communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No biological
theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The medium might,
by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have gone so far as to
read my questions, and reply to them coherently. But biology could not
enable her to discover that magnetic currents would so alter the
crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous defects, and admit of
its being polished into a perfect lens. Some such theory may have
passed through my head, it is true; but if so, I had forgotten it. In
my excited condition of mind there was no course left but to become a
convert, and it was in a state of the most painful nervous exaltation
that I left the medium's house that evening. She accompanied me to the
door, hoping that I was satisfied. The raps followed us as we went
through the hall, sounding on the balusters, the flooring, and even the
lintels of the door. I hastily expressed my satisfaction, and escaped
hurriedly into the cool night air. I walked home with but one thought
possessing me,--how to obtain a diamond of the immense size required.
My entire means multiplied a hundred times over would have been
inadequate to its purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become
historical. I could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or
European monarchs.
IV
THE EYE OF MORNING
There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his sitting-room
unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me, over a carcel
lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some object which he
held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly, thrust his hand
into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face crimson with
confusion.
"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."
Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.
"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."
This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as if
a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some incoherent
words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually kept his
liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too preoccupied with
my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.
"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
continued. "Simon, she told me wonderful things to-night, or rather was
the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only get a
diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"
Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
savagely, and, rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons
hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it furiously
before him.
"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. "No!
you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted with that
demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I am brave!
You cannot make me fear!"
All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement, astounded
me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon the edges of
Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to reassure him.
"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What can
be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
The diamond which I require you could not possess; or, if you did
possess it, you would not be living here."
Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my movements.
He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he was at certain
moments subject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself in
incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed off as rapidly as they
came. He put his weapon aside while making this explanation, and
endeavoured, with some success, to assume a more cheerful air.
All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomed
to analytical labours to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined
to probe the mystery to the bottom.
"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vougeot_ downstairs,
fragrant with the odours and ruddy with the sunlight of the Cote d'Or.
Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"
"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.
I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
famous vintage, that of 1848, a year when war and wine throve
together,--and its pure but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to send a
flush of vigour through my limbs. Simon's utterance became more and
more indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a not very
moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the conclusion
of one of those incoherent verses, and, fixing my eyes on him with a
quiet smile, said: "Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret
this evening. You may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather
one of her spirits, told me all."
He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to fade
away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a short
time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.
"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"
"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell me
all about it."
The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin earnestness
that I was entirely mistaken,--that I was intoxicated; then asked me to
swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I
pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and
hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from
his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the mild lamplight was shivered
into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond
that glittered in the case! I was no judge of diamonds, but I saw at a
glance that this was a gem of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon
with wonder, and--must I confess it?--with envy. How could he have
obtained this treasure? In reply to my questions, I could just gather
from his drunken statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence
was affected) that he had been superintending a gang of slaves engaged
in diamond-washing in Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a
diamond, but, instead of informing his employers, had quietly watched
the negro until he saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up and
fled with it, but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it
publicly,--so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much
attention to its owner's antecedents,--and he had not been able to
discover any of those obscure channels by which such matters are
conveyed away safely. He added, that, in accordance with oriental
practice, he had named his diamond with the fanciful title of "The Eye
of Morning."
While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the glories
of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in its
crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was exactly
one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence. The hand
of destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the spirit of
Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the microscope, the
priceless means which he directs me to employ start up within my easy
reach! I determined, with the most perfect deliberation, to possess
myself of Simon's diamond.
I sat opposite to him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered
or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
taken,--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a little
peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human beings
are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be experimented on by
surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own confession a criminal, a
robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer. He deserved death quite
as much as any felon condemned by the laws: why should I not, like
government, contrive that his punishment should contribute to the
progress of human knowledge?
The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
There stood upon the mantelpiece a bottle half full of French laudanum.
Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just restored to
him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his glass. In a
quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.
I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket in
which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I laid him
so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed myself of the
Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while with the other I
discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality of
the heart. It was essential that all the aspects of his death should
lead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle at
which it was probable that the weapon, if levelled by Simon's own hand,
would enter his breast; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up to
the hilt in the very spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsive
thrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smothered sound issue from
his throat, precisely like the bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up
by a diver, when it reaches the surface of the water; he turned half
round on his side, and, as if to assist my plans more effectually, his
right hand, moved by some mere spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of
the creese, which it remained holding with extraordinary muscular
tenacity. Beyond this there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I
presume, paralyzed the usual nervous action. He must have died
instantly.
There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be in the
morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and afterwards escape
myself? Not by the window; that was a physical impossibility. Besides,
I was determined that the windows _also_ should be found bolted. The
solution was simple enough. I descended softly to my own room for a
peculiar instrument which I had used for holding small slippery
substances, such as minute spheres of glass, etc. This instrument was
nothing more than a long slender hand-vise, with a very powerful grip,
and a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally owing to the
shape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than, when the key was in the
lock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through the keyhole,
from the outside, and lock the door. Previously, however, to doing
this, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost
always burn papers before they destroy themselves. I also emptied some
more laudanum into Simon's glass,--having first removed from it all
traces of wine,--cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles
away with me. If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the
room, the question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second?
Besides, the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to
me. The laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his
stomach, in case of a _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally
would be, that he first intended to poison himself, but, after
swallowing a little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste,
or changed his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
door with my vise, and went to bed.
Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.
The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning,--the light streaming
on the dark landing from under the door,--peeped through the keyhole
and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door was burst open,
and the neighbourhood was in a fever of excitement.
Everyone in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
inquest; but no clew to his death beyond that of suicide could be
obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his friends
the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction. One
gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that "he was tired
of life." His landlord affirmed that Simon, when paying him his last
month's rent, remarked that "he should not pay him rent much longer."
All the other evidence corresponded,--the door locked inside, the
position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I anticipated, no one knew
of the possession of the diamond by Simon, so that no motive was
suggested for his murder. The jury, after a prolonged examination,
brought in the usual verdict, and the neighbourhood once more settled
down into its accustomed quiet.
V
ANIMULA
The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and day
to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast galvanic battery, composed
of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,--a higher power I dared not
use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this enormous
engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of electricity
continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to me gained in
lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I commenced the grinding
and polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil and exquisite
delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the care required to be
taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the lens, rendered the
labour the severest and most harassing that I had yet undergone.
At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready to
be placed upon its platform. My hand fairly shook as I enveloped a drop
of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory to its
examination,--a process necessary in order to prevent the rapid
evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip of glass
under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid of a prism
and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my eye to the
minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an instant I saw
nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a vast luminous
abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and seemingly as
limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently, and with
the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hair's-breadths. The
wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens approached the
object a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded to my view.
I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated the
entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of animalculous
life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that dazzling expanse.
I comprehended instantly that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I had
penetrated beyond the grosser particles of aqueous matter, beyond the
realms of infusoria and protozoa, down to the original gaseous globule,
into whose luminous interior I was gazing, as into an almost boundless
dome filled with a supernatural radiance.
It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every side I
beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and coloured with
the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the appearance of what
might be called, for want of a more specific definition, foliated
clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they undulated and broke into
vegetable formations, and were tinged with splendours compared with
which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is as dross compared with
gold. Far away into the illimitable distance stretched long avenues of
these gaseous forests, dimly transparent, and painted with prismatic
hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The pendent branches waved along the
fluid glades until every vista seemed to break through half-lucent
ranks of many-coloured drooping silken pennons. What seemed to be
either fruits or flowers, pied with a thousand hues lustrous and ever
varying, bubbled from the crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no
lakes, no rivers, no forms animate or inanimate, were to be seen, save
those vast auroral copses that floated serenely in the luminous
stillness, with leaves and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown
fires, unrealizable by mere imagination.
How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
life--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at present
acquainted, but still, some living organism. I found my newly
discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic desert.
While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more
attentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict the
anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this mysterious
object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in suspense in the
attenuated atmosphere of the globule, or was it an animal endowed with
vitality and motion? It approached, flitting behind the gauzy, coloured
veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly revealed, then vanishing. At
last the violet pennons that trailed nearest to me vibrated; they were
gently pushed aside, and the form floated out into the broad light.
It was a female human shape. When I say human, I mean it possessed the
outlines of humanity,--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable beauty
lifted it illimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of Adam.
I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
serene, evade my words. Her long, lustrous hair following her glorious
head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a falling star,
seems to quench my most burning phrases with its splendours. If all the
bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would still sing but hoarsely
the wondrous harmonies of outline that enclosed her form.
She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees into
the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those of some
graceful naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the clear,
unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She floated forth
with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending through the still
atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of her limbs formed
suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening to the most
spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the harmonious
flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply purchased at any
price. What cared I if I had waded to the portal of this wonder through
another's blood? I would have given my own to enjoy one such moment of
intoxication and delight.
Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
microscope eagerly,--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that lay
beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from prism
sparkled on a colourless drop of water! There, in that tiny bead of
dew, this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet Neptune
was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more to apply my
eye to the microscope.
Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached the
wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one of the
trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process, with which
it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on its summit, and,
sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula. The sylph took
it in her delicate hand and began to eat. My attention was so entirely
absorbed by her, that I could not apply myself to the task of
determining whether this singular plant was or was not instinct with
volition.
I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful eyes
in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not have
given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that luminous
ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple and gold!
While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement, she
suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then cleaving the
brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash of light,
pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.
Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was still
before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this sudden
disappearance? Had she a lover or a husband? Yes, that was the
solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated through
the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.
The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion, startled
me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced upon me. I
battled against the fatal conclusion,--but in vain. It was so. I had no
escape from it. I loved an animalcule!
It is true that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope, she
appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the revolting
aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle and die, in the
more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop, she was fair and
delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what account was all that?
Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the instrument, it fell on a
miserable drop of water, within which, I must be content to know, dwelt
all that could make my life lovely.
Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the mystical
walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper all that
filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of my life
with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be something to
have established even the faintest personal link to bind us
together,--to know that at times, when roaming through those enchanted
glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had broken the
monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle memory in her
heart!
But it could not be. No invention of which human intellect was capable
could break down the barriers that nature had erected. I might feast my
soul upon the wondrous beauty, yet she must always remain ignorant of
the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her, and, even when
closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish I fled from
the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed myself to sleep like a
child.
VI
THE SPILLING OF THE CUP