 CHAPTER 1 HOW IT IS USELESS TO SEEK EVEN ON THE BEST MAPS FOR THE SMALL TOWN OF KIKANDON If you try to find, on any map of Flanders, ancient or modern, the small town of Kikandon, probably you will not succeed. Is Kikandon then one of those towns which have disappeared? No. A town of the future? By no means. It exists in spite of geographies and has done so for some 8 or 900 years. It even numbers 2,393 souls allowing one soul to each inhabitant. It is situated 13.5 km northwest of Unard and 15.25 km southeast of Bruges in the heart of Flanders. The Var, a small tributary of the Shelt, passes beneath its three bridges which are still covered with a quaint medieval roof like that at Tournai. An old chateau is to be seen there, the first stone of which was laid so long ago as 1197 by Count Baldwin, afterwards emperor of Constantinople. And there is a town hall with gothic windows crowned by a chapel of battlements and surrounded by a turreted belfry which rises 357 feet above the soil. Every hour you may hear there a chime of five octaves, a veritable aerial piano, the renown of which surpasses that of the famous chimes of Bruges. Strangers, if any ever come to Kikandon, do not quit the curious old town until they have visited its Stodholders Hall, adorned by a full length portrait of William of Nassau by Brandon. The loft of the church of St. Maglar, a masterpiece of 16th century architecture, the cast iron well in the spacious Place Saint-Ernouf, the admirable ornamentation of which is attributed to the artist blacksmith Quentin Metzis, the tomb formally erected to Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, who now reposes in the church of Notre-Dame at Bruges and so on. The principal industry of Kikandon is the manufacture of whipped creams and barley sugar on a large scale. It has been governed by the Vontricoses from father to son for several centuries, and yet Kikandon is not on the map of Flanders, has the geographers forgotten it, or is it an intentional omission? That I cannot tell, but Kikandon really exists, with its narrow streets, its fortified walls, its Spanish-looking houses, its market, and its burgo master. So much so that it has recently been the theater of some surprising phenomena as extraordinary and incredible as they are true, which are to be recounted in the present narration. Surely there is nothing to be said or thought against the flimmings of Western Flanders. They are a well-to-do folk, wise, prudent, sociable, with even tempers, hospitable, perhaps a little heavy in conversation, as in mind, but this does not explain why one of the most interesting towns of their district has yet to appear on modern maps. The omission is certainly to be regretted. If only history, or in default of history, the chronicles, or in default of chronicles, the traditions of the country, made mention of Kikandon. But no, neither atlases, guides, nor itineraries speak of it. Monsieur Joann himself, that energetic, hunter-after-small towns, says not a word of it. It might be readily conceived that this silence would injure the commerce, the industries of the town, but let us hasten that Kikandon has neither industry nor commerce, and that it does very well without them. Its barley sugar and whipped cream are consumed on the spot, none is exported. In short, the Kikandonians have no need of anybody. Their desires are limited, their existence is a modest one, they are calm, moderate, phlegmatic, in a word, they are flimmings, such as are still to be met with sometimes between the Shelt and the North Sea. Chapter 2, in which the burgamaster Ventricas and the Councilor Nicholas consult about the affairs of the town. You think so, asked the burgamaster. I think so, replied the Councilor, after some minutes of silence. You see, we must not act hastily, resume the burgamaster. We have been talking over this grave matter for ten years, replied the Councilor Nicholas, and I confess to you, my worthy Ventricas, that I cannot yet take it upon myself to come to a decision. I quite understand your hesitation, said the burgamaster, who did not speak until after a good quarter of an hour of reflection. I quite understand it, and I fully share it. We shall do wisely to decide upon nothing without a more careful examination of the question. It is certain, replied Nicholas, that this post of civil commissary is useless in so peaceful a town as Kikandon. Our predecessor, said Ventricas gravely, our predecessor never said, never would have dared to say that anything is certain. Every affirmation is subject to awkward qualifications. The Councilor nodded his head slowly in token of assent. Then he remained silent for nearly half an hour. After this lapse of time, during which neither the Councilor nor the burgamaster moved so much as a finger, Nicholas asked Ventricas whether his predecessor, of some 20 years before, had not thought of suppressing this office of civil commissary, which each year cost the town of Kikandon the sum of 1,375 francs and some centimes. I believe he did, replied the burgamaster, carrying his hand with majestic deliberation to his ample brow. But the worthy man died without having dared to make up his mind, either as to this or any other administrative gesture. He was a sage. Why should I not do as he did? Councilor Nicholas was incapable of originating any objection to the burgamaster's opinion. The man who dies, added Ventricas solemnly, without ever having decided upon anything during his life, has very nearly attained to perfection. This said, the burgamaster pressed a bell with the end of his little finger, which gave forth a muffled sound, which seemed less a sound than a sigh. Presently, some light steps glided softly across the tile floor. A mouse would not have made less noise running over a thick carpet. The door of the room opened, turning on its well-oiled hinges. A young girl with long blonde tresses made her appearance. It was Susel Ventricas, the burgamaster's only daughter. She handed her father a pipe filled to the brim, and a small copper brazier spoke not a word and disappeared at once, making no more noise at her exit than at her entrance. The worthy burgamaster lighted his pipe and was soon hidden in a cloud of bluish smoke, leaving Councilor Nicholas plunged in the most absorbing thought. The room in which these two notable personages, charged with the government of Quicandone, were talking, was a parlor richly adorned with carvings in dark wood. A lofty fireplace, in which an oak might have been burned or an ox roasted, occupied the whole of one of the sides of the room. Opposite to it was a trellis window, the painted glass of which toned down the brightness of the sunbeams. In an antique frame above the chimney piece appeared the portrait of some worthy man attributed to Memling, which no doubt represented an ancestor of the Ventricases, whose authentic genealogy dates back to the 14th century, the period when the Fleming's and Guy de Dampierre were engaged in wars with the Emperor Rudolph of Habsburg. The parlor was a principal apartment of the burgamaster's house, which was one of the pleasantest in Quicandone. Built in the Flemish style, with all the abruptness, quaintness and picturesqueness of pointed architecture, it was considered one of the most curious monuments of the town. A Carthusian convent, or a deaf and dumb asylum, was not more silent than this mansion. Noise had no existence there. People did not walk, but glided about in it. They did not speak, they murmured. There was not, however, any lack of women in the house, which in addition to the burgamaster Ventricas himself, sheltered his wife, Madame Brigitte Ventricas, his daughter, Susel Ventricas, and his domestic, Lachki Jeanchou. We may also mention the burgamaster's sister, Anttermans, an elderly maiden who still bore the nickname of Tantanmans, which her niece Susel had given her when a child. But in spite of all these elements of discord and noise, the burgamaster's house was as calm as a desert. The burgamaster was some 50 years old, neither fat nor lean, neither short nor tall, neither rubicon nor pale, neither gay nor sad, neither contented nor discontented, neither energetic nor dull, neither proud nor humble, neither good nor bad, neither generous nor miserly, neither contagious or cowardly, neither too much nor too little of anything. A man notably moderate in all respects, whose invariable slowness of motion, slight hanging lower jaw, prominent eyebrows, massive forehead, smooth as a copper plate without a wrinkle, would at once have betrayed you a physiognomist, as the burgamaster Ventricas was flim personified. Never, either from anger or passion, had any emotion whatever hastened the beating of this man's heart, or flushed his face. Never had his pupils contracted under the influence of any irritation, however ephemeral. He invariably wore good clothes, neither too large nor too small, which he never seemed to wear out. He was shod with large square shoes with triple soles and silver buckles, which lasted so long that his shoemaker was in despair. Upon his head, he wore a large hat which dated from the period when Flanders was separated from Holland, so that this venerable masterpiece was at least 40 years old. But what would you have? It is the passions which wear out body as well as soul, the clothes as well as the body, and our worthy burgamaster, apathetic, indolent, indifferent, was passionate in nothing. He wore nothing out, not even himself, and he considered himself the very man to administer the affairs of Quicandone and its tranquil population. The town indeed was not less calm than the Ventricas mansion. It was in this peaceful dwelling that the burgamaster reckoned on attaining the utmost limit of human existence. After having, however, seen the good Madame Bridget Ventricas, his wife, precede him to the tomb, where surely she would not find a more profound repose than she had enjoyed on earth for 60 years. This demands explanation. The Ventricas family might well call itself the Genot family. This is why. Everyone knows that the knife of this typical personage is as celebrated as its proprietor, and not less incapable of wearing out thanks to the double operation incessantly repeated of replacing the handle when it is worn out and the blade when it becomes worthless. A precisely similar operation had been going on from time immemorial in the Ventricas family, to which nature had lent herself with more than usual complacency. From 1340 it had invariably happened that a Ventricas, when left a widower, had remarried a Ventricas younger than himself, who, becoming in turn a widow, had married again a Ventricas younger than herself, and so on, without a break in the continuity from generation to generation. Each died in his or her turn with mechanical regularity. Thus the worthy Madame Bridget Ventricas had now her second husband, and unless she violated her every duty, would precede her spouse, he being ten years younger than herself, to the other world, to make room for a new Madame Ventricas. Upon this the Burgamaster calmly counted, that the family tradition might not be broken. Such was this mansion, peaceful and silent, of which the doors never creaked, the windows never rattled, the floors never groaned, the chimneys never roared, the weather cocks never graded, the furniture never squeaked, the locks never clanked, and the occupants never made more noise than their shadows. The god Harpocrates was certainly have chosen it for the temple of silence. Chapter 3, in which the commissary Passouf enters as noisily as unexpectedly. When the interesting conversation which has been narrated began, it was a quarter before three in the afternoon. It was at a quarter before four that Ventricas lighted his enormous pipe, which could hold a quart of tobacco, and it was at thirty five minutes past five that he finished smoking it. All this time the two comrades did not exchange a single word. About six o'clock the counselor, who had a habit of speaking in a very summary manner, resumed in these words. So we decide, to decide nothing, replied the Burgamaster. I think on the whole that you are right, Ventricas. I think so too, Nicholas. We will take steps with reference to the civil commissary when we have more light on the subject later on. There is no need for a month yet. Not even for a year, applied Nicholas, unfolding his pocket handkerchief and calmly applying it to his nose. There was another silence of nearly a quarter of an hour. Nothing disturbed this repeated pause in the conversation. Not even the appearance of the house dog Linto, who, not less phlegmatic than his master, came to pay his respects in the parlor. Noble dog, a model for his race, had he been made of pasteboard with wheels on his paws, he would not have made less noise during his stay. Toward eight o'clock, after Lochke had brought the antique lamp of polished glass, the Burgamaster said to the counselor, We have no other urgent matter to consider. No, Ventricas, none that I know of. Have I not been told, though, asked the Burgamaster, that the tower of the Udinard gate is likely to tumble down? Ah, replied the counselor, really, I should not be astonished if it fell on some passerby any day. Oh, before such a misfortune happens, I hope we shall have come to a decision on the subject of this tower. I hope so, Ventricas. There are more pressing matters to decide. No doubt, the question of the leather market, for instance, what is it still burning? Still burning and has been for the last three weeks. Have we not decided to counsel to let it burn? Yes, Ventricas, on your motion, was not that the surest and simplest way to deal with it? Without doubt. Well, let us wait. Is that all? All, replied the counselor, scratching his head, as if to assure himself that he had not forgotten anything important. Ah, exclaimed the Burgamaster, haven't you also heard something of an escape of water which threatens to inundate the low quarter of San Jacques? I have. It is indeed unfortunate that this escape of water did not happen above the leather market. It would naturally have checked the fire, and would thus have saved us a good deal of discussion. What can you expect, Nicholas? There is nothing so illogical as accidents. They are bound by no rules, and we cannot profit by one as we might wish to remedy another. It took Ventricas's companion some time to digest this fine observation. Well, but, resumed the counselor, Nicholas, after the lapse of some moments, we have not spoken of our great affair. What great affair? Have we then a great affair, asked the Burgamaster? No doubt about lighting the town. Oh yes, if my memory serves me, you are referring to the lighting plan of Dr. Ox, precisely. It is going on, Nicholas, replied the Burgamaster. They are already laying the pipes, and the works are entirely completed. Perhaps we have hurried a little in this matter, said the counselor, shaking his head. Perhaps, but our excuse is that Dr. Ox bears the whole expense of his experiment. It will not cost us a sue. That, true enough, is our excuse. Moreover, we must advance with the age. If the experiment succeeds, Quicandone will be the first town in Flanders to be lighted with the oxy... what is the gas called? Oxy-hydric gas. Well, oxy-hydric gas there. At this moment, the door opened, and Lochke came in to tell the Burgamaster that his supper was ready. Counselor Nicholas rose to take leave of Antricas, whose appetite had been stimulated by so many affairs discussed and decisions taken, and it was agreed that the Council of Notables should be convened after a reasonably long delay to determine whether a decision should be provisionally arrived at with reference to the really urgent matter of the Udinard Gate. The two worthy administrators then directed their steps towards the street door, the one conducting the other. The Counselor, having reached the last step, lighted a little lantern to guide him through the obscure streets of Quicandone, which Dr. Ox had not yet lighted. It was a dark October night, and a light fog overshadowed the town. Nicholas's preparations for departure consumed at least a quarter of an hour. For having lighted his lantern, he had to put on his big cowskin socks and his sheepskin gloves. Then he put up the furred collar of his overcoat, turned the brim of his felt hat down over his eyes, grasped his heavy crow-beaked umbrella, and got ready to start. When Lochke, however, who was lighting her master was about to draw the bars of the door, an unexpected noise arose outside. Yes, strange as the thing seems, a noise, a real noise, such as the town had certainly not heard since the taking of the dungeon by the Spaniards in 1513. Terrible noise awoke the long dormant echoes of the venerable Vantrikas mansion. Someone knocked heavily upon this door, hitherto virgin to brutal touch. Redoubled knocks were given with some blunt implement, probably a naughty stick, wielded by a vigorous arm. With the strokes were mingled cries and calls. These words were distinctly heard. Mr. Vantrikas, Mr. the Burgamaster, open, open quickly. The Burgamaster and the Counselor, absolutely astonished, looked at each other speechless. This passed their comprehension. If the old culverine of the Chateau, which had not been used since 1385, had been let off in the parlor, the dwellers in the Vantrikas mansion would not have been more dumbfounded. Meanwhile, the blows and cries redoubled. Lochke, recovering her coolness, had plucked up courage to speak. Who is there? It is I, I, I. Who are you? The Commissary Pasuf. The Commissary Pasuf, the very man whose office it had been contemplated to suppress for ten years. What had happened then? Could the Burgundians have invaded Quicandone as they did in the 14th century? No event of less importance could have so moved Commissary Pasuf, who in no degree yielded the palm to the Burgamaster himself for calmness and flim. On a sign from Vantrikas, for the worthy man would not have articulated a syllable, the bar was pushed back and the door opened. Commissary Pasuf flung himself into the antechamber. One would have thought there was a hurricane. What's the matter, Monsieur the Commissary? Asked Lochke, a brave woman who did not lose her head under the most trying circumstances. What's the matter? replied Pasuf, whose big round eyes expressed a genuine agitation. The matter is that I have just come from Dr. Oxes, who has been holding reception, and that there, there, there, I have witnessed such an altercation as Monsieur the Burgamaster, they have been talking politics. Politics, repeated Vantrikas, running his fingers through his wig. Politics, resumed Commissary Pasuf, which has not been done for perhaps a hundred years at Quicandone. Then the discussion got warm, and the advocate, Andrei Shute, and the doctor, Dominique Custos, became so violent that it may be they will call each other out. Call each other out? cried the counselor. A duel? A duel at Quicandone? And what did Advocate Shute and Dr. Gustos say? Just this. Monsieur Advocate said the doctor to his adversary, You go too far. It seems to me and you do not take sufficient care to control your words. The Burgamaster Vantrikas clashed his hands. The counselor turned pale and let his lantern fall. The commissary shook his head. That a phrase so evidently irritating should be pronounced by two of the principal men in the country. This Dr. Custos, muttered Vantrikas, is decidedly a dangerous man, a harebrained fellow. Come, gentlemen. On this, counselor Nicholas and the commissary accompanied the Burgamaster into the parlor. End of Chapter 3. Recording by Alan Winteroud. Boomcoach.blogspot.com. Chapters 4 through 6 of Dr. Ox's experiment. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Alan Winteroud. Dr. Ox's experiment by Jules Verne. Chapter 4. In which Dr. Ox reveals himself as a physiologist of the first rank and as an audacious experimentalist. Who then was this personage known by the singular name of Dr. Ox? An original character for certain, but at the same time a bold savant, a physiologist whose works were known and highly esteemed throughout learned Europe. A happy rival of the Davies, the Dalton's, the Boestox, the Menzies, the Godwin's, the Vierdorz, of all those noble minds who have placed physiology among the highest of modern sciences. Dr. Ox was a man of medium size and height, aged, but we cannot state his age any more than his nationality. Besides, it matters little. Let it suffice that he was a strange personage, impetuous and hot-blooded, a regular oddity out of one of Hoffman's volumes, and one who contrasted amusingly enough with a good people of Kekendon. He had an imperturbable confidence both in himself and in his doctrines. Always smiling, walking with head erect and shoulders thrown back in a free and unconstrained manner, with a steady gaze, large open nostrils, a vast mouth which inhaled the air in liberal drafts, his appearance was far from unpleasing. He was full of animation, well proportioned in all parts of his bodily mechanism, with quick silver in his veins and a most elastic step. He could never stop still in one place, and relieved himself with impetuous words and a superabundance of gesticulations. Was Dr. Ox rich then, that he should undertake to light a whole town his expense? Probably, as he permitted himself to indulge in such extravagance, and this is the only answer we can give to this indiscreet question. Dr. Ox had arrived at Kekendon five months before, accompanied by his assistant who answered to the name of Gideon Eugene, a tall dried up thin man, haughty but not less vivacious than his master. And next, why had Dr. Ox made the proposition to light the town at his own expense? Why had he, of all the flimmings, selected the peaceable Kekendonians to endow their town with the benefits of an unheard of system of lighting? Did he not, under this pretext, designed to make some great physiological experiment by operating in Anima via? In short, what was this original personage about to attempt? We know not, as Dr. Ox had no confidant except his assistant Eugene, who moreover, obeyed him blindly. In appearance at least, Dr. Ox had agreed to light the town, which had much need of it, especially at night, as Commissary Pesouf Widdly said. Works for producing a lighting gas had accordingly been established. The gasometers were ready for use, and the main pipes running beneath the street pavements would soon appear in the form of burners in the public edifices and the private houses of certain friends of progress. Von Tricas and Nicholas, in their official capacity, and some other worthies, thought they ought to allow this modern light to be introduced into their dwellings. If the reader is not forgotten, it was said during the long conversation of the counselor and the burgamaster that the lighting of the town was to be achieved, not by the combustion of common carbureted hydrogen produced by distilling coal, but by the use of more modern and 20-fold more brilliant gas, oxy-hydric gas, produced by mixing hydrogen and oxygen. The doctor, who was an able chemist, as well as an ingenious physiologist, knew how to obtain this gas in great quantity and of good quality, not by using manganade of soda, according to the method of Monsieur Tessie de Motay, but by the direct decomposition of slightly assiduated water by means of a battery made of new elements invented by himself. Thus, there were no costly materials, no platinum, no retorts, no combustibles, no delicate machinery to produce the two gases separately. An electric current was sent through large basins full of water and the liquid was decomposed into its two constituent parts, oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen passed off at one end, the hydrogen of double the volume of its late associate at the other. As a necessary precaution, they were collected in separate reservoirs, for their mixture would have produced a frightful explosion if it had become ignited. Hence, the pipes were to convey them separately to the various burners, which would be so placed as to prevent all chance of explosion. Thus, a remarkably brilliant flame would be obtained, whose light would rival the electric light, which as everybody knows, is, according to Kasselman's experiments, equal to that of 1,171 wax candles, not one more nor one less. It was certain that the town of Kekendo and Wood, by this liberal contrivance, gain a splendid lighting. But Dr. Ox and his assistant took little account of this, as will be seen in the sequel. The day after that on which Commissary Passouf had made his noisy entrance into the Bergamasters parlor, Gideon Eugene and Dr. Ox were talking in the laboratory, which both occupied in common, on the ground floor of the principal building of the gasworks. Well Eugene, well cried the doctor, rubbing his hands. You saw at my reception yesterday the cold bloodedness of these worthy Kekendonians. For animation, they are midway between sponges and coral. You saw them disputing and irritating each other by voice and gesture. They are already metamorphosed morally and physically. And this is only the beginning. Wait till we treat them to a big dose. Indeed, Master, replied Eugene, scratching his sharp nose with the end of his forefinger. The experiment begins well, and if I had not prudently closed the supply tap, I know not what would have happened. You heard shoot the advocate and custose the doctor, resumed Dr. Ox. The phrase was by no means ill-natured in itself. But in the mouth of a Kekendonian, it is worth all the insults which the Homeric heroes hurled at each other before drawing their swords. These flimmings. You'll see what we shall do someday. We shall make them ungrateful, replied Eugene, in the tone of a man who esteems the human race at its just worth. Bah, said the doctor. What matters it whether they think well or ill of us so long as our experiment succeeds? Besides, returned the assistant, smiling with a malicious expression. Is it not to be feared that in producing such an excitement in their respiratory organs, we shall somewhat injure the lungs of these good people of Kekendon? So much the worse for them. It is in the interest of science. What would you say if the dogs or frogs refused to lend themselves to the experiments of Vitha section? It is probable that if the frogs and dogs were consulted, they would offer some objection. But Dr. Ox imagined that he had stated an unanswerable argument, for he heaved a great sigh of satisfaction. After all, Master, you are right, replied Eugene, as if quite convinced. We could not have hit upon better subjects than these people of Kekendon for our experiment. We could not, said the doctor, slowly articulating each word. Have you felt the pulse of any of them? Some hundreds. What is the average pulsation you found? Not 50 per minute. See, this is a town where there has not been the shadow of a discussion for a century. Where the carmen don't swear. Where the coachmen don't insult each other. Where horses don't run away. Where the dogs don't bite. Where the cats don't scratch. A town where the police court has nothing to do from one year into another. A town where people do not grow enthusiastic about anything, either about art or business. A town where the gendarmes are a sort of myth, and in which an indictment has not been drawn up for a hundred years. A town in short, where for three centuries nobody has struck a blow with its fist, or so much as exchanged a slap in the face. You see, Eugene, that this cannot last, and that we must change it all. Perfectly, perfectly cried the enthusiastic assistant. And have you analyzed the air of this town, master? I have not failed to do so. 79 parts of azote and 21 of oxygen, carbonic acid and steam in a variable quantity. These are the ordinary proportions. Good, Dr. Good, replied Eugene. The experiment will be made on a large scale and will be decisive. And if it is decisive, added Dr. Ox triumphantly, we shall reform the world. Chapter 5, in which the burgomaster and the counselor pay a visit to Dr. Ox and what follows. The counselor Nicholas and the burgomaster Von Trichas at last knew what it was to have an agitated night. The grave event which had taken place at Dr. Ox's house actually kept them awake. What consequences was this affair destined to bring about? They could not imagine. Would it be necessary for them to come to a decision? Would the municipal authority whom they represented be compelled to interfere? Would they be obliged to order a rest to be made? That so great a scandal should not be repeated? All these doubts could not but trouble these soft natures. And on that evening before separating, the two notables had decided to see each other the next day. On the next morning then before dinner, the burgomaster Von Trichas proceeded in person to the counselor Nicholas's house. He found his friend more calm. He himself had recovered his equanimity. Nothing new? Asked Von Trichas. Nothing new since yesterday, replied Nicholas. And the doctor, Dominique Custos? I have not heard anything, either of him or of the advocate, Andres Chout. After an hour's conversation, which consisted of three remarks which it is needless to repeat, the counselor and the burgomaster had resolved to pay a visit to Dr. Ox. so as to draw from him without seeming to do so some details of the affair. Contrary to all their habits, after coming to this decision, the two notables said about putting it into execution forthwith. They left the house and directed their steps towards Dr. Ox's laboratory, which was situated outside the town near the Udinard gate, the gate whose tower threatened to fall in ruins. They did not take each other's arms, but walked side by side with a slow and solemn step, which took them forward but 13 inches per second. This was indeed the ordinary gate of the Kweekendonians, who had never within the memory of man seen anyone run across the streets of their town. From time to time, the two notables would stop at some calm tranquil crossway or the end of a quiet street to salute the passersby. Good morning, Monsieur the burgomaster, said one. Good morning, my friend, responded Van Tricas. Anything new, Monsieur the counselor, asked another. Nothing new, answered Nicholas. But by certain agitated motions and questioning looks, it was evident that the altercation of the evening before was known throughout the town. Observing the direction taken by Van Tricas, the most obtuse Kweekendonians guessed that the burgomaster was on his way to take some important step. The Kustos and Schuttefer was talked of everywhere, but the people had not yet come to the point of taking the part of one or the other. The advocate shoot, never having had occasion to plead in a town where attorneys and bailiffs only existed in tradition, had consequently never lost a suit. As for the Dr. Kustos, he was an honorable practitioner, who, after the example of his fellow doctors, cured all the illnesses of his patients, except those of which they died. A habit unhappily acquired by all the members of all the faculties in whatever country they may practice. On reaching the Eudonard Gate, the counselor and the burgomaster prudently made a short detour, so as not to pass within reach of the tower, in case it should fall. Then they turned and looked at it attentively. I think that it will fall, said Van Tricas. I think so too, replied Nicholas. Unless it is propped up, added Van Tricas. But must it be propped up? That is the question. That is, in fact, the question. Some moments after, they reached the door of the gasworks. Can we see Dr. Ochs they asked? Dr. Ochs could always be seen by the first authorities of the town, and they were at once introduced into the celebrated physiologist's study. Perhaps the two notables waited for the doctor at least an hour. At least, it is reasonable to suppose so, as the burgomaster, a thing that had never before happened in his life, betrayed a certain amount of impatience from which his companion was not exempt. Dr. Ochs came in at last and began to excuse himself for having kept them waiting, but he had to approve a plan for the gasometer, rectify some of the machinery, but everything was going on well. The pipes intended for the oxygen were already laid. In a few months, the town would be splendidly lighted. The two notables might even now see the orifices of the pipes which were laid on in the laboratory. Then the doctor begged to know to what he was indebted for the honor of this visit. Only to see you, doctor, to see you, replied Van Tricas. It is long since we have had the pleasure. We go abroad but little in our good town of Quicandone. We count our steps and measure our walks. We are happy when nothing disturbs the uniformity of our habits. Nicholas looked at his friend. His friend had never said so much at once, at least without taking time and giving long intervals between his sentences. It seemed to him that Van Tricas expressed himself with a certain volubility, which was by no means common with him. Nicholas himself experienced a kind of irresistible desire to talk. As for Dr. Ox, he looked at the burgamaster with sly attention. Van Tricas, who had never argued until he had snugly ensconced himself in a spacious arm chair, had risen to his feet. I know not what nervous excitement quite foreign to his temperament had taken possession of him. He did not gesticulate as yet, but this could not be far off. As for the counselor, he rubbed his legs and breathed with slow and long gasps. His look became animated little by little, and he had decided to support at all hazards, if need be, his trusty friend the burgamaster. Van Tricas got up and took several steps, then he came back and stood facing the doctor. And in how many months, he asked, in a somewhat emphatic tone, do you say that your work will be finished? In three or four months, Mr. the Burgamaster, replied Dr. Ox, three or four months, it's a very long time, said Van Tricas. Altogether too long, added Nicholas, who not being able to keep his seat rose also. This lapse of time is necessary to complete our work, returned Dr. Ox. The workmen whom we have had to choose in Quicandone are not very expeditious. How not expeditious? cried the burgamaster, who seemed to take the remark as personally offensive. No, Mr. Van Tricas, replied Dr. Ox obstinately. A French workman would do in a day what it takes ten of your workmen to do. You know, they are regular flimmings. Flimmings, cried the counselor, whose fingers closed together. In what sense, sir, do you use that word? Why, in the amiable sense in which everyone uses it, replied Dr. Ox smiling. Ah, but Dr., said the burgamaster, pacing up and down the room. I don't like these insinuations. The workmen of Quicandone are as efficient as those of any other town in the world. You must know. And we shall go neither to Paris nor London for our models. As for your project, I beg you to hasten its execution. Our streets have been unpaved for the putting down of your conduit pipes, and it is an hindrance to traffic. Our trade will begin to suffer, and I, being a responsible authority, do not propose to incur approaches will be but too just. Worthy burgamaster, he spoke of trade, of traffic, and the wonder was that those words, to which he was quite unaccustomed, did not scorch his lips. What could be passing in his mind? Besides, added Nicholas, the town cannot be deprived of light much longer. But urged Dr. Ox, a town which has been unlighted for eight or nine hundred years, all the more necessary it is, replied the burgamaster, emphasizing his words. Times altar, manners altar, the world advances, and we do not wish to remain behind. We desire our streets to be lighted within a month, or you must pay a large indemnity for each day of delay. And what would happen if amid the darkness some affray should take place? No doubt, cried Nicholas, it requires but a spark to inflame a flaming, flaming, flame. I propose this, said the burgamaster, interrupting his friend. Commissary Parseuf, our chief of police, reports to us that a discussion took place in your drawing room last evening, Dr. Ox. Was he wrong in declaring that it was a political discussion? By no means, monsieur the burgamaster, replied Dr. Ox, who with difficulty repressed a sigh of satisfaction. So an altercation did take place between Dominique Custos and André Chout. Yes, counselor, but the words which passed were of not of great import. Not of great import, cried the burgamaster. Not of great import when one man tells another that he does not measure the effect of his words, but of what stuff are you made of, monsieur? Do you not know that in Quiquendon nothing more is needed to bring about extremely disastrous results? But, monsieur, if you or anyone else presumes to speak thus to me or to me, added Nicholas, as they pronounced these words with a menacing air, the two notables with arms folded and bristling air confronted Dr. Ox, ready to do him some violence, if by gesture or even the expression of his eye he manifested any intention of contradicting them. But the doctor did not budge. At all events, resume the burgamaster. I propose to hold you responsible for what passes in your house. I am bound to ensure the tranquility of this town and I do not wish it to be disturbed. The events of last evening must not be repeated or I shall do my duty, sir. Do you hear? Then reply, sir. The burgamaster, as he spoke, under the influence of extraordinary excitement, elevated his voice to the pitch of anger. He was furious, though worthy of entrecasse and might certainly be heard outside. At last, beside himself and seeing that Dr. Ox did not reply to his challenge, come, Nicholas said he, and slamming the door with a violence which shook the house, the burgamaster drew his friend after him. Little by little, when they had taken twenty steps on the road, the worthy notables drew more calm. Their pace slackened, their gait became less feverish. The flush on their faces faded away. From being crimson, they became rosy. A quarter of an hour after quitting the gasworks, Von Trecasse said softly to Nicholas, an amiable man, Dr. Ox, it is always a pleasure to see him. Chapter 6, in which Franz and Nicholas and Susel Von Trecasse form certain projects for the future. Our readers know that the burgamaster had a daughter, Susel, but true to they may be, they cannot have divined that the counselor Nicholas had a son, Franz, and had they divined this, nothing could have led them to imagine that Franz was the betrothed lover of Susel. We will add that these young people were made for each other, and that they loved each other as folks did love at Quicandone. It must not be thought that young hearts did not beat in this exceptional place, only they beat with a certain deliberation. There were marriages there, as in every other town in the world, but they took time about it. Betrothed couples, before engaging in these terrible bonds, wished to study each other, and these studies lasted at least 10 years as a college. It was rare that anyone was accepted before this lapse of time. Yes, 10 years. The courtships last 10 years. And is it, after all, too long when the being bound for life is in consideration? One studies 10 years to become an engineer or physician, an advocate or attorney, and should less time be spent in acquiring the knowledge to make a good husband? Is it not reasonable? And whether due to temperament or reason with them, the Quicandonians seemed to us to be in the right, and thus prolonging their courtship. When marriages in other more lively and excitable cities are seen taking place within a few months, we must shrug our shoulders and hasten to send our boys to the schools and our daughters to the pations of Quicandone. For half a century, but a single marriage was known to have taken place after the lapse of two years only of courtship, and that turned out badly. Franz Nicholas, then, loves Susel van Tricas, but quietly, as a man would love when he has 10 years before him in which to obtain the beloved object. Once every week, at an hour agreed upon, Franz went to fetch Susel, and took a walk with her along the banks of the Var. He took good care to carry his fishing tackle, and Susel never forgot her canvas, on which her pretty hands embroidered the most unlikely flowers. Franz was a young man of 22, whose cheeks betrayed a soft peachy down, and whose voice had scarcely a compass of one octave. As for Susel, she was blonde and rosy. She was 17 and did not dislike fishing. A singular occupation, this, which forces you to struggle craftily with a marble. But Franz loved it. The pastime was congenial to his temperament. As patient as possible, content to follow with his rather dreamy eye the cork which bobbed on top of the water, he knew how to wait. And when, after sitting for six hours, a modest marble, taking pity on him, consented at last to be caught, he was happy. But he knew how to control his emotion. On this day, the two lovers, one might say the two be troathed, were seated upon the verdant bank. The limpid Var murmured a few feet below them. Susel quietly drew her needle across the canvas. Franz automatically carried his line from left to right, then permitted it to descend the current from right to left. The fish made capricious rings in the water, which crossed each other around the cork while the hook hung useless near the bottom. From time to time, Franz would say, without raising his eyes, I think I have a bite, Susel. Do you think so, Franz? replied Susel, who, abandoning her work for an instant, followed her lover's line with Ernest's eye. No, returned Franz. I thought I felt a little twitch. I was mistaken. You will have a bite, Franz, replied Susel, in her pure, soft voice. But do not forget to strike at the right moment. You are always a few seconds too late, and the marble takes advantage to escape. Would you like to take my line, Susel? Willingly, Franz. Then give me your canvas. We shall see whether I am more adroit with the needle than with the hook. And the young girl took the line with trembling hand, while her swain plied the needle across the stitches of the embroidery. For hours together they thus exchanged soft words, and their hearts palpitated when the cork bobbed on the water. Ah, could they ever forget those charming hours, during which, seated side by side, they listened to the murmurs of the river. The sun was fast approaching the western horizon, and despite the combined skill of Susel and Franz, there had not been a bite. The barbels had not shown themselves complacent, and seemed to scoff at the two young people, who were too just to bear them malice. We shall be more lucky another time, Franz, said Susel, as a young angler put up his still virgin hook. Let us hope so, replied Franz. Then walking side by side, they turned their steps toward the house, without exchanging a word as mute as their shadows which stretched out before them. Susel became very, very tall, under the oblique rays of the setting sun. Franz appeared very, very thin, like the long rod which he held in his hand. They reached the burgamaster's house. Green tufts of grass bordered the shining pavement, and no one would have thought of tearing them away, for they deadened the noise made by the passer's by. As they were about to open the door, Franz thought of his duty to say to Susel, You know Susel, the great day is approaching. It is indeed, Franz, replied the young girl with downcast eyes. Yes, said Franz, in five or six years. Goodbye, Franz, said Susel. Goodbye, Susel, replied Franz. And after the door had been closed, the young man resumed the way to his father's house, with a calm and equal pace. The agitation caused by the chute and custos affair had subsided. The affair led to no serious consequences. It appeared likely that quickendone would return to its habitual apathy, which the unexpected event had for a moment disturbed. Meanwhile, the laying of the pipes destined to conduct the oxyhydric gas into the principal edifices of the town was proceeding rapidly. The main pipes and branches gradually crept beneath the pavements, but the burners were still wanting. For, as it required delicate skill to make them, it was necessary that they should be fabricated abroad. Dr. Ox was here, there, and everywhere. Neither he nor Eugene, his assistant, lost a moment. But they urged on the workmen, completed the delicate mechanisms of the gasometer, fed day and night the immense piles which decompose the water under the influence of a powerful electric current. Yes, the doctor was already making his gas, though the pipe laying was not yet done. A fact which, between ourselves, might have seemed a little singular. But before long, at least there was a reason to hope so, before long Dr. Ox would inaugurate the splendors of his invention in the theater of the town. For quickendone possessed a theater, a really fine edifice in truth, the interior and exterior arrangement of which combined every style of architecture. It was at once Byzantine, Roman, Gothic, Renaissance, with semi-circular doors, pointed windows, flamboyant rose windows, fantastic bell turrets, in a word, a specimen of all sorts, half a Parthenon, half a Parisian Grand Café. Nor was this surprising, the theater having been commissioned under the burgamaster Ludwig von Tricasse in 1175, and only finished in 1837 under the burgamaster Natalis von Tricasse. It had required 700 years to build it, and it had been successively adapted to the architectural style and vogue in each period. But for all that, it was an imposing structure, the Roman pillars and Byzantine arches of which would appear to advantage lit up by the oxy-hydric gas. Pretty well everything was acted at the theater of quickendone, but the opera and the opera kamik were especially patronized. It must however be added that the composers would never have recognized their own works, so entirely changed were the movements of the music. In short, as nothing was done in a hurry in quickendone, the dramatic pieces had to be performed in harmony with the peculiar temperament of the quickendonians. Though the doors of the theater were regularly thrown open at four o'clock and closed again at ten, it had never been known that more than two acts were playable during the six intervening hours. Robert Le Diable, Les Huguenots, or Guillaume Tell usually took up three evenings, so slow was the execution of these masterpieces. The vivaces at the theater of quickendone lagged like real adagios. The Allegros were long drawn out indeed. The demi-semi-quavers were scarcely equal to the ordinary semibreve of other countries. The most rapid runs performed according to quickendonian taste had the solemn march of a chant. The gayest shakes were languishing and measured that they might not shock the ears of the dilettante. To give an example, the rapid air sung by Figaro on his entrance in the last act of Le Babier de Saville lasted 58 minutes when the actor was particularly enthusiastic. Artists from abroad, as might be supposed, were forced to conform themselves to quickendonian fashions, but as they were well paid they did not complain and willingly obeyed the leaders baton, which never beat more than eight measures to the minute in the Allegros. But what applause greeted these artists, who enchanted without ever wearying the audiences of quickendone. All hands clapped one after another at tolerably long intervals, which the papers characterized as frantic applause, and sometimes nothing but the lavish prodigality with which mortar and stone had been used in the 12th century saved the roof of the hall from falling in. Besides, the theatre had only one performance a week, that these enthusiastic flimish folk might not be too much excited, and this enabled the actors to study their parts more thoroughly and the spectators to digest more at leisure the beauties of the masterpieces brought out. Such had long been the drama at quickendone. Foreign artists were in the habit of making engagements with the director of the town when they wanted to rest after their exertions in other scenes, and it seemed as if nothing could ever change these inveterate customs when a fortnight after the chute custos affair, an unlooked-for incident occurred to throw the population into fresh agitation. It was on a Saturday, an opera day. It was not yet intended, as may well be supposed, to inaugurate the new illumination. No, the pipes had reached the hall, but for reasons indicated above, the burners had not yet been placed, and the wax candles still shed their soft light upon the numerous spectators who filled the theatre. The doors had been opened to the public at one o'clock, and by three the hall was half full. A queue had, at one time, been formed, which extended as far as the end of the Place Sainte-Ernouf, in front of the shop of Joss Lintnick, the apothecary. This eagerness was significant of an unusually attractive performance. Are you going to the theatre this evening, inquired the counselor the same morning of the burgamaster? I shall not fail to do so, returned Vantrikas, and I shall take madame Vantrikas, as well as our daughter Susel and our dear Tantanmantz, who all doed on good music. Mademoiselle Susel is going then? Certainly, Nicholas. Then my son Franz will be one of the first to arrive, said Nicholas. A spirited boy, Nicholas, replied the burgamaster sententiously, but hot-headed, he will require watching. He loves Vantrikas. He loves your charming Susel. Well, Nicholas, he shall marry her. Now that we have agreed on this marriage, what more can he desire? He desires nothing, Vantrikas, the dear boy, but in short, we'll say no more about it. He will not be the last to get his ticket at the box office. Ah, vivacious and ardent youth, replied the burgamaster, recalling his own past. We have also been thus, my worthy counselor. We have loved, we too. We have danced attendance in our day, till tonight then, till tonight. By the by, do you know this Fia Verante is a great artist, and what a welcome he has received among us. It will be long before he will forget the applause of Quicandone. The tenor Fio Verante was indeed going to sing. Fio Verante, who, by his talents as a virtuoso, his perfect method, his melodious voice provoked a real enthusiasm among the lovers of music in the town. For three weeks, Fia Verante had been achieving a brilliant success in Le Huguenot. The first act, interpreted according to the taste of the Quicandonians, had occupied an entire evening of the first week of the month. Another evening in the second week, prolonged by infinite adantes, had elicited for the celebrated singer a real ovation. His success had been still more marked in the third act of Meyerbeer's masterpiece. But now Fia Verante was to appear in the fourth act, which was to be performed on this evening before an impatient public. Ah, the duel between Raul and Valentin, that pathetic love song for two voices, that strain so full of crescendos, stringendos, and piocrescendos, all this sung slowly, compendiously, interminably. Ah, how delightful. At four o'clock the hall was full. The boxes, the orchestra, the pit were overflowing. In the front stalls sat the Bergamaster Vantrikas, Mademoiselle Vantrikas, Madame Vantrikas, and the Abial Tatanmantz in a green bonnet. Not far off were the Councilor Nicholas and his family, not forgetting the Amoris France. The families of Cousteau's the Doctor, of Chute the Advocate, of Anore Syntax, the chief judge, of Norbe Sontman, the insurance director, of the banker Colart, gone mad on German music, and himself somewhat of an amateur, and the teacher Rupp, and the master of the academy, Jerome Resch, and the civil commissary, and so many other notabilities of the town, that they could not be enumerated here without wearying the reader's patience, were visible in different parts of the hall. It was customary for the Queakendonians while awaiting the rise of the curtain to sit silent, some reading the paper, others whispering low to each other, some making their way to their seats slowly and noiselessly, others casting timid looks toward the bewitching beauties in the galleries. But on this evening a looker on might have observed that, even before the curtain rose, there was unusual animation among the audience. People were restless who were never known to be restless before. The ladies fans flooded with abnormal rapidity. All appeared to be inhaling air of exceptional stimulating power. Everyone breathed more freely, the eyes of some became unwontedly bright, and seemed to give forth a light equal to that of the candles, which themselves certainly threw a more brilliant light over the hall. It was evident that people saw more clearly, though the number of candles had not been increased. Ah, if Dr. Ox's experiment were being tried, but it was not being tried as yet. The musicians of the orchestra at last took their places. The first violin had gone to the stand to give a modest la to his colleagues. The stringed instruments, the wind instruments, the drums and cymbals were in accord. The conductor only waited the sound of the bell to beat the first bar. The bell sounds, the fourth act begins. The Allegro Appassionato of the Interact is played as usual, with a majestic deliberation which would have made Meyerbeer frantic, and all the majesty of which was appreciated by the Quicandonian dilettante. But soon the leader perceived that he was no longer master of his musicians. He found it difficult to restrain them, though usually so obedient and calm. The wind instruments betrayed a tendency to hasten the movements, and it was necessary to hold them back with a firm hand, for they would otherwise outstrip the stringed instruments, which, from a musical point of view, would have been disastrous. The bassoon himself, the son of Joss Leintrick, the apothecary, a well-bred young man, seemed to lose his self-control. Meanwhile, Valentin had begun her acidity, I am alone, etc., but she hurries it. The leader and all his musicians, perhaps unconsciously, follow her in the contabeal, which should be taken deliberately, like a 12-8 as it is. When Raul appears at the door at the bottom of the stage, between the moment when Valentin goes to him, and that when she conceals herself in the chamber at the side, a quarter of an hour does not elapse. While formerly, according to the traditions of the Quicandonian theatre, this recitative of 37 bars was want to last just 37 minutes. Sombri, Nevere, Kavan, and the Catholic nobles have appeared, somewhat prematurely, perhaps, upon the scene. The composer has marked Allegro Pomposo on the score. The orchestra and the lords proceed Allegro indeed, but not at all Pomposo. And at the chorus, in the famous scene of the Benedictine of the Ponyards, they no longer keep to the enjoined Allegro. Singers and musicians broke away impestuously. The leader does not even attempt to restrain them, nor do the public protest, on the contrary, that people find themselves carried away and see that they are involved in the movement and that the movement responds to the impulses of their souls. Will you with me deliver the land from troubles increasing and impious band? They promise, they swear, Nevers has scarcely time to protest and to sing that among his ancestors were many soldiers but never an assassin. He is arrested. The police and the alderman rush forward and rapidly swear to strike all at once. Sombri shouts the recitative which summons the Catholics to vengeance. The three monks with white scars hasten in by the door at the back of Nevere's room without making any account of the stage directions which enjoined them to advance slowly. Already the artists have drawn sword or ponyard which the three monks bless in a trice. The Soprani tenors, bassoes, attack the Allegro Furioso with cries of rage and of a dramatic six-eight time they make it six-eight quadril time. Then they rush out bellowing at midnight noiselessly. God wills it. Yes, at midnight. At this moment, the audience start to their feet. Everybody is agitated in the boxes, the pit, the galleries. It seems as if the spectators are about to rush upon the stage. The Bergamastro van Thrikas at their head to join with the conspirators and annihilate the Huguenots whose religious opinions however they share. They applaud, call before the curtain, make loud acclamations. Tathenmonts grasps her bonnet with feverish hand. The candles throw out a lurid glow of light. Raul, instead of slowly raising the curtain, tears it apart with a superb gesture and finds himself confronting Valentin. At last, it is the grand duet and it starts off Allegro Vivace. Raul does not wait for Valentine's pleading and Valentine does not wait for Raul's responses. The fine passage beginning, danger is passing, time is flying, becomes one of those rapid errors which have made Offenbach famous when he composes a dance for conspirators. The Adante Amoroso, thou hast said it, aye, thou lovest me, becomes a real Vivace Furioso, and the Vilancello ceases to imitate the inflections of the singer's voice as indicated in the composer's score. In vain Raul cries, speak on and prolong the ineffable slumber of my soul. Valentine cannot prolong. It is evident that an unaccustomed fire devours her. Her bees and her seas above the stave were dreadfully shrill. He struggles. He gesticulates. He is all in a glow. The alarm is heard. The bell resounds. But what a panting bell. The bell ringer has evidently lost his self-control. It is a frightful toxin which violently struggles against the fury of the orchestra. Final of the air which ends this magnificent act begins. No more love. No more intoxication. Oh, the remorse that oppresses me. Which the composer marks Allegro Conmolto becomes a wild prestissimo. You would say an express train was whirling by. The alarm resounds again. Valentine falls fainting. Raul precipitates himself from the window. It was high time. The orchestra already intoxicated could not have gone on. The leader's baton is no longer anything but a broken stick on the prompter's box. The violin strings are broken and their necks twisted. In his fury the drummer has burst his drum. The counter-basist has perched on top of the musical monster. The first clarinet has swallowed the reed of his instrument and the second hote boy is chewing his reed keys. The groove of the trombone is strained and finally the unhappy cornice cannot withdraw his hand from the bell of his horn into which he had thrust it too far. And the audience? The audience panting all in a heat gesticulates in howls. All the faces are as red as if a fire were burning within their bodies. They crowd each other, hustle each other to get out. The men without hats, the women without mantles. They elbow each other in the corridors, crush between the doors, quarrel and fight. There are no longer any officials, any burgamaster. All are equal amid this infernal frenzy. Some moments after, when all have reached the street, each one resumes his habitual tranquility and peaceably enters his house with a confused remembrance of what he has just experienced. The fourth act of the Huguenots, which formerly lasted six hours, began on this evening at half past four and ended at twelve minutes before five. It had only lasted eighteen minutes. Chapter eight, in which the ancient and solemn German waltz becomes a whirlwind. But if the spectators on leaving the theater resumed their customary calm, if they quietly regained their homes, preserving only a sort of passing stupidification, they had nonetheless undergone a remarkable exaltation and overcome and weary as if they had committed some excess of dissipation, they fell heavily upon their beds. The next day, each Quicandonian had a kind of recollection of what had occurred the evening before. One missed his hat, lost in the hubbub. Another a coat flap, torn in the brawl. One her delicately fashioned shoe, another her best mantle. Memory returned to these worthy people and with it, a certain shame for their unjustifiable agitation. It seemed to them an orgy in which they were the unconscious heroes and heroines. They did not speak of it. They did not wish to think of it. But the most astounded personage in the town was Vanthrikas the Burgamaster. The next morning, on waking, he could not find his wig. Lachke looked everywhere for it but in vain. The wig had remained on the field of battle. As for having it publicly claimed by Jean Mistral, the town crier, no, it would not do. It were better to lose the wig than to advertise himself thus as he had the honor to be the first magistrate of Quicandone. The worthy Vanthrikas was reflecting upon this, extended beneath his sheets with bruised body, heavy head, furred tongue and burning breast. He felt no desire to get up on the contrary and his brain worked more during this morning than it had probably worked before for 40 years. The worthy magistrate recalled to his mind all the incidents of the incomprehensible performance. He connected them with the events which had taken place shortly before at Dr. Ox's reception. He tried to discover the causes of the singular excitability which, on two occasions, had betrayed itself in the best citizens of the town. What can be going on, he asked himself, what giddy spirit has taken possession of my peaceable town of Quicandone? Are we about to go mad and must we make the town one vast asylum? For yesterday we were all there, notables, counselors, judges, advocates, physicians, school masters, and all if my memory serves me, all of us were assailed by this excess of furious folly. But what was there in that infernal music? It is inexplicable. Yet I certainly ate or drank nothing which could have put me in such a state. No. Yesterday I had for dinner a slice of overdone veal, several spoonfuls of spinach with sugar, eggs and a little beer and water. That couldn't get into my head. No. There is something that I cannot explain and as after all I am responsible for the conduct of the citizens, I will have an investigation. But the investigation, though decided upon by the municipal council, produced no result. If the facts were clear, the causes escaped the sagacity of the magistrates. Besides, tranquility had been restored in the public mind and with tranquility, forgetfulness of the strange scenes of the theater. The newspapers avoided speaking of them and the account of the performance which appeared in the Quincandone Memorial made no allusion to this intoxication of the entire audience. Meanwhile, though the town resumed its habitual flim and became apparently Flemish as before, it was observable that, at bottom, the character and temperament of the people changed little by little. One might have truly said with Dominique Custos, the doctor that their nerves were affected. Let us explain. This undoubted change only took place under certain conditions. When the Quincandonians passed through the street of the town, walked in the squares or along the var, they were always the cold and methodical people of former days. So too, when they remained at home, some working with their hands and others with their heads, these doing nothing, these thinking nothing, their private life was silent, inert, vegetating as before. No quarrels, no household squabbles, no acceleration in the beating of the heart, no excitement of the brain. The mean of their pulsations remained as it was of old from 50 to 52 per minute. But strange and inexplicable phenomenon though it was, which would have defied the sagacity of the most ingenious physiologists of the day, if the inhabitants of Quincandon did not change in their home life, they were visually changed in their civil life and in their relations between man and man to which it leads. If they met together in some public edifice, it did not work well, as Commissary Pesouf expressed it. On change at the town hall, in the amphitheater of the Academy, at the sessions of the council, as well as at the reunions of the savants, a strange excitement seized the assembled citizens. Their relations with each other became embarrassing before they had been together an hour. In two hours, the discussion degenerated into an angry dispute. Heads became heated and personalities were used. Even at church during the sermon, the faithful could not listen to Von Stabel the minister and patients, and he threw himself about in the pulpit and lectured his flock with far more than his usual severity. At last this state of things brought about altercations more grave alas than the one between Gustos and Schuett. And if they did not require the interference of the authorities, it was because the antagonists, after returning home, found there with its calm forgetfulness of the offenses offered and received. This peculiarity could not be observed by these minds, which were absolutely incapable of recognizing what was passing in them. One person only in the town, he whose office the council had thought of suppressing for 30 years, Michael Pesouf, had remarked that this excitement, which was absent from private houses, quickly revealed itself in public edifices. And he asked himself, not without a certain anxiety, what would happen if this infection should ever develop itself in the family mansions. And if the epidemic, this was the word he used, should extend through the streets of the town. Then there would be no more forgetfulness of insults, no more tranquility, no intermission in the delirium, but a permanent inflammation, which would inevitably bring the Quicondonians into collision with each other. What would happen then, Commissary Pesouf asked himself in terror? How could these furious savages be arrested? How check these goaded temperaments? My office would be no longer a cynicier, and the council would be obliged to double my salary, unless it should arrest me myself for disturbing the public peace. These very reasonable fears began to be realized. The infection spread from change, the theater, the church, the town hall, the academy, the market, into private houses, and that in less than a fortnight after the terrible performances of the Huguenots. Its first symptoms appeared in the house of Colère the banker. That wealthy personage gave a ball, or at least a dancing party, to the notabilities of the town. He had issued some months before a loan of 30,000 francs, three quarters of which had been subscribed, and to celebrate this financial success, he had opened his drawing rooms and given a party to his fellow citizens. Everybody knows that Flemish parties are innocent and tranquil enough, the principal expense of which is usually in beer and syrups. Some conversation on the weather, the appearance of the crops, the fine condition of the garden, the care of flowers, and especially of tulips, a slow and measured dance from time to time, perhaps a minuet, sometimes a waltz, but one of those German waltzes, which achieve a turn and a half per minute, and during which the dancers hold each other as far apart as their arms will permit, such as the usual fashion of the balls attended by the aristocratic society of Quiquendon. The polka, after being altered to four-time, had tried to become accustomed to it, but the dancers always lagged behind the orchestra, no matter how slow the measure, and it had to be abandoned. These peaceable reunions, in which the youths and maidens enjoyed an honest and moderate pleasure, had never been attended by any outburst of ill nature. Why then, on this evening at Colère the Bankers, did the syrups seem to be transformed into heady wines, into sparkling champagne, into heating punches? Why, toward the middle of the evening, did a sort of mysterious intoxication take possession of the guests? Why did the minuet become a jig? Why did the orchestra hurry with its harmonies? Why did the candles, just as at the theater, burn with unwanted refulgence? What electric current invaded the bankers' drawing rooms? How happened it that couples held each other so closely, and clasped each other's hands so convulsively, that the cavalier souls made themselves conspicuous by certain extraordinary steps in that figure usually so grave, so solemn, so majestic, so very proper? Alas, what Oedipus could have answered these unsolvable questions? Commissary Pesouf, who was present at the party, saw the storm coming distinctly, but he could not control it or fly from it, and he felt kind of intoxication entering his own brain. All his physical and emotional faculties increased in intensity. He was seen several times to throw himself upon the confectionery and devour the dishes, as if he had just broken a long fast. The animation of the ball was increasing all this while. A long murmur like a dull buzzing escaped from all breasts. They danced, really danced. The feet were agitated by increasing frenzy. The faces became as purple as those of Silenus. The eyes shone like carbuncles. The general fermentation rose to the highest pitch. And when the orchestra thundered out the waltz in their fair shoots, when this waltz, so German, and with a movement so slow, was attacked with wild arms by the musicians, it was no longer a waltz, but an insensate whirlwind, a giddy rotation, a gyration worthy of being led by some Mephistopheles, beating the measure with a firebrand, then a gallop, an infernal gallop which lasted an hour without anyone being able to stop it. World off in its windings, across the halls, the drawing rooms, the anti chambers, by the staircases, from the cellar to the garret of this opulent mansion, the young people and young girls, the fathers and mothers, people of every age, of every weight of both sexes, Colère, the fat banker, and Madame Colère, and the counselors, and the magistrates, and the chief justice, and Nicholas, and Madame Vensrikas, and the Bergamaster Vensrikas, and the commissary Pazuf himself, who never could recall afterwards who had been his partner on that terrible evening. But she did not forget, and ever since that day, she has seen in her dreams the fiery commissary enfolding her in an impassioned embrace, and she was the amiable Tottenmonts. End of Chapter 8. Recording by Alan Winteroud, boomcoach.blogspot.com. Chapters 9-12 of Dr. Ox's experiment. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Alan Winteroud. Dr. Ox's experiment by Jules Verne. Chapter 9, in which Dr. Ox and Eugene, his assistant, say a few words. Well, Eugene, well, master, all is ready. The laying of the pipes is finished, at last. Now then, we are going to operate on a large scale, on the masses. Chapter 10, in which it will be seen that the epidemic invades the entire town and what effect it produces. During the following months, the evil in place of subsiding became more extended. From private houses, the epidemic spread into the streets. The town of Quicandone was no longer to be recognized. A phenomenon yet stranger than those which had already happened now appeared. Not only the animal kingdom, but the vegetable kingdom itself became subject to the mysterious influence. According to the ordinary course of things, epidemics are special in their operation. Those which attack humanity spare the animals, and those which attack the animals spare the vegetables. A horse was never inflicted with smallpox, nor a man with the cattle plague, nor do sheep suffer from the potato rot, but here all the laws of nature seem to be overturned. Not only were the character, temperament, and ideas of the townsfolk changed, but the domestic animals, dogs and cats, horses and cows, asses and goats suffered from this epidemic influence, as if their habitual equilibrium had been changed. The plants themselves were infected by a similar strange metamorphosis. In the gardens and vegetable patches, in orchards, very curious symptoms manifested themselves. Climbing plants climbed more audaciously. Tufted plants became more tufted than ever. Shrubs became trees. Cereals, scarcely sown, showed their little green heads, and gained in the same length of time, as much in inches as formerly, under the most favorable circumstances they had gained in fractions. Asparagus attained the height of several feet. The artichokes swelled to the size of melons, the melons to the size of pumpkins, the pumpkins to the size of gourds, the gourds to the size of the belfry bell, which measured in truth nine feet in diameter. The cabbages were bushes and the mushrooms umbrellas. The fruits did not lag behind the vegetables. It required two persons to eat a strawberry and four to consume a pear. The grapes also attained the enormous proportions of those so well depicted by Poussin in his return of the envoys to the Promised Land. It was the same with the flowers. Immense violet spread the most penetrating perfumes through the air. Exaggerated roses shone with the brightest colors. Lilies formed in a few days impenetrable copses. Geraniums, daisies, camellias, rhododendrons invaded the garden walks and stifled each other. And the tulips, those dear, lilacious plants so dear to the Flemish heart, what emotion they must have caused to their zealous cultivators. The worthy van Bistron nearly fell over backwards one day on seeing in his garden an enormous tulipia jesneria, a gigantic monster whose cup afforded space to a nest for a whole family of robins. The entire town flocked to see this floral phenomenon and renamed it the tulipa quickendonia. But alas, if these plants, these fruits, these flowers grew visibly to the naked eye, if all the vegetables insisted on assuming colossal proportions, if the brilliancy of their colors and perfume intoxicated the smell on the site, they quickly withered. The air which they absorbed rapidly exhausted them and they soon died, faded and dried up. Such was the fate of the famous tulip, which after several days of splendor became emaciated and fell lifeless. It was soon the same with the domestic animals, from the house dog to the stable pig, from the canary in its cage to the turkey of the backcourt. It must be said that in ordinary times these animals were not less phlegmatic than their masters. The dogs and cats vegetated rather than lived. They never betrayed a wag of pleasure nor a snarl of wrath. Their tails moved no more than if they had been made of bronze. Such a thing as a bite or scratch from any of them had not been known from time immemorial. As for mad dogs, they were looked upon as imaginary beasts, like the griffons and the rest of the menagerie of the apocalypse. But what a change had taken place in a few months, the smallest incidents of which we are trying to reproduce. Dogs and cats began to show teeth and claws. Several executions had taken place after reiterated offenses. A horse was seen for the first time to take his bit in his teeth and rush to the streets of Cuitcundone. An ox was observed to precipitate itself with lowered horns upon one of his herd. An ass was seen to turn himself over with his legs in the air in the Place Saint-Yenouf and Bray as ass never braided before. A sheep, actually a sheep, defended valiantly the cutlets within him from the butcher's knife. Von Tricoste, the burgamaster, was forced to make police regulations concerning the domestic animals. As seized with lunacy, they rendered the streets of Cuitcundone unsafe. But alas, if the animals were mad the men were scarcely less so. No age was spared by the scourge. Babies soon became quite insupportable, though till now so easy to bring up. And for the first time, oner syntax the judge was obliged to apply the rod to his youthful offspring. There was a kind of insurrection at the high school, and the dictionaries became formidable missiles in the classes. The scholars would not submit to be shut in, and besides, the infection took the teachers themselves who overwhelmed the boys and girls with extravagant tasks and punishments. Another strange phenomenon occurred. All these Cuitcundonians so sober before, whose chief food had been whipped creams, committed wild excesses in their eating and drinking. Their usual regimen no longer sufficed. Each stomach was transformed into a gulf, and it became necessary to fill this gulf by the most energetic means. The consumption of the town was troubled. Instead of two repasts, they had six. Many cases of indigestion were reported. The councilor Nicholas could not satisfy his hunger. Vantricos found it impossible to assuage his thirst, and remained in a state of rabid semi-intoxication. In short, the most alarming symptoms manifested themselves and increased from day to day. Drunken people staggered in the streets, and these were often citizens of high position. Dominique Custos, the physician, had plenty to do with the heartburns, inflammations, and nervous afflictions, which proved to what a strange degree the nerves of the people had been irritated. There were daily quarrels and altercations in the once-deserted, but now crowded streets of Quiquendon. For nobody could any longer stay at home. It was necessary to establish a new police force to control the disturbors of the public peace. A prison cage was established in the town hall, and speedily became full night and day of refractory offenders. Commissary Pesouf was in despair. A marriage was concluded in less than two months, such a thing had never been seen before. Yes, the son of Rup the schoolmaster wedded the daughter of Augustine de Rovers, and that 57 days only after he had petitioned for her hand and heart. Other marriages were decided upon, which, in old times, would have remained in doubt and discussion for years. The burgamaster perceived that his own daughter, the charming Susel, was escaping from his hands. As for dear Tatamans, she had dared to sound Commissary Pesouf on the subject of a union, which seemed to her to combine every element of happiness, fortune, honor, youth. At last, to reach the depths of abomination, a duel took place. Yes, a duel with pistols, horse pistols, at seventy-five paces with ball cartridges, and between whom our readers will never believe. Between Monsieur Franz Nicholas, the gentle angler, and between Simon Colère, the wealthy banker's son, and the cause of the duel was the burgamaster's daughter, for whom Simon discovered himself to be fired with passion, and whom he refused to yield to the claims of an audacious rival. Chapter 11, in which the Quiquendonians adopt a heroic resolution. We have seen, to what a deplorable condition the people of Quiquendon were reduced. Their heads were in affirmant. They no longer knew or recognized themselves. The most peaceable citizens had become quarrelsome. If you looked at them as scants, they would speedily send you a challenge. Some let their mustaches grow, and several, the most belligerent, curled them up at the ends. This being their condition, the administration of the town and the maintenance of order in the streets became difficult tasks, for the government had not been organized for such a state of things. The burgamaster, that worthy ventricasse whom we have seen so placid, so dull, so incapable of coming to any decision, the burgamaster became intractable. His house resounded with the sharpness of his voice. He made 20 decisions a day, scolding his officials and himself enforcing the regulations of his administration. Ah, what a change. The amiable and tranquil mansion of the burgamaster, that good, flimish home, where was its former calm? What changes had taken place in your household economy? Madame Ventricasse had become acrid, whimsical, harsh. Her husband sometimes succeeded in drowning her voice by talking louder than she, but could not silence her. The petulant humor of this worthy dame was excited by everything. Nothing went right. The servants offended her every moment. Tatramans, her sister-in-law, who was not less irritable, replied sharply to her. Monsieur Ventricasse naturally supported Lochke, his servant, as is the case in all good households, and this permanently exasperated Madame, who constantly disputed, discussed, and made scenes with her husband. What on earth is the matter with us? cried the unhappy burgamaster. What is this fire that is devouring us? Are we possessed with a devil? Ah Madame Ventricasse, Madame Ventricasse, you will end by making me die before you and thus violate all the traditions of the family. The reader will not have forgotten the strange custom by which Monsieur Ventricasse would become a widower and marry again, so as not to break the chain of dissent. Meanwhile, this disposition of all minds produced other curious effects worthy of note. This excitement, the cause of which has so far escaped us, brought about unexpected physiological changes. Talents hitherto unrecognized betrayed themselves. Attitudes were suddenly revealed. Artists before commonplace displayed new ability. Politicians and authors arose. Orators proved themselves equal to the most arduous debates, and on every question, inflamed audiences which were quite ready to be inflamed. From the sessions of the council, this movement spread to the public political meetings, and the club was formed at Quiquendon, whilst 20 newspapers, the Quiquendon signal, the Quiquendon impartial, the Quiquendon radical, and so on, written in an inflammatory style, raised the most important questions. But what about, you will ask? Apropos of everything and of nothing, apropos of the ordinarred tower which was falling, and which some wished to pull down and others to prop up, apropos of the police regulations issued by the council, which some obstinate citizens threatened to resist, apropos of the sweeping of the gutters, repairing the sewers, and so on, nor did the enraged orators confine themselves to the internal administration of their town. Carried on by the current, they went further, and assayed to plunge their fellow citizens into the hazards of war. Quiquendon had had, for eight or nine hundred years, a cautious belay of the best quality, but she had preciously laid it up like a relic, and there had seemed some probability that it would become a feat and no longer serviceable. This was what had given rise to the causus belay. It is not generally known that Quiquendon, in this cozy corner of Flanders, lies next to the little town of Virgaman. The territories of the two communities are contiguous. Well, in 1185, sometime before Count Baldwin's departure to the Crusades, a Virgaman cow, not a cow belonging to a citizen, but a cow which was common property let it be observed, audaciously ventured to pasture on the territory of Quiquendon. This unfortunate beast had scarcely eaten three mouths full, but the offense, the abuse, the crime, whatever you will, was committed and duly indicted, for the magistrates at that time had already begun to know how to write. We will take revenge at the proper moment, said simply Natalis Vantrikas, the 32nd predecessor of the bergamaster of this story, and the Virgamanians will lose nothing by waiting. The Virgamanians were forewarned. They waited thinking without doubt that the remembrance of the offense would fade away with a lapse of time, and really for several centuries they lived on good terms with their neighbors of Quiquendon. But they counted without their hosts, or rather without this strange epidemic, which radically changing the character of the Quiquendonians aroused their dormant vengeance. It was at the club of the Rue Montstrelet that the truckulent orator shoot, abruptly introducing the subject to his hearers, inflamed them with the expressions and metaphors used on such occasions. He recalled the offense, the injury which had been done to Quiquendon, and which a nation, jealous of its rights, could not admit as a precedent. He showed the insult to be still existing, the wound still bleeding. He spoke of certain special headshakings on the part of the people of Virgaman, which indicated in what degree of contempt they regarded the people of Quiquendon. He appealed to his fellow citizens, who unconsciously perhaps, had supported this mortal insult for long centuries. He adjured the children of the ancient town to have no other purpose than to obtain a substantial reparation. And lastly, he made an appeal to all the living energies of the nation. With what enthusiasm these words, so new to Quiquendonian ears were greeted, may be surmised but cannot be told. All the auditors rose, and with extended arms demanded war with loud cries. Never had the advocate shoot achieved such a success, and it must be avowed that his triumphs were not few. The burgamaster, the counselor, all the notabilities present at this memorable meeting would have vainly attempted to resist a popular outburst. Besides, they had no desire to do so, and cried as loud, if not louder than the rest, to the frontier, to the frontier! As the frontier was but three kilometers from the walls of Quiquendon, it is certain that the Virgaminians ran a real danger, for they might easily be invaded without having had time to look about them. Meanwhile, Joss Leifrink, the worthy chemist who alone had preserved his senses on this grave occasion, tried to make his fellow citizens comprehend that guns, cannons and generals were equally wanting to their design. They replied to him, not without many impatient gestures, that these generals, cannons and guns would be improvised, that the rights and love of countries sufficed and rendered a people irresistible. Hereupon the burgamaster himself came forward, and in a sublime harangue made short work of those pusillanimous people who disguised their fear under a veil of prudence, which veil he tore off with a patriotic hand. At this sally it seemed as if the hall would fall in under the applause. The vote was eagerly demanded and was taken amid acclamations. The cries of, to Virgamin, to Virgamin, redoubled. The burgamaster then took it upon himself to put the armies in motion, and in the name of the town he promised the honors of a triumph, such as was given in the times of the Romans to that one of its generals who should return victorious. Meanwhile, Joss Liefrank, who was an obstinate fellow and did not regard himself as beaten, though he really had been, insisted on making another observation. He wished to remark that the triumph was only accorded at Rome to those victorious generals who had killed 5,000 of the enemy. Well, well, cried the meeting deliriously, and as the population of the town of Virgamin consists of but 3,575 inhabitants, it would be difficult unless the same person was killed several times. But they did not let the luckless logician finish, and he was turned out, hustled and bruised. Citizens, said Paul Mucker, the grocer, who usually sold groceries by retail. Whoever this cowardly apothecary may have been, I engage by myself to kill 5,000 Virgaminians if you will accept my services. 5,500 cried a yet more resolute patriot. 6,600 retorted the grocer. 7,000 cried Jean Orbedec, the confectioner of the Rue Hemling, who was on the road to a fortune by making whipped creams. A judge exclaimed the Bergamaster von Tricasse on finding that no one else rose on the bid, and this was how Jean Orbedec, the confectioner, became General-in-Chief of the forces of Quiquendon. Chapter 12, in which Eugene the Assistant gives a reasonable piece of advice which is eagerly rejected by Dr. Ox. Well, Master, said Eugene next day as he poured the pales of sulfuric acid into the troughs of the Great Battery. Well, resumed Dr. Ox, was I not right? See to what not only the physical developments of a whole nation, but its morality, its dignity, its talent, its political sense have come, it is only a question of molecules. No doubt but, but, do you not think that matters have gone far enough and that these poor devils should not be excited beyond measure? No, no, cried the doctor. No, I will go on to the end. As you will, Master, the experiment, however, seems to me conclusive, and I think it time to, to, to close the valve. You'd better, cried Dr. Ox. If you attempt it, I'll throttle you. End of Chapter 12, recording by Alan Winteroud, boomcoach.blogspot.com