almost a confidant, had arrived. She started as if from an electric
shock. He was not much of a society man. Timid, ill at ease in mixed
assemblies, he did not care to dance, play, or converse, but preferred
to stay apart in one corner of the room with some friends; quite
indifferent to the waltzes and quadrilles, but more attentive to several
masterpieces of modern music feelingly played. The entire evening passed
without his being near her, although he had noticed her, and in all
that brilliant ball had seen but her. Their eyes met many times. At
last, about two o'clock in the morning, when the company was less
formal, he ventured to approach her, without speaking, however. It was
she who first spoke to him, to express a doubt about the conclusion of
his last book.
[Illustration]
Flattered, but still more surprised to learn that those metaphysical
pages had had so young a reader, and a lady too, the author replied
rather awkwardly that those investigations were somewhat uninteresting
for a woman. She answered that women, and even young girls, were not
exclusively absorbed in frivolity; that she knew several who
occasionally worked, thought, endeavored, and studied. She spoke with a
good deal of spirit, defending women against the contempt of certain
scientists of the other sex, and maintained their intellectual equality.
She had no trouble in winning a cause to which her listener was by no
means hostile.
The new book--whose success had been immediate and brilliant,
notwithstanding the gravity of its subject--had surrounded George
Spero's name with an actual halo of fame, and the brilliant writer was
warmly welcomed in every drawing-room. The two young people had
exchanged but a few words when they found themselves the general object
of attention, and were forced to reply to different questions, which
interrupted their interview. One of the most eminent critics of the day
had recently devoted a long article to the new work, and the subject of
the book became at once the topic of general conversation. Icléa took no
part in it; but she felt--and women are not often mistaken--that the
hero had noticed her, that her thought was already linked to his by an
invisible thread, and that while he replied to the more or less
common-place questions thrust upon him, his mind was not wholly on the
conversation. This first little triumph was enough, she cared for no
other; and moreover she had recognized in his profile both the
mysterious silhouette in the aerial apparition and the young stranger on
the steamer at Christiania.
In that first interview he had not hesitated to express his enthusiastic
admiration for the marvellous scenery in Norway, and to tell her about
his visit there. She was eager for a word, some sort of an allusion to
the aerial phenomenon which had made so great an impression upon her,
and could not understand his silence in regard to it. Not having
observed the _anthelion_ when she was reflected upon it, he had not been
particularly surprised at an occurrence which he had already studied
before and under better conditions,--from the car of a balloon; and
having seen nothing specially noticeable, had nothing to say about it.
The occurrence at the steamboat landing too had entirely passed from his
memory; so that although the fair beauty of the young girl did not seem
entirely unfamiliar to him, yet he had no recollection of having met her
before. As for me, I had recognized her at once. He talked about the
lakes, rivers, fiords, and mountains of Norway; learned from her that
her mother had died very young from heart-disease, that her father
preferred living in Paris to anywhere else, and that it was probable she
should not visit her native land except at rare intervals for the
future.
A remarkable identity of ideas and tastes, a ready and mutual sympathy,
a reciprocal respect, soon made them friends. Brought up and educated
with English ideas, she enjoyed that independence of mind and freedom of
action which Frenchwomen never know until after marriage; she felt
hampered by none of the social conventionalities which with us are
supposed to protect innocence and virtue. Two friends of her own age had
even come to Paris to finish their musical education. They were living
together in the very heart of Babylon in perfect safety, never even
suspecting the dangers by which Paris is said to be beset. The young
girl received George Spero's visits as her father would have received
them himself; and in a few weeks the congeniality in their tastes and
dispositions had united them in the same studies, the same researches,
often in the very same thoughts. Almost every afternoon he went, drawn
by a secret attraction, from the Latin quarter along the borders of the
Seine as far as the Trocadéro, and passed several hours with Icléa
either in the library, on the garden-terrace, or walking in the wood.
The first impression aroused by the apparition on the sky had remained
in Icléa's mind. She looked up to the young savant, if not as a god or
hero, at least as a man far superior to his contemporaries. The perusal
of his works strengthened this feeling and increased it; she felt more
than admiration, she had an actual veneration for him. When she knew
him personally, the great man did not descend from his pedestal. She
found him so high, so excellent in his works, his inquiries, his
studies, and at the same time so simple, so sincere, so good-natured, so
indulgent to all, and (seizing any pretext for hearing him talked
about), she was sometimes forced to listen to such unjust criticisms
upon him from rivals, that she began to have an almost maternal feeling
for him. Does the sentiment of protecting affection exist in every young
girl's heart? Perhaps. But assuredly she loved him thus at first. I have
already said that the basis of this thinker's character was somewhat
melancholy,--that melancholy of the soul of which Pascal speaks, and
which is like homesickness for heaven. In fact, he was ever seeking to
solve the eternal question, Hamlet's "To be, or not to be?" Sometimes he
would be sad, downcast. But by a singular contrast, when his unhappy
thoughts had worn themselves out, so to speak, in vain research, and his
exhausted brain had lost the power of further vibration, a kind of
repose came to him,--he recovered his ordinary quiet; the circulation of
his red blood stimulated his organic life; philosophy disappeared,
leaving him like a simple child, amused at trifles; and having almost
feminine tastes, delighting in flowers, perfumes, music, revery, he
appeared sometimes astonishingly light-hearted.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
III.
"TO BE, OR NOT TO BE?"
It was this very phase of his intellectual life which had drawn the two
friends so intimately together. Happy at being alive, in the flower of
her spring-time, expanding to the light of life,--a harp thrilling with
all the harmonies of Nature,--the beautiful Northern girl still
sometimes dreamed of the fays and elves of her native clime, of the
angels and mysteries of the Christian religion which had soothed her
childhood. The credulity of her early days had not obscured her
understanding; she thought freely, and sought sincerely for the truth;
while regretting perhaps that she no longer believed in the paradise of
the preachers, she felt nevertheless a strong desire to live forever.
Death seemed to her a cruel injustice. She never thought of her mother
lying on her death-bed in the ripe beauty of her thirtieth year,--taken
away to the green and fragrant cemetery, filled with the songs of birds,
while the roses were in full bloom; crossed off the book of life while
all Nature still sang, still bloomed and shone,--she never thought of
her mother's pale face, as I said, without a sudden shudder creeping all
over her from head to foot. No, her mother was not dead! She would not
die at thirty, or at any time! And he? He die! That sublime mind to be
blotted out by a stoppage of the heart or breath? No, it was not
possible! Men are mistaken! We shall know some day!
Then, too, sometimes she thought of these mysteries under a form rather
more æsthetic and sentimental than scientific; but she thought of
them. All her questionings, her doubts, the secret object of her
conversations, perhaps her rapidly developed attachment for her
friend,--the cause of it all was the insatiable thirst for knowledge
which consumed her soul. She hoped in him because she had already found
in his writings a solution to the highest problems. He had taught her to
know the universe; and she found this knowledge more beautiful, more
vivid, more poetic, grander, than the old errors and illusions. From
the time when he told her that life had no object other than the search
for truth, she had felt sure that he would find it; and her mind clung
to and bound itself to his even more strongly than her heart.
[Illustration]
They had lived a common intellectual life in this way for about three
months, almost every day spending several hours reading original essays,
written in different languages, on science and philosophy,--the theory
of atoms, molecular physics, organic chemistry, thermo-dynamics, and the
different sciences whose object is the knowledge of existence,--or in
discoursing upon the real or apparent contradictions of hypotheses;
sometimes finding statements and coincidences most remarkable for their
scientific axioms, in the books of purely literary writers, and
occasionally astonished at the foresight of some great authors. These
readings, investigations, and comparisons had especially interested them
by the discrimination which their minds were led to make, as they became
more and more enlightened, between nine tenths of the writers whose
works are absolutely worthless, and half of the last tenth, whose
writings have but a superficial value. Having thus cleared the field of
literature, they took great delight and satisfaction in the restricted
society of superior minds. Perhaps mixed with it was a little feeling of
pride.
One day Spero arrived earlier than usual. "Eureka!" he cried. But
correcting himself quickly, added, "Perhaps."
Leaning against the chimney-piece, where a bright fire crackled, while
his companion looked at him with her large eyes full of curiosity, he
began to speak with a sort of unconscious solemnity, as though he were
discussing something with his own mind in the solitude of the woods.
* * * * *
"What we see is only apparent. Reality is quite different.
"The sun apparently turns about us, rising every morning, setting at
night; the earth where we are seems to be motionless: but the contrary
is the truth. We live on a whirling projectile, thrown into space with a
speed seventy-five times as great as that which carries a cannon-ball.
"Our ears are pleased by a harmonious concert. Sound does not exist; it
is merely an impression of the senses produced by vibrations of a
certain size and rapidity on the air, which in themselves are silent.
There would be no sound without the acoustic nerve and the brain. In
reality there is nothing but motion.
"The rainbow spreads its radiant circle; the rose and corn-flower,
dripping with rain, glitter in the sun; the green meadow, the golden
furrow, diversify the plain with their bright colors. There are no
colors; there is no light,--there is nothing but the ether waves, which
cause a vibration of the optic nerve. Appearances are deceitful. The sun
warms and fertilizes; fire burns. There is no heat, only sensation;
heat, like light, is but one form of motion,--invisible but supreme,
sovereign motion!
* * * * *
"Take a strong iron beam, like one of those used so generally in
building nowadays. It is set up in space, ten metres high, between two
walls which support its ends. It is 'solid.' In the middle of it is
placed a weight of one, two, or ten thousand kilograms; but it does not
even show this enormous weight,--a level would hardly find a depression
in it. And yet this beam is composed of particles which do not touch
each other, which are in perpetual vibration, which separate under the
influence of heat, and are drawn together by cold. Tell me, if you
please, in what the solidity of this bar of iron consists. Its material
atoms? Assuredly not, since they do not touch. That solidity lies in
molecular attraction,--that is to say, in an immaterial force.
"Speaking absolutely, solidity does not exist. Take up a heavy iron
cannon-ball: this ball is composed of invisible molecules which do not
touch each other. The continuity which the surface seems to have, and
the apparent solidity of the ball are, then, pure illusions. To the mind
which would analyze it, its inner structure is an eddying swarm of
little gnats, like those darting about in the air on a summer day. Then
suppose we heat this apparently solid ball: it will melt; heat it more,
it will evaporate,--but without changing its nature for all that; gas or
liquid, it will still be iron.
"We are in a house. All these walls, these floors, these carpets, this
furniture, the marble mantelpiece, are also composed of particles which
do not touch each other; and all these particles which constitute these
objects are in constant motion, circulating around each other.
"Our body is in the same condition. It is formed by a perpetual
circulation of molecules; it is a flame which is ceaselessly consumed
and renewed; it is a stream on whose banks one sits down, expecting to
see the same water again, but the perpetual course of things always
brings fresh water. Each globule of our blood is a world (and we have
five millions per cubic millimetre). Constantly, without let or
hindrance, in our arteries and veins, in our flesh, in our brain, all
circulates,--all moves, all hurries along in a vital whirl as rapid,
proportionately, as that of the heavenly bodies. Molecule by molecule,
our brain, our skull, our eyes, our nerves, our entire flesh ceaselessly
renews itself, and so rapidly that in a few months our entire body is
reconstituted.
* * * * *
"From estimates founded on molecular attraction it has been calculated
that in a tiny drop of water taken up on the point of a pin, a drop
invisible to the naked eye, measuring one thousandth of a cubic
millimetre, there are more than two hundred and twenty-five million
molecules.
"In the head of a pin there are not less than eight sextillions of
atoms, or eight thousand millions of millions of millions; and these
atoms are separated from each other by distances greater than their
dimensions, these dimensions being invisible even to the most powerful
microscope. If one felt inclined to count the number of these atoms
contained in the head of a pin, by detaching in thought a thousand
million of them per second, it would be necessary to continue the
operation for two hundred and fifty-three thousand years, in order to
finish the enumeration.
"In a drop of water, in the head of a pin, there are incomparably more
atoms than there are stars in all the sky known to astronomers, armed
with their strongest telescopes.
* * * * *
"What upholds the earth, the sun, and all the stars of the universe in
the eternal void? What upholds that heavy iron beam thrown between two
walls, and upon which several stories are to be built? What keeps all
bodies in shape? Force.
"The world, beings, and things, all that we see, is formed of invisible
and imponderable atoms. The universe is a dynamism. God is the universal
soul; _in eo vivimus, movemur, et sumus_.
"As the soul is force moving the body, the Infinite Being is force
moving the universe. The purely mechanical theory is incomplete to an
analyst who goes to the bottom of things. It is true that the human
_will_ is weak, in comparison to cosmic forces; yet by sending a train
from Paris to Marseilles, a ship from Marseilles to Suez, I freely
displace an infinitesimal portion of the earth's matter, and modify the
moon's course. Blind men of the nineteenth century, come back to the
swan of Mantua: _Mens agitat molem_.
"If I dissect matter, I find the invisible atom at the base of
everything. Matter disappears, fades away into smoke. If my eyes had
power enough to see the truth, they would see, through walls and bodies
composed of separate molecules, atomic swarms. The eyes of the flesh do
not see what is. The mind's eye must see. Do not rely on the evidence of
your senses alone; there are as many stars over our heads in the daytime
as there are during the night.
"In Nature there is neither astronomy nor chemistry nor philosophy nor
mechanics; those are subjective methods of observation. There is but a
single unit. The infinitely great is identical with the infinitely
small. Space is infinite without being great. Time is eternal without
being long. Stars and atoms are one.
* * * * *
"The unity of the universe is constituted of invisible, imponderable,
immaterial force, which moves atoms. If a single atom should cease to be
moved by force, the universe would stop. The earth turns round the sun,
the sun gravitates around a sidereal arch, which is itself capable of
motion; the millions, the thousand millions of suns which people the
universe move much more rapidly than gunpowder projectiles; these stars
which seem to us to be motionless are suns thrown into the eternal void
at the speed of ten, twenty, thirty millions of kilometres a day, all
rushing towards an unknown goal,--suns, planets, earths, satellites,
wandering comets ...; the fixed point, the centre of gravity sought after
by analysts, flies as fast as it is pursued, and really exists nowhere.
The atoms of which bodies are composed, move relatively as fast as stars
in the sky. Motion regulates all things, forms all things.
"_The atom itself is not an inert mass, it is a centre of force._
"That which essentially constitutes and organizes the human being, is
not his material substance; it is not the protoplasm, nor the cell, nor
those marvellous and fertile combinations of carbon with hydrogen,
oxygen, and nitrogen,--it is animate, invisible, immaterial _Force_. It
is that which groups, directs, and keeps together the innumerable
particles which compose the exquisite harmony of the living body.
"Matter and energy have never been seen separated from each other; the
existence of one implies the existence of the other; they are perhaps
substantially identical.
"If the body should suddenly decay after death, as it slowly
disintegrates and perpetually renews itself during life, it would matter
little. The soul remains. _The organizing cerebral atom is the centre of
this force._ It also is indestructible.
"What we see is deceitful. _The real is the invisible._"
* * * * *
He began to pace up and down the floor. The young girl had listened to
him as one listens to an apostle, a loved apostle; and although he had
really spoken but for her, he had not apparently realized her
presence,--she had been so silent and motionless. She went to him and
took one of his hands in hers. "Oh!" she cried, "if you have not yet
conquered Truth, she cannot elude you."
[Illustration]
Then, growing excited herself, and alluding to an often-expressed
reservation of his, "You think," she added, "that it is impossible for
terrestrial man to attain to the truth because we have but five senses,
and that a multitude of natural manifestations are unknown to our minds
because we have no means of reaching them. Just as sight would be denied
us if we were deprived of the optic nerve, hearing if we had no acoustic
nerve, etc.; just as the vibrations, the exhibitions of force which pass
between the strings of our organic instrument, without causing those we
have to quiver, are unknown to us. I concede that, and agree with you
that the inhabitants of certain worlds maybe incomparably more advanced
than we; but it seems to me that although earthly, you have found it
out."
[Illustration]
"My darling," he answered, sitting down beside her on the wide library
lounge, "it is very certain that some of the strings in our terrestrial
harp are missing: probably a citizen of the Sirius system would laugh at
our pretentions. The smallest piece of magnetized iron is stronger in
finding the magnetic pole than either Newton or Leibnitz, and the
swallow knows the variations of latitude better than did Christopher
Columbus or Magellan. What did I say just now? That appearances are
deceitful, and that our minds must see invisible force through matter.
That is perfectly sure. Matter is not what it seems to be, and no man
informed about the progress of the positive sciences could now pretend
to be a materialist."
"Then," she said, "the cerebral atom, the principle of human organism,
would be immortal, like all other atoms, if one should admit the
fundamental assertions of chemistry. But it would differ from the
others, possessing a higher rank, the soul being attached to it. And
would it preserve the consciousness of its existence? Would the soul be
comparable to an electric substance? Once I saw the lightning go through
a drawing-room and extinguish the lights; when they were re-lighted, we
found that the gilding had all been taken off the clock, and that the
chased silver candlestick was gilded in several places. That is a subtle
force!"
"Do not draw comparisons; they would be too far from the truth. There
is no doubt that the soul exists, as force does. We can admit that it
and the cerebral atom are one; that it thus survives the dissolution of
the body we can imagine."
"But what becomes of it? Where does it go?"
"The greater number of souls never even suspect their own existence. Out
of the fourteen hundred millions of human beings who people the earth,
ninety-nine one hundredths do not think. Great heavens! what would they
do with immortality? As the molecule of iron floats in the blood,
throbbing in Lamartine's or Hugo's temple, or is fixed for a time in
Cæsar's sword; as the molecule of hydrogen shines in the lobby of a
theatre, or merges itself into the drop of water swallowed by a fish in
the dusky depths of the sea, so living atoms sleep which have never
thought. Thinking souls are the inheritance of the intellectual life.
They preserve humanity's patrimony, and increase it for the future.
Without this immortality of human souls which are conscious of their
existence and live through the mind, all the history of the earth would
end in nothing, and the whole creation, that of the most sublime worlds
as well as that of our mean little planet, would be a deceptive
absurdity, more miserable and pitiable than the cast of an earthworm.
That has a right to be; but the universe would not have. Do you imagine
that the thousand millions of worlds attain the splendors of life and
thought, to succeed each other without end in the sidereal universe,
only to give birth to constantly deceived hopes, and grandeurs which are
perpetually destroyed? It is useless for us to humble ourselves; we
cannot admit that nothing is the supreme object of perpetual progress,
proved by all the history of Nature. Now, souls are the seeds of
planetary humanities."
"Can they transport themselves from one world to another?"
[Illustration]