The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858

V >> Various >> The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858

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"I am here. Question me.

"LEEUWENHOEK."

I was, astounded. The name was identical with that I had written
beneath the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at
all probable that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know
even the name of the great father of microscopies. It may have been
Biology; but this theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on
my slip--still concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes--a series of
questions, which, to avoid tediousness, I shall place with the
responses in the order in which they occurred.

I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?

SPIRIT.--Yes.

I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?

SPIRIT.--You are.

I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
which you bear to science, help me!

SPIRIT.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
form the universal lens.

I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?

SPIRIT.--So great, that all that has gone before is as nothing.

I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
surmounted?

SPIRIT.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called. Good night!

I cannot at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No
biological theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The
medium might, by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have
gone so far as to read my questions, and reply to them coherently.
But Biology could not enable her to discover that magnetic currents
would so alter the crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous
defects, and admit of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some
such theory may have passed through my head, it is true, but if so,
I had forgotten it. In my excited condition of mind there was no
course left but to become a convert, and it was in a state of the
most painful nervous exultation that I left the medium's house that
evening. She accompanied me to the door, hoping that I was satisfied.
The raps followed us as we went through the hall, sounding on the
balusters, the flooring, and even the lintels of the door. I hastily
expressed my satisfaction, and escaped hurriedly into the cool night
air. I walked home with but one thought possessing me,--how to
obtain a diamond of the immense size required. My entire means
multiplied a hundred times over would have been inadequate to its
purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become historical. I
could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or European monarchs.

IV.

THE EYE OF MORNING.

There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his
sitting-room unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me,
over a carcel lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some
object which he held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly,
thrust his hand into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face
crimson with confusion.

"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."

Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.

"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."

This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as
if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some
incoherent words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually
kept his liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too
preoccupied with my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.

"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
continued, "Simon, she told me wonderful things tonight, or rather
was the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only
get a diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"

Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon my
lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
savagely, and rushing to the mantel-piece, where some foreign weapons
hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it
furiously before him.

"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited.
"No! you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted
with that demon, and desire my treasure! But I will die first! Me! I
am brave! You cannot make me fear!"

All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement,
astounded me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon
the edges of Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to
reassure him.

"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult with her on a scientific
problem, to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the
size I just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during
the evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What
can be the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of
valuable diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me.
The diamond which I require you could not possess; or if you did
possess it, you would not be living here."

Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my
movements. He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he
was at certain moments subject to a species of vertigo, which
betrayed itself in incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed
off as rapidly as they came. He put his weapon aside while making
this explanation, and endeavored, with some success, to assume a
more cheerful air.

All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much
accustomed to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I
determined to probe the mystery to the bottom.

"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vongeot_ down-stairs,
fragrant with the odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Cote d'Or.
Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"

"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.

I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of a
famous vintage, that of 1818, a year when war and wine throve
together, and its pure, but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
while I remained calm as ever, only that every draught seemed to
send a flush of vigor through my limbs. Simon's utterance became
more and more indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a
not very moral tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the
conclusion of one of those incoherent verses, and fixing my eyes on
him with a quiet smile, said:

"Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret this evening. You
may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather, one of her
spirits, told me all."

He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to
fade away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a
short time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.

"Monster!" he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"

"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell
me all about it."

The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin
earnestness that I was entirely mistaken,--that I was intoxicated;
then asked me to swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the
mystery to me. I pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy
look in his eyes, and hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he
drew a small case from his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the
mild lamp-light was shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it
fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the case! I was no
judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem of rare
size and purity. I looked at Simon with wonder, and--must I confess
it?--with envy. How could he have obtained this treasure? In reply
to my questions, I could just gather from his drunken statements
(of which, I fancy, half the incoherence was affected) that he had
been superintending a gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in
Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a diamond, but, instead
of informing his employers, had quietly watched the negro until he
saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up, and fled with it,
but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose of it publicly,--
so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too much attention
to its owner's antecedents,--and he had not been able to discover
any of those obscure channels by which such matters are conveyed
away safely. He added, that, in accordance with Oriental practice,
he had named his diamond by the fanciful title of "The Eye of Morning."

While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the
glories of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in
its crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was
exactly one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence.
The hand of Destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the
spirit of Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the
microscope, the priceless means which he directs me to employ start
up within my easy reach! I determined, with the most perfect
deliberation, to possess myself of Simon's diamond.

I sat opposite him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered,
or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
taken,--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a hide
peddling Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human
beings are taken every day from the condemned prisons to be
experimented on by surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own
confession a criminal, a robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer.
He deserved death quite as much as any felon condemned by the laws;
why should I not, like government, contrive that his punishment
should contribute to the progress of human knowledge?

The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
There stood upon the mantel-piece a bottle half full of French
laudanum. Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just
restored to him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his
glass. In a quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.

I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket
in which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I
laid him so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed
myself of the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while
with the other I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation
the exact locality of the heart. It was essential that all the
aspects of his death should lead to the surmise of self-murder. I
calculated the exact angle at which it was probable that the weapon,
if levelled by Simon's own hand, would enter his breast; then with
one powerful blow I thrust it up to the hilt in the very spot which
I desired to penetrate. A convulsive thrill ran through Simon's limbs.
I heard a smothered sound issue from his throat, precisely like the
bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up by a diver, when it reaches
the surface of the water; he turned half round on his side, and as if
to assist my plans more effectually, his right hand, moved by some
more spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle of the creese, which it
remained holding with extraordinary muscular tenacity. Beyond this
there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum, I presume, paralyzed
the usual nervous action. He must have died instantaneously.

There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be
found in the morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and
afterwards escape myself? Not by the window; that was a physical
impossibility. Besides, I was determined that the windows also
should he found bolted. The solution was simple enough. I descended
softly to my own room for a peculiar instrument which I had used for
holding small slippery substances, such as minute spheres of glass,
etc. This instrument was nothing more than a long slender hand-vice,
with a very powerful grip, and a considerable leverage, which last
was accidentally owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was
simpler than, when the key was in the lock, to seize the end of its
stem in this vice, through the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock
the door. Previously, however, to doing this, I burned a number of
papers on Simon's hearth. Suicides almost always burn papers before
they destroy themselves. I also emptied some more laudanum into
Simon's glass,--having first removed from it all traces of wine,--
cleaned the other wine-glass, and brought the bottles away with me.
If traces of two persons drinking had been found in the room, the
question naturally would have arisen, Who was the second? Besides,
the wine-bottles might have been identified as belonging to me. The
laudanum I poured out to account for its presence in his stomach, in
case of _post-mortem_ examination. The theory naturally would be
that he first intended to poison himself, but, after swallowing a
little of the drug, was either disgusted with its taste, or changed
his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger. These
arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked the
door with my vice, and went to bed.

Simon's death was not discovered until nearly three in the afternoon.
The servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning,--the light
streaming on the dark landing from under the door, peeped through
the keyhole and saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door
was burst open, and the neighborhood was in a fever of excitement.

Every one in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
inquest; but no clue to his death, beyond that of suicide, could be
obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his
friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction.
One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that
"he was tired of life." His landlord affirmed, that Simon, when
paying him his last month's rent, remarked that "he would not pay
him rent much longer." All the other evidence corresponded, the door
locked inside, the position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I
anticipated, no one knew of the possession of the diamond by Simon,
so that no motive was suggested for his murder. The jury, after a
prolonged examination, brought in the usual verdict, and the
neighborhood once more settled down into its accustomed quiet.

V.

ANIMULA

The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and
day to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast, galvanic battery,
composed of nearly two thousand pairs of plates,--a higher power I
dared not use, lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this
enormous engine I was enabled to send a powerful current of
electricity continually through my great diamond, which it seemed to
me gained in lustre every day. At the expiration of a month I
commenced the grinding and polishing of the lens, a work of intense
toil and exquisite delicacy. The great density of the stone, and the
care required to be taken with the curvatures of the surfaces of the
lens, rendered the labor the severest and most harassing that I had
yet undergone.

At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready
to be placed upon its platform, my hand fairly shook as I enveloped
a drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory
to its examination--a process necessary in order to prevent the
rapid evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip
of glass under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid
of a prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my
eye to the minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an
instant I saw nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a
vast luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and
seemingly limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently,
and with the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hairs'
breadths. The wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens
approached the object, a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded
to my view.

I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated
the entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of
animalculous life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that
dazzling expanse. I comprehended instantly, that, by the wondrous
power of my lens, I had penetrated beyond the grosser particles of
aqueous matter, beyond the realms of Infusoria and Protozoa, down to
the original gaseous globule, into whose luminous interior I was
gazing, as into an almost boundless dome filled with a supernatural
radiance.

It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every
side I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and
colored with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the
appearance of what might be called, for want of a more specific
definition, foliated clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they
undulated and broke into vegetable formations, and were tinged with
splendors compared with which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is
as dross compared with gold. Far away into the illimitable distance
stretched long avenues of these gaseous forests, dimly transparent,
and painted with prismatic hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The
pendent branches waved along the fluid glades until every vista
seemed to break through half-lucent ranks of many-colored drooping
silken pennons. What seemed to be either fruits or flowers, pied
with a thousand hues lustrous and ever varying, bubbled from the
crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no lakes, no rivers, no
forms animate or inanimate were to be seen, save those vast auroral
copses that floated serenely in the luminous stillness, with leaves
and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown fires, unrealizable by
mere imagination.

How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned to
solitude! I had hoped, at least, to discover some new form of animal
life,--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at
present acquainted,--but still, some living organism. I find my
newly discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic
desert.

While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more at
tentively, and found that I was not mistaken. Words cannot depict
the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer approach of this
mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate substance, held in
suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the globule? or was it an
animal endowed with vitality and motion? It approached, flitting
behind the gauzy, colored veils of cloud-foliage, for seconds dimly
revealed, then vanishing. At last the violet pennons that trailed
nearest to me vibrated; they were gently pushed aside, and the form
floated out into the broad light.

It was a female human shape. When I say "human," I mean it possessed
the outlines of humanity,--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable
beauty lifted it inimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of
Adam.

I cannot, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
serene, evade my words. Her long lustrous hair following her
glorious head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a
falling star, seems to quench my most burning phrases with its
splendors. If all the bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would
still sing but hoarsely the wondrous harmonies of outline that
enclosed her form.

She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees
into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those
of some graceful Naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the
clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She
floated forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending
through the still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of
her limbs formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening
to the most spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the
harmonious flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure cheaply
purchased at any price. What cared I, if I had waded to the portal
of this wonder through another's blood? I would have given my own to
enjoy one such moment of intoxication and delight.

Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
microscope eagerly,--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that
lay beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from
prism sparkled on a colorless drop of water! There, in that tiny
bead of dew, this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet
Neptune was not more distant from me than she. I hastened once more
to apply my eye to the microscope.

Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached
the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one
of the trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process,
with which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on
its summit, and sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula.
The sylph took it in her delicate hand, and began to eat. My
attention was so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply
myself to the task of determining whether this singular plant was or
was not instinct with volition.

I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful
eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not
have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that
luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple
and gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement,
she suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then
cleaving the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash
of light, pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.

Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was
still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this
sudden disappearance? Had she a lover, or a husband? Yes, that was
the solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated
through the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.

The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion,
startled me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced
upon me. I battled against the fatal conclusion--but in vain. It was
so. I had no escape from it. I loved an animalcule!

It is true, that, thanks to the marvellous power of my microscope,
she appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the
revolting aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle
and die, in the more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop,
she was fair and delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what
account was all that? Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the
instrument, it fell on a miserable drop of water, within which, I
must be content to know, dwelt all that could make my life lovely.

Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the
mystical walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper
all that filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest
of my life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be
something to have established even the faintest personal link to
bind us together--to know that at times, when roaming through those
enchanted glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had
broken the monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle
memory in her heart!

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