Chapter XV: 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. Massignac'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 Massignac's assistance, of snatching 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 Massignac 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 ashore 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 passing. 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 rushing 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
accumulating. 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 airship hovering
in the sky, beyond that cloud-belt? Leaving aside the
fact that no such airship 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
space at one bound and assume 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 impassable 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 space. 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 altitude: 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 shell 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 analytical examination of the pictures
that have been or will be shown to us.

"But though I have written this report without
stopping to answer the objections and difficulties
which arise at every line, though I have been
contented myself with setting forth the logical and
almost inevitable sequence of the deductions which led
up to my theory. I should be failing in respect to the
academy and to the public if I allowed it to be
believed that I am not fully conscious of the weight
of those objections and difficulties. I did not,
however, consider this a reason for abandoning my
task. Though it be our duty to bow when science utters
a formal veto, on the other hand duty orders us to
persist when science is content merely to confess its
ignorance. This is the twofold principle which I
observed in seeking no longer the source of the
projections, but rather the manner in which they were
able to appear, for that is where the whole problem
lies. It is easy to declare that they emanate from
Venus; it is not easy to explain how they travel
through space and how they exercise their action, at a
distance of many millions of miles, on an
imperceptible screen with a surface of three or four
hundred square feet. I am confronted with physical
laws which I am not entitled to transgress. I am
entitled at most to advance where science is obliged
to be mute.

"Therefore and without any sort of discussion I admit
that we are debarred from supposing that light can be
the agent of the transmissions which have been
observed. The laws of diffraction indeed are
absolutely opposed to the strictly rectilinear
propagation of luminous rays and hence to the
formation and reception of pictures at the exceptional
distances actually under consideration. Not only are
the laws of geometrical optics merely a somewhat rough
approximation, but the complicated refractions which
would inevitably occur in the atmospheres of the earth
and Venus would disturb the optical images. The veto
of science therefore is peremptory in so far as the
possibility of these optical transmissions is
concerned.

"For that matter, I should be quite willing to believe
that the inhabitants of Venus have already tried to
correspond with us through the intermediary of
luminous signals and that, if they abandoned their
endeavours, this was precisely because the
imperfection of our human science made them useless.
We know in fact that Lowell and Schiaparelli saw on
the face of Venus brilliant specks and a transient
gleam which they themselves attributed either to
volcanic eruptions or, as is more probable, to the
attempts at communication of which I have spoken.

"But science does not prevent us from asking ourselves
whether, after the failure of these attempts, the
inhabitants of Venus did not resort to another method
of correspondence. How can we avoid thinking, for
instance, of the X-rays, whose strictly rectilinear
path would allow of the formation of pictures so clear
that one could wish for nothing better? In fact it is
not impossible that these rays are employed for the
emission received on the Meudon screen, though the
quality of the light when analyzed in the spectroscope
makes the supposition highly improbable. But how are
we to explain by means of X-rays _the taking of the
terrestrial views_ of which we saw the moving outline
on the screen? We know, of course, if we go back to
the concrete example to which I referred just now, we
know that neither the brothers Montgolfier nor the
surrounding landscape emitted X-rays. It is not
therefore through the medium of these rays that the
Venusians can have secured the instantaneous
photographs which they afterwards transmitted to us.

"Well, this exhausts all the possibilities of an
explanation which can be referred to the present data
of science. I declare positively that to-day, in this
essay, I should not have dared to venture into the
domain of theory and to suggest a solution in which my
own labours are involved, if Noel Dorgeroux had not in
a manner authorized me to do so. The fact is that,
twelve months ago, I issued a pamphlet, entitled _An
Essay on Universal Gravitation_, which fell flat on
publication, but which must have attracted Noel
Dorgeroux's particular attention, because his nephew,
Victorien Beaugrand, found my name written among his
papers and because Noel Dorgeroux cannot have known my
name except through this pamphlet. Nor would he have
taken the trouble to write it down, if the theory of
the rays of gravitation which I developed in my
pamphlet had not appeared to him to be exactly adapted
to the problem raised by his discovery?

"I will therefore ask the reader to refer to my
pamphlet. He will there find the results, vague but by
no means negligible, which I was able to explain by my
experiments with this radiation. He will see that it
is propagated in a strictly rectilinear direction and
with a speed which is thrice that of light, so that it
would not take more than 46 seconds to reach Venus at
the time when she is nearest to the earth. He will see
lastly that, though the existence of these rays,
_thanks to which universal attraction is exercised
according to the Newtonian laws_, is not yet admitted
and though I have not yet succeeded in making them
visible by means of suitable receivers, I nevertheless
give proofs of their existence which must be taken
into consideration. And Noel Dorgeroux's approval
also is a proof that they must not be neglected.

"On the other hand, we have the right to believe that,
while our poor rudimentary science may, after
centuries and centuries of efforts, have remained
ignorant of the essential factor of the equilibrium of
the planets, the Venusian scientists long since passed
this inferior stage of knowledge and that they possess
photographic receivers which allow films to be taken
by means of the rays of gravitation and this by
methods of truly wonderful perfection. They were
therefore waiting. Looking down upon our planet,
knowing all that happened here, witnessing our
helplessness, they were waiting to communicate with us
by the only means that appeared to them possible. They
were waiting, patiently and persistently, formidably
equipped, sweeping our soil with the invisible sheaves
of rays assembled in their projectors and receivers,
searching and prying into every nook and corner.

"And one day the wonderful thing happened. One day the
shaft of rays struck the layer of substance on the
screen where and where alone the spontaneous work of
chemical decomposition and immediate reconstitution
could be performed. On that day, thanks to Noel
Dorgeroux and thanks to luck, as we must confess, for
Noel Dorgeroux was pursuing an entirely different
series of experiments on that particular day, the
Venusians established the connection between the two
planets. The greatest fact in the history of the world
was accomplished.

"There is evidence even that the Venusians knew of
Noel Dorgeroux's earlier experiments, that they
realized their importance, that they interested
themselves in his labours and that they followed the
events of his life, for it is now many years since
they took the pictures showing how his son Dominique
was killed in the war. But I will not recapitulate in
detail each of the films displayed at Meudon. This is
a work which anybody can now perform in the light of
the theory which I am setting forth. But we must
consider attentively the process by which the
Venusians tried to give those films a sort of
uniformity. It has been rightly said that the sign of
the Three Eyes is a trade-mark, like the mark of any
of our great cinematograph-producers, a trade-mark
also very strikingly proves the superhuman resources
possessed by the Venusians, since they succeed in
giving to those Three Eyes, which have no relation to
our human eyes, not only the expression of our eyes
but something much more impressive, the expression of
the eyes of the person destined to be the principal
character in the film.

"But why was this particular mark chosen? Why eyes and
why three? At the stage which we have now reached,
need we answer this question? The Venusians themselves
have furnished the reply by showing us that apparently
absurd film in which Shapes assuredly lived and moved
in our sight in accordance with the lines and
principle of Venusian life. Were we not the breathless
spectators of a picture taken among them and from
them? Did we not behold, to make a companion picture
to the death of Louis XVI, an incident representing
the martyrdom of some great personage whom the
executioners tore to pieces with their _three_ hands,
severing from his body a sort of shapeless head
provided with _three_ eyes?

"Three Hands! Three Eyes! Dare I, on the strength of
this fragile basis, go beyond what we saw and declare
that the Venusian possesses the complete symmetry of
the triangle, just as man, with his two eyes, his two
ears and his two arms, possesses bilateral symmetry?
Shall I try to explain his method of progressing by
successive distentions and of moving vertically along
_vertical_ streets, in towns built _perpendicularly_?
Shall I have the courage to state, as I believe, that
he is provided with organs which give him a magnetic
sense, a sense of space, an electric sense and so on,
organs numbered by threes? No. These are details with
which the Venusian scientists will supply us on the
day when it pleases them to enter into correspondence
with us.

"And, believe me, they will not fail to do so. All
their efforts for centuries past have been directed
towards this object. 'Let us talk,' they will say to
us soon as they must have said to Noel Dorgeroux and
as they no doubt succeeded in doing with him. It must
have been a stirring conversation, from which the
great seer derived such power and certainty that it is
to him that I will refer, before concluding, in order
to add to the discussion the two positive proofs which
he himself tried to write at the foot of the screen
during the few seconds of his death-struggle, a
twofold declaration made by the man, who in departing
this life, _knew_:

"'B-ray. . . . B E R G E . . .'

"When thus expressing his supreme belief in the
B-rays, Noel Dorgeroux no longer indicated that
unknown radiation which he had once imagined to
explain the phenomena of the screen and which would
have consisted of the materialization of pictures born
within and projected by ourselves. More far-seeing,
better-informed as the result of his experiments,
abandoning moreover his attempt to connect the new
facts with the action of the solar heat which he had
so often utilized, he plainly indicated those rays of
gravitation of whose existence he had learnt through
my pamphlet and also perhaps through his
communications with the Venusians, those rays which
are habitually employed by them in the same manner as
that in which the light-rays are employed by the
humblest photographer.

"And the five letters B E R G E are not the first two
syllables of the word Bergeronnette. That was the
fatal error of which Berangere Massignac was the
victim. They form the word _Berger_, complete all but
the last letter. At the moment of his death, in his
already overshadowed brain, Noel Dorgeroux, in order
to name Venus, could find no other expression than
_l'Etoile du Berger_, the Shepherd's Star; and his
enfeebled hand was able to write only the first few
letters. The proof therefore is absolute. _The man who
knew_ had time to tell the essential part of what he
knew: _by means of the rays of gravitation, the
Shepherd's Star sends its living messages to the
earth_.

"If we accept the successive deductions stated in this
preliminary essay, which I trust will one day prove to
be in a manner a replica of the report stolen from
Noel Dorgeroux, there still remain any number of
points concerning which we possess not a single
element of truth. What is the form of the recording-
and projecting-apparatus employed by the Venusians? By
what prodigious machinery do they obtain a perfect
fixity in the projections between two stars each
animated with such complicated movements in space (at
present we know of seventeen in the earth alone)? And,
to consider only what is close at hand, what is the
nature of the screen employed for the Meudon
projections? What is that dark-grey substance with
which it is coated? How is that substance composed?
How is it able to reconstruct the pictures? These are
so many questions which our scientific attainments are
incapable of solving. But at least we have no right to
pronounce them insoluble; and I will go farther and
declare that it is our duty to study them by all the
means which the public authorities are bound to place
at our disposal. This M. Massignac is said to have
disappeared from sight. Let the opportunity be seized,
let the Meudon Amphitheatre be declared national
property! It is out of the question that an individual
should, to the detriment of all mankind, remain the
sole possessor of such tremendous secrets and have it
in his power, if he please and in obedience to a mere
whim, to destroy them for all time. The thing cannot
be allowed. Before many days have elapsed we must
enter into unbroken relations with the inhabitants of
Venus. They will tell us the age-old history of our
past, reveal to us the great problems which they have
elucidated and assist us to benefit by the conquests
of a civilization beside which our own as yet seems
nothing but confusion, ignorance, the lisping of babes
and the stammering of savages. . . ."