IN WHICH DOCTOR OX REVEALS HIMSELF AS A PHYSIOLOGIST OF THE FIRST RANK,
AND AS AN AUDACIOUS EXPERIMENTALIST.
Who, then, was this personage, known by the singular name of Doctor Ox?
An original character for certain, but at the same time a bold savant,
a physiologist, whose works were known and highly estimated throughout
learned Europe, a happy rival of the Davys, the Daltons, the Bostocks,
the Menzies, the Godwins, the Vierordts—of all those noble minds who
have placed physiology among the highest of modern sciences.
Doctor Ox was a man of medium size and height, aged—: but we cannot
state his age, any more than his nationality. Besides, it matters
little; let it suffice that he was a strange personage, impetuous and
hot-blooded, a regular oddity out of one of Hoffmann’s volumes, and one
who contrasted amusingly enough with the good people of Quiquendone. He
had an imperturbable confidence both in himself and in his doctrines.
Always smiling, walking with head erect and shoulders thrown back in a
free and unconstrained manner, with a steady gaze, large open nostrils,
a vast mouth which inhaled the air in liberal draughts, his appearance
was far from unpleasing. He was full of animation, well proportioned in
all parts of his bodily mechanism, with quicksilver in his veins, and a
most elastic step. He could never stop still in one place, and relieved
himself with impetuous words and a superabundance of gesticulations.
Was Doctor Ox rich, then, that he should undertake to light a whole
town at his expense? Probably, as he permitted himself to indulge in
such extravagance,—and this is the only answer we can give to this
indiscreet question.
Doctor Ox had arrived at Quiquendone five months before, accompanied by
his assistant, who answered to the name of Gédéon Ygène; a tall,
dried-up, thin man, haughty, but not less vivacious than his master.
And next, why had Doctor Ox made the proposition to light the town at
his own expense? Why had he, of all the Flemings, selected the
peaceable Quiquendonians, to endow their town with the benefits of an
unheard-of system of lighting? Did he not, under this pretext, design
to make some great physiological experiment by operating _in anima
vili?_ In short, what was this original personage about to attempt? We
know not, as Doctor Ox had no confidant except his assistant Ygène,
who, moreover, obeyed him blindly.
In appearance, at least, Doctor Ox had agreed to light the town, which
had much need of it, “especially at night,” as Commissary Passauf
wittily said. Works for producing a lighting gas had accordingly been
established; the gasometers were ready for use, and the main pipes,
running beneath the street pavements, would soon appear in the form of
burners in the public edifices and the private houses of certain
friends of progress. Van Tricasse and Niklausse, in their official
capacity, and some other worthies, thought they ought to allow this
modern light to be introduced into their dwellings.
If the reader has not forgotten, it was said, during the long
conversation of the counsellor and the burgomaster, that the lighting
of the town was to be achieved, not by the combustion of common
carburetted hydrogen, produced by distilling coal, but by the use of a
more modern and twenty-fold more brilliant gas, oxyhydric gas, produced
by mixing hydrogen and oxygen.
The doctor, who was an able chemist as well as an ingenious
physiologist, knew how to obtain this gas in great quantity and of good
quality, not by using manganate of soda, according to the method of M.
Tessié du Motay, but by the direct decomposition of slightly acidulated
water, by means of a battery made of new elements, invented by himself.
Thus there were no costly materials, no platinum, no retorts, no
combustibles, no delicate machinery to produce the two gases
separately. An electric current was sent through large basins full of
water, and the liquid was decomposed into its two constituent parts,
oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen passed off at one end; the hydrogen, of
double the volume of its late associate, at the other. As a necessary
precaution, they were collected in separate reservoirs, for their
mixture would have produced a frightful explosion if it had become
ignited. Thence the pipes were to convey them separately to the various
burners, which would be so placed as to prevent all chance of
explosion. Thus a remarkably brilliant flame would be obtained, whose
light would rival the electric light, which, as everybody knows, is,
according to Cassellmann’s experiments, equal to that of eleven hundred
and seventy-one wax candles,—not one more, nor one less.
It was certain that the town of Quiquendone would, by this liberal
contrivance, gain a splendid lighting; but Doctor Ox and his assistant
took little account of this, as will be seen in the sequel.
The day after that on which Commissary Passauf had made his noisy
entrance into the burgomaster’s parlour, Gédéon Ygène and Doctor Ox
were talking in the laboratory which both occupied in common, on the
ground-floor of the principal building of the gas-works.
“Well, Ygène, well,” cried the doctor, rubbing his hands. “You saw, at
my reception yesterday, the cool-bloodedness of these worthy
Quiquendonians. For animation they are midway between sponges and
coral! You saw them disputing and irritating each other by voice and
gesture? They are already metamorphosed, morally and physically! And
this is only the beginning. Wait till we treat them to a big dose!”
“Indeed, master,” replied Ygène, scratching his sharp nose with the end
of his forefinger, “the experiment begins well, and if I had not
prudently closed the supply-tap, I know not what would have happened.”
“You heard Schut, the advocate, and Custos, the doctor?” resumed Doctor
Ox. “The phrase was by no means ill-natured in itself, but, in the
mouth of a Quiquendonian, it is worth all the insults which the Homeric
heroes hurled at each other before drawing their swords, Ah, these
Flemings! You’ll see what we shall do some day!”
“We shall make them ungrateful,” replied Ygène, in the tone of a man
who esteems the human race at its just worth.
“Bah!” said the doctor; “what matters it whether they think well or ill
of us, so long as our experiment succeeds?”
“Besides,” returned the assistant, smiling with a malicious expression,
“is it not to be feared that, in producing such an excitement in their
respiratory organs, we shall somewhat injure the lungs of these good
people of Quiquendone?”
“So much the worse for them! It is in the interests of science. What
would you say if the dogs or frogs refused to lend themselves to the
experiments of vivisection?”
[Illustration: It is in the interests of Science.]
It is probable that if the frogs and dogs were consulted, they would
offer some objection; but Doctor Ox imagined that he had stated an
unanswerable argument, for he heaved a great sigh of satisfaction.
“After all, master, you are right,” replied Ygène, as if quite
convinced. “We could not have hit upon better subjects than these
people of Quiquendone for our experiment.”
“We—could—not,” said the doctor, slowly articulating each word.
“Have you felt the pulse of any of them?”
“Some hundreds.”
“And what is the average pulsation you found?”
“Not fifty per minute. See—this is a town where there has not been the
shadow of a discussion for a century, where the carmen don’t swear,
where the coachmen don’t insult each other, where horses don’t run
away, where the dogs don’t bite, where the cats don’t scratch,—a town
where the police-court has nothing to do from one year’s end to
another,—a town where people do not grow enthusiastic about anything,
either about art or business,—a town where the gendarmes are a sort of
myth, and in which an indictment has not been drawn up for a hundred
years,—a town, in short, where for three centuries nobody has struck a
blow with his fist or so much as exchanged a slap in the face! You see,
Ygène, that this cannot last, and that we must change it all.”
“Perfectly! perfectly!” cried the enthusiastic assistant; “and have you
analyzed the air of this town, master?”
“I have not failed to do so. Seventy-nine parts of azote and twenty-one
of oxygen, carbonic acid and steam in a variable quantity. These are
the ordinary proportions.”
“Good, doctor, good!” replied Ygène. “The experiment will be made on a
large scale, and will be decisive.”
“And if it is decisive,” added Doctor Ox triumphantly, “we shall reform
the world!”