Part 13 (1/2)

”I teach t'ose vomen, yes; but I despise t'em,” he added.

”If you do, you ought to be ashamed of it,” I retorted hotly. ”But I don't believe you really despise them. Such a bright lot of girls--why, some of them are bound to be heard from in science some day!”

”In science? Bah!”

”Why not? There was Mary Somerville and--and--and Caroline Herschel and-- well, I can't think of their names all in a minute, but I'm proud to be one of the girls here anyway.”

”You are not one of t'em,” he cried angrily. ”T'ey are life failures. You fancy t'ey are selected examples, but t'ey are not; t'ey are t'e rejected.

T'ey stood in t'e market place and no man vanted t'em; or else t'ey are fools as vell as failures and sent t'e men avay. You know me. I am biologist, not true? I hate t'e vord. I am physiologist, student of t'e nature of life--all kinds of life, t'e ocean of life of v'ich man is but a petty incident.”

”You were speaking about--”

”Ach, so! Almost t'ou has t'e scientific mind t'at reasons and remembers.

I said, I am physiologist. I study v'at Nature is, v'at she means to do.

V'en Nature--Gott, if you vant a shorter name--makes a mistake, Gott says: 'Poor material; spoiled in shaping, wrong in t'e vorks; all failures; t'row t'em avay. Ve haf plenty more to go on vit'. You know. You study Nature, also, a little. You know she is law, she is power. To t'e indifidual pitiless, she mofes vit' blind, discompa.s.sionate majesty ofer millions of mangled organisms to t'e greater glory of Pan, of Kosmos, of t'e Universe. She vastes life. And how not? Her best vork lives a little v'ile and produces its kind, and t'e vorst does not, and t'ey go down t'e dark vay toget'er and Nature neit'er veeps nor relents Kosmos is greater t'an t'e indifidual and a million years are short.

”T'ose young vomen--Nature meant t'em to desire beauty and dream of lofe.

Vat is lofe? It is Nature's machinery. T'ose vomen are old enough for lofe, but t'ey haf it not. So t'ey die. T'ey do not reproduce t'eir kind, not'ing lifing comes from t'em, to go on lifing, on and on, better and better--or vorse, as Nature planned--vit' efery generation. If a voman haf t'e desire of lofe and of beauty, and lofe and beauty come not to her, t'en I pity her, because I am less vise and resolute to vit'hold pity t'an Nature is. Efen if she haf not lofe, but only t'e ambition of power or learning or vealt', I might pity her vit' equal injustice, but I cannot.

She vill not let me. She does not know t'at she is a failure. She prides herself upon being so mis-made. She cannot help t'at; neit'er can I help despising her. Such vomen are abnormal, monstrous, in a vord, failures.

Let t'em die! You, I t'ink, are not so. You study to bide t'e time. You haf a fine carriage. You comb t'e hair, you haf pretty ribbons, you make t'e body strong and supple, you look in t'e gla.s.s and vish for more beauty. Not so?”

”Of course I do,” I cried angrily, wondering for the moment if he had lost his senses. It seemed as if he knew little about women for a man who professed to make all life his study. If there were one of his despised girls who lacked the desire of beauty and the dream of love, I am much mistaken. But I came to see afterward that he understood them as well as myself.

”I t'ought so,” he mused, his eyes still upon my face. ”And you are not too beautiful now; t'ey could not doubt. Yes; I vatch you, I study you.

Seldom I make t'e mistake; but it is fery important. So I vatch you a little v'ile longer yet. T'en I say to myelf: 'Here is t'e voman; yes, she is found.'”

And he chuckled and rubbed his lean hands together as I had so often seen him do.

The thought flashed across my mind that this extraordinary man meditated a proposal of marriage, but I dismissed the notion as ridiculous.

The Professor leaned forward and, fixing me with his eye, spoke in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, tense with excitement:--

”Mees Veens.h.i.+p, I am a biologist; you are a voman, creature of Nature, yearning for perfection after your kind. I--I can gife it you. You can trust me; I am ready. I can gif you your vish, t'e vish of efery normal voman. Science--t'at is I--can make you t'e most beautiful being in t'e vorld!”

Another Sunday school lesson! Miss Coleman and her unforgotten lecture upon beauty flashed upon my mind. But this man was promising me more than she had done, and his every word was measured. What was the mystery? What had he to say to me?

”T'e most beautiful--voman--in t'e vorld,” he went on in a slow, cadenced whisper. ”Do you vish it?”

His glittering eyes held mine again. No, he was not jesting at my expense; rather he seemed waiting with anxiety for me to make some decision upon which much depended. He was in very serious earnest.

But was ever a question more absurd? Who of women would not wish it? But to get the wish--ah, there's a different matter! I thought he must be crazed by over-study, and I could only sit and stare at him, open-mouthed.

”Listen!” he went on more rapidly, as if to forestall objection. ”You are scholar, too, a little. You know how Nature vorks, how men aid her in her business. Man puts t'e mot'er of vinegar into sweet cider and it is vinegar. T'e fermenting germs of t'e brewery chemist go in vit' vater and hops and malt, and t'ere is beer. T'e bacilli of bread, t'e yeast, svarming vit millions of millions of little spores, go into t'e housevife's dough, and it is bad bread; but t'at is not t'e fault of t'e bacilli--mein Gott, no!--for vit' t'e bacilli t'e baker makes goot bread.

T'e bacilli of b.u.t.ter, of cheese--you haf studied t'em. T'e experimenter puts t'e germs of good b.u.t.ter into bad cream and it becomes goot. It ripens. It is educated, led in t'e right vay. Tradition vaits for years to ripen vine and make it perfect. Science finds t'e bacillus of t'e perfect vine and puts it in t'e cask of fresh grape juice, and soon t'e vine drinkers of t'e vorld svear it is t'e rare old vintage. T'e bacillus, inconceivably tiny, svarming vit' life, reproducing itself a billion from one, t'at is Nature's tool. And t'e physiologist helps Nature.

”See now,” continued Prof. Darmstetter. ”I haf a vonderful discofery made.

I must experiment vit' it--_experimentum in corpore vili!_ Impossible, for the subject is mankind. I must haf a voman--a voman like you, healt'y, strong, young--all t'e conditions most favourable. She must haf intelligence--t'at is you. She should know somet'ing of biology, and be fery brave, so t'at she may not be frightened, but may understand how t'e vonderful gift is to come to her; and t'at is you. She should not be already beautiful, lest t'e change be less convincing. Yes, you are t'e voman for t'e test. You may become more famous in history fan Cleopatra or Ninon, and outs.h.i.+ne t'em and all t'e ot'er beauties t'at efer lifed. Do you vant triumphs? Here t'ey are. Riches? You shall command t'em. Fame?