I.
LIFE.
An intense evening glow floated in the atmosphere like a wondrous goldenradiance. From the heights of Passy the view extended over the whole ofthe great city, which at that time, more than ever before, was not acity, but a world. The Universal Exhibition of 1867 had lavished all theattractions and delights of the century on imperial Paris. The flowersof civilization were blooming in their most brilliant tints, wastingthemselves away by the very ardor of their perfume,--fading, dying inthe full fever of youth. The crowned heads of Europe had just heard adeafening trumpet-blast there, which was the last of the monarchy;science, arts, industry had sowed their newest creations broadcast, withan inexhaustible prodigality. It was a general delirium of men andthings. Regiments were marching, with music at their heads;swift-rolling vehicles crossed each other from all directions; thousandsof people were moving about in the dust on the avenues, _quais_, andboulevards: 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 froma distant orchestra, mingled with a confused murmur of voices and othersounds,--the brilliant, fit ending of a dazzling summer day,--pouredinto the soul an undefined feeling of contentment, happiness, andsatisfaction. There was a kind of symbolical summing-up about it of theevidences of the vitality of a great people in the zenith of its lifeand fortune.
From the heights of Passy, where we are, on a terrace in a gardenoverhanging the careless current of the stream, as in the old days atBabylon, two persons, leaning on the stone balustrade, watch the noisyscene, looking down on the restless surface of the human sea, happier intheir sweet solitude than all the atoms of that seething whirlpool; theydo not belong to the every-day world, but soar above all that restlessactivity in the limpid atmosphere of their own joy. Their spirits feel,their hearts love; or to express the same fact more completely, theirsouls live.
In the maidenly beauty of her eighteenth spring, the young girl's glancewanders dreamily over the apotheosis of the setting sun. Happy to bealive, happier still to love, she gives no thought to the thousands ofpeople moving about at her feet; she looks with unseeing eyes at thesun's ardent disk sinking below the purple western clouds; she breathesthe perfumed air from garlands of roses in the garden, and feels throughher whole being the peace of perfect happiness, singing a hymn ofunutterable love in her heart. The blond hair waves about her brow likea misty aureole, and falls in thick tresses over her slender form; herblue eyes, fringed by long dark lashes, are like a reflection of theazure sky; her neck and arms give glimpses of the snowy whiteness ofher skin; her cheeks, her ears, are softly colored; her whole personrecalls somewhat the dainty marchionesses whom the painters of theeighteenth century loved to depict, who were born to an unknown lifewhich they were not long destined to enjoy. She is standing. Hercompanion, whose arm a moment ago encircled her waist as they werelooking at the picture of Paris and listening to the strains of melodyflooding the air from the Imperial Guard, had seated himself by herside. His eyes had forgotten Paris and the setting sun; now they seenothing but the beautiful girl. He looks at her unconsciously with astrange, fixed gaze, as though he saw her now for the first time, andcould not keep his eyes from her exquisite profile, enveloping her in along look like a magnetic caress.
The young student was absorbed in his contemplation. Was he still astudent at twenty-five? Is one ever anything more? And our own masterthen, M. de Chevreul, does he not call himself now, in his one hundredand third year, the senior of the students of France? George Spero hadfinished his lyceum studies at a very early age; but they teach nothing,unless it be how to work, and he continued to investigate the greatproblems of natural science with indefatigable ardor. Astronomyespecially had at first attracted his interest. I had known him (as thereader of the first part of this book may remember) at the ParisObservatory, which he had entered at the age of sixteen, andwhere he had somewhat distinguished himself by a rather strangepeculiarity,--that of having no ambition and no desire whatever foradvancement.
At the age of sixteen, as at twenty-five, he believed himself to be onthe verge of the grave,--judging, perhaps, that life indeed passesquickly, and that it is useless to wish for anything beyond thehappiness of studying and knowing. He was not very talkative, althoughat heart his disposition was that of a playful child. His small,well-shaped mouth seemed to smile if one carefully examined itscorners; otherwise it looked somewhat pensive, and as though made forsilence. His eyes, whose undecided color reminded one of thebluish-green on the sea's horizon, changed with the light and inaccordance with his moods; they were usually gentle, but on occasionwould flash like lightning, or grow as cold as steel; their glance wasdeep, sometimes unfathomable, even strange and enigmatical. His ear wassmall, gracefully curved, the lobe well detached and a littleraised,--which to analysts is an indication of refinement. The brow wasbroad, although his head was rather small, but seemed larger from hisglistening, thickly waving hair; his beard was brown, like his hair, andslightly curled. Of medium height, his whole effect was elegant, with anatural ease; he dressed carefully, but without pretence or affectation.
My friends and I never had any special companionship with him. Holidaysand leisure hours he never spent with us. Always occupied with hisbooks, he seemed to have given himself up without reserve to hunting forthe philosopher's stone, the quadrature of the circle, or perpetualmotion. I never knew him to have a friend, unless it were myself; andyet I am not sure that he gave me all his confidences,--though, for thatmatter, perhaps there was no special event in his life except the one ofwhich I now make myself the historian, and which I knew all about as aneye-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 suchintense cerebral action, that he felt a sensation of tingling in hishead which seemed to exhaust all his thinking faculties. This wasespecially the case when, after having analyzed the conditions ofimmortality for a long time, he saw real ephemeral life suddenlydisappear, and endless immortality open before his mental being. In theface 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 andlying in its coffin, left deserted in its last mournful resting-place atthe 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 theconstant clashing of a fixed idea in his brain. "If we die utterly, whatan absurd farce life is, with its hopes and struggles. If we areimmortal, what do we do with ourselves through endless eternity? Whereshall I be a hundred years from now? Where will all the present dwellersof the earth be? To die, for ever and ever; to have existed but for amoment! What a mockery! Would it not be better a hundred times overnever to have been born? But if it be our fate to live eternally andnever to be able to change anything of the fatality that carries usalong,--having endless eternity always before us,--how can we bear theburden of such a destiny? Is that the doom awaiting us? If we shouldtire of existence, we should be forbidden to fly from it; it would beimpossible to end it. In this conception there is far more implacablecruelty than in that of an ephemeral life vanishing away like aninsect's flight in the fresh evening breeze. Why then were we born? Tosuffer uncertainty; to find after examination not a single one of ourhopes 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! Religionis the same as patriotism, and the priest is as good as the soldier. Menof all nations arm themselves to the teeth that they may kill oneanother like simpletons! Ah! it is the wisest thing they could do; thebest return they could make to Nature for the foolish gift she bestowedin causing them to be born."
I tried to lessen his pain and anxiety, having a certain philosophy ofmy own which was relatively
satisfactory to me. "The fear of death seemsabsolutely chimerical," said I. "There are but two hypotheses to makeabout it: every night it may be that we shall not wake again the nextmorning; and yet, when we think of it, this idea does not prevent ourgoing to sleep. Now, then, first, either all being ended with life, wedo not wake again anywhere,--and in that case it is a sleep that hasnot ended, but which will endure throughout eternity, so that we shallnever know anything about it,--or else, secondly, the soul outliving thebody, we shall wake up somewhere else and continue our activity. In thatcase there is nothing to fear in the awakening,--it should ratherattract us. There is a reason for all things in Nature; and everycreature, the meanest as well as the noblest, finds his happiness in theexercise of his faculties."
This reasoning seemed to calm him; but the restlessness of doubt soonreturned, pricking like thorns. Sometimes he would wander off alonethrough the spacious cemeteries of Paris, seeking out the most desertedalleys between the graves, listening to the wind among the trees, andthe rustle of the leaves in the paths. Sometimes he went away into thewoods in the suburbs of the great city, and would walk about for hoursat a time muttering to himself. At other times he would spend a wholeday in his study in the Place du Pantheon, which he used as study, workand reception room at the same time; and there, until far into thenight, he would dissect a brain brought back from the clinic, studyingthe small slices of gray substance through his microscope.
The uncertainty of the sciences called positive, the sudden halt to hismind in the solution of these problems, threw him into fits of deepestdespair; and I have found him many times in a state of utterprostration, his eyes set and shining, his hands burning with fever, hispulse agitated and intermittent. In one of these crises I was obliged toleave him for a few hours, and almost feared I should not find him aliveon my return, at about five o'clock in the morning. He had near him aglass of cyanide of potassium, which he tried to hide as I came in; butrecovering his calmness almost at once, he said, with great serenity anda slight smile, "What is the good? If we are immortal, it would be of nouse, and I wanted to know about it sooner." That day he acknowledged hebelieved 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 humandestiny,--a question which in his eyes exceeded all others inimportance, since it treated of our continued existence ordestruction,--exasperated him to the last degree. All about him he sawpeople who were occupied solely by material interests, entirely absorbedby the foolish idea of "making money," for which they gave up all theiryears, their days, their hours, their minutes, disguised under variousforms; and he found no free, independent mind living an intellectuallife. It seemed to him that sentient beings could, _should_, whileliving the bodily life, since one cannot do otherwise, at least notremain the slaves of so coarse an organization, but devote the bestmoments to their intellectual life.
At the time this story begins, George Spero was already well known, andeven famed, by the original scientific books which he had published, andalso by several books of high literary merit, which had won praise forhis name in all parts of the world.
Although he had not yet completed his twenty-fifth year, thousands ofpersons had read his books, which, however, were not written for thegeneral public, but had been so successful as to be appreciated by themajority who desire to learn, as well as by the enlightened minority. Hehad 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 sternstudent, should be at a young girl's feet at sunset on the terrace wherewe met them just now? The rest of the story will tell you.