Maurice Leblanc

“ This soon became apparent; and the mere narrative of what we saw showed how right my uncle Dorgeroux's prophecy was when he said:
"Men will come here as pilgrims and will fall upon their knees and weep like children!"
A winding road, rough with cobbles and cut into steps, climbs a steep, arid, shadowless hill under a burning sun. We almost seem to see the eddies rising, like a scorching breath, from the parched soil.
A mob of excited people is scaling the abrupt slope. On their backs hang tattered robes; their aspect is that of the beggars or artisans of an eastern populace. ”

“ I took hold of the curtain.
"Don't touch it, don't touch it!" he cried. "No one has the right, except myself. Who [Pg 33] knows what would happen if any one except me were to open the closed door! Stand back, Victorien. Take up your position at two paces from the wall, a little to one side. . . . And now look!"
His voice was vibrant with energy and implacable determination. His expression was that of a man facing death; and, suddenly, with a single movement, he drew the black-serge curtain.
My emotion, I am certain, was just as great as Noël Dorgeroux's and my heart beat no less violently. ”

“ I repeat, the vision transcends the limits of absurdity, while provoking a shudder of horror of which you are conscious without understanding it. For, after all what does it mean? Two powerful Shapes protrude their three tentacles, which wind themselves round the lifeless Shape that has been brought up, crush it, rend it, compress it and, rising in the air, wave to and fro a small mass which they have separated, like a severed head, from the original Shape and which contains the geometrical Three Eyes, staring, void of eyelids, void of expression. ”

“ I have pursued it for so long! I have always pursued it. My brain had always seemed to me a vat in which a thousand incoherent ideas were fermenting, all contradicting one another and mutually destructive. . . . And then there was one that gained strength. And thenceforward I lived for that one only and sacrificed everything for it. It was like a sink that swallowed up all my money and that of others . . . and their happiness and peace of mind as well. Think of my poor wife, Victorien. You remember how unhappy she was and how anxious about the future of her son, of my poor Dominique! ”

“ You've got to swallow it because Uncle Dorgeroux's fame must be made to soar above all these paltry trifles. Of course, I know, a word from you and I'm jugged. And then? What will become of the great invention? In the soup, that's where it'll be, my lad, because I am the sole possessor of all the secrets and all the formulae. The sole possessor, do you understand? Friend Velmot, the man with the glasses, is only a super, a tool. So is Bérangère. Therefore, with Théodore Massignac put away, there's an end of the astounding pictures signed 'Dorgeroux.' No more glory, no more immortality. ”

“ The vision of Noël Dorgeroux dying, nay, dead, had flashed upon me so suddenly that the man succeeded in overpowering me and stretching me underneath him.
As we thus lay one against the other, with our faces almost touching, I saw only part of his, the lower half being hidden by the muffler. But his two eyes glared at me, under the shadow of his hat; and we stared at each other in silence, while our hands continued to grapple. ”

“ Looking down upon us, they follow our every action, they observe us, study us and pity us, they count our misfortunes and our wounds and perhaps also they envy us, when they witness our joys and when, in some secret place, they surprise a man and a maid, with love-laden eyes, whose lips unite in a kiss. ”

“ In any case, whatever opinion we may hold of Noël Dorgeroux's alleged discovery, whatever view we may take of M. Victorien Beaugrand's common sense and mental equilibrium, one thing is certain, which is that we shall sooner or later know the truth. When two such competent people as Velmot and his accomplice join forces to accomplish a definite task, namely, the theft of a scientific secret, when they carry out their plot so skilfully, when they succeed beyond all hopes, their object, it will be agreed, is certainly not that they may enjoy the results of their enterprise by stealth. ”

“ A miracle finds no believers except among its astounded witnesses. And what but a miracle could be put forward as the cause of a phenomenon which, I maintained, had no credible cause? The execution of Edith Cavell was a miracle. So was the representation of the fight between two airmen. So was the scene in which Noël Dorgeroux's son was hit by a bullet. So, above all, was the looming of those Three Eyes, which throbbed with life, which gazed at the spectator and which were the eyes of the very people about to figure in the spectacle as the actors thus miraculously announced! ”

“ And in fact a little lower down, at the entrance to a lonely forest-road we discovered his car. We lifted the body into it, placed the revolver on the seat, drove the car to a distance of half a mile and left it at the entrance to a clearing. We met nobody on the road. The death would beyond a doubt be ascribed to suicide.
An hour later, Bérangère, now back to the lodge and lying on her bed, gave me her hand, which I covered with kisses. We were alone, with no more enemies around us. There was no hideous shape prowling in the dark. No one was any longer able to thwart our rightful happiness. ”

“ That was the fatal error of which Bérangère 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, Noël 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. ”

“ Her face retained an expression of bewilderment and fright.
"My poor Bérangère," I said, "I have done you a great wrong. I have often, far too often, accused you in my heart, without guessing what a wonderful, plucky creature you were."
"You could not be expected to understand me."
"Why not?"
[Pg 307] She murmured sadly:
"I am Massignac's daughter."
"No more of that!" I cried. "You are the one who always sacrificed herself and who always took the risk. And you are also the girl I love, Bérangère, the girl who gave me all her life and all her soul in a kiss. Remember Bérangère . . . ”

“ When a last vision showed us His rigid and emaciated body and His sweet ravaged head in which the dilated eyes seemed to us abnormally large, the whole crowd rose to its feet, men and women fell upon their knees and, in a profound silence that quivered with prayer, all arms were despairingly outstretched towards the dying God. ”

“ All those people looking out for something that did not happen, standing with wide-open eyes and distorted faces, in front of a wall that had nothing on it, wore [Pg 250] an air of solemnity which was delightfully comical.
An hour was spent in anxious expectation. The wall remained impassive.
The disappointment was all the greater inasmuch as the public had been waiting for this test as the expected climax of this most sensational tragedy. Were we to give up all hope of knowing the truth and to admit that Noël Dorgeroux's formula alone was capable of producing the pictures? ”

“ It seems impossible, what? No more miraculous sights? No more fairy-tales to make people talk till Doomsday? That would never do, would it? Noël Dorgeroux's secret must not be lost. So I thought of you. Hang it, you're his nephew! Besides, you love my dear Bérangère. Some day or other you'll be married to her. And then, as I'm working for her, it doesn't matter whether the money comes to her through you or through me, does it? Listen to me, Victorien Beaugrand, and remember every word I say. Listen to me. You've observed that the base of the wall below the screen stands out a good way. ”

“ For the first time in the world's history men felt certain that they were being contemplated by eyes which were not human eyes and watched by minds which differed from their own minds. For the first time they were connected in a tangible fashion with that beyond, formerly peopled by their dreams and their hopes alone, from which the friendly gaze of their new brothers now fell upon them. ”

“ This manner of playing the lion-tamer who takes refuge behind the bars of his cage made so comic an impression that the hisses became mingled with bursts of laughter.
"The worthy Massignac is right," said my friend the journalist, in a tone of approval. "In this way he avoids either of two things: if he fails, the malcontents won't be able to break his head; and, if he succeeds, the enthusiasts can't make a rush for the wall and learn the secret of the hoax. He's a knowing one. He has prepared for everything." ”

“ I have a letter from my uncle . . ."
He interrupted me:
"That letter doesn't affect the validity of the will. Any one will tell you that."
"And then?" I exclaimed. "Granting that it is valid, Noël Dorgeroux mentions nobody in it except myself for the Lodge and his god-daughter for the Yard. The only one who benefits, except myself, is Bérangère."
"Quite so, quite so," replied the man, without changing countenance. "But nobody knows what has become of Bérangère Massignac. Suppose that she were dead . . ."
I grew indignant:
"She's not dead! It's quite impossible that she should be dead!" ”

“ The murder of Noël Dorgeroux, the abduction of his god-daughter—the police consented, at my earnest entreaties, to accept this as the official version—the theft of my uncle's manuscript, the theft of the formula: all this, at the outset, only puzzled men's minds as a cunningly-devised conspiracy and a cleverly-executed crime. But not many days elapsed before the revelations which I was constrained to make diverted all the attention of the newspapers and all the curiosity of the public to Noël Dorgeroux's discovery. ”

“ It was then that you surprised me, in god-father's bedroom."
"But why did you run away, Bérangère?"
"You had the documents; and that was enough."
"No, you ought to have stayed and explained."
"Then you shouldn't have spoken to me of love," she replied, sadly. "No one can love Massignac's daughter."
"And the result, my poor darling," I said, with a smile, "was that Massignac, who was in the house, of which he had a key, and who overheard our conversation, took the document and, through your fault, remained the sole possessor of the secret. ”

“ I did not ask him what hand he meant or how the tragedy had ended in the darkness. There was only one thing that mattered:
"Massignac, have you read Benjamin Prévotelle's report?"
"Yes."
"Does it agree with the facts? Does it agree with my uncle's account, the one which you've read?"
He shrugged his shoulders:
"What business is that of yours? What business is it of anybody's? Do I keep the pictures to myself? You know I don't. On the contrary, I'm trying to show them to everybody and honestly to earn the money which they pay me. What more do they want?"
"They want to protect a discovery . . ." ”

“ 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? ”

“ They were the lines of the three geometrical figures which I knew so well: the same proportions, the same arrangement, the same impassiveness, followed by that same palpitation, coming entirely from within, which animated them and made them live.
"Yes, yes," whispered Bérangère, "my god-father said so one day: they are alive, the Three Eyes."
"They are alive," I declared, "and they gaze at you. Look at the two lower eyes by themselves; think of them as actual eyes; and you will see that they really have an expression. ”

“ Thus we saw pre-Revolutionary citizens, followed by soldiers of the Empire, who in turn were followed by other nineteenth-century civilians and by labourers building scaffoldings and by yet more labourers engaged in the work of restoration.
Then a final vision appeared before our eyes: a group of French officers in service uniform. They hurriedly reached the top of the tower, looked through their field-glasses and went down again. Here and there, over the town and the country, hovered those small, woolly clouds which mark the bursting of a shell.
The silence of the crowd became anguished. ”

“ The proofs are such as to compel belief. And what doubles the value of this admirable theory is that it does not merely appear to be unassailable, but opens up to us the widest and most marvellous horizons. In fact, Noël Dorgeroux's discovery is no longer limited to what it is or what it seems to be. It implies consequences which cannot be foretold. It is calculated to upset all our ideas of man's past and all our conceptions of his future. ”

“ Yes, I know, a spectacle cannot flash out of a wall, any more than it can out of a layer of dark-grey substance only half an inch thick. But I am setting down the sensation which I experienced, which is the same that hundreds and hundreds of people experienced afterwards, with a like clearness and a like certainty. It is no use carping at the undeniable fact: the thing shot out of the depths of the ocean of matter and it appeared violently, like the rays of a lighthouse flashing from the very womb of the darkness. ”