By Mary Putnam Jacobi, M.D.
⁂ Putnam’s Magazine, August, 1869.
My brief residence at Rome sufficed to destroy my illusions.
A Frenchman, a student of medicine, I had, nevertheless, remained an
ardent disciple of Catholicism,—the faith in which I had been brought
up by a devout mother. She was an Italian, and from her I had
inherited an intense, passionate nature, and capacity for belief,
which my father’s nationality failed to neutralize. From him, on the
other hand, I had received my education, my profession, and a certain
large habit of thought, which, disdaining all lesser interests,
personal or national, occupied itself exclusively with themes of
universal humanity. This habit, extremely characteristic of French
intellect, concurred,—perhaps as much as anything else,—in making me
an ultra-montanist. As an Italian, I believed in the Church with
ardor,—because I believed; as a Frenchman, I demanded a church
universal, as alone worthy of attaching my belief. The cause of the
Pope was for me identified with the spiritual cause of the world, and
the lukewarmness of so-called Liberal Catholics enraged me. I could
understand the opposition of materialists, of atheists, or even
Protestants. These all occupied a radically different base, and their
eyes were turned toward a different horizon. But that a man could face
Truth, and voluntarily scrimp his vision to a miserable corner of her
robe,—could embrace a principle coldly, with the mere touch of a
distant finger,—could pause to balance motives, and haggle over the
price of devotion,—this was as incomprehensible to me as repugnant.
My own sentiments were equally incomprehensible to the society by
which I was surrounded, and the opposition which I constantly
encountered served not a little to rivet my convictions, and fan my
enthusiasm to passion.
My father died almost immediately after launching me on my medical
career,—and my darling mother, two years later. In my unutterable
loneliness, I lost all heart for my studies, and breaking away from
école and hospitals, wandered in Italy, seeking to quench a quenchless
grief. There I married an Italian girl, whose hair and eyes reminded
me of my mother, but who expended on the dream of Italian unity such
enthusiasm as my mother had lavished for the temporal power of the
Pope. I think I was unconsciously attracted by this very difference.
Valeria’s opposition to the Pope was so serious and whole-souled, that
it seemed to invest his cause with new dignity, and in argument with
her I acquired increased respect for my own theories and for myself as
capable of sustaining them. Moreover, at the very moment that our
intellects were most at variance, we were each conscious of a subtle
sympathy of nature; we were animated by the same feeling, though
working in different directions. Her antagonism, therefore, never
irritated me, but,—when the more profound union had once been
established,—fascinated me by a peculiar charm, and led me, by a
healthful transition, back to the ruder antagonisms of practical life.
For, deprived of the support of my mother’s lofty confidence, and in
the weakness following excessive sorrow, I had begun to secretly
despair of an ideal, which seemed buried in her all-devouring grave.
At the same time I clung to it the more intensely, precisely because
it seemed unattainable,—from a sort of morbid craving for whatever
had become as unattainable as my mother’s presence. I loathed action,
even for the realization of my dreams, and over-concentrated thought
threatened to degenerate into a sickly reverie that should presently
exhaust the forces of my life, like an unnaturally prolonged sleep.
New influence added in this direction might have driven me insane,
while the diversion afforded by Valeria’s counter-enthusiasm and the
necessity of making an active defence of my own, roused me, and
brought back the blood to the surface of my life. It was, therefore,
partly an instinct of self-preservation which led me to Valeria,—and
she saved me—my noble wife saved me for other destinies.
We returned to Paris, where I resumed and completed my medical
studies, and I had just graduated when the war broke out in Italy.
Four happy, healthful years had completely restored my mental
equilibrium. I was no longer an extravagant fanatic, prepared for a
cloister or a crusade, but still a tolerably ardent ultra-montanist,
pivoted upon the theory of the temporal power of the Pope. Valeria’s
influence, in modifying the superficial exuberance of my enthusiasm,
had only rendered its energy more practical, more eager for an
opportunity to incarnate its ideal in vigorous facts. Now the
opportunity had arrived, and the enthusiasm blazed forth afresh; all
interests, all consciousness of other ties were absorbed in devotion
to the Church of which I felt myself a not unimportant member. My
fortune, my time, my life, were all too little to place at its
disposal, and I hastened to enrol myself on the medical staff of a
regiment of Papal Zouaves. Valeria, who had always reasoned against my
theories, was too consistent herself to oppose me in putting them into
practice, but she insisted on accompanying me to Italy. We parted at
Civita Vecchia, I to go to Rome, she, with our two children, to
Naples, where her family had formerly resided. She wrote to me every
day, but after several weeks came a blank of three days without a
letter. At the same moment arrived the news that the cholera was
raging at Naples—news which rendered most ominous this sudden
interruption of the correspondence. I obtained leave of absence and
hurried south, to learn that my wife and babies were dead—fallen
among the very first victims of the pestilence.
Stunned and heart-sick, I returned to Rome, anxious to devote myself
to the cause with the more desperate earnestness that it was the only
living interest left to me in the world. I arrived just before the
battle of Montana, and regretted that fortune had not assigned me a
rôle among the soldiers of the cross, among those who might embrace a
welcome death, in exchange for the glory of serving the Church.
Resolved to approach this honor as nearly as possible, I contrived to
obtain an appointment in the ambulance corps, and accompanied the
troops to the field. I have no distinct recollection of that day,—the
third after Valeria’s funeral,—and which, as my first experience of a
battle, assumed to me the magnificent proportions of an Austerlitz or
Waterloo. I only know that, intoxicated by the novel excitement of the
scene, perhaps by the mere smell of the gun-powder, I forgot the
duties to which I was assigned, snatched a musket from a Zouave who
had just expired at my feet, and rushed into the heart of the
conflict. I received a slight wound in the forehead, staggered, fell,
and fainted away. I suppose I must, at the same time, have received
the shock from a larger ball than that which grazed my temple, and
experienced some concussion of the brain, for I did not fully recover
consciousness until I had been transported to the military hospital.
Here I stayed a week, and came, for the first time, into near contact
with my fellow-defenders of the faith. The contact, instead of
warming, chilled me inexplicably. Instead of belief, I discovered
scepticism; instead of enthusiasm, persiflage and eternal quizzing,
intolerable in professed martyrs to a sacred cause.
“Que voulez-vous?” they said, shrugging their shoulders at my
indignant remonstrances. “The ass who carries all his panniers on the
same side stumbles on his own nose. To each man his business; those
who believe, don’t fight; and we who fight cannot be expected to
believe.”
I was surprised to find that my own loyalty became affected by this
indifference, much more than by any influence to which I had hitherto
been submitted. Others had sneered because they did not know; but
these men precisely because they knew too well. The cause which
depended so exclusively upon their bravado was belittled in their own
eyes, and presently in mine also. I felt somewhat ashamed of the drops
of blood I had lavished so heroically at Montana, and when the
gazettes began to flourish the fame of the victory, repeat the dying
speeches of fallen braves, and enrol rascally Zouaves on saintly
calendars, I could have blushed in the dark—everywhere a little
martyrdom, a little battle, and innumerable little apotheoses. I began
to doubt the greatness of the cause made up of such infinitesimals. It
is easy to serve ideas in which we have ceased to heartily believe,
but it is impossible to fight for those that have become to us the
least in the world ridiculous. Perhaps Valeria’s death had
unconsciously disheartened me for an enterprise which had been,
however remotely, its occasion. Perhaps many of her words, whose force
I had successfully resisted during her lifetime, now re echoed from
her grave with more profound significance. But it is certain that, for
the first time, I wavered in affection for my life-long ideal. Alarmed
at myself, and determined, if possible, to reinvigorate my failing
faith, I went back to Rome, trusting that the Holy City would inspire
me afresh. Appointed to a civil office of considerable importance, I
was soon introduced into the midst of the Papal Court, and behind the
scenes of the magnificent theatrical display that had so long dazzled
my imagination. I was initiated into the shameful mysteries of cabal
and intrigue, and taught the precious secrets of Pope and Cardinals.
On every side I saw falsehood, treachery, and duplicity welcomed as
the ablest servitors of truth, the grandest professions assumed as an
excuse for the most vulgar villainy, ambition glozed over by degrading
humility, and sensuality all the more disgusting from the saintly
robes in which it was paraded and but half concealed. My faith,
already enfeebled, died of rapid decline, stifled by these monstrous
fooleries. Disenchanted, revolted, disgusted, I resigned my position,
and abandoned the Pope and his cause forever.
I did not, therefore, enlist under Garibaldi. A tenacious loyalty to
the memory of ideas I had once served would always prevent me from
more actively attacking them, or from desecrating their graves.
Moreover, the revulsion of feeling consequent upon my disillusion was
so tremendous, that I was swept entirely out of the region of the
questions at issue, and both sides became indifferent to me, both
camps dim and shadowy in the distance.
I returned, therefore, to France, and settled down in a remote corner
of the provinces, to exercise my profession as a country physician.
After the accumulated anguish of the last few months, the quiet
dulness of the place was infinitely grateful to me. I was like a
bruised swimmer, tossed upon a monotonous sandbank, who only asks to
be left there in peace, until long repose has rested the aching limbs,
and blunted the harrowing recollections of the shipwreck. The
incessant excitement of Paris was intolerable to me, and scarcely less
so the idea of revisiting its troops of sympathetic friends. They
would proffer venal consolation for the loss of my wife and children;
they would congratulate me maliciously on my conversion from
ultra-montanism. I shrank from their curious eyes and voluble
tongues, as a wounded man from the glittering apparatus of the
surgeon, and like him turned over my face to the wall, to sleep.
Two years thus passed away—two years of mornings and evenings,
following one another in calm succession, like a row of stolid peasant
gleaners going to the fields. I became inexpressibly soothed by their
calm, and by the nice tact and exquisite courtesy of Nature, with whom
I had done well to take refuge. She is never astonished, she asks no
impertinent questions, but welcomes her guests with even suavity, like
a liberal host, throwing open to them drawing-room or garret, as may
best please their fancy. The growing trees had no time to turn round
to look at me; the contended hills embraced me in their arms, and let
me pass without a word; the grain ripened in the mellow autumn days,
unheeding the little shadow that I threw across its sunshine. This
preoccupied indifference of all living things, which would initiate a
mere vexation, clamorous for sympathy, is like blessed balm to the
sufferer from a profound grief or mortification. Counsel is good,
friendliness precious, while anything remains to be done to avert an
impending calamity. But pitying words over an accomplished and
irremediable misfortune, serve only to revive useless pain, and
blunder, like a man who should try to force open the eyelids of a
corpse. Nature, wiser than officious human tenderness, takes the
sorrow coolly, as a matter of course, and in silence buries it out of
sight among a million others, already thickly strewn with withered
leaves. And, in presence of her imperturbable serenity during the
blackest days of frost and winter, the sufferer becomes insensibly
inspired with her unspoken confidence in the final return of spring.
The people of the village and the farms, rooted as their own beeches,
reflected back upon Nature the same immovable calm. They did not
disturb themselves about me, because my rôle in society was so
evident, respectable, and satisfactory, that I offered no foothold for
either curiosity or scandal. I had been sent by Providence and the
Faculty of Medicine to cure their not too frequent rheumatisms and
catarrhs; I acquitted myself not ill of my business,—they asked no
more,—and neither offered nor expected personal interest or
friendship.
As the months rolled on, I became more interested than formerly in
medical reading. Absorbed entirely in my books, I even fancied that
the healing apathy which sheltered my life was growing more profound.
This was a mistake; the thickening of the vapors that shut out the
external world, really denoted that they were about to condense and
precipitate themselves into a new creation. New interests were
preparing, that should presently claim from my nature all the energy,
enthusiasm, and passion which had once been devoted to the old. Of
this I became aware in the following manner. One day, among a package
of books sent to me from Paris, arrived a pamphlet just written in
defence of a new theory concerning the movements of the human heart.
My curiosity was excited by the idea of a new theory on such a famous
subject, and my interest was by no means abated after perusal of the
pamphlet. Exposition of this theory would demand a crowd of technical
details, unintelligible to the general reader, and therefore
inappropriate in this place. But let such an one take the trouble to
listen for a moment to the ticking of a heart, seemingly so
monotonous, simple, and easy to understand, and then reflect that the
slight elements discoverable in this little sound, have been forced by
human intellect into at least twenty different combinations, and
afforded ground for as many theories, each defended with impassioned
earnestness by a different observer. He may then realize something of
the interest which attaches to the explanation of this phenomenon—may
even experience a sort of mental vertigo, as if he had witnessed the
evolution of a world out of nothing. Owing to the paucity of the facts
to be observed, the finesse requisite for the observation, and the
intellectual dexterity needed to retain such minute circumstances
before the mind long enough to think about them, the problem is one of
the most delicate and intricate offered by physiological science. Once
engaged in its discussion, the mind becomes hopelessly fascinated, and
continues to pirouette about an invisible point, that is neither a
thought nor a material phenomenon, but, as it were, a refined essence
of both.
As in all series of vital actions, each item of the phenomenon in
question is so interlinked with the rest, that an explanation of a
part can never be considered final, so long as any problem remains
unresolved. The latest experimentator, brooding over hitherto
neglected details, may always hope to light upon some clue that shall
unravel the entire entanglement in a different manner, and reform upon
a new basis ideas now grouped in pretended fixity. The excitement
caused by this possibility is amply sufficient to stimulate research.
And there is no need to discover an immediate practical application
for the theory in order to bait the interest of vulgar minds. These
would always be incapable of such difficult investigations, while
really competent students were supremely indifferent to all lesser
advantages attached to the discovery of truth. As for me, I had been
so long removed from active life and its necessities (for my
professional career had as yet been too facile and commonplace to
arouse me to them), that the impractical character of the subject
constituted for me an additional charm. I recognized that it belonged,
for the present at least, to the region of pure thought, pure science,
accessible only to intelligences refined by nature, and enriched by
superior culture. In addition, therefore, to the intrinsic interest of
the problem, and the solid satisfaction arising from acute
intellectual activity, I could, in pursuit of this theme, experience
all the subtle pleasure derived from a consciousness of personal
superiority—pleasure as attainable in solitude as elsewhere since the
superiority was too real and unquestionable to require the
confirmatory suffrage of the crowd.
I abandoned all other studies, and threw myself impetuously into the
current of these newly-received ideas. I ransacked my library, from
Herophilus to Haller, from Galen to Helmholtz. England, Germany,
Italy, France yielded up their tribute to my excited curiosity. And
the theme, shifted, refracted from intellect to intellect, multiplied
itself to bewildering complexity.
Not content with reading, I performed experiments, repeating those of
my predecessors, and inventing new to control their conclusions. “With
my own hands I stirred the soil, fetid and palpitating with life,” and
in this inmost intimacy with Nature felt myself grow strong, as Antæus
by contact with the mother earth. Thus roused from my long torpor into
the most intense activity,—for all activity is slack in comparison
with that of thought,—I became dissatisfied with the facility of my
present surroundings. I was anxious to pit myself against the world of
Paris. I wanted opposition, contradiction, in order to vanquish them,
and absorb their force into the glory of my triumph. Moreover, my
studies had now reached a point where they required the assistance
that could only be obtained in a great city: in a word, I resolved to
return to the capital, for a longer or shorter time, as the sequel
should prove desirable. My means rendered me independent of my
clientèle, and I left my patients without regret to the care of an
easily procured substitute. It is so rare to alight upon an
interesting case in the country! Nothing but rheumatism and measles,
measles and rheumatism, and never an autopsy,—it is as monotonous as
the treatment of fever and ague. I longed for the vast metropolitan
hospitals, containing specimens of every shade of disease, and
affording unlimited opportunities for auscultation. Of these I stood
especially in need, for the train of thought suggested by
physiological experiment must be completed by pathological researches,
which could only be carried on at Paris.
To Paris, therefore, I came, as to a new world, so completely had I
been separated from it during the two last years. It was as if one of
the spirits in the metempsychosis imagined by Fourier, had returned to
the brilliant sphere from which death had driven him in temporary
exile. I was at first enchanted, intoxicated. The mental activity
which had seemed so intense in the sluggish province, needed to be
quickened fourfold to keep abreast of the intellects with which I
entered into relation, and the consciousness of the quickening
affected me as with new wine. But, as I grew accustomed to my new
medium, I became again subtly dissatisfied. It was not enough to be
abreast of the world, I wanted to be a little ahead. In my solitude
it was easy to cherish illusions concerning the value of my own work,
to picture myself as a mighty and triumphant wrestler with Nature,
capable, by his single strength, of forcing her reluctant secrets, to
reveal them afterwards to an admiring world. But at Paris, with its
enormous condensation of intellectual force, I could not flatter
myself on the solitary greatness of my achievements, nor ignore the
collective action of society. Whatever my attainment, I should be
forced to share its fame with a hundred other workers, who had lent
me, unasked, their aid. The distance between the person who uttered
the last word, and him who said the next to the last, was
infinitesimal, and this close proximity annoyed me. I longed for some
brilliant occasion to surpass all my contemporaries in one great
bound; an opportunity to bestow on science and humanity some unique
benefit that could never be compared with those accumulated by lesser
men. One day, revolving many things in my mind, I entered the
Bibliothèque Impériale. Strolling idly past the grated bookcases, my
attention was attracted by the title of a thin folio, wedged in
between Lavater and Geoffroy St. Hilaire. An inexplicable impulse led
me to demand this book, the “History of Vesalius and his Times.” I had
no particular reason, that I knew of, to be interested in Vesalius; I
merely followed an idle whim, suggested rather by the peculiar shape
and position of the folio, than by any solid reason; and this whim
did not hurry me out of my lounging mood. I settled myself in one of
the windows, and leisurely turned over the leaves of my book, reading
a line here and a phrase there, until I alighted and settled upon the
following passage: “So the rumor spread abroad that Vesalius had
opened the chest of a living man to see his heart beat. And upon that
the people were in a fury and the court hissed with rage, and Vesalius
was obliged to flee from Spain before the power of the Inquisition;
and some say that he then made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. But on
his return he was shipwrecked on a desolate island and perished
miserably. Hubert, in his Vindiciæ contra tyrannus reports this
history to the eternal shame of the Jesuits.”
The world often describes with minuteness the material framework of
such noisy events as have impressed its coarse sensibilities. But it
commonly neglects, because ignoring, the scenes wherein have taken
place the crises of thought, or occurred the birth of new, indomitable
ideas. To the thinker, however, such outer scenes remain inextricably
associated with the thought that has sprung to life in their midst. To
this day I preserve a vivid recollection of every item of the place
where I read the story of Vesalius; the lofty reading-room, with its
confused lining of many-colored books, the tables crowded by eager
students, the broad, deep windows through which the sun streamed, and
from which I, sitting with open folio on my lap, watched the shifting
fountain and the swaying trees and the long, untrimmed grass in the
courtyard below. For the story seemed to have laid hold of my inmost
soul, and touched the spring of a long-hidden desire. Why I was so
moved, I could not tell. What issue would open to this whirlpool of
vague excitement in which I had fallen, I had no idea. But I was
profoundly conscious both of the excitement and the emotion, and, with
that refined epicureanism of which intellectual people alone are
capable, I abandoned myself, for a time, to the subtle luxury of their
enjoyment.
My reverie was interrupted by the clanging of the great clock and the
scarcely less harsh voice of the gardien as he announced the hour
for closing the library. Still wrapped in fantastic meditation, I
descended the stairs to the street, and followed the rue Richelieu to
the boulevard, there to mingle with the human stream that endlessly
encircled the city like a new army of Gideon. Drifting in the current,
I reached the Bastile, crossed the Pont d’Austerlitz, gained the
Boulevard de l’Hôpital and continued walking to the Invalides, to the
Avenues Jena and Wagram, and from the Place des Ternes, all along the
exterior rampart. And as I walked, my entangled thoughts gradually
disengaged themselves into clearness and precision.
The biographer of Vesalius, who evidently shared the prejudices of the
people, had exerted himself strenuously to disprove the calumny
attached to the name of the great anatomist. He, like the rest, was
blinded by that vulgar egotism which clamorously prefers the
interests of individuals to those of society,—egotism no less
short-sighted than vulgar, for the large and abstract interests cared
for by science are precisely those which shall ultimately affect the
greatest number of individuals; and no less inconsequent than
short-sighted, since no one hesitates to ruin entire hosts of
individuals upon the faintest chance of promoting the material
interests of society. A stock company may immolate hundreds during the
construction of a Panama railroad—a sovereign sacrifice thousands in
the contest for a Crimean peninsula; the hue and cry only begins when
the savant modestly begs permission to utilize a single life for the
advancement of science. He is execrated as a monster, and burned alive
in expiation of his crime. Absurd inconsistency, trivial superstition!
from which it is time that at least the scientific world were
emancipated. Long enough has the ignorant rabble exercised brute
tyranny over intellects towering above its comprehension. The time for
concession is past, the moment has arrived for the savant to assume
the sway that rightfully devolves upon him and declare the
confiscation of all claims to the supreme interest of the search after
truth.
For my part, therefore, so far from blaming Vesalius because he had
dissected a living man, I should have accorded him most profound
reverence for this proof of elevation above ordinary prejudice. And
the more I thought over the matter, the more I became convinced that
the accusation was well founded, that the deed had really been
performed, which moral cowardice alone induced the glorious criminal
to disavow.
My brooding fancy, satiated with the image of the great anatomist,
began to occupy itself with his so-called victim. Who was he? what
motive had induced him to surrender his body to the scalpel of the
master, his life to the realization of the master’s idea? A slave, a
debtor, from whom the ingenious savant had thus exacted a pound of
flesh? A trembling poltroon, forced to the sacrifice more reluctantly
than Isaac to the altar? I preferred rather to believe that it was a
favorite pupil, burning with enthusiasm for the master, joyful to
participate in his mighty labors at the cheap expense of his own
lesser life. Had Vesalius been a general, and he an aide-de-camp
before a rampart, all the world would have applauded him, rushing upon
death at the word of command. I myself had known, by a brief
experience, the thrilling impulse to fight, to die, in behalf of a
cause. Rivers of blood had been shed for honor, for loyalty, for
patriotism. Was the desire for truth less ardent than these worn-out
passions! Could it not rather supply their place in the new world
about to be created by science? What could produce a greater
impression upon the entire world, and more forcibly announce the
inauguration of a new era, than the voice of a man who should declare,
“I refuse to draw my sword for the hideous folly of war; to surrender
my life at the absurd caprice of princes; but I offer myself
cheerfully, unreservedly, as the instrument of Science, in her
majestic schemes for the discovery of truth!”
My recent studies on the problem of the heart’s movements brought me
into peculiar sympathy with the object of Vesalius’ researches. The
tantalizing results as often obtained by experiments on lower animals,
the uncertainty of the inferences that could be deduced from them to
form a theory of the human organism, had often excited in me a lively
desire for a direct experiment upon man. This desire had hitherto been
smothered beneath the mass of conventional ideas, which so frequently
overwhelm our timidity and enslave our feebleness in endless routine.
But the daring word of genius had now struck the chains from my
intellect, and emancipated me from the slavery of that hesitation.
I—I would follow in the path already traced by that bolder mind; I
would redeem that calumniated memory from disgrace, and enrich its
glory by the surpassing realization of the original conception. I
would inaugurate the new era; I would set the example of supreme
heroism in science; and all the world, and all future ages, should
preserve my name with reverent homage, and enwreath it with laurels of
undying fame. For, that the purity of my motives might be above
suspicion, I would perform the experiment, not as Vesalius in the
capacity of anatomist, but as the victim, voluntarily devoting himself
to the transcendent interests of an ideal cause.
And as my mind leaped up into this grand thought, I felt cheek and
brow flush with violent emotion. Carried along by the first impetus of
the idea, I walked as rapidly as in a dream, unseeing, unhearing every
thing that surrounded me. Before I knew whither I had come, I felt a
cool wind blow over me, as if after a feverish journey on a heated
road, I had suddenly stepped into a cool, dark cavern. And, looking
out from the brilliant visions in which I was plunged, I found myself
already entered within the gates of Père la Chaise—the city of the
dead, of the vast majority to which I was to go over in fulfilment of
my great idea. I wandered among the graves, and read the epitaphs, the
reiterated dreary expressions of disappointment and despair, that the
deceased had been passively torn from a world to which every fibre of
their hearts was clinging. Not so would read my epitaph, and I began
to compose it, less as a witty amusement than as a device for
resisting an insidious chill that had begun to creep over me like a
damp exhalation from the graves. For my imagination suddenly pictured
to itself the heavy tombstone pressing down, down forever, on the
cruel coffin-lid beneath which I should be lying. I shuddered at the
picture, I shuddered at death, and, leaning on an iron rail which girt
in a tomb, hid my face in my arms to shut out the signs of decay and
the more ghastly emblems of immortality with which the populous
cimetière was crowded.
Raising my head after a brief struggle, I perceived that I was
standing in front of the famous tomb of Abelard and Heloise. The
sculptured forms of the unhappy lovers reposed side by side on the lid
of the stone mausoleum, as they had lain for six centuries, and
immortalized the mingling of their mortal dust below. Tears sprang to
my eyes as I looked at their still, peaceful faces, for I remembered
my dead wife, and then, my lost children. Death, that contained them
in its hollow caverns, could not be frightful to me. It was rather the
treasure-house of all I possessed most precious, and which I should
now hasten to reclaim. All the loneliness and longing which had been
dulled by habit, and lately covered over by mental activity, awoke,
and cried out passionately within me, repelling the slight pleasures
of this world, as a child crying for its mother dashes aside an
offered toy. What was left to me in life that I should cling to it?
What ties bound me to this perfidious, slippery earth? To whom owed I
any duties? Whose pillow would moisten with tears because I had passed
out of sight? Destitute of personal interests, I could only devote
myself to those of humanity, and that by some method that should
concentrate in a single moment both the achievement and its reward.
For small were the enjoyment to survive for fame, with whose report I
could return laden to no fireside, for whose sake I could watch no
eyes brighten in sweet pride of sympathy. I should sicken of it in
half an hour, and my hard-earned laurels would become as dusty and
lifeless as those ghastly wreaths of immortelles hanging around
Heloise’s tomb. So desolated love joined itself to restless ambition
and ideal enthusiasm, to concentrate my life for the purpose from
which, since then, it has never swerved.
Thus resolved upon self-devotion, I set about the task of finding a
colleague to share the risks and glory of my enterprise. I did not
conceal from myself that upon him would devolve a rôle far more
difficult and complicated than my own. From me, the subject of the
proposed experiment, was only required sublime heroism for the
sacrifice. But the man who should perform the operation must possess
moral courage to face public criticism, perhaps opprobrium; a trained
intellect, already habituated to discussion of the problem in
question, and impassioned for its solution; great practical skill and
finesse, able to appreciate and profit by every detail of the
phenomena that would unroll themselves before his observation; iron
nerve, that should remain unmoved by any startling peculiarities of
the case in hand.
The necessity for uniting so many characteristics, compelled me to
abandon my first hope of forming a committee for the experiment; for
as soon as I began to sound physiologists on the subject, I landed
knee-deep in a mass of invincible prejudices and prepossessions. The
scheme was too new, too daring for the capacity of the mediocrities
which constitute the bulk of even the scientific world. I must
discover some exceptional solitary enthusiast like myself, able to
appreciate and embrace with joy the grand opportunity I offered him.
To the search for this enthusiast, therefore, I bent all my energies,
and knocked at many doors, wherever, through the windows, I believed
to have detected on the hearth the upleaping of an inner flame.
It was astonishing how often I knocked in vain! How often my
insinuations, my suggestions, my direct propositions were repulsed! I
appealed to a professor who had concentrated the best years of his
life to the problem I proposed to solve,—he pooh-poohed my scheme. In
vain I tried to explain my methods for overcoming its practical
difficulties; he decried them all, I am convinced, from pure jealousy.
“And you ought to know by this time,” he added with a scarcely
disguised sneer, “that a single experiment on a human subject would be
of little value until its results were controlled by a dozen others.
And I doubt that your enthusiasm would prove sufficiently contagious
to furnish the supply for the dissecting table.” And he obstinately
shut his ears to any further argument.
I disclosed my plan to a struggling physician, ready for any adventure
that should thrust him into notoriety, bring his name before the
public, and thus open the way to a prosperous clientèle. Yet he
recoiled from a project fraught with promise so sure and magnificent
as mine. A hospital interne, flushed with enthusiasm for his first
practical studies, started with horror when I divulged my ideas.
Many, true Parisian railleurs, regarded my proposition as an
excellent joke.
“Allons donc, c’est une vieille blague que tu nous fais là.”
And all my protestations served only to increase their amusement, and
their determination not to be taken in.
A few eyed me suspiciously, as if they imagined I were insane, and one
old bourgeois doctor had the impertinence to administer to me a moral
lecture.
“Young man,” he said, “you are possessed by the same preposterous
vanity which induced Empedocles to throw himself into Vesuvius, and
Erostratus to fire the temple of Diana. I recommend a course of dry
cupping to the nape of the neck, to relieve your congested and
over-excited brain, and, in the mean time, a decent seclusion from
society, that you insult with your absurdities.”
I flushed red with anger, but this last rebuff warned me that I must
change my tactics. Like all reformers, I found the world too stiff and
rigid for my purposes, and only harmed myself with kicking against the
bristling pricks. I must turn to a new generation, to early youth, and
find some mind still unformed and flexible, that I could myself submit
to a far-sighted training, and cast into the mould of my own ideas.
The opportunities of which my contemporaries were unworthy, I would
reserve as a gracious boon for a well-initiated pupil.
Two years had elapsed since my arrival at Paris, and the untiring
energy with which I pursued physiological researches had begun to
bring my name into notice. When, therefore, I proposed to open a
course of lectures upon experimental physiology, my friends all
encouraged me with flattering assurances.
“A la bonne heure,” exclaimed the student to whom had I once addressed
my secret plans, “something sensible at last. I trust such rational
occupation will purge your head of its maggots, and satisfy your
aspirations for fame—”
I smiled stealthily to myself. It is thus that the light world always
measures the austerity of our resolutions by its own lightness!
I obtained the requisite official permission, and opened the course at
the École Pratique under the best auspices. The lectures were thronged
from the beginning, and the interest by no means abated as the weeks
rolled on. Enthusiastic myself, I possessed in no small degree the
gift of communicating (on all ordinary subjects) my enthusiasm to
others. I aimed less at imparting solid instruction to my pupils than
at impressing their imagination by a series of skilfully arranged
effects. My experiments, therefore, were governed by dramatic unity,
rarely sought in the confused and arid expositions of official
professors. Now I led my auditors into the inmost laboratories of
Nature, and revealed, in plant and animal, the fine affinities that
regulated her processes of nutrition. Now I traced some delicate
nervous filament from the spinal column of the amphioxus to the
cerebral hemisphere of the mammifer. Now I disclosed the ramifying
canals in the vast system of circulation, mounting from the spongy
network of the mollusk and the sluggish lymphatic of the reptile to
the brilliant, bounding arteries of the double-hearted vertebrates.
And always, beyond the last disclosure, after the most complete
revelation, I hinted at something yet to come, some higher, unveiled
mystery, to which all this grand series was but the prelude. As a
priest who volubly initiates the neophytes into the service of the
temple, but points in silence to the inner court containing the Deity
for whom the service is performed, so I, after the most magnificent
display of animal life, silently indicated a concealed hereafter, a
culmination in the human body, hitherto withheld from our curious
gaze. I thus strove to suggest an ideal, left for a time incomplete;
to foster an impetuous impatience, that, stimulated by the great
acquisitions of the past, should reach forward irresistibly for the
greater prize of the future. I trusted that among all my auditors
would be found one that should divine the cipher, and quicken over its
subtle secret—one intellect, that, carried unconsciously along the
current of my thought, should finally arrive at my unrevealed goal.
Among the most constant attendants on the lectures, I had long noticed
one young man of about twenty-two years old, who always occupied the
same seat close to my operating-table. He was thin, shabbily dressed,
with full, intense forehead, ravenous face, and brilliant eyes. His
poverty was indicated not only by his toilette, and that special form
of unfed expression peculiar to the studious hungry, but also by his
absence from all the private classes, and redoubled assiduity at the
public lectures. His intelligence was evident from the absorbed
attention with which he followed the experiments, and from his manner
of taking notes,—not at random, like most of the students, but at
well-chosen points perceptible only to a person already in possession
of a commanding view of the whole subject. By a little stratagem, I
contrived one day to get hold of his note-book, and was surprised at
the accurate observations, the acute suggestions, and range of
information indicated by the marginal queries. Those who have ever
experienced the delight of discovering an intellect—discovery more
precious than that of a gold mine—can appreciate the eagerness with
which I devoured these pages, finding everywhere the stamp of the mind
I sought. And my satisfaction was redoubled by reflecting how greatly
the youth and poverty of the writer might increase my facilities for
obtaining complete possession of him. I was not long in devising a
scheme for forcing the intimacy of the young man, who, like most poor
students, was evidently as shy and proud as he was poor.
One day, at the close of the lecture, I touched my student on the arm.
“Be kind enough to wait a moment,” I said, “I have something to say to
you.”
The boy flushed and drew back a little with all the haughtiness of a
sensitive person ill at ease with the world, and expecting from it
nothing but rebuffs and insolence. I fancied that an anxious suspicion
crossed his mind that I was about to lay claim to some payment for
lessons, of which he had hitherto ignored the necessity. I waited till
the greater part of the crowd had squeezed through the narrow door of
the amphitheatre, dismissed the loiterers, and then turned to my
companion with a frank air of relief, as to an equal with whom I could
refresh myself after the fatigue of teaching lesser minds. I saw that
I had already won his heart, before I began to speak.
“I find that I require another assistant,” I said. “The man that I
have at present, is, as you know, a mere machine. I need some one
interested, enthusiastic, capable of seconding me intelligently. I
want, in short, a pupil. Will you fill the place?”
Surprised, overwhelmed with an honor which he could so keenly
appreciate, the young man flushed again, hesitated, stammered, and
finally only succeeded in answering me with his beautiful eyes, for
his tongue refused to speak. I already loved the boy; alas! how he has
repaid my love!
“It will be a mutual exchange of service,” I continued. “You will be
of great use to me in my preparations, and, in return, I may be able
to initiate you into the mysteries of our art, somewhat more
thoroughly than can be done in a public lecture.”
“I thank you, sir,” said Guy. He tried to speak coldly, but he looked
as if he longed to throw himself at my feet and cover my hand with
kisses. To relieve his emotion, in which I secretly exulted, I patted
him friendlily on the shoulder, and began immediately to discuss the
programme for the following lecture.
I had every reason to congratulate myself on my new assistant. His
zeal and ingenuity not only seconded my researches, but often
supplemented them when over-fatigue persuaded me to repose. And Guy’s
personal character proved as winning as his intellect keen and
reliable. Before long I contrived that he should come and live with
me, and I invented for him some light literary employment, by which he
could pay me for his board and lodging, with an insignificant
sacrifice of his time. He acceded to this arrangement upon its
apparent terms, but none the less did he pierce its transparent
motive, and tacitly devote to me his whole soul in acknowledgment of
what he considered my delicate generosity. These unfledged souls are
apt to throw themselves thus away in exchange for the most trifling
pecuniary service, and torment themselves, moreover, that the
compensation is so mean. I smiled at Guy’s naïveté, but none the less
turned it to account. From the foothold thus gained, I rapidly
extended my influence over his entire nature. My larger experience
enabled me to complete his unfinished thoughts, to sympathize with
his scarcely conscious feelings, to subtly impress his principles and
co-ordinate them to my own scheme. Having begun by forestalling his
material necessities, I continued to supply the finer wants of heart
and intellect so completely, that he became habituated to turn to me
for everything, and to receive everything that came from me with
implicit faith. I fed him, taught him, loved him, and all with such
artfulness, that he felt my presence in his life only as a plant feels
the sunshine in its calyx, conscious of no intrusion to be resented,
or tyranny to be repelled. It is so easy to make the conquest of a
young, ingenuous nature! so easy to fix its impetuous, unsuspecting
enthusiasm! I marvel that these exquisite relations between master and
pupil are so generally left uncultivated, or their charm wasted. I
almost marvel that I did not rest completely satisfied with my life at
that time; with its arduous study, and its growing fame, and Guy, with
the delicious task of educating his supple intellect to my ideas, and
penetrating his nature with my personality. Only the loftiness of my
ideal saved it from making womanish shipwreck on this episode in its
austere voyage towards the realization.
As Guy became more and more competent, I delegated more and more into
his hands the preparation for the lectures. The first excitement of
getting them into train was past, the first keen interest dulled by
habit; and when the second winter began, with repetition of all that
had gone before, I went through the business almost mechanically.
Often I left everything to my assistant, and shut myself up alone to
dream over the project that secretly absorbed my soul. Guy fancied I
was ill, and, as my exertions slackened, redoubled his own, consuming
heart and brain in the resolve to maintain the course at the level of
its original popularity. I was inwardly amused at his devotion to such
secondary considerations, but did not interfere, for it helped to
serve my purpose.
Finally, I believed my pupil to be fully prepared, and decided that
the moment had come for the complete revelation of myself.
One evening,—I selected the evening advisedly, since at that time the
imagination is more susceptible of impressions, and further removed
from the vulgar influences of every-day life,—I entered our study.
Guy was seated at a table, and working in his usual intense fashion,
and I threw myself on a sofa beside him.
“Guy,” I exclaimed, “it tires me to look at you. For eight hours you
have not stirred from those books. You will kill yourself.”
“Great loss,” he answered, “so that it were in your service, and
during the pursuit of knowledge.”
“You love me then, Guy?”
“Love you!” He rose from the table, and coming to the sofa, kneeled
and kissed my forehead, without shame, as in France men can kiss
each other.
“My master, my friend!” he said; and I felt that he was mine, bound to
me by a love passing the love of women. I drew him before me, and ran
my fingers through his clustering hair. His affection was pleasant to
me, independent of the use I meant to make of it; and I almost
experienced a feminine desire to trifle with it for a moment, as one
shifts a diamond from one hand to the other to watch its changing
flame.
“How much do you love me? as the children say. What would you do for
me?”
“I would die for you!” he answered vehemently.
That is the first thing youth ever thinks of. From very fulness of
life, it can afford to be on familiar terms with death.
“Tut; that is unnecessary. But would you do anything I asked of you as
a personal favor?”
“Only try me. I would go to the ends of the earth for you.”
“Tenez! suppose I was dying King Arthur and you my squire. Would you
hesitate to fling away Excalibur at my command?”
“The paltry bauble! What thought could I have to waste upon it while
you were dying?”
“But suppose this obedience did not suffice to release me. Suppose
that, in my agony, I prayed you to drive your own sword into my heart
to set me free. Would you do it?”
He hesitated a moment. “That would be a terrible prayer; yet if you
were suffering, and I knew that you must die, I would do even that for
you.”
“You have said it,” I cried, and leaped to my feet in uncontrollable
excitement. “I have a request to make you, I have a prayer that you
only can fulfil. Swear that you will grant it—swear by all your love
for me, by all the gratitude which you profess, and for which I shall
never claim other return—swear that you will do what I am about to
bid you!”
I saw that Guy was disquieted by my words and manner. Instead of
replying with the bold confidence I had a right to expect, he recoiled
from the revelation that pressed urgently on my lips.
“Take care,” he said, “your eyes are glittering as if you had a fever.
Let us stop talking about this till to-morrow.”
The upstart boy, thus to dare to patronize me with his foresight and
protection—me, who had taught him all he knew, and who was about to
offer him a place on my giddy pinnacle of immortal fame! I was
intensely angry, but succeeded in controlling myself, for I felt that
an untimely explosion of violence might ruin all. I passed my hand
over my eyes, as if to blur the glitter that had alarmed Guy’s
scrupulous feebleness, and sat down quietly again.
“The fact is, my dear Guy,” I said, “I have been waiting so long for
an opportunity to execute a certain scheme of mine, that I cannot help
being a little excited when this opportunity seems at last within my
reach.”
“What kind of a scheme?” asked Guy.
“A scheme for the advancement of the science in which we are both so
interested.”
“Oh,” said Guy, with an air of relief, “you know how you can rely upon
me for any undertaking in that direction.”
“I should think so, especially when it concerns the problem upon which
we have both been so long engaged—the movements of the heart.”
“What!” he exclaimed with delight. “You have discovered something new
for that! Shall I ever cease to admire your masterly ingenuity. What
is to be done? You want to send me to Africa to capture a live
rhinoceros? I will set out to-morrow.”
“What would be the use! All the information that can be gained by
experiment on the higher mammifers is already ours. Since the problem
derives the greatest part of its interest from its application to man,
it is on man that the new experiment should be performed.”
“Ah, yes,” sighed Guy; “we are always tripping up against this
impossibility.”
“Nothing is impossible,” I answered. “I am resolved that the
experiment shall be performed on man.”
Guy started, then laughed. “Oh! you are joking,” he said.
“Not the least in the world. I have even selected the subject.”
“Eh! well, since you are so determined, you may dissect me when you
choose. Only I warn you of difficulties with the tribunals
afterwards.”
“I leave you to settle with them. It is not you, but myself, who is to
be the subject; and you must perform the experiment.”
I was surprised at the calmness with which I made this momentous
revelation of my purpose. But we are always on the level of the
circumstances to which we have attained, and they do not seem as awful
as when viewed from the distance.
Guy did not at all believe that I was in earnest, and half an hour’s
impetuous talking was needed to convince him of the reality and
fixedness of my resolve. Then he tried to reason with me.
“Your experiment will be utterly useless,” he said; “because death
will ensue almost immediately after the chest is opened. And during
the few seconds that might intervene for observation, the heart would
beat too rapidly to render observation possible.”
“I have devised means for palliating all these difficulties,” I
answered eagerly. “In the first place, the last act of the experiment
must be preceded by the administration of woorara, to slacken the
rapidity of the heart’s action. In the second place, I do not propose
to open the chest with the bistoury. The operation, even though aided
by chloroform, would cause too violent a shock to the nervous system.
But I intend to burn through gradually, by successive applications of
caustic, as in the procedure for opening hepatic cysts. Deep-seated
adhesions would form and shut out the lungs securely, and thus
probably obviate the necessity for artificial respiration. The
pericardium would be reached with comparatively little disturbance,
and once exposed, the operator would be able to make a first and
important series of observations, before proceeding farther. Finally,
he would rend the pericardium, and arrive directly at the heart
itself.”
“And kill you!” cried Guy.
“I should die,” I answered composedly, “as men have died after
inoculating themselves with the plague; only my death would be more
glorious, because incurred for pure science, and in face of a
certainty. It is precisely on this account that the act will insure to
our names the honor and reverence of all future generations.”
“Nonsense. You will be pitied as a suicide and madman, and I shall be
hung at the next assizes.”
“Coward! traitor!” I burst forth in ungovernable passion. “This is
the extent of your devotion, then! These your narrow calculations
and sordid reckonings! You, the one soul in whom I trusted, the one
friend I had in the world capable of appreciating me! Oh, shame on
such ingratitude! Oh, miserable me, doomed to such disappointment!”
He was deeply hurt. I saw that I had made some impression upon the
hard skepticism with which the world had incased a naturally generous
nature, and pressed my advantage. I poured out a torrent of
eloquence, reasoning, prayers, entreaty. I wrestled with him as for
the salvation of a soul; the night waned on our hot conversation, and
finally, toward three o’clock, when the gray dawn began to point
weirdly in the East, I gained the victory. Guy promised to fulfil my
wish, at whatever risks to himself, and with the certainty of
sacrificing my life in the experiment. On the spot, I drew up a paper
testifying that the operation should have been performed at my express
command, and stated the reasons in full. To this document, I trusted
to obtain in the country the signature of two witnesses sufficiently
incurious to sign without reading.
For it was decided that, for the sake of greater secrecy and
convenience, we should withdraw to the country, and I selected a
locality about four hours’ distance from Paris, where we were both
unknown. These details settled, we separated for sleep.
But I think neither of us closed our eyes that night; and Guy was so
pale and haggard the next morning that I hardly knew him. During the
week that we remained at Paris, making preparations for our departure,
he hardly ate, or slept, or spoke, but seemed to waste and droop like
a man in the clutch of a fiend. I became anxious. I was afraid he
would fall ill, and thus be incapacitated for the performance of his
duty.
However, we managed to leave the city without accident, and installed
ourselves in the lonely dwelling I had rented. We hired an old woman
from the village to take charge of our housekeeping, and then devoted
ourselves to our work. We engaged in a preliminary series of
experiments, through which, as through a suite of lesser apartments
leading to the throne-room, we were to approach the act that should
crown them all.
For the first time since he had been my pupil, I found Guy nervous,
maladroit. He turned pale at the sight of blood. The struggling of a
pigeon, or the yelp of a dog, seemed to make him sick, and a hundred
times he laid down his scalpel as if unable to proceed. He was like a
neophyte, and a prey to the sentimental horrors of which, up to this
time, his absorbed intellect had been quite unconscious. I trembled.
If his nerve should fail him when it became my turn, and the whole
costly experiment be thrown away through some awkwardness on his part!
I was furious at the very idea, and told him so.
“I will haunt you forever if you fail,” I said, savagely.
“You will in any case,” answered Guy, sighing heavily.
But at my instances, he tried to rouse himself from this inexplicable
languor, and to drill hand and eye to exquisite precision. I watched
him severely. I refused to pardon the least blunder. I trained him for
this last trial, as men train horses for the winning race. Guy was
really an able physiologist, and his skill only needed finishing
touches to be as effective as was possible in the actual condition of
science. After two or three weeks I was satisfied, and bade him
prepare the next day to begin the last experiment.
I shall never forget that day, the supreme moment of my life. I sat at
the windows of an inner room, waiting for Guy, and looked out over the
valley that basked in the afternoon sunshine. It was the beginning of
September—one of those perfect days at the prime of the year, when
life has reached its culmination, and pauses in the fulness of its own
content. The air, ripe and balmy, purged of the rawness of Spring and
the violent heat of Summer, was as yet untouched by the faintest
frost, and restored to such perfection as mortals might breathe after
the regeneration of the earth. The grain had been gathered in, but the
unfallen fruit still weighed down the orchards, and absorbed the
sunlight for its mellowing juices. The first press of the harvest
season was over, the second had not yet begun; for one precious moment
man and nature paused together, and surveyed the long ascent by which
the year had climbed to these high table-lands of peace—not innocent
peace, ignorant of action, but the peace of victory after conflict, of
repose after strife, of maturity entering upon its rewards. In the
perfection of these sunful days, all possibility of change seemed to
have been outgrown, left far behind in an old, wearisome existence of
long ago. The world had entered upon an eternal blessedness, and the
jasper walls of heaven shut it out from harm forever, like coral reefs
encircling a lagoon in the Pacific seas. Only by remembering the years
that had been before, and the years that should follow after, could
the reluctant mind convince itself that this seeming eternity was
frail; that whoso lingered too long among the splendors of September
would be surely overtaken by treacherous frost, and biting winter
winds; that there was but one way to escape the revolting decline from
this pinnacle of life—to die. That was my secret. I alone, of all who
shivered at approaching winter, had learned how to escape. For me, not
only the year, but life itself, should cease at its pinnacle, refusing
to go down to a lower place, as a dethroned being prefers death to
miserable exile. And with these thoughts, I felt myself possessed by
an unutterable calm, such as comes to fever patients when they are
dying.
The first day of the experiment little was to be done. I called Guy,
who lingered in the laboratory, and bade him apply the first layer of
caustic to my breast, over the heart. The little operation required
small skill, and this was fortunate, for Guy’s hand trembled so
violently, that a delicate manipulation would have been ruined. A drop
of the paste fell on my coat-sleeve, and in a few minutes had burned a
hole entirely through.
“Look, Guy,” I exclaimed, “through such a window shall you soon gaze
at the central mystery of life. I almost envy you the opportunity.”
“Oh!” he cried, “if you would but take it! If you would but use me for
your experiment, and spare me this dreadful trial!”
He had urged this exchange from the beginning, but of course I would
not consent. What! give up my great chance for immortality, surrender
my unique place in the history of science and the world? No, indeed; I
was already generous in sharing my achievement, in trusting the
preservation of my fame to even my most loyal friend. Beyond that it
were folly, madness, to go.
“Nonsense,” I replied therefore to this senseless entreaty. “That
question has already been sufficiently discussed. Bah! that caustic
burns.”
It was necessary to wait three or four days before renewing the
caustic to deepen the eschar made by the first application. This delay
gradually became intolerable to me,—the more, that Guy prolonged it
on a multitude of trivial pretexts. I was finally obliged to resume
the direction of affairs, and order him to proceed.
He began to prepare some Vienna paste, but in a slow, dawdling manner
that irritated my nerves to the last degree. I snatched the cup from
his hand and stirred the caustic myself.
“How many centuries have admired Socrates,” I remarked, “for his
theatrical pretence of drinking the hemlock voluntarily. In future
ages men will remember with greater admiration how I, with my own
hand, prepared the instrument of my death. Do not forget to mention
this circumstance in your notes, and add that my hand did not
tremble.”
I gave the caustic to Guy; but at the same moment the door opened
behind us, and he sprang forward with a sudden cry, dashing the cup in
pieces on the floor. I turned in angry surprise at the interruption,
and saw two men standing in the room. They were perfect strangers to
me, but came forward immediately and saluted me with the friendly
courtesy of old acquaintance. I even fancied that I detected an
intolerable softness in their manner, such as physicians sometimes
assume in speaking to sick people. One of the intruders took my
passive hand in his, and shook it with unnecessary cordiality,
contriving, I think, at the same time to slip his fingers on my wrist,
just over the pulse.
My instinct was decidedly in favor of kicking these impertinent
fellows down stairs. But so strong is the influence of civilized
habit, that I restrained myself to a freezing politeness, inquiring to
what I might be indebted for the honor, etc.
“These gentlemen are friends of mine,” interposed Guy, who had stooped
on the floor to pick up the broken fragments of the cup, and who did
not look at me as he spoke. “They are amateurs in our science, and
would be much interested in examining the laboratory that we have
installed here. But since they have taken a long journey, and must be
hungry, I think we had better first order the déjeuner.”
“The devil!” I muttered inwardly. But at the same moment I reflected
that these visitors with their congenial tastes might serve
opportunity as witnesses to the experiment—even be useful in
correcting any possible awkwardness in Guy’s manipulation. I therefore
addressed them in a tone of cordial hospitality.
“We are at this moment engaged in some researches,” I said, “that
cannot fail to interest you, and where, perhaps, you may be of signal
service, if you will consent to stay with us awhile and put up with
our modest accommodations.”
“You honor our poor abilities,” returned the first stranger, with a
bland smile. “We shall be most happy to accept your amiable
invitation.”
So we four sat down to the déjeuner, in the most cheerful possible
humor. The black stain that burned on my breast stimulated me to a
secret exultation; I felt a secret pride in anticipating the wonder of
these men, when they should hereafter recall the gayety of my demeanor
on this occasion. They, on the other hand, seconded me bravely in the
conversation. Not for years had I met with companions so brilliant,
witty, and sympathetic. They listened to me with the closest
attention, and seemed to find a peculiar charm in the freaks of my
fancy, to which, for the moment, I gave the rein.
“These men are capable of appreciating me,” I said to myself, and
congratulated my good fortune which had sent them thither.
Then I rose. “Gentlemen,” I said, “I cannot express to you the
pleasure that I have derived from your society. Before we adjourn to
the laboratory, allow me, in English fashion, to propose a toast.”
“Wait a moment,” said Guy, breaking the sullen silence he had hitherto
maintained. “I ordered some Burgundy from Paris the other day, and it
arrived this morning.”
He left the room, and presently returned with an uncorked bottle in
his hand, which he set before me. I fancied, as he did so, that he
looked rather significantly at the two strangers, but politeness
forbade me to express my suspicion. I poured out the wine, and pushed
the glasses to my companions.
“Drink,” I cried, “to the experiment that shall open a new era in
science, and to the man that shall inaugurate a new revolution in the
world.” And I drained my glass.
Whether or no the others followed my example, I cannot tell; for
almost immediately I felt a subtle fire course through my veins,
followed by a delicious languor that crept inwards to my heart, and
seemed to arrest its pulsation by an irresistible persuasiveness to
repose. Probably I swooned, for I lost all consciousness, and all
recollection of time or place for many hours.
When I came to myself, I was a prisoner in this cursed asylum at
Charenton.
—Guy had betrayed me,—the false friend,—the poltroon,—and I, who
trusted him too much, had fallen a victim to his stratagems. Whether
he had been true to me at the beginning, and then had faltered at the
last, or whether he had deceived me all along with affected
complaisance, I never knew. For when he came to see me one day, my
just resentment excited me to such a paroxysm of fury that the people
here recommended him not to return, and I have never seen him since.
So here I sit, in forced idleness, waiting for the arrival of some one
who shall appreciate my great idea, and release me for its
accomplishment. The people by whom I am surrounded are kind enough,
but ignorant; they admire me, but are unable to understand me. So they
bind me in silken chains, and clasp them with honeyed words, and I
remain a prisoner. It is thus that the world rewards its greatest
benefactors!
