Kitabı oku: «Underground Man», sayfa 3

III
THE STRUGGLE

In this extremity a man arose who did not despair of humanity. His name has been preserved for us. By a singular coincidence he was called Miltiades, like another saviour of Hellenism. He was not, however, of Hellenic race. A cross between a Slave and a Breton he had only half sympathised with the prosperity of the Neo-Græcian world with its levelling and enervating tendencies, and amid this wholesale obliteration of previous civilisation, and universal triumph of a kind of Byzantine renaissance brought up to date, he belonged to those who reverently guarded in the depths of their heart the germs of recusancy. But, like the barbarian stilicho, the last defender of the foundering Roman world against the barbaric hordes, it was precisely this disbeliever in civilisation who alone undertook to arrest it on the brink of its vast downfall. Eloquent and handsome, but nearly always taciturn, he was not without certain resemblances in pose and features, so it was said, to Chateaubriand and Napoleon (two celebrities, as one knows, who in their time were famous throughout an entire continent). Worshipped by the women of whom he was the hope, and by the men who stood greatly in awe of him, he had early kept the crowd at arm's length, and a singular accident had doubled his natural shyness. Finding the sea less monotonously dull at any rate than terra firma, and in any case more unconfined, he had passed his youth on board the last iron-clad of State of which he was captain, in patrolling the coasts of continents, in dreaming of impossible adventures, and of conquests when all was conquered, of discoveries of America when all was discovered, and in cursing all former travellers, discoverers and conquerors, fortunate reapers in all the fields of glory in which there was nothing more left to glean. One day, however, he believed he had discovered a new island – it was a mistake – and he had the joy of engaging in a fight, the last of which ancient history makes mention, with an apparently highly primitive tribe of savages, who spoke English and read the Bible. In this fight he displayed such valour that he was unanimously pronounced to be mad by his crew, and was in great danger of losing his rank after a specialist in insanity, who had been called in, was on the point of publicly confirming popular opinion by declaring he was suffering from suicidal mono-mania of a novel kind. Luckily an archæologist protested and showed by actual documents that this phenomenon, which had become so unusual but was frequent in past ages under the name of bravery, was a simple case of ancestral reversion sufficiently serious to merit examination. As luck would have it, the unfortunate Miltiades had been wounded in the face in the same encounter; and the scar which all the art of the best surgeons never succeeded in removing, drew down upon him the annoying and almost insulting nick-name of "scarred face". It may be readily understood how from this time forward, soured by the consciousness of his partial disfigurement, as the ancient bard Byron had formerly been for a nearly similar reason, he avoided appearing in public, and thereby giving the crowd an opportunity of pointing the finger of scorn at the visible traces of his former attack of madness. He was never seen again till the day when, his vessel being hemmed in by the icebergs of the Gulf Stream, he was obliged with his companions to finish the crossing on foot over the solidly frozen Atlantic.

In the middle of the central state shelter, a huge vaulted hall with walls ten yards thick, without windows, surrounded with a hundred gigantic furnaces, and perpetually lit up by their hundred flaming maws, Miltiades one day appeared. The remnant of the flower of humanity, of both sexes, splendid even in its misery, was huddled together there. They did not consist of the great men of science with their bald pates, nor even the great actresses, nor the great writers, whose inspiration had deserted them, nor the consequential ones now past their prime, nor of prim old ladies – broncho-pneumonia, alas! had made a clean sweep of them all at the very first frost – but the enthusiastic heirs of their traditions, their secrets, and also of their vacant chairs, that is to say, their pupils, full of talent and promise. Not a single university professor was there, but a crowd of deputies and assistants; not a single minister, but a crowd of young secretaries of state. Not a single mother of a family, but a bevy of artists' models, admirably formed, and inured against the cold by the practice of posing for the nude; above all, a number of fashionable beauties, who had been likewise saved by the excellent hygienic effect of daily wearing low dresses, without taking into account the warmth of their temperament. Among them it was impossible not to notice the Princess Lydia, owing to her tall and exquisite figure, the brilliancy of her dress and her wit, of her dark eyes and fair complexion, owing in fact to the radiance of her whole person. She had carried off the prize at the last grand international beauty competition, and was accounted the reigning beauty of the drawing-rooms of Babylon. What a different set of individuals from that which the spectator formerly surveyed through his opera-glass from the top of the galleries of the so-called Chamber of Deputies! Youth, beauty, genius, love, infinite treasures of science and art, writers whose pens were of pure gold, artists with marvellous technique, singers one raved about, all that was left of refinement and culture on the earth, was concentrated in this last knot of human beings, which blossomed under the snow like a tuft of rhododendrons, or of Alpine roses at the foot of some mountain summit. But what dejection had fallen on these fair flowers! How sadly drooped these manifold graces!

At the sudden apparition of Miltiades every brow was lifted, every eye was fastened upon him. He was tall, lean, and wizened, in spite of the false plumpness of his thick white furs. When he threw back his big white hood, which recalled the Dominican cowl of antiquity, they caught sight of his huge scar athwart the icicles on his beard and eyebrows. At the sight of it first a smile and then a shudder, which was not due to cold alone, ran through the ranks of the women. For must we confess it, in spite of the efforts of a rational education, the inclination to applaud bravery and its indications could not be entirely uprooted from their hearts. Lydia, notably, remained imbued with this sentiment of another age, by a kind of moral ancestral reversion which served as a pendant to her physical atavism. She concealed so little her feelings of admiration, that Miltiades himself was struck by it. Her admiration was combined with astonishment, for he was believed to have been dead for years. They asked one another by what accumulation of miracles he had been able to escape the fate of his companions. He requested leave to speak. It was granted him. He mounted a platform, and such a profound silence ensued, one might have heard the snow falling outside, in spite of the thickness of the walls. But let us at this point allow an eye-witness to speak; let us copy an extract of the account that he phonographed of this memorable scene. I pass over the part of Miltiades' discourse in which he related the thrilling story of the dangers he had encountered from the time he left his vessel. (Continuous applause.) After stating that in passing by Paris on a sledge drawn by reindeer – thanks to it being the season of the dog-days – he had recognised the site of this buried city by the double-pointed mound of snow which had formed over the spires of Notre-Dame – (excitement in the audience) – the speaker continued: —

"The situation is serious," said he, "nothing like it has been seen since the geological epochs. Is it irretrievable? No! (Hear! hear!) Desperate diseases require desperate remedies. An idea, a glimmer of hope has flashed upon me, but it is so strange, I shall never dare to reveal it to you. (Speak! speak!) No, I dare not, I shall never dare to formulate this project. You would believe me to be still insane. You desire it, you promise me to listen to the end to my absurd and extravagant project? (Yes! yes!) Even to give it a fair trial? (Yes! yes!) Well! I will speak. (Silence!)

"The hour has come to ascertain to what extent it is true to say and to keep on repeating, as has been the practice for the last three centuries since the time of a certain Stephenson, that all our energy, all our strength, whether physical or moral, comes to us from the sun… (Numerous voices: 'That is so'). The calculation has been made: in two years, three months, and six days, if there still remains a morsel of coal there will not remain a morsel of bread! (Prolonged sensation.) Therefore, if the source of all force, of all motion, and all life is in the sun, and in the sun alone, there is no ground for self-delusion: in two years, three months, and six days, the genius of man will be quenched, and through the gloomy heavens the corpse of mankind, like a Siberian mammoth, will roll for everlasting, incapable for ever of resurrection. (Excitement.)

"But is that the case? No, it is not, it cannot be the case. With all the energy of my heart, which does not come from the sun – that energy which comes from the earth, from our mother earth buried there below, far, far away, for ever hidden from our eyes – I protest against this vain theory, and against so many articles of faith and religion which I have been obliged hitherto to endure in silence. (Slight murmurs from the centre.) The earth is the contemporary of the sun, and not its daughter; the earth was formerly a luminous star like the sun, only sooner extinct. It is only on the surface that the earth is devoid of movement, frozen and paralysed. Its bosom is ever warm and burning. It has only concentrated its fire within itself in order to preserve it better. (Signs of interest in the audience.) There lies a virgin force that is unexploited, a force superior to all that the sun has been able to generate for our industry by waterfalls which to-day are frozen, by cyclones which now have ceased, by tides which to-day are suspended; a force in which our engineers, with a little initiative, will find a hundredfold the equivalent of the motive power they have lost. It is no more by this gesture (the speaker raises his finger to heaven), that the hope of salvation should henceforth be expressed, it is by this one. (He lowers his right hand towards the earth… Signs of astonishment: a few murmurs of dissent which are immediately repressed by the women.) We must say no more: 'Up there!' but, 'below!' There, below, far below, lies the promised Eden, the abode of deliverance and of bliss: there, and there alone, there are still innumerable conquests and discoveries to be made! (Bravos on the left.) Ought I to draw my conclusion? (Yes! yes!) Let us descend into these depths; let us make these abysses our sure retreat. The mystics had a sublime presentiment when they said in their Latin: 'From the outward to the inward.' The earth calls us to its inner self. For many centuries it has lived separated, so to say, from its children, the living creatures it produced outside during its period of fecundity before the cooling of its crust! After its crust cooled, the rays of a distant star alone, it is true, have maintained on this dead epidermis their artificial and superficial life which has been a stranger to her own.

"But this schism has lasted too long. It is imperative that it should cease. It is time to follow Empedocles, Ulysses, Æneas, Dante, to the gloomy abodes of the underworld, to plunge mankind again in the fountain from which it sprang, to effect the complete restoration of the exiled soul to the land of its birth! (Applause here and there.) Besides, there is but this alternative: life underground or death. The sun is failing us: let us dispense with the sun. The plan, which it remains for me to propose, has been worked out for several months past by the most eminent men. To-day it is finished; it is final. It is complete in all its details. Does it interest you? (On all sides: 'Read it, read it.') You will see that with discipline, patience, and courage – yes, courage, I risk this evil-sounding word ('Risk it, risk it.') – and above all, with the aid of that splendid heritage of science and art which comes to us from the past, for which we are accountable to the most distant of our descendants, to the boundless universe, and I was going to say, to God (signs of surprise), we can be saved if we will." (Thunder of applause.)

The speaker next entered into lengthy details, which it is useless to reproduce here, on the Neo-troglodytism which he pretended to inaugurate as the acme of civilisation, "which had," said he, "began with caves, and was destined to return to these subterranean retreats, but at a far deeper level." He displayed designs, quantities and drawings. He had no trouble in proving that, on condition of burrowing sufficiently deep into the ground below, they would find a deliciously gentle warmth, an Elysian temperature. It would be enough to excavate, enlarge, heighten, and extend the galleries of already existing mines in order to render them habitable and comfortable into the bargain. The electric light, supplied entirely without expense by the scattered centres of the fire within, would provide for the magnificent illumination both by day and night of these colossal crypts, these marvellous cloisters, indefinitely extended and embellished by successive generations. With a good system of ventilation, all danger of suffocation or of foulness of air would be avoided. In short, after a more or less long period of settling in, civilised life could unfold anew in all its intellectual, artistic, and fashionable splendour, as freely as it did in the capricious and intermittent light or natural day, and even perhaps more surely. At these last words, the Princess Lydia broke her fan, by dint of applauding. An objection then came from the right, "With what shall we be fed?" Miltiades smiled disdainfully and replied: "Nothing is simpler. For ordinary drinking purposes we first of all shall have melted ice. Every day we shall transport enormous blocks of it in order to keep the orifices of the crypts free from obstruction, and to supply the public fountains. I may add that chemists undertake to manufacture alcohol from anything, even from mineralised rocks, and that it is the A.B.C. of the grocer's trade to manufacture wine from alcohol and water. ('Hear! hear!' from all the benches). As for food, is not chemistry also capable of manufacturing butter, albumen, and milk from no matter what? Besides, has the last word been said on the subject? Is it not highly probable that before long, if it takes up the matter, it will succeed in satisfying, both on the score of quantity and expense, the desires of the most refined gastronomy? And, meanwhile… (a voice timidly: 'Meanwhile?') Meanwhile does not our disaster itself, by a kind of providential occurrence, place within our reach the best stocked, the most abundant, the most inexhaustible larder that the human race has ever had? Immense stores, the most admirable which have hitherto been laid down, are lying for us under the ice or the snow. Myriads of domestic or wild animals – I dare not add, of men and women (a general shudder of horror) – but at least of bullocks, sheep and poultry, frozen instantaneously in a single mass, are lying here and there in the public markets a few steps away. Let us collect, as long as such work is still possible out of doors, this boundless quarry which was destined to feed for years several hundreds of millions, and which will well suffice, in consequence, to feed a few thousands only for ages, even should they multiply unduly, in despite of Malthus. If stacked in the neighbourhood of the orifice of the chief cavern, they will be easy to get at and will provide a delightful fare for our fraternal love-feasts."

Still further objections were formulated from different quarters. They were forcibly disposed of with the same irresistible easy assurance. The conclusion is worthy of a verbatim quotation: "However extraordinary the catastrophe which has befallen us and the means of escape which is left us may seem in appearance, a little reflection will suffice to prove to us that the predicament in which we are, must have been repeated a thousand times already in the immensity of the universe, and must have been cleared up in the same fashion, being inevitably and normally the final phase in the life-drama of every star. The astronomers know that every sun is bound to become extinct; they know, therefore, that in addition to the luminous and visible stars, there are in the heavens an infinitely greater number of extinct and rayless stars which continue endlessly to revolve with their train of planets, doomed to an eternity of night and cold. Well, if this is the case, I ask you: Can we suppose that life, thought, and love, are the exclusive privilege of an infinite minority of solar systems still possessed of light and heat, and deny to the immense majority of gloomy stars every manifestation of life and animation, the very highest reason for their existence? Thus lifelessness, death, the void in movement would be the rule; and life the exception! Thus the nine-tenths, the ninety-nine hundredths, perhaps, of the solar systems, would idly revolve like senseless and gigantic mill-wheels, a useless encumbrance of space. That is impossible and idiotic, that is blasphemous. Let us have more faith in the unknown! Truth, here as everywhere else, is without doubt the antipodes of appearance. All that glitters is not gold. These splendid constellations which attempt to dazzle us are themselves relatively barren. Their light, what is it? A transient glory, a ruinous luxury, an ostentatious squandering of energy, born of illimitable senselessness. But when the stars have sown their wild oats, then the serious task of their life begins, they develop their inner resources. For frozen and sunless without, they literally preserve in their inviolate centres their unquenchable fire, defended by the very layers of ice. There, finally, is to be relit the lamp of life, banished from the surface above. For a last time, therefore, let us look upwards in order there to find hope. Up there innumerable races of mankind under ground, buried, to their supreme joy, in the catacombs of invisible stars, encourage us by their example. Let us act like them, let us like them withdraw to the interior of our planet. Like them, let us bury ourselves in order to rise again, and like them let us carry with us into our tomb, all that is worthy to survive of our previous existence. It is not merely bread alone that man has need of. He must live to think, and not merely think to live.

"Recall the legend of Noah: to escape from a disaster almost equal to our own, and to dispute with it all that the earth had most precious in his eyes; what did he do, though he was but a simple-minded fellow and addicted to drink? He turned his ark into a museum, containing a complete collection of plants and animals, even of poisonous plants, of wild beasts, boa-constrictors, and scorpions, and by reason of this picturesque but incongruous cargo of creatures mutually harmful and seeking one and all to devour each other, of this miscellany of living contradictions which for so long was so foolishly worshipped under the name of Nature, he believed in good faith to have deserved well of the future.

"But we, in our new ark, mysterious, impenetrable, indestructible, shall carry with us neither plants nor animals. These types of existence are annihilated; these rough drafts in creation, these fumbling experiments of Earth in quest of the human form are for ever blotted out. Let us not regret it. In place of so many pairs of animals which take up so much room, of so many useless seeds, we will carry with us into our retreat the harmonious garland of all the truths in perfect accord with one another; of all artistic and poetic beauties, which are all members one of another, united like sisters, which human genius has brought to light in the course of ages and multiplied thereafter in millions of copies: all of which will be destroyed save a single one, which it will be our task to guarantee against all danger of destruction. We shall establish a vast library containing all the principal works, enriched with cinematographic albums. We shall set up a vast museum composed of single specimens of all the schools, of all the styles of the masters in architecture, sculpture, painting, and even music. These are our real treasures, our real seed for future harvests, our gods for whom we will do battle till our latest breath."

The speaker stepped down from the platform in the midst of indescribable enthusiasm: the ladies crowded round him. They deputed Lydia to bestow on him a kiss in the name of them all. Blushing with modesty the latter obeyed – a further sign of moral atavism on her part – and the applause redoubled. The thermometers of the shelter rose several degrees in a few minutes.

It is well to recall to the younger generation these resolute words, between the lines of which they will read the gratitude they owe to the heroic "Scarred face," who so nearly died with the reputation of a mono-maniac. They, too, are beginning to grow enervated and accustomed to the delights of their underground Elysium, to the luxurious spaciousness of these endless catacombs, the legacy of gigantic toil on the part of their fathers, they too, are, inclined to think that all this happened of its own accord, or at least was inevitable, that after all there was no other way of escaping from the cold above ground, and that this simple expedient did not require a great outlay of imagination. Profound error! At its first appearance, the idea of Miltiades had been hailed, and rightly enough, as a flash of genius. But for him, but for his energy, and his eloquence, which was placed at the service of his imagination, but for his forcefulness, his charm, and his perseverance, which seconded his energy, let us add, but for the profound passion that Lydia, the noblest and most valiant of women, had been able to inspire in him, and which increased his heroism tenfold, humanity would have suffered the fate of all the other animal or vegetable species. What strikes us to-day in his discourse is the extraordinary and truly prophetic lucidity with which he sketched in general terms the conditions of existence in the new world. Without doubt, these expectations have been immensely surpassed. He did not foresee, he could not foresee, the prodigious accessions which his original idea has received owing to its development by thousands of auxiliary geniuses. He was far more right than he fancied, like the majority of reformers – who are generally wrongly accused, of being too much wrapt up in their own ideas. But on the whole, never was so magnificent a plan so promptly carried out.

From that very day all these exquisite and delicate hands set to work, aided, it is true, by incomparable machines. Everywhere, at the head of all the workings, were to be found Lydia and Miltiades. Henceforth inseparable, they vied with one another in ardour; and before a year was out the galleries of the mines had become sufficiently large and comfortable, sufficiently decorated even and brilliantly lighted, to receive the vast and priceless collections of all kinds, which it was their object to place in safety there, in view of the future.

With infinite precautions they were lowered one after another, bale by bale, into the bowels of the earth. This salvage of the goods and chattels of humanity was methodically carried out. It included all the quintessence of the ancient grand libraries of Paris, Berlin, and London, which had been brought together at Babylon, and then carried for safety into the desert with the rest. The cream of all former museums, of all previous exhibitions of industry and art, was concentrated there with considerable additions. There were manuscripts, books, bronzes, and pictures. What an expenditure of energy and incessant toil, in spite of the assistance of inter-terrestrial forces, had been necessary for packing, transporting, and housing it all! And yet, for the greater part, it was useless to those who voluntarily this task imposed upon themselves. They all knew it. They were well aware that they were probably condemned for the rest of their days to a hard and matter-of-fact existence, for which their lives as artists, philosophers, and men of letters, had scarcely prepared them. But – for the first time – the idea of duty to be done found its way into these hearts, the beauty of self-sacrifice subdued these dilettanti. They sacrificed themselves to the Unknown, to that which is not yet, to the posterity towards which were turned all the desires of their electrified spirits, as all the atoms of the magnetised iron turn towards the pole. It was thus that, at the time when there were still countries, in the midst of some great national peril, a wave of heroism swept over the most frivolous cities. However admirable may have been, at the epoch of which I speak, this collective need of individual self-sacrifice, ought we to be astonished at it, when we know from the treatises on natural history that have been preserved, that mere insects giving the same example of foresight and self-renunciation, used before their death to employ their latest energies to collect provisions useless to themselves, and only useful in the future to their larvæ at their birth.