Planet of the Apes

  I should like to teach them to talk. This is my great ambition. I have not succeeded, I admit. It is only with the utmost difficulty that some of them manage to repeat a monosyllabic sound or two, which certain chimpanzees on Earth can do. It is not much, but I am persevering. What encourages me is the new persistence with which their eyes try to meet mine, eyes which for some time have seemed to be gradually changing in expression. I fancy I can see in them a spark of curiosity, associated with a superior mentality, breaking through the animal mindlessness.

  I move slowly around the room, stopping in front of each of the captives. I speak to them; I speak to them gently, patiently. They are now accustomed to this unusual behavior on my part. They seem to listen. I go on for several minutes, then stop speaking in whole sentences and pronounce a few simple words, repeating them over and over again, hoping for an echo. One of them clumsily articulates a syllable, but this is as far as he will go today. The subject soon gets tired, abandons the superhuman task, and lies down on the floor as though after some exhausting effort. I sigh and pass on to the next one. I finally come to the cage in which Nova is at present vegetating in solitary sadness. Sadness—this at least is what I, with my Earthman’s conceit, wish to believe, and I struggle to detect this emotion on her beautiful but inexpressive features. Zira has not given her another mate, and I am grateful for that I often think of Nova. I cannot forget the hours I spent in her company. But I have never again entered her cage; human self-respect forbids me. Is she not an animal? I now live in the highest scientific circles; how could I let myself indulge in such a relationship? I blush at the thought of our former intimacy. Since I have changed camps I have even forbidden myself to show her more affection than I show to her fellows.

  Nevertheless I cannot help noting that she is an exceptional subject and I am glad of that. With her I obtain better results than with the others. She presses up against the bars as soon as she sees me, and her mouth twists into a grimace that could almost pass as a smile. Even before I have opened my mouth she tries to pronounce the three or four syllables she has learned. Her diligence is evident. Is she naturally more gifted than the others? Or has contact with me polished her and given her a capacity to benefit more from my lessons? I like to think, with a certain complacency, that this is the case.

  I say her name, then my own, pointing my finger alternately at her and myself. She imitates the gesture. But I see her expression change suddenly and she bares her teeth as I hear a gentle chuckle behind me.

  It is Zira, who laughs not unkindly at my efforts; her presence always rouses the girl to anger. Zira is accompanied by Cornelius, who is interested in my efforts and often comes to see the results for himself. Today he has come to see me for another reason. He looks rather excited.

  “Would you like to go on a little trip with me, Ulysse?”

  “A trip?”

  “Quite a long one; almost to the antipodes. Some archeologists have discovered some extremely curious ruins out there, if the reports reaching us are to be believed. An orangutan is directing the excavations and he can scarcely be relied upon to interpret the vestiges correctly. There’s something strange about them that fascinates me and that may afford decisive material for my research. The Academy is sending me out there on an official mission and I think your presence would be most useful.”

  I do not see how I can help him, but I welcome this opportunity to see further aspects of Soror. He takes me to his office to give me more details.

  I am delighted by this diversion, which is an excuse for not completing my rounds; for there is one more prisoner for me to see—Professor Antelle. He is still in the same state, which makes his release impossible. Thanks to me, however, he is now on his own, isolated in a fairly comfortable cell. It is a painful duty for me to visit him. He replies to none of my earnest requests and still behaves like a perfect animal.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - EIGHT

  We set off a week later. Zira came with us, but she was to return after a few days to look after the institute in Cornelius’ absence. The latter intended staying much longer on the site of the excavations, if these proved to be as interesting as he expected.

  A special plane had been put at our disposal, a jet machine rather like our first models of this type of aircraft, but very comfortable and equipped with a small soundproof compartment in which we could talk easily. It was here we were sitting, Zira and I, shortly after our departure. I was looking forward to the journey. By now I was completely accustomed to the simian world. I had been neither surprised nor frightened at seeing this big aircraft being piloted by an ape. My only thought was to enjoy the view and the spectacular sight of Betelgeuse rising. We had climbed to a height of about thirty thousand feet. The air was remarkably pure, and the giant star could be seen on the horizon like our own sun observed through a telescope. Zira was enchanted by it.

  “Are there such beautiful dawns as this on Earth?” she asked. “Is your sun as lovely as ours?”

  I told her it was neither as big nor as red, but it sufficed us. On the other hand, our nocturnal heavenly body was bigger and shed a more intense pale light than Soror’s. We felt as happy as school children on a holiday, and I laughed and joked with her as with a very close friend. When Cornelius came and joined us after a moment I almost resented his intrusion on our tete-a-tete. He was pensive. For some time, moreover, he had seemed rather nervous. He worked prodigiously on his own research, which absorbed him to the point of occasionally causing him to be totally absent-minded. He still kept the subject of this research a secret, and I believe Zira knew as little about it as I did. I only knew it concerned the origin of ape and that the learned chimpanzee tended more and more to reject the classical theories. This morning, for the first time, he revealed certain aspects of it to me, and it did not take me long to understand why my existence as a civilized man was so important to him. He began by reverting to a subject we had discussed together a thousand times.

  “You did say, didn’t you, Ulysse, that on your Earth the apes are utter animals? That man has risen to a degree of civilization equal to our own and which, in certain respects, even . . . ? Don’t be frightened of making me angry; the scientific spirit ignores all self-esteem.”

  “Which, in many respects, even surpasses it—yes, that’s undeniable. One of the best proofs is that I am here. It seems to me you have only reached the stage . . .”

  “I know, I know,” he broke in wearily. “We’ve discussed all that. We are now penetrating the secrets you discovered centuries ago. . . . And it’s not only your statements that disturb me,” he went on, nervously pacing up and down the little cabin. “For some time I’ve been harassed by a feeling—a feeling supported by certain concrete indications— that the key to these secrets, even here on our planet, has been held by other brains in the distant past.”

  I might have replied that this impression of rediscovery had also affected certain minds on Earth. Perhaps it even prevailed universally and possibly served as the basis for our belief in God. But I was careful not to interrupt him.

  He was following a train of thought that was still confused, which he expressed in an extremely reticent manner.

  “Other brains,” he repeated pensively, “that maybe were not ...”

  He broke off abruptly. He looked miserable, as though tortured by the perception of a truth his mind was unwilling to admit.

  “You did say, didn’t you, that your apes possess a highly developed sense of mimicry?”

  “They mimic us in everything we do, I mean in every act that does not demand a rational process of thought. So much so that with us the verb ape is synonymous with imitate.”

  “Zira,” Cornelius murmured, as though depressed, “is it not this sense of aping that characterizes us as well?”

  Without giving Zira time to protest, he went on excitedly, “It begins in childhood. All our education is based on imitation.”

  “It’s the orangutans . . .”

  “That’s it.
They are of tremendous importance, since it is they who mold our youth through their books. They force every young monkey to repeat all the errors of his ancestors. That explains the slowness of our progress. For the last two thousand years we have remained similar to ourselves.”

  This slow development among the apes deserves a few comments. I had been struck by it while reading their history, noticing in it some important differences from the soaring flight of the human mind. True, we also have known a period of semi-stagnation. We, too, have had our orangutans, our falsified education and ridiculous curricula, and this period lasted a long time.

  Not so long, however, as in the apes’ case, and above all not at the same stage of evolution. The dark ages that the chimpanzee deplored had lasted about ten thousand years. During this period no notable progress had been achieved except, perhaps, during the last half century. But what I found extremely curious was that their earliest legends, their earliest chronicles, their earliest memories bore witness to a civilization that was already well advanced and in fact was more or less similar to that of the present day. These documents, ten thousand years old, afforded proof of general skills and achievements comparable to the skills and achievements of today; and, before them, there was a total blank: no tradition either oral or written, not a single clue. In essence, it seemed as though the simian civilization had made a miraculous appearance out of the blue, ten thousand years before and had since been preserved more or less without modification. The ordinary ape had grown accustomed to finding this quite natural, never imagining a different state of mental development, but a perceptive brain like Cornelius’ sensed an enigma there and was tormented by it.

  “There are apes capable of original creation,” Zira protested.

  “Certainly,” Cornelius agreed. “That’s true, especially in recent years. In the long run, mind is able to embody itself in gesture. It has to, in fact; that’s the natural course of evolution. . . . But what I’m passionately seeking, Zira, what I’m trying to find out, is how it all began. ... At present it strikes me as not impossible that it was through simple imitation at the beginning of our era.”

  “Imitation of what, of whom?”

  He had reverted to his reticent manner and lowered his eyes as though regretting he had said too much.

  “I can’t answer that question yet,” he finally said. “I need certain evidence. Perhaps we shall find it in the ruins of the buried city. According to the reports, it existed much earlier than ten thousand years ago, in a period about which we know nothing.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Cornelius has not told me anything more and I feel he is reluctant to do so, but what I already detect in his theories gives me a strange elation.

  The archeologists have laid bare a whole city, buried in the sands of a desert, a city of which nothing remains, alas, but ruins. But these ruins, I am convinced, hold an extraordinary secret that I have vowed to solve. This should be possible for anyone who can observe and deduce, which the orangutan who is directing the excavations s’eems hardly capable of doing. He welcomed Cornelius with the respect due his senior position but with barely concealed contempt for his youth and the original ideas he sometimes expressed.

  Digging among stones that crumble at every move and in sand that sinks under every step is no easy job. It is now a month since we have been at it. Zira left us some time ago, but Cornelius insists on prolonging his stay. He is as enthusiastic as I am and convinced that only here, among these relics of the past, is to be found the solution to the great problems tormenting him.

  The extent of his knowledge is really remarkable. First of all, he insisted on verifying personally the antiquity of the city. For this the apes have a process similar to our own, involving deep-rooted principles of chemistry, physics, and geology. On this point the chimpanzee is in agreement with the official scientists: the city is very, very old indeed. It is much more than ten thousand years old, and therefore constitutes a unique record, tending to show that simian civilization did not burst forth miraculously out of the void.

  Something existed before this present era. But what? After this month of feverish investigation we are disappointed, for it seems that this prehistoric city was not very different from those of the present day. We have discovered remnants of houses, traces of factories, vestiges showing that these forebears had motor cars and airplanes, just as apes of today do. These remains indicate that the origins of mind can be traced far back into the past. This is less than Cornelius was expecting, I feel; it is less than I was hoping for.

  This morning Cornelius has gone ahead of me to the spot where the workmen have laid bare a house with thick walls made of a sort of reinforced concrete, which seems better preserved than the rest. The inside is filled with sand and debris that they have undertaken to sift. Until yesterday they had found nothing more than in the other sections: fragments of piping, household appliances, kitchen equipment. I am still idling outside the tent that I share with the scientist. From here I can see the orangutan giving his orders to the foreman, a chimpanzee with a crafty look in his eye. I cannot see Cornelius. He is in the trench with the workmen. He often takes a hand in the digging, for fear they might do something stupid and thereby lose an interesting item.

  Here he is emerging from the hole, and it does not take me long to realize he has made an exceptional discovery. He is holding in his hand a small object that I cannot make out. He thrusts aside the old orangutan who tries to take it from him and puts it down on the ground with infinite care. He looks in my direction and beckons me over. As I approach I am struck by the change in his expression. “Ulysse. Ulysse!”

  Never have I seen him in such a state. He can barely talk. The workmen, who have also climbed out of the trench, gather around the find and prevent me from seeing it. They point it out to one another but they seem merely amused. Some of them laugh out loud. They are almost all hefty gorillas. Cornelius tells them to keep their distance.

  “Ulysse!”

  “Whatever is it?”

  I see the object lying in the sand at the same moment that he mutters in a strangled voice:

  “A doll, Ulysse, a doll!”

  It is a doll, an ordinary china doll. By a miracle it has been preserved almost intact, with vestiges of hair and eyes that still reveal a few chips of color. It is such a familiar sight to me that at first I cannot understand Cornelius’ emotion. It takes me several seconds to realize . . . then I’ve got it! Its strangeness dawns on me and immediately I am overwhelmed. It is a human doll representing a little girl, a little girl like one on Earth. But I refuse to let myself be taken in. Before proclaiming a miracle, every possibility of a more commonplace cause must be examined. A scientist like Cornelius must have done so already. The dolls of child apes do include a few—a very few, but nevertheless a few—that have an animal or even human form. So it cannot be the mere presence of this one that moves my chimpanzee so deeply. . . . Let us go a step further: The toys of child apes representing animals are not made of china; and above all they are not usually clothed; in any case, not clothed like rational creatures. And this doll, I tell you, is clothed like a doll at home—the remnants of a frock, a blouse, a skirt and knickers can still be clearly seen—dressed with the taste that a little girl on Earth might show in adorning her favorite doll, with the care that a little she-ape on Soror would take to clothe her ape doll, a care that she would never, never show to dress up an animal figure like the human figure. I realize, I realize more and more clearly, the reason for my clever chimpanzee’s emotion.

  And this is not all. The toy presents another anomaly, another oddity that makes all the workmen laugh and even provokes a smile from the solemn orangutan directing the excavations. The doll talks. It talks like a doll at home. In putting it down, Cornelius happened to press the mechanism, which has been preserved intact, and it talked. Oh, it was not much of a speech! It uttered one word, one simple word of two syllables: pa-pa. “Papa,” the doll repeats as Cornelius pick
s it up again and turns it round and round in his nimble hands. The word is the same in French and in the simian language, and no doubt in many other languages of this mysterious cosmos, and it has the same meaning.

  “Papa,” the little human doll repeats, and this, above all, is what makes my learned companion’s muzzle turn red; this is what affects me so deeply that I have to make an effort not to cry aloud as he leads me aside, bringing his precious discovery with him.

  “The monstrous imbecile!” he mutters after a long silence.

  I know whom he means and I share his indignation. The old orangutan with all his decorations has seen nothing more in it than a simple child ape’s toy that an eccentric manufacturer living in the distant past has endowed with speech. It is useless to suggest another explanation to him. Cornelius does not even try to do so. The one that comes naturally to his mind, however, seems so disturbing that he keeps it to himself. He does not breathe a word of it even to me, but he knows that I have guessed it.

  He remains wrapped in thought and silent for the rest of the day. I have the impression he is now frightened of pursuing his research and is regretting his semi-revelations. Now that his excitement has subsided, he is sorry I have witnessed his discovery.

  On the very next day I am given proof that he regrets having brought me here with him. After a night’s reflection he informs me, avoiding my eyes, that he has decided to send me back to the institute, where I shall be able to continue with more important work than in these ruins. My seat on the aircraft is booked. I shall be leaving in twenty-four hours.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Suppose, I argue, that men once reigned as masters on this planet. Suppose that a human civilization similar to ours flourished on Soror more than ten thousand years ago.