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IV.
It was only on reaching home, as I walked from the garage to the house, that I read the inscription1 on the envelope:
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
(Probably Commissaire Charas)
Having told the servants that I would have only a light supper to be served immediately in my study and that I was not to be disturbed after, I ran upstairs, threw Helene’s envelope on my desk and made another careful search of the room before closing the shutters2 and drawing the curtains. All I could find was a long since dead mosquito stuck to the wall near the ceiling.
Having motioned to the servant to put her tray down on a table by the fireplace, I poured myself a glass of wine and locked the door behind her. I then disconnected the telephone – I always did this now at night – and turned out all the lights but the lamp on my desk.
Slitting3 open Helene’s fat envelope, I extracted a thick wad of closely written pages. I read the following lines neatly4 centered in the middle of the top page:
This is not a confession5 because, although I killed my husband, I am not a murderess. I simply and very faithfully carried out his last wish by crushing his head and right arm under the steam-hammer of his brother’s factory.
For very nearly a year before his death(the manuscript began), my husband had told me of some of his experiments. He knew full well that his colleagues of the Air Ministry8 would have forbidden some of them as too dangerous, but he was keen on obtaining positive results before reporting his discovery.
Whereas only sound and pictures had been, so far, transmitted through space by radio and television, Andre claimed to have discovered a way of transmitting matter. Matter, any solid object, placed in his “transmitter” was instantly disintegrated9 and reintegrated in a special receiving set.
Andre considered his discovery as perhaps the most important since that of the wheel sawn off the end of a tree trunk. He reckoned that the transmission of matter by instantaneous “disintegration10-reintegration” would completely change life as we had known it so far. It would mean the end of all means of transport, not only of goods including food, but also of human beings. Andre, the practical scientist who never allowed theories or daydreams11 to get the better of him, already foresaw the time when there would no longer be any airplanes, ships, trains or cars and, therefore, no longer any roads or railway lines, ports, airports or stations. All that would be replaced by matter-transmitting and receiving stations throughout the world. Travelers and goods would be placed in special cabins and, at a given signal, would simply disappear and reappear almost immediately at the chosen receiving station.
Andre’s receiving set was only a few feet away from his transmitter, in an adjoining room of his laboratory, and he at first ran into all sorts of snags. His first successful experiment was carried out with an ash tray taken from his desk, a souvenir we had brought back from a trip to London.
That was the first time he told me about his experiments and I had no idea of what he was talking about the day he came dashing into the house and threw the ash tray in my lap.
“Helene, look! For a fraction of a second, a bare ten-millionth of a second, that ash tray had been completely disintegrated. For one little moment it no longer existed! Gone! Nothing left, absolutely nothing! Only atoms traveling through space at the speed of light! And the moment after, the atoms were once more gathered together in the shape of an ash tray!”
He started sketching13 all over a letter I had been writing. He laughed at my wry14 face, swept all my letters off the table and said:
“You don’t understand? Right. Let’s start all over again. Helene, do you remember I once read you an article about the mysterious flying stones that seem to come from nowhere in particular, and which are said to occasionally fall in certain houses in India? They come flying in as though thrown from outside and that, in spite of closed doors and windows.”
“Yes, I remember. I also remember that Professor Augier, your friend of the College de France, who had come down for a few days, remarked that if there was no trickery about it, the only possible explanation was that the stones had been disintegrated after having been thrown from outside, come through the walls, and then been reintegrated before hitting the floor or the opposite walls.”
“That’s right. And I added that there was, of course, one other possibility, namely the momentary15 and partial disintegration of the walls as the stone or stones came through.”
“Yes, Andre. I remember all that, and I suppose you also remember that I failed to understand, and that you got quite annoyed. Well, I still do not understand why and how, even disintegrated, stones should be able to come through a wall or a closed door.”
“But it is possible, Helene, because the atoms that go to make up matter are not close together like the bricks of a wall. They are separated by relative immensities of space.”
“Do you mean to say that you have disintegrated that ash tray, and then put it together again after pushing it through something?”
“Precisely, Helene. I projected it through the wall that separates my transmitter from my receiving set.”
“And would it be foolish to ask how humanity is to benefit from ash trays that can go through walls?”
Andre seemed quite offended, but he soon saw that I was only teasing, and again waxing enthusiastic, he told me of some of the possibilities of his discovery.
“Yes, Andre. But I hope you won’t ever transmit me; I’d be too much afraid of coming out at the other end like your ash tray.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you remember what was written under that ash tray?”
“Yes, of course: MADE IN JAPAN. That was the great joke of our typically British souvenir.”
“The words are still there, Andre; but … look!”
He took the ash tray out of my hands, frowned, and walked over to the window. Then he went quite pale, and I knew that he had seen what had proved to me that he had indeed carried out a strange experiment.
The three words were still there, but reversed and reading:
NAPAJ NI EDAM
Without a word, having completely forgotten me, Andre rushed off to his laboratory. I only saw him the next morning, tired and unshaven after a whole night’s work.
A few days later, Andre had a new reverse which put him out of sorts and made him fussy17 and grumpy for several weeks. I stood it patiently enough for a while, but being myself bad tempered one evening, we had a silly row over some futile18 thing, and I reproached him for his moroseness19.
“I’m sorry,cherie. I’ve been working my way through a maze20 of problems and have given you all a very rough time. You see, my very first experiment with a live animal proved a complete fiasco.”
“Andre! You tried that experiment with Dandelo, didn’t you?”
“Yes. How did you know?” he answered sheepishly. “He disintegrated perfectly21, but he never reappeared in the receiving set.”
“Oh, Andre! What became of him then?”
“Nothing … there is just no more Dandelo; only the dispersed22 atoms of a cat wandering, God knows where, in the universe.”
Dandelo was a small white cat the cook had found one morning in the garden and which we had promptly23 adopted. Now I knew how it had disappeared and was quite angry about the whole thing, but my husband was so miserable24 over it all that I said nothing.
I saw little of my husband during the next few weeks. He had most of his meals sent down to the laboratory. I would often wake up in the morning and find his bed unslept in. Sometimes, if he had come in very late, I would find that storm-swept appearance which only a man can give a bedroom by getting up very early and fumbling25 around in the dark.
One evening he came home to dinner all smiles, and I knew that his troubles were over. His face dropped, however, when he saw I was dressed for going out.
“Oh. Were you going out, Helene?”
“Yes, the Drillons invited me for a game of bridge, but I can easily phone them and put it off.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“It isn’t all right. Out with it, dear!”
“Well, I’ve at last got everything perfect and wanted you to be the first to see the miracle.”
“Magnifique, Andre! Of course I’ll be delighted.”
Having telephoned our neighbors to say how sorry I was and so forth26, I ran down to the kitchen and told the cook that she had exactly ten minutes in which to prepare a “celebration dinner.”
“An excellent idea, Helene,” said my husband when the maid appeared with the champagne27 after our candlelight dinner. “We’ll celebrate with reintegrated champagne!” and taking the tray from the maid’s hands, he led the way down to the laboratory.
“Do you think it will be as good as before its disintegration?” I asked, holding the tray while he opened the door and switched on the lights.
“Have no fear. You’ll see! Just bring it here, will you,” he said, opening the door of a telephone call-box he had bought and which had been transformed into what he called a transmitter. “Put it down on that now,” he added, putting a stool inside the box.
Having carefully closed the door, he took me to the other end of the room and handed me a pair of very dark sun glasses. He put on another pair and walked back to a switchboard by the transmitter.
“Ready, Helene?” said my husband, turning out all the lights. “Don’t remove your glasses till I give the word.”
“I won’t budge28, Andre, go on,” I told him, my eyes fixed29 on the tray which I could just see in a greenish shimmering30 light through the glass-paneled door of the telephone booth.
“Right,” said Andre, throwing a switch.
The whole room was brilliantly illuminated31 by an orange flash. Inside the cabin I had seen a crackling ball of fire and felt its heat on my face, neck and hands. The whole thing lasted but the fraction of a second, and I found myself blinking at green-edged black holes like those one sees after having stared at the sun.
“Et voila! You can take off your glasses, Helene.”
A little theatrically32 perhaps, my husband opened the door of the cabin. Though Andre had told me what to expect, I was astonished to find that the champagne, glasses, tray and stool were no longer there.
Andre ceremoniously led me by the hand into the next room, in a corner of which stood a second telephone booth. Opening the door wide, he triumphantly33 lifted the champagne tray off the stool.
Feeling somewhat like the good-natured kind-member-of-the-audience that has been dragged onto the music hall stage by the magician, I repressed from saying, “All done with mirrors,” which I knew would have annoyed my husband.
“Absolutely sure, Helene,” he said, handing me a glass. “But that was nothing. Drink this off and I’ll show you something much more astounding35.”
We went back into the other room.
“Oh, Andre! Remember poor Dandelo!”
“This is only a guinea pig, Helene. But I’m positive it will go through all right.”
He set the furry36 little beast down on the green enameled37 floor of the booth and quickly closed the door. I again put on my dark glasses and saw and felt the vivid crackling flash.
Without waiting for Andre to open the door, I rushed into the next room where the lights were still on and looked into the receiving booth.
“Oh, Andre! Cheri! He’s there all right!” I shouted excitedly, watching the little animal trotting39 round and round. “It’s wonderful, Andre. It works! You’ve succeeded!”
“I hope so, but I must be patient. I’ll know for sure in a few weeks’ time.”
“What do you mean? Look! He’s as full of life as when you put him in the other cabin.”
“Yes, so he seems. But we’ll have to see if all his organs are intact, and that will take some time. If that little beast is still full of life in a month’s time, we then consider the experiment a success.”
I begged Andre to let me take care of the guinea pig.
“All right, but don’t kill it by over-feeding,” he agreed with a grin for my enthusiasm.
Though not allowed to take Hop-la – the name I had given the guinea pig – out of its box in the laboratory, I had tied a pink ribbon round its neck and was allowed to feed it twice a day.
Hop-la soon got used to its pink ribbon and became quite a tame little pet, but that month of waiting seemed a year.
And then one day, Andre put Miquette, our cocker spaniel, into his “transmitter.” He had not told me beforehand, knowing full well that I would never have agreed to such an experiment with our dog. But when he did tell me, Miquette had been successfully transmitted half-a-dozen times and seemed to be enjoying the operation thoroughly40; no sooner was she let out of the “reintegrator” than she dashed madly into the next room, scratching at the “transmitter” door to have “another go,” as Andre called it.
I now expected that my husband would invite some of his colleagues and Air Ministry specialists to come down. He usually did this when he had finished a research job and, before handing them long detailed41 reports which he always typed himself, he would carry out an experiment or two before them. But this time, he just went on working. One morning I finally asked him when he intended throwing his usual “surprise party,” as we called it.
“No, Helene; not for a long while yet. This discovery is much too important. I have an awful lot of work to do on it still. Do you realize that there are some parts of the transmission proper which I do not yet myself fully6 understand? It works all right, but you see, I can’t just say to all these eminent42 professors that I do this and that and, poof, it works! I must be able to explain how and why it works. And what is even more important, I must be ready and able to refute every destructive argument they will not fail to trot38 out, as they usually do when faced with anything really good.”
I was occasionally invited down to the laboratory to witness some new experiment, but I never went unless Andre invited me, and only talked about his work if he broached43 the subject first. Of course it never occurred to me that he would, at that stage at least, have tried an experiment with a human being; though, had I thought about it – knowing Andre – it would have been obvious that he would never have allowed anyone into the “transmitter” before he had been through to test it first. It was only after the accident that I discovered he had duplicated all his switches inside the disintegration booth, so that he could try it out by himself.
The morning Andre tried this terrible experiment, he did not show up for lunch. I sent the maid down with a tray, but she brought it back with a note she had found pinned outside the laboratory door: “Do not disturb me, I am working.”
He did occasionally pin such notes on his door and, though I noticed it, I paid no particular attention to the unusually large handwriting of his note.
It was just after that, as I was drinking my coffee, that Henri came bouncing into the room to say that he had caught a funny fly, and would I like to see it. Refusing even to look at his closed fist, I ordered him to release it immediately.
“But, Maman, it has such a funny white head!”
Marching the boy over to the open window, I told him to release the fly immediately, which he did. I knew that Henri had caught the fly merely because he thought it looked curious or different from other flies, but I also knew that his father would never stand for any form of cruelty to animals, and that there would be a fuss should he discover that our son had put a fly in a box or a bottle.
At dinnertime that evening, Andre had still not shown up and, a little worried, I ran down to the laboratory and knocked at the door.
He did not answer my knock, but I heard him moving around and a moment later he slipped a note under the door. It was typewritten:
HELENE, I AM HAVING TROUBLE. PUT THE BOY TO BED AND COME BACK IN AN HOUR’S TIME. A.
Frightened, I knocked and called, but Andre did not seem to pay any attention and, vaguely44 reassured45 by the familiar noise of his typewriter, I went back to the house.
Having put Henri to bed, I returned to the laboratory, where I found another note slipped under the door. My hand shook as I picked it up because I knew by then that something must be radically46 wrong. I read:
HELENE, FIRST OF ALL I COUNT ON YOU NOT TO LOSE YOUR NERVE OR DO ANYTHING RASH BECAUSE YOU ALONE CAN HELP ME. I HAVE HAD A SERIOUS ACCIDENT. I AM NOT IN ANY PARTICULAR DANGER FOR THE TIME BEING THOUGH IT IS A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. IT IS USELESS CALLING TO ME OR SAYING ANYTHING. I CANNOT ANSWER, I CANNOT SPEAK. I WANT YOU TO DO EXACTLY AND VERY CAREFULLY ALL THAT I ASK. AFTER HAVING KNOCKED THREE TIMES TO SHOW THAT YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE, FETCH ME A BOWL OF MILK LACED WITH RUM. I HAVE HAD NOTHING ALL DAY AND CANNOT DO WITHOUT IT.
Shaking with fear, not knowing what to think and repressing a furious desire to call Andre and bang away until he opened, I knocked three times as requested and ran all the way home to fetch what he wanted.
In less than five minutes I was back. Another note had been slipped under the door:
HELENE, FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY. WHEN YOU KNOCK I’LL OPEN THE DOOR. YOU ARE TO WALK OVER TO MY DESK AND PUT DOWN THE BOWL OF MILK. YOU WILL THEN GO INTO THE OTHER ROOM WHERE THE RECEIVER IS. LOOK CAREFULLY AND TRY TO FIND A FLY WHICH OUGHT TO BE THERE BUT WHICH I AM UNABLE TO FIND. UNFORTUNATELY I CANNOT SEE SMALL THINGS VERY EASILY.
BEFORE YOU COME IN YOU MUST PROMISE TO OBEY ME IMPLICITLY47. DO NOT LOOK AT ME AND REMEMBER THAT TALKING IS QUITE USELESS. I CANNOT ANSWER. KNOCK AGAIN THREE TIMES. AND THAT WILL MEAN I HAVE YOUR PROMISE. MY LIFE DEPENDS ENTIRELY48 ON THE HELP YOU CAN GIVE ME.
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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slitting
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| n.纵裂（缝）v.切开，撕开( slit的现在分词 )；在…上开狭长口子 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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disintegrated
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| v.（使）破裂[分裂，粉碎]，（使）崩溃( disintegrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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disintegration
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| n.分散，解体 | |
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daydreams
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| n.白日梦( daydream的名词复数 )v.想入非非，空想( daydream的第三人称单数 ) | |
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raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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sketching
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| n.草图 | |
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wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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fussy
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| adj.为琐事担忧的，过分装饰的，爱挑剔的 | |
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futile
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| adj.无效的，无用的，无希望的 | |
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moroseness
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maze
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| n.迷宫，八阵图，混乱，迷惑 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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dispersed
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| adj. 被驱散的, 被分散的, 散布的 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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fumbling
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| n. 摸索,漏接 v. 摸索,摸弄,笨拙的处理 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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budge
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| v.移动一点儿；改变立场 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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theatrically
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| adv.戏剧化地 | |
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triumphantly
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| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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cork
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| n.软木，软木塞 | |
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astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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enameled
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| 涂瓷釉于，给…上瓷漆，给…上彩饰( enamel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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trot
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| n.疾走，慢跑；n.老太婆；现成译本；(复数）trots:腹泻（与the 连用）；v.小跑，快步走，赶紧 | |
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trotting
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| 小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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broached
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| v.谈起( broach的过去式和过去分词 )；打开并开始用；用凿子扩大（或修光）；（在桶上）钻孔取液体 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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reassured
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| adj.使消除疑虑的；使放心的v.再保证，恢复信心( reassure的过去式和过去分词) | |
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radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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