Nora, The Ape-Woman Page 15

  “Evidently; while other creatures accomplish the act in accordance with the invariable ritual imposed on them by the great law of the conservation of the species, and such as primitive humans must have accomplished it, outside what we call morality and modesty, as humans have become more refined, more intellectual, they have sought to spiritualize the sexual act, garlanding it with all the flowers of dream and poetry, just as they have sought by any means possible to prolong its brevity by means of various refinements. Futile efforts; the effects continue, but the end is still the same, and if the denouement is postponed, it merely out of politeness, of the male for his partner. Otherwise, the act accomplished, he would turn his back and ask for nothing except to sleep...”

  “Well, what do you think of this fellow, Mesdames? He accords very little importance to our little naked god.”

  “Oh, these scientists,” sighed the Célimène. “They’re atrocious destroyers of illusions; they have to submit everything to their need for analysis.” She turned to the Academician. “How preferable I find your delicate speech, my dear Master, always so full of unexpected charms, to that glacial anatomy of our passions!”

  “But I share your taste, Mesdames!” replied Jean Fortin. “If the illustrious Master Ernest Paris had not, so to speak, forced me to do it, I would have carefully refrained from removing the rose petals with which you ornament the sex organ of our god.”

  As was his habit, Ernest Paris launched forth on another theme: “The concrete form of beauty is a beautiful woman’s body. All poets of all times have celebrated it, we vary the formulae to infinity, with disconcerting fantasy. What is eulogized in one country seems monstrous in another. We adopt similes that are sometimes ludicrous, saying of a woman that she has the eyes of a gazelle, the neck of a swan, shoulders of marble, pearly teeth and I don’t know how many stupidities of that sort, realizing, in thought, how ridiculous that ensemble is.

  “On the other hand, an Arab says, in forging a gallantry, that a woman has a cow’s eyes. Make that compliment among us and you’d pass for a fool. So goes the world. The terms of praise with which we surround beauty prove that it is only a sort of ideal that we associate with our individual taste. We have adopted, as the most perfect feminine form, the antique Venus. Well, clothe the Venus de Milo in one of your dresses, and see whether she corresponds to the slim tomboy fashionable today...

  “At any rate, the type-specimen of beauty varies according to fashion, and, amazingly, the female body models itself in accordance with the multiple variations of that fashion; the breasts stand out or don’t; the waist, once as narrow as the neck, no longer exists; the hips become slim or prominent; even the color of the skin is modified; have you not seen, in the summer months, the youngest and prettiest girls resembling redskins? The eyes are made up, the lips rouged, the jaws ornamented with gold, and even diamonds; where, then, in all that, is true beauty? Conclusion: it’s conventional.

  “Phidias and Praxiteles, in sculpting their masterpieces, probably followed the fashion of their time; the sole fault of ours is that artists, by virtue of an excess of modesty, dare not paint the contemporary nude as they see it, and continue to obey tradition. It’s true that there are others who, by virtue of a horror of convention, fall into the contrary excess, and paint or sculpt feminine figures for us that one would only take hold of with tongs. Among painters, there’s only one that I admire: Prud’hon.47 No one has penetrated female charm between than him. There’s nothing as pretty as a woman’s derrière; it’s the most essential and charming part of the feminine body.

  “In that it’s where the wastes are expelled,” said Fortin, brutally.

  Ernest Paris detested anyone undermining his oratorical effects; he pretended not to have heard the doctor’s remark and continued his speech:

  “I’ve always loved women greatly, and I confess that, in my youth, I preferred quantity to quality; all women made me desirous. But I had a preference for shopgirls, because those young persons are almost always fresh and pretty, and have the habit of smiling and being amiable. I loved them, similarly, because of their attire, very tasteful, because they have the sense of being ‘well-dressed,’ of what harmonizes best with their type of beauty. I also loved them for the ingenuity of their little hearts. And I was full of fire... God, how good it was!”

  “Is it no longer as good, dear Master?” asked Nora. “Do our contemporaries not measure up to them?”

  “Aah! Prettiest of the pretty, you touch a delicate point there. Yes, certainly, you’re all as desirable, but it me who can no longer, as you put it, measure up. Fortunately, science”—he tapped Jean Fortin on the shoulder—“promises us a new Youth. Progress marches forward, and humanity follows it, singing. And yet, I have sometimes railed against that unfortunate progress!”

  “Why, Master, you who are one of its torches?”

  “Because, in progressing, we have become less resigned, more apt to suffer. Civilization has not aided us to tolerate, nor to hope, because it shows us the reality in all its hideousness. Reflection causes me to regret the past, because the past was youth, and because your progress, in spite of its inventions, acquisitions and multiplied knowledge, in spite of the telephone, aviation, wireless telegraphy, etc., reminds me that I am of a time when all that does not exist, and when no one any longer thinks it bad, and I cannot see that we have replaced, in the moral domain, that which sustained our ancestors...”

  “Excuse me,” said Doctor Fortin, but I’ve lingered longer in your agreeable company than I should, and I’m expected...”

  And after the final handshake, the scientist made his exit.

  In his turn, Ernest Paris took his leave. Nora escorted him to the door.

  “How long the time will seem to me, Master, without seeing you.”

  “Be certain, young friend, that I shall come back as soon as possible, but the ceremony in Stockholm might retain me for some time. I can’t decently pocket a rather large sum and run away like a thief. I anticipate a series of galas that I would have preferred to avoid.”

  He put his arm around the young woman and felt her small breasts.

  “And you know, Nora, this Nobel Prize, or at least the sum it represents, will be for you, even though I know that, probably, the communist comrades are already counting on it. Better that it should be you, so dainty, so genteel, who will profit from it. Oh, Nora, delicious idol, you will be my last and dearest amour!”

  And that was said in good faith, without any thought of a double meaning.

  After a warm kiss, the illustrious man drew away, with a lively hope in his white head, of April youth and new sap.

  XVII. The Inferno of Apes

  At the Voronoff Institute, the personnel and chiefs of service were all exhausted. They had been forewarned of the visit of Ernest Paris, and from the first to the last, from the director of the hospital to the humblest orderly, they all wanted to be noticed by the celebrated writer, sensing that a little of his glory might be reflected on them.

  There was, however, one place in the establishment where the general enthusiasm had no echo; that was in the hall of Dr. Voronoff’s simian inmates. Was it instinct, or a veritable consciousness of what lay in store for them? Either way, a somber anxiety weighed upon the souls of the great apes.

  A great deal has been written about the words instinct and intelligence. Some, in that problem of ideas, leave intelligence to humans and instinct to the other animals. More noble in essence, intelligence is the aristocracy of souls; instinct is the proletariat—but in the same way that every aristocracy has its source in the people, instinct has its own in nature; hence the supremacy of instinct over certain phenomena that intelligence cannot foresee, but which instinct perceives, and which certain minds still primitive call presentiment.

  Examining the matter carefully, there are few people who have not felt, at least once in their life, that impression of anguish at the approach of an ominous event, or when a beloved individual is in danger. Women, it i
s affirmed, are more subject to such phenomena than men, and the closer a soul is to a simplistic condition, the more occult intuitions it receives. Thus, the animal that is the most simplistic of creatures is the best prepared for prescience of what is about to happen to it. That is why rats are seen to quit a vessel bound for shipwreck, or a house doomed to a conflagration. The sensibility of insects is even greater, since it enables them to anticipate, not merely danger, but the phases of their metamorphosis

  Thus, anxiety reigned among the apes, all the more so because, in them, instinct is combined with the gift of observation. They arrived from Little Borneo, the Paradise of Apes on the Riviera, in a narrow and low cage adapted to their size: a “clog.” That was the name given to the boxes in which, for the necessities of the journey, the apes were imprisoned. From the clog the apes passed, in Paris, into the cages of the Institute. Alas, they were no longer the green prisons lost in foliage beneath the warm sun of the Midi. At Auteuil there were comfortable cells, but they were devoid of verdure, and they were warmed by central heating. There was no longer a disguise of liberty, but naked slavery, the hand of force overcoming weakness.

  That change in their existence was combined with observation. Simians are close enough to human for their minds to be capable of a certain measure of comparison. In the interval of their fairly extensive growth, they had seen many of their fellows leave the refuge and come back. Having left in good health, joyful, and above all amorous, they returned sad, and torpid, gazing with a kind of tragic melancholy at the gallant exploits of their fellow. Sometimes, reminiscences seemed to inspire them, but without any appreciable result. Thus, those unfortunates returned as creatures disappointed in life, for whom existence had no other objective than death; while the others bounded, intoxicated by joy and erotic folly, they contemplated them, seeming to say: brother it’s necessary to die!

  Well, Voronoff’s boarders had the instinct, the presentiment, that they were destined for a mysterious operation, which would make them invalids of amour, like those who returned to the Paradise of Apes, which had become their Purgatory.

  Dr. Goldry had sensed that impression in his pupils, and that is why he had, after a time, had a new building constructed, named the Invalids’ Hospital. It was in the laboratory of that building than Jean Fortin worked on his renovation of the sexes—which is to say, the artificial culture of different organs. We know already that the scientific genius in question—aided by Marc Vanel, Homo-Deus—had realized the culture of arterial blood, and then that of the creative molecule. Now, they were studying the strange properties of glands, suspecting that the predominant force in all creatures resided therein.

  Among the animals destined for the work of rejuvenation by grafting were two chimpanzees already seen at Eze during Georges Clemenceau’s visit to the Paradise of Apes: Romeo and Juliet.

  The situation had changed considerably for them. The two apes, since their arrival at the Voronoff Institute in Auteuil, had been living in an indefinable anguish. What was about to happen? They could not define it, but they sensed that they were on the eve of a catastrophe. So, the cheerfulness of old had been succeeded by a kind of bewilderment. They spent the day in one another’s arms, huddling together in terror, but without any attempt at love-making—and yet, as Fortin had said, Romeo was an “ace” among chimpanzees.

  At nine o’clock an hour before the arrival of Ernest Paris, who had announced his visit for ten o’clock, the preparations for the operation began. Dr. Fortin and four orderlies came into the cage, after having brought the clog, with its door open, to transport the ape. At the sight of the five men, the two chimpanzees, horrified, hugged one another frantically.

  “Don’t be afraid, my old Romeo,” said Fortin, stroking the animal’s head gently. “There’s a bad moment to get through, but you, at least, won’t have the fate of your old pals. You’re going to become a man again, and you’ll be able to embrace your Juliet. Come on! Courage and patience! Be reasonable, then, Juliet, since I’m going to return your Romeo to you in good condition.”

  But the two spouses seemed disinclined to yield to the doctor’s arguments, and when hands were laid upon them in order to separate them, they started howling and opening their mouths menacingly. Then, at a sign from Fortin, the orderlies threw thick woolen covers over the heads of the two apes, and while the doctor and one of the orderlies held Juliet back, the other three tore Romeo from her arms—which was not done without difficulty, as Romeo fought with his four hands. Victory went with strength, however, and the poor chimpanzee was stuffed into the clog, thus reduced to impotence.

  When the great ape had been picked up and taken to the operating theater, the doctor and his aide released Juliet and beat a rapid retreat. When the she-ape had got rid of the hood that was stifling her, she remained immobile for a moment, looking around the cage anxiously. Then, when she saw that she was alone, there was a terrible despair. She circled her prison, uttering frightful cries, to which all the residents of the menagerie responded. Then she leapt at the bars, biting them with rage, until, exhausted, she let herself fall on the floor, rolled herself up into a ball, and did not budge again. But her piteous eyes, fixed on the doctor—safely out of reach beyond the bars—seemed to be addressing a mute reproach to him.

  “Patience, patience, my girl! Your Romeo will be back, in as good a state as when I took him away, and perhaps…well, one day, we’ll see...”

  And Fortin rejoined his aides in the operating theater. At a sign from him, the clog was placed in the inhalation chamber, where an anesthetic would put the victim to sleep; it was a square box with a grille on one of its faces; the chloroform was introduced into it through a tube that terminated in a funnel inside the box. A mobile panel slid behind the grille and the narcotic took effect; the operator followed the progress of the drug from behind a small square window, and when the patient was sufficiently paralyzed, the box was opened and the animal taken out of his clog.

  That was what was done for Romeo, and a few minutes later, he was solidly attached to the operating table. Immediately, the practitioners took possession of the subject; from that moment on, the chimpanzee was nothing more than inert matter in the hands of the operators, who devoted themselves to all the necessary manipulations, painlessly.

  First the ape was carefully shaved from the navel to the middle of his thighs, washed and rubbed with the greatest care, initially with a mixture of soap and carbonate, rinsed and washed again with alcohol.

  Toward the end of these operations Romeo had woken up, but, still numbed by the narcotic, he looked around unconsciously.

  The parts on which the operation was to take place were anesthetized by injections. Then, the animal was ready; the man could take his spoils from the ape.

  Dr. Fortin cast a last glance over the final preparations, rectified a few details, and then, certain that everything was perfect, he went out to receive Ernest Paris, accompanied by Dr. Voronoff.

  Romeo remained alone, delivered to vague and sad obscure meditations.

  XVIII. Ernest Paris’s Graft

  That morning Ernest Paris, who had slept badly, preoccupied as he was with his operation, had gone back to sleep again. Pédauque came to wake him up, accompanied by Narcisse, who, in accordance with the agreements made the day before, was to reside in the Villa Saïd until the Master’s return.

  “Well.” said the orangutan, “how do you feel today?”

  “Hmm! I don’t really know. What time is it, then?”

  “Nine o’clock, Master, and you need to be at Voronoff’s clinic by ten.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. Damn! It’s just that I don’t feel very well, my friend. If you were to telephone…to say that I’m ill…and...”

  No, my dear Master. Since yesterday, it’s been decided. You can’t back out now. I’ve just left the Institute. Everything is ready to receive you. Romeo is waiting for you!”

  “Oh, the poor fellow! Tell me, Narcisse, do I really have the right to deprive one o
f my fellows of that which is dearest to his heart?”

  “You need have no remorse; it’s only a loan that you’re accepting from him. Doctor Fortin is almost certain that he can restore, with interest, that which he’s lending to you.”

  Fortin’s name reminded Ernest Paris of the conversation of the day before, at Nora’s, and a slight frisson ran down his spine.

  “Ah, that damned Dr. Fortin! I wouldn’t like to have him for an enemy. I’ve known him for a long time, and I’ve always thought him somewhat diabolical.”

  “And yet, you don’t believe in God or the Devil.”

  “But when one sees types like him and that Marc Vanel, one is very tempted to believe...”

  “Oh, with Dr. Fortin anything is possible. Am I not the proof of it? But my dear Master, it’s necessary to hurry; time’s passing...”

  “Time’s passing! Isn’t that its métier, to pass! That’s all it’s made for!”

  “Come on, Master, be brave! It would be shameful to back out now. Think about your friend Lemay. He didn’t hesitate, and he’s congratulating himself for it every day.”

  “Lemay! That’s true. He was less windy than me. To us the crazy nights of intoxication...a jewel…sixteen years old…a flower... I’m getting up, Narcisse, I’m getting up! Hand me my trousers, please.”

  And, indeed, Ernest Paris arrived at Serge Voronoff’s clinic at half past ten; he was only half an hour late.

  The illustrious surgeon, flanked by Fortin and Vanel, was waiting for him on the threshold of the vestibule. All the medical students and employees surrounded the Maters, which gave an air of regality to the reception, by which the Academician was flattered. Ernest Paris drew himself up to his full height, and bowed gracefully to the right and the left.