THE WIZARD FINALLY DIES
And now, here I am, in this house in the Avenue 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 behind 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. 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 outbursts for a week, dashing the battering-ram of its
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 remarks 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 admiration:
“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, 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, oozing 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 intermittently.
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 vibration 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
explanation 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 immortal
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 metallic 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 deceased.
He can never hurt me again. Ah, ha! DEAD! The filthy brute!
I ought to be happy, but I am not very. Oh, it is not because of Emma.
No doubt the “baggage” 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 felt
harasses 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 _him_, as he no longer exists; even if he should
come and haunt me in the features 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, and to exchange their souls for
somebody else’s. The three Germans are daily adding to the number of
those poor creatures who are craving for money, youth or health. There
are in the world, unsuspected men and women who are not themselves.
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 yesterday.
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
cuff or a curse.
I know, I know! Everybody feels those unreflecting 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
comply 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 exhausting 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 remembrance 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.
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 ridiculous, 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
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or alternate spelling which may have been in use at the time
of publication has been retained.