I thought you were
in the lab . . ."
A brutal slap in the face interrupted her on
AMONG THE SPHINXES 55
that syllable — the first syllable of "labyrinth,"
as I imagined.
"Oh, uncle I" I cried Indignantly.
"Look here, you ! Hold your tongue, or off
with you I That's clear enough. Isn't it?"
Barbe was terrified and no longer wept. Her
suppressed sobs made her hiccup. She was
very pale, and on her cheek the bony hand of
Lerne remained printed In red.
"Go and take this gentleman's luggage from
the coach-house and put it In the lion-room."
(This room was on the first story of the
western wing.)
"Won't you give me my old room, uncle?"
"Which was that?"
"Which? Why, the one on the ground floor,
the yellow room, in the East wing, you know."
"No. I use that one," he said sharply. "Off
with you, Barbe."
The cook decamped as fast as she could.
On our right the pond was lying there stag-
nant. Our silent passage flung its shadow into
it, and it looked there like a dream In a lethargy.
My astonishment was growing every moment.
However, I kept myself from seeming too much
surprised at the sight of a new and spacious
building of gray stone built against the cliff. It
consisted of two blocks separated by a courtyard.
A high wall pierced with a carriage-gate, at the
56 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
moment shut, hid It from one's eyes, but the
clucking of fowls escaped from it, and a dog,
having scented us, raised his voice.
I flung out a plummet at a venture :
"You'll take me over your farm, won't you?"
Lerne shrugged his shoulders :
"Perhaps," he said. Then turning towards the
house, he shouted:
"Wilhelm, Wilhelm!"
The German with the face like a sun-dial
opened a little window and the Professor
apostrophized him in his mother-tongue, so
violently that the poor fellow trembled all over.
"By Jove!" I said to myself. "It's owing to
him and his inadvertence that there are going
about outside since last night, things that should
not be there — that's certain."
When the execution was over, we went round
the paddock. It contained a black bull and four
cows of various kinds, the whole lot of whom, for
no particular reason, followed after us. My
dreadful relative began to joke :
"Nicolas, let me introduce you to Jupiter; and
here is the white Europa, the dun-colored lo, the
fair-skinned Athor, and Pasiphae clad in her robe
of milk stained with ink, or ink stained with milk
— whichever way you prefer."
This reference to libertine mythology made me
smile. To tell the truth, I should have seized the
AMONG THE SPHINXES 57
first pretext to have a laugh; I had physical need
of it. I also felt a hunger so intense that to
satisfy it seemed the only question of any interest.
The chateau was the one and only attraction. It
was there I should eat! And the attraction it
exercised on me almost made me fail to examine
the hot-house, its neighbor.
That would have been a pity. They had added
two halls of glass to it which flanked the original
rotunda with their domed naves. Under its
lowered outer blinds the building seemed to me
to form a whole that was "perfect of its kind."
It suggested something between a Crystal Palace
and a glass melon-bell; it had quite a grand and
out-of-the-way appearance, if I may so say.
A hot-house of this kind in this thicket! I
should have been less astonished to find a love-
philter in a monastery!
In the days of my late lamented aunt, the lion-
room was reserved for guests. It had — it still
has — three windows, with deep recesses as deep
as alcoves. One of them looks out in the direction
of the conservatory and has a balcony attached;
the second opens on the park; I saw the paddock
from it and further away the pond, and between
the two that summer-house which once was
Briareus. The third window faces the eastern
wing; from there I saw the window of my old
58 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
room — shut — and the whole faqade of the
chateau blocking the view on the left.
I felt as if I were in an hotel. Nothing there
recalled anything to me. A Jouy wall-paper
stained with damp from the wall and hanging
loose in one corner, covered the walls with a host
of red lions each with a cannon ball fixed under
its paw. The bed curtains and window curtains
showed, in distortion, the same subject. Two pic-
tures balanced one another: The Education of
Achilles and The Rape of Deianeira, in which the
damp spotted the faces of the four subjects with
red and dappled the cruppers of the Centaurs,
Chiron and Nessus; there was also rather a fine
Norman clock which looked like a coffin set on
end, the emblem and at the same time the meas-
ures of Time — and the whole furnishing of the
room was commonplace and out-of-date.
I splashed my face with cold water and put
on clean linen with pleasure. Barbe brought me,
without knocking at the door, a plate of coarse
broth, and made no reply to my condolences on
her inflamed cheek; then she waddled out of the
room like a gigantic sylph.
There was no one in the drawing-room — unless
shades are people. O little black velvet arm-
chair with your two yellow tassels, hideous piece
of squat pufliness, so well termed a crapaud, could
I behold you again as of yore without imagining
AMONG THE SPHINXES 59
seated on your toad-like form the shade of my
anecdotal aunt? And you, my mother's chair —
an austerer one, and one I cannot jest about — will
she not always be in my memory leaning over
your back as long as you shall be an armchair,
if indeed you ever really were one?
Not a detail was altered. From the unspeak-
able white paper on the walls down which hung
garlands of flowers trussed like sausages, to the
hangings of sulphur-colored damask draping their
fringed basques in a row, the work of the former
owner — a contemporary of the crinoline — had
admirably stood the effect of time. A swollen
stuffing puffed out the sofas single and double,
and nothing had succeeded in deflating the in-
flamed chairs or the blistered settees.
From the wainscot smiled down on one all
my dead and gone ancestors : my great-great-
grandfathers in chalk, my grandfathers in minia-
tures, my father a schoolboy in daguerrotype ;
and on the mantelpiece (duly petticoated with
puffed-out fringed flounces) a few photographs
were sticking to the mirror. A large-sized group
claimed my attention. I took it up to look at it
more carefully. It represented my uncle sur-
rounded by five gentlemen and a big St. Bernard
dog. The group had been taken at Fonval; the
wall of the chateau made the background, and a
rose-laurel in a tub figured in the picture. An
6o NEW BODIES FOR OLD
amateur's work and unsigned. Lerne beamed
with kindness and mental energy, resembling, in
a word, the savant I had expected to find. Of
the five men, three were known to me, the Ger-
mans; I had never seen the two others.
Then suddenly the door opened without my
having the time to replace the photograph.
Lerne was ushering in a young woman.
"My nephew, Nicolas Vermont — Mademoi-
selle Emma Bourdichet."
Mile. Emma had apparently been undergoing
one of those sharp lectures that Lerne distributed
so prodigally. Her frightened expression showed
that. She had not even the courage to make the
conventional grimace usual in cases of constrained
amiability, and merely made an awkward sort of
bow.
As for me, after bowing, I dared not raise my
eyes for fear my uncle should read my soul in
them.
My soul? If by soul one means (as is
generally meant) that ensemble of faculties which
result in man's being a little above the other ani-
mals, I think I had better not compromise my
soul in this matter.
Oh, I'm not unaware that, if all loves, even
the purest, are originally animal desires, esteem
and friendship sometimes add themselves thereto
to ennoble the relations of man and woman.
AMONG THE SPHINXES 6i
Alas! If some Fragonard wished to com-
memorate our first interview and, in the i8th
century manner, depict Love as presiding over
it, I should advise him to study a certain little
Eros with goat's feet and thighs, a faun-like
Cupid unsmiling and wingless; his arrows should
be wooden and in a quiver made of bark, and
should be dripping with blood; he might indeed
pass under the name of Pan. He is Love uni-
versal. Pleasure that is unintentionally fecund,
the Master of Life who takes equal heed of lairs
and eyries, beasts' dens and bridal beds.
Are there degrees of femininity? In that case,
I never saw a woman who was more a woman
than Emma. I shall not describe her, having
scarcely noted more in her than an abstraction
and not an object. Was she beautiful? No
doubt; most assuredly desirable.
Yet, I do remember her hair. It had the color
of fire, a dull red — possibly dyed — and the image
of her body passes even now through my dead
passion. It would have put all flat-figured ladies
to shame.
Well, this adorable creature was at the height
of her charm.
The blood beat against my brain pan, and sud-
denly a fierce jealousy possessed me. In truth
I should willingly have given up this girl, pro-
vided no one else should touch her ever. From
62 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
unpleasing, Lerne now became odious to me. I
should remain now — at any price.
Meanwhile we did not know what to say.
Thrown off my balance by the suddenness of the
incident, and wishing to hide my confusion, I
stuttered out anyhow:
"You see, uncle, I was just looking at that
photograph."
"Ah, yes! Me and my assistants, Wilhelm,
Karl, and Johann. And this is Macbeth, my
pupil. It's very like him. What do you think
of it, Emma?"
He had put the photograph under his ward's
eyes and pointed out to her a man close-shavfn
in the American way, slim, short and young, with
a distinguished bearing, who had his hand on the
back of the St. Bernard dog.
"A handsome, intelligent fellow, eh?" said the
Professor in a mocking voice. "The ace of
Scots!"
Emma never changed her look of terror. She
articulated with difficulty:
"His Nelly was very amusing with her per-
forming-dog tricks."
"And Macbeth," said my uncle in a jesting
voice. "Was he amusing?"
There were symptoms of tears coming, and I
saw Emma's chin quiver. She murmured:
"Poor Macbeth!"
AMONG THE SPHINXES 63
"Yes," said Lerne to me by way of answer to
my puzzled looks, "Mr, Donovan Macbeth had
to give up his duties as a result of some unfortu-
nate occurrences. May Fate spare you such
unhappiness, Nicolas!"
"And the other?" I asked, in order to turn the
conversation. "The other one, he with the brown
mustache and whiskers, who is he?"
"He's gone, too."
"Dr. Klotz," said Emma, who had drawn near
us and was regaining her calm. "Otto Klotz;
oh, as for him . . ."
Lerne silenced her with a terrible look. I do
not know what punishment she foresaw, but a
spasm rendered the poor girl rigid.
Hereupon Barbe introduced slantwise half of
her opulent form and murmured that lunch was
on the table.
She had only set three places in the dining
room; the Germans, I fancied, must live in the
gray buildings.
The lunch was gloomy. Mile. Bourdichet
never ventured a word, ate nothing, and so I
could not make out what was the matter, terror
making all creatures alike.
Besides, sleepiness was overwhelming me.
Immediately after dessert I asked leave to go
to bed, begging to be allowed to sleep till the next
morning.
64 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Once In my room, I Immediately began to un-
dress. To tell the truth my journey, the night
and the morning had worn me out. All those
riddles, too, worried me, first because they were
riddles and then because they presented themselves
so confusedly. I felt as if I were enveloped in
smoke wherein riddling sphinxes kept turning
their vague faces towards me.
My braces were just going to be flung off — and
were not flung off.
In the garden Lerne was making his way to-
wards the gray buildings accompanied by his three
assistants.
"They are going to work In there," said I to
myself. "That's clear. I am not being watched;
they have not had time to take many precautions;
uncle is persuaded I am asleep. Nicolas, this is
the time for action, now or never. But what to
start with? Emma, or the secret? Hum . . .
the little girl Is utterly gorgonized to-day. . . .
As for the secret . . ."
Having put on my coat again, I went mechanic-
ally from Mandow to window.
There between the wrought-iron stanchions of
the balcony the Conservatory showed its mysteri-
ous additions. It was shut, forbidden, attractive.
I went out stealthily and noiselessly, like a wolf.
¥'
CHAPTER III
THE CONSERVATORY
Once outside, and without cover, it seemed to
me that everything was spying on me; so I flung
myself headlong into a little wood near the con-
servatory; then through the thorn and creepers I
made my way towards my objective.
It was very warm. I advanced with great diflfi-
culty and taking thousands of precautions to avoid
scratches and tell-tale rents.
At last the conservatory with its central dome
and one of its bulging flanks loomed large before
me. It was a side view that first presented itself.
I thought it would be wise to reconnoiter it before
leaving the shelter of the wood.
What struck me immediately was its appear-
ance of cleanliness, its perfect upkeep; not a
paving-stone of the encircling footway displaced,
not a brick of the foundation broken ; the blinds
which were well fastened had all their laths, and
in the narrow open spaces of their shutters the
window-panes flashed in the sun.
I listened. No sound came to me from the
castle or from the gray buildings. In the con-
65
66 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
servatory there was complete silence. One heard
nothing but the vast hum of a burning afternoon.
Then I summoned up my courage, and ap-
proaching stealthily, I raised one of the wooden
sun-blinds and tried to look through the panes;
but I could see nothing; they had been smeared
on the inside with a whitish substance. It seemed
more and more probable that Lcrne had diverted
the conservatory from its original use, and now
abandoned himself there to any other culture than
that of flowers. The idea of microbe broths sim-
mering under the warm light seemed to me quite
a happy inspiration.
I moved round the glass house. Everywhere
the same stuff smeared on the window-panes inter-
cepted the view — rather thick stuff it appeared.
The ventilation windows stood open but be-
yond my reach. The wings had no doors, and one
could not get into the central part from the back.
As I kept moving round scrutinizing the brick
and the no less thick glass, I soon found myself
on the chateau side opposite my balcony. This
position being unsheltered was dangerous. I
thought I should have to return to my bedroom,
and give up the supposed palace of microbes with-
out examining the front. I limited my investiga-
tion therefore to a most disappointed glance — a
glance, however, which suddenly let me know that
the mystery lay open to me.
THE CONSERVATORY 67
The door was only pressed against the door-
post, and the bolt which was quite free showed
that some careless person had thought he had
barred the door securely. Oh, Wilhelm, you
priceless donkey!
The moment I entered, my bacteriological
hypothesis was at once destroyed. A whiff of
floral perfumes welcomed me — a moist and warm
whiff with a touch of nicotine in it.
I paused in wonderment on the threshold.
No hot-house — not even a royal one — has ever
given me that impression of riotous luxury which
I at first experienced. In that rotunda in the
midst of all those sumptuous plants, the first sen-
sation was that of bedazzlement. The whole
gamut of greens was played in a chromatic scale
on the keyboard of leaves, amid the multi-colored
tones of flowers and fruit, and on tiers which
climbed up to the cupola those splendors surged
magnificently upward.
But one's eyes became accustomed to the sight,
and my admiration grew somewhat less. As-
suredly, however, for this Winter-Garden to
arouse my admiration so immediately, it must
have been composed of plants very remarkable
in themselves, for in reality no attempt at har-
mony had brought about their arrangement.
They were grouped in disciplinary order and
not in accordance with a spirit of elegance — like
68 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
some Eldorado confided to the care of a
gendarme. Their ranks separated themselves
brutally from one another, like so many cate-
gories; the pots stood in military array, and each
of them bore a label, which had to do with botany
rather than with gardening, and gave evidence
rather of science than of art. This circumstance
gave one food for meditation. After all, could
I admit for a moment that Lerne could possibly
do gardening for pleasure?
Prosecuting my researches, I let my charmed
eyes wander over all those marvels, incapable in
my ignorance of naming any of them. I tried to
do so, however, mechanically, and then that
luxuriance, which on a cursory general look had
shown a sort of exotic character, began to appear
to me as it really was . . .
Incredulous, and a prey to a fever of curiosity,
I looked at a cactus.
In spite of my want of expert knowledge, I
could not be mistaken, but its red flower utterly
puzzled me. ... I looked at it minutely, and my
perplexity only grew.
There was no possible doubt: this demoniac
flower with its insolent look, this rocket which
soared up green to break in fiery stars, was a
geranium!
I went on to the next flower: three bamboo
THE CONSERVATORY 69
stalks rose out of the soil, and capitals which
crowned their slim columns were — dahlias.
Almost afraid, breathing in the unnatural per-
fumes in short breaths, I looked questioningly at
the place around me, and its miracle-like incoher-
ence clearly showed itself.
Spring, Summer, and Autumn reigned there in
company, and Lerne had doubtless suppressed
Winter, which extinguishes flowers like flames.
They were all there, and all fruits too, but neither
flower nor fruit had grown on its own tree!
A colony of cornflowers garnished a stalk
ceded by moss-roses, and which now waved about,
a thyrsus thenceforward blue. An araucaria un-
folded at the tip of its bristling branches the
indigo-colored bells of the gentian, and along an
espalier among nasturtium leaves and on the loops
of its serpentine stalk, camelias and parti-colored
tulips blossomed fraternally together.
Opposite the entrance-door, a clump of bushes
rose up against the glass wall. The shrub which
stood highest drew my attention. Pears were
hanging from it, and It was an orange tree 1 Be-
hind It two vine-stocks with branches worthy of
the land of Canaan flung their garlands round a
trellis; their gigantic clusters differed as their
stocks ; the one bore yellow fruit, the other purple
— hut each grape was a Mirahelle plum or a
damson!
70 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
On the twigs of a miniature oak, on which
several rebellious acorns were obstinately form-
ing, one beheld walnuts and cherries rubbing
shoulders. One of these fruits was an abortion :
neither "chalk nor cheese" it was forming into
a glaucous tumor streaked with pink — a thing
monstrous and repellant.
Instead of cones, a fir tree was dotted with
chestnuts like shining stars, and, moreover, it
flaunted this strange contrast: the orange — that
golden sun of Eastern orchards — and the medlar,
which looks like a posthumous fruit of a tree that
has died of cold!
Not far away there was a throng of still more
fully developed miracles. Flora was elbowing
Pomona, as the good Demoustier would have
phrased it. Most of the plants that formed this
crowd were strange to me, and I only remember
the commoner ones, those that anybody knows the
list of, I can still see an astounding willow which
bore hortensias and peonies, peaches and straw-
berries. But the prettiest of all those hybrids was
perhaps a rose tree with ox-eyes for flowers and
crab-apples for fruit.
In the center of the rotunda a bush showed a
mingling of leaves so dissimilar as those of the
holly, the lime and the poplar. Having pressed
them apart I satisfied myself that they issued all
three from a single stem.
THE CONSERVATORY 71
It was the triumph of grafting — a science that
Lerne had for fifteen years been pushing to the
verge of the miraculous, so far indeed that the
results presented a somewhat disquieting spec-
tacle. "When man sets his hand to Life, he
makes monsters." A kind of uneasiness troubled
me.
"What right has one to upset Creation?" I said
to myself. "Should one turn the ancient laws
topsy-turvy? Can one play this sacrilegious game
without high treason against Nature? If only
those artificial things had been in good taste!
But, devoid of real novelty, they were merely
curious mixtures, a sort of vegetable chimeras,
floral Fauns, half this and half that. On my
honor, graceful or not, this kind of work is im-
pious, and that's the long and the short of it."
Be that as it may, the Professor had toiled most
laboriously to bring his work to so successful an
Issue. The collection vouched for that, and there
were other signs that recalled the savant's in-
dustry: on a table I perceived rows of bottles and
an array of grafting-tools and gardening imple-
ments which glittered like surgical instruments.
This discovery sent me back to the flowers, and
looking into the matter I becam.e aware of all
their wretchedness.
They were plastered with various sorts of gum.
72 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
bandaged and full of gashes which were like
wounds, out of which oozed a suspicious juice.
There was a wound in the bark of the pear-
bearing orange tree that formed an eye which was
slowly shedding tears.
I was becoming quite nervous. Would one
have believed it? I was assailed by a ridiculous
anguish as I looked at the oak-tree (which had
had an operation) because I fancied the cherries
looked like drops of blood ... I Flop ! flop !
Two ripe ones fell at my feet like the first drops
of a thunder-storm.
I was no longer possessed of the calm neces-
sary for reading the labels. They merely told
me a few dates — and the fact that Lerne had
covered them with Franco-German terms which
had originally been illegible, and were rendered
more so by erasures.
With my ears on the alert, and with my brow
in my hands, I had to take a moment's respite
in order to gather my wits together, and then I
opened the door of the right wing.
A little nave, as it were, stretched out before
me. Its glass vault filtered the daylight and
attenuated it to a bluish and refreshingly cool half-
light. My steps rang out on the flagstones.
In this chamber there gleamed three aquariums,
three tanks of glass, so pure that the water seemed
THE CONSERVATORY 73
to be standing of Itself In three geometrical
blocks.
The aquariums on the two sides of the hall
held marine plants which did not seem to differ
much one from the other. However, the rotunda
had taught me with what method Lerne classified
everything, and I could not believe that he had
separated into two tanks things absolutely identi-
cal. So I watched the sea-weeds attentively.
Their tufts, on both sides of the place, formed
the same submarine landscape. On the right, as
on the left, arborescences of every color had fixed
their rigid and bifurcated stems on the rocks; the
sandy bottom was sprinkled with stars like edel-
weiss, and here and there sprung up sheaves of
chalky rods, at the end of each of which a sort
of fleshy chrysanthemum unfolded itself like a
yellow or a violet flower. I cannot describe the
host of other corolla; they often resembled oily
calices of wax or of gelatine ; most of them showed
an indefinable color in a vague outline, and some-
times they had no edges and were mere nuances
In the midst of the water.
Bubbles escaped in thousands from an Inside
tap, and their tumultuous pearls raced madly along
the foliage before they rose to burst on the sur-
face. One would have thought, seeing them, that
that aquatic garden had always to be drenched
with air.
74 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
Recalling my schoolboy memories I grasped
that the two sets of flowering things — differing
merely in detail — were exclusively composed of
polypi, those ambiguous creatures, such as coral
or sponge, which the naturalist interpolates be-
tween vegetables and animals.
Their peculiar ambiguity is never devoid of
interest. I tapped the left-hand trough.
Immediately an unexpected thing moved before
me swimming by means of contraction; it was
like an opaline Venetian goblet which had re-
mained malleable; a second crossed over the first;
they were two jelly-fish. Meanwhile the tapping
of my fingers had set other things moving. The
yellow and purple tufts of the anemones went
back into their calcareous sheaths, then rhythmic-
ally unfolding, emerged again; the rays of the
star-fish and sea-urchins stirred lazily; grays and
reds and saffrons swayed about, and, as if under
the influence of an eddy the whole aquarium
became alive.
I tapped on the right-hand trough. Nothing
budged.
This was proof positive; this separation of the
polypi into two receptacles gave me a clearer
understanding of the connection which, joining
the animal and the vegetable, makes man akin to
the blade of grass. At this meeting-place of the
two organized kingdoms, the creatures on the
THE CONSERVATORY 75
left — active — were at the foot of their scale, and
those on the right — inactive — at the top of theirs;
the former were on the way to becoming beasts,
the latter had finished being plants.
Thus, the gulf which seems to separate those
two extreme poles in the world is reduced, as far
as structure goes, to slight divergences, almost
invisible — a less striking difference than that be-
tween the wolf and the fox which are, however,
brothers.
Now, this infinitesimal difference in organiza-
tion whirh Science, however, regards as unsur-
mountable, since it separates inertia from spon-
taneous movement — this difference Lerne had
bridged! In the basin at the end of the room,
the two species were grafted on to one another.
I noted there a gelatinous sort of leaf of the
immobile order, grafted on to a mobile stem, and
now moving about too. The grafts adopted the
condition of the plant into which they were in-
serted; penetrated with a life-giving juice, their
indifference changed to animation, and the
activity of the other was paralyzed through suck-
ing in the ankylosis.
I would willingly have passed in review the
various applications of this principle; but a
medusa tied with a hundred knots to sonie sea-
weed or other struggled violently in its mossy net,
and I turned away in disgust.
76 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
This last stage in grafting in spite of diiSculties
completed the profanation in my eyes, and I looked
away into the blue shadow for less disagreeable
sights.
The Professor's apparatus stood ready for him.
There was a whole chemist's shop on a dresser.
Four tables with clear glass tops alternated with
the aquariums, and bore on them an arsenal of
knives, pincers and tweezers.
No ! Lerne had no right to do this ! It was
as infamous as a butchery! More so indeed!
And his odious performances on virgin Nature of-
fered at one and the same time the horror of a
murder and the ignominy of a violation !
As I was yielding to this righteous indignation,
a noise arose. Some one was knocking.
Ah! my hell beyond the grave will be to hear
that little insignificant tapping. In a flash I felt
every nerve in my body. Some one was knocking !
In a bound I was in the rotunda, and my face
must have been terrible to see, for instinctively
the dread of an adversary made me assume a look
of ferocity.
Nobody on the doorstep — nobody in the park
— I went in again.
The noise began once more. It was coming
from the yet unexplored wing. Losing my head,
I dashed towards it without realizing my rashness,
or the risk of finding myself face to face with the
THE CONSERVATORY 77
danger, and so excited, that I banged my head
against the door, as I opened it with a violent
pull.
Nervous exhaustion had brought me down to
this condition of weakness. And I ask myself to-
day whether it had not to some extent given me
hallucinations and made me fancy things to be
more bizarre than they really were.
An intense light flooded the third hall and
helped me at once to recover my assurance. On
a dresser there was a cage upside down which was
knocking about with a rat inside it, as in a prison.
When the rat jumped, the cage jumped; hence the
noise. At the sight of me, the rodent became
quiet. I attached no importance to this little
episode.
This place, which was less orderly than the
others, looked like an ill-kept hot-house. But
towels stained with blood and thrown on the
ground, lancets lying anyhow among half empty
test-tubes, all this told of recent work and might
serve as an excuse for the confusion.
I began my investigation.
The first two witnesses to appear did not give
me much information. These were some very
humble plants in their china pots. Their names
in 1(771 or lis have gone from my memory, a thing I
deplore, for they would give my tale more authori-
tativeness, and more resonance. But who, at the
78 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
mention of their ordinary names, could fall to
represent to himself a tuft of plantain and a tuft
of hare's-ear?
The former was, It Is true, of an exceptionally
long and supple sort. As for the latter, It had
nothing distinctive about It, and, like Its fellows, it
conscientiously counterfeited a dozen great ear-
lobes. On two of Its hairy, silvery leaves and on
one of the twigs of the plantain below It, a
bandage showed like a bracelet of white cloth
which tar (apparently) stained brown.
I sighed a sigh of relief. "Good," said I to
myself, "Lerne has inoculated them. This is only
a repetition of what I have already seen, or rather
an early, timid and simple essay, a stage on the
road to the rotunda, as it Is a stage on the way to
the atrocities of the aquarium. I might have be-
gun here, gone on to the central garden of Eden,
and finished off by the polypi. Thank God, I
have seen the worst."
So ran my thoughts, when the twig of the plan'
tain twisted about like a worm!
At the same time a mass of shining gray gave
a jump which betrayed its presence behind the
dresser. There lay in the midst of a pool of
blood a rabbit with silvery fur. It had just ex-
pired, and had nothing in the way of ears hut two
bleeding holes.
The presentiment of the reality made me break
THE CONSERVATORY 79
out into a sweat. It was then I touched the hairy
plant. Having felt the two grafted leaves like
ears, I perceived they were hot and quivering.
A recoil sent me up against the dresser. My
hand stiff with disgust tried to shake off the feel-
ing of that contact as it would that of a hideous
spider; it knocked violently against the rat's cage,
which fell.
At once the rat bounded towards the middle of
its cage, biting and rolling about with mad fury
. . , and my staring eyes went continually from
the plantain to the animal, from the twig quiver-
ing like a thin black snake to the rat which had no
tail.
Its wound had healed, but the poor beast bore
traces of another experiment which it dragged
about in its somersaults — a sort of loosened
girdle, which still, however, kept fixed in its place
a piece of greenery that had been inserted into its
slashed flank!
This growth seemed to me to have withered.
So Lerne was mounting the scale of Being. He
was now grafting together the higher animals and
all kinds of plants! Infamous and great, my
uncle inspired me with disgust and admiration,
such as one might feel for a maleficient deity.
His works, however, seemed to me less esti-
mable than repulsive, and I had to do violence to
myself to force myself to prolong my visit.
So NEW BODIES FOR OLD
It was worth it, even if it was merely a figment
of the brain. What remained for me to learn
surpasses the nightmare of a madman. Fright-
ful, assuredly, but comic too in a way — grotesque,
sinister.
Which of the sufferers inspired most horror?
The guinea-pig, the frog or the trees?
The guinea-pig, perhaps was the least extraor-
dinary. Its pelt may have been green only as the
result of the green reflection from all those
plants. That may be so.
But the frog! But the trees! What was one
to think of themf
The frog was green as grass and had all its
four legs forced into the soil, planted in the middle
of a pot like a vegetable with four roots, its eye-
lids closed, its aspect dull and mournful.
As for the date trees — at first they had given no
sign of motion, and I am certain there was no
wind blowing — then, when they did move, it was
in all directions. Their leaves swayed very gently
— I thought I heard something, but I could not
swear to it — yes, the trees swayed and came closer
at every moment; suddenly they gripped one an-
other with all their green fingers and embraced
convulsively. Was it in wrath or in lust? For
battle or for love? I know not. The gestures
are much alike.
Beside the frog a vase of white porcelain was
THE CONSERVATORY 8i
full of a colorless liquid in which was steeped a
Pravoz syringe. A similar vase and syringe had
been placed near the trees, but here the liquid was
brown and curdling. I concluded that they were
sap and blood.
The date trees had let go of each other, and
my trembling hand advanced towards them. I
could feel, under the soft warm bark pulse-beats
that made it rise and fall with rhythmical cadence.
Since then I have said to myself that one may
feel ones own pulse when feeling that of others,
and I was doubtless feverish; but at the moment
could I doubt my senses? . . . Besides, what fol-
lows in no wise impeaches my lucidity then; it
would on the contrary plead in its favor. I do
not know whether intensity of recollection in a
doubtful case of hallucination is an argument for
or against a morbid state; but at any rate I re-
member very intensely the picture of those mon-
strosities rising out of the medley of linen wrap-
pings and bottles among the scattered instruments
of steel.
Was there nothing more to see? I rummaged
in the corners — no, nothing more. I had fol-
lowed step by step my uncle's work and in the
rational order of their ascending scale.
I got back to the chateau without let or hin-
drance and regained my bedroom. There the
hectic vigor which had been supporting me quite
82 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
failed me. Vainly I tried, as I undressed, to re-
capitulate my campaign. It was already assum-
ing the appearance of a bad dream and I no longer
believed in it. Could the vegetable kingdom
really mingle with the animal? What an absurd-
ity! If plant-polypi are almost animal-polypi,
what can an insect and a leaf, for example, have
in common? Then I felt a sharp pain in the
thumb of my right hand: a little white pustle
ringed with pink was budding there. In my jour-
ney through the woods something had stung me.
But I was unable to say whether it was the ven-
geance of a nettle or of an ant. This made me
feel the possibilities of things, and that I had not
to accept them as having been realized by my
uncle. My reflections were as follows : —
"To sum up, Lerne has tried to amalgamate
vegetables and animals, and to make them ex-
change their vitalities. His methods, judiciously
progressive, have succeeded. But are they aims
in themselves, or only a means to something else?
What is he trying to reach? I cannot see how
those experiments can have practical applications
that a financier might exploit. So, they are not
ends in themselves. It seems to me that they tend
to something more perfect which I can vaguely di-
vine without fully perceiving. My head is full of
woolly headache — Come, let me see ! . . . Per-
haps the Professor is carrying on at the same time
IHE CONSERVATORY 83
other researches converging to the same point as
these, a knowledge of which would make the final
object clear. Come, come ! Logic, logic. On
the one hand. . . . Oh, Lord I am tired — On the
one hand I have seen vegetables grafted together,
on the other hand my uncle has begun mixing up
plants and beasts . . . ah, I give it up."
My exhausted mind refused to reason any more.
I saw in a confused way that in his study of graft-
ing he had neglected a whole branch of the subject,
or at least that the hot-house was not its theater.
My eyelids grew heavy. The more I tried to in-
duce or deduce the more I got confused. The ap-
parition of the preceding night, the gray buildings,
and Emma came to aggravate my distraught con-
dition with anxiety, curiosity and desire. In
short, never had a feather pillow been the haunt
of such a welter of ideas.
A riddle !
Yes, Indeed, a riddle ! And yet, though the
sphinxes were all round me, through the dim
vapor which was now less thick I clearly distin-
guished them. And as one of them had a pleasing
face and a youthful figure, I fell asleep smiling.
CHAPTER IV
HOT AND COLD
Qui dort dine. My slumber lasted till the next
morning.
And yet I never rested so ill. The bruised
feeling caused by a day spent in a motor-car came
over my loin-muscles, and for long I felt in them
the ricochets of ghostly jolts and the twists of
spectral skids. Then I was visited by dreams in
which a world of miracle came to life. Broce-
liande, the Shakespearean forest, began to move ;
In the press of it trees walked along arm in arm;
a birch tree which looked like a lance made me a
speech in German, and I could hardly hear it, for
many of the flowers were singing, plants yelped in-
sistently, and great trees every now and then
howled aloud.
On my awakening, I remembered this hulla-
baloo with a phonographic exactitude — so much
so, that I was alarmed about it, and I was angry
with myself for not having made a full examina-
tion of the conservatory; a less hasty and calmer
study of it would doubtless have enlightened me.
I severely condemned my undue haste and my
84
HOT AND COLD 8^
nervous condition of the day before. But why
not make up for it? Perhaps it was not too late?
With my hands behind my back, and a cigarette
between my lips, with no particular aim in my
steps, I passed in front of the conservatory, as if
I were merely taking a stroll.
It was locked.
So, I had missed the one chance of learning the
truth, yes, I felt, the one and only chance. Oh,
donkey, donkey !
In order not to arouse suspicion, I had passed
the forbidden place without pausing, and now an
avenue led me towards the gray buildings.
Through the grass which covered It, a beaten path
bore witness to frequent passings to and fro.
After following the track for some time, I saw
my uncle coming to meet me. No doubt he had
been on the watch for my coming out. He was
quite cheery. His discolored countenance, when
he smiled, was now like his young face of long ago.
This affable expression restored my equanimity.
My escapade had passed unpercelved.
"Well, my boy," said he In almost a friendly
way, *'I bet you are of my way of thinking. It
is not a cheerful place. You will soon be weary
of your sentimental sojourn at the bottom of this
stewpan 1"
"Oh, uncle, I have always loved Fonval, not
for the scenery, but as a venerable friend, an an-
86 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
cestor, if you like. It is one of the family. I
have often played, you know, on its lawns and
among the branches of its trees; it's a godfather
that has dandled me on its knee — like — like you,
uncle."
"Yes, yes," said Lerne evasively. "All the
same you will soon have had enough of it."
"Not at all. The park of Fonval is my earthly
paradise."
"There you are right. It's just that," he said
laughingly, "the forbidden tree grows in its in-
closure. Every hour you will come up against
the Tree of Life, and the Tree of Knowledge
which you must not touch. It's dangerous. In
your position I should go out for a run in your
mechanical carriage. Oh, if Adam had only had
a mechanical carriage !"
"But, uncle, there is the labyrinth!"
"Oh," cried the Professor gayly, "I'll accom-
pany you and guide you. Besides I am anxious
to see one of those what d'-you-call-ems working."
"Automobile, uncle."
"Ah, yes, automobile," and his Teutonic accent
gave the word, which is a slow-moving one as it is,
an amplitude, a weight, a monumental immobility.
We were going side by side towards the coach-
house. There was no denying that my uncle had
made up his mind to endure my intrusion with
courage. Nevertheless his persistent good temper
HOT AND COLD 87
only vexed me. My projects of Indiscretion
seemed less legitimate to me. Perhaps I should
have abandoned them altogether at that moment,
had not my desire for Emma driven me to wish
ill to her despotic jailor. Besides, was he sincere ?
And was It not merely to Incite me to keep my
plighted word that he said to me on arriving at
the Improvised garage :
"Nicolas, I have reflected a great deal. I
really do think you might be very useful to us In
the future, and I desire your further acquaintance.
Since you want to remain here for some days, we
shall often have talks. In the mornings I do not
work much ; we shall employ them in going about
either on foot, or In your car, and in conversation.
But don't forget your promises."
I nodded assent. "After all," thought I, "it
really seems as if he wanted one day to publish the
solution to the problem. Why should it not be
legitimate enough, though the operations that are
to procure it are not so? It's them he wishes to
hide until the result comes; he expects the eclat of
the latter to excuse the barbarity of the former
and to obtain his pardon — if only the end does not
betray the means, and the means can remain for-
ever unknown. On the other hand, might Lerne
not be afraid of competition? Why not?"
I was ruminating on all this as I emptied a little
tin of petrol into the tank of my excellent car, a
88 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
tin which propitious Chance had allowed me to
find in the boot.
Lerne got in beside me. He pointed out to
me a straight road that skirted a cliff of the defile,
a surreptitious cross-road ingeniously concealed.
I was astonished at first that my uncle should have
pointed out this short cut to me, but, after all, was
he not showing me how to get away, and was not
this au fond what he most desired?
Oh, the dear uncle ! He must have lived a very
secluded or very absorbed life, for he was patheti-
cally ignorant of all that concerns motor-cars.
His was the sort of ignorance savants have with
regard to sciences in which they are not specialists.
My physiologist was not strong on the subject of
mechanics. He hardly suspected the principle of
this docile, supple, silent and speedy engine of
locomotion which roused his enthusiasm.
At the edge of the forest :
"Let us stop here, please," said he. "You
must explain this machine to me. This is where
I usually end my walks. I am an old eccentric.
You shall go on by yourself afterwards, if you
like."
I began my demonstration, and I perceived that
the hooter, only slightly damaged, could be re-
paired in a turn of the hand. Two screws and a
piece of wire restored its deafening power.
Lerne, at the sound of it, beamed with ingenuous
HOT AND COLD 89
delight. I went on with my lecture, and as I
talked, my uncle listened to me with increasing
attention.
In truth the thing deserved attentive interest.
During the preceding three years, if motor engines
had but little changed in the essentials of their
structure and in that of their principal organs, fit-
tings on the other hand had progressed, and the
materials employed were employed more judici-
ously. Thus, in the construction of my car,
whose only woodwork was the racing-seats, no
wood had been employed. My 80 horse-power
affair formed a little luxurious and neatly fur-
nished workshop all of cast iron and steel, of
copper and aluminum. The great invention of
the day had been applied to it — I mean that it did
not rest on four pneumatic tires, but on spring-
wheels which were wonderfully elastic. Nowa-
days that seems quite a matter of course; but a
year ago my iron fellies caused much surprise.
But the most remarkable thing about my 234-
XY, when you come to think of it, was, I think,
that improvement which engineers obtained so
slowly that one did not see it growing day by day
— I mean its automatism.
The first horseless machine was encumbered
with levers, pedals, handles and wheels necessary
for Its guidance, and with taps and grease-valves
to turn, which were Indispensable for the func-
90 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
tioning of the engine. Now, each generation of
motor-cars has dispensed with these more and
more completely. One by one, almost all those
handles have disappeared which require the in-
cessant intervention of man. In our days, by
means of its organs which have become automatic,
the mechanism controls the mechanism. A chauf-
feur is no more than a pilot; once going, his ma-
chine keeps up its own energy; once awake, it will
only fall asleep again at the word of command.
In short, as Lerne bade me note, the modern
motor-car enjoys properties that a spinal cord
might confer; it enjoys instinct and reflex actions.
Spontaneous movements take place in it along
with the voluntary movements caused by the in-
telligence of the driver, who becomes as it were
the brain of the vehicle. It is from this intelli-
gence that the orders for definite actions go, trans-
mitted by the metallic nerves to the steel muscles.
"Moreover," said my uncle, "the resemblance
between this machine and the body of a vertebrate
animal is striking."
Here Lerne was entering his own domain. I
lent an attentive ear, and he went on :
"We have here the nervous and muscular sys-
tems represented by the striker-rods, the driving-
gear and the cranks. And the chassis, Nicolas,
what is it but the skeleton into which the tenants
insert themselves like tendons? Blood, the vital
HOT AND COLD 91
element, circulates in those copper arteries in the
form of petrol. The carburetor breathes; it's a
lung; instead of combining air with blood, it
mixes it with the vapor of the petrol, that's all I
This hood resembles a thorax in which life beats
rhythmically — our joints move In the syyiovia as
those swivel-joints in oil. Under the shelter of
the resisting skin of the case Is the tank, a stomach
that grows hungry and is replenished. Here,
phosphorescent like those of cats, but as yet void
of sight, are eyes, its lamps; its voice Is the hooter;
and — but I need not go into further details. In
a word, Nicolas, the only thing wanting to your
car Is brain, which you sometimes supply; having
that It would become a great deaf beast, blind,
insensitive and sterile, without the sense of taste
or of smell."
"A regular collection of infirmities," I said,
bursting Into a loud laugh.
"Hum!" rejoined Lerne, "in other respects the
motor-car is better off than we. Think how the
water cools it ; what a remedy against fever ! And
then what a time the engine can last, if it is wisely
used! It can be mended indefinitely — it can al-
ways be cured; have you not just restored speech
to its maw? You could replace an eye just as
easily!"
The Professor was getting excited :
"It's a powerful and terrible body," he cried,
92 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
"but a body that allows itself to be clothed — It
has armor which increases the power of the wearer
beyond all expectation, a cuirass that multiplies its
force and speed. Why, you inside it are like the
Maritans of Mr. Wells in their tripod cylinders!
You are nothing but the brain of an artificial
monster that it makes one giddy to think of."
"All machines are like that, uncle."
"No. Not so completely. But for the form
(which no animal resembles of course) the auto-
mobile is the most congruous automaton ever
contrived. It is more made in our image than
the best mannikin wound up by a key, the most
human of puppets. For under their anthropo-
morphic envelope those mannikins hide a mere
roasting-jack organism, which one would not com-
pare with the anatomy of a snail. Whereas
here ..."
Hei drew back a step and regarded my car with
a look of tenderness:
"What a superb creature," he exclaimed, "and
how great is man !"
"Yes," said I to myself, "there is a deal more
beauty in a thing we create, than in all your sinister
joining of flesh and wood that are both from of
old. But it's not bad on your part to have ad-
mitted It."
Though It was late, I went on to Grey-1 'Abbaye
to replenish my stock of petrol, and though he was
HOT AND COLD 93
a creature of routine, Lerne, infatuated with auto-
mobilism, passed beyond the traditional limit of
his walks and insisted on accompanying me.
Then we resumed the way to Fonval. My
uncle, with all the ardor of a neophyte, bent over
the bonnet In order to listen to the pulsations
within the metal frame, then he took to pieces one
of the oil-valves. All the time he kept question-
ing me, and I had to inform him of the smallest
details of my car, details which he assimilated
with an incredible accuracy.
"I say, Nicolas, sound the hooter, will you?
Now — go slow — stop — start again — quicker —
that will do — put on the brake — back now — stop
— it's colossal!"
He was laughing. His cloudy face seemed al-
most beautified. Seeing us one would have said
we were excellent friends. In fact we were so
then perhaps. And I fancied that perhaps,
thanks to my "two-seater," Lerne might one day
confide in me.
He preserved this gayety till our return to the
chateau; the proximity of the mysterious work-
shop did not affect it; it only disappeared in the
dining room. Then suddenly Lerne's brow
darkened. Emma had just come in. And the
husband of my aunt Lidivine seemed to have ef-
faced himself with my uncle's smile, only an
94 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Irritable old savant remaining between his two
guests. I then felt how little his future discov-
eries mattered In comparison with this woman,
and that he wanted to acquire glory and wealth
only In order to keep the charming girl by his
side.
Assuredly he loved her just as I did, and with
the same fierce desire.
Barbe came and went as she waited on us more
or less anyhow. We were silent. I avoided
looking at Emma, being persuaded that my looks
would have resembled kisses and that my uncle
would have divined them.
She, now quite at her ease, pretended Indiffer-
ence ; and with her chin In her hands, her elbows
on the table, her bare arms showing out of her
short sleeves, she gazed through the windows at
the meadows whose inhabitants were lowing.
I should have liked to gaze at the same sight as
my bien-aimce; this distant and sentimental com-
munion would have satisfied one ; but unluckily the
meadows were not visible from where I sat, and
my eyes wandered Idly about, none the less noting
the whiteness of her bare arms and the unwonted
heaving of her bodice.
As I was interpreting this unwonted emotion on
her part in my favor, Lerne, hostile and taciturn,
broke up the party. He ordered Emma off to her
HOT AND COLD 95
room and giving me a book bade me go and read
in tiie shade of the forest.
I had but to obey. "Bah," I said to myself, "in
spite of his exhortations, he is more to be pitied
than I am."
The happenings of that night cooled my pity
most notably.
The incident troubled me all the more that It
did nothing to lighten the darkness of the mystery;
in itself It seemed incomprehensible. This Is what
it was:
I had peacefully fallen asleep with my mind
dwelling on Emma, and the delightful hope she
inspired; but sleep instead of bringing me pleasant
dreams, brought back the absurdities of the pre-
ceding night, the moaning and barking plants.
The Intensity of the sound kept Increasing In my
dream, and at last It became so acute, so real,
that I suddenly woke up.
Sweat was drenching my body and my hot
sheets. The echo of a recent cry was just dying
on my tympanum. It was not the first time I
heard It. No — In the labyrinth I had heard It
before, that cry, far away in the direction of
Fonval.
I raised myself on my hands. A ray of moon-
light lit my room. I could hear nothing. Only
from the old-fashioned clock came any sound —
96 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
that of Time's sickle. My head fell back on the
pillow.
Then suddenly, with a shuddering of my whole
being, I buried myself in the blankets with my
fingers in my ears. The sinister howling was
rising from the park into the night, a sinister, un-
earthly howling. It was indeed that which I had
heard in my nightmare; my dream had mingled
with reality.
With a superhuman effort I arose, and it was
then that I heard yelpings — a sort of stifled yelp-
ings, very much stifled.
Well, after all, it might all be proceeding from
a dog's throat, hang it!
Nothing to be seen from the window on the
garden side except the plane tree and the other
trees drowsing in the mxoonlight.
Then the howling began again on the left, and
from the other window I saw what seemed to me
for a moment to explain everything.
Some distance away a starved-looking dog was
standing with its back towards me. It was a huge
animal, and it had laid its front paws on the closed
shutters of my former bedroom, and every now
and then uttered a loud long wail. The other
barkings — the stifled ones — replied to him from
the inside of the house; but were they really
yelps? Had my ears deceived me? It sounded
more like the voice of a man trying to imitate the
HOT AND COLD 97
voice of a dog. The more I listened, the more
that conclusion forced itself on me. Yes, certainly
there could be no mistake; how could I have hesi-
tated? It was quite clear — some practical joker
in my bedroom was amusing himself with teasing
the poor brute.
And he succeeded in doing so; for the animal
gave signs of increasing exasperation. He
modulated his howling in the most extraordinary
manner, making it sound like a cry of despair.
Finally he scratched the shutters with rage and
bit them. I heard the crackling of the wood be-
tween his jaws.
Suddenly the beast became motionless, its hair
bristling. There was a brusque and violent out-
burst in that room. I recognized my uncle's voice
but could not catch the meaning of his reprimand.
Immediately the joker was silent. But — and how
to account for this amazing circumstance? — the
dog whose frenzy should have been appeased, was
now beside itself; its backbone bristled up like
that of a wild boar. Growling, it began to follow
the wall of the chateau, till It reached the main
door.
Just as it reached it, Lerne opened it.
Fortunately for me I had, in caution, not raised
my window curtain. His first look was towards
my window.
In a low voice, with restrained wrath, the Pro-
98 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
fessor lectured the dog, but he did not come for-
ward, and I perceived he was afraid of it. The
other came nearer, growling, with its eyes flashing
from under its great brow. Lerne then spoke
aloud :
*'To your kennel, you dirty brute!" (Then
came some words in a foreign tongue.) "Get
away," he went on in French; and as the animal
still came on — "Do you want me to knock your
brains out? Eh?"
My uncle seemed to be losing his wits. The
moon heightened his pallor. "He'll be torn to
bits," I said to myself, "he has not even a riding-
switch."
"Go back, Nell, go back."
Nell? So it was the St. Bernard bitch belong-
ing to the Scot.
And then came a stream of foreign words which
to my complete astonishment made me realize that
jTiy uncle knev/ English.
His invectives resounded in the silence of the
night.
The dog gathered Itself together; it was just
going to spring when Lerne, at the end of his re-
sources, threatened it with a revolver and with the
other hand pointed out the way he wanted the
beast to go.
Now, it has happened to me, when out shooting,
to see a dog run away when a gun is leveled at It;
HOT AND COLD 99
he knows its deadly power. That this should
happen in presence of a pistol seemed to me de-
cidedly less ordinary. Had Nell already experi-
enced the effect of the weapon? That was a
plausible theory; but I fancied that she had under-
stood the English — English being Macbeth's
tongue — rather than my uncle's revolver.
She calmed down, as at the voice of Orpheus,
cowered and with her tail between her legs, made
for the gray buildings which Lerne was pointing
out to her. He ran after the hound, and the
darkness swallowed them.
In my clock the imperishable Harvester mowed
down several minutes.
In the distance a door banged noisily. Then
Lerne came in again.
That was all.
So there were at Fonval two beings whose exist-
ence had till then been unsuspected by me; Nell,
whose pitiful appearance hardly showed her to be
happy, Nell, abandoned doubtless by her master
in a hasty flight — and the practical joker. For
this latter could not, in reason, be either of the
two women or one of the Germans; the nature of
the joke betrayed its author's age. Only a child
could divert itself at the expense of a dog. But
nobody to my knowledge lodged in that wing.
"Ah," Lerne had said to me, "I am using your
room." Who, then, lived in it?
loo NEW BODIES FOR OLD
I was determined to find out somehow. If the
hidden presence of Nell in the gray buildings in-
vested them with a new interest, mysterious as
they already were, the closed rooms of the chateau
became yet another center of attraction.
At last my objectives were clearing.
And as the prospect of hunting down the secret
made me quiver with excitement, a presentiment
warned me that I should do well to pursue it to
the death, and so defy Lerne's first command be-
fore breaking the second.
"Let me find out first what it is all about," said
my conscience; "there is something wrong. After
that, I can attend to the baggage in peace."
Why did I not follow my own advice? But
conscience speaks in a very low voice, and who can
hear it when passion begins to blare?
CHAPTER V
"the MADiMAN"
A WEEK later on, I was in ambush behind the
door of my former bedroom — the yellow one —
with my eye to the keyhole.
Oh! it was not easy, or it did not appear so.
Never had the left wing of Fonval been so jeal-
ously closed, even In the days when the monks had
been cloistered there.
How had I got in there? In the simplest
manner possible.
The Yellow Room is reached by the central
hall — where every one could walk if he liked — by
a series of three rooms. The hall joins on to the
drawing-room, then comes the billiard-room,
which opens Into the boudoir, and finally this
boudoir opens, on the rig:ht. Into the Yellow
Room, which lies back towards the park.
Now, on this day, before profiting by an In-
creased freedom, I tried, one by one, in the lock,
keys which I had stolen from other doors here and
there. I had no confidence. Suddenly the lock
yielded. I opened the door, and I saw In the half
lui
102 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
light made by the closed shutters, the whole suite
of rooms.
I recognized as I went from threshold to thresh-
old the special odor of each — each a little more
musty than in the old days — the sort of odors that
the Past would exhale, if one could travel in its
dust.
I followed on the tips of my toes a track on
which many boots had left their mud — now dry.
A mouse ran over the drawing-room carpet. On
the billiard-table, the ivory balls — red and white
— formed an isosceles triangle. Mentally I cal-
culated the stroke, the amount of screw I should
put on, and the place where I should hit the second
ball, then I found myself in the boudoir itself.
The clock, which had stopped, pointed to twelve.
I felt myself very receptive. But, hardly had I
had the leisure to see the shut door of the Yellow
Room, than a sound brought me back hurriedly
into the hall.
It was no jesting matter. Lerne worked in the
gray buildings, but he knew that I was in the
chateau, and on such occasions, it was his custom
to come in suddenly to watch me. It seemed to
me prudent to put off the enterprise.
An hour's liberty was indispensable to me, so I
evolved the following stratagem:
The next day I went in my car to Grey-
I'Abbaye, and I there bought several articles of
"THE MADMAN" 103
toilet, and hid them in a bush in the forest, not
far from the Park.
On the day after that, after lunch, Emma heard
me say:
*'I am going to Grey this afternoon. I am
going to get some articles I need. If I cannot
get them there, I shall push on to Nanthel. Have
you any commissions to give me?"
Fortunately, they had none, otherwise every-
thing would have come to grief.
By this means I could go out for a quarter-of-
an-hour, and bring in my purchases from the bush,
as if I had gone to make them in the village.
Now, one might reckon on the journey from
Fonval to Grey and back taking about an hour-
and-a-quarter, so I had an hour at my disposal.
I go out, leave my car in the thicket not far
from the hiding-place in the bushes, then come
into the garden again over the wall. The ivy on
one side, and the trellis on the other, made it easier.
Keeping close to the castle wall, I reached the hall.
And now, I am in the drawing-room, with the
door carefully shut behind me. In case I might
need to make a dash, however, I thought it
prudent not to turn the key, and now I am spying,
with my eye to the lock of the yellow chamber.
The keyhole was a large one. It made a sort
of loop-hole through which a keen air was blowing
— and what do I see ?
I04 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
The room was dark and cut Into layers by the
shutters. A slanting ray seemed to be supporting
the window with its column, and the motes of dust
were dancing about in it as the worlds dance about
in space.
On the carpet the laths of the shutters projected
their lines. Here was a den! A gypsy lair!
Here and there, clothes on the ground. A plate
with scraps, and near it a piece of filth. One
would have said it was a hermit's haunt.
Ah ! and what was that which moved on the
bed ? There he is, the recluse ! It's a man ! He
was lying face downwards amongst the disorder
of the bolster and the quilt, with his head leaning
on his arms. He had on only a nightshirt and
trousers. His beard was of several weeks'
growth, and, like his hair, which was rather short,
was almost of a whitish-yellow.
Ever since that cry the other night, my head
had been full of whimsies. No, I had never seen
that puffy, dirty face — that podgy body.
His eyes seemed kindly enough — stupid, but
good and endearing. Um ! What a curious in-
difference in his face ! He must be a lazy chap,
though.
The prisoner was snoozing, badly, it seemed.
The flies were annoying him. He drives them
away with a sudden clumsy gesture of his hand.
His indolent eye follows their flight between his
'THE MADMAN" 105
snoozes, and sometimes, seized with a fit of anger,
and making his lips smack together with a sudden
movement of his head, he tries to snap up the
insects that irritate him so as they pass by.
The madman ! There is a madman in my
uncle's house!! Who could he be? My eyelids
touched the keyhole. My eye became frozen.
The other one, taking its turn of duty, is rather
short-sighted. I saw very badly. My line of
sight was rather narrow. Good God! I have
hit the door and made a noise. The madman has
jumped up ! How small he is ! Hallo ! here he
is coming towards me ! Suppose I were to open
the door? Ah ! Now he is throwing himself on
the floor and sniffing and growling. Poor fellow !
It is a sad sight.
He had guessed nothing. Crouching in the
track of the sunray, and all striped with the
shadow of the shutters, I could more easily ex-
amine him.
His hands and face were spotted with little rosy
stains, like old scratches. One would have said
that he had been fighting.
Ah ! but this is graver. A long purple scar goes
under his hair, from one temple to the other,
round the back of his head. It is very likely the
scar of a wound.
The poor fellow has been ill-treated. Lerne
has made him undergo some horrible treatment,
io6 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
or he is wreaking some vengeance on him. Oh!
the brute !
Immediately an association of ideas worked in
my brain. I remembered the Indian profile of my
uncle, the unusual locks of Emma, — those of the
madman which are so yellow, and the green fleece
of the rat. Can Lerne t>s trying to graft hairy
scalps on bald scalps? Can that be the enter-
prise? — and immediately I see that my idea is
absurd. Nothing corroborates it, and then (this
is a clinching argument) the madman has not been
scalped, as in that case his scar would have de-
scribed a complete circle. Why should he not
have gone mad simply through a fall on the back
of his head? At any rate, he is not a dangerous
lunatic. He is harmless. He has rather a nice
expression. His eyes now shine with a sort of
intelligence. I am sure if I questioned him gently
he would answer. Suppose I tried.
Only a bolt closed the door on my side. I drew
it deliberately, but before I got into the Yellow
Room, the recluse dashed forward, head down-
wards — passed between my legs, knocked me
down, and then escaped, with those dog's yelps
which the other night had made me take him for
a practical joker.
I was disconcerted by his agihty. How could
he make a fool of me that way? And what a
strange idea, that of running between my legs I
"THE MADMAN" 107
In spite of the suddenness of the adventure,
just as quickly as he made me fall, I got on my
legs again, dazed and astonished. Here is a luna-
tic let loose — a madman who will ruin me ! "Oh !
Nicolas, my boy, you are done for, done for!
There is not the shadow of a doubt about it.
Would it not be better to take French leave than
chase the fugitive? What good can it do now?
Ah! But Emma and the secret! Oh, damn it
all ! Let's try and catch him !" and I am after the
Unknown.
I hope he won't go near the gray buildings.
No, thank goodness, he is taking the opposite di-
rection ! None the less, anybody can see us.
The Deserter goes gamboling along in high
spirits, and plunges in the wood. Thank
heaven, the creature is no longer barking, and that
is always something. Is that somebody? No, it
is a statue. I must gain on him as soon as pos-
sible. If he only takes the wrong turn, we shall
be spotted, and it is all up with me. How cheer-
ful he seems, the brute ! Curse him ! If he goes
on in this line, we shall be round the Park, and
the chase will pass under the front of the gray
buildings — under the very windows of Lerne.
A blessing on the trees which still hide us.
Quick. . . . That drawing-room door which I
have left open ! Quick! Quick. . . .
But the fellow did not know he was being
io8 NEW BODIES FOR OLD.
chased. He did not look behind him. His bare
feet were hurting him and keeping him back. I
am gaining on him. . . .
He has stopped and is sniffing the breeze; now
he is off again; but I have got nearer. He has
jumped into the bushes on the left, towards the
cliff — so do I. I am only ten yards off, now. He
dashes through the brambles without heeding
their thorns. I follow in his wake. The branches
are lashing at him, and the thorns are hurting
him. He is moaning. Well, why does not he
thrust them aside? He could easily avoid their
clutches. The cliffs are not far away. Now we
are making straight for them. On my honor !
My quarry seems to know perfectly well where it
is going. I see his back now and again. I must
track him by the crackling of the branches.
At last I see his narrow head again, against
the rocky path. Silently I glide up. Another
second, and I shall be upon him, but an unexpected
action of his makes me pause at the edge of the
clear space which encircles me, and of which the
cliff forms one side.
He is on his knees, scratching furiously at the
soil. The task tortures his nails, so that he
whines as he did a moment ago amongst the thorns
of the hawthorn and the bramble.
The earth flies from behind him up to me; his
rigid hands working with force and rapid motion.
•THE MADMAN" 109
He digs away, groaning with pain, then, ever and
anon, plunges his nose into the hole as deeply as
he can, snorts, shaking his head, and resumes his
task.
The scar is now fully visible to me, it is like a
livid crown. Oh ! I do not mind his madness.
Now's the time. Jump on him, and carry him
off!
I come out of the thicket stealthily. Hallo !
somebody has already been digging here ! A heap
of earth, which has become gray, shows that my
yellow-haired gentleman is only resuming some
old bit of work. Well ! Well !
I bend my legs and get ready to jump.
The man then utters a grunt of pleasure, and
what do I see in the hole he has made — an old
shoe that he has just unearthed! Ah! poor
humanity!
I jumped. I have got him, the rascal. Good
Lord! he turns round and thrusts me away, but
I shall not leave go. It is queer how awkward
he Is with his hands.
Ah ! would you bite, you devil !
I grasp him hard enough to break his bones.
He has never done any wrestling, that is clear,
but I have not got the better of him yet. Ah!
I have made a wrong step ! it is the hole. ...
I am walking on the old boot. Horror!
There is something in it — something which is fas-
no NEW BODIES FOR OLD
tening it to the ground. I am beginning to pant.
"Nothing fits a foot like a shoe."
I must have done with this. The moments are
golden.
Each clasping the other, my adversary and I
are face to face, in front of the rock, gasping —
equally matched. . . . Ah! an idea. I opened
my eyes terribly wide, as if it were a matter of
subduing a child, or a beast. I put on the domi-
nating look of a master, whereupon, the other let
go of his hold, quite tamed, and repentant — and if
he is not licking my hands in token of obedience !
Ah, well ! Come along.
I drag him away. The shoe is an elastic one,
and stands up with its toe in the air. It has not
that lamentable look of worn-out shoes that have
been thrown away on the road, but it is more re-
pulsive. What fixes it on the ground is deep in
the soil. One can only see the end of a bit of
knitting. Can it be a sock?
Trot along, my friend !
My companion remains docile, thanks to my
masterful glances, and we run as hard as we can.
Good Heavens ! What will have happened in
the castle during this expedition?
Nothing whatever had happened, as a matter
of fact.
But, as we got into the hall, I heard Emma and
Barbe talking on the floor above. They were be-
'THE MADMAN" iii
ginning to come down the stairs, when the draw-
ing-room door shutting, as we went in, ended my
alarms — only to give me new ones.
How, now that the poor lunatic was back in his
room, how was I to get out without being observed
by one or other of the women?
Stealthily creeping back on tiptoe to the draw-
ing-room, I listened, with my ear to the panel, to
distinguish in which direction the two intruders
were moving, but suddenly I recoiled into the
middle of the room, demented, looking for shelter
of some kind, such as a screen, and gasping like a
drowning man. . . .
A key was rattling in the lock. Was it my key,
left in the door, and stolen during my absence?
Not at all. Here is my key, in my waistcoat
pocket I I put it there, when I first came in.
Well, then, what could it be?
The verdigrised handle slowly turned. They
were coming in. Who? The Germans? Lerne?
Emma ! Well, she could only see an empty
room. One of the great damask curtains stirred,
perhaps, but she did not remark it.
Barbe stood behind her. The girl was saying
softly: "Stay in there and watch the garden. Do
what you did the other day: that was all right.
As soon as the old man comes out of the Labora-
tory, warn me by coughing."
"It is not he who worries me," replied Barbe,
112 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
obviously afraid. "He is quite easy in his mind
at this moment, I assure you. We shall not see
him before night, but as for that Nicolas, that Is
another pair of shoes. He is coming on !"
So the gray buildings were called the Labora-
tory, and it was for using that word that the
Professor had silenced the servant with a slap. I
was beginning to know more.
Emma went on in an irritated tone :
"I tell you again, there is no danger. It is not
the first time, is it?"
"Ah ! but that Nicolas was not there."
"Come, do what I tell you."
Not quite resigned, Barbe went off to keep
watch. Emma remained for a few instants
listening.
Beautiful ! Oh, she was beautiful ! Like the
very demon of unlawful love, and yet she was but
an outline against the shining rectangle of the
door — a motionless shadow, but a shadow as
supple as a movement. For Emma in repose, al-
ways seemed as if she had paused in the middle of
a dance, and was even continuing it through some
strange spell, so completely did the sight of her
make a harmony — that harmony of the wanton
bayaderes, whose only miming is love-making, and
who cannot move in their undulating, quivering
motions, without shaking their locks, nor make the
"THE MADMAN" 113
least little gesture without a suggestion of
voluptuousness.
Life was boiling in my veins! My senses
whirled. It was like a tide of passion rising from
out the depths of the ages.
Emma! In the madman's room! Heavens!
With that brute! The wretched girl! I could
have killed her.
You will say that I did not know anything, that
my suspicions were groundless.
Ah, then, you do not know that impulsive gait,
that sly and hungry look of women who are going
stealthily to a sweetheart.
It maddened me. The pretty girl, as she has-
tened to this ignoble scene, brushed the curtain
with the swish of her skirt. I stood before her
barring the path.
She gave a gasp of terror. I thought she was
going to faint. Barbe showed her great round
eyes, and fled in panic. Then, like a fool, I gave
the reason for my exploit.
"Why are you going to that madman's room?"
My words sounded artificial, broken.
"Tell me— Why? In God's name, tell me?"
I had flung myself upon her, and twisted her
wrists. She gave a humble moan of complaint,
and swayed in my grasp.
I squeezed the soft, firm flesh of her arms, as
114 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
if I were throttling two doves, and bending over
her agonized eyes, I said.
"WeU, tell me why?"
She looked me up and down in defiance, and
then said:
"Well, what about it? You know perfectly
well that Macbeth was my lover. Lerne gave you
to understand that in my presence on the day of
your arrival."
"Is that Macbeth — that madman?"
Emma did not reply, but her astonishment in-
formed me that I had made another mistake in
showing my ignorance.
"Have I not the right to love him," she went
on. "Do you think you are going to prevent
me?"
I shook her arms as if they were bell-ropes.
"Do you still love him?"
"More than ever — do you understand?"
"But he is a brute beast."
"There are madmen who think they are gods.
He sometimes imagines he is a dog. His lunacy
is, perhaps, therefore less grave, and after
all . . ."
She smiled mysteriously. One would have said
that she wanted to drive me wild.
Then followed a scene I dare not describe.
"THE MADMAN" 115
Well, Barbe made an untimely, but fortunate
entrance, coughing as loudly as she could.
"Here is Monsieur coming." Emma dashed
from my arms. Lerne was terrorizing her once
more, "Off with you! Make haste," she said.
"If he knew, you would be done for, and I, too,
most likely. Oh, do go ! Go, my little duck !
Lerne sticks at nothing."
I felt she was speaking the truth, for her dear
cold hands were shivering in mine, and her mouth
was stuttering with terror.
Still under the excitement of an imbecile happi-
ness, which increased my strength and agility ten-
fold, I climbed the trellis, hand over fist, and
jumped down on the other side of the wall.
I found my car in its garage of greenery. I
piled in my parcels as fast as I could. I was
ridiculously happy. Emma should be mine, and
what a mistress she would make ! — a woman who
had not recoiled before the duty of bringing to a
friend, now become a repulsive thing, the consola-
tion of her visits.
But now it was I who was favored, I was sure
of that. How could that Macbeth love her?
Nonsense! She had lied to me merely to rouse
my passions. She merely had pity on him.
But now, when I came to think of it, how had
madness come upon the Scot, and why was Lerne
ii6 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
keeping it secret? My uncle maintained that
Macbeth had gone away. Then why did he keep
poor Nell in prison? I understood her sorrow at
the window, and her rancor against the Profes-
sor, Some drama had taken place in her prison,
in which Lerne, Emma and Macbeth were the per-
sonages — a drama which was the result of some
grievous fault, indeed, no doubt; but what was the
drama? I should soon find out. A woman has
no secrets from her lover, and that is what I was
going to be.
My joy generally manifests itself in the form of
a song. If I remember rightly, I hummed the air
of a Spanish dance as I went along, and I only
interrupted it suddenly because the remembrance
of the old shoe, now full of sinister meaning in-
truded on my reflections, as the Red Death rises
menacing in the midst of a ball.
Instantly my cheerfulness drooped. The sun
went down in the depth of my thoughts. All
things became dark, suspicious and threatening.
There was a great revulsion within me, the most
dreadful guesses appeared certainties and even the
image of Emma faded away.
A prey to the terrors of the unknown, I re-
entered that dungeon-castle and that garden-
tomb, where the beautiful Demon awaited me,
standing between a madman and a corpse.
CHAPTER VI
NELL THE ST. BERNARD
Some days passed without any event which
could satisfy either my love or my curiosity. Had
Lerne grown suspicious of me, and contrived to
have all my time taken up?
In the morning, he would invite me to accom-
pany him — one day on foot, and another in the
motor-car. During those outings we would talk
at random of scientific matters, and he would
question me as if he really wished to judge of my
capabilities.
With the motor-car we used to cover much
ground. In our walks, my uncle usually took the
road which led straight to Grey. He would often
stop, the better to hold forth, and never went be-
yond the skirts of the wood. Often in the midst
of a dissertation or a jest, after we had started
walking or driving, Lerne would suddenly go back,
distrusting the people he had left at Fonval.
He also organized my afternoons for me;
sometimes I was charged with a message for the
town or the village, sometimes forced to go off by
myself on some errand. I had either to fill up my
117
ii8 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
tank without question, or put on my walking
boots.
Lerne always watched me go, and at nightfall,
standing on his doorstep, he exacted from me an
account of my day. As the case might be, I had
either to give a report of what I had done, or
describe places.
Now, my uncle was not, as a rule, familiar with
places, it is true, but I could not tell which ones,
and so any made-up story would have been danger-
ous. I therefore conscientiously explored the
forest and the country-side from dawn to dusk.
And yet, I should have liked to go to Emma's
room. I had calculated its place in the topog-
raphy of the castle by the number of windows
which were, or were not shut, and I knew them
all thoroughly.
The whole left wing always remained closed.
In the right wing, the ground floor, and, of the six
bedrooms above, only three remained open for
daily use. Mine was in the projecting part of the
building, and, at the other end, the room of my
Aunt Lidivine opened on the central corridor, and
communicated with Lerne's, so that Emma must
have succeeded my aunt in my aunt's own bed.
The very thought of it maddened me, and I
waited impatiently for the opportunity I sought.
But the Professor was keeping watch !
Under his pitiless tyranny, I saw Mile. Bour-
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 119
dichet only at meal-times. We both put on a de-
tached air. I now ventured to look at her, but
I did not dare to speak to her. She persisted in
a most absolute silence, so much so, that, in ab-
sence of conversation, I had to judge of her na-
ture by her bearing, but I must admit that, how-
ever gross may be the human functions of feeding
oneself on dead beasts and withered plants, there
are two methods of eating. This lady thought
nothing of taking the chicken bone, or cutlet bone
in her fingers, and every time she gave herself up
to this pleasure, I fancied I should hear her say,
"My little duck," in her plebeian voice.
Between Emma and me, Lerne fidgeted about.
He crumbled the bread, and dallied with his fork,
and suppressed anger would make him bring down
his fist on the cloth till the cups and glasses
rattled.
One day, by mischance, my foot knocked against
him. The Doctor suspected this innocent foot of
light behavior. He attributed to it telegraphic
intentions, and, persuaded that it had communi-
cated through its toe some pedestrian and stealthy
love-sign, he decreed at once that Mile. Bourdichet
was feeling unwell, and would thenceforth take her
meals in her own room.
So two passions occupied my thoughts — hatred
of Lerne, and love of Emma, and I resolved on
the most audacious plans to satisfy them both. It
120 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
so happened that on that very day, my uncle said
to me suddenly that he wanted to take me In the
car to Nanthel, where he had business. I fancied
I saw a chance of escape from his vigilance.
The next day was a Sunday, and Grey was cele-
brating the Feast of its Patron Saint. I should
know how to profit by that !
"With pleasure. Uncle," I said. "We shaU
start in the car, barring accidents."
"I should prefer to go in the car to Grey, and
then take the train to Nanthel. That will be the
surest way."
That suited my book admirably.
"Very well, uncle."
"The train starts from Grey at 8 o'clock. We
shall come back by the 5.13. There is none be-
fore that."
On arriving at the village, we heard a noise of
bustle, with, every now and again, the lowing of
cattle. A horse neighed, and some sheep were
bleating.
I had some difficulty in making my way across
the Square of Grey-ri\.bbaye, which had now
been turned into a Fair, and was swarming with a
good-tempered and slow-moving crowd.
In the spaces between the shooting galleries, and
other shabby booths, they had inclosed the cattle
which were for sale. Rough hands were calcu-
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 121
latlng the weight of udders, were opening jaws by
which a beast's age can be read, slipping their
hands along their muscles to judge of their condi-
tion, and so on.
The horse dealers were talking big, and between
two rows of patient peasants, grooms were trot-
ting about heavy cart-horses, and riding-whips
were cracking all round.
The first man drunk that day, stumbled up, ad-
dressing me as "Citizen."
We went straight on in the semi-silence of this
Ardennes Market. The village inn was already
full of people, singing, and not yet fighting. The
church-bells were ringing their chimes of warning,
and in the center of the Square, a little white build-
ing, decorated with greenery, showed that the Mu-
nicipal Band would soon be adding its very simple
strains to the hubbub of the fete.
When we got to the station (this was the mo-
ment I had chosen to act), I said:
"Uncle, shall I accompany you in your rounds
at Nanthel?"
"Certainly not. Why?"
"Well, Uncle, in my dislike for cafes, taverns
and public-houses, I shall ask you to leave me here,
where I shall wait for you just as easily as in the
shop In Nanthel."
My uncle replied:
"But, you are not obliged . . ."
122 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
"To begin with, I find the Grey Festival attracts
me. I should like to watch the crowds a little
longer. On such a day one gets the liveliest im-
pressions of the manners of a people, and I feel,
to-day, that I have the soul of an ethnologist."
My uncle said, "You are joking, or else it is a
mere whim."
"In the second place, Uncle, whom could I trust
v/ith my car? The inn-keeper? The drunken
tenant of a hovel full of clodhoppers in their cups?
You surely do not imagine that I am going to leave
a car worth twenty-five thousand francs, exposed
for nine hours by the clock, to the tricks of a
village on the spree! No, no, I prefer to watch
my car myself."
My uncle was not convinced of my sincerity.
He wished to checkmate the little trick which I
might be planning of going back to Fonval, either
in my motor-car, or on a borrowed bicycle, with
the intention of coming back to Grey in time for
the 5.15 — and that was just exactly the plan which
I had thought of. The accursed savant nearly
upset everything.
"You are right," said he coldly, and he set his
foot on the ground, and amid the crowd of holiday
travelers in their Sunday best, raised the bonnet of
the car, and looked at the engine minutely. I felt
quite uncomfortable.
My uncle took out his knife — took the carbu-
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 123
retor, and slipped some of the pieces into his
pocket, and addressed me thus:
"There is your car, brought to a standstill,"
said he, "but as you might make off in another
way, I am going to give you something to do. On
my return, you must show me the carburetor, com-
pletely restored, and fitted up with pieces of your
own make. The blacksmith has not yet shut up
his forge — he will lend you an anvil and vise ; but
he is a fool, and quite unable to help you. There
will be enough there to keep you amused until
S.14."
Perceiving that I did not seem to mind, he went
on in a constrained tone :
"I must ask your pardon. Please do not doubt
that, all this is only to assure your future by pro-
tecting the secret of our work. Good-by."
The train carried him off.
I had let him talk without showing any signs of
annoyance; and indeed, without feeling any, for,
being but a poor chauffeur, detesting grease and
scars on my hands, and obliged by my uncle's will
to do without a mechanic, I had brought with me,
in the boot of my car, several spare pieces,
amongst which, was a complete carburetor, ready
to be put in its place. Ignorance stood me in bet-
ter stead than professional skill, so I set to work
at once, being in no wise disturbed, and merely
124 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
anxious about the inmates of Fonval left to their
own devices.
Presently, having garaged my car in a clump of
trees, I climbed over the park wall, and I should
have climbed straight to Emma's room, if a melan-
choly barking had not sounded in the direction of
the gray buildings.
"The laboratory! Nell!" This curious fact
of a dog being chained up in a laboratory made me
hesitate between the attractiveness of the mystery,
and that of Emma ; but this time, a sort of instinct
of self-preservation aroused by the unknown, and
the danger one attributes to it, was bound to carry
the day.
I made my way towards the gray buildings. Be-
sides, the Germans would no doubt be there, and
their presence would prevent me from dawdling.
So it was merely a matter of snatching a few min-
utes from love-making.
As I passed the Yellow Room, I put my ear to
the shutters in order to assure myself that Mac-
beth was alone. He was so, a circumstance which
filled my heart with a vast satisfaction.
Some white clouds were floating in a cold sky.
The wind was coming from Grey-l'Abbaye, and
brought me through the gorge the monotonous
sound of the church bells. Endlessly they repeated
the same three notes, thus performing the chime
of the Arlesienne. I was gay ! To this sacred
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 125
accompaniment I whistled the melody played by
the orchestra, and the juxtaposition of the two was
like placing a modern statuette on a Gothic
pedestal.
In front of the laboratory, on the other side of
the road, there was a wood. I made tacks to
reach it, having formed my plan of assault. In
the middle of this wood, I used to possess an old
friend — a fir tree. Its projecting branches formed
a spiral staircase. It completely dominated the
buildings. No laboratory could have been better
placed, or more accessible, and in the old days I
used to play there at being a sailor on the yard-
arms.
The tree offered me a perch, rather short, no
doubt, but still, well padded. On the upper
branches, a relic awaited me, made of cords and
rotten planks — the cross-trees ! Who would have
said that one day I, who used to spy out conti-
nents, archipelagoes — phantasies with some like-
lihood about them — should now be there as a spy
for things so fabulously unreal? My glances
turned towards the ground.
As I have said, the laboratory was composed of
a court-yard between two blocks of buildings. The
one on the left was pierced with large bay windows
on its one story, and on its ground floor. It
seemed to me to be merely two large rooms — one
above the other. I only saw the higher one,
126 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
which was elaborately equipped — an apothecary's
cupboard, marble tables covered with bulbs, bottles
and retorts, cases (open), sets of polished instru-
ments, and two indescribable pieces of apparatus
of glass and nickel, which recalled nothing
analogous, except, perhaps, vaguely, the round
globes screwed to a stand on which cafe waiters
lay their napkins.
The other block which was beyond my range,
looked from the outside like an ordinary dwelling-
house, and was evidently the place where the two
assistants lodged.
But, what I had taken for a farmyard on the
day of my arrival, took up all my attention.
What a miserable farmyard! Its walls were
fitted with wire-netted compartments of various
sizes, which rose, piled on one another, to an im-
mense height.
In these lodges, each duly labeled, rabbits,
guinea-pigs, rats, cats and other animals which I
could not distinguish because of the distance,
moved about painfully, or remained lying, half-
hidden under the straw.
Some litter, however, was jumping about, but
I could not perceive the cause. A nest of mice, I
presumed.
The last cage on the right served as a hen-
house. Contrary to custom, they had locked up
the poultry in it.
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 127
Everything looked mute and melancholy. Four
hens and a cock, of rare breed, were carrying on
a more cheerful kind of life, and strutted about
cackling on the concrete floor, pecking at it per-
sistently, in the vain hope of discovering corn or
worms.
In the middle of the yard there was a large
hollow square of gratings. These were the
kennels.
Between the two rows of compartments, like
philosophers that were both Cynics and Peripate-
tics, dogs, with a resigned look, walked up and
down — ordinary terriers, butcher's lurchers,
watch-dogs, bull-terriers, a ruffianly bulldog and
mongrel bloodhounds — in fact, a whole pack of
coarse, good-for-nothing-but-fidelity beasts.
They were roaming up and down, and gave this
courtyard the appearance of the yard of a vet-
erinary hospital. And this Is where things took
on a somber coloring. Of all those beasts very
few seemed healthy. Most of them were wearing
bandages — on the back, round the neck, on the
back of the head, and more especially round the
head. One hardly saw any of them through the
grating, which did not wear a piece of white
linen rolled up into a cap, hood or turban, and this
procession of sorrowful dogs, with their absurd
headdresses of linen bandages, and each with a
128 NEW BODIES FOR OLD.
label attached to its neck, was a most funereal
sight to see.
Most of those poor wretches were smitten with
some infirmity. One would fall on his muzzle at
almost every step; another was limping; the head
of a third was shaking and quivering like that of a
palsied old man. A mastiff stumbled about,
whining without apparent reason, and suddenly it
would utter a loud death-like howl.
Nell was not there !
I perceived in a shady corner an aviary — silent
and with no bird trying its flight. As far as I
could make out, the occupants belonged to the
commoner families of birds, and there were
sparrows in great numbers. The greater portion
of them, however, were a white-headed species,
but I did not know enough of ornithology to
recognize them from such a height.
The smell of carbolic came up to me.
Oh, for the scents of the farmyard, the cooing
of pigeons on the moss-clad roofs, the cock's
cock-a-doodle-doo, the yelp of the dog tugging at
its chain, the squadrons of geese with outspread
wings ! I kept thinking of you, in the -presence
of this lazar-house !
A sad farmyard, indeed, with its severe
arrangement, and its patients ticketed like the
plants in a hothouse.
Suddenly there was a bustling. The dogs went
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 129
back to their kennels, and the poultry took refuge
under a trough. Nothing budged again. The
aviary and the cages seemed to contain nothing
but stuffed beasts.
Karl, the German, with his Kaiser-like mus-
taches, had come out of the building on the left.
He opened one of the compartments, thrust out
his hand towards a ball of hair which was curled
up in it, and drew out a monkey.
The animal, which was a chimpanzee, strug-
gled. The assistant dragged it off, and dis-
appeared with It by the way he had come. The
mastiff gave a long howl.
Then began a bustling in the apparatus-room,
and I saw that the three assistants had just come
in. They stretched out the gagged monkey on
the table, and fastened It solidly down; William
thrust something under its nose.
Karl, with a morphia syringe, pricked the
chimpanzee's flank, then the tall old man, Johann,
approached. He put his golden spectacles
straight, with a hand which held a knife, and bent
over the patient.
I cannot explain the operation so rapid was it,
but In less than no time, the face of the chim-
panzee was nothing but a hideous blur of red.
I turned away, sickened with a sense of dis-
comfort — a discomfort caused by seeing blood.
At last I turned my face back again. It was too
130 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
late; the sun was striking on the windows, and I
could not see for the dazzle; but in the court-
yard, the dogs had left their boxes, and amongst
them now Donovan Macbeth's dog Nell was
prowling about.
She was coughing. Her hairless skin no longer
suggested the fine coat of a St. Bernard. The
superb creature was nothing but a great carcass,
whose leanness contrasted with the comparative
plump shapes of her companions.
Nell, too, wore a bandage on the back of her
neck. What had Lerne devised to make her
suffer since the night of their adventure? What
diabolical invention was he trying upon her?
Nell seemed to be reflecting; her very manner
of walking suggested consternation. She held
aloof from the other dogs, and when a certain
bulldog accosted her in the way of gallantry, she
started back with a look so fierce, and a hoarse
cry so terrible, that the other hurried off to the
depths of its lair, whilst the rest of the pack, put
out of countenance, raised their bedizened heads.
The coy Nell went her way.
What was I doing, remaining there ! In spite
of my haste to shorten this reconnaissance, and
betake myself to other pastimes, something held
me back — something inexplicable in the behavior
of this poor dog.
At this moment, a "quick-step" played by the
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 131
band at Grey-rAbbaye, reached Fonval on the
wings of the wind. My fingers, of their own
accord, beat time on the branches of my observa-
tion post, and I perceived that Nell had quickened
her walk and was marching in time to the rh)^hm
of the music !
I then remembered that, in talking of Nell,
Emma had alluded to her performing-dog tricks.
Was this a circus exercise taught by Macbeth to
his St. Bernard? It did not seem to me that
in the absence of the trainer such a dance could
have been e?-:ecuted, and that an auditory sensa-
tion could arouse, in the case of an animal, those
mechanical movements which have always been
our prerogative, and are the result of habits more
complex than those of instincts.
The music died away as the wind fell. The
dog sat down, raised her eyes, and saw me.
"Good Heavens, she is going to bark and
give the alarm . . . I" Not at all. She looked
at me without fear or wrath — with eyes, the
memon' of which will always be with me — then
shaking her great shaggy- head, she began to groan
gently, making a vague gesture with her paw, then
she resumed her round, still murmuring, and cast-
ing furtive glances in my direction, as if she de-
sired to make herself understood without drawing
the attention of the Germans.
(This, of course, is a mere descriptive phrase,
132 NEW BODIES FOR OLD.
but one might, all the same, have imagined that
the creature wanted to speak, so human were the
inflections of her moans, which roughly formed a
long, gutteral and monotonous phrase, in which
there always occurred the syllables, "Mabet,
Mabet." The whole thing made a gurgling sound,
rather like English words badly articulated.)
The entry on the scene of the three assistants
put a stop to this curious phenomenon.
They crossed the courtyard, and all the dogs —
Nell at the head — slunk to shelter. Wilhelm, as
he passed, flung over the grating of the kennel a
chunk of meat — the body of the monkey, skinned,
the hairy part hanging attached.
It fell heavily. It was dead !
The Germans then went into the building on
the right, whose chimney was smoking. Then,
one by one, the dogs came and sniffed at the re-
mains of the chimpanzee. The bulldog gave the
first bite, and then came the whole pack, growling
ferociously.
The muzzles of the lame ones were soon dyed
red, as their gnashing teeth tore to bits this piti-
ful caricature of a child's body. Nell, only, in
front of her kennel, with her paws crossed, dis-
dained the feast, and looked at me with her
beautiful eyes. I fancied I had discovered why
she was so thin.
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 133
Upon this, a window opened, through which I
perceived a table set for three. The assistants
were going to lunch in front of my wood. It was
time for me to withdraw.
Here I committed an unpardonable piece of
folly, I ought to have set out on my campaign
against the old shoe — that was elementary. It
appeared to me, wrongly, that I had made a
supreme concession to prudence — that an elastic
boot has many titles to be considered merely an
elastic boot, and not a buried man — not even a
buried body; and that, to a generous heart a
pretty girl is more important than all knickknacks.
I reviewed all these reasons, with the result
that I turned towards the chateau.
The bedroom of my Aunt Lidivine now served
as a lumber-room. One would have said it was
the wardrobe of a lady of fortune. Several wicker
lay-figures covered with extremely elegant toi-
lettes, formed a crowd of armless and headless
coquettes. The mantelpiece and tables were like
a dressmaker's show-cases, where feathers and
ribbons go to make up those tiny or huge con-
traptions, which only become pretty hats once they
are on the head. A battalion of dress shoes were
fitted on their trees, and a thousand feminine
trifles were heaped up everywhere, in the midst of
134 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
a delicate and suggestive aroma, which was the
one Emma loved.
Poor dear Aunt ! I should have preferred your
room to have been still further profaned, and that
Mile. Bourdichet had made it hers, rather than to
hear laughter in the next one — that of your hus-
band; for this left one no illusions.
On my appearance, Emma and Barbe seemed
stupefied. The girl immediately understood, and
began to laugh. She was lunching in bed, and
with a turn of the wrist, she twisted her flaming
Bacchante hair into a knot.
I saw the outline of her arm through the sleeve,
and she did not think of closing her nightdress.
A table covered with bottles and brushes had
been pushed against the bed.
Barbe, who was serving her mistress, cut huge
slices out of a ham. My first thought was that
Barbe would be much in my way.
"And what about Lerne?" said Emma.
I reassured her. He would only come back at
5 o'clock. I guaranteed that. She gave that
little cheerful cluck, which is the sob of joy.
Barbe, who was obviously devoted to her, got
so uproariously delighted that her whole person
took part in the festival.
It was half past twelve. We had four hours
before us. I suggested that that was rather short,
NELL— THE ST. BERNARD 135
but "Let us have lunch, will you, dearie?" said
she.
I had nothing better to do for the moment,
because of Barbe, and I sat down face to face with
her.
CHAPTER VII
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET
"Well, my dear," she said, "now that we have
got as far as that, it is no use trying not to begin
again, but I entreat you, no imprudences — safety
first ! Lerne, you know, Lerne ! Ah, you don't
know what dangers there are for you — you above
all — you especially!"
I saw that she was brooding over the memory
of tragic scenes.
"But what are the dangers?"
"That is just the worst of it, I do not know.
I do not understand anything that is happening
around. Anything! Anything! Except that
Donovan Macbeth went mad because I loved him, .
— and I love you, too." |
"Come, Emma, let us be cool. We are allies |
now. Between us we shall find out the truth.
When did you come to Fonval, and what has hap-
pened since?"
And then she told me her adventures. I repro-
duce them, stringing them together as best I can,
to make them clearer, but as a matter of fact, her
story was spread over a dialogue in which my
136
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 137
questions guided the story-teller, who was ever
ready to make digressions, and was loquacious in
futilities.
Sometimes as we talked, a noise would interrupt
our talk. Emma would sit up in terror of Lerne,
and I could not prevent myself shivering, at the
sight of her fear, for had there been an eye or
an ear at the keyhole, the somber story would
have been repeated in my case.
One way or another, I learned from Emma her
origin and her early life. It has nothing to do
with my story, and might easily be summed up
in the phrase "How a foundling became a
courtesan !"
Emma showed, during this confession, a sin-
cerity which would have been called cynicism in
the case of any one less candid.
With the same frankness, she went on:
"I got to know Lerne years ago. I was fifteen,
and at the hospital at Nanthel. I had entered
his service as a nurse? No! I had had a fight
with my friend Leonie about Alcide, who was my
man. Well, I am not ashamed of it! He is
superb! He is a Colossus! My dear boy, he
could chuck you about like a ball. My belt was
too narrow a bracelet for him !
"Well, I got a blow with a knife — a nasty one,
too. Just look!"
She flung off the coverlet, and showed me, near
138 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
her shoulder, a livid triangular scar — the handi-
work of the execrable Leonie.
"Yes, you may well kiss it," she went on. "I
nearly died of it. Your uncle looked after me,
and saved me. I may well say that.
"At that time, your uncle was a fine fellow —
not stuck-up. He often spoke to me. I thought
that flattering. The head surgeon ! Think of
that ! And he talked so well, too. He gave me
long sermons, just as fine as any in Church, about
my life: it was bad, I ought to change it, and so
on, and so forth. And all this without having the
least appearance of being disgusted with me, and
so sincerely that I for my part, began to be dis-
gusted with it myself, and not to wish for any
m.ore of the gay life, or any more Alcide. Illness,
you know, that cools one's blood; and Lerne said
to me one fine day, 'You are cured now, and can
go away when you like, only it is not enough to
have taken a good resolution — you must keep it.
Will you come to my house? You shall be the
laundry-maid, and you will earn your living far
from your old companions, and all on the square,
too,' he said.
"All this puzzled me. I said to myself, 'Oh,
talk away. That is only a pretty speech to fool
me. One does not offer to keep a woman for the
love of art.'
"But all the same, Lerne's kindness, his rank,
II
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 139
his fame, and a certain kind of niceness in him,
made me more grateful, and made it into a sort
of affection, do you see, and I accepted his pro-
posal, and all that might follow.
"Well, would you believe it! Not at all!
There still was a saint on earth, and that was he.
For a whole year he kept away from me.
"I had kept my journey secret, for the idea of
Alcide finding me again kept me from sleeping.
" 'Oh, do not be afraid,' said Lerne, 'I am no
longer the hospital surgeon, I am going to work
at research. We are going to live in the country,
and nobody will come to seek you there.'
"So that is how I was brought here.
"Ah, you should have seen the chateau and the
park, gardens, servants, carriages, and horses —
nothing wanting! I was quite happy.
"When we got here, the workmen were finish-
ing off the additions to the conservatory and the
laboratory.
"Lerne kept an eye on their work. He was
always joking, and repeating, 'Ah, we are going
to work there, we are going to work there,' in the
same sort of a tone in which schoolboys shout
out, 'Hurrah for the holidays !'
"They fitted up the laboratory. Lots of boxes
were put in it, and when all was finished, Lerne
set off one morning to Grey in the dog-cart. The
avenue was still straight at that time.
140 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
"I still see your uncle coming back with the
five travelers and the dog which he had gone to
get at the station — Donovan Macbeth, Johann,
Wilhelm, Karl, Otto Klotz — you remember him —
the tall dark fellow with the mustache? — and
Nell. The Scot had joined the Germans at
Nanthel, I think he must have known them
before.
"The assistants put up at the laboratory, and
Macbeth slept in a bedroom in the chateau — Dr.
Klotz also.
"Klotz frightened me from the first, and yet
he was a strong, handsome chap.
"I could not help asking Lerne where he had
picked up that jail-bird! My question amused
him very much.
" 'Oh, make your mind easy,' he answered.
'You are always imagining you see friends of M.
Alcide. Professor Klotz has come from Ger-
many. He Is very learned. He is not an assist-
ant, he is a collaborator, and will watch over the
work of his three compatriots.' "
"Excuse me, Emma," I said. Interrupting her,
"did my uncle speak German and English at that
time?"
"Not much, I think. He tried every day, but
it was not much good. It was only at the end of
a year, and all of a sudden, that he managed to
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 141
speak, it fluently. The assistants knew a few
French words, and Klotz rather more, as well as
a little English.
"As for Macbeth, he only understood his own
language.
"Lerne told me that he had agreed to take him
at Fonval because the young man's father asked
him; he wanted his son to work for a time under
Lerne's directions.
"Where was your room, Emma?"
"Near the laboratory. Oh, far away from
Macbeth and Klotz !" she added with a smile.
"How did all those men stand towards one
another?"
"They seemed good friends, but I do not know
if they were really. I fancy that the four Ger-
mans were jealous of Macbeth. I saw nasty looks
sometimes, but in any case, they can't have hurt
Donovan much, because his job was not in the
laboratory, but in the chateau and the conserva-
tory.
"His work at first was to swat up French from
books. We used to meet often, because I was
always coming and going in the house. He was
always polite and respectful, to judge by the signs
he made, of course, and I was obliged to be
amiable, too.
"Those little bits of politeness, I am afraid,
made him and Klotz hate each other; I soon saw
142 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
that, but they both managed to hide their disHke
wonderfully.
"Nell could not hide hers, and never missed a
chance of growling at the German, and that was,
to my thinking, only the smallest sign that a row
was likely, but your uncle — he saw nothing, and I
did not want to bother him with my complaints.
I did not dare to do so, and on the other hand,
I thought it rather good fun to make them jealous.
"All m.y promises to Lerne to be good could
not stop me from being amused at the jealousy of
those two, and I do not know what would have
been the end of it, when everything changed all
of a sudden.
"We had been here a year—that is four years
ago now."
"Ah, ha!" I cried.
"What is it?"
"Nothing, nothing!"
"Well, it is four years ago that Donovan Mac-
beth went off to Scotland for a few weeks' holiday
with his people. The day after he had gone,
Lerne left me in the morning. 'I am going,' said
he, 'to Nanthel with Klotz. We shall stay there
a whole day.'
"At night Klotz came back alone. I inquired
about Lerne, and he told me that the Professor
had heard important news and had to go abroad,
and that he would be away for about three weeks.
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 143
*' 'Where is he?' I asked again.
"Klotz hesitated, and at last said, 'He is in
Germany. We shall be by ourselves for that time,
Emma.'
"He had put his arm round my waist, and was
looking into my eyes.
"I could not understand how Lerne could do
such a thing — to leave me without warning at the
mercy of a stranger.
" 'How do you like me?' asked Klotz, pressing
me against him.
"I have already told you, Nicolas, that he was
big and strong. I felt his muscles tighten like
a vise.
" 'Well, Emma,' he went on, 'you are going to
love me to-day, for you will never see me again.'
"I am not a coward. Between you and me, I
have been caressed by hands which had just com-
mitted murder. I have been made love to in ways
that were like murder. My first lover would have
stuck a knife into you as soon as look at you. But
Klotz was too awful. I shall never forget how
frightened I was.
"I woke up late in the morning. He was gone.
I have never seen him again.
"Three weeks passed. Your uncle never wrote ;
he stayed away longer still.
"He came back without notice. I did not even
see him come in. He told me that he had made
144 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
straight for the laboratory as soon as he got back.
I saw him come out about mid-day. I was quite
sorry for him, he looked so pale. He was bent
double as if he were worried to death. He was
walking slowly, as if he were following a hearse.
"What had he been told ! What had he done !
What trouble was he in?
"I asked him gently. He still spoke with the
accent of the country which he had just come from.
" 'Emma,' said he, 'I think that you love me?'
" 'You know very well that I do, my dear bene-
factor. I am devoted to you, body and soul.'
" 'Do you think that you can love me with real
love? Oh,' said he, with a snigger, 'I am no
longer a young man, but . . .'
"What was I to say? I did not know. Lerne
knitted his brows.
"He seized my two hands. His eyes were
terrible.
" 'Now,' cried he, 'no more joking; no more
little games, you are mine exclusively. I quite
understood what was going on here, and that there
were admirers hovering round you. I have got
rid of Klotz, and as for Donovan Macbeth, be
on your guard. If he does not stop, it is all up
with him. Look out !'
"Then, Lerne, having got rid of the servants,
took on this poor Barbe as his only domestic, and
then he arranged the labyrinth and its roads.
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 145
"On the day arranged, Macbeth, in his turn,
came back to the chateau, followed by his dog.
He was surprised to see the forest all upside down.
"Lerne went up to him while he was still hold-
ing his luggage in his hand, and he quite dum-
founded him by such a violent lecture, and so evil
a countenance, that Nell bristled up, put out her
claws and began to growl.
"What was bound to happen, happened. Con-
sidering the age and position of our host, Mac-
beth and I should probably have 'respected his
roof,' as they say, but it was only a question, now,
of deceiving an angry tyrant. And we did.
"Meanwhile, the Professor became more and
more absurd and irritable every day. He was
living in an extraordinary state of excitement,
never going out; working like a horse, genial,
perhaps, but certainly ill.
"You ask me why I think so. I will tell you.
"His memory began to fail. He used to get
strange fits of forgetfulness, and often asked me
about things concerning his own past; he remem-
bered nothing clearly except scientific matters.
"No more joking, that was true, and no more
happiness with him!
"For a mere whim, Lerne would swear at me.
For a suspicion^ he would beat me. Not that I
mind hard words or hard blows, but only from
some one I love.
146 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
*'I declared to this worn-out old creature that I
had had enough solitude. 'I want to be off,' I
said.
"Ah, my dear, if you had seen him. He fell
at my knees and embraced them.
"What he said was, 'Remain, my dear Emma,
for two years more. Wait until then, and we will
go away together, and you shall have the life of
a queen. Have patience. I understand you are
not made to be in this sort of position, as if in a
convent. Take my word for it, I am making a
vast fortune for you. Two more years, living
like a little bourgeoisie, and then the life of an
empress.'
"I was dazzled at the prospect, and remained
at Fonval.
"But the years followed one after the other —
the term was up, and no luxury yet. However,
I waited and trusted, because Lerne was so con-
fident, and so clever,
" 'Do not be downhearted,' he said, 'we are
getting on. All shall happen as I prophesy. You
shall have millions,' and to cheer me up, he
ordered for me, from Paris, every season, gowns
and hats of all sorts, and many other knick-
knacks.
" 'Learn to wear them,' said he, 'learn your
part, and rehearse the future.'
"I lived three years in this way. About this
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 147
time Lerne's great voyage to America took place.
It lasted two months, for which time, your uncle
had sent Macbeth back to his family, by way of
a holiday.
"They came back on the same day.
"I think that the Professor and he had agreed
to meet at Dieppe. Lerne was gloomy and angry.
'You will have to wait a bit yet, Emma,' he said.
" 'What is the matter?' I said. 'Isn't it coming
off?'
" 'They think that my Inventions are not per-
fect enough; but there is nothing to be afraid of.
I shall find what I want yet.'
"He resumed his researches in the laboratory.'*
Once more, I interrupted Emma's narrative.
"Excuse me," I said, "did Macbeth work also
in the laboratory at that time?"
"Never! Lerne gave him jobs to do in the
hothouse, where he kept my poor friend a
prisoner.
"Poor Donovan, he would have done better to
have remained over yonder. It was for my sake
that he came back from Scotland, and he tried to
make me understand that in his jargon.
" 'For you, for you,' was all he could manage
to say.
"For me ! Good heavens, what had he become
'for me' a few weeks later I
148 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
"Now listen ! Here is where the madness comes
in.
"That winter it was snowing. Lerne was taking
a nap in the armchair in the little drawing-room —
at least he was pretending to have a nap,
"Donovan gave me a glance. Pretending to
go out to have a walk in the snow, which was
falling, he went out by the hall. I heard him
whistling a tune outside. He moved away. I
went back to the dining-room to help the maid
clear the table. Donovan joined me there, by the
door opposite to that of the little drawing-room
which we left open so that we could hear Lerne's
movem.ents.
"He flung his arms round me. I embraced him.
We had a silent kiss.
"Suddenly Donovan went green. I followed
his looks. The door of the little drawing-room
has a glass panel, and in that dim mirror, I saw
Lerne's eyes watching us.
"Then he was upon us. My knees gave under
me. Macbeth is a little man. Lerne flung him
to the ground. They struggle. Blood flows.
Your uncle uses his feet and teeth and nails
ferociously.
"I scream and tear at his clothes. Suddenly he
picks himself up. Macbeth is in a faint, and then,
Lerne gives a wild laugh, flings him over his
shoulder, and carries him off to the laboratory.
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 149
"I keep shouting, and then I had a sudden Idea.
'"Nell, Nell!' I cried.
"The dog came up. I pointed out the group to
her, and she dashed off at the moment when Lerne
was disappearing behind the trees with his burden.
She disappeared also.
"I listen. She barks, and suddenly I can dis-
tinguish nothing more than the rustle of the snow.
"Lerne dragged me about by the hair. It re-
quired all my belief in his promise, and all his
assurance of a glorious future, to stop me from
running away that very day.
"But, having caught me deceiving him, he only
loved me the more ardently.
"Days passed. I hardly dared hope that Mac-
beth had got off as easily as Klotz — and been sent
away. Neither he nor his dog appeared again.
"At last the Professor ordered me to get ready
the Yellow Room for the Scot.
" 'Is he alive, then?' I asked without reflection.
" 'Only half,' said Lerne, 'he is mad. This is
the sad result of your folly, Emma. First of all
he thought himself God Almighty, then the Tower
of London. At 'present he thinks he's a dog.
To-morrow he will suffer from some other
delusion, no doubt.'
" 'What have you done to him?' I cried out.
" 'Little girl,' said the Professor, 'nothing has
^150 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
been done to him, just you remember that, and
bite your tongue if you ever think of gossiping.
When I carried off Macbeth after our struggle in
the dining-room, it was so that I might look after
him. You saw he fainted. He injured his head
badly in his fall. That caused a lesion, and then
madness. That was all, you understand?'
"I said nothing more, because I was certain that
if your uncle had not put an end to Donovan, his
only motive was fear of the family, and the law.
"That evening they brought him back to the
chateau — his head all wrapped in bandages. He
did not recognize me.
"I still loved him, and I visited him secretly.
"He got better quickly. Being shut up made
him put on fat. The Macbeth of the photograph,
and the Macbeth of the Yellow Room, became
very unlike each other, so much so, that you did
not recognize him at first."
"But tell me — you do not know anything about
Klotz? What did my uncle do with him? You
said a moment ago he had been sent away."
"I was always certain he had been sent away.
His behavior when he left, and that of Lerne
when he came back from Germany, made me feel
sure of it."
"Has he a family?"
"I think he is an orphan, and a bachelor."
THUS "SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 151
"How long did Macbeth remain in the labora-
tory?"
"About three weeks or a month."
"Was his hair always fair, before this hap-
pened?" I asked, still riding my hobby-horse.
She said, "Certainly, what an idea!"
"And what did they do with Nell?"
"The day after the quarrel, I heard her howl-
ing loudly, no doubt because they had separated
her from her master.
"According to your uncle, whom I asked
about it, she was with other dogs, in a kennel.
'Her right place,' added Lerne. She got out of
it the other night — perhaps you heard her.
"Poor Nell, how quickly she found out Mac-
beth was gone. She often howls at night-time.
Her life is not happy."
"Tell me the end of it," I said. "What is at
the bottom of it? What is the truth? Do you
believe in the madness which resulted from the
fall?"
"How do I know? It is possible, but I suspect
the laboratory contains horrible things, the very
sight of which would drive any one mad. Donovan
had never been in it. He must have seen some
ghastly things."
I then remembered the chimpanzee, and the
horrible impression its death had made upon me.
Emma might be right. The incident of the
152 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
monkey strongly supported her hypothesis, but
instead of trying to find the answer to each riddle
in detail, should I not have gone back four years,
to that critical moment when so many problems
had started? Should I not have studied closely
the mysterious period when so many doors had
closed, in order to find the key which should open
them all?
A little foot peeped from the coverlet, and lay,
white and pink, on the pale yellow cover; it was
smooth, and like a strange jewel in its case.
"Good gracious, my dear, can you really walk
with that pretty little thing, with its nails polished
like Japanese corals — this living ticklish jewel —
that a mustache drives away."
The little foot went back into its cover, but
however dainty and tender and quick it was, it
recalled another one to me by contrast — the one
In the forest clearing — that sinister thing, which
I now felt sure was a piece of dead flesh in the
old shoe.
Suddenly it seemed to me that I was wandering
alone in a night full of ambushes.
"Emma, suppose we run away!"
She shook her Msenad's locks, and refused.
"Donovan proposed that to me. No, Lerne
has promised me I shall be rich; besides, on the
day 3'ou arrived, he swore he would kill me if I
THUS SPAKE MLLE. BOURDICHET 153
deceived him, or tried to escape. I found out long
ago that he could fulfill his first threat, and I know
now that he could carry out the second."
"That is true. When he introduced us to one
another, you had the shadow of death in your
eyes."
"Now," she went on, "we can hide our love,
but we could not hide our running away. No, no,
let us stop where we are, and keep our eyes open.
Let us be careful."
Half-past four was striking on the clock when
I left my mistress, in order to return to Grey-
I'Abbaye.
CHAPTER VIII
RASHNESS
I MADE my way as fast as I could back to Grey.
The fete was in full swing, and the crowd of
merry-makers received me with impertinent re-
marks and jokes.
Five by the station clock ! I profited by the
time at my disposal to arrange things a little, so
that my uncle might the more easily fall into the
snare which he had spread with his own hands
when he set me the task of repairing part of the
machine of which I had a duplicate.
Having put on my blue overalls, dirtied my
hands and face, taken out my tool-box, and turned
everything in it upside down, I slightly dented the
new carburetor, with light taps of a hammer, and
dirtied it with blacklead. With a few scrapes of
a file I succeeded in giving it the sort of rough
look of a newly forged piece of metal.
The train came in. When Lerne touched my
shoulder, I was endeavoring, with a great show
of effort to screw up a nut which was already
perfectly tight.
154
RASHNESS 155
"Nicolas 1"
I turned towards my uncle a face like a coal-
heaver's, putting on as harsh an expression as I
could.
"I have just finished," I muttered; "that was a
nice trick of yours, getting people to work all for
nothing."
"Does it work all right again?"
"Oh, yes! I have just tried. You can see the
engine is smoking."
"Do you want the bits I carried away put back
into the carburetor?"
"Oh, no ! keep them as a remembrance of this
happy day, uncle. Come, let us get in, I have
had enough of standing about here."
Frederic Lerne was annoyed.
"You do not mind, Nicolas, do you?"
"Oh no, uncle, I do not mind."
"I have my reasons, you know. Later on . . ."
"All right, if you knew me, however, you would
not have been so much on your guard, but our
agreement justifies all you did. I should have had
no right to complain."
He made a vague, evasive gesture.
"You are not angry, that is the main point.
You understand how things are, don't you?"
Evidently Lerne was afraid he had vexed me,
and that, as a result of my annoyance, I might
disclose the existence of important secrets at
156 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Fonval, even though I might not be able to inform
the right people of their nature.
Weighing all the facts of the case, I felt that
my presence as a stranger, free to depart when I
liked, must have been a subject for constant alarm
for my uncle. It seemed to me that in his place,
had I been obliged to receive a third party because
of his relationship with me, I should assuredly
have preferred to make him my accomplice as
soon as possible, so as to insure his discretion.
"After all," thought I to myself, "why has my
uncle not thought of it? Before the uncertain,
and perhaps illusory date when Lerne is to initi-
ate me, he will have to pass through a long period
of torment while he exercises over me the double
vigilance of an analyst and a police-officer.
"Suppose I were to anticipate his project? He
would doubtless gladly hasten to give the informa-
tion which Is as sacred as a secret of the con-
fessional, and which would unite the master and
the pupil in the same plot.
"I do not see why he should take my advances
badly, for in either of the two possible eventuali-
ties, that is, whether Lerne's promises to initiate
me into his enterprise are made in good faith or
not, the situation to-day has only two issues —
either my departure, with its threat of revelation,
or my connivance.
"Now, Emma and the mystery tie me to the
RASHNESS 157
chateau, so I shall not go; there remains, there-
fore, a pretended complicity which would, more-
over, have the advantage of allowing me to solve
the puzzle — and who except Lerne could reveal
it to my eyes, since Emma knows nothing about
it, and since each solved problem, if I investigated
it by myself, would only leave another one to
follow?
"A sage diplomacy might certainly persuade my
uncle to make speedy revelations; that is what he
wants to do, but how to bring him to do it?
"What I must do is to insinuate that his secrets,
however criminal they may be, do not terrify me,
so that I shall have to pose as a man of resolution,
who does not shrink from contact with crimes,
and would not think of denouncing them, because,
if need were, he would commit them himself.
Yes, that's it!
"But how to hit on a crime which Lerne might
perpetrate, and which I might say Is natural and
harmless, and one which I would commit on the
first occasion myself?
"Good heavens, Nicolas! Yes, his own wicked
deeds ! Tell him that you know one of the worst
things he has done, and that you not only approve
of it, but of others of the same sort, and that
you are ready to help him in the matter. Then,
after such a declaration, he will unbosom himself,
and you will learn everything, with the intention
158 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
of using this confidence, dictated by mere self-
interest for your own ends. But let me be cun-
ning. I shall only speak to my uncle when he is
in a pleasant humor, and provided the evidence of
the old shoe is not too damning."
So I reasoned, as I took Lerne back to Fonval,
but after my stormy afternoon, my ideas were not
very brilliant.
Under the influence of my environment, I
brooded over Lerne's unproven crimes and I
imagined them to be detestable and innumerable.
I forgot that his work, carried on with such
secrecy, and secure from risk of imitation, might
well have an industrial aim. In my impatience to
satisfy my curiosity and by reason of my exhaus-
tion, this strategy seemed to me a brilliant idea.
I underrated the enormity of the fictitious
avowal I should have to make before getting any-
thing in exchange.
Further reflection would have indicated the
danger to me, but adverse fortune would have it
that my uncle, satisfied by my answer, and seeing
me take things so well, affected the most surpris-
ing joviality. Never would an opportunity more
suitable to my designs present itself, so I thought-
lessly seized it.
According to his custom, my uncle waxed
enthusiastic over the car, and made me maneuver
RASHNESS is<)
as I went through the labyrinth, and it was while
twisting and turning about that I had been de-
liberating in the manner described.
"Marvelous, Nicolas, I tell you again, It is
prodigious, this automobile ! An animal — a real
organized animal, and perhaps the least imperfect
of all, and who knows to what pitch progress may
lift it ! A spark of life in it ! A little more spon-
taneity! A touch of brain, and behold the most
beautiful creature in the world! Yes, more
beautiful than we are, perhaps, for remember
what I told you — it is perfectible, and undying —
two qualities of which the physical being of man
is pitifully devoid.
"Our whole body renews Itself almost entirely,
Nicolas. Your hair!" (Why the devil was he
always talking of hair?) Your hair is not the
same as it was last year, for example. It comes
up again, less brown, and older, and in smaller
numbers, whereas the automobile changes its parts
at will, and get young again each time, with a new
heart, and new brains which have more cunnlngj
than the original parts,
"So that in a thousand years a motor-car, which
never ceases to improve, will be as young as it is
to-day, if it has been put to rights at the proper
time, bit by bit.
"And do not tell me that It will not be the same
car, since all its parts shall have been replaced.
i6o NEW BODIES FOR OLD
If you made that objection, Nicolas, what would
you think about man, who, during this race to
death, that he calls life, is submitting to just as
ridiculous transformations, but all in the nature
of decay.
"So that we must come to this strange conclu-
sion — the man who dies old, is no longer he who
was born. He who has just been born, and must
succumb later on, will not die, at least, he will
not die all at once, but progressively, scattered to
the four winds of heaven in organic dust, during
which long phase another being forms itself
slowly in that place which is the place of the body.
"This other one, whose birth is imperceptible,
develops in each one of us, without our knowledge,
as the first one crumbles away. It supplants this
latter day by day, and it is modified continually
by the death and renewal of myriads of cells, of
which he is himself the sum total. He it is who
will be seen to die.
[~ "I tell you, Nicolas, if the motor-car were by
some miracle to become independent, man might
pack his trunks. His era would be near its end.
Compared with him, the motor-car would be
queen of the world, as before him reigned the
L^mammoth."
"Yes, but this sovereign queen would always be
dependent upon the mind of man."
"That is a fine argument. Are we not the
RASHNESS i6i
slaves of the animals, and even the plants which
unceasingly rebuild our bodies with their flesh and
their pulp?"
My uncle was so pleased with his paradoxes,
that he shouted them out, and fidgeted about in his
seat, and sawed the air in a frenzy, as if he were
seizing ideas in armfuls.
"My dear nephew, what a splendid idea it was
of yours to bring this car ! It does buck me up
wonderfully. I must learn how to drive the beast.
I shall be the mahout of this fierce mammoth.
Eh! Eh! Ah! Ha!"
At the moment of this outburst of hilarity, I
was just finishing my reasoning, and it was the
outburst which caused me to make my attack —
and to commit my imprudence.
"How amusing you are, uncle! Your gayety
cheers me up. I recognize you again. Why
aren't you always like this, and why do you dis-
trust me — me, who, on the contrary — deserve all
your confidence?"
"But," said Lerne, "you know quite well I will
give it to you when the time has come. I have
quite decided on that."
"Why not at once, uncle?"
And I plunged bald-headed into my folly. "Are
we not made of the same stuff, you and I ? You
don't know me ! Nothing can astonish me, and I
1 62 . NEW BODIES FOR OLD
know more than you think! Yes, uncle, I share
your opinions and admire your acts."
Lerne, somewhat surprised, began to laugh.
"What do you know about it?"
''What I know is that one cannot trust to the
law. One has to look after one's own affairs. If
some one happens to cross your path, the best way
is to get rid of him yourself, and such a removal,
if it is illegal, becomes legitimate. A chance
incident has confirmed me in this.
"In short, uncle, if my name were Frederic
Lerne, Mr. Macbeth would not be living so com-
fortably. You do not know me, I tell you."
By the Professor's voice, when next he spoke,
I perceived I had committed a blunder. He de-
fended himself in a voice which, I observed,
betrayed great weariness.
"Hallo !" said he, "this is something new. What
an idea ! Are you really as unprincipled as you
make out? Well, so much the worse. As for me,
I am not tarred with that brush, nephew. Mac-
beth is mad, but I had nothing to do with it. It
is a pity you saw him. It is an ugly sight. The
poor creature ! I had to put him away. What
nonsense, Nicolas ! What are you going to in-
vent next? It is a good thing, however, you have
spoken to me about it. It has opened my eyes.
Appearances are indeed against me. I was await-
ing till the patient got better, before telling his
RASHNESS 163
people what had happened, so that they might
be less affected by a misfortune whose signs were
less obvious; but no, this timorous policy is too
dangerous. My own safety requires that at the
risk of hurting their feelings more, I must inform
them. I shall write to them no later than to-night
to come and fetch him. Poor Donovan ! His
departure will, I hope, disprove your suspicion,
but you have disappointed me very much,
Nicolas."
I was greatly confused. Had I made a mis-
take, or had Emma lied to me? Or else, did
Lerne want to lull my suspicions? However, it
was, I had committed a great piece of stupidity,
and Lerne, whether innocent or criminal, would
bear me a grudge for having accused him falsely
or otherwise.
I was defeated. All I had gained was a fresh
doubt — this time in regard to Emma.
"In any case, uncle, I swear to you that it was
only by chance that I discovered Macbeth."
"If chance leads you to discover other reasons
for maligning me," replied Lerne harshly, "do not
fail to inform me of it. I shall clear myself im-
mediately. Anyhow, the strict observance of your
word will prevent you from helping any chance
which should favor your meeting with madmen
... or madwomen !"
We had arrived at Fonval.
1 64 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
"Nicolas," said Lerne, In a gentler tone, "I
have a great liking for you. I wish you well.
Obey me, my lad."
"Ah, he wants to soft-sawder me," I thought
to myself. "He is paying court to me now.
Look out!"
"Obey me," he went on, with honeyed sweet-
ness, "and show by your reserve that you are al-
ready my ally; intelligent as you are, you must
surely understand this fine point. The day is not
far off, unless I am mistaken, when I shall be able
to tell you about everything. You shall then see
the magnificent things that I have dreamt of, and
of which I destine a share for you."
"Meanwhile, since you know about Macbeth's
absence — come, here is a sign of the good faith I
ask of you. Come with me and visit him. We
shall decide if he is strong enough to stand a rail-
way journey, and the crossing."
After a short hesitation I followed him into
the yellow drawing-room.
The madman at the sight of him humped his
back, and growling recoiled into a corner with a
look of terror and a revengeful gleam in his eye.
Lerne thrust me in before him — I was afraid
he meant to shut me in.
"Take hold of his hands and bring him into the
middle of the room."
RASHNESS 165
Donovan allowed me to touch him. The
Doctor examined him thoroughly, but obviously
the scar attracted his greatest attention. In my
opinion, the rest of the inspection was merely a
sham for my benefit.
The scar — it was an incised crown that almost
disappeared under the long hair; a wound that
went round the back of the head. What possible
fall could have caused it?
"His health is excellent," said my uncle. "You
see, Nicolas, he was violent at first, and hurt
himself badly all over. In a fortnight, it will all
have disappeared. He can be taken away. The
consultation is at an end. So you advise me to
get rid of him as soon as possible, Nicolas?
Tell me your opinion, I attach value to it."
I congratulated him on his resolution, although
so much kindliness kept me on the alert.
Lerne gave a sigh. "You are right! The world
is so evil-minded. I am going to write immedi-
ately. Will you take my letter to the post at
Grey? It will be ready in ten minutes."
My nerves relaxed. I had asked myself as I
came into the chateau if I should ever come out
again, and sometimes, even now the demon of
unhealthy dreams shows me the madman's room
as a dungeon.
The old rascal was really showing himself
paternal and benevolent; though he could dispose
l66 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
of my liberty and Imprison me, he sent me for a
run in the fields, which might have ended in a
flight.
Was a freedom, granted so readily, worth
profiting by? I wasn't such a fool I I would not
make use of it.
Whilst Lerne was writing his letter to the
Macbeths, I went for a stroll in the park, and I
there witnessed an incident which made the
strangest possible impression upon me.
As has been seen, fortune made ceaseless sport
of me. She jerked me like a marionette — first
towards calm, and then towards trouble. This
time she used a trivial cause to upset my mind.
Had I been feeling more at ease, I should not
have interpreted what was perhaps only a freak
of nature, as so great a mystery, but marvels were
in the air. I felt them everywhere, and this phrase
was always sounding in my ears :
"Since the night of my arrival, there were cer-
tain things outside which should not have been
there."
Those that I saw in the park that day — and
which I insist would not have astounded any
ordinary person as they did me — seemed to me
to fill up a gap in my evidence with regard to the
Lerne question.
It brought that study, so to speak, to a close.
RASHNESS 167
It was very indistinct. I caught a glimpse of a
solution of all the problems — an abominable one
— but my ideas were not precise enough to express
it to myself. For the space of a second, however,
they were of unimaginable violence, and if I
shrugged my shoulders after the little scene which
inspired them, I must admit that they caused me
agony. This is what it was : Intending to
spend my ten minutes in having a look at the old
shoe, I was going down an avenue where the
evening dew was already moistening the high
grass. The night was beginning to fill the under-
wood. One heard the chirping of sparrows
growing less and less frequent. I think it was
about half-past six. The bull bellowed. As I
rounded the paddock I could only count four ani-
mals there — Pasiphae was no longer walking
about there in the half-mourning of her pied robe,
but that is a matter of no interest.
I was walking slowly on, when a tornado of
whistling, mingled with little cries — a mass of
shrill squeakings, if I may so say, made me pause.
The grass was stirring. I approached noise-
lessly, stretching out my neck.
A duel was going on there : one of those count-
less combats which make each cart-rut an abyss
of death, in order that one of the combatants
may feed on the other.
It was a little bird and a serpent.
i68 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
The serpent was a rather imposing viper, whose
triangular head was marked with a white stigma
of the same shape.
The bird looked like a black-headed wren, with
this essential difference, however, that its head
was white. A variety, doubtless, from the aviary,
which I should be able to describe less awkwardly
if I were better versed in natural history.
The two combatants were face to face — one
approaching the other.
Imagine my bewilderment! It was the wren
which was forcing the serpent to recoil 1 It ad-
vanced in little quick jumps, without a quiver of
its wings, and as if hypnotizing its enemy. Its
fixed eye had the magnetic gleam of a dog's when
it points, and the helpless viper was recoiling be-
fore it, fascinated by its implacable looks, whilst
terror was wringing half-suppressed whistlings
from its throat.
*'Deuce take it," I said to myself, "is the world
upside down, or is my mind topsy-turvy?"
I then made the mistake of drawing too near
the scene in order to witness its denouement, and
this made a change. The wren saw me and flew
away, and its enemy gliding off into the grass left
the trace of its passage there in zigzags.
Already the ridiculous and exaggerated anguish
which had frozen me was dissipated. I took my-
self severely to task. "I must be half bhnd! It
RASHNESS 169
is merely an example of maternal love — nothing
else. The heroic little bird is merely defending its
nest. One does not realize the love of mothers.
What a fool I have been !"
"Hallo ! Hallo 1" My uncle was hailing me.
I retraced my steps, but this incident haunted my
mind. In spite of my assurance that there was
nothing extraordinary in it, I did not speak about
it to Lerne,
The Professor looked cheerful. He wore the
smiling expression of a man who had just taken
a great resolution, and is much pleased at it. He
was standing before the principal door of the
chateau, the letter in his hand, and looking at the
boot-scraper with interest.
My presence not having interrupted his fit of
absent-mindedness, I thought it would be enlight-
ening to look at the scraper, too. It was a sharp
blade, mortized into the wall, and generous use
by many soles had curved it into the shape of a
sickle.
I presume that Lerne, in his meditation, was
looking at that knife without seeing it. Indeed,
he seemed suddenly to wake up.
"Here, Nicolas, here Is the letter! Pardon the
trouble I am giving you."
"Oh, uncle, I am used to it! Chauffeurs are
messengers despite themselves. Presuming on the
pleasure which rolling along without any aim is
I70 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
supposed to give them, many a lady asks them to
roll along for something, and to cart away many
lots of very urgent and heavy parcels. Our sport
is taxed that way."
"Ah, ha!" says uncle, "you are a good fellow.
Off with you, the night is falling!"
I took the sad letter which was to announce
Donovan's madness to his parents in Scotland —
the blessed letter which was going to send Emma's
lover from her.
George Macbeth Esq.,
12, Trafalgar Street,
Glasgow,
(Ecosse).
The writing of the address gave me food for
thought.
Only a few vestiges of the former flowing script
made it resemble Lerne's handwriting, but most
of the letters and the general appearance, denoted
a "graphic spirit" the exact opposite of that of
long ago. Graphology is never at fault. Its de-
crees are infallible. The writer of this address
had changed altogether.
In his youth, my uncle had given proof of every
virtue. What vices were now not his, and how
he must hate me, he who had loved me so much I
CHAPTER IX
THE AMBUSH
The father of Macbeth came to fetch him with-
out delay, accompanied by his other son. Since
Lerne had written to him, nothing new had taken
place at Fonval. The mystery went on, and more
arrangements were made against my person.
Emma no longer came downstairs; from the
little drawing room I heard her busy with her
futile amusements in the lay-figure room. Her
little sharp heels went tap, tap, tap on the floor
above. My nights were sleepless. The harassing
idea of Lerne and Emma together kept me awake.
I tried to go out once, to take a walk in the cool
of the night, and so weary out my body. All the
doors down below were locked.
Ah ! Lerne was keeping a good watch on me.
However, the imprudence I had committed in
revealing my discovery of Macbeth had no other
apparent result than a renewal of his friendship.
In our walks which had now become more fre-
quent, he seemed to take more and more pleasure
in my society, endeavoring to mitigate the rigor of
171
172 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
my spy-haunted life, and thus to keep me at Fon-
val, whether it was really to train an associate for
himself, or merely to guard against the risk of an.
escape. His attentions annoyed me.
This was the period when, without it seeming to
be so, I was more carefully watched than before.
My days were filled in a way which I disliked. I
was eaten up with impatience, between love on the
one hand, and mystery on the other — both for-
bidden ground for me. Though love for a pretty
woman, who was inaccessible, called me in one
direction, the mystery also attracted me as im-
periously in the other — that mystery which was
represented by an old boot.
This filthy elastic-sided boot served as a basis
for all the theories which I built up at night, in the
hope of calming my jealousy by curiosity. It con-
stituted, indeed, the one clear goal to which my in-
discretions could tend.
I had noted that the tool-house stood near the
clearing, and that was convenient for any attempt
to unearth the boot — and whatever else there
might be — but Lerne's displays of affection kept
me pitilessly away from the hothouse, the labora-
tory, Emma, and everything else.
So I ardently longed for something or other
new to happen, which should revolutionize our re-
lations, and give me a chance of escaping from the
vigilance of my guardians, — a sudden journey of
THE AMBUSH 173
Lerne to Nanthel — an accident, anything from,
which I could derive some advantage.
This windfall was the arrival of the two Mac-
beths — father and son.
My uncle having been Informed of their arrival
by telegram, announced it to me with an outburst
of delight.
Why was he so pleased? Had I really en-
lightened him on the danger of keeping Donovan,
ill, away from his family? I found it devilish
hard to believe that. And then, that laugh of
Lerne's, even though sincere, seemed to have a
nasty quality. It could only be caused by his
having a chance of playing some dirty trick.
But, whatever the reason was, I showed the
same delight as the Professor, and that without
any guile, for I had every good ground for it.
They arrived one morning In a trap, hired at
Grey, and driven by Karl. They resembled one
another, and both resembled Donovan of the
photograph. They were tall, pale and impassive.
Lerne introduced me with perfect ease of
manner. They shook hands with me coldly, with
the same glove-clad gesture. One would have
said that they had put gloves over their souls.
Having been ushered Into the little drawing
room, they sat down without a word.
With his three assistants present, Lerne began
174 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
a long speech In English, full of movement, illus-
trated by mimic gestures, and very emotional.
At a certain point in his story, he pretended to
tumble back like somebody who had slipped.
Then, taking the two men by the arm, he led them
to the central door of the chateau, near the park.
There he pointed out to them the scraper,
shaped like a sickle and then, once more went
through the tumbling farce. No doubt he was
explaining to them that Donovan had been
wounded by the curved blade which cut his head
when he fell backwards.
Good Lord I this was something new I
We went back to the drawing room. My uncle
finished his speech with wiping his eyes, and the
three Germans tried to do a little sniffling to indi-
cate a need for weeping violently suppressed.
The Macbeths, father and son, never budged;
they gave no sign either of grief or impatience.
At length, Karl, Johann and Wilhelm went out
of the room on an order from Lerne, and brought
in Donovan, clean-shaven, with his hair greased
and parted at the side, and the appearance of a
very fashionable young blade, although his travel-
ing suit, somewhat worn, dragged on the buttons
at the ail-too narrow collar, sending the blood into
his big good-natured face. His hair almost hid
the scar.
At the sight of his father and brother the mad-
THE AMBUSH 175
man's eye gleamed with genuine happiness, and a
smile lit up that face which had seemed so apathe-
tic, with affectionate kindness.
I thought that he was restored to reason — but
he knelt down at the feet of his relations and
began to lick their hands, harking inarticulately!
His brother could not get anything else out of
him. His father failed also, whereupon the Mac-
beths prepared to take leave of Lerne.
My uncle spoke to them. I grasped that they
were declining some invitation or other to lunch.
The other did not insist, and everybody went out.
Wilhelm put Donovan's trunk on the box of the
carriage.
"Nicolas," said Lerne to me, "I am taking these
gentlemen as far as the train. You will remain
here with Johann and Wilhelm. Karl will come
with me. I leave the house in your charge," said
he, In a jovial tone, and he gave me a frank hand-
shake.
Was my uncle making a fool of me ? Not much
chance of being master of a house when there were
two such watchers there.
They got Into the trap, Karl and the trunk In
front, Lerne, the madman and the two Macbeths
behind.
No sooner had the door slammed, than Dono-
van rose all at once, with a face of terror, as if he
had heard Death sharpening his scythe.
176 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
A long howl, quite distinct from all others rose
from the laboratory. The madman pointed in
that direction, and replied to Nell with a long-
drawn bestial cry, the horror of which made us all
turn pale.
We awaited the end of it, as if for a deliverance.
Lerne, with his imperious eye, and harsh speech,
gave orders, "Vorwarts, Karl, vorwarts," and
without any consideration, he thrust down his
pupil, with a blow, on the seat.
The carriage moved off.
The madman, sitting close to his brother, looked
at him wildly, as if he were the victim of some mis-
fortune he could not understand.
The dreadful mystery was on me again. It
was around me, coming nearer and nearer. This
time I had felt the touch of its wings.
Far away, the bowlings were redoubled, then
the elder Macbeth exclaimed, "Nell, where is
Nell?" And my uncle replied, "Alas, Nell is
dead."
"Poor Nell!" said Mr. Macbeth.
Duffer as I was, I knew enough English to
translate this school-book dialogue. Lerne's lie
made me indignant. To think of his daring to
say that Nell was dead, and that that was not her
voice ! What a piece of villainy ! Ah ! why did I
not shout out to this phlegmatic couple, "Stop, you
THE AMBUSH 177
are being fooled! There Is something strange
and terrible here !"
Yes, but I did not know what It was, and the
Macbeths would have taken me for another
madman.
Meanwhile, the hired horse trotted along to-
wards the gate, where Barbe stood ready to shut
it.
Donovan had sat down again, In front of them.
The Macbeths, father and son, maintained their
stiff dignity, but as the carriage turned at the gate,
I saw the father's back suddenly bend and quiver
more than could have been explained by the jolting
over the stones.
Then the old cracking halves of the gate closed
again.
I am sure that the brother Macbeth broke into
sobs not much later.
Johann and Wllhelm departed. Were they
going to relieve me of their company? I tracked
them along the park as far as the laboratory.
Nell was continuing her lamentations. They
probably wanted to silence her, and, in fact, her
howls ceased as soon as the assistants got into
the yard.
But my fears were groundless. Instead of
going up to the chateau to lock me in, the black-
178 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
guards, having lighted cigars coolly sat down for
an obvious siesta.
Through an open window of their block, I
could see them in their shirt sleeves, smoking like
chimneys, and rocking in their rocking-chairs.
When I had assured myself of their intentions,
without asking myself whether they were acting
thus against Lerne's orders, or with his consent,
and a thousand miles from thinking that, as they
puffed away at the open window, they were carry-
ing out his instructions point by point, I betook
myself to the tool-house.
Soon I was digging at the ground round the old
shoe. I may now say, "round the foot."
With its point upwards, it stood up at the bot-
tom of a hole where Donovan's nails still showed
their marks, among less recent scratches. When
one examined these latter, which had been made
by strong and powerful paws, the only possible
conclusion was that the first digger must have been
a dog of large size — apparently Nell, at the time
when she wandered about the park in complete
freedom.
A leg was attached to this foot, and only lightly
covered with earth. I clung to the possibility of
some anatomical debris, but without much convic-
tion. A hairy body followed the leg — a whole
corpse, hardly clothed, and far advanced in
decomposition!
THE AMBUSH 179
It had been buried aslant — the head, lower
down than the feet, still remained buried. It was
with a trembling spade that I uncovered the chin,
whiskers that were almost blue, then a thick
mustache — finally a face.
I now knew what fate had overtaken all the
personages who were grouped in the photograph.
. . Otto Klotz, half unburied, with his head
in the earth, was lying there before me!
I identified him without any hesitation. It was
quite unnecessary to uncover him completely —
on the contrary, it was best to fill in the hole, so as
to leave no traces of my escapade.
However, all of a sudden, I seized the pick in
frenzy, and began digging away by the side of the
dead man. Here rose up a bone like a white and
spongy mushroom. Were there other things
buried there? Oh ! !
I dug and dug. I was In a fever. White spots
flickered before my eyes, and it seemed to me that
tongues of fire were raining on my maddened eye
like a pentecostal deluge.
I dug and dug, and uncovered a whole cemetery,
but thank God! a cemetery of animals — some,
mere skeletons, others, with their feathers or fur
— dry or oozy! Guinea-pigs, rabbits, dogs, cats
— sometimes whole, sometimes in bits, the rest of
which had gone to feed the pack. The leg of a
horse! Ah, dear Biribi, it was yours; and under
i8o NEW BODIES FOR OLD
a layer of earth which had been recently stirred,
bits of butcher's meat wrapped up in a dappled
skin — the remains of Pasiphae !
A fetid stench choked me. Exhausted, I
leaned over my filthy pick, in the midst of the
charnel-house. The sweat which poured from me,
stung my eyes. I was gasping for breath.
At that moment, my eyes lighted, by chance, on
a skull — that of a cat. Immediately I picked it
up. It was a regular pipe's bowl! That is to
say, a great circular hole took the place of the
crown.
I then took up another — a rabbit's, if I re-
member rightly. Here too, was the same
peculiarity.
Four — sixteen other skulls, each showing its
gaping hole, but with some differences in its
position.
Here and there the bony tops of skulls strewed
the clearing with their large or tiny cups — some
deep — some flat.
One would have said that all those creatures had
been massacred in a scientific hecatomb — a care-
fully reasoned-out sacrifice.
Suddenly, an atrocious idea seized me. I bent
down over the dead man, and succeeded in getting
the mud off his head. Nothing abnormal in front.
His hair was closely cropped, but behind, en-
circling the whole occiput, like Macbeth's scar,
THE AMBUSH i8i
from one temple to the other, a horrible cut laid
bare the broken brain.
Lerne had killed Klotz ! He had suppressed
him because of Emma, in the same way that he
knocked the life out of animals and fowls, when
he had exhausted their power of enduring his ex-
periments. It was a surgical crime. I now im-
agined I had probed the mystery to the bottom.
I thought to myself, "Macbeth's madness comes
from this, that Lerne missed his blow. The poor
doomed creature saw a dreadful death coming on
him. But why should my uncle have missed him?
Perhaps in his blind fury, he suddenly saw clear,
and feared reprisals from the Macbeth family."
As for Klotz, he was an orphan and a bachelor,
as Emma assured me, so there he is ! and the same
fate awaits me — awaits her, perhaps, if we are
found together !
"Oh, to flee, to flee, she and I together, to flee.
It's the only reasonable plan, and opportunity
favors us! Will it ever occur again?"
We must make for the station, through the
forest, in order to avoid Lerne and Karl, who
are coming by the road. But the labyrinth ! —
Perhaps it would be better to use the motor-car
and pass over their bodies. I do not know, we
shall see !
1 82 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Shall I be in time? Quick, for God's sake,
quick !
I ran panting, striving to outstrip the light,
swift, unseen feet of Death.
I ran, twice falling and twice picking myself up,
and gasping with the fear of that Pursuer.
The chateau! No Lerne yet! His felt hat
was not hanging on its usual peg in the hall. I
had won the first lap. The second was to get us
away, without return. I dashed up the staircase,
crossed the landing, went through the dressing-
room at a bound, and burst into Emma's room.
"Let us begone," I blurted out. "Come, sweet-
heart, come, I will explain all. There is murder
being done at Fonval!"
"What's the matter? What Is it?"
She remained rigid in the presence of my ex-
citement, standing stiffly up.
"How white you are. Don't be afraid."
Then, and then only, I perceived that terror
possessed her, and that with frightened eyes, and
bloodless lips, her poor dead face was signing to
me to be silent, and announcing the imminence of
a great danger, close at hand, too close for her to
be able to warn me of it with a gesture or a sound,
without the watchful enemy taking revenge upon
her.
And yet, nothing happened. I took in the
whole peaceful chamber at a glance. Everything
THE AMBUSH 183
in it seemed to me mysterious. The air itself
was a hostile fluid — an unbreathable ocean in
which I was sinking.
I felt a terror of what might happen behind
me. I waited some legendary apparition.
And it was more terrible, this apparition, than
the sudden appearance of Mephistopheles. For
it was heme calmly coming out of a wardrobe/
"You have kept us waiting, Nicolas," he said.
I was thunder-struck. Emma sank on the ground
foaming at the mouth, and twisting about under
the furniture.
"Jetzt!" cried the professor.
A rustle of dresses in the next room — I heard
the lay-figures fall. Wilhelm and Johann flung
themselves on me.
Bound! Caught! Lost! And the terror of
torture made me a coward.
"Uncle," I entreated, "kill me at once, I beg
you. No torture! A revolver; the dagger —
poison I Anything you like, uncle, but no
torture!"
Lerne sniggered, as he flipped Emma's cheeks
with a wet towel.
I felt myself going mad. Who knows if Mac-
beth's reason had not gone in a moment like this!
Macbeth! Klotz !
The hallucination made me feel a sharp pain,
which pierced my skull from temple to temple.
1 84 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
The assistants took me downstairs, Johann at
my head — Wilhelm at my feet.
Were they simply going to put me away in a
locked room !
A nephew, damn it all, is not to be slaughtered
like a chicken !
They took their way to the laboratory.
In my fainting condition, my whole life, day by
day, passed before me in the moment of a heart's
beat.
The Professor joined us. . We went past the
Germans' block, and along beside the courtyard
wall. Lerne opened a door on the ground floor
of the left wing, and I was laid out under the
operating theater, in a sort of wash-house that
was as bare as a sepulcher, and all inlaid with
white tiles.
A curtain of thick cloth hanging from a rod on
rings, separated it into two compartments of equal
size. *
Its atmosphere was that of a chemist's shop.
There was plenty of light in it.
They had set up against the wall a little truckle-
bed, which Lerne pointed out to me saying, "Your
bed has been ready for you for some time,
Nicolas."
Then my uncle gave some Instructions to the
Germans, in their native language. The two as-
THE AMBUSH 185
sistants having unbound me, undressed me. Re-
sistance was useless.
A few minutes later I was comfortably lying in
bed, with sheets up to my chin, and tucked in.
Johann alone watched over me, sitting astride on
a stool, the only ornament of this austere place.
The curtain drawn aside let me see another
folding door — the door into the courtyard.
In front of me, — through the bay window, I
saw my old friend the fir tree.
My sadness increased. My mouth had a bad
flavor in it, as if it had already tasted its approach-
ing decomposition.
"Oh, to think that in a short time some filthy
chemistry would be a prelude to that!"
Johann toyed with a revolver, and aimed it at
me every now and again, much pleased with his
excellent joke.
I turned round towards the wall, and that
caused me to discover an inscription engraved in
uncouth letters on the varnish of the tiling, made
by the help, at least so I thought, of the jewel in
a ring:
"Good-by, for ever, my dear father; Donovan."
The unhappy man. He also had been laid on
this bed — Klotz also, and who could prove that
my uncle had made only those two his victims
before me; but I cared very little.
The day sank into night. There was a rapid
i86 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
coming and going above us. At night this slack-
ened and ceased. Then Karl, who had come back
from Grey-l'Abbaye, relieved Johann of his post.
Almost immediately afterwards, Lerne had me
plunged into a bath, and forced a bitter liquid
down my throat. I recognized sulphate of mag-
nesia. No doubt they were going to cut me up.
These were forerunners of an operation. No one
is ignorant of that now, in this age of appendicitis.
It would be on the next day.
What were they going to try on my body before
killing it !
I was alone with Karl !
I was hungry !
Not far from me a murmur arose from the
wretched poultry-yard. There was a faint sound
of stirred straw; timid cackling, strange barks.
The beasts began to moan.
Night!
Lerne came in. I was in a state of wild agita-
tion. He felt my pulse. "Are you happy?" he
asked me.
"Brute !" I replied.
"Very well, I shall administer a sedative." He
offered It to me, and I drank it. It stank of
chloral.
Once more I am alone with Karl.
Songs of toads, light of stars, dawning of the
moon, uprising of its red disc. Mystic assump-
THE AMBUSH 187
tlon of the luminary from star to star. All the
beauty of night. . . .
Then a forgotten prayer — the petition of a
little child — went up from my distress towards the
paradise which yesterday seemed a myth, and now
was a certainty. How had I ever doubted its
existence ?
And the moon wandered in the firmament like
an aureole in search of a brow.
It was long since my eyelids had closed on tears.
I fell into drowsy delirium. The buzzing in my
ears became a hubbub. (There are certain noises
almost inperceptible, which seem like the thunder
of cataclysms far away.)
They were heaping up straw. That poultry-
yard is exasperating. The bull was bellowing. I
even had an illusion that it was bellowing louder
and louder.
Did they bring It In every evening, along with
the cows, into the stall of that strange farm?
Good Lord, what a row!
It was while my mind was wandering In that
way, under the Influence of the drug, that, con-
demned to death, or destined for madness, I fell
Into a heavy and artificial sleep, which lasted till
the morning.
Some one touched me on the shoulder. Lerne,
in a white overall was standing near the bed.
1 88 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
The murder idea had sprung up again instan-
taneously and clearly in me.
"What o'clock is it? Am I to die, or is your
business over?"
"Patience, nephew. Nothing has begun yet,"
"What are you going to do with me ? Are you
going to inoculate me with plague, tuberculosis,
cholera? Tell me, uncle."
"No!"
"What then?"
"Come, come, no nonsense," he said.
He withdrew, and revealed an operating table,
which, lying on narrow supports like an open bier,
had the appearance of a rack.
All the sets of instruments and the crowd of
bottles shone in the light of the rising sun. Anti-
septic dressings lay on a little table in a woolly
cloud.
The two nickel-plated spheres on their supports,
showed round, like divers' helmets. A spirit lamp
was burning under them. I nearly fainted with
horror. At the side behind the curtain something
was going on. A penetrating odor of ether came
from it.
The secret, the secret always!
"What's behind that ?" I cried.
From between the wall and the curtain Karl
and Wilhelm appeared, leaving the room which
had thus been contrived on the other side of the
THE AMBUSH 189
compartment. They also had put on white over-
alls, though they were only assistants, but Lerne
had seized something, and I felt, on the back of
my neck, the chill touch of steel.
I uttered a cry.
"Idiot!" said my uncle, "it's a clipper."
He cut my hair, and shaved my hairy scalp
close. At every touch of the razor I thought I
felt the edge in my flesh.
After that, they soaked my skull again, dried it,
and the Professor, by means of a soft pencil and
calipers, covered my baldness with cabalistic lines.
"Take off your shirt," he said to me. "Take
care, do not spoil my diagrams."
"Stretch yourself out on that, now."
They helped me to haul myself up on the table,
to which they bound me fast, with my arms under
the bier.
Where was Johann?
Karl, without any warning, put a sort of muzzle
over me. An odor of ether penetrated my lungs.
"Why not chloroform?" I said to myself.
Lerne recommended as follows :
"Breathe deeply and regularly — it is for your
own good. Breathe !"
I obeyed.
There is a syringe with a sharp-pointed nozzle
in my uncle's hand.
Hallo ! he has pricked my neck with it!
190 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
I moved my jaws, my tongue and lips feeling
like lead.
"Wait, I am not sleeping yet. What Is this
virus?"
"Morphia," said the Professor simply.
The anesthetic was gaining on me. Another
prick, on the shoulder — this time very sharp.
"I am not sleeping! Good heavens, wait! I
am not sleeping."
"That is what I wanted to know," growled my
executioner.
For some moments a consolation had been as-
suaging my torture. Did not the cranial prepara-
tions seem to show that they were going to
slaughter me without delay? And yet Macbeth
had survived his trepanning.
I seemed to get far away Inside myself. Silvery
bells gayly rang a celestial chime, which I have
never been able to remember, though it seemed to
me unforgetable.
Another prick on the shoulder, which I hardly
felt. I wished to say again that I was not sleep-
ing. Vain effort ! My words sounded dully sub-
merged in the depths of an invading sea. They
were held lifeless, and I alone could make them
out.
The rings glide along the curtain rod, and with-
out suffering, on the threshold of this artificial
Nirvana, this is v/hat I seemed to perceive.
THE AMBUSH 191
Lerne makes a long incision from the right
temple to the left, round the occiput — an incom-
plete scalping, and he brings down all the strips
of flesh in front of my face, making my forehead
like a shambles. From in front, one must see me
with the bleeding and jumbled head which I re-
membered on the monkey.
"Help, I am not sleeping!"
But I cannot hear my cries for the jangling of
the silver bells. To begin with, they are too far
down under the sea, and now the sound of the
bells is deafening, like great church bells chiming
with a formidable din, and it is now I who plunge
into the ocean of ether.
Am I living, or am I not? I am a dead man
who is conscious of being dead. . . .
Even more so. . . .
Nothingness !
CHAPTER X
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION
I OPENED my eyes on thick darkness in a place
where there was neither noise nor smell.
I wanted to say once more, "Do not begin, I
am still awake," but no word sounded.
The delirium of the night was being prolonged.
It seemed to me that the bellowing had got nearer,
so much so, indeed, that I seemed to hear it in
myself. I could not manage to master my ridicu-
lous senses. I kept quiet.
Then there grew in me the assurance that the
mysterious business was at an end.
Gradually the darkness lightened. Uncon-
sciousness was coming to an end.
As my blindness got better, smells and sounds,
ever in greater number, were like a welcomed
crowd coming towards me.
"Oh, happiness, to remain thus — thus for
ever !"
But this Inverse death struggle came ever on in
spite of me, and life seized me once more.
However, objects, though now distinct, re-
192
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 193
mained shapeless, without perspective, and curi-
ously colored.
My vision embraced a wide space — a field
vaster than before. I remembered that the influ-
ence of certain anesthetics on the dilatation of the
pupil, a phenomenon which no doubt brought on
these disturbances of sight.
I noted, however, without very much difficulty,
that they had lifted me from the table, and laid
me on the ground, on the other side of the room,
and in spite of my eye, which functioned like a
distorting lens, I succeeded in recognizing the
situation.
The curtain was no longer drawn.
Lerne and his assistants, grouped round the
operating table, were busy about something which
their grouping hid from me — probably the clean-
ing of instruments.
Through the wide-opened door, one could see
the park, and hardly twenty yards away, a corner
of the paddock, where the cows were ruminating
and lowing. --,
Only, I might have Imagined myself transported |
into the most revolutionary picture of the im-
pressionist school. The azure of the sky, with-
out losing its limpid depths, had changed into a
fine orange dye. The paddocks — the trees — in-
stead of being green seemed to me to be red.
194 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
The buttercups of the meadow, st'arred vermilion
grass with violets.
Everything had changed color, except, however,
the black and white things. The dark trousers of
the four men obstinately remained as before, as
also their overalls, but those white overalls were
marked with green stains.
Green stains were also shining on the ground,
and what could this liquid be except blood, and
what was there astonishing in its appearing green,
since greenery gave me the sense of red?
This liquid exhaled a pungent smell, which
would have driven me far away, if I had been
capable of budging, and yet, the smell was not that
which I had been accustomed to associate with
blood.
I had never smelt it, any more than those other
, perfumes, or any more than my ears remembered
LJiaving heard sounds like these.
It was strange that the aberration of my senses
had not been dissipated along with the vapors of
the ether. I endeavored to fight against this feel-
ing of .numbness. No use ! They had stretched
me out on a litter of straw, of purple straw.
The operators kept their backs turned to me,
except Johann.
Every now and again, Lerne flung into the basin
cotton-wool stained with green blood. . . .
Johann was the first to perceive my awaking,
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 195
and he told the Professor of it. There was then
a movement of general curiosity with regard to
me, which, breaking up the group, allowed me to
see an absolutely naked man bound to the table,
with his hands under it — motionless and white, the
color of wax, like a corpse, the blackness of his
mustache making the paleness still paler, and his
head, enveloped in bandages bedabbled with spurts
of green.
His breast rose rhythmically. He was breathing
in the air with all his lungs, his nostrils quivering
with each inhalation. This man — it took me
some time to accept it — was myself.
When I was certain that no mirror was giving
me back my own image, which was an easy matter
to settle, it came into my mind that Lerne had
doubled my being, and that now I was two. . . .
Or else, was I not dreaming?
No, assuredly not, but up to now the adventure
had not got beyond the bizarre stage. I was
neither dead nor mad, and the evidence of this
cheered me mightily.
(Protest as one may against the conviction
which I felt of possessing all my reason, the future
was to confirm this rash judgment.)
The man on the operating-table shook his head.
Wilhelm had unfastened him, and I beheld my
other self awaking to a faint-like condition.
Opening eyes like those of a blind man, he
196 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
waggled his head about with an idiotic air, stroked
the edges of the table and sat up.
He did not look at all well. I could not accept
the idea that my double should behave so like a
brute beast.
They laid the patient in the little truckle-bed.
He allowed himself to be patted; but soon he was
convulsed with painful vomiting proving beyond
doubt the total absence of communication between
him and me, since I suffered in no wise from his
troubles, except mentally, and through the effect of
a feeling of compassion, which was very natural,
towards a gentleman who was so very like myself.
Like ! Was that only a replica of my body, or
was it really my body?
* Bosh ! Absurd I I could feel, see and hear —
very badly, it is true, but enough in any case to
convince myself that I possessed a nose, eyes and
ears.
I made an effort, and cords cut into my limbs, so
I had flesh — flabby and benumbed, but still flesh.
My body was here, and not there.
The Professor announced that he was going to
unbind me. The hempen thongs were undone. I
rose with one shake, and a complex impression
spread terror into my soul and made it sink.
Good Heavens ! how heavy I was, and how
short. I wished to look at myself, and there was
nothing below my head, and as I bent it more, with
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 197
great trouble, I saw, instead of my feet, two
cloven hoofs which ended black and knotty legs
covered with thick hair I
A cry arose in my throat! . . .
And it was that nocturnal bellowing which
broke out in my mouth, making the house shake,
and echoing far away amongst the inaccessible
rocks.
"Hold your tongue, Jupiter," said Lerne, "you
are annoying poor Nicolas there, who needs rest,"
and he pointed out my body, which had raised
Itself in alarm on the bed.
So I was the black bull ! Lerne, that loathsome
magician had changed me into a beast !
He abandoned himself to brutal enjoyment.
The three servile ruffians held their sides and
guffawed, and my ox's eyes learned to weep.
"Well," said the sorcerer, as if replying to the
rush of my thoughts. "Well, yes, you are Jupiter,
but you have a right to ask me more."
"Here Is your birth certificate. You were born
in Spain, in a celebrated ganader'ia, and you come
from famous parents, whose male posterity falls
gloriously with a sword at their throat, on the
sand of the bull-rings. I rescued you from the
bandarillos of the toreadors, your pedigree suiting
my purpose, and paid a high price for you — you
and the cows. You cost me two thousand
piastres, exclusive of carriage.
198 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
"You were born five years and two months ago,
so you can live as long again — no more; if we let
you die of old age.
"To sum up, I bought you in order to try some
experiments on your organism. This is only the
first one." My facetious relative was seized with
an attack of uncontrollable laughter. When he
had exhausted his superfluous gayety, he went on:
"Ah, ha ! Nicolas ! you are all right aren't you?
You are not at all uncomfortable? I am sure
your curiosity, you son of woman, your infernal
curiosity, must be keeping you up and I bet that
you are less annoyed than interested. Come ! I
am a kindly chap, and since you are discreet now,
my dear ward, listen to the information which you
desire.
"Did I not say to you, 'The time is drawing
near when you shall know all?' Nicolas, you are
now going to know all, and indeed it would not
please me to pass as a devil — a miracle-monger,
or a sorcerer. I am neither Belphegor, nor
Moses, nor Merlin — I am just Lerne, tout court/
My power does not come from the outside, it is
my own, and I am proud of it. It is my science.
All that one could say by way of correction, is,
that it is the science of humanity, which I have
continued in my day, and of which I am the most
advanced pioneer and chief master.
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 199
"But, do not let us be conceited ! Do the band-
ages stop up your ears? Can you hear me?"
I made a sign with my head.
"Well, listen, then, and do not roll your eyes
about — all will be explained."
Good Lord ! we are not in Wonderland.
The assistants were cleaning and arranging the
instruments. My body was asleep and snoring.
Lerne dragged his stool up beside me, and sat
down, with his mouth on a level with my ear, and
discoursed in the following terms:
"To begin with, my nephew, I was wrong a mo-
ment ago, in calling you 'Jupiter.' To use words
in an exact way, I have not metamorphosed you
into a bull, and you are still Nicolas Vermont, for
the name denotes, above all, the personality which
is the soul and not the body.
"As, on the one hand, you have kept your soul,
and as, on the other, the soul has its seat in the
brain, it is easy for you to argue by induction, in
the presence of those surgical instruments, that I
have just exchanged Jupiter's brain with yours and
that it now lives in your cast-off body.
"You will probably say, Nicolas, that it is a dis-
gusting pleasantry on my part!
"You do not divine either the supreme object of
my studies, nor the series of ideas which has in-
spired them, and yet, from this logical series is de-
rived this little pleasantry derived from Ovid; but
200 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
it is possible that it means nothing to you, for I
have only gone in for this by the way.
"We will call it, if you like, a workshop joke!
"No, my ultimate aim does not reveal itself in
this form — a funny and malicious one, you will ad-
mit, but puerile, without any results social or in-
dustrial that can be exploited.
"My aim is the 'introversion' of human person-
alities, which I have endeavored to achieve, in the
first place, by the interchange of brains.
"You know my inveterate passion for flowers !
I have always cultivated them with the utmost en-
thusiasm. My earlier life was absorbed by my
profession, which was interrupted only on Sundays
with this recreation — a day's gardening.
"Well, the hobby influenced my profession.
Grafting influenced my surgery, and in the hospital
I was inclined to give myself up more especially to
animal grafting. I became a specialist in that,
and grew fond of it, finding in my clinics the en-
thusiasm of the hothouse.
"Even in the beginning I had dimly foreseen a
point of contact between animal and vegetable
grafts — a hyphen which my logically conducted
labors made clear some time ago. ... I will
return to that.
"When I took up animal grafting with enthusi-
asm, this branch of surgery was languishing. In
fact, ever since the Hindoos of antiquity, who
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 201
were the first grafters, it had remained stationary.
"But perhaps you forget its underlying prin-
ciples. That doesn't matter. Learn them afresh.
They are based, Nicolas, on this fact, that animal
tissues possess, each of them, a personal vitality,
and that the body of an animal is only the milieu
adapted to the life of those tissues — a milieu from
which they may be removed, and live for a more
or less long time.
"i. Don't the nails and the hair grow after
death? You are not ignorant of that. They
survive.
"2. A man who has been dead for fifty-four
hours, and has left no descendants, still fulfills the
chief condition for remedying that. Unfortu-
nately, other essential faculties are wanting. But
I will pass on.
"3. In certain conditions of humidity, oxygena-
tion and heat, scientists have been able to keep a
rat's tail, which had been cut off, alive for seven
days; an amputated finger, for four hours. At
the end of those periods they were dead, but if
during those seven days or those four hours, they
had been cleverly glued on again, they would have
continued to live,
"This is the procedure employed by the
Hindoos, who thus restored to their places re-
integrated noses that had been cut off by way of
punishment, or if those appanages had been burnt,
202 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
they replaced them by noses made of flesh and
skin, taken, my dear Nicolas, from another part
of the anatomy of the man who had been punished.
"The operation thus effected goes into the first
category of animal grafting, and consists in trans-
planting a part of the individual to himself.
"The second consists of joining together two
animals, by two wounds which coalesce. One can
then cut off from first, the fragment of his person
nearest the point of junction, which thereafter will
live upon the second.
"The third consists of transplanting, without
any attachment, a part of one animal to another
animal, always in such a way that it preserves its
own life. That is the most elegant way of the
three, and the one which has attracted me.
"The operation was regarded as a ticklish one,
for many reasons, the principal one of which is,
that a grafting is less likely to succeed the further
removed the two subjects are from one another in
the scale of relationship.
"Grafting succeeds when it is done on the same
animal; less well from father to son, and worse
and worse from brother to brother, from cousin
to cousin, from Frenchman to Spaniard, man
to woman, and child to old man.
"When I came on the scene, the exchange I am
talking about always came to naught in different
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 203
zoological families, and more so still in the case of
genera and species.
"However, some experiments are an exception
to this — experiments on which I have based my
own, wishing to accomplish the greater thing, be-
fore successfully accomplishing the lesser, and to
graft a fish on a bird before dealing with humanity
alone. I say a few experiments.
"i. Wiesmann tore from his arm a canary's
feather, which he had transplanted into it a month
before, and which left a little bleeding wound.
"2. Baronio has grafted the wing of a canary,
and the tail of a rat on the comb of a cock.
"This was not much, but Nature herself en-
couraged me.
"3. Birds cross without any shame, and produce
numerous hybrids, which bear witness to the possi-
bility of fusion between species.
"4. Then, getting further away from man, vege-
tables have considerable plastic force.
"Such, reduced to its simplest expression, is the
summary of the situation in the presence of which
I found myself, and on which I staked all.
"I came here to work more comfortably, and
almost immediately I performed remarkable oper-
ations, which became very famous. One more
especially. I wonder if you remember it?
"X, the Pickle-King, the American millionaire,
had only one ear, and desired to have a pair of
204 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
them. A poor devil sold him one of his for five
thousand dollars. I performed the little cere-
mony. The grafted ear only died with X two
years later, when he succumbed to indigestion.
"It was then, when the world was applauding
my triumph, and just as the very moment when
love, having come on the scene, was urging me to
make money, in order that Emma should live a
life of luxury — it was just then that I conceived my
great idea, which proceeded from this reasoning:
"If a millionaire, dissatisfied with his physique,
pays five thousand dollars for the pleasure of em-
bellishing it a little, what would he not give for
changing it altogether, and acquire a new body for
his ego, for his brain — a covering full of grace,
vigor and youth, in place of an old sickly and re-
pulsive casing!
"On the other hand, how many beggars I know
would give up their magnificent anatomy for a
few years of jollification !
"And observe, Nicolas, this purchase of a young
body would not only furnish advantages of supple-
ness, warmth and endurance, but also the enormous
advantage that in a youthful milieu, the trans-
ferred organs are rejuvenated.
"Oh ! I am not the first to advance this theory,
and Paul Bert, admitted the possibility of grafting
an organ on several consecutive bodies, as each of
these latter grow old, so that by a series of rejuve-
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 205
nations, he foresaw that one might make the same
stomach, the same brain live indefinitely — as an
integral part of successive constitutions. This
was tantamount to declaring that a personality can
live indefinitely, by a series of incarnations, in a
journ^ through different carcasses, each discarded
at the proper moment.
"The discovery to be made surpassed my hopes.
I was not only pursuing the choice of a pleasing
outward appearance — I had my hand on the secret
of IMMORTALITY ! ^
"The brain being the seat of the ego (for you
know that the spinal cord is only a transmitter, and
a center of reflexes), the only question was abihty
to graft.
"Certainly the ear is one thing and the brain
another and yet this difference is only a question of
the degrees which separate :
"i. Cartilaginous matter from the nerve mat-
ter, and
"2. The accessory from the principal organ.
"Logic backed up my conviction, and my reason-
ing was based on famous premises officially
verified.
"i. Besides their grafts of mucous membrane,
skin, etc., in 1861, Phillippeaux and Vulpian re-
placed the nerve matter in an optic nerve.
"2. In 1880, Gluck exchanged a few centimeters
of sciatic nerve in a hen for a rabbit's nerves.
2o6 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
"3. In 1890, Thompson removed a few cubic
centimeters of brain from dogs and cats, and into
the cavity thus obtained, introduced the same quan-
tity of cerebral substance taken from dogs and
cats, or from different species. Here we have
passed from cartilage to nerve, and from ear to
fragment of brain.
"Let us now turn to the difficulty of the second
order:
*'i. Gardeners often graft whole organisms.
"2. Besides fingers, tails and paws, Phillippeaux
and Mantegazza grafted rather important organs
— spleens, stomachs and tongues. They made a
hen into a cock as a joke, they even tried to graft
the pancreas and the thyroid.
"3. Carrel and Guthrey, in 1905, in New York,
came to believe that they can substitute the veins
of the arteries of animals for those of man. We
have bridged the distance between the accessory
and the principal.
"4. Finally, Mantegazza maintained that he
had grafted spinal cords and brains of frogs !
"These examples were ample proof that my
projects were realizable, so I said to myself I
would realize them.
"I began my task. An obstacle was in the way I
"It being impracticable to employ an 'attach-
ment,' it resulted that the body and the brain,
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATIOiN 207
once separated, perished, one or other, or both,
before having been placed in contact with their
new companions.
"But here again facts gave me courage. So far
as the body is concerned :
"i. An animal can live quite well with one cere-
bral lobe. You saw a pigeon circling round,
which has been deprived of three-fourths of its
brain !
"2. Often decapitated ducks fly for a hundred
yards from the block on which their severed head
remains.
"3. A locust lived for fifteen days without a
head — fifteen !
"That Is an experiment duly attested.
"So far as the severed organ Is concerned, there
were these certified cases.
"This persuaded me that the brain and the body.
If properly treated, would be able to live, each
independently, for the few^ minutes of separation
which the work requires. However that may be,
the necessary slowness of trepanning induced me
as a rule to exchange not brains, but heads, having
learned from Brown Sequard that a dog's head In-
jected with oxyginated blood, had survived de-
capitation a quarter-of-an-hour.
"From this period date heteroclite creatures — a
donkey with a horse's head — a goat with a stag's
head — which I should like to have preserved, be-
2o8 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
cause the beasts which composed them were some-
what distant from one another, although they
belonged to the same family — a distance which I
have never been able to increase by this means.
"Alas I on the night of your arrival, Wilhelm
left the doors open, and those monsters, worthy of
Dr. Moreau, escaped, with many other subjects
which were under observation. You may boast of
having come into Fonval like a bull into a china
shop !
"I resume; but In order to avoid exhausting the
attention of a convalescent, I shall pass over, as
far as details are concerned, the abandonment of
this method, the discovery of the Lerne trepanner
with an ultra-rapid-circular-saw, that of the brain-
preserving globes or artificial meninges, that of
the ointment for joining nerves, the recognized
efficacy of the injection of morphia, approved of
by Broca, for contracting the blood vessels, and so
diminishing the loss of blood, the generally ac-
cepted employment of ether as an anesthetic, the
manipulation of brains for the purpose of fitting
them exactly to skulls, etc., etc.
"Thanks to all that, I exchanged the personali-
ties of a — ah, I can never remember that word —
squirrel and a wood-pigeon. That wasn't badl
Then that of a wren and a viper. Then that of a
carp and a blackbird — hot blood and cold blood.
It was perfect!
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 209
"In face of these prodigies, my aim, that of hu-
man substitution was mere child's play.
"At this juncture Karl and Wilhelm volunteered
to submit themselves to the convincing test. It
was quite epic. Otto Klotz had left me. Hum I
Macbeth was not to be trusted! I operated
alone, with the help of Johann and automatic
machines.
"Success! ah! what fine fellows! Who would
have imagined that whole bodies had been ampu-
tated? and yet, each of them, ever since that day,
lives in the carnal abode of his friend. Look!"
He summoned his assistants, and raising their
hair, showed the violet colored scar.
The two Germans smiled at one another, and
I could not prevent myself from admiring them.
Lerne went on :
"My fortune, then, was made, and at one stroke,
I was assuring my own and Emma's happiness,
and her love, which is my most inestimable pos-
session, Nicolas.
"But the discovery, one certain, had to be
applied.
"To tell the truth, one dark spot worried me.
I mean the influence of the moral side on the phys-
ical and vice versa.
"At the end of a few months my patients be-
came modified. If I had endowed their body with
a mentality finer than before, the latter ruined the
2IO NEW BODIES FOR OLD
former, and I have seen, amongst others, pigs with
a dog's brain become ill and thin, and die soon.
"On the other hand, intellects coarser than their
predecessors, allow themselves to be overcome by
the corporal part, and the composite animal then
becomes stupider and fatter. That is an invari-
able rule.
"Sometimes, also, the imperious flesh refashions
the mind according to the instincts of brutal
matter.
"One of my wolves, my dear nephew, installed
cruelty in the brain of a sheep ! But this draw-
back was bound, was it not, in the case of my fu-
ture clients — men — to reduce itself to slight in-
differences of health and character? It was not
worth thinking about, and it did not give me any
pause.
"Not caring to leave Macbeth vAth. Emma, I
sent him off to Scotland, and I set out towards
America — the land of audacity, of millions, and
of the grafted ear — as it seemed to me the best
soil to cultivate.
"That was two years ago.
"The day after my landing, I had thirty-five
rufiians at my disposal, who were resolved to part
with an impeccable bodily constitution, for the
benefit of any thirty-five millionaires I should get
to know, teach and convince.
"Check!
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 211
"I began with the most dreadful ones, and the
most unhealthy.
"Some called me a madman and showed me the
door. Others got angry, looking me majestically
up and down with displeasure in their eyes, thrust-
ing out very consumptive chests or flabby thoraxes ;
or they drew themselves to their full height on
their twisted legs and expressed astonishment that
anybody should think them ugly.
"Those who were dying were sure they would
get well — surer than that they would not collapse
under the ether.
"Some showed fear. 'It was tempting Provi-
dence !' They stood aloof from me as from the
Devil, and some of them would have sprinkled me
with Holy Water.
"It was no use my declaring, In answer to them,
that man is modified more completely in the course
of his life than they would change under my
lancet, and that religious doctrine has traveled
some way since 1670, when that Russian was ex-
communicated, for having had his skull mended
with a piece of a dog's bone.
"It was no use.
"Many sententlously remarked, 'One knows
what one has got — one does not know what one Is
getting.'
"Would you believe it ! The women nearly
saved me! Crowds of them aspired to become
212 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
men. Fortunately, my blackguards — except one
or two — categorically refused to adopt the female
sex.
"In despair, I dangled before them the attrac-
tive prospect of a life prolonged indefinitely, re-
suming its course at each new incarnation.
" 'Life, replied the three-score-years-and-ten-
ners, is already too long, as God has limited it.
We desire nothing more than to die.'
" 'But I shall restore to you all your desires, at
the same time as your youth.'
" 'Thank you, the fate of desires is to remain
ungratified!'
"Amongst adults I often received this reply:
" 'The charm of acquired experience is worth
preserving from all things that might lessen that
experience, and let us not risk diminishing it
through the inexperienced rashness of adolescent
blood.' "
"There were some, however, who were ready to
imitate Faust, and sign the pact of youth, but all
these Nabobs I sounded offered me the same ob-
jection — the danger of the operation — the folly of
risking life in the desire to prolong life.
"To tell you the truth, Nicolas, the only people
who allow themselves to be operated on without
any qualms, are young people at the point of
death, and aware of their state.
"Understanding the necessity of overcoming the
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 213
danger they apprehended, I felt ready for new re-
searches — but greatly disillusioned, thencefor-
ward knowing that even were these rewarded by
a second discovery, my clients would be few, but
also aware that they would be sufficient to secure
me my fortune and happiness. But all this was
deferred till the Greek Calends.
"I came back to Fonval — bitter, silent, and with
rage in my heart.
"Emma and Donovan could not have found a
more implacable judge. I surprised them. I
took my revenge. You have guessed it, have you
not? Yesterday, the two Macbeths carried off
the brain of Nell, and the soul of Donovan is
lodged in the body of the St. Bernard 1
"The same punishment awaited both of you for
the same fault. Solomon could not have better
judged, nor Circe have better carried the sentence
into execution.
"Now, look here, nephew I I have worked at
what, but for your intrusion, and my need for
watching your acts, w^ould in a few daysj have been
the beginning of the interchange of personalities
without surgical intervention.
"I was wise enough, you see, not to give up my
vegetable grafting. I had even carried all its de-
velopments very far, and this training, supple-
214 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
merited by my zoological experiments, constitutes
almost the whole curriculum of grafting.
"It was the combination of this science with
other sciences, which revealed the probable solu-
tion to me.
"People never generalize enough, Nicolas ! De-
voted to interminable subdivision, fanatical about
the infinitely little, which is always becoming infi-
nitely less, we have a mania for analysis. We live
with our eyes glued to microscopes. In half our in-
vestigations we should employ another instrument
to show things as wholes — an apparatus of optical
synthesis — a synoptic telescope, or if you prefer to
call it so, a megaloscope,
"I foresee a colossal discovery! And to think
that but for Emma, I should have disdained finan-
cial rewards and never aspired to wealth I So
that love caused ambition, and ambition brought
glory !
"Apropos of this, nephew, you very nearly put
on the features of Professor Lerne ! Yes, she
adored you with such a fine ardor, nephew, that I
thought of disguising my appearance by assuming
with your features, in order to be loved in your
place. . . .
"That would have been the very best revenge,
and very piquant, but I have still need, for some
time, of my antique and awkward carcass. Later
on we shall see about getting rid of this old
THE CIRCEEAN OPERATION 215
trumpery frame. Is not your captivating appear-
ance always at my disposal?"
At those sarcastic words, my weeping was
redoubled.
My uncle went on, affecting consideration for
me.
"Ah I I am abusing your courage, my dear
patient. Have a rest. The satisfaction of your
curiosity will give you, I hope, a refreshing sleep.
"Ah! I was forgetting! Do not be astonished
if the world appears to you other than it was
. . . Amongst other novelties, things must be seen
by you as flat as in a photograph. That is be-
cause you look at things only with one eye at a
time, so that one might say — using the terms jocu-
larly, that many animals are only double one-eyed
things. Their sight is not steroscopic. Other
eyes — other phenomena.
"New ear-drums, other sounds, and so on!
"Amongst men, themselves, each one has his
manner of appreciating things. Habit teaches us,
for example, that we must call a certain color red,
but a man who calls it red receives from it a green
impression — that is a common occurrence, and an-
other, an impression of olive or dark blue."
"Well, good-night!"
No, my curiosity was not satisfied, but I realized
that that was so without being able to fix the
2i6 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
points which my uncle had not made clear, for my
awful experience overwhelmed me with anguish,
and the Circeean operation left me impregnated
with ether, whose penetrating vapors upset in me
the man's understanding and the bull's stomach.
CHAPTER XI
IN THE PADDOCK
During the eight days of my convalescence in
the laboratory, nursed and kept quiet, and treated
with drugs, I underwent the alternation of great
sorrows; fits of despair each followed by a col-
lapse. Every time I slept I thought I had dreamt
this calamity.
Now, it must be observed that the sensations
at my awakening confirmed me in this error, which
was, however, immediately dissipated.
It is well known that those who have had a
limb amputated, suffer a great deal, and refer
their suffering to the extreme periphery of the
severed nerves, that is to say, to the limb which
they have lost, and which they think they still
possess.
The severed limb, or arm, hurts them. If one
reflects that I had had my whole body cut off, one
will understand that I suffered in all its parts —
in my distant hands, in my human feet; and that
this pain seemed proof positive of the possession
of that of which I had been deprived.
217
2i8 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
This phenomenon grew gradually less distinct,
and finally disappeared.
Grief went from me less quickly. Those who
have entertained others with the recital of tricks
of this sort — Homer, Ovid, Apuleius, and Per-
rault, did not know what tragedies their fictions
would become, once they became realities.
What a drama there is really in Lucian's "Ass" I
What a martyrdom for me this week of dieting
and enforced inaction !
Dead to humanity, I awaited with terror the
tortures of vivisection, or the premature old age
which would be the end of everything, before five
years were out.
In spite of my despair, I got well. Lerne hav-
ing ascertained this, I was turned out into the
paddock.
Europa, Athor, and lo gamboled in front of
me. Many long days were to pass before I could
make them accustomed to me. Long days, and
all a man's cunning employed in the task.
A good bout of kicking finally subjugated them.
This incident would be a fit theme for deep
philosophizing, and I should succumb to the temp-
tation to hold forth, were it not that such dis-
sertations are an awkward interruption of the
course of a story.
For the time being, annoyed at the welcome
with which the three horned ladies received me,
IN THE PADDOCK 219
and only desiring their favors with the ardor of
a valetudinarian, I began peacefully to browse
on the grass of the meadow.
Here begins the most interesting period — that
of my observations on my new condition. They
occupied me so completely, that I began to con-
sider the bull's body as a moveable dwelling — an
exile's home, no doubt, but an unexplored, be-
wildering place, full of surprises, from which
chance would perhaps deliver me — for as soon
as a place is merely not unpleasing, one immedi-
ately feels the risk of being driven from it.
As long as this accommodation of my man's
mind to the organs of the beast lasted, I was
really fairly happy.
The fact was that a new world was just being
revealed to me, together with the taste of the
simple herbs on which I was feeding. Just as
my eyes, my ears and my muzzle sent to my brain
visions, sounds, and smells hitherto unimagined,
my tongue with its strange papilla was bound to
afford me very original sensations of taste.
Simple herbs gave a savor of which human
palates have no idea. The cuisine of the epicure
cannot possibly give them as much pleasure with
twelve courses, as a bull gets in a small meadow.
I could not refrain from comparing the taste
of my fodder with that of my former food. There
is more difference between lucern and clover than
220 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
between a fried sole and a rib of venison with
sauce chasseud.
Plants have all sorts of tastes for the mouth
of a graminivorous animal.
The buttercup is rather insipid, the thistle
rather peppery, but nothing equals fragrant and
many-flavored hay. Pastures are a continually
spread feast to which hunger impels their deni-
zens to devote themselves.
The water of the trough changed in taste,
according to the time and the weather. At one
time acidulous — at another time salt or sweet.
Light in the morning, and syrupy in the evening.
I cannot describe the delight of drinking it, and
I think that the lamented Olympians, in their
vindictive and jocular testimentary disposition,
leaving men only the power of laughter, left as
a legacy to other animals the tasting of ambrosia
in the grass of the lawns and the drinking of
nectar at every fountain.
I was initiated into the delights of chewing the
cud, and I understood the placid moods of those
grave epicures, the oxen, during the activity of
their four stomachs, when, with the scents of the
fields, a whole pastoral symphony fills their
nostrils.
By dint of experimenting with my senses, and
testing my faculties, I obtained strange impres-
sions. The best memory that remains to me is
IN THE PADDOCK 221
that of my muzzle — that tactile center — that
Invaluable and subtle touchstone of good and bad
grains — that warner of an enemy's approach —
that pilot and councilor — that sort of authorita-
tive and dogmatic consciousness — that oracle of
yes and no, which never fails, and Is always
obeyed.
It Is a question If the god Jupiter, when he put
on the form of a bull, for the benefit of the
Princess Europa, was not more charmed by his
muzzle, than with all the rest of that scandalous
escapade.
It was wise of me to establish these facts
straight away, for soon, as my health failed, I
lost the calm., without which accuracy of observa-
tion Is Impossible, as well as the desire to con-
tinue them. I suffered from attacks of headache,
colds, toothache — the whole sequence of Indis-
positions which citizens of the twentieth century
are heirs to.
I grew thin. Dismal Ideas haunted me.
The cause of it was, first, the predominance of
the soul over the body, which my uncle had men-
tioned, and secondly, two Incidents which immedi-
ately aggravated my malady.
After a disappearance, due, I presume to an
Illness following on her great fright, I saw Emma
again.
Without feeling any emotion, I saw her at the
222 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
windows of her room, then at those of the ground
jBoor, and finally outside. She came out every
day, leaning on the servant's arm, and went round
the park, avoiding the laboratory, where Lerne
and his assistants were steadily working.
I had expected features less drawn, and eyes
less red.
She walked along slowly — pale, and with fixed
eyes — displaying to the sun her moonlight com-
plexion, and eyes like those one opens on the
night.
A pathetic widow, she let one see, with a
certain nobility, the revolt of her love in Its
mourning, and the keenness of her regrets.
So, she still loved me, and not seeing me any
more, supposed my fate to have been that which
she imagined for Klotz, and not the destiny of
Macbeth (which, however, she had misappre-
hended). In her thought, I could only be dead,
or a fugitive. The real truth escaped her.
Each day, with greater affection, I followed
her on her walks, as long as I could. Separated
from her by barbed wire, I attempted mimicry
and words, but Emma was afraid of the bull —
its little leaps, and its lowing. She understood
nothing, any more than I had understood about
Donovan from the capers of the dog.
Sometimes, when in my attempts to make too
human a gesture I stumbled In my quadrupedal
IN THE PADDOCK 223
way, the girl was amused at it, and I found myself
stumbling intentionally, in order to see her smile.
Thus love by degrees resumed its torturing
sway.
It could not return unaccompanied by jealousy,
and the latter also hastened the progress of my
languor.
It was jealousy, but attended with an extra-
ordinary sentiment!
There stood between the paddock and the pond
that hexagonal summerhouse which had been the
Giant Briareus.
Lerne inflicted on me the annoyance of lodging
my former body in it. I saw his assistants bring
In some elementary furniture, and then the crea-
ture itself — and ever since that day, there he was,
with his forehead glued to the windows, and
stupidly watching me.
His hair was growing again. His beard was
sprouting. Now heavy and chubby, his person
was bursting through his clothes.
His eye — that almond eye, of which I had been
so proud — was now becoming a round ox's eye.
The man with the bull's brain was assuming the
expression which I had remarked in Donovan, but
more bestial still, and less good-natured.
My poor body had reserved the habit of certain
familiar gestures. An incorrigible trick made it
shrug its shoulders now and then, so that the
224 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
wretched creature seemed to be laughing at me
from the windows of the summerhouse.
He often would shout out in the dusk of
evening.
My beautiful baritone voice was distorted into
discordant clamors — into the yells of a gorilla.
Then, in the laboratory, Macbeth would howl,
with his poor canine throat, and the irresistible
need of making my own lamentations heard,
filled the valley of Fonval with the sounds of a
monstrous trio.
Emma perceived that the summerhouse was In-
habited. That day she and Barbe were walking
round the paddock. I had, as usual, accompanied
them to a certain little wood which was crossed
by the road, and I awaited them at the entrance
of that avenue where the doves were cooing.
They came out of it and then they suddenly
paused.
Emma was transfigured. She had taken on
that animated expression which I knew of old —
quivering nostrils — eyes half shut, and her bosom
heaving. She pressed Barbe's arm.
"Nicolas," she murmured, "Nicolas. There,
there! Do you see nothing?"
And whilst amongst the leafage the turtle-doves
faintly cooed, Emma pointed out to Barbe the
creature in the summerhouse, behind his window.
IN THE PADDOCK 225
Having assured herself that she was not seen
from the laboratory, Emma made some signals,
and flung kisses. The creature had excellent rea-
sons for not understanding anything, but opened
his round eyes, dropped his jaw, and turned my
former integument which I now so greatly re-
gretted into a type of perfect imbecility.
"Mad," said Emma, "he, too! Lerne has made
him mad, like Macbeth."
Then the kind-hearted girl sobbed with all her
heart, and I felt anger rising in me.
"Now, remember," said the servant, "above all
things, do not go near that summerhouse, it is
overlooked on all sides."
The other shook her beautiful locks, dried her
tears, and lying down on the grass in the attitude
of a sphinx, with her head in her hands, and her
body curved, she gazed, for a long time affection-
ately, on that young figure whom she had loved
so much.
The brute beast seemed to take more interest
in this pose than in her former gestures.
A scene like this went beyond the bounds of
the grotesque and horrible. That woman in love
with my form — the form in which I no longer
lived ! That woman whom I adored, in love with
a beast! How to accept such a thing with
equanimity?
My anger exploded. This was the first time
226 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
that I experienced the domination of my ardent
bodily constitution. Mad with rage, blowing and
snorting and foaming, I dashed over the meadow
in all directions, and tore at the ground with my
horns and hoofs, in the wild desire to kill some-
body no matter whom.
From that time on, hatred poisoned my day-
dreams — ferocious hatred against this super-
natural brute — this ridiculous Minotaur who
turned all the forest of Broceliande with its forest
labyrinth into a comical Crete.
I cursed that body which had been stolen
from me. I was jealous of it, and often when
Jupiter — I and I — Jupiter looked at one another,
both victims of our cast-off bodies, fury seized
me once more. I charged about wildly, bellowing
like a bull in the ring, with my tail in the air — my
nostrils smoking — my head down, ready for
murder, and desiring it as one longs for love in
the springtime.
The cows warded me off as best they could. All
the beasts feared the mad bull. One day, Lerne,
passing that way, took to his heels.
Life weighed heavily on me. I had exhausted
all the pleasures of observation, and my new
dwelling-place only occasioned me distress and
repugnance.
I got thinner and thinner. The pasturage lost
IN THE PADDOCK 227
its savor. The spring was tasteless, and the com-
pany of the heifers became odious to me.
On the other hand, old desires imposed them-
selves on me like morbid whims — a desire to eat
meat, and quaintest of all, the craving to smoke 1
But other considerations were not so laugh-
able. Fear of the laboratory made me tremble
every time that an assistant came near the pad-
dock, and I could not sleep for fear lest I should
be bound during the night.
And that was not all ! I was haunted by the
conviction that my ox's brain would go mad. My
attacks of uncontrollable wrath might bring on
madness, and they became more frequent, for the
conduct of Emma was not calculated to mitigate
them.
Can the face of a savage murderer be the face
of love, and can one be astonished that so many
sweethearts close their eyes when the god kisses
them?
So Emma looked with pleasure at the hideous
Minotaur, and did not perceive Lerne, who was
on the watch, laughing in his sleeves at her
mistake.
Yes, laughing, but in the philosophical way, in
order not to weep ! My uncle was obviously
suffering. He seemed to have grasped that
Emma would never love him, and the Professor
took his disillusionment ill.
228 NEW BODIES FOR OLD .
He was growing old, and killing himself with
work.
On the terrace of the laboratory and on the
roof of the chateau, some machines had been in-
stalled whose handling interested me very much.
They were surmounted with characteristic anten-
ncB, and as electric bells were continually ringing
in the recesses of the two buildings, my opinion
was that they had been transformed into wireless
telegraphy and telephone stations.
One morning Lerne made a little boat dart
about on the pond — a toy torpedo-boat. He
directed it from the shore with the help of an
apparatus, which also was fitted with feelers.
Tele-mechanics — it was certain ! The Pro-
fessor was studying how to make communications
at a distance without any tangible intermediary.
Was this a new method for the introversion of
personalities? Perhaps it was.
I lost interest in the matter. A happy issue out
of my afflictions now seemed to me an impossible
miracle. I should never learn this future dis-
covery, nor all the secrets which were a blot on
the past of my uncle and his companions.
It was, however, by meditating on those last
mysteries, that I beguiled the torturing insomnia
of my nights, and my idleness by day, but I could
make nothing of it. It may be the case, indeed,
that my mind was dulled, for there were, amongst
IN THE PADDOCK 229
the daily occurrences which I have just narrated,
some that it could not retain — to which some con-
fidences on Lerne's part gave capital significance,
and the rational examination of which would have
made me hope for deliverance.
And so, about mid-September, this deliverance
was brought about without my having guessed
anything, and in the following circumstances:
For some time past the friendship of the
Minotaur and Emma had grown stronger. The
monster, now accustomed to my body, began to
make gestures.
One afternoon, while I was endeavoring to see
my mistress through the bushes where she was
watching the false Nicolas, there was a sudden
noise of smashed and falling glass.
The Minotaur had dashed through the window
of the summerhouse ! Without in the least heed-
ing my unfortunate body, he dashed up, cut,
slashed, and bleeding, with roars of fury.
Emma shrieked, and tried to make off, but the
creature had disappeared into the little wood.
I then heard behind me the noise of people
running. At the sound of the broken windows,
Lerne and his assistants had come out of the
laboratory. They had seen the escape, and were
making at full speed for the fatal wood.
Unfortunately, the assistants were afraid of my
proximity, and the detour which they were making
230 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
to avoid me, outside the paddock, would delay
them.
Lerne had boldy taken a short cut, climbed
over the wire, and was hurrying to the middle of
the enclosure, with his coat torn by the artificial
thorns.
Alas ! he was old and slow ! They would
arrive — all of them, too late !
I dashed at the frail barrier, broke it down,
and smashed and crashed through it, in spite of
the little chevaux de frise which lacerated my
skin.
I was over the wall of greenery in a moment,
at a jump. The sun, through the vault of leaves,
was dappling the underwood with its rays, and
there, on the edge of the forest road I saw Emma
lying — the Minotaur gloating over her.
I had no leisure for a longer look. In a
moment, all my maddened blood was in my head,
and goaded by an indomitable wrath I dashed
ahead with my horns down.
I struck something which fell. I trod it under
my four hoofs, and with my back to my victim, I
kicked, and kicked, and kicked !
Suddenly the voice of my uncle, gasped :
"Hallo! hallo! hallo! you are killing your-
self!"
My madness vanished — the stars went out, and
everything reappeared.
IN THE PADDOCK 231
The beautiful girl, awaking, blinked her eyes,
without understanding anything.
The assistants watched me, each behind a tree,
and Lerne, leaning over my form, which was inert
and dislocated, raised Its head. In which a large
hole was bleeding, and It was I ! I ! who had
committed the mad act of injuring myself!
The Professor, who was feeling the victim all
over, gave us his diagnosis:
"One arm dislocated, three ribs broken, frac-
ture of the left clavicle and tibia. One recovers
from that, but the kick on the head — Ah ! that's
more serious. Hm! the brain is beaten to a pulp
— it Is destroyed — all will be over In half-an-hour.
Finita la Comvicdia!
I had to put my shoulder up against a tree, to
save myself from falling. So my body, my coun-
try of countries, was going to die ! It was all
over! Now, for ever banished from my ruined
dwelling. I had destroyed the first condition of
my deliverance. It was all over. Lerne himself
could do nothing; he had admitted as much. In
half an hour all would be over!
But this brain ! Perhaps he could. . . . Yes,
he could do anything! Yes!
I drew near him. It was my last chance.
My uncle, who had turned to the girl, was
speaking with grief In his voice.
"How you must have loved him, to love him
232 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
still in his pitiable condition. My dear Emma,
am I so little lovable, that you prefer such a
wreck to me?"
Emma was weeping in her hands. How she
must love him, looking turn by turn at the Pro-
fessor, the dying creature and at me. How she
must love him I
For the last few moments I had been dancing
about with a sort of little steps, and more or less
musical sounds, which were meant to translate
my thought. My uncle pursued the train of his.
Without remarking that his cloudy brow must
be hiding some stormy conflict of interests and
passions, and dominated by the imminence of a
catastrophe which he alone could ward off, I
redoubled entreaties.
"Yes, I understand your desire, Nicolas," said
my uncle. "You want to give back your brain to
its former envelope, which would thus be saved,
since you have made Jupiter's brain an impossi-
bility. Well, so be it !"
"Oh, save him, save him," cried Emma, who
had only grasped that one word. "Save him I
I swear to you, Frederic, I swear never to see him
again."
"Enough, enough," said Lerne. "On the con-
trary you must love him with all your strength.
I no longer wish to grieve you. Why struggle
against destiny?"
IN THE PADDOCK 233
He summoned his assistants, and gave them
some brief orders. Karl and Wilhelm seized the
Minotaur, who was moaning.
Johann had set off to make preparations, as
hard as he could.
"Schnell, schnell !" said the Professor, and he
added, "Quick, Nicolas, follow us!"
I obeyed, my mind half filled with the joy at
recovering my body, and half filled with fear lest
it should die before the operation.
The operation was a great success.
However, deprived of the attentions which
should have preceded the administration of the
anesthetic, and which the urgency of the case
did not allow them to give us, I lived an instruc-
tive but painful dream under the influence of
ether.
It lasted, perhaps a quarter of a second — just
enough to let me feel the tooth of some scratchy
saw, or the edge of some badly sharpened lancet.
The sunset was filling the washhouse with a
rosy half-light. Through my lowered eyelids I
perceived my mustache.
This was the resurrection of Nicolas Vermont.
It was also the end of Jupiter. They were
carving up, at the end of the room, that black
mass in which I had sojourned.
In the courtyard the dogs were quarreling for
234 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
the first bits that Johann had flung to them. My
bones were aching.
Lerne was watching by my side. He was quite
joyful, as well he might be. Was he not at peace
with his conscience? Had he not atoned for his
wrongs to me? How could I feel rancor to-
wards him? It even seemed to me that I owed
him a certain debt of gratitude.
So true is it, that nothing seems so great a
benefit as the reparation of a wrong done.
CHAPTER XII
LERNE CHANGES HIS METHOD OF ATTACK
When I was in the black hide of the bull, I
had sworn to myself, if my original shape were
ever restored to me, to flee away at once, with
or without Emma ; and yet the autumn was grow-
ing old, and I had not yet left Fonval.
The fact was, my treatment was now the exact
reverse of what it had been. To begin with, I
disposed of my time as I liked.
The first use that I made of that liberty was
to go to the shambles in the forest-clearing, and
there efface all traces of my visit. A favoring
god had not decreed that during the time I had
lived a bucolic life in the meadow, somebody
should come there, and the assistants should
remark the violation of the sepulcher.
Either they had changed their cemetery, or my
uncle no longer dissected anything, except tiny
creatures, of which the dogs left no trace, or else
experiments in animd vili were completely
abandoned.
Let me say that I proved to my satisfaction a
detail which lifted a great weight from my heart.
235
236 NEW BODIES FOE OLD
I had been afraid that the soul of the unhappy
Klotz had been transferred into some animal care-
fully kept in hiding; but his remains themselves,
although marvelously recalling Baudelaire's
famous poem, refuted me. The brain of the dead
man, marked as It was with numerous and deep
sinuosities, still visible, whilst bearing witness to
his humanity, was proof of a murder pure and
simple, thank Heaven !
So I enjoyed a large measure of freedom, and
besides, an affectionate and repentant Lerne had
shown himself at my bedside while I was con-
valescent. Oh, not the Lerne of long ago, the
companion of my Aunt LIdivine; no, but he was
no longer the grim and bloodthirsty host, who
had received me in the manner in which one shows
people the door.
When he saw me up and about, my uncle
brought Emma in, and said to her in my presence,
that I was cured of a passing touch of lunacy, and
that she might now adore me as much as she
liked.
"For my part," he continued, "I give up emo-
tions no longer suitable to my age. You shall
have Emma. All I ask of you is not to leave me.
A sudden solitude would increase my distress,
which you can easily understand, and which both
of you will pardon. This distress will pass.
Work will get the better of it. Do not be afraid,
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 237
my dear; the chief part of my profit shall be for
you I Nothing has been changed with regard to
that, and Nicolas shall be mentioned in the
partnership deed and in my will. You may love
one another in peace."
With these words he went off to his electrical
machines.
Emma showed no astonishment at anything.
Trustful and simpleminded, she had accepted my
uncle's speech with a clapping of hands.
I, knowing him to be an actor, might have told
myself that he was feigning kindness, in order
to keep me in the house; that either he was afraid
of what I might reveal or that he was hatching
some new project; but the two Circeean opera-
tions had rather troubled my memory and my
reasoning powers.
"Why," said I to myself, "why doubt this man,
who has, of his own free will, rescued me from the
most awful position? He perseveres in the good
way, and all is for the best."
At the sight of my laborious and domesticated
Professor, who could have believed in his victims,
and in a trap which he had laid for me, in the
assassination of Klotz, in the distress of Nell?
She never ceased her bowlings to the stars, suffer-
ing from the troubles which I had endured; for
she was still there, and it puzzled me that Lerne
should continue the punishment of a fault which
238 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
must appear much less now that Emma no longer
interested him.
I resolved to confide in my uncle.
"Nicolas," he said, "you have put your finger
on my greatest anxiety, but what is to be done?
In order to reestablish the right order of things
in this affair, it is absolutely necessary that the
body of Macbeth should com.e back here. By
what stratagem are we to persuade his father to
send him back? Try to find one. Help me. I
promise to act without delay as soon as one or
the other of us has found a solution."
This reply had dissipated my last feelings of
dislike. I did not ask myself why Lerne had
metamorphosed himself so as to give in so easily
and quickly.
My belief was that the Professor had at last
been restored to wisdom; and in default of the
other virtues, which would no doubt appear in
due order, his rectitude of long ago seemed to
me to be born again, rectitude which was as great
as the erudition which had never abandoned him,
and as evident as it was.
And Lerne's erudition was almost inexhaustible.
Each day I was more and more convinced of it.
We resumed our walks, and he profited by them
to discourse learnedly about everything we came
across — a leaf led him on to botany, entomology
was suggested by a beetle ; a drop of rain let loose
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 239
upon my admiration a deluge of chemistry, and
when we had got to the edge of the forest, I had
heard from Lerne's lips the lecturing of a whole
collegeful of dons.
But, it was there, at the edge of the woods and
fields that one should have seen him. After the
last tree had been passed, he never failed to stop,
hauled himself up to the top of a boundary stone,
and held forth concerning the Universe, in pres-
ence of the plains and the heavens.
He described things so ingeniously, that one
could believe one saw Nature unfold and open to
the very depths of the earth, and to the very ends
of Infinity.
His words knew equally well how to dig into
the hills to lay bare the strata of the soil, as to
bring near to us, the better to discourse about
them, the invisible planets.
He knew how to analyze the vapor of the
clouds, as well as to show the origin of the cold
wind — to evoke prehistoric landscapes, and to
prove in the same way the unending future of the
countryside.
He roamed in spirit with his eyes over the
Immense panorama, from the hut near at hand,
to those wide horizons — the distant tints of blue.
In a few words each thing was defined, ex-
plained, and illuminated by commentary, and as
he made sweeping gestures to every point of the
240 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
compass, to draw attention now to a river, and
now to a steeple, his outspread arms seemed to
lengthen into rays, like those of a lighthouse,
which sheds its long protecting beams over the
countryside.
The return to Fonval usually took place in less
scientific circumstances. My uncle continued his
speculations which he would keep to himself, as-
suming them, 1 suppose, to be too abstruse for my
intelligence, and he hummed as he went along,
his favorite air, which I suppose he had learnt
from one of his assistants, "Rum fit dum."
Once we got back, he hastened to the labora-
tory, or the hothouse.
We varied these walks with expeditions in the
motor-car, and then my uncle put himself astride
another hobby-horse. He classed my vehicle in
its rank amongst animal categories, showed the
creatures of to-day, of yesterday, and of to-
morrow, among which, no doubt, the automobile
would take its place, and this prophecy finished
up with a warm panegyric of my 80 h.p.
He wanted to learn how to drive the engine. It
was an easy business. In three lessons I made
him a past master. He always drove now, and I
did not complain, as ever since the two severings
and two re-joinings of the optic nerves, any long
strain tired my eyes.
My left ear had not yet recovered all the sensi-
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 241
bility one could have wished, but I did not dare
to talk about it to Lerne for fear of adding one
more to the many remorseful thoughts that
seemed to haunt him.
It was at the end of one of those pleasure trips
that I happened, in cleaning my car — a thing I
had to do myself — to find between the back and
the cushion of Lerne's seat, a little note-book
which had slipped from his pocket. I put it away
In mine, with the Intention of restoring it to him.
My curiosity got the better of me. On regain-
ing my room, and without rejoining the Professor,
I examined my find. It was a diary crammed
full of rapid notes and figures sketched in pencil.
It resembled the daily record of some research —
a laboratory journal.
The figures conveyed no meaning to my eyes.
The text was composed mainly of German terms
(more especially) and French ones, too. The
terms seemed to be chosen in either language, as
inspiration directed. The ensemble did not have
any meaning for me. However, I discovered a
piece of less chaotic literature dated the day be-
fore, In which I thought I could recognize a
resume of the preceding pages; and the fact of
my understanding some French words, and the
sense which they assumed (once they were put
242 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
together) awoke in me both an inveterate detec-
tive and a new-born linguist.
Among such words were the following sub-
stantives, connected by German words: "trans-
mission of thought," "electricity," "brains,"
"batteries."
With the help of a dictionary which I stole
from my uncle's room, I deciphered this sort of
cryptogram, in which, fortunately, the same ex-
pressions frequently recurred. Here is a transla-
tion of it — I give it for what it is worth, unfitted
as I am for this task, and driven to haste as I was
by the necessity of restoring the note-book as soon
as possible :
"Conclusions dated the 30th: Aim pursued:
Exchange of personalities without exchange of
brains. . . . Basis of research: Ancient experi-
ments have proved that everybody possesses a
soul; for the soul and the life are inseparable, and
all organisms, between their birth and death,
enjoy a more or less developed soul according as
they are higher or lower in the scale of existence.
Thus, from man to moss, passing through the
polypi, each living being has its own soul. Do not
plants sleep, breathe and digest? Why should
they not think?
"This proves that there is a soul where there is
no brain.
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 243
"So the soul and the brain are Independent of
one another.
"Consequently, souls can be exchanged with one
another without the brains being exchanged . . .
"Experiments in Transmission.
"Thought is the electricity of which our brains
are the batteries or the accumulators — I do not
know yet; but what is certain, is that the trans-
mission of the mental fluid takes place in a man-
ner analogous to that of the electric fluid.
"The experiment of the 4th proves that
thought is transmitted by conductors. That of
the loth, that it is transmitted without conductors,
on the ether waves.
"Subsequent experiments have shown a weak
spot which I now set down.
"A soul which is projected into an organism
unknown to this latter, compresses, so to speak,
a soul which is there, without being able to expel
it; the projected soul — the soul which has broken
loose from the body — is itself kept bound to its
organism by a sort of inexplicable mental 'attach-
ment,' which nothing up till now has been able to
cut.
"If the two beings are consenting, the recipro-
cal transmission fails for the same reason.
The major part of each soul re-installs itself per-
fectly well in the organism of its partner, but the
troublesome mental 'attachment' prevents each of
244 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
them from completely quitting the body from
which it is striving to detach itself.
"The simpler the recipient organism is rela-
tively to the transmitting organism, the more soul
can this latter project into a receptacle, which con-
tains so little of it in the beginning, and the thin-
ner, so to speak, becomes the 'attachment' which
keeps fast the mind in the transmitting body, but
it always exists.
"On the 20th I projected myself, mentally, in-
side Johann — on the 22nd I invaded a cat, on
the 24th an ash tree.
"Access has become easier and easier, and the
invasion more and more complete, but the 'attach-
ment' remains.
"I thought the experiment would succeed on
a corpse because there was no fluid to encumber
the receptacle to be filled. I had not reflected
that death is not compatible with a soul — that
inseparable companion of life itself. I did not
get any results, and the sensation is abominable.
"Theoretically, in order that the 'attachment'
should be suppressed, what is required? A re-
ceiving organism, which should have no soul at
all (in order that one may lodge one's own
entirely), and yet which should not be dead, and
in other terms, an orgatiized life which has never
lived. That is impossible.
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 245
"So, in practice, our efforts must tend to the
suppression of the 'attachment' by means of
artifices, which I do not yet perceive. . . .
"Not but what the experiments of this period
have yielded curious results, since we have arrived
at the following demonstrable conclusions:
"(i) The human brain can discharge itself
almost entirely into a plant.
"(2) From man to man, with jnutual consent,
the passage of personality is accom-
plished very completely (except for
'attachment'), which makes those souls,
as it were, sister souls — Siamese men-
talities.
"(3) From man to man, without mutual con-
sent, the compression of the receiving
soul (under pressure by the other) pro-
duces, in spite of the imperfection of the
process, a partial and momentary incar-
nation of the transmitting individual.
"A very interesting incarnation this, for It
satisfies some of those desiderata, all of which I
shall satisfy if I attain the aim at which I am
driving.
"It seems to me unattainable."
So this is the result of the studies which my
uncle had been so ardently lauding!
246 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
The theory was disconcerting. I ought to have
been astounded by it; for there was revealed a
tendency towards spiritualist doctrine — very
strange in the case of a materialist like Lerne —
and the new doctrine appeared in the light of a
phantasmagoria, which would have made many
eyes open wide behind learned spectacles, erudite
pince-nez, and pedantic monocles.
As for me, I did not discover all the subjects
of wonder at first sight, being still, at that time,
somewhat unwell, and I did not perceive that I
had translated a Franco-German mene mene
tekel iipharsin destined for me!
My attention was concentrated upon these
facts — that the organized being which had never,
lived, did not exist, and that, on the other hand,
the Professor was doubtful of being able to sup-
press the "attachment." So he was foiled. After
his former triumphs I expected any miracle from
him; only his inability to perform them would
have astonished me.
I set off to seek my uncle, in order to give him
back his note-book.
Barbe (with her corpulent figure) , whom I met,
told me that he was walking about in the park.
I did not meet him there, but at the edge of the
pond I saw Karl and Wilhelm, who were looking
at something in the water. Those two black-
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 247
guards inspired me with aversion, because of their
interchanged brains.
Their presence was usually enough to drive me
away, but that day, the sight which kept them
on the water's edge, drew me to them.
This something they were looking at kept
jumping out of the water with a shower of dia-
mond drops; it was a carp. It leaped up, shaking
its fins, which beat the air like wings. One would
have said that it was trying to fly away. The poor
creature really was trying to do so !
I had before me that fish which Lerne had
dowered with a blackbird's soul.
The captive bird — a prey in Its scaly flesh to
the old aspirations of Its race, and weary of Its
watery home — was leaping towards an impossible
heaven.
Finally, with a more despairing effort, the
creature fell on the shore, with its gills quivering.
Then Wilhelm seized it, and the assistants de-
parted with their booty. They apostrophized it,
and amused themselves with it like old ill-
conditioned guttersnipes. They were whistling,
and imitating the blackbird's song in mockery,
and then, by way of a laugh, a great neighing
came from their chests, and without knowing It,
they reproduced the sound of a horse's trumpet
much better than they had that of the winged
flute.
248 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
I remained deamily contemplating the pond,
that liquid cage in which the enchanted carp had
suffered the haunting desire to fly, and the regret
for a nest. The liquid mirror, a moment dis-
turbed by the fury of the fish's leaps, would not
have reassumed its leaden calm before the
creature was dead.
Its martyrdom was going to end in the stew-
pan. How would that of the other victims finish,
the escaped beasts, and Macbeth?
Oh, Macbeth ! how to deliver him I
On the water, now becalmed in deep repose, a
last ripple was spreading its circles, and the
depths of the firmament were reflected in its
mirror again. The evening star was shining in the
depths of the lake millions of leagues away, but
at will, it was possible, on the contrary, to imagine
it floating on the surface, and the leaves of the
water-lilies, crescents and half-circles, seemed
like reflections of the moon at Its successive ages,
which had remained there, slumbering in that
chill water.
Macbeth! I thought once more. Macbeth I
What about hiinf
At this moment there was the sound of a dis-
tant bell at the main door. Somebody at this
hour of the day! Nobody ever came! . . .
I retraced my steps to the chateau at a rapid
pace, asking myself for the first time what would
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 249
happen to Nicolas if the Law descended on
Fonval.
Hiding behind the corner of the chateau, I
ventured a glance. Lerne was standing at the
door reading a telegram that moment received,
and I came out from my hiding-place.
*'Here, uncle," said I, "here is a pocket-book.
It belongs to you, I think. You left it in the
car. . . ."
But the rustling of petticoats made me turn
round.
Emma was coming to us, radiant in that sun-
set, in which her hair seemed, every evening, to
gain a new wealth of red light — with a tune sound-
ing on her lips, like a rose between her teeth.
She came straight on, and her gait was that
of a dance.
The bell had interested her also. She Inquired
about the telegram. The Professor did not
reply.
"Oh, what's the matter?" said she. "What's
the matter, again, mon Dieu?"
"Is it so grave, uncle?" I asked in my turn.
"No," replied Lerne. "Donovan is dead, that's
all."
"Poor fellow," said Emma. Then after a
silence: "Is it not better to be dead than mad?
After all it is the best thing for him. Come,
250 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Nicolas, you are not going to put on a face like
that! Come!"
And she seized my hand, and dragged me to the
chateau.
Lerne went away in the other direction.
I was prostrated. "Let me alone," I said, "let
me alone. Donovan, the poor wretch. Let me
alone. You cannot know! Let me alone, I say."
A maddening fear came over me. Leaving
Emma I ran after my uncle and joined him at the
laboratory. He was talking to Johann, and show-
ing him the telegram. The German disappeared
into the house at the very moment that I accosted
the Professor.
"Uncle, you have not told him anything, have
you? You have not said anything to Johann?"
"Yes, why?"
"Oh, but he will Inform the others, and the
others will repeat it before Nell ! Nell will know
it, uncle, that is certain. They will tell her, and
Donovan's soul will learn that it no longer has
a human body. It must not be ! It must not be !"
"There is no danger, Nicolas, I assure you."
"No danger ! Those men are scoundrels, I
tell you ! Let me prevent this catastrophe ! Time
is passing, let me in, I entreat you ! Please, for
a second, I entreat you ! Damn it all, I will
pass!"
LERNE CHANGES HIS ATTACK 251
The lessons I had learned from the bull stood
me in good stead; I charged head first.
My uncle fell back on the grass, and with a blow
of my fist I opened the already half open door.
At this, Johann, who was on the watch behind
it, fell back, bleeding at the nose, and then I pene-
trated to the courtyard, and decided to take away
the dog at any hazard, and never again be
separated from it.
The pack slipped into their kennels. I saw
Nell immediately. They had given her a kennel
apart from the others. Her great starved, hair-
less, wretched body was lying against the grating.
I called out, "Donovan, Donovan!" She did
not budge.
The eyes of the dogs gleamed in the depths
of their somber huts,. and some of them growled.
"Donovan! Nell!" I had an intuition of the
truth. There also the scythe of Death had done
its work. Yes, Nell also was cold and stiff. A
chain twisted round her neck seemed to have
strangled her. I was going to make sure of this,
when Lerne and Johann showed themselves at
the entrance of the courtyard.
"Villains," I cried, "you have killed her."
"No, on my honor, I swear," declared my
uncle. "They found her this morning, exactly as
you see."
"Do you think, then, that she did it of her own
252 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
accord — that she put an end to herself? Oh, what
a horrible end I"
"Perhaps," said Lerne. "However, there is
another solution, and a more likely one. A
supreme convulsion, I think, twisted the chain.
The body was sickly. Hydrophobia declared it-
self some days ago. I hide nothing from you,
Nicolas. I am not exculpating myself in any way.
You can see that."
"Oh," I cried, in terror, "rabies."
Lerne went on quietly, "It is possible, also, that
another reason for this death escapes us. They
found the dog at 8 o'clock this morning still
warm. The death had taken place an hour be-
fore, and," added he, "Macbeth succumbed at
7 o'clock — just at the same instant."
"From what did he die?"
"He died of rabies also."
11
CHAPTER XIII
EXPERIMENTS ! HALLUCINATIONS !
Emma, Lerne and I were in the little drawing
room after lunch, when the Professor had a sort
of fainting-fit.
It was not the first. I had already observed
similar signs of breaking health in my uncle, but
this one was very clear evidence. I could observe
all the details of it, and it was accompanied by
curious circumstances; that is why I shall speak
about it more particularly.
Any one who saw them and did not know all
the facts would have attributed those incidents to
intellectual overwork. To tell the truth, my uncle
did have spells of overwork. The laboratory,
hothouse and chateau were no longer sufficient
for him. He had annexed the park, also, and
now Fonval bristled with complicated poles,
abnormal masts, and unusual semaphores, and as
some trees interfered with the experiments, a
gang of woodcutters was sent for, in order to
cut them down.
The joy of seeing the possibility of free pass-
age to and fro restored in the grounds consoled
253
254 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
me for this sacrilegious destruction. All about
the immense workshop of the valley basin one
saw the Professor feverishly moving about from
one building to another, from a dynamo to a
switch, ferociously determined to suppress the
fatal "attachment."
Sometimes, however, he had an attack of weak-
ness, as the result of one of those very peculiar
fainting-fits which I am describing. It was always
whilst he was reflecting profoundly, with his eyes
fixed on some object or other, and brain working
at high pressure that the attack came, and he
collapsed. At such times he became paler and
paler, until the color came back into his cheeks
by itself, and by degrees.
Those attacks left him limp and without
strength. They robbed him of his fine feeling of
confidence, and I heard him complain after one
of them, and murmur in a tone of discourage-
ment:
"I'll never succeed, never!"
Often had I been on the point of asking him
about it. That day I made up my mind to do so.
We were drinking our coffee, Lerne seated in
an armchair in front of the window, holding his
cup in his hand. Our talk was a broken sort of
conversation, with longer and longer intervals.
For want of something to talk about, the con-
)M
EXPERIMENTS! HALLUCINATIONS! 255
versation languished. Gradually it ceased
altogether, as a fire goes out for want of fuel.
The clock struck, and one saw the woodcutters
going to their work, with their axes over their
shoulder. They brought before my mind a pic-
ture of ragged lictors going to carry out an
execution of trees.
Which amongst my old comrades would perish
to-day — this beech, or that chestnut? I saw them
from my window, clothed in all the yellows of
autumn, from the deepest copper to the palest
gold, each showing its dark touch of shade, or its
reddish light amongst those various yellows.
The firs were beginning to get black. Leaves
were falling here and there as seemed good to
themselves, for there was no breeze.
With a spire like that of a cathedral, a poplar
colossus with a hoary head dominated the leaf-
age. I had always known it thus — a monumental
tree — and the sight of it stirred in me the
memories of my childhood.
Suddenly a flight of terror-struck birds escaped
from it — two rooks left it, cawing, a squirrel
jumped from branch to branch, and took refuge
on the neighboring walnut tree.
Some unpleasant creature, climbing into the
tree, had doubtless threatened their safety. I
could not distinguish it, for a clump of bushes
hid all the lower part of the poplar, but with a
256 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
surprise that was almost pain I saw it quiver from
the top to the roots, shake itself once or twice,
and slowly sway its branches. One would have
said that a breeze had sprung up which blew for
it alone.
I thought of the woodcutters, without, how-
ever, forming a very precise conception of the
part they might be playing in this drama.
"Can my uncle," I said to myself, "have
ordered them to execute the poplar — that
venerable patriarch — that king of Fonval?
That would be too much."
Then, as I was on the point of asking Lerne
about the matter, I perceived that he was in one
of his fainting-fits.
I satisfied myself of the presence of the distinc-
tive symptoms of his trouble, the immobility —
the pallor — the fixed look — and I succeeded in de-
termining what he was looking at with that per-
sistent fixed stare of a somnambulist.
What he was gazing at was the poplar — that
animate tree, whose appearance at the moment
was recalling in so terrifying a way the date trees
of the hothouse excited by love and battle.
I remembered the note-book. Was there not
some appalling analogy between the absence of
that man and the life of that tree?
Suddenly an ax smote the trunk with a
sound as of low thunder. The poplar quivered,
EXPERIMENTS! HALLUCINATIONS! 257
twisted about, and my uncle gave a start. His
cup dropping from his hand, was dashed to pieces
on the floor, and whilst his cheeks regained their
color, he put his hand down quickly to his ankles,
as if the ax had struck the man and the tree at
the same blow.
Meanwhile, Lerne gradually recovered. I
pretended to have observed nothing except his
fainting, and I told him that he should look after
himself — that those repeated fits would end by
killing him. Did he know what caused them?
My uncle gave a sign that he did. Emma
came near his chair. ... "I know," said he, at
last, "cardiac syncope. I am treating myself."
That was not true. The Professor was not
treating himself. He was using up his life in the
pursuit of his chimera, without more heed for his
skin than it if had been an old work-jacket, to be
thrown away as soon as the task was over.
Emma advised him to go out.
"The air will do you good," she said.
He went out. We saw him going towards the
poplar, smoking his pipe. The blows of the ax
fell faster and faster. The tree bent over and
fell. Its fall made the sound like an earthquake.
The branches hit my uncle hut he did not step
aside.
And now, robbed of its only campanile^ Fonval
seemed to have sunk lower than ever into the
258 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
depths of the valley, and I sought, in the forlorn
sky, to fix the place of the tree, which one had
already forgotten, and its tall form, which was
already legendary.
Lerne came back. He did not seem to know
that he had been imprudent. His carelessness
made one tremble when one realized that he
might be as reckless in the most hazardous ex-
periments — for example, those transfusions of
soul about which the note-book spoke.
Was it one of those attempts which I had just
witnessed? I meditated about it, with that
strange feeling which I had already experienced
at Fonval, like that caused by groping about in
mysterious darkness.
Were Lerne's fainting-fit and the tragedy of
the tree some mysterious coincidence, or had some
strange bond united them at the moment of the
ax's blow?
Certainly the arrival of the woodcutters at the
foot of the poplar would have been enough to
cause the flight of the birds, and as for the shud-
dering, why should the cutter not have produced
it by climbing up the other side of the trunk in
order to fix the traditional rope?
Once more, the crossways of probability offered
me a choice of solutions, like so many roads, but
my mind was not acute at the time.
EXPERIMENTS! HALLUCINATIONS! 259
I was often with Emma, but as much as I loved
those meetings, I had to make up my mind to
stop them, for the following unanswerable reason
— but for the note-book I might have attributed it
to my nervous condition; I should then have
called it a pathological consequence of the opera-
tions, and Lerne would have fooled me to the
end — fortunately I guessed his tactics at the first.
He had confided to me that he was thinking
of assuming my shape, in order to be loved in my
place. His eagerness to save my mutilated
body; the method he had explained in the note-
book, and the business of the poplar — all co-
ordinated themselves in my mind. His fainting-
fits assumed all the appearance of experiments, in
which Lerne, through a sort of hypnotism, flung
his soul into other beings.
So now with his eye to the keyhole he watched
every move I made, transfusing his ego into my
brain, using the power which his unfinished dis-
covery procured him, to put in practice the most
astounding substitution of personalities. I shall
be told that this very appearance of unlikeliness
ought to have weakened the value of my reason-
ing; but at Fonval, incoherence being the rule, the
more absurd an explanation was, the more likely
it was to be the right one.
Ah I that eye at the keyhole. It pursued me
like that of Jehovah blasting Cain from the top
26o NEW BODIES FOR OLD
of its triangular peephole ! I was never free of
it. Emma felt my distress, but she was far from
understanding the real cause of it.
Although I am joking now, I had perceived my
danger, and my one thought was how to avert it.
After long deliberation, I determined to take the
only reasonable course — one which I should have
taken long before, viz., departure. Departure
with Emma, of course, for now nothing in the
world would have made me leave to my uncle
what I had won.
But Emma was not one of those women whom
one can carry off against her will. Would she
consent to leave Lerne, and the promised wealth?
Assuredly not I
The poor girl did not see this modernized form
of fairy-tale going on around her. The glories
to come completely occupied her mind. She was
both silly and avaricious. To make her follow
me I should have to make her believe that she
would not be worse off by a penny, and it was
only Lerne who could reassure her effectively on
that score.
So, what I required was the Professor's con-
sent I Certainly there could be no question of
any consent except of one sort; only one wrested
from him by constant intimidation would serve
the purpose.
I would make play with Macbeth's murder, and
EXPERIMENTS! HALLUCINATIONS! 261
Klotz's assassination, and my terrified uncle
would speak to Emma as I wanted him to, and I
should carry her off, no doubt depriving Mr.
Nicolas Vermont of an inheritance (very much
eaten into), and Mile. Bourdichet of (probably
quite chimerical) splendors.
My plan was soon arranged in detail.
CHAPTER XIV
DEATH AND THE MASK
But this plan was never carried out. Not
that I hesitated to put it into action — I was al-
ways determined upon it, and any doubt that came
to me about the existence of the danger to be
avoided, arose only when all chance of realizing
my projects had passed.
As long as they were still possible, on the con-
trary, I awaited with patience the opportunity of
accomplishing them, and I will even admit that
my growing terror ceaselessly urged me to have
done with it all.
Everywhere danger showed itself to my halluci-
nated eyes, and all the more perfidiously that
there was often nothing to be afraid of.
It was easy to see that it was time for me to
leave Fonval and I longed with all my strength to
go, but I had resolved to choose the moment when
Lerne should listen to my proposal sympa-
thetically, so that thus I might only use my threat
as a last resource.
And the moment was long in coming. The
discovery would not come to birth. Its failure
262
DEATH AND THE MASK 263
was undermining the Professor's health. His
fainting-fits — or rather his experiments, grew
more frequent, and were rapidly weakening him,
and his temper suffered in consequence.
Our walks were the one thing which had not
lost their power of cheering him up.
He still kept singing "Rum fil diim," stopping
ev^ery ten yards to utter some scientific truth. But
the motor-car, of all things, exerted its magic
over the magician, so in spite of the bad result
obtained in the same conditions some months be-
fore, I had to make up my mind to speak to him
during the journey in my 80 h. p., and should have
done so — but for the accident.
It took place in the woods of Lourcq, three
kilometers this side of Grey, as we were coming
back to Fonval from a run to Vouziers.
We were climbing a slight hill at full speed.
My uncle was driving. I was going over in my
mind the speech which I was going to make, and
was repeating to myself for the hundredth time
the phrases which I had prepared some time be-
fore, while apprehension dried up my tongue.
Ever since our setting-out, I had put off the attack
on my tyrant from moment to moment — rehears-
ing the firm tone which would intimidate him.
Before each turn in the road I had said to myself,
*'It is there I shall speak," but we had passed
264 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
through all the villages, and gone round all the
turns In the road, without my being able to articu-
late a syllable, and now I had hardly ten minutes
left!
Well, I should open fire when we got to the
top of the incline.
My first phrase was ready at the gates of my
memory, and was awaiting expression, when the
car lurched alarmingly towards the right, then
towards the left, skidding on its two side wheels.
We were going to overturn !
I seized the wheel, and put on all the brake I
could, with feet and hands. The car gradually
came under control, again slackened its speed, and
stopped right at the top of the hill.
Then I looked at Lerne. He was leaning out
of his seat, his head nodding from side to side,
and his eyes staring vacantly behind his spectacles.
One of his arms was hanging down.
A fainting-fit! We had had a narrow escape;
so, those fainting fits were really syncope. What
had I been imagining with my silly ideas?
However, my uncle was not coming to. When
I took off his mask, I saw that his clean-shaven
face was as pale as a wax candle. His ungloved
hands too looked as If they were of wax. I took
them, and being quite Ignorant of medicine, I
slapped them vigorously, as one does to actresses,
for hysterics.
DEATH AND THE MASK 265
This form of applause was in the nature of
a claque in the repose of the countryside —
sonorous and funereal; it greeted the withdrawal
of the great charlatan from the stage.
Frederic Lerne had indeed ceased to live. I
perceived it from his chilled fingers — from his
livid cheeks, his soulless eye, and his heart, which
had stopped beating. The cardiac affection about
which I had been so skeptical, had just put an end
to his life, as is the way with those diseases, with-
out any warning.
Stupefaction, and the reaction from the narrow
shave I had just had, kept me motionless. So, in
a second, there remained nothing of Lerne except
food for worms, and a name fit for oblivion!
Nothing! in spite of my hatred for this de-
testable man, and my relief at knowing that he no
longer had power to harm me, I was awestruck
by the swift death which had spirited away this
monster's intelligence.
Like a puppet deprived of the hand that gave it
life, and prostrate on the edge of the stage,
Lerne lay stretched out, limp, his arm hanging
down, and his funereal Pierrot's face made whiter
by Death.
And yet, as the spirit departed from'it into the
Unknown, the dead body of my uncle seemed to
me to grow more beautiful. The soul is so
praised in comparison with the flesh, that one is
266 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
astonished at seeing the latter become beautiful at
the departure of the former. I followed the
progress of the phenomenon on Lerne's features.
The Great Mystery shed the light of a divine
serenity over his brow, as if life were a cloud
whose passing reveals some strange sun ; and thus
whilst the countenance took on the hue of white
marble, the puppet became a statue.
Tears dimmed my eyes. I took off my hat.
If my uncle had perished fifteen years before, in
the fullness of happiness and wisdom, that Lerne
of long ago could not have been more beautiful
to see.
But I could not go on dreaming in this way,
keeping up a conversation with a corpse on a fre-
quented road. So I raised him in my arms
calmly, deliberately, and placed him on my left;
a strap from the grid fixed him firmly in the seat.
With.his gloves on his hands again, his cap pulled
down over his eyes, his spectacles on his nose, he
seemed as if asleep.
We set off side by side.
Nobody at Grey noted the stiffness of my neigh-
bor, and I was able to take him back to Fonval,
with veneration in my heart for the dead man, and
full of pity for this old lover who had suffered
so much. I forgot the offenses in the presence of
the offender's death. He filled me with a pro-
DEATH AND THE MASK 267
found respect, I must also say, with an invincible
repugnance, which kept me from him in the depths
of my seat.
Since our meeting in the middle of the labyrinth
on the morning of my arrival, I had not addressed
a word to the Germans. I went to seek them in
the laboratory, leaving the car and its sepulchral
chauffeur in front of the hall door in charge of
the servant.
The assistants understood at once, by my ges-
ticulations, that something extraordinary had hap-
pened, and followed me. They had that anxious
look of criminals who foresee disaster in every
trifle. When they were certain what had befallen
them, the three accomplices could not hide their
dismay and anxiety. They talked together ex-
citedly. Johann was domineering: the two
others became obsequious. I awaited their
pleasure.
At last they helped me to carry the Professor's
body up to his room, and on to the bod.
Emma saw us, gave a cry and fled, while the
Germans made off without more ado.
Barbe came, and I left her with my uncle. The
stout serving-woman wept a few tears, paying a
tribute to Death as a thing in Itself, and not to
the shade of her master.
She looked at him from the top of her bulky
268 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
person. Lerne was changing. The nose became
pinched — the nails became blue.
"You will have to lay out the body," I said
suddenly.
"Leave that to me," replied Barbe. "It is not
a cheerful business, but I know all about it."
I turned my back on her and her preparations.
Barbe possessed the knowledge of the peasant
women, who are all, more or less, midwives and
undertakers.
She soon came and announced to me, "It is
all done, properly now. Nothing is wanting ex-
cept Holy Water and the decorations, which I
can't find."
Lerne was so white on his white bed, that they
mingled together, and resembled an alabaster
sarcophagus, with its effigy on it, and both hewn
from the same block of marble. My uncle, with
his hair carefully parted, had been clothed in
a frilled shirt, and a white tie. His pale hands
were clasped together, and held a rosary. A
crucifix showed like a star on his breast. His
knees and feet stood out under the sheets like
sharp snowy hills, very far away.
On the night-table, behind the bowl, in which
there was no Holy Water, and in which lay useless
a sprinkler of withered boxwood, two candles
were burning.
Barbe had turned this piece of furniture into a'
DEATH AND THE MASK 269
sort of altar, and I scolded her sharply for this
piece of absurdity. She replied that that was the
"custom," and then shut the shutters.
Shadows sank into the face of the dead man,
thus anticipating the sequel, and creating a prema-
ture livor.
"Open the window wide," I said, "let the day-
light in, and the songs of the birds, and the scents
of the garden."
The servant obeyed me, although it was against
the "custom"; then, when she had received her in-
structions from me for the necessary ceremonies,
she left me at my wish.
From the park there came the powerful aroma
of dead leaves. It is infinitely sad! One
breathes it in, in the way one listens to a funeral
hymn. Crows passed cawing, as they caw when
they fly in great numbers from a steeple. The
approach of evening darkened the day.
I examined the room; for I felt I must look
anywhere but at the dead.
Over the writing-desk was a drawing in chalk,
which represented my Aunt Lidivine, smiling. It
is wrong to make portraits smile ! They are
destined to see too many sad things, just as Lidi-
vine, in colors, having smiled to see her husband
carrying on his illicit amours, smiled again, in the
tragic presence of his remains.
The picture was twenty years old, but the chalk
270 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
powder, which resembles the dust of age, made it
look more time-worn. Every day made it darker.
It seemed to remove, far away into the past my
aunt and her own youth. It displeased me.
I endeavored to interest myself in other things
— in the falling dusk — in the early bats — in the
knickknacks of the room — in the candles which
threw a feeble light with their dancing flames.
The wind rose, and took off my attention for
the moment. It streamed moaning through the
leafage, and as one heard it groaning in the chim-
ney, one fancied one could hear the passage of
Time. With a sudden stronger gust, it put out
a candle. The other flickered, and I shut the
window quickly.
Suddenly, I was sincere with myself, and no
longer sought to be my own dupe. I required to
look at the dead man, to keep an eye on his seem-
ing powerlessness; then I lit the lamp and placed
Lerne in a flood ofjlight.
Really, he was handsome — very handsome !
Nothing remained of the grim physiognomy which
I had encountered, after fifteen years of absence
— nothing! except, perhaps, a certain irony on the
mouth — the shade of a grin.
Had my late uncle still some arriere pensee?
Dead, he seemed still to be defying Nature.
Dead ! he who in his lifetime had set his finger to
creation !
DEATH AND THE MASK 271
And his work appeared to me In alhthe sublime
audacity and criminal boldness, which made him
worthy of the pillory, as well as of the pedestal,
of the rod of the slave and of the palm of the
victor.
Of yore, I knew he was worthy of honor, and
I would have taken my oath that he would never
have deserved dishonor; but what astounding
chance, some five years ago, had befallen, which
had made of him the wicked lord of a castle who
murdered his guests?
I kept asking myself this, and meanwhile the
shades of Klotz and Macbeth seemed to be crying
out their torture In the recesses of the moaning
chimney.
The gust, turning to a gale, whistled at the
loosely fitting doors. The flames of the candles
became restless. The curtains rose and fell
again, with melancholy motions. The hair of
Lerne was blowR about, white and feathery. The
storm disordered those hairs, and brushed them
this way and that, and whilst the spirit hand of
the gale sported amongst the long hair, I, trans-
fixed with amazement, bent over the bed, looking
at something that appeared and disappeared
under the silvery locks — a purple scar, zvhich en-
circled heme's head from temple to temple, the
dreadful semi-crown which indicated the Circeean
272 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
operation ! My uncle had been operated on by
whom? Otto Klotz, of course!
Light had penetrated the mystery. Its last
veil, a winding-sheet, had been torn. All was ex-
plained now — all ! The sudden metamorphosis
of the Professor, coinciding with the disappear-
ance of the principal assistant, with Macbeth's
journey, and the eclipse of Lerne; all! The
brutal letters, the changed handwriting — my
failure to recognize him; the German accent, his
failures of memory, and also the violent temper
of Klotz — his rashness, and passion for Emma,
and then his wicked activities and the crimes com-
mitted on Macbeth and on me !
All! All!! All!!!
Calling to mind Emma's account, I was able to
reconstitute the history of an unimaginable crime.
Four years before my return to Fonval, Lerne
and Otto Klotz returned from Nanthel, where
they had passed the day. Lerne was probably in
a happy mood. He was going once more to take
up his noble studies in grafting, whose only aim
was to relieve humanity. But Klotz, being in
love with Emma, was hoping to divert those ef-
forts to another object — one of profit — one of
lucre — the exchange of brains : doubtless this very
idea (which he was not able to carry out at Man-
heim for want of money), he had already pro-
posed to my uncle, and without any result.
DEATH AND THE MASK 273
But the assistant had his own Macchiavelian
idea. With the help of his three compatriots,
warned beforehand, and hidden in the thicket, he
struck down the Professor, gagged him, and shut
him up in tlie laboratory — this man, whose wealth
and independence — in other words, whose person-
ality — he invaded.
The next day, before dawn, he went back to the
laboratory, where Lerne, who was being watched,
awaited him.
His three accomplices administered anesthetics
to both, and placed the brain of Klotz in my
uncle's skull.
As for the brain of Lerne, they no doubt con-
tented themselves with placing it as best they
might in the skull of Klotz, who was now only a
dead body, and they buried it all In haste with the
other debris.
So there is Otto Klotz behind the mask, clothed
in the appearance he desired, dressed like Lerne,
master of Fonval, of Emma and the laboratory —
a sort of monk of St, Bernard sheltered in the
shell of the being whom he killed.
Emma saw him come out of the laboratory.
He entered the chateau, pale and trembling, upset
the usual habits and customs, made the criss-cross
roads of the labyrinth, and then, sure of impunity,
began his terrible experiments.
274 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Fortunately the body-snatcher had died too
soon, without reaping the reward of a robbery of
which he was now the victim, since the heart-
disease which had just carried off the spirit of
Klotz, belonged really to the body of Lerne.
In this manner is the burglar in a house pun-
ished when the roof falls in upon him.
I now understand why that mask had resumed
the real expression of my uncle. The soul of the
German no longer inhabited it, to give it Klotz's
expression.
Klotz the murderer of Lerne, and not Lerne
the assassin of Klotz ! I could not get over it.
That is a confidence which the double person
had forgotten to make to me, and vexed at having
been his dupe so long, I said to myself, that, had
I been living alone with him, I should probably
have discovered his imposture, but that the society
of people as easily deceived as Emma was, or ac-
complices like the assistants, whether duped them-
selves or trying to dupe me, had dragged me into
this delusion.
Ah ! Aunt Lidivine, thouglit I, you were right
to smile with your lips of chalk. Your Frederic
fell into a villainous trap five years ago, and the
mind which has just quitted that form, is not his.
Nothing alien any longer remains in it, except a
deserted brain — a carnal globe as uninteresting as
the liver. So it is your husband whom we are
DEATH AND THE MASK 275
watching; It is the other who has just died, and
paid his debt.
At this idea I sobbed heart-broken, in the pres-
ence of the strange corpse, but the sardonic grin,
left at the time of its flight by the evil soul like a
stamp, still checked my emotions.
I effaced it with the tip of my finger, forming
the mouth, which was now stiff, and hardly malle-
able into the shape I wanted.
At the moment, when I was stepping back, the
better to judge of the effect, there was a gentle
scratching at the door.
"It'sl, Nicolas, I, Emma!"
Poor simple girll Should I tell her the truth?
How would she take such a strange turn of
destiny? I knew her; having been many times
fooled, she would have reproached me with trying
to mystify her, so I held my peace.
"Take a rest," said she, in a low tone. "Barbe
will take your place."
"No, no," said I, "let me be."
I felt I must keep this vigil by the side of my
dead uncle to the end. I had accused him of too
many crimes, and I felt the need of asking forgive-
ness of his memory, and of that of my aunt; and
that is why, despite the wild fury of the storm, we
conversed all night long — the dead man, the chalk
drawing and myself.
276 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
After Barbe had come at dawn, I went out into
the cool of the morning, which soothes the skin
and allays the fever of a long night of watching.
The park in autumn exhaled an odor of decay
as of a cemetery. The great wind in the night
had piled up all the leaves and my steps rustled
in the thick bed. Only one or two could be seen
here and there on the skeleton trees, and I could
scarce tell whether they were leaves or sparrows.
In a few hours the park had prepared itself
for winter. What was going to become of the
marvelous hothouse, at the coming of frost?
Perhaps I should be able to get into it by reason
of that death which had flung the Germans off
their guard.
I made my way obliquely in its direction, but
what I saw from a distance made me quicken
my steps.
The door of the hothouse was open, and smoke
escaped from it — acrid and foul — and also made
its way through the openings in the glass.
I went in.
The Rotunda, the Aquarium and the third hall,
were a picture of confusion. They had pillaged,
broken and burned everything. Heaps of filth
were accumulated in the middle of the three halls.
I there found jumbled together, broken plants,
shattered pots, bits of glass and sea anemones,
flowers defiled, close to dead beasts.
DEATH AND THE MASK 277
In short, — three disgusting rubbish heaps,
wherein the triple palace beheld the end of its
pleasant, moving, or repulsive marvels. Some
rags were still burning in a corner. In another,
a heap of branches — the most compromising ones
— were just hissing embers.
No doubt the assistants had worked feverishly
at this task of destruction, in order that no vestige
of their labors should remain, and the storm alone
had prevented me from hearing them, but it was
not likely they had stopped short there in their
congenial task.
To make sure of that, I examined the shambles
near the cliff. In that gaping ditch there was
nothing but bones and carcasses of unimportant
animals, some without a skull, others without a
head. Klotz was no longer there. Nell was not
there.
The sack of the laboratory gave me the impres-
sion of a masterpiece. It proved the innate ca-
pacity of men in general, and certain nations in
particular, for this sort of diversion.
I ransacked the house at will; all the doors
banging and clashing as the wind caught them.
In the courtyard there only remained living
animals which had not yet undergone any treat-
ment. I did not discover the others till later on,
so here there was nothing destroyed. The oper-
ating rooms, on the other hand, disclosed an in-
278 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
describable chaos of broken bottles, the mingled
contents of which flooded the tiles with a pool of
chemicals. A jumble of books, notes and note-
books, was spread over the holocaust of twisted
implements.
Lastly, most of the surgical instruments had
been stolen. The villains had fled with the secret
of the Circeean operation, and the implements
needed for performing it. The building where
they had lived, indeed, with its chests and cup-
boards emptied, its furniture upside-down, proved
the flight of the three associates.
CHAPTER XV
THE NEW BEAST
Under the influence of an indifference most
praiseworthy, in these unfortunate circumstances,
the official doctor asked no questions, examined
nothing. I told him how my late uncle had died
of syncope. He had heard about his heart-
disease, and this official doctor gave me the Burial
Certificate.
"Dr. Lerne is dead," said he, "and our mission
to-day will stop at that, if you please. For the
rest, it is not our business to set investigations on
foot which might bring us to contradict so eminent
a master, and make him die otherwise than he
desired."
The funeral took place at Grey-l'Abbaye, with-
out any pomp or spectators, after which I em-
ployed ten days in unraveling the affairs of this
inconceivable duality; this unparalleled amalgam
of assassin and victim: Klotz-Lerne.
During the course of his "phenomenal" exist-
ence, that is to say the last four and a half years
or so, he had made no testamentary dispositions.
This was to me the proof that in spite of his fore-
279
28o NEW BODIES FOR OLD
bodlngs of his end, death had overtaken him un-
expectedly, for no doubt had it been otherwise, he
would have done everything to disinherit me.
I found in his desk, at the bottom of the secret
drawer, my uncle's Will, as the letter of long ago
had told me I should. It appointed me his
residuary legatee.
But KIotz-Lerne had charged the estate with a
super-abundance of mortgages, and contracted
numberless debts.
My first thought was to appeal to the Courts,
and then the absurdity of the case struck me, and
I perceived all the confusion, which such a substi-
tution of persons could cause to legal minds —
those frauds of a kind not provided against by the
Code, those false pretenses and all this legacy-
hunting, which were a defiance of nature and law
alike.
I had to resign myself to all the consequences
of an astounding imposture, and not say a word
about it, for fear of arousing the worst suspicions.
Everything considered, however, the acceptance
of the succession still brought m^e some profit, and
whatever happened, I was resolved to get rid of
Fonval, judging that it would, henceforward, be
for me but a nest of evil memories.
I went through all the papers. Those of the
real Lerne, confirmed his medical honor, and the
legitimacy of his researches in grafting In every
THE NEW BEAST 28 1
line. Those of KIotz-Lerne, usually recognizable
by the illustrations in the manuscript, and often
blackened with German Gothic characters, were
carefully examined, and were reduced to ashes,
for they were irrefutable witnesses of several
crimes, and contained nothing to refute the pre-
sumption that a certain Nicolas Vermont, who
had been present at Fonval for six months, had
been a partner in them.
Under the influence of this same dread, I ran-
sacked the park and outhouses.
That done, I presented the animals to the vil-
lagers, and dismissed Barbe.
Then I summoned help. We filled trunks and
cases with family treasures, whilst Emma packed
her boxes — half annoyed at the loss of her day-
dream, and half pleased to follow me to Paris.
After the death of Klotz-Lerne, eager to take
my place again in the world, and to enjoy once
more the comforts of wealth, without passing
through the worries of too small a house, I had
written to one of my friends, asking him to take
a flat for me, a little larger than my bachelor
rooms, and suitable for a couple of lovers. His
answer delighted us. He had found out a home
for us in the Avenue Victor Hugo — a little house
built as if to our measure, and furnished exactly
to our taste. Servants, recruited by his good of-
fices, awaited us.
282 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
All was ready. I sent off a mountain of parcels
belonging to Emma along with her trunks.
One morning Maitre Pallud, the Notary of
Grey, had a final interview with me with regard to
the sale of the property. Emma could not keep
still. We fixed that very evening for our de-
parture in the car, intending to sleep at Nanthel,
in order to be in Paris the next day.
And the hour came for departing from Fonval
for ever. I went over the chateau, which was
empty of furniture, and the park, in which there
was no leafage. It looked as if the autumn had
stripped them both.
The old perfumes still clung to the abandoned
rooms, recalling sad memories. Ah ! what charm
there sometimes is in musty things ! One saw on
the walls the indelible outline of pictures or
mirrors now taken down, sideboards or chiffon-
iers that had gone, leaving behind patches that
looked new against the faded paper, outlines of
things magically given by them to the familiar
wall, bright spots destined to grow pale, as time
went on, just as the memory of the absent.
Some of the rooms seemed made smaller by
being emptied, others larger, without any obvious
reason.
1 went over the house from garret to basement,
by the light of the skylight and the gleams of a
grating. I explored from attic to cellar, and I
THE NEW BEAST 283
did not grow weary of wandering through this
scenery of my youth, like a living being haunting
a phantom place. Ah ! my youth ! It alone
dwelt in Fonval. I felt that. In spite of their
importance, the recent dramas were pale beside it.
The bedrooms were duller than ever, and Dono-
van's and Emma's were no longer anything but
my own and my aunt's.
Was I not right to have put up Fonval to
auction?
This double feeling accompanied me in my
farewells to the park. The paddock became a
lawn, and the summerhouse of the Minotaur only
recalled Briareus to me.
I made a circuit to the cliff. The clouds were
so low that one would have said it was a ceiling
of gray wool, laid over a circular crater.
Under this subdued light, which is that of
winter, the statues, now bereft of their green
togas, showed their concrete, weather-beaten and
rain stained, with their noses knocked off, or their
chins broken; some of them were crumbling to
bits — one with a Bacchante's gesture, was stretch-
ing out her arm, the hand of which, carrying a
mixing-bowl, only stuck to the wrist by its iron
bone, which was dreadful to see. They were
going to continue their poses in solitude.
Something wild and savage was already begin-
ning to emerge, but no more than was vaguely
284 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
perceptible. A hawk was sharpening his beak on
the weather-cock of the summerhouse. A weasel
crossed the paddock with little quiet jumps.
Unable to make up my mind to depart, I un-
locked the door of the chateau again, then I came
back to the park. I heard my movements re-
sounding on the flooring of the corridors and rus-
tling amongst the leaves of the alleys.
The silence was deepening every moment. I
felt a certain difficulty in breaking it. It knew
well it was going to reign as a master, and as I
paused in the midst of the domain, it put forth Its
almighty power.
There I dreamt a long time — I, the human cen-
ter of the enormous amphitheater, the center,
also, of a Walpurgis dance of thoughts. To my
call there came in a whirlwind, the faces of long
ago and yesterday — imaginary or real — person-
ages of fairy tales, or truth; they whirled round
me in a wild crowd, and made of all the deep
valley a maelstrom of remembrance, in which the
whole past turned and turned again.
But I had to go away at last, and leave Fonval
to the ivy and the spiders.
In front of the coach-house, Emma ready
dressed for her journey, was Impatiently mounting
guard.
I opened the door. The car was standing
THE NEW BEAST 285
askew at the end of the old shed. I had not seen
it again since the accident, and I did not even re-
member having housed it. The assistants, no
doubt, through some tardy act of courtesy, had
got it in somehow.
Heedless of my negligence, the engine roared
admirably, the moment the electric contact was
made, so I brought out the car as far as the semi-
circular terrace, and shut on so many memories a
symbolical portal, which closed with a sound like
a sob.
Thank Heaven! No more of the awful busi-
ness of Klotz, but no more, also, of my youthful
years. Then it occurred to me that by keeping
Fonval I might prolong them.
"We shall stop at Grey, at the Notary's," I
said to Emma. "I am not going to sell, I am
going to let it."
I plunged on the straight road; the rocky walls
seemed to straighten themselves. Emma was
prattling.
At first the car hummed cheerfully. How-
ever, I was not slow in repenting that I had paid
so little attention to it. With a sudden jerk it
slowed down; then several more, and its progress
was soon no more than a succession of abrupt
jumps.
I have said, with regard to this car, that it was
the perfection of automatism — pedals and handles
286 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
reduced to the minimum. Such a machine pre-
sents only one drawback. It must be perfectly in
order before setting out, for once en route, one
has no more influence on it, except to quicken the
pace, or to moderate it, but not to fortify it by
dosing and repairs.
The prospect of a halt spoiled my good humor.
Meanwhile, the car pursued its jumpy course,
and I could not prevent myself laughing.
This manner of advancing recalled to me, in a
comical way, the walks I had taken in this very
place, with Klotz-Lerne, and the capricious way
in which my sham uncle would stop, and then set
off again.
Hoping that it was merely a passing indisposi-
tion of the machine, — too much oil, for example,
— I let the engine run on, and endeavored to find
out by the noise it made, which of its functions
was defective, and every now and again caused
those inequalities of power transmission, which
grew more marked at every pause, and some of
which were so accentuated, indeed, that we were
almost motionless for a second.
My absurd comparison became clearer to me,
and that amused me.
"Just like that blackguardly Professor," I said
to myself. "It is amusing!"
"What is the matter?" said my fellow-traveler.
"You are not looking cheerful,"
THE NEW BEAST 287
"I? Nonsense 1"
It is a curious thing, but this question had af-
fected me. I should have thought that my face
was quite calm. What motive had I not to be
easy in my mind? I was annoyed, that was all.
I simply was asking myself what organ was suf-
fering in this great body (as the Professor had
called it) and not being able to find anything, and
it being about to stop altogether, I was annoyed,
that was all.
In vain I listened with a carefully trained ear
to the explosion, clickings, dull-sounding knocks;
no characteristic sound revealed to me the stiffness
of valves or cranks.
"I bet it Is the clutch which has gone wrong," I
cried, "and yet the engine Is all right."
And then Emma said, "Oh, Nicholas, do look!
Should that thing there move?"
"Ah! I told you so. There, you see!"
She had pointed to the clutch-pedal, which was
moving by itself, while the jolts of the car coin-
cided with its motions.
"That was the trouble."
Whilst my eyes were fixed on the pedal, it re-
mained pushed right over.
The car, unclutched, stopped. I was going to
get out of it, when it set off again in a most brutal
way. The pedal had come back. A certain un-
easiness tormented me; it Is certain nothing is so
288 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
annoying as a car that will not work; but all the
same, I do not remember ever having been so
curiously affected by engine-trouble.
Suddenly the hooter began to yell of its own
accord. I felt the insurmountable need of saying
something or other, but my dumbness redoubled
my anxiety.
"It is out of order generally," I said, endeavor-
ing to speak in a casual tone. "We shan't get
there before night, my dear."
"Would it not be better to repair it imme-
diately?"
"No, I prefer to go on. When one stops one
never knows when one will be able to set out
again. There will always be time to. . . ."
"Perhaps it will warm up again," but the hooter
drowned my hesitating voice with a great clamor,
and my fingers clutched hold of the steering-wheel,
for when this clamor had died down, it turned to
a continuous note which took on rhythm and in-
flections, and I felt coming through this cadence
an air — a marching tune (after all, it was perhaps
I who made myself hear it).
This air drew nearer, so to say, became more
defined, and after some halting attempts like
those of a singer trying his voice, the car reso-
lutely thundered out with its copper throat, "Rum
pi dum, fil dum."
THE NEW BEAST 289
At the accent of the German's songs, a horde
of suspicions swooped on my uneasy mind. I had
an intuition that something fantastic, mysterious,
monstrous, had happened. I tried cutting off the
petrol. The handle resisted. The brake re-
sisted. A superior force kept them immovable.
Losing my head altogether, I let go the steer-
ing-wheel, and took two arms to the diabolical
brake. The same result, but the hooter made a
gargling sound, and then was silent.
The girl exclaimed angrily, "That's a funny
trumpet!"
As for me, I had no desire to laugh. My ideas
began to follow one another in a giddy whirl, and
my Reason refused to sanction my reasoning.
This metallic car, from which wood, india rub-
ber and leather had been banished — of which no
fragment belong to matter at one time alive, was
it not an organized body which had never lived?
This automatic mechanism — was it not a body
capable of reflexes, but a body devoid of intelli-
gence? Was it not in fact — according to the note-
book — a possible receptacle of a soul in its total-
ity, — that receptacle which the Professor in his
haste had declared to be non-existent?
At the moment of his apparent death, Klotz-
Lerne had doubtless indulged in an experiment on
the car, recalling that of the poplar tree, but hav-
ing been absent-minded for some weeks, perhaps
290 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
he had not foreseen (fatal want of logic), that his
soul would slip entirely into that empty receptacle,
and that the "attachment" being broken, his hu-
man form would be no more than a corpse, into
which the laws of his own discovery forbade him
to return. Or else, perhaps, weary with pursuing
the fortune he could not seize, Klotz-Lerne had
acted of his own free will, and committed a sort
of suicide, by exchanging the substance of my
uncle for that of a machine.
But why should he not have wished, simply and
solely, to become the new beast, foretold by him
in a moment of eccentricity — the animal of the
future—the ruler of creation, which the re-fitting
of its organs was to make immortal and infinitely
perfectible, according to his lunatical prophecy?
Once more, however sensible this inner discus-
sion with myself was, I would not accept its con-
clusions. A resemblance in manner between the
car and the Professor, a probable hallucination of
my sense of hearing, and possibly the way of
gripping the lever, should not sufiice to prove this
absurdity. My distress wanted a more decisive
proof. It came mithout delay.
We were coming to the edge of the forest, to
that limit where the dead maniac invariably
paused in his walks. I understood that I was
going to have the question settled, and at all
hazards, I gave Emma warning.
THE NEW BEAST 291
"Hold tight; keep your body back I"
In spite of our precaution, a sudden stop of the
car threw us forward.
"What's the matter?" said Emma.
"Nothing, do not worry."
Frankly, I was undecided. What was to be
done? To get down would have been perilous.
Inside the Klotz-car we were at least out of his
reach, and I did not desire to be butted at by him,
so I endeavored to get him forward.
As before, no bit of him would obey my orders.
We were in this awkward position, when sud-
denly I felt the steering-wheel turn round, (levers
and foot-breaks working away) ; and the car,
making a wide sweep, faced about, and began to
take us back again towards Fonval.
I was luckily able to turn it round again by a
sudden movement, but the moment it was set in
the right direction, it definitely manifested the
wish not to move a wheel forward.
At last Emma perceived that there was some-
thing unusual the matter, and she urged me to get
down to put this right, but for some moments my
terror had been changed into rage.
The hooter laughed !
"He who laughs last, laughs loudest," I cried to
myself.
"What is the matter? What is the matter?"
said my companion.
292 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Without listening to her, I took from the grid
a steel rod, which served me as a defensive
weapon, and to the profound stupefaction of
Emma, I hit the restive car with it. Then there
was an epic scene !
Under the formidable hail of blows, the heavy
vehicle behaved like a restive horse — plunged,
kicked and bucked. It tried everything to fling
us out of the saddle.
"Hold fast!" I said to my companion, and I
laid on all the harder.
The engine growled; the hooter yelled with
pain, or bellowed with rage. On the sheet-metal
of the hood, the blows rained thick and fast, and
the thrashing made the woods resound with a
fabulous noise.
Suddenly uttering a shrill scream like an ele-
phant, the metallic mastodon gave a bound, exe-
cuted two or three plunges, and then dashed
forward with the speed of lightning.
A runaway !
I was no longer master of the situation. The
frenzy of a mad monster ruled our fate. We
were almost flying. The 80 h. p. car sped on
with the rapidity of a falling body. We could no
longer breathe the wild rushing air. Sometimes
the hooter gave a strident cry.
We flashed through Grey-l'Abbaye like light-
ning. Hens and ducks were under our wheels —
THE NEW BEAST 293
blood on my glasses. We were going so fast that
the brass-plate of Maitre Pallud gave me the
impression of a golden streak.
On issuing from the village, the Route Na-
tionale hedged us with its plane trees, then the
long hill with its slope formed an obstacle to our
speed. There, showing signs of weariness, for
the first time, the car slackened down, and allowed
itself to be managed.
I had to thrash it often, to make it bring us as
far as Nanthel where we got in late, and without
any hitch. As we passed over a gutter, however,
the copper mouth uttered an exclamation of pain,
and I saw that the jolt had just broken a spring
of the off hind wheel.
When we got into the courtyard of the Hotel,
I tried to fasten a new spring into the felloe, but
did not succeed. My attempts roused such a
noise from the hooter, that I had to give up try-
ing to repair the damage; besides it was not very
urgent.
I had resolved to finish the journey in a train,
and to put my recalcitrant machine in the goods
station. The future should decide about Its fate.
For the moment I put It in the garage amongst
the phaetons, buggies and limousines, but I hastily
withdrew, knowing that behind me, the round eyes
294 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
of its head-lamps were shining with a treacherous
look.
As I reflected on all the ins and outs of this
astonishing phenomenon, and as I moved away, a
phrase in a scientific article which I had once read,
and which had struck me, came into my mind, and
I was not a little surprised at finding In those
words a vague explanation of the marvel, and the
promise of happenings no less astonishing.
"It is possible to Imagine that there exists an
intermediate link between living creatures and
inert matter, just as there exist links between
animals and vegetables."
The Hotel had all the outward signs of luxuri-
ous comfort. A lift took me up, and I was taken
to our room.
My partner had preceded me. After being a
prisoner for so long, she was looking with a sort
of eagerness at the street, the people moving
about, and the shops, whose glories were being
lit up.
Emma could not tear herself away from the
spectacle of life, and as she dressed, she turned
continually to the window, drawing aside the cur-
tains to behold the spectacle again.
I thought I perceived that she was less affec-
tionate towards me.
My strange conduct in the car had not failed to
THE NEW BEAST 295
surprise her. As I had made up my mind not to
give any explanation, I had no doubt that she re-
garded me as a lunatic, hardly cured of his
madness.
At dinner, which we took at little private tables
lit up by candles, whose soft light was that of a
boudoir, Emma, surrounded by men in evening
dress, and women in low-necked frocks, made her-
self conspicuous by her aggressive behavior which
was quite out of place. She ogled the men, and
looked with a sneer at the women — sometimes ad-
miring and sometimes contemptuous — speaking
her approval in a loud voice, and laughing ostenta-
tiously — which caused amusement and astonish-
ment all round us — in the most ridiculous and
delicious manner.
She wanted to jabber with everybody there.
I carried her off as soon as I could, but her
desire to get back to the life of the world was so
ardent, that we had to go immediately to some
place of public entertainment.
The theater was shut, and only the Casino was
open, and that evening, the entertainment con-
sisted of a wrestling tournament organized in
imitation of Paris.
The little Hall was full of counter-jumpers,
students and common folk. A cloud was floating
in it which was a mixture of all proletarian and
lower middle-class tobaccos.
296 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
Emma spread herself In her box. A vulgar bit
of ragtime proceeding from the shameless orches-
tra plunged her into ecstasy, and as her ecstasies
were not discreet, three hundred pairs of eyes
turned round to look at her, attracted by the wav-
ing of a fan, and the hat-feathers which also
courageously beat time.
Emma smiled and looked at the three hundred
pair of eyes.
The wrestling aroused her enthusiasm, and
more especially the wrestlers. Those human
brutes, whose heads — great jaw, and no brow —
seem destined for the sawdust-box of the guillo-
tine aroused the most unseemly excitement in my
fair friend.
A hairy, tattooed colossus won. He came to
make his bow, and as he did so, awkwardly
nodded a myrmidon's head, with two little pig's
eyes surmounting his titanic body.
He belonged to the town. His fellow-citizens
gave him an ovation. He was given the title of
"Bastion of Nanthel," and "Champion of the
Ardennes."
Emma rose in her seat, applauding him so
loudly and insistently, that she both scandalized
and amused the audience.
The Champion threw her a kiss. I felt my face
getting red with shame. We returned to the
Hotel, exchanging bitter remarks.
THE NEW BEAST 297
Our apartment happened to be above the arch
of the main door, where motor-cars kept passing
and re-passing until morning, which made me
dream of misfortunes and absurdities. My
awakening brought me real ones. Emma was
gone !
In my astonishment, I endeavored to find
plausible reasons for her absence.
I rang for the waiter. He came, and handed
me this letter, which I have preserved, and whose
criss-crossed paper, bespattered with blots and
blobs of ink, I now pin on to my piece of white
paper:
"Dear Nick,
"Pardon me for the pain I am causing you, but it is
better that we should part. I found again yesterday, my
first lover Alcide, the man I fought with Leonie about.
He is the handsome fellow who won the wrestling-match
yesterday. I am going off with him. I could not give up
that kind of life, except for the sort of money which Lerne
promised me. I should have made you unhappy, and
should have been unfaithful to you. All the rest amounts
to nothing. I want a real man. It is not your fault, and
so I hope this will not cause you any pain. Adieu for life.
"Emma Bourdichet."
In the presence of so categorical an intimation,
couched in jargon almost as barbarous as that of
the Law Courts, I could only bow to fate. More-
over, were not those sentiments which Emma was
298 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
expressing, exactly those which had charmed me
in her? Had I not loved in her just that thirst
for pleasure which was the cause of her bewitch-
ing beauty, and the cause of her infidelity?
I had the energy and wisdom to defer the rest
of my reflections until the morrow. They might
have brought on weakness in action.
I inquired about the first train for Paris, and
sent for a mechanic to undertake to dispatch my
80 h. p. car, or, if you prefer to call it, the Klotz-
automobile, to me.
I was soon informed of the man's arrival.
Together we went to the garage.
The car had disappeared!
It can easily be imagined that I put the two
treasonable acts together, and accused Emma of
a secret complicity.
But the Manager of the Hotel, thinking he had
to do with audacious thieves, went off to the
police-office. He came back, saying that they had
found in a little street of the faubourg, a car with
the number 234XY, which had been abandoned,
as he thought, by thieves, for want of petrol.
The tank was empty.
"Ah! just so," said I to myself. Klotz wanted
to run away. He forgot about the exhaustion of
the petrol, and there he is, paralyzed.
I kept the true version of the incident to myself,
THE NEW BEAST 299
and advised the mechanic to push the car to the
train, without making the engine go.
"Promise me this," I Insisted, "it is very im-
portant. My train is due, I must be off. Off you
go, and remember, no petrol."
CHAPTER XVI
THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES
And now, here I am, in this house in the Ave-
nue Victor Hugo, which I had taken for Emma,
and I am alone with my strange memories, since
she preferred to sacrifice her intoxicating and
lucrative beauty to M. Alcide. Let us say no
more about it !
February is beginning. The fire is flaming be-
hind me with the flapping sound of a waving flag.
Since I came back to Paris, having nothing to
do, and reading nothing, I write every evening
and every morning, at this round table, the story
of my singular adventures.
Are they over yet?
The Klotz-automobile is there in the coach-
house, in a box which I have specially constructed
for it.
In spite of my orders, the Nanthel mechanic
put in some petrol, and my new chauffeur and I
had the greatest trouble in bringing the human
car here, for it was impossible to turn the waste-
cocks for emptying the tank.
It began by destroying its successor — a 20 h. p.
300
THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES 301
machine of the latest model. What could I do
with this accursed Klotz-car? Sell it? Expose
my fellow creatures to its malignity? That would
have been a crime. Destroy it and so kill the
Professor in his final transformation? That
would be murder. So I locked it up.
The box has high oak partitions, and the door
is heavily bolted.
But the new beast passed its nights in roaring
its threats and chromatic cries of pain, and the
neighbors complained.
Then in my presence I had the delinquent
hooter taken to pieces. We had extraordinary
difficulty in taking out the screws and the bolts,
and we found that the apparatus was, so to speak,
soldered to the car. We had to tear it off, and
as it came away the whole machine quivered.
A yellowish liquid, smelling like petrol, spurted
from the wound, and flowed drop by drop from
the amputated pieces. I concluded from this that
the metal had become organic through the action
of the infused life, hence my vain efforts to fix
the new spring in the wheel, this operation being
a sort of animal grafting, as impracticable as the
transplanting of a wooden finger on to a living
hand.
Though deprived of power of speech, my
prisoner none the less persisted in his nightly out-
bursts for a week, dashing the battering-ram of its
302 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
mass against the door. Then suddenly it became
silent.
It was a month ago, I think, that the petrol and
oil tanks were empty; but, I have forbidden
Louis, my mechanic, to go and make sure, and
enter the cage of that savage beast.
We have peace now, but Klotz is still there.
Louis has put an end to the philosophical re-
marks which were ready to flow from my pen.
He came in suddenly, and he said to me with his
eyes starting from his head, "Monsieur, monsieur,
come and see the 80 h. p. car."
I did not wait to be told more, but rushed out.
On the staircase the servant confessed to me
that he had ventured to open the door of the
coach-house, because for some time a bad smell
had been coming out of it. Indeed the stench of
the courtyard itself was sickening.
Louis exclaimed in a tone almost of admira-
tion :
"That's it. A nice stink, isn't it, sir?" and we
entered the box.
So strange did the car look, that at first I could
hardly recognize it.
Sunk on its deflated tires, it had lost its shape,
as if it had been a car of half-molten wax. The
levers were bent over like bars of india rubber.
The head lamps were battered and out of shape,
THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES 303
and their lenses, bluish and sticky, were like the
bleared eyes of the dead.
I saw suspicious stains, which were eating into
the aluminium, and holes which were rusting the
iron. The steel had become porous, and was
crumbling, and the copper had grown spongy like
a mushroom.
Lastly, the whole machinery was mottled as
with a red or greenish leprosy which was neither
rust nor verdigris.
On the ground there was a syrupy disgusting
pool all round this repulsive heap of refuse, ooz-
ing from it and all streaked with colors suggesting
unimaginable horrors.
Strange chemical reactions occurred from time
to time which made this putrefying metallic flesh
boil with great bursting bubbles, and, in its depths,
the mechanism rumbled and gurgled Intermit- ^
tently.
Suddenly in a squashy fall, the steering-wheel
collapsed, one end going through the floor, and
the other through the hood.
A nameless mess was stirring in there, and the
horrible stench of organic decomposition flung me
backwards.
I had had time to see worms wriggling about in
the dark depths.
"What a filthy machine," said the mechanic.
I tried to make him swallow the idea that vibra-
304 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
tion sometimes disintegrates metal, and may give
rise to molecular modifications like this. He did
not seem to believe me, and I, who knew that the
truth was stranger still, was forced, in order that
he might grasp and accept it, to enlarge on the
subject and give him, confidentially, a careful ex-
planation of the whole matter.
Klotz is dead ! The car is dead ! And so goes
to limbo, along with its author, the beautiful
theory of an animalized mechanism made immor-
tal by the replacing of parts, and infinitely
perfectible !
Giving life means also giving death, and to
organize inorganic bodies, means to sooner or
later disorganize them.
But, to my surprise, it was not for want of
petrol that the fantastic creature died. No, the
tank was half full. It was the soul, therefore,
which killed it — the human soul, that corrupt soul,
which so rapidly wore out the constitutions of
animals, more healthy than ours, and soon ruined
this pure metaUic body.
I ordered the filthy bundle of refuse to be flung
away. The drains were to be the tomb of Klotz.
He's dead! He's dead! I'm rid of him.
He is dead, and he can never come to life again.
In fact, he is dead! His spirit is with the de-
ceased. He can never hurt me again. Ah, ha I
DEAD ! The filthy brute I
THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES 305
I ought to be happy, but I am not very. Oh, it
is not because of Emma. No doubt the "bag-
gage" causes me pain, but that will soon be cured,
and to admit that grief is consolable, is already to
be consoled from it. My great trouble comes
from my recollections. What I have seen and
feltharasses me.
The madman Nell ! The operation ! The
Minotaur! I — Jupiter! And so many other
horrors.
I dread eyeballs that stare at me, and I lower
my eyes in the presence of keyholes. Those are
the sources of my trouble, but I also dread the
horrible future.
Suppose it were not all finished?
Suppose Klotz's death did not wind up my
story?
I do not care about hhn, as he no longer exists;
even if he should come and haunt me in the fea-
tures of Lerne or a car, I should know that he
was only an hallucination of my weak eyes.
He is dead, and I do not care a jot about him,
I repeat. It is the three assistants who trouble
me. Where are they? What are they doing?
That is the question. They possess the Circeean
formula, and must be using it for their own profit,
in order to indulge in the traffic in personalities.
In spite of his rebuffs, Klotz-Lerne had induced
several people to submit to his malevolent surgery,
3o6 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
and to exchange their souls for somebody else's.
The three Germans are daily adding to the num-
ber of those poor creatures who are craving for
money, youth or health. There are in the world,
unsuspected men and women who are not them-
selves.
I am no longer certain of anything. Faces
seem to be masks. Perhaps I might have known
this sooner. There are certain people whose
physiognomy reflects a soul the very opposite of
their own ; people virtuous and honest, who, for a
moment, give glimpses of unexpected vices and
monstrous passions, which strike terror like a
miracle. They have to-day their soul of yester-
day.
Sometimes in the eyes of the man who speaks
to me there passes a strange flash — an idea which
does not belong to him. He will contradict it
immediately after expressing it, and he will be the
first to be astonished that he could have thought
of it.
I know people whose opinions vary day by
day, and that is very illogical.
Lastly, there is often an imperious something,
which eludes me — a brutal overmastering power
thrusting me back into myself, so to speak, and
commanding my nerves and muscles — evil actions
or words I regret, a cufl or a curse.
I know, I know I Everybody feels those un-
THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES 307
reflecting movements, and always has felt them,
but the reason has become obscure and mysterious
to me.
It is called fever, anger, want of thought —
just as customs or decorum are called calculation,
hypocrisy or diplomacy. This is the way people
account for these sudden revelations, which I
have noted so often in my fellow-creatures, and
which the world says, can only be failures to com-
ply with those great powers, or revolts against
them.
Might not the science of a wizard be the real
prime cause?
Clearly the mental stage in which I am is ex-
hausting me, and requires treatment. Now, it
is kept alive by the obsession of the fateful time
I spent at Fonval. That is why, since my return,
realizing that I must rid myself of the remem-
brance of it, I have resolved to test myself by
telling the story — not, Good Heavens ! with any
ambition to write a book, but in the hope that
if one put it down on paper, it would get out of
my head, and that to put it down would be to
drive it away.
That is not the case, far from it. I have just
lived it again, and with more reality as I told the
story, and some mysterious power or other has
sometimes forced me to put in a word or phrase
against my own intentions.
3o8 NEW BODIES FOR OLD
I have failed in my aim. I must try to forget
this nightmare, and suppress even trifles that
might make me think of it.
I must sell Fonval and all the furniture. I must
live, live in my own personality — however ridicu-
lous, foolish or extravagant the original may be — ■
independent, and without suggestions, and free —
free from memories.
Those abominations, I swear, are now crossing
my brain for the last time. I write this down
to heighten the solemnity of my oath.
And you, you criminal manuscript, you, who
would perpetuate beings and facts when I should
refuse to admit that they have existed — into the
fire with you, "Dr. Lerne" ! —
Into the fire . . . !
THE END
This book is due at the LOUIS R. WILSON LIBRARY on the
last date stamped under "Date Due." If not on hold it may be
renewed by bringing it to the library.
DATE PPT,
DUE ?F-
^^^^ RFT
DUE **'^^-
I
^ !l
PR 1 7 ?l
0:
,
t
Form No. 513
\