"I had forgotten. It is so hard for the finite mind to think beyond
itself. Not tired. Not vulnerable. No. There was Samson--the cat." He
was embarrassed. "I hurt you?"
"No, father." He repeated it. Every gentle fall of the word "father"
from his lips and every mention of "son" by his father was rare
privilege, unfamiliar elixir to the old man. His new lie took its cue
from Abednego Danner's expressions. "My work goes on. Now it is with
America. I expect to go to Washington soon to right the wrongs of
politics and government. Vicious and selfish men I shall force from
their high places. I shall secure the idealistic and the courageous." It
was a theory he had never considered, a possible practice born of
necessity. "The pressure I shall bring against them will be physical and
mental. Here a man will be driven from his house mysteriously. There a
man will slip into the limbo. Yonder an inconspicuous person will
suddenly be braced by a new courage; his enemies will be gone and his
work will progress unhampered. I shall be an invisible agent of
right--right as best I can see it. You understand, father?"
Abednego smiled like a happy child. "I do, son. To be you must be
splendid."
"The most splendid thing on earth! And I have you to thank, you and your
genius to tender gratitude to. I am merely the agent. It is you that
created and the whole world that benefits."
Abednego's face was serene--not smug, but transfigured. "I yearned as
you now perform. It is strange that one cloistered mortal can become
inspired with the toil and lament of the universe. Yet there is a danger
of false pride in that, too. I am apt to fall into the pit because my
cup is so full here at the last. And the greatest problem of all is not
settled."
"What problem?" Hugo asked in surprise.
"Why, the problem that up until now has been with me day and night.
Shall there be made more men like you--and women like you?"
The idea staggered Hugo. It paralyzed him and he heard his father's
voice come from a great distance. "Up in the attic in the black trunk
are six notebooks wrapped in oilpaper. They were written in pencil, but
I went over them carefully in ink. That is my life-work, Hugo. It is the
secret--of you. Given those books, a good laboratory worker could go
through all my experiments and repeat each with the same success. I
tried a little myself. I found out things--for example, the effect of
the process is not inherited by the future generations. It must be done
over each time. It has seemed to me that those six little books--you
could slip them all into your coat pocket--are a terrible explosive.
They can rip the world apart and wipe humanity from it. In malicious
hands they would end life. Sometimes, when I became nervous waiting for
the newspapers, waiting for a letter from you, I have been sorely
tempted to destroy them. But now--"
"Now?" Hugo echoed huskily.
"Now I understand. There is no better keeping for them than your own. I
give them to you."
"Me!"
"You, son. You must take them, and the burden must be yours. You have
grown to manhood now and I am proud of you. More than proud. If I were
not, I myself would destroy the books here on this bed. Matilda would
bring them and I would watch them burn so that the danger would go
with--" he cleared his throat--"my dream."
"But--"
"You cannot deny me. It is my wish. You can see what it means. A world
grown suddenly--as you are."
"I, father--"
"You have not avoided responsibility. You will not avoid this, the
greatest of your responsibilities. Since the days when I made those
notes--what days!--biology has made great strides. For a time I was
anxious. For a time I thought that my research might be rediscovered.
But it cannot be. Theory has swung in a different direction." He smiled
with inner amusement. "The opticians have decided that the microscope I
made is impossible. The biochemists, moving through the secretions of
such things as hippuric acid in the epithelial cells, to enzymes, to
hormones, to chromosomes, have put a false construction on everything.
It will take hundreds, thousands of years to see the light. The darkness
is so intense and the error so plausible that they may never see again
exactly as I saw. The fact of you, at best, may remain always no more
than a theory. This is not vanity. My findings were a combination of
accidents almost outside the bounds of mathematical probability. It is
you who must bear the light."
Hugo felt that now, indeed, circumstance had closed around him and left
him without succour or recourse. He bowed his head. "I will do it,
father."
"Now I can die in peace--in joy."
With an almost visible wrench Hugo brought himself back to his
surroundings. "Nonsense, father. You'll probably get well."
"No, son. I've studied the progress of this disease in the lower
orders--when I saw it imminent. I shall die--not in pain, but in sleep.
But I shall not be dead--because of you." He held out his hand for Hugo.
Some time later the old professor fell asleep and Hugo tiptoed from the
room. Food was sizzling downstairs in the kitchen, but he ignored it,
going out into the sharp air by the front door. He hastened along the
streets and soon came to the road that led up the mountain. He climbed
rapidly, and when he dared, he discarded the tedious little steps of all
mankind. He reached the side of the quarry where he had built the stone
fort, and seated himself on a ledge that hung over it. Trees, creepers,
and underbrush had grown over the place, but through the
October-stripped barricade of their branches he could see a heap of
stones that was his dolmen, on which the hieroglyph of him was
inscribed.
Two tears scalded his cheeks; he trembled with the welter of his
emotions. He had failed his father, failed his trust, failed the world;
and in the abyss of that grief he could catch no sight of promise or
hope. Having done his best, he had still done nothing, and it was
necessary for him to lie to put the thoughts of a dying man to rest. The
pity of that lie! The folly of the picture he had painted of
himself--Hugo Danner the scourge of God, Hugo Danner the destroying
angel, Hugo Danner the hero of a quick love-affair that turned brown
and dead like a plucked flower, the sentimental soldier, the involuntary
misanthrope.
"I must do it!" he whispered fiercely. The ruined stones echoed the
sound of his voice with a remote demoniac jeer. Do what? What, strong
man? What?