CHAPTER XII
HIS INTERVIEW WITH HERR GROSSMANN
I
Crashaw must have suffered greatly just at that time; and theanticipation of his defeat by the Committee was made still more bitterby the wonderful visit of Herr Grossmann. It is true that that visitfeebly helped Crashaw's cause at the moment by further enlisting thesympathies and strenuous endeavour of the Nonconformist Purvis; but noeffort of the ex-mayor could avail to upset the majority of the LocalEducation Authority and the grocer, himself, was not a person acceptableto Crashaw. The two men were so nearly allied by their manner of thoughtand social origin; and Crashaw instinctively flaunted the splendidthrone of his holy office, whenever he and Purvis were together. Purviswas what the rector might have described as an ignorant man. It is afact that, until Crashaw very fully and inaccurately informed him, hehad never even heard of Hugo Grossmann.
In that conversation between Crashaw and Purvis, the celebrated GermanProfessor figured as the veritable Anti-Christ, the Devil's personalrepresentative on earth; but Crashaw was not a safe authority on Scienceand Philosophy.
Herr Grossmann's world-wide reputation was certainly not won in thefield of religious controversy. He had not at that time reached thepinnacle of achievement which placed him so high above his brilliantcontemporaries, and now presents him as the unique figure andrepresentative of twentieth-century science. But his very considerablecontributions to knowledge had drawn the attention of Europe for tenyears, and he was already regarded by his fellow-scientists with thatmixture of contempt and jealousy which inevitably precedes the world'sacceptance of its greatest men.
Sir Deane Elmer, for example, was a generous and kindly man; he hadnever been involved in any controversy with the professional scientistswhose ground he continually encroached upon, and yet he could not hearthe name of Grossmann without frowning. Grossmann had the German vice ofthoroughness. He took up a subject and exhausted it, as far as ispossible within the limits of our present knowledge; and his monographon Heredity had demonstrated with a detestable logic that much ofElmer's treatise on Eugenics was based on evidence that must be viewedwith the gravest suspicion. Not that Grossmann had directly attackedthat treatise; he had made no kind of reference to it in his own book;but his irrefutable statements had been quoted by every reviewer of"Eugenics" who chanced to have come across the English translation of"Heredity and Human Development," to the confounding of Elmer's somewhattoo optimistic prophecies concerning the possibility of breeding a racethat should approximate to a physical and intellectual perfection.
And it happened that Elmer met Grossmann at an informal gathering ofmembers of the Royal Society a few days after the examination of theWonder in the Challis Court Library. Herr Grossmann was delivering animpromptu lecture on the limits of variation from the normal type, whenElmer came in and joined the group of the great Professor's listeners,every one of whom was seeking some conclusive argument to confute theirguest's overwhelmingly accurate collation of facts.
Elmer realised instantly that his opportunity had come at last. Helistened patiently for a few minutes to the flow of the German'sargument, and then broke in with a loud exclamation of dissent. All thelearned members of the Society turned to him at once, with a movement ofprofound relief and expectation.
"You said what?" asked Grossmann with a frown of great annoyance.
Elmer thrust out his lower lip and looked at his antagonist with theexpression of a man seeking a vital spot for the coup de grace.
"I said, Herr Professor," Elmer returned, "that there are exceptionswhich confound your argument."
"For example?" Grossmann said, putting his hands behind him and gentlynodding his head like a tolerant schoolmaster awaiting the inevitableconfusion of the too intrepid scholar.
"Christian Heinecken?" suggested Elmer.
"Ah! You have not then read my brochure on certain abnormalitiesreported in history?" Grossmann said, and continued, "Mr. Aylmer, is itnot? To whom I am speaking? Yes? We have met, I believe, once inLeipzig. I thought so. But in my brochure, Mr. Aylmer, I have examinedthe Heinecken case and shown my reasons to regard it as not so departingfrom the normal."
Elmer shook his head. "Your reasons are not valid, Herr Professor," hesaid and held up a corpulent forefinger to enforce Grossmann's furtherattention. "They seemed convincing at the time, I admit, but this newprodigy completely upsets your case."
"Eh! What is that? What new prodigy?" sneered Grossmann; and two orthree savants among the little ring of listeners, although they had notthat perfect confidence in Elmer which would have put them at ease,nodded gravely as if they were aware of the validity of his instance.
Elmer blew out his cheeks and raised his eyebrows. "Ah! you haven'theard of him!" he remarked with a rather fleshy surprise. "Victor Stott,you know, son of a professional cricketer, protege of Henry Challis, theanthropologist. Oh! you ought to investigate that case, Herr Professor.It is most remarkable, most remarkable."
"Ach! What form does the abnormality take?" asked Grossmannsuspiciously, and his tone made it clear that he had little confidencein the value of any report made to him by such an observer as Sir DeaneElmer.
"I can't pretend to give you anything like a full account of it," Elmerreturned. "I have only seen the child once. But, honestly, HerrProfessor, you cannot use that brochure of yours in any future argumentuntil you have investigated this case of young Stott. It confutes you."
"I can see him, then?" Grossmann asked, frowning. In that company hecould not afford to decline the challenge that had been thrown down.There were, at least, five men present who would, he believed,immediately conduct the examination on their own account, should herefuse the opportunity; men who would not fail to use their material forthe demolition of that pamphlet on the type of abnormality, moreparticularly represented by the amazing precocity of ChristianHeinecken.
To the layman such an attack may seem a small matter, and likely to havelittle effect on such a reputation as that already won by HugoGrossmann; and it should be explained that in the Professor's great workon "Heredity and Human Development," an essential argument was based onthe absence of any considerable _progressive_ variation from the normal.Indeed it was from this premise that he developed the celebrated"variation" theory which is, now, generally admitted to have compromisedthe whole principle of "Natural Selection" while it has given awonderful impetus to all recent investigations and experiments on thelines first indicated by Mendel.
"I can see him, then?" asked Grossmann, with the faintly annoyed air ofone who is compelled by circumstances to undertake a futile task.
"Certainly, I will arrange an interview for you," Elmer replied, andwent on to give an account of his own experience, an account that lostnothing in the telling.
Elmer created a mild sensation in the rooms of the Royal Society thatevening.
II
He found Challis at his house in Eaton Square the next morning, but itbecame evident from the outset that the plan of confounding Grossmanndid not appeal to the magnate of Stoke-Underhill. Challis frowned andprevaricated. "It's a thousand to one, the child won't condescend toanswer," was his chief evasion.
Elmer was not to be frustrated in the development of his scheme by anysuch trivial excuse as that. He began to display a considerableannoyance at last.
"Oh! nonsense; nonsense, Challis," he said. "You make altogether toomuch fuss about this prodigy of yours."
"Not mine," Challis interrupted. "Take him over yourself, Elmer. Bringhim out. Exhibit him. I make you a gift of all my interest in him."
Elmer looked thoughtful for a moment, as if he were seriouslyconsidering that proposition, and then he said, "I recognise that thereare--difficulties. The child seems--er--to have a queer, morose temper,doesn't he?"
Challis shook his head. "It isn't that," he said.
Elmer scratched his cheek. "I understand," he began, and then broke offand went on, "I'm putting this as a personal favour, Challis; but it ismore than that. You know my theo
ries with regard to the future of therace. I have a steady faith in our enormous potentialities for realprogress. But it must be organised, and Grossmann is just now standingin our way. That stubborn materialism of his has infected many fineintelligences; and I would make very great sacrifices in order to clearthis great and terrible obstacle out of the way."
"And you believe that this interview ..." interrupted Challis.
"I do, indeed," Elmer said. "It will destroy one of Grossmann's mostvital premisses. This prodigy of yours--he is unquestionably aprodigy--demonstrates the fact of an immense progressive variation. Oncethat is conceded, the main argument of Grossmann's 'Heredity' isinvalidated. We shall have knocked away the keystone of his mechanistictheory of evolution...."
"But suppose that the boy refuses...."
"He did not refuse to see us."
"That was to save himself from further trouble."
"But isn't he susceptible to argument?"
"Not the kind of argument you have been using to me," Challis saidgravely.
Elmer blew like a porpoise; looked very thoughtful for a moment, andthen said:
"You could represent Grossmann as the final court of appeal--the HighLord Muck-a-muck of the L.E.A."
"I should have to do something of the sort," Challis admitted, andcontinued with a spurt of temper. "But understand, Elmer, I don't do itagain; no, not to save the reputation of the Royal Society."
III
Unhappily, no record exists of the conversation between the Wonder andHerr Grossmann.
The Professor seems at the last moment to have had some misgiving as tothe nature of the interview that was before him, and refused to have awitness to the proceedings.
Challis made the introduction, and he says that the Wonder regardedGrossmann with perhaps rather more attention than he commonly concededto strangers; and that the Professor exhibited the usual signs ofembarrassment.
Altogether, Grossmann was in the library for about half an hour, and hedisplayed no sign of perturbation when he rejoined Challis and Elmer inthe breakfast-room. Indeed, only one fact of any significance emerges tothrow suspicion on Grossmann's attitude during the progress of thatsecluded half-hour with the greatest intellect of all time--theProfessor's spectacles had been broken.
He spoke of the accident with a casual air when he was in thebreakfast-room, but Challis remarked a slight flush on the greatscientist's face as he referred, perhaps a trifle too ostentatiously, tothe incident. And although it is worthless as evidence, there issomething rather suspicious in Challis's discovery of finely powderedglass in his library--a mere pinch on the parquet near the furtherwindow of the big room, several feet away from the table at which theWonder habitually sat. Challis would never have noticed the glass, hadnot one larger atom that had escaped pulverisation, caught the lightfrom the window and drawn his attention.
But even this find is in no way conclusive. The Professor may quite wellhave walked over to the window, taken off his spectacles to wipe themand dropped them as he, himself, explained. While the crushing of somefragment of one of the lenses was probably due to the chance of hisstepping upon it, as he turned on his heel to continue the momentarilyinterrupted conversation. It is hard to believe that so great a man asGrossmann could have been convulsed by a petty rage that foundexpression in some act of wanton destruction.
His own brief account of the interview accords very well with the singlereference to the Wonder which exists in the literature of the world.This reference is a footnote to a second edition of Grossmann'sbrochure entitled "An Explanation of Certain Intellectual Abnormalitiesreported in History" ("Eine Erklaerung gewisser Intellektuellergeschichtlich ueberlieferter Anormalen Erscheinungen"). This footnotecomes at the end of Grossmann's masterly analysis of the Heinecken caseand reads: "I recently examined a similar case of abnormality inEngland, but found that it presented no such marked divergence from thetype as would demand serious investigation."
And in his brief account of the interview rendered to Challis and Elmer,Herr Grossmann, in effect, did no more than draft that footnote.
IV
It must remain uncertain, now, whether or not Elmer would have persistedin his endeavour to exploit the Wonder to the confounding of Grossmann,despite Challis's explicit statement that he would do no more, not evenif it were to save the reputation of the Royal Society. Elmer certainlyhad the virtue of persistence and might have made the attempt. But inone of his rare moments of articulate speech, the Wonder decided thefate of that threatened controversy beyond the possibility of appeal.
He spoke to Challis that same afternoon. He put up his tiny hand tocommand attention and made the one clear statement on record of his owninterests and ambitions in the world.
Challis, turning from his discovery of the Professor's crushed glasses,listened in silence.
"This Grossmann," the Wonder said, "was not concerned in my exemption?"
Challis shook his head. "He is the last," the Wonder concluded with afine brevity. "You and your kind have no interest in truth."
That last statement may have had a double intention. It is obvious fromthe Wonder's preliminary question,--which had, indeed, also the qualityof an assertion,--how plainly he had recognised that Grossmann had beenintroduced under false pretences. But, it is permissible to infer thatthe pronouncement went deeper than that. The Wonder's logic penetratedfar into the mysteries of life and he may have seen that Grossmann'sattitude was warped by the human limitations of his ambition to shine asa great exponent of science; that he dared not follow up a line ofresearch which might end in the invalidation of his great theory ofheredity.
Victor Stott had once before expounded his philosophy and Challis, onthat occasion, had deliberately refused to listen. And we may guess thatGrossmann, also, might have received some great illumination, had hechosen to pay deference to a mind so infinitely greater than his own.