III.
THE PLANET MARS.
Had I been the plaything of a dream?
Had my spirit really been transported to the planet Mars, or had I beenthe dupe of a purely imaginary illusion?
The feeling of reality had been so strong, so intense, and the things Ihad seen agreed so perfectly with the scientific notions which wealready possess in regard to the physical nature of the Martial world,that I could not entertain a doubt on the subject, although amazed atthat ecstatic trip, and asking myself a thousand questions, each onecontradicting the other.
Spero's absence in all that vision puzzled me a little. I still felt soclosely attached to his dear memory that it seemed to me as if I shouldhave been able to detect his presence, to fly directly to him, see him,speak to him, hear him. But was not the man hypnotized at Nancy the toyof his own imagination, or of mine, or of the experimenter's? On theother hand, even admitting that my two friends had been reincarnatedupon that neighboring planet, I reflected that beings might easily notmeet one another in going about the same city, and in a world thechances were infinitely less. And yet surely it was not the doctrine ofchances which should be invoked in this case; for such a feeling ofattraction as that which had united us ought to increase the probabilityof our meeting, and throw an element into the scale which shouldoutweigh all the rest.
Talking thus with myself, I went back to my observatory at Juvisy, whereI had been preparing some electric batteries for an optical experimentwith the tower of Montlhery. When I had satisfied myself that everythingwas in readiness, I left the task of making the signals agreed upon,between ten and eleven o'clock, to my assistant, and went to the oldtower, where I installed myself an hour later. The night had come. Fromthe top of the old donjon the horizon is perfectly circular, entirelyfree in all its circumference, which extended on a radius of twenty totwenty-five kilometres all around this central point. A third post ofobservation, situated in Paris, was in communication with us. The objectof the experiment was to find out whether the rays of different colorsof the luminous spectrum all travel with the same speed,--300,000kilometres a second. The result was affirmative.
The experiments were ended at about eleven o'clock, the starry night wasmarvellous, and the moon was beginning to rise. As soon as I had put theapparatus under cover inside the tower, I went to the upper platformagain, to look at the broad landscape lighted by the first rays of thewaxing moon. The atmosphere was calm, mild, almost warm.
But my foot was still on the last step when I stopped, terror-stricken,uttering a cry which seemed to die away in my throat. Spero, yes, Sperohimself, was there, before me, seated on the parapet! I threw up myarms, and felt as if I were going to faint; but he said in his gentlevoice, which I knew so well,--
"Do I frighten you?"
I had not strength enough to reply or to advance, and still I dared tolook at my friend, who was smiling at me. His dear face, lighted by themoonlight, was just as I had seen it when he left Paris forChristiania,--young, pleasant, and thoughtful, with a very animatedlook. I left the stairs, and felt a strong desire to rush to him andembrace him; but I dared not, and stood looking at him.
When I had recovered my senses I cried, "Spero, it is you!"
"I was there during your experiments," he replied, "and it was I whoinspired you with the idea of comparing the intense violet with theintense red, for the speed of the luminous waves; only I was invisible,like the ultra-violet rays."
"Can it really be so? Let me look at you and feel you."
I passed my hands over his face and body, through his hair, and hadprecisely the same impression as if he had been a living being. Myreason refused to admit the testimony of my eyes and hands and ears, yetI could not doubt that it was really he. There could not be such aresemblance. And then, too, my doubts would have disappeared at hisfirst words, for he at once added,--
"My body is at this moment sleeping in Mars."
"So," I said, "you still exist, you are living now, and you know at lastthe answer to the great problem that so distressed you? And Iclea?"
"We will have a long talk," he answered; "I have many things to tellyou."
I sat down beside him on the edge of the wide parapet which rises abovethe old tower, and this is what I heard.
* * * * *
Shortly after the accident at Lake Tyrifiorden he had felt like a manwho awakes from a long and heavy sleep. He was alone in midnightdarkness on the border of a lake; he knew that he was living, but couldneither see nor feel himself. The air did not affect him; he was notonly light, but imponderable. Apparently, what remained of him wassolely his thinking faculty. His first idea on trying to remember wasthat he had awakened from his fall by the Norwegian lake; but when theday broke he saw that he was in another world. The two moons revolvingrapidly in the sky in opposite directions made him surmise that he wasupon our neighbor, the planet Mars, and other evidences soon proved thathe was correct.
He lived there for a while in the spirit state, and recognized there thepresence of a very beautiful humanity, in which the feminine sex reignssupreme, from an acknowledged superiority over the masculine sex. Theseorganisms are light and delicate, their density of body very slight,their weight slighter still. On the surface of this world material forceplays but a secondary part in nature; delicacy of sensation decideseverything. There is a large number of animal species, and several humanraces. In all these species and races the feminine sex is stronger andhandsomer (the strength consisting in the superiority of sensation) thanthe masculine sex, and it is she who rules the world.
His great desire to know the life before him induced him not to remainlong as an onlooker in the spirit state, but to come to life again undera corporeal form, and, knowing the organic condition of this planet, ina feminine form.
Among the terrestrial souls floating about in the atmosphere of Mars hehad already met Iclea's (for souls feel each other), who had followedhim, guided by a constant attraction. She on her part had felt inclinedtowards a masculine incarnation. Thus they were reunited, in one of themost privileged countries in that world, neighbors and predestined tomeet again in life, to share the same emotions, the same thoughts, thesame works; thus, although the memory of their earthly life remainedveiled and as if effaced by the new transformation, yet a vague feelingof spiritual relationship and an immediate sympathetic attachment hadreunited them as soon as they saw each other. Their psychic superiority,the nature of their habitual thoughts, their condition of mind,accustomed to seek ends and causes, had given them both a kind of inwardclairvoyance which freed them from the general ignorance of the living.They had fallen in love with each other so suddenly, they had yielded sopassively to the magnetic influence of the thunder-clap of theirmeeting, that they soon formed but a single being, united as at the timeof their earthly separation. They remembered that they had met before,and were sure that it must have been on the Earth,--that neighboringplanet which shines in the evening so brilliantly in the sky of Mars;and sometimes, in their solitary flights over the little hills peopledwith aerial plants, they contemplated the "evening star," trying tore-tie the broken thread of an interrupted tradition.
An unexpected event explained their reminiscences, and proved that theywere not mistaken.
The inhabitants of Mars are very superior to those of Earth by theirorganizations, by the number and delicacy of their senses, and by theirintellectual faculties.
The fact that density is very slight on the surface of that world, andthat the constituent particles of bodies are less heavy there thanhere, has permitted the formation of beings of incomparably less weight,more aerial, more delicate, more sensitive. The fact that the atmosphereis nutritive has freed Martial organisms from the coarseness of earthlyneeds. It is an entirely different state of things. The light there isless bright, that planet being farther from the Sun than we, and theoptic nerve is more sensitive. Electric and magnetic influences beingvery intense, the inhabitants possess senses unknown to terrest
rialorganizations,--senses which put them into communication with theseinfluences. Everything is evenly balanced in Nature. Beings areeverywhere adapted to their surroundings and to the soil from which theyspring. Organisms can no more be earthly on Mars than they could beaerial at the bottom of the sea. More than that, the condition ofsuperiority generated by this nature of things is developed of itself bythe facility by which all intellectual work is accomplished. Natureseems to obey thought. The architect desirous of erecting a building,the engineer who wants to change the surface of the ground, either tolower or to raise, to cut down mountains or fill up valleys, does notstrike against material weight and material difficulties, as he doeshere. Art, too, has made the most rapid progress from the beginning.
And yet more. Martial humanity, being several hundreds of thousands ofyears older than terrestrial humanity, went through all the phases ofits development before we did; our real scientific progress, even themost transcendent, is but a child's foolish toy, compared to the scienceof the inhabitants of that planet. In astronomy, especially, they areincomparably more advanced than we, and know the Earth much better thanwe know their home. They have invented, among other things, a kind oftele-photographic apparatus, in which a roll of stuff constantlyreceives the picture of our world, and is impressed by it unalterably asit unrolls. An immense museum, devoted especially to the planets of thesolar system, preserves all these photographic pictures, fixed foreverin chronological order.
All the Earth's history is to be found there,--France in the time ofCharlemagne, Greece in the days of Alexander, Egypt under Rameses. Bythe microscope the smallest details can be made out, such as Parisduring the French Revolution, Rome under the pontificate of Borgia,Christopher Columbus's Spanish fleet reaching America, the Francs ofClovis taking possession of the Gauls, Julius Caesar's army stopped inits conquest of England by the tide which washed away his ships, thetroops of King David, the founder of standing armies, as well as mosthistoric scenes, recognizable from special characters of their own.
One day, when the two friends were visiting the museum, theirreminiscences, which had been thus far very vague, were brightened, likea landscape at night, by a flash of lightning. Suddenly they_recognized_ the appearance of Paris during the Exposition of 1867.Their memory became more definite. They each felt, individually, thatthey had lived there; and under this strong impression they also feltsure that they had lived there together. Their memory gradually grewclearer, not by interrupted gleams, but rather as the light growsstronger from the beginning of dawn.
Then they both remembered, as if by inspiration, that sentence ofScripture: "In my Father's house are many mansions;" and this other,from Jesus to Nicodemus: "Verily, I say unto thee, except a man be bornagain, he cannot see the kingdom of God.... Ye must be born again."
From that day they never doubted their former earthly existence, butwere convinced that they were continuing on the planet Mars the lifethey had lived before. They belonged to the cycle of the great minds ofall ages, who know that human destiny does not end with the presentworld, but continues in heaven, and who also know that eachplanet--Mars, the Earth, or any other--is a star of heaven.
The rather singular fact of the change of sex, which seemed to me to bevery important, was really without any weight whatever. Spero told methat souls, contrary to our ideas, have no sex, and that their destiniesare the same. I also learned that on that planet, so much less materialthan our own, organisms have no resemblance whatever to terrestrialbodies. Conceptions and births are effected in another way, whichreminds one, but under a more spiritual form, of the fecundation andblooming of flowers. Pleasure has no bitterness. Heavy earthly burdensand the anguish of grief are unknown there. Everything there is moreaerial, more ethereal, and less material. The Martials might be calledwinged, sentient, living flowers; but in fact no earthly being can serveas comparison to aid us in imagining their form and manner of existence.
I listened to the translated soul's story almost without interruptinghim, for it seemed to me all the time as if he would disappear as he hadcome. However, remembering my dream, of which I had been reminded by thecoincidence of preceding descriptions with what I had seen, I could notkeep from telling my celestial friend of that surprising vision, andexpressing my surprise at not having seen him on my trip to Mars,--afact which made me doubt the reality of the journey.
"But," he answered, "I saw you perfectly well, and you both saw andspoke to me, for it was I."
The tones of his voice were so odd at these last words that I suddenlyrecognized in them the melodious voice of the beautiful Martial girl whohad so enchanted me.
"Yes," he answered, "it was I. I was trying to make you know me; but youwere so bewildered by a sight which captivated your mind that you didnot throw off your terrestrial sensations,--you remained sensual andearthly, you could not rise high enough for pure perception. Yes, it wasI who held out my arms to you in the aerial car to take you down to ourdwelling, when you suddenly awoke."
"But then," I cried, "if you are that Martial maiden, how can you appearto me in Spero's form, when he no longer exists?"
"I do not act upon your retina or your optic nerve," he replied, "but onyour mental being and your brain. I am in communication with you now; Iinfluence directly the cerebral seat of your sensation. My mental beingis really formless, like yours and that of all other souls. But when Iput myself in direct relation with your thought, as at this moment, youcan see me only as you knew me. It is the same during your dreams; thatis to say, during more than a quarter of your terrestrial life,--fortwenty years out of seventy,--you see, you hear, you speak, you feel,with the same impression, the same clearness, the same certainty asduring your normal life; and yet your eyes are closed, your tympanum isinsensible, your mouth is mute, your arms are stretched out motionless.It is the same, too, in cases of suggestion, in conditions of hypnoticsomnambulism. You see me and hear me, you feel me, too, by your brain,which is under influence; but I am no more in the form which you seethan the rainbow exists in the presence of the eyes that look at it."
"Could you also appear to me in your Martial form?"
"No,--at least not unless you were really transported in spirit to thatplanet. There would then be quite a different mode of communication. Inour conversation here, everything is subjective to you. The elements ofmy Martial form do not exist in the terrestrial atmosphere, and yourbrain could not imagine them. You can see me to-day only through themedium of your dream; but as soon as you try to analyze its details itwill vanish away. You did not see us exactly as we are, because yourmind can judge only by your earthly eyes, which are not sensitive to allour radiations, and because you do not possess all our senses."
"I must confess," I answered, "that I cannot understand your Martialbeings as having six limbs."
"If these forms were not so graceful, they would have seemed frightfulto you; the organisms in each world are most appropriate to itsconditions of existence. I acknowledge, on my part, that to theinhabitants of Mars the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus de Medicis areactual monstrosities, on account of their animal heaviness.
"Everything with us is exquisitely light, although our planet is muchsmaller than yours; yet the beings are larger than here, because theweight is less, and beings can grow taller without being impeded bytheir weight or imperilling their stability.
"They are larger and lighter, because the constructive materials of thatplanet are of very little density. What would have happened on the Earthif the weight had not been so great, has happened there. The wingedspecies would have ruled over the world, instead of dwindling away inimpossibility of development. On Mars, organic development is effectedin the series of winged species. Martial humanity is indeed a race ofsextupedal origin; but it is actually bipedal, bimanous, and what mightbe called _bialic_, since these beings have two wings.
"Their manner of life is totally different from terrestrial life, in thefirst place because they live in the air and on aerial plants as muchas they do on the surfa
ce of the ground; and further, because they donot eat, the atmosphere being nutritive. Passions are not the samethere. Murder is unknown. Humanity, being without material needs, hasnever lived there, even in the primitive ages, in the barbarity ofrapine and war. The ideas and feelings of the inhabitants of Mars are ofan entirely intellectual nature.
"Nevertheless, in dwelling on this planet, analogies at least, if notresemblances, are to be found. Thus, there is a succession of night andday there as on the Earth, which does not differ essentially from whatyou have, the duration of night and day being 24 hours, 39 minutes, 35seconds. As there are 668 of these days in a Martial year, we have moretime than you for our work, our investigations, and our enjoyments. Ourseasons, too, are almost twice as long as yours, but they have the sameintensity. The climates are not very different; a country in Mars, onthe shores of the equatorial sea, differs less from the climate ofFrance than Lapland differs from Nubia.
"An inhabitant of the Earth would not feel so very foreign. The greatestdifference between the two worlds certainly consists in the greatsuperiority of their humanity over yours.
"This superiority is principally due to the great progress realized byastronomical science and to the universal propagation among theinhabitants of that planet of that science, without which one has butfalse ideas of life, of creation, and of destiny. We are very muchfavored, as much by the acuteness of our senses as by the purity of ourskies. There is much less water on Mars than on the Earth, and fewerclouds. The sky there is almost always fair, especially in the temperatezone."
"But still you often have inundations."
"Yes; and quite recently your telescopes have noticed one along theshores of a sea to which your colleagues have given a name which willalways be dear to me, even when far from the Earth. The greater part ofour shores are beaches, level plains. We have few mountains, and ourseas are not deep. The inhabitants make use of these overflows forirrigating great stretches of country. They have straightened andenlarged the watercourses and made them like canals, and haveconstructed a network of immense canals all over the continents. Thecontinents themselves are not bristling all over with Alpine orHimalayan upheavals like those of the terrestrial globe, but are_immense plains_, crossed in all directions by canals, which connect allthe seas with one another, and by streams made to resemble canals.Formerly there was as much water on Mars, in proportion to the size ofthe planet, as on the Earth; gradually, from age to age, a part of therain-water sank into the depths of the soil and did not return to thesurface. It combined itself chemically with the rocks, and was withdrawnfrom atmospheric circulation. Then, too, from age to age, rains, snows,and winds, winter frosts and summer droughts, have disintegrated themountains, and the watercourses, bringing fragments to the sea-basins,have gradually raised their beds. We have no more large oceans or deepseas,--nothing but inland waters; many straits, gulfs, and seasanalogous to the Channel, the Red Sea, the Adriatic, the Baltic, and theCaspian; pleasant shores, quiet harbors, large lakes and streams, aerialrather than aquatic fleets, an almost always clear sky, especially inthe morning. There are no mornings on Earth so luminous as ours.
"The meteorological system differs materially from that of the Earth,because, the atmosphere being more rarified, the waters which move overthe surface evaporate more easily, and then because in condensing again,instead of forming clouds that last, they pass almost without transitionfrom the gaseous to the liquid state. There are few clouds and few fogs.
"Astronomy is cultivated there on account of the clearness of theheavens. We have two satellites, whose courses would appear strange toearthly astronomers, for while one of them gives us months of a hundredand thirty hours, or five Martial days, plus eight hours, the other, bya combination of its motion with the daily rotation of the planet, risesin the occident and sets in the orient, crossing the sky from west toeast in five hours and a half, and passing from one phase to the otherin less than three hours. That spectacle is unique in the whole solarsystem, and has done much to attract the attention of the inhabitants tothe study of the sky. Besides that, we have eclipses of the moon almostevery day, but never total eclipses of the Sun, because our satellitesare too small.
"The Earth looks to us as Venus looks to you. To us it is the morningand evening star; and in old times, before the invention of opticalinstruments, which have taught us that it is a planet, dwelt upon likeours, but by an inferior race, our ancestors worshipped it as a tutelarydivinity. All worlds have a mythology during their centuries of infancy,and this mythology has for its origin, its foundation, and its objectthe appearance of the celestial bodies.
"Sometimes the Earth, accompanied by the Moon, passes between us and theSun, and projects itself upon its disk like a little black spot,attended by a still smaller one. Every one there follows these celestialphenomena with curiosity. Our newspapers think more of science than oftheatres, literary fancies, or political quarrels.
"The Sun looks smaller to us, and we receive a little less light andheat from it; our more sensitive eyes see better than yours. Thetemperature is a little higher."
"How can that be?" said I. "You are farther from the Sun, yet are warmerthan we?"
"Chamounix is a little farther from noonday sun than Mont Blanc," heanswered. "The distance from the Sun does not alone regulate thetemperature, you must also take into account the constitution of theatmosphere. Our polar ice melts under our summer sun more entirely thanyours."
"What lands in Mars are most populous?"
"There is very little, except the polar regions (where, from the Earth,you see the snow and ice melt every spring), which is uninhabited. Thepopulation of the temperate regions is very dense, but in the equatoriallands it is more so; the population there is as dense as in China,--andespecially the sea-coasts, notwithstanding the inundations. A largenumber of cities are built almost on the water, suspended in the air insome way above the overflows, which are calculated and expectedbeforehand."
"Are your arts and your industries like ours? Have you railways,steamships, the telegraph, and the telephone?"
"It is all quite different. We have never had either steam or railways,because we have always known of electricity, and aerial navigation isnatural to us. Our fleets are moved by electricity, and are more aerialthan aquatic. We live principally in the air, and have no homes ofstone, iron, or wood. We do not experience the rigors of winter,because no one stays exposed to them. Those who do not dwell in theequatorial countries emigrate every autumn, just as your birds do. Itwould be very difficult for you to form an exact idea of our manner oflife."
"Are there many human beings on Mars who have already lived on theEarth?"
"No; among the inhabitants of your planet the greater part are eitherignorant, sceptical, or indifferent, and are unprepared for thespiritual life. They are attached to the Earth, and their attachmentlasts for a long time. Many souls sleep completely. Those which act,live, and aspire to know the truth, are the only ones called toconscious immortality, the only ones whom the spirit-world interests,and who are capable of understanding it. These souls can leave the Earthand live in other lands. Many come and live for a while on Mars (thefirst stage of an ultra-terrestrial journey, going from the Sun), or onVenus, the first abode going the other way; but Venus is a worldanalogous to the Earth, and still less favored, on account of its toorapid seasons, which oblige its inhabitants to suffer the most suddenchanges of temperature. Certain spirits wing their way at once to thestarry regions. As you know, space has no existence. To sum up, justicereigns in the moral world as equilibrium does in the physical world; andthe destiny of souls is but the perpetual result of their capabilities,their aspirations, and consequently of _their works_. The Uranian way isopen to all; but the soul becomes truly Uranian only when it hasentirely shaken off the weight of material life. The day will come, evenon your planet, when there will be no other belief, no other religion,than the knowledge of the universe and the certainty of immortality inits infinite regions, in its eternal domain."
/> "What a strange thing," said I, "that no one on the Earth should knowthese sublime truths! No one looks at the sky; we live as though ourlittle isle alone existed in the universe."
"Terrestrial humanity is young," answered Spero. "You must not despair.It is a child, and still in primitive ignorance. It is amused attrifles, and obeys masters of its own giving. You like to divideyourselves into nations, to trick yourselves out in national costumes,and to exterminate each other to music! Then you raise statues to thosewho have led you to butchery. You ruin yourselves, you commit suicide,and yet you cannot live without wresting your daily bread from theEarth. That is a sad condition of things, but one which fully satisfiesthe greater part of the dwellers on your planet. If some of them, withhigher aspirations, think occasionally of problems of the higher order,of the nature of the soul or the existence of God, the result has beenno better, because they have put their souls outside of Nature, and haveinvented strange, horrible gods, who never existed except in theirperverted imaginations, and in whose name they have committed all kindsof outrages against the human conscience, have blessed all crimes, andbound weak minds in a slavery from which it will be difficult for themto escape. The lowest animal on Mars is better, finer, gentler, moreintelligent, and greater than the god of the armies of David,Constantine, Charlemagne, and all your crowned assassins. There istherefore nothing surprising in the coarseness and stupidity ofterrestrial humanity. But the law of progress governs the world. You aremore advanced than at the period of your ancestors of the stone age,whose wretched existence was spent in fighting night and day withferocious beasts. In a few thousands of years you will be more advancedthan you are now. Then Urania will reign in your hearts."
"It would require a brutal material fact to teach and convince humanbeings. If, for instance, we could some day enter into communicationwith the neighboring world which you inhabit, not into physicalcommunication with one isolated person of it, as I am now doing, butwith the planet itself, by hundreds and thousands of witnesses, thatwould be a gigantic stride towards progress."
"You could do it now if you chose, for we Martials are all prepared forit, and have even tried it many times. But you have never replied to us.Solar reflections, showing geometrical figures on our vast plains, proveto you that we exist. You could reply to us by like figures alsodisplayed on your plains, either during the day by the sun, or duringthe night by the electric light. But you never even think of it; and ifsome one should propose to try it, your courts would interpose toprevent it, for the very idea is immeasurably too high for the generalapproval of the denizens of your planet. What do your scientificassemblies work for? The preservation of the past. To what do yourpolitical assemblies direct their attention? Increasing the taxes. Inthe land of the blind, one-eyed men are kings.
"But you must not utterly despair. Progress bears you on in spite ofyourselves. One of these days, too, you will realize that you arecitizens of the sky; then you will live in the light, in knowledge, inthe mind's true world."
While the inhabitant of Mars was teaching me the principalcharacteristics of his new country, the terrestrial globe had turnedtowards the east, the horizon had sunk lower, and the Moon had graduallyrisen in the sky, which she was illuminating with her radiance.
Suddenly chancing to lower my eyes to where Spero sat, I could notrepress a start of surprise. The moonlight was streaming over him as itdid over me, and yet, although my body cast a shadow on the parapet, hisfigure was shadowless. I arose abruptly to assure myself of this fact. Iturned about at once and stretched out my hand to touch his shoulder,watching the shadow of my gesture on the parapet. But my visitor hadinstantly disappeared. I was absolutely alone on the silent tower. Myvery dark shadow was thrown out sharply on the parapet. The Moon wasbrilliant, the village was sleeping at my feet. The air was mild andvery still. And yet I thought I heard footsteps. I listened, and indeeddid hear rather heavy footsteps coming towards me. Some one wasevidently climbing the tower-stairs.
"Monsieur has not gone down yet?" said the custodian, coming up to thetop. "I was waiting to lock the doors, and thought the experiments mustbe over."