through space, never entirely disappearing; that all past events are
present and indestructible in the bosom of the infinite.
"The universe will endure forever. The Earth will come to an end, and
some day will be nothing but a tomb. But there will be new suns and new
earths, new springs and new smiles, and life will always bloom afresh in
the limitless and endless universe.
"I wanted to show you," said she, after a pause, "how eternal time is!
You have felt the infinity of space, you have understood the grandeur of
the universe. Now your celestial journey is over. We must go back to the
earth and your own home again.
"For yourself," she added, "know that study is the one source of any
intellectual value; be neither rich nor poor; keep yourself from all
ambition as well as from all servitude; be independent,--independence is
the rarest gift and the first condition of happiness."
Urania was still speaking in her gentle voice; but my brain was so
confused by the commotion aroused in it by so many extraordinary scenes
that I was seized by a fit of trembling. A shiver ran over me from head
to foot, which was probably the cause of my abrupt awakening in a state
of great agitation. Alas! the delightful celestial journey had ended.
I looked about for Urania, but could not find her. A bright moonbeam
shining through my bedroom window lightly touched the edge of a curtain
and seemed vaguely to outline the aerial form of my heavenly guide; but
it was only a moonbeam.
* * * * *
When I went back to the observatory the next morning, my first impulse
was to find some pretext for going to the director's study to see the
charming Muse again who had rewarded me by such a dream....
The clock had disappeared!
In its place stood a white marble bust of the illustrious astronomer.
I looked through the other rooms, even the private apartments, under a
thousand different excuses; but she was nowhere to be found.
I searched for days and weeks, but could neither find her nor learn what
had become of her.
I had a friend and confidant, very near my own age, although appearing
older, from his sprouting beard; he too was very fond of the ideal, and
perhaps even more of a dreamer,--besides, he was the only person at the
observatory with whom I was ever on intimate terms. He shared my joys
and griefs. We had the same tastes, the same ideas, the same feelings.
He understood my youthful admiration for the statue, the personality
with which my imagination had invested her, and my unhappiness at having
thus suddenly lost my dearest Urania just when I was most attached to
her. He had more than once admired with me the effect of the light upon
her celestial countenance, and smiled at my ecstasies like a big
brother, even teasing me a little sharply about my affection for an
idol, going so far as to call me "Camille Pygmalion." But at heart I
knew that he too loved her.
This friend--who, alas! was to be torn from me a few years later, in the
very flower of his youth, kind George Spero, exalted mind, noble heart,
whose memory will be ever dear to me--was the director's private
secretary; and his sincere affection for me was proved in this instance
by an act of kindness as graceful as it was unexpected.
When I went home one day I saw with a half-incredulous bewilderment the
famous clock standing on my chimney-piece there, just in front of me!
It was really she! How did she come there? What brought her there? Where
did she come from?
I learned that the celebrated discoverer of Neptune had sent it to one
of the principal clock-makers in Paris to be repaired; that the latter
had received a most interesting antique astronomical clock from China
and had offered it in exchange, which had been accepted; and that George
Spero, to whom the transaction had been intrusted, had re-purchased
Pradier's work as a gift for me. His parents were glad of an opportunity
to please me, in remembrance of some lessons in mathematics which I had
given George for his special examination.
[Illustration]
What joy it was to see my Urania again! How happy I was to feast my eyes
on her once more! That charming personification of the Muse of heaven
has never left me since. In my studious hours the beautiful statue
always stood before me, seeming to remind me of the goddess's
conversation,--to tell me the destinies of astronomy, to direct me in
my youthful scientific aspirations. Since then more passionate emotions
have beguiled me, captivated me, and troubled my senses; but I shall
never forget the ideal sentiment with which the Muse of the stars had
inspired me, the celestial journey on which she bore me away, the
unexpected panoramas she unrolled before my eyes, the truths she
revealed to me as to the extent of the universe, nor the happiness she
gave me by definitively settling my mind on the calm contemplation of
Nature and science as a career.
Part Second.
GEORGE SPERO.
[Illustration]
I.
LIFE.
An intense evening glow floated in the atmosphere like a wondrous golden
radiance. From the heights of Passy the view extended over the whole of
the great city, which at that time, more than ever before, was not a
city, but a world. The Universal Exhibition of 1867 had lavished all the
attractions and delights of the century on imperial Paris. The flowers
of civilization were blooming in their most brilliant tints, wasting
themselves away by the very ardor of their perfume,--fading, dying in
the full fever of youth. The crowned heads of Europe had just heard a
deafening trumpet-blast there, which was the last of the monarchy;
science, arts, industry had sowed their newest creations broadcast, with
an inexhaustible prodigality. It was a general delirium of men and
things. Regiments were marching, with music at their heads;
swift-rolling vehicles crossed each other from all directions; thousands
of people were moving about in the dust on the avenues, _quais_, and
boulevards: but the very dust, gilded by the rays of the setting sun,
crowned the splendid city like an aureole. The tall buildings, towers,
and steeples were ablaze with reflections from the fiery orb; tones from
a distant orchestra, mingled with a confused murmur of voices and other
sounds,--the brilliant, fit ending of a dazzling summer day,--poured
into the soul an undefined feeling of contentment, happiness, and
satisfaction. There was a kind of symbolical summing-up about it of the
evidences of the vitality of a great people in the zenith of its life
and fortune.
From the heights of Passy, where we are, on a terrace in a garden
overhanging the careless current of the stream, as in the old days at
Babylon, two persons, leaning on the stone balustrade, watch the noisy
scene, looking down on the restless surface of the human sea, happier in
their sweet solitude than all the atoms of that seething whirlpool; they
do not belong to the every-day world, but soar above all that restless
activity in the limpid atmosphere of their own joy. Their spirits feel,
their hearts love; or to express the same fact more completely, their
souls live.
[Illustration]
In the maidenly beauty of her eighteenth spring, the young girl's glance
wanders dreamily over the apotheosis of the setting sun. Happy to be
alive, happier still to love, she gives no thought to the thousands of
people moving about at her feet; she looks with unseeing eyes at the
sun's ardent disk sinking below the purple western clouds; she breathes
the perfumed air from garlands of roses in the garden, and feels through
her whole being the peace of perfect happiness, singing a hymn of
unutterable love in her heart. The blond hair waves about her brow like
a misty aureole, and falls in thick tresses over her slender form; her
blue eyes, fringed by long dark lashes, are like a reflection of the
azure sky; her neck and arms give glimpses of the snowy whiteness of
her skin; her cheeks, her ears, are softly colored; her whole person
recalls somewhat the dainty marchionesses whom the painters of the
eighteenth century loved to depict, who were born to an unknown life
which they were not long destined to enjoy. She is standing. Her
companion, whose arm a moment ago encircled her waist as they were
looking at the picture of Paris and listening to the strains of melody
flooding the air from the Imperial Guard, had seated himself by her
side. His eyes had forgotten Paris and the setting sun; now they see
nothing but the beautiful girl. He looks at her unconsciously with a
strange, fixed gaze, as though he saw her now for the first time, and
could not keep his eyes from her exquisite profile, enveloping her in a
long look like a magnetic caress.
[Illustration]
The young student was absorbed in his contemplation. Was he still a
student at twenty-five? Is one ever anything more? And our own master
then, M. de Chevreul, does he not call himself now, in his one hundred
and third year, the senior of the students of France? George Spero had
finished his lyceum studies at a very early age; but they teach nothing,
unless it be how to work, and he continued to investigate the great
problems of natural science with indefatigable ardor. Astronomy
especially had at first attracted his interest. I had known him (as the
reader of the first part of this book may remember) at the Paris
Observatory, which he had entered at the age of sixteen, and
where he had somewhat distinguished himself by a rather strange
peculiarity,--that of having no ambition and no desire whatever for
advancement.
At the age of sixteen, as at twenty-five, he believed himself to be on
the verge of the grave,--judging, perhaps, that life indeed passes
quickly, and that it is useless to wish for anything beyond the
happiness of studying and knowing. He was not very talkative, although
at heart his disposition was that of a playful child. His small,
well-shaped mouth seemed to smile if one carefully examined its
corners; otherwise it looked somewhat pensive, and as though made for
silence. His eyes, whose undecided color reminded one of the
bluish-green on the sea's horizon, changed with the light and in
accordance with his moods; they were usually gentle, but on occasion
would flash like lightning, or grow as cold as steel; their glance was
deep, sometimes unfathomable, even strange and enigmatical. His ear was
small, gracefully curved, the lobe well detached and a little
raised,--which to analysts is an indication of refinement. The brow was
broad, although his head was rather small, but seemed larger from his
glistening, thickly waving hair; his beard was brown, like his hair, and
slightly curled. Of medium height, his whole effect was elegant, with a
natural ease; he dressed carefully, but without pretence or affectation.
My friends and I never had any special companionship with him. Holidays
and leisure hours he never spent with us. Always occupied with his
books, he seemed to have given himself up without reserve to hunting for
the philosopher's stone, the quadrature of the circle, or perpetual
motion. I never knew him to have a friend, unless it were myself; and
yet I am not sure that he gave me all his confidences,--though, for that
matter, perhaps there was no special event in his life except the one of
which I now make myself the historian, and which I knew all about as an
eye-witness if not as confidant.
The problem of the soul was the perpetual torment of his thought.
Sometimes he was so absorbed in his search for the unknown, with such
intense cerebral action, that he felt a sensation of tingling in his
head which seemed to exhaust all his thinking faculties. This was
especially the case when, after having analyzed the conditions of
immortality for a long time, he saw real ephemeral life suddenly
disappear, and endless immortality open before his mental being. In the
face of this aspect of the soul in full eternity he longed _to know_.
The sight of his own body, pale and stiff, wrapped in grave-clothes and
lying in its coffin, left deserted in its last mournful resting-place at
the bottom of a narrow grave under the grass where the cricket chirps,
did not appall his thought so much as the uncertainty about the future.
"What will become of me; what will become of us?" he repeated, like the
constant clashing of a fixed idea in his brain. "If we die utterly, what
an absurd farce life is, with its hopes and struggles. If we are
immortal, what do we do with ourselves through endless eternity? Where
shall I be a hundred years from now? Where will all the present dwellers
of the earth be? To die, for ever and ever; to have existed but for a
moment! What a mockery! Would it not be better a hundred times over
never to have been born? But if it be our fate to live eternally and
never to be able to change anything of the fatality that carries us
along,--having endless eternity always before us,--how can we bear the
burden of such a destiny? Is that the doom awaiting us? If we should
tire of existence, we should be forbidden to fly from it; it would be
impossible to end it. In this conception there is far more implacable
cruelty than in that of an ephemeral life vanishing away like an
insect's flight in the fresh evening breeze. Why then were we born? To
suffer uncertainty; to find after examination not a single one of our
hopes left; to live like idiots if we do not think, like fools if we do?
And yet they tell us of a 'good God!' There are religions, priests,
rabbis, bonzes. Why, mankind is but a race of dupes and duped! Religion
is the same as patriotism, and the priest is as good as the soldier. Men
of all nations arm themselves to the teeth that they may kill one
another like simpletons! Ah! it is the wisest thing they could do; the
best return they could make to Nature for the foolish gift she bestowed
in causing them to be born."
[Illustration]
I tried to lessen his pain and anxiety, having a certain philosophy of
my own which was relatively satisfactory to me. "The fear of death seems
absolutely chimerical," said I. "There are but two hypotheses to make
about it: every night it may be that we shall not wake again the next
morning; and yet, when we think of it, this idea does not prevent our
going to sleep. Now, then, first, either all being ended with life, we
do not wake again anywhere,--and in that case it is a sleep that has
not ended, but which will endure throughout eternity, so that we shall
never know anything about it,--or else, secondly, the soul outliving the
body, we shall wake up somewhere else and continue our activity. In that
case there is nothing to fear in the awakening,--it should rather
attract us. There is a reason for all things in Nature; and every
creature, the meanest as well as the noblest, finds his happiness in the
exercise of his faculties."
[Illustration]
This reasoning seemed to calm him; but the restlessness of doubt soon
returned, pricking like thorns. Sometimes he would wander off alone
through the spacious cemeteries of Paris, seeking out the most deserted
alleys between the graves, listening to the wind among the trees, and
the rustle of the leaves in the paths. Sometimes he went away into the
woods in the suburbs of the great city, and would walk about for hours
at a time muttering to himself. At other times he would spend a whole
day in his study in the Place du Panthéon, which he used as study, work
and reception room at the same time; and there, until far into the
night, he would dissect a brain brought back from the clinic, studying
the small slices of gray substance through his microscope.
The uncertainty of the sciences called positive, the sudden halt to his
mind in the solution of these problems, threw him into fits of deepest
despair; and I have found him many times in a state of utter
prostration, his eyes set and shining, his hands burning with fever, his
pulse agitated and intermittent. In one of these crises I was obliged to
leave him for a few hours, and almost feared I should not find him alive
on my return, at about five o'clock in the morning. He had near him a
glass of cyanide of potassium, which he tried to hide as I came in; but
recovering his calmness almost at once, he said, with great serenity and
a slight smile, "What is the good? If we are immortal, it would be of no
use, and I wanted to know about it sooner." That day he acknowledged he
believed that he had been lifted painfully by his hair to the ceiling,
and allowed to drop with all his weight upon the floor.
Public indifference with regard to the great problem of human
destiny,--a question which in his eyes exceeded all others in
importance, since it treated of our continued existence or
destruction,--exasperated him to the last degree. All about him he saw
people who were occupied solely by material interests, entirely absorbed
by the foolish idea of "making money," for which they gave up all their
years, their days, their hours, their minutes, disguised under various
forms; and he found no free, independent mind living an intellectual
life. It seemed to him that sentient beings could, _should_, while
living the bodily life, since one cannot do otherwise, at least not
remain the slaves of so coarse an organization, but devote the best
moments to their intellectual life.
At the time this story begins, George Spero was already well known, and
even famed, by the original scientific books which he had published, and
also by several books of high literary merit, which had won praise for
his name in all parts of the world.
Although he had not yet completed his twenty-fifth year, thousands of
persons had read his books, which, however, were not written for the
general public, but had been so successful as to be appreciated by the
majority who desire to learn, as well as by the enlightened minority. He
had been proclaimed master of a new school, and eminent critics,
knowing neither his physical individuality nor his age, spoke of his
"doctrines."
How did it happen that this philosopher of such rare ability, this stern
student, should be at a young girl's feet at sunset on the terrace where
we met them just now? The rest of the story will tell you.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
II.
THE APPARITION.
Their first meeting had been a very strange one. The young naturalist
was a passionate admirer of the beauties of Nature, and was always
looking for grand effects. The year before, he had made a journey to
Norway to visit the silent fiords, in which the sea was swallowed up;
the mountains, whose snow-crowned summits lift their spotless brows far
above the clouds; and to make a special study of the aurora
borealis,--that most magnificent exhibition of our planet's life. I had
accompanied him on the journey. The sunsets over the deep, calm fiords,
the rise of the splendid orb on the mountains, charmed his poetic and
artistic soul with an indescribable emotion. We remained there more than
a month, going through the picturesque region of the Scandinavian Alps.
Now, Norway was the home of that child of the North who was to exert so
strong an influence over his unawakened heart. She was there, only a few
steps away from him; and yet it was not until the very day we left that
Chance, that god of the ancients, decided to bring them together.
The morning light was gilding the distant summits. The young Norwegian
girl's father had brought her to one of the mountains much frequented by
excursionists, like the Righi in Switzerland, to see the sunrise, which
that day was of surpassing beauty. To better distinguish certain details
of the landscape, Icléa had mounted a little hillock a few yards farther
away, and was quite alone; when turning with her face from the sun to
embrace the whole horizon, she saw her own image, her whole figure, not
on the mountain nor the earth, but on the very sky itself. A luminous
aureole framed her head and shoulders with a shining crown of glory, and
a large aerial circle, faintly tinted with the colors of the rainbow,
surrounded the mysterious apparition.
[Illustration]
Astonished and touched by the singularity of the vision, and still under
the influence of the gorgeous sunrise, she did not at first notice that
another face, that of a man, was by the side of her own,--the motionless
silhouette of a traveller in contemplation before her, recalling the
statues of saints on their pedestals in churches. This masculine figure
and her own were framed in by the same aerial circle. Suddenly she
perceived the strange profile in the air, and thought herself the
plaything of a fantastic vision; she started back in her amazement with
a gesture of surprise, almost of fear. Her image in the air reproduced
the same gesture, and she saw the traveller's wraith put his hand to his
hat and take it off, as if he were bowing to the heavens, then lose the
clearness of its outlines, and fade away at the same time as her own
figure.
[Illustration]
The transfiguration on Mount Tabor when the disciples of Jesus suddenly
saw their Master's image on the sky, accompanied by those of Moses and
Elias, could not have caused its witnesses any greater stupefaction than
the innocent Norwegian girl felt before this _anthelion_, whose theory
is well known to all meteorologists.
This apparition fixed itself upon her mental retina like a marvellous
dream. She called her father, who had remained a few steps away from the
little mound; but when he reached her it had all disappeared. She asked
him to explain it; but he replied only by a doubt, almost a denial,
of the truth of the phenomenon. The excellent man, formerly a
field-officer, belonged to that category of distinguished sceptics who
simply deny everything of which they are ignorant or which they cannot
explain. It was all in vain that the lovely girl assured him that she
had seen her reflection in the sky, and also that of a man whom she
judged was young and good-looking; all in vain that she related the
details of the apparition, and added that the figures were much larger
than life-size, like enormous silhouettes,--he declared authoritatively
and with considerable emphasis that it was what is called an optical
illusion, produced by the imagination when one has not slept well,
particularly in youth.
But on the evening of that day, as we were going on board the steamer, I
noticed a young girl, with wind-tossed hair, who was looking at my
friend in open astonishment. She had her father's arm, and was standing
on the wharf as motionless as Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. I
signed to my friend; but no sooner had he turned his head towards her
than I saw her face crimson with a sudden flush: she at once turned
away, and fixed her eyes on the paddle-wheel, which was just beginning
to move. I do not know whether Spero noticed her confusion. As a fact,
we had seen nothing of that morning's aerial phenomenon, at least not
while the young girl was near us, and she had been hidden from us by a
little clump of bushes; the magnificence of the sunrise had drawn us
rather to the western side. However, he saluted Norway, which he
regretted to leave, with the same gesture with which he had greeted the
rising sun, and the pretty stranger had taken the bow for herself.
Two months later, the Comte de K---- gave a large reception in honor of
the recent successes of his compatriot, Christine Nilsson. The young
Norwegian girl and her father, who had come to Paris to pass a part of
the winter, were among the guests, who had long known each other as
fellow-countrymen, Norway and Sweden being sisters. We went there for
the first time, our invitation being due to the appearance of Spero's
latest book, which had already met with signal success. Icléa was a
dreamy, thoughtful girl, well informed, thanks to the sound education
given in Northern countries; she was eager to learn, and had read and
re-read with curiosity the somewhat mystical book in which the new
metaphysician, dissatisfied with Pascal's "Thoughts," had laid bare his
soul's anxieties. Several months before, she had successfully passed the
_brevet supérieur_ examination; and having abandoned the study of
medicine, which had at first attracted her, was beginning to look with
some curiosity into the recent investigations of psychological
physiology.
[Illustration]