It is not worth while continuing the quotation of this narrative in extenso. Suffice it to say that Mrs. Graham tended Mme. Martin’s children as devotedly as the latter did the little English ones, that both couples declared themselves charmed by the amiability of their companions in adventure, and that both households remained close friends to their dying days. Mme. Martin was still alive ten years ago, in her family home at Chambourcy (Seine-et-Oise).
The space allotted to this chapter in the general plan of this volume does not allow us to recount the analogous adventures which astonished mankind throughout that month of August, 1954.
The series of “sliced houses” was even longer than that of the “transportations.” Over one hundred couples were interchanged in this way, and the changes became a favorite theme with novelists and film writers. An element of whimsical sensuality which was much to the public’s taste continued. Besides, it was diverting to see (as it really happened) a queen waking up in a policeman’s bed, and a ballet girl in that of the President of the United States. Then the series stopped dead, and gave place to another. It looked as if the mysterious beings who amused themselves by disturbing the lives of humans were capricious, and quick to tire of their games.
THE CAGING
Early in September, the hand whose power was by now known to all the world fell upon some of the finest minds on its surface. A dozen men, nearly all chemists or physicists, men of the highest achievement, were simultaneously abstracted from different points among the civilized countries and transported to a clearing in the Forest of Fontainebleau.
A group of lads, who had come there in the early hours of the morning to climb the rocks, noticed some old men wandering forlornly among the trees. Seeing that they were in difficulties, the young men tried to approach them to offer help, but were taken aback to find themselves suddenly checked by some transparent but insurmountable resistance. They tried to find a way around the obstacle, but after making a complete circle around the clearing they realized that it was completely ringed by an invisible rampart. One of the scientists was recognized by a few of the youths as their professor, and they called him by name. He did not seem to hear them. Sound could not penetrate the barrier. The celebrated personages were there like caged beasts.
Before very long they seemed to accept the situation. They were observed to be lying down in the sunlight; and then, drawing pieces of paper from their pockets, they began scribbling mathematical formulas and arguing quite cheerfully. One of the young onlookers went off to inform the authorities, and by noon many curious spectators were beginning to come on the scene. By noon the scientists were showing signs of anxiety; they were all of advanced years, and they dragged themselves rather wearily to the edge of the ring, where, seeing that their voices were not reaching anyone, they made signs that they should be supplied with food.
A few officers were present, and one of them had what appeared to be the excellent notion of supplying the unfortunate men with supplies by airplane. A couple of hours later the drone of a motor was heard, and the pilot, passing skillfully over the circular clearing, dropped some packages of food exactly over the center. But, unfortunately, about sixty feet above the ground the packages were seen to stop in their fall, bounce back, and then were left suspended in midair. The cage had a roof composed of the same invisible radiations.
Toward nightfall the old men became desperate, signaling that they were dying of hunger and dreaded the night chills. The anguished onlookers could do nothing for them. Were they going to witness the perishing of this remarkable assemblage of great intellects?
In the pale light of the dawn it was at first thought that the situation had not changed, but closer examination showed that quite a new setting had appeared in the center of the “cage.” The invisible hand had staged things so that the packages dropped by the airplane were now suspended at the end of rope about fifteen feet above the ground, while alongside this rope hung another which actually reached the ground. To any young man it would have been an easy matter to swing himself up and reach the packages that held the hopes of safety. But unhappily there was little likelihood that any of these venerable men of learning could undertake this difficult gymnastic feat. They were seen walking around the ropes and gauging their strength, but none of them ventured further.
A whole day went by in this way. Night fell. Gradually the curious throng melted away. About midnight one young student took it into his head to ascertain whether the barrier of radiations still held. To his great surprise he found nothing barring his way, walked straight on, and uttered a cry of triumph. The cruel powers which had made men their toys for two whole days were consenting to spare their victims. The scientists were fed and warmed, and none of them succumbed.
Such are the chief facts which distinguished this period, at the time inexplicable, but which we now know to have corresponded to a period of experiments on the planet Uranus. We shall now give a few extracts, in our opinion the most interesting, from the book of the famous A.E. 17.
The reader will understand that we have been obliged to find terrestrial equivalents for the Uranian words, and the translation is only approximate. Uranian time consists of years very much longer than ours, and wherever possible we have made a transposition into terrestrial time. Furthermore, to designate ourselves the Uranians use a word which signifies, roughly, “apterous bipeds”; but this is needlessly complicated, and we have in most places substituted the words “men” or “Earth Dwellers.” Similarly, we have translated the queer word by which they designated our cities by the word “manheaps,” which gives in our view a fair suggestion of the associations of analogous ideas. Finally, the reader should not overlook the fact that the Uranian, although endowed like ourselves with the sense of sight, is ignorant of sound. Uranians communicate with each other by means of a special organ consisting of a series of small colored lamps which flash on and off. Observing that men were without this organ, and being unable to imagine speech, the Uranian naturally supposed that we were incapable of communicating our ideas to each other.
Here we can offer only a few brief excerpts from the book by A.E. 17 on Man and His Life. But we strongly advise the student to read the book in its entirety; there is an excellent school edition published with appendix and notes by Professor Fischer of Peking.
MAN AND HIS LIFE
By A.E. 17
When the surface of the small planets, particularly that of the Earth, is examined through an ordinary telescope, large stains may be noticed, more streaky in texture than those formed by a lake or ocean. If these stains are observed over a long enough period, they are seen to expand throughout several terrestrial centuries, pass through a period of maximum size, and then diminish, or even in some cases disappear. Many observers have thought that they were related to some unhealthy condition of the soil. And indeed nothing could be more like the development and reabsorption of a tumor in an organism. But with the invention of the ultratelemicroscope, it has been possible to detect that we are here confronted by an accumulation of living matter. The imperfections of the first apparatus did not allow us to see more than a confused swarming, a sort of throbbing jelly, and excellent observers, such as A. 33, then maintained that these terrestrial colonies were composed of animals joined to each other and living a common existence. With our present apparatus it is at once obvious that things are quite otherwise. The individual creatures can be clearly distinguished, and their movements can be followed. The stains observed by A. 33 are in point of fact huge nests which can almost be compared to Uranian cities and are known to us as “manheaps.”