The Nickel Man Read online

  Astonished, he seized another; same effect. What! Was the interesting Colombe wearing a wig? He interrogated her; she remained mute. He took her hand; the hand did not respond to his own. He shook it.

  Surprise! The arm came away.

  The husband made a gesture of terror, and that movement, agitating the sofa, caused the head to slump. He tried to support it; it fell on to the floor.

  Griped by horror, he thought that a baleful vision had troubled his reason.

  He runs to the father’s room. The latter is still up; he bombards him with questions; he comes to reproaches—the same silence. In his anger, he strikes him, and experiences a sharp pain. He repeats the blow; blood flows from his hand.

  He returns to his wife, thinking again that he was deluded. He seizes the inanimate body, which yields to his efforts and separates into a thousand pieces. In a trice, he sees the parquet covered with cogwheels, screws, nails and springs, which collide with one another and roll around, with a silvery sound—and nothing remains in his arms but a dress and the stick of a doll.

  He wants to escape that infernal house. In the antechamber he sees the lackeys arranged against the wall, upright, like mannequins after a performance at the opera. He calls them by name, and orders them to prepare a carriage, but not one budges. He launches himself into the courtyard; it is silent. He runs to the stable; he recognizes the coachman, the horses, the dogs, stiff and motionless, all seemingly deprived of life.

  Beside himself, no longer knowing what he is doing, he wanders at random. Finally, he finds himself in front of his house; into which he goes, harassed and half-dressed. His servants are astonished and wonder what accident has set the Baron roaming on his wedding night.

  Prey to a feverish delirium, he throws himself on his bed, but, ready to belief in magic, shades and revenants, he cannot chose his eyes.

  When daylight appears, determined to clear up his doubts at any price, he arms himself, mounts a horse and, followed by his valet, goes to the château.

  When he goes into the courtyard he hears a loud sound of hammering. In the vestibule he sees a great many workmen and crates, some sealed and others ready to be. Searching with his eyes for the master of the house he arrives in the nuptial chamber, where he finds the steward picking up the pieces of the Baronne.

  On seeing him come in the steward presents him with an invoice signed Roberson, mechanician, demanding 10,545 francs 25 centimes, for the cost of repairs to his two best automata.

  Pierre Bremond: The Uraniad or, Aesop’s Judges in Urania’s Court

  (1844)

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  The Uraniad should not be regarded as an ordinary play. I have not pretended to write a comedy, for then it would have had to be constructed on another plan and circumscribed by narrower limits. I am not writing for the theater. There is nothing here but simple dialogues on very dry and abstract matters, which I thought I ought to cheer up with a few fairly innocent jokes; and as there are several interlocutors who are not always necessary, they naturally appear and disappear, which has constituted veritable scenes. To place myself within the range of all kinds of readers I have tried to explain myself clearly while talking about very abstract things. I shall be satisfied if I have been able to achieve that aim; in any case, this little bagatelle will form a kind of commentary or preface to the manuscript work entitled On the Search for the Truth in the Sciences, which I have deposited at the Bibliothèque du Musée Calvet d’Avignon on 25 March 1843.

  As it is alleged that the philosophers of all centuries resemble one another, and that once imbued with an opinion, even if it is erroneous, almost all of them want to defend it until the end of their life, closing their eyes to the most lucid demonstrations, I have therefore thought that by cheering up scientific assertions with jokes, I might more efficaciously engage young astronomers to mistrust theories, even the most lauded, and not allow themselves to be seduced by the striking renown of the scientists who have preceded them, but above all to think for themselves by making use of the doubt that served, before them, Copernicus against Ptolemy, Descartes against Aristotle, Kepler against Tycho Brahé and Newton against Descartes.

  CHARACTERS

  AESOP

  NEWTON, English geometer-astronomer and physicist

  HEROMONDAS, astronomer, partisan of Newton

  SGRAVESANDE, Dutch physicist, partisan of Newton

  PEMBERTON, English geometer, partisan of Newton

  MAUPERTUIS, French geometer, partisan of Newton

  COPERNICUS, German astronomer

  PLUCHE, French physicist

  BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE, French litterateur

  VOLTAIRE, French poet and philosopher

  POPE, English poet

  Monsieur JOUROUFLE, partisan of Newton

  The CONCIERGE of Urania’s palace

  A retinue of astronomer-geometers and physicists.

  The scene is under the portico of Urania’s palace.

  Scene One

  Voltaire, Pope

  VOLTAIRE: Ah, there you are, my dear Pope! Who would ever have believed they would encounter you under the portico of Urania’s palace,2 you who have constantly been seen inhabiting the verdant arbors of cheerful Helicon. What fortunate hazard brings you here?

  POPE : A motive very praiseworthy in an Englishman: to see Newton, to admire and contemplate his glory. But my dear Voltaire, what have I just learned? Ignorant minds have dared to raise their voices to depreciate the immortal theories of that profound genius!

  VOLTAIRE: Yes, Pluche,3 who has come to sustain before Urania that Newton was not a physicist and only merits the name of calculator, and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,4 who has arrived unexpectedly, has also claimed that several of his theories are erroneous.

  POPE: What audacity in paltry French scriveners. And Urania has not imposed silence on them?

  VOLTAIRE: No, for Criticism, crouched at her feet, has obliged her to suspend her judgment by blackening a notebook with his scribbling, which she has promptly sent to the terrestrial surface. More than one author has doubtless taken possession of it, since several writings have reached us here attacking the theories of the great Newton unsparingly. The key to the phenomena of nature has been seen to enter those lists, where it is claimed that the greater part of Newton’s algebra is nothing but charlatanry.

  POPE:

  What fatal destiny is pursuing our immortal Genius? Do you not think as I do, my dear Voltaire, that there is nothing but merit and truly sublime science in our Englishman?

  VOLTAIRE: Can you doubt it, since I have always been seen to denigrate my compatriots because they were French? But it’s necessary not to despair. We, the admirers and copyists of Newton, in order to oppose a dyke to this torrent of criticism, which threatens to engulf the reputation of that only great man, have obtained from Urania that she will hold her court today, and you can see that she has already had her tribunal set up beneath this portico. Now, we want and intend that she shall sanction by her decrees all the theories of Newton—good or bad, let it be said between ourselves—and that in the person of Pluche and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre she shall condemn the detractors of our illustrious genius to silence, and above all the recent anonymous writing still in manuscript entitled On the Search for the Truth in the Sciences, which has been deposited in the Musée Calvet d’Avignon.

  POPE: To succeed in that project it is only necessary to form a powerful cabal. The honor of both of us is very much at stake, for will it not be remembered that after having praised Newton to the skies you taunted the Angels, saying: Are you not jealous of the great Newton? And have I not written, in my enthusiasm: God said, let Newton be and all was light? What is more sublime? All those fine phrases, however, will be nothing but bluster if Newton were not the most extraordinary genius. But do I not see Aesop the fabulist coming?

  VOLTAIRE: What does that Phrygian want with us?

  Scene Two

  Aesop, Pope, Voltaire

  AESOP: Don’t be a
stonished to see me here. A simple motive of curiosity brings me to this portico. I have learned that there is to be a great debate between geniuses on the subject of the phenomena of nature, and I wanted to know whether reason will be able to applaud their logic and their arguments.

  VOLTAIRE: The subject of their disputes is beyond your range, or do you know, poor Phrygian, what a plus b minus c is worth?

  AESOP: When one has to talk about the marvels of the universe, it’s pointless to bring the grimoire of algebra into it. Simple common sense suffices in questions of that sort. “The practice of that science is doubtless good to ensure by calculation a verity already recognized by reason, but you can take it for certain that any proposition that cannot be demonstrated without algebra is not admitted by nature.”

  VOLTAIRE: You have become another’s interpreter, then? That is one of the reflections made by the author of the key to the phenomena of nature; but our geometers do not let him speak.

  AESOP: Whoever the author might be, the reflection is no less true, and I shall see today whether your new philosophers are like those of my century, who reasoned a great deal and observed very little.

  VOLTAIRE: Were they very ignorant, then?

  AESOP: They were, to such a degree that I could only find one who knew that dogs moved their tails and their ears; and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, one of your most celebrated observers, told me not long ago that your philosophers bear a strong resemblance to those of times past.

  VOLTAIRE: We shall see; but in the meantime, I advise you, great block of ancient flesh, to hide in some corner to escape the gaze of our sages, in order not to make nature blush, in their eyes, at her formless production. Here they come. What! Heromondas is with them? So much the better. He’s conversing with Newton and Pemberton.5

  Scene Three

  Newton, Pemberton, Heromondas, Aesop, Pope, Voltaire

  Retinue of astronomer-geometers and physicists

  NEWTON: What an infinite pleasure your coming gives us, my dear Heromondas! Newton could hardly wait to see you in order to thank you, on behalf of the physicists here, for the zeal that you have shown in the defense of his systems. What does the scientific world say now?

  HEROMONDAS: The scientific world is enthusiastic to have named you as its dictator with one voice, and the geometer Bailly,6 who came to this region before me, must to have told you that himself in presenting you with his Histoire de l’Astronomie moderne, which is filled with eulogies to you.

  NEWTON: It’s necessary to admit that if I have acquired the fine title of dictator, it’s principally to the French geometers that I owe it. They are the ones who have borne me to that pinnacle, without paying any heed to what love of their fatherland might demand. Oh, what thanks do I not owe them? But tell me, illustrious Heromondas, what is it necessary to think of the annoying news that arrives here from time to time, and which causes me to fear for the fate of my theories?

  PEMBERTON: Merit is not always shielded from envy. But after all, what does the sound of distant clamors matter, which are promptly stifled by the reiterated acclamations of your worshipers?

  NEWTON: Yes, dear Pemberton; but those cries are alarming nevertheless. Besides which, they are growing gradually louder, and might intimidate those who publish our renown.

  HEROMONDAS: Have no fear, O sublime Newton! Your detractors cannot form a band like us. And then, do we not have the journalists of all lands under our sway? Who is the man among them who would dare to raise his voice against us? In any case, who can resist our skillful tactics? Sometimes we exalt the genius of those who march in your footsteps; sometimes we affirm that no scientist of merit refuses to adopt your theories. Who does not desire to see the fruit of his genius praised? Who is not ashamed not to be counted among the scientists of merit? Furthermore, if someone prepares a work favorable to your hypotheses, we inform the world via the voice of the press that a book is about to appear that will be epoch-making in the annals of human intelligence. When it appears we announce that the scientific world was waiting for it impatiently and had received it thankfully. In fact, all that is false, but our goal is achieved. We praise one another mutually; we intimidate the depreciators of the theory of universal gravitation; we sustain the zeal of its propagators; and renown is accustomed only to call marvelous and sublime the writings that reflect the radiance of your genius.

  NEWTON: But it is said that a certain manuscript work has recently appeared that tends more than any other to darken our glory.

  HEROMONDAS: You doubtless mean the work entitled On the Search for the Truth in the Sciences?

  NEWTON: Yes, have you read it?

  HEROMONDAS: Purely by chance, for it is not one of the writings that we seek for preference. Our honor is interested in allowing them to grow old in forgetfulness, and if it happens that we read one we do not admit it, in order not to excite the curiosity of others, which would only turn to our detriment.

  NEWTON: But who is the inconsiderate scientist who, in the path of the sciences, has dared to serve as the guide for the author of this disastrous work?

  HEROMONDAS: None, and it appears that the author has drawn it almost entirely from his own brain, for he says things that have always been unknown to scientists both ancient and modern, and his manuscript contains discoveries of which, let it be said between ourselves, we have never thought, observations that we have neglected—I don’t know how—and experiments that we have made or explained in a contradictory fashion.

  NEWTON: Is that possible?

  HEROMONDAS: Yes, quite possible, and I assure you that if you and I had been aware of these observations and experiments at the outset of our scientific career, we would have avoided following the route that we have taken, and where we have made a thousand false steps; and I fear that young minds deprived of prejudices, which launch themselves on the path of the sciences, might finally perceive our errors, which might even allow them to acquire a great renown.

  PEMBERTON: What! We have taken a thousand false steps? No, certainly not. You’ll never make Pemberton believe that.

  HEROMONDAS: My dear friend, I would very much like to doubt it myself, but it is only too true. And there are examples, which we must carefully conceal from the public and new adepts. You cannot deny that a convexo-convex or plane-convex transparent substance magnifies the objects that one observes through it. Well, the terrestrial atmosphere is diaphanous and plano-convex relative to us; it ought therefore to have the property of substances that possess those two qualities.

  PEMBERTON: Which is to say that it ought to amplify the apparent diameter of stars?

  HEROMONDAS: Precisely—and we never thought of that.

  NEWTON: O Heaven! What blunders we might have made in ignorance of that property!

  HEROMONDAS: Yes gross blunders, for we have never imagined that the sun, the moon and the other heavenly bodies would appear almost half as small without that atmosphere;7 and yet, it is on their volume amplified by an optical illusion that we have founded most of our calculations. Thus, we have mistaken appearances for realities.

  Another example. We have sustained, after you, O excellent Newton, that the celestial spaces were empty, or almost empty. If that is the case, they ought not to oppose any obstacle to the expansion of the terrestrial atmosphere, which is so elastic. Thus, our atmosphere ought naturally to dissipate, by the effect of its own elasticity, and the Earth ought to be devoid of an atmospheric envelope—and by a necessary consequence, if that expansive atmosphere remained coerced around the Earth, it is because there is a fluid substance beyond it that contains it.8 Thus, if that matter exists, the void is no more than a chimera. What can we oppose to that?

  A third example. A stone, dropped from a certain height, falls on to the terrestrial surface. Now, you inform us, incomparable Newton, that it is our globe alone that attracts it.

  NEWTON: Of course—but as a hypothesis or supposition.

  HEROMONDAS: Well, your assertion, although hypothetical, is entirely contrary
to experience. In fact, you know the phenomena of the magnet. You know that that matter attracts iron, but that it sometimes loses its attractive virtue. Furthermore, numerous facts have been assembled regarding electricity that you were never able to know. It has been discovered that a glass tube rubbed in a certain fashion attracts any light substance to which it is approached. But that attractive property cannot be inherent to them, since they are often deprived of it. Thus, if magnetized or electrified substances can lose that virtue, it is not to them that the attraction they exert is due, but only to a substance that has arrived temporarily in their vicinity, which is very sensible when one approaches one face to an electrified globe. Thus the atmosphere that envelops the globe might, like the substance that surrounds those bodies, attract the heavy objects that one abandons to their natural weight. But by the effect of a distraction, O admirable Genius, when absorbed by your meditations of the causes of weight, you saw an apple fall to earth, you were only thinking about our globe and not about its atmospheric envelope. Without that unfortunate distraction, would you have neglected to ask yourself in what environment that little mass was gravitating? In the terrestrial atmosphere, you would have replied. Thus, there are two agents, the globe of the earth and its atmosphere, which might have snatched the fruit from its branch. But before concluding that it is the globe alone that has detached it, it is necessary to see whether there is any contradiction in thinking that it might rather be the atmosphere that is the cause of the fall. Now, as that contradiction does not exist here, since the phenomena of the magnet and electricity prove that bodies only attract one another by virtue of the effect of an atmosphere, you would inevitable have recognized that terrestrial gravity only occurs because of the attractive property of our atmospheric fluid.