Part 25 (1/2)
THE SPLENDID THEORY
It is not only to-day, when I am relating that tragic scene, that it appears to me in the light of a subsidiary episode to my story. I already had that impression at the time when it was being enacted. My reason for laying no greater stress on my alarm and on the horror of certain facts is that all this was to me only an interlude. Ma.s.signac's sufferings and his disappearance and Velmot's inexplicable behaviour, in abandoning for some minutes the conduct of a matter to which he had until then applied himself with such diabolical eagerness, were just so many details which became blotted out by the tremendous events represented by Benjamin Prevotelle's discovery.
And to such an extent was this event the central point of all my preoccupations that the idea had occurred to me, as I rushed to Ma.s.signac's a.s.sistance, of s.n.a.t.c.hing from the chair the newspaper in which I had read the first half of the essay! To be free meant above all things--even above saving Ma.s.signac and, through him, the formula--the opportunity of reading the rest of the essay and of learning what the whole world must already have learnt!
I made the circuit of the island in my boat and, shaping my course by certain lights, ran her ash.o.r.e on the main bank. A tram went by. Some of the shops were open. I was between Bougival and Port-Marly.
At ten o'clock in the evening I was sitting in a bedroom in a Paris hotel and unfolding a newspaper. But I had not had the patience to wait so long. On the way, by the feeble lights of the tram-car, I glanced at a few lines of the article. One word told me everything. I too was acquainted with Benjamin Prevotelle's marvellous theory. I knew and, knowing, I believed.
The reader will recall the place which I had reached in my uncomfortable perusal of the report. Benjamin Prevotelle's studies and experiments had led him to conclude, first, that the Meudon pictures were real cinematographic projections and, next, that these projections, since they came from no part of the amphitheatre, must come from some point more remote. Now the last picture, that representing the revolutionary doings of the 21st January, was hampered by some obstacle. What obstacle? His mental condition being what it was, what could Benjamin Prevotelle do other than raise his eyes to the sky?
The sky was clear. Was it also clear beyond the part that could be observed from the lower benches of the amphitheatre? Benjamin Prevotelle climbed to the top and looked at the horizon.
Yonder, towards the west, clouds were floating.
And Benjamin Prevotelle continued, repeating his phrase:
”Clouds were floating! And, because of the fact that clouds were floating on the horizon, the pictures on the screen grew less distinct or even vanished altogether. It may be said that this was a coincidence. On three separate occasions, when the film lost its brilliancy, I turned towards the horizon: on each occasion clouds were pa.s.sing. Could three coincidences of this kind be due to chance? Can any scientific mind fail to see herein a relation of cause and effect or to admit that, in this instance, as in that of many visions previously observed, which were disturbed by an unknown cause, the interposition of the clouds acted as a veil _by intercepting the projection on its way_? I was not able to make a fourth test. But that did not matter. I had now advanced so far that I was able to work and reflect without being stopped by any obstacle. There is no such thing as being checked mid-way in our pursuit of certain truths. Once we catch a glimpse of them, they become revealed in their entirety.
”At first, to be sure, scientific logic, instead of referring the explanation which I was so eagerly seeking to the data of human science, flung me, almost despite myself, into an ever more mysterious region.
And, when, after this second display, I returned home--this was three hours ago at most--I asked myself whether it would not be better to confess my ignorance than to go rus.h.i.+ng after theories which suddenly seemed to me to lie beyond the confines of science.
But how could I have done so? Despite myself I continued to work at the problem, to imagine.
Induction fitted into deduction. Proofs were acc.u.mulating. Even as I was hesitating to enter upon a path whose direction confounded me, I reached the goal and found myself sitting down to a table, pen in hand, to write a report which was dictated by my reason as much as by my imagination.
”Thus the first step was taken: in obedience to the imperious summons of reality, I admitted the theory of extra-terrestrial communications, or at least of communications coming from beyond the clouds. Was I to think that they emanated from some airs.h.i.+p hovering in the sky, beyond that cloud-belt? Leaving aside the fact that no such airs.h.i.+p was ever observed, we must remark that luminous projections powerful enough to light the screen at Meudon from a distance of several miles would leave in the air a trail of diffused light which could not escape notice. Lastly, in the present condition of science, we are at liberty to declare positively that such projections would be quite incapable of realization.
”What then? Were we to cast our eyes farther, traverse s.p.a.ce at one bound and a.s.sume that the projections have an origin which is not only extraterrestrial but extrahuman?
”Now the great word is written. The idea is no longer my property. How will it be received by those to whom this report will reveal it to-morrow? Will they welcome it with the same fervour and the same awe-struck emotion that thrilled me, with the distrust at the beginning and the same final enthusiasm?
”Let us, if you will, recover our composure. The examination of the phenomena has led us to a very definite conclusion. However startling this conclusion be, let us examine it also, with perfect detachment, and try to subject it to all the tests which we are able to impose upon it.
”Extrahuman projections: what does that mean? The expression seems vague; and our thoughts wander at random. Let us look into the matter more closely. Let us first of all establish as an impa.s.sable boundary the frontiers of our solar system and, in this immense circle, concentrate our gaze upon the more accessible and consequently the nearer points. For, when all is said, if there be really projections, they must necessarily, whether extrahuman or human, emanate from fixed points, situated in s.p.a.ce. They must therefore emanate from those luminaries within sight of the earth to which, in the last report, we have some right to attribute the origin of those projections. I consider that there are five such fixed points: the moon, the sun, Jupiter, Mars and Venus.
”If, furthermore, we suppose as the more likely theory that the projections follow a rectilinear direction, then the unknown luminary from which the apparitions emanate will have to satisfy two conditions: first, it must be in such a position that photographs can be taken from it; secondly, it must be in such a position that the images obtained can be transmitted to us. Let us take as an instance a case in which it is possible to fix the place and date. The first Montgolfier balloon, filled with hot air, was sent up from Annonay at four o'clock in the afternoon on the 5th of June, 1783. It is easy, by referring to the contemporary calendars, to learn which celestial bodies were at that moment above the horizon and at what height. We thus find that Mars, Jupiter and the moon were invisible, whereas the sun and Venus were at 50 and 23 degrees respectively above the horizon of Annonay and, of course, towards the west. These two luminaries alone then were in a position to witness the experiment of the brothers Montgolfier. But they did not witness it from the same alt.i.tude: a view taken from the sun would have shown things as seen from above, whereas, at the same hour, Venus would have shown then from an angle very nearly approaching the horizontal.
”This is a first clue. Are we able to check it? Yes, by turning up the date on which the projections of the view then secured as observed by Victorien Beaugrand and by determining whether, on that date, the projecting luminary was able to light up the screen at Meudon. Well, on that day, at the hour which Victorien Beaugrand has given us, Mars and the moon were invisible, Jupiter was in the east, the sun close to the horizon and Venus a little way above it.
Projections emanating from the last-named planet could therefore have fallen upon the screen, which as we know faced westwards.
”This example shows us that, however frail my theory may appear, we are now able and shall be even better able in the future to subject it to a strict control.
I did not fail to resort to this method in respect of the other pictures, and I will give in a special table, appended to this essay, a list of the data which I have verified, a list necessarily drawn up, in some haste. Well, in all the cases which I examined, the views were taken and projected under such conditions that they can logically be referred to the planet Venus _and to that planet alone_.
”Yet again, two of these views, that which revealed to Victorien Beaugrand and his uncle the execution of Miss Cavell and that which enabled us to witness the bombardment of Rheims, seem to have been taken, the first in the morning, because Miss Cavell was executed in the morning, and the second from the east, because it showed a sh.e.l.l fired at a statue which stood on the east front of the cathedral. This proves that the views could be taken indifferently in the morning or the evening, from the west or the east; and it is surely a powerful argument in favour of my theory, because Venus, which is both the Evening and the Morning Star, faces the earth at daybreak from the east and at sunset from the west and because Noel Dorgeroux (as M. Victorien Beaugrand has just confirmed to me by telephone), because Noel Dorgeroux, that magnificent visionary, had had his wall constructed _with two surfaces having an identical inclination towards the sky, one facing west, the other east and each in turn exposed to the rays of Venus the Evening Star and Venus the Morning Star_!
”These are the proofs which I am able to furnish for the time being. There are others. There is for instance the time of the apparitions. Venus is sinking towards the horizon; on the earth twilight reigns; and the pictures can be formed regardless of the sunlight.
Remark also that Noel Dorgeroux, deferring all his experiments, last winter altered the whole arrangement of the Yard and demolished the old garden. Now this break coincides exactly with a period during which the position of Venus on the farther side of the sun prevented it from communicating with the earth. All these proofs will be reinforced by a more exhaustive essay and by an a.n.a.lytical examination of the pictures that have been or will be shown to us.