There is not in all London a quieter spot, or one, apparently1, more withdrawn2 from the heat and bustle4 of life than Newsome Terrace. It is a cul-de-sac, for at the upper end the roadway between its two lines of square, compact little residences is brought to an end by a high brick wall, while at the lower end, the only access to it is through Newsome Square, that small discreet5 oblong of Georgian houses, a relic6 of the time when Kensington was a suburban7 village sundered8 from the metropolis9 by a stretch of pastures stretching to the river. Both square and terrace are most inconveniently10 situated11 for those whose ideal environment includes a rank of taxicabs immediately opposite their door, a spate12 of ’buses roaring down the street, and a procession of underground trains, accessible by a station a few yards away, shaking and rattling13 the cutlery and silver on their dining tables. In consequence Newsome Terrace had come, two years ago, to be inhabited by leisurely14 and retired15 folk or by those who wished to pursue their work in quiet and tranquillity16. Children with hoops17 and scooters are phenomena18 rarely encountered in the Terrace and dogs are equally uncommon19.
In front of each of the couple of dozen houses of which the Terrace is composed lies a little square of railinged garden, in which you may often see the middle-aged20 or elderly mistress of the residence[8] horticulturally employed. By five o’clock of a winter’s evening the pavements will generally be empty of all passengers except the policeman, who with felted step, at intervals21 throughout the night, peers with his bull’s-eye into these small front gardens, and never finds anything more suspicious there than an early crocus or an aconite. For by the time it is dark the inhabitants of the Terrace have got themselves home, where behind drawn3 curtains and bolted shutters22 they will pass a domestic and uninterrupted evening. No funeral (up to the time I speak of) had I ever seen leave the Terrace, no marriage party had strewed23 its pavements with confetti, and perambulators were unknown. It and its inhabitants seemed to be quietly mellowing24 like bottles of sound wine. No doubt there was stored within them the sunshine and summer of youth long past, and now, dozing25 in a cool place, they waited for the turn of the key in the cellar door, and the entry of one who would draw them forth26 and see what they were worth.
Yet, after the time of which I shall now speak, I have never passed down its pavement without wondering whether each house, so seemingly-tranquil, is not, like some dynamo, softly and smoothly27 bringing into being vast and terrible forces, such as those I once saw at work in the last house at the upper end of the Terrace, the quietest, you would have said, of all the row. Had you observed it with continuous scrutiny28, for all the length of a summer day, it is quite possible that you might have only seen issue from it in the morning an elderly woman whom you would have rightly conjectured29 to be the housekeeper30,[9] with her basket for marketing31 on her arm, who returned an hour later. Except for her the entire day might often pass without there being either ingress or egress32 from the door. Occasionally a middle-aged man, lean and wiry, came swiftly down the pavement, but his exit was by no means a daily occurrence, and indeed when he did emerge, he broke the almost universal usage of the Terrace, for his appearances took place, when such there were, between nine and ten in the evening. At that hour sometimes he would come round to my house in Newsome Square to see if I was at home and inclined for a talk a little later on. For the sake of air and exercise he would then have an hour’s tramp through the lit and noisy streets, and return about ten, still pale and unflushed, for one of those talks which grew to have an absorbing fascination33 for me. More rarely through the telephone I proposed that I should drop in on him: this I did not often do, since I found that if he did not come out himself, it implied that he was busy with some investigation34, and though he made me welcome, I could easily see that he burned for my departure, so that he might get busy with his batteries and pieces of tissue, hot on the track of discoveries that never yet had presented themselves to the mind of man as coming within the horizon of possibility.
My last sentence may have led the reader to guess that I am indeed speaking of none other than that recluse35 and mysterious physicist36 Sir James Horton, with whose death a hundred half-hewn avenues into the dark forest from which life comes must wait completion till another pioneer as bold[10] as he takes up the axe37 which hitherto none but himself has been able to wield38. Probably there was never a man to whom humanity owed more, and of whom humanity knew less. He seemed utterly39 independent of the race to whom (though indeed with no service of love) he devoted40 himself: for years he lived aloof41 and apart in his house at the end of the Terrace. Men and women were to him like fossils to the geologist42, things to be tapped and hammered and dissected44 and studied with a view not only to the reconstruction45 of past ages, but to construction in the future. It is known, for instance, that he made an artificial being formed of the tissue, still living, of animals lately killed, with the brain of an ape and the heart of a bullock, and a sheep’s thyroid, and so forth. Of that I can give no first-hand account; Horton, it is true, told me something about it, and in his will directed that certain memoranda46 on the subject should on his death be sent to me. But on the bulky envelope there is the direction, “Not to be opened till January, 1925.” He spoke47 with some reserve and, so I think, with slight horror at the strange things which had happened on the completion of this creature. It evidently made him uncomfortable to talk about it, and for that reason I fancy he put what was then a rather remote date to the day when his record should reach my eye. Finally, in these preliminaries, for the last five years before the war, he had scarcely entered, for the sake of companionship, any house other than his own and mine. Ours was a friendship dating from school-days, which he had never suffered to drop entirely48, but I doubt if in those years he spoke[11] except on matters of business to half a dozen other people. He had already retired from surgical49 practice in which his skill was unapproached, and most completely now did he avoid the slightest intercourse50 with his colleagues, whom he regarded as ignorant pedants51 without courage or the rudiments52 of knowledge. Now and then he would write an epoch-making little monograph53, which he flung to them like a bone to a starving dog, but for the most part, utterly absorbed in his own investigations54, he left them to grope along unaided. He frankly55 told me that he enjoyed talking to me about such subjects, since I was utterly unacquainted with them. It clarified his mind to be obliged to put his theories and guesses and confirmations56 with such simplicity57 that anyone could understand them.
I well remember his coming in to see me on the evening of the 4th of August, 1914.
“So the war has broken out,” he said, “and the streets are impassable with excited crowds. Odd, isn’t it? Just as if each of us already was not a far more murderous battlefield than any which can be conceived between warring nations.”
“How’s that?” said I.
“Let me try to put it plainly, though it isn’t that I want to talk about. Your blood is one eternal battlefield. It is full of armies eternally marching and counter-marching. As long as the armies friendly to you are in a superior position, you remain in good health; if a detachment of microbes that, if suffered to establish themselves, would give you a cold in the head, entrench58 themselves in your mucous59 membrane60, the commander-in-chief sends a regiment[12] down and drives them out. He doesn’t give his orders from your brain, mind you—those aren’t his headquarters, for your brain knows nothing about the landing of the enemy till they have made good their position and given you a cold.”
He paused a moment.
“There isn’t one headquarters inside you,” he said, “there are many. For instance, I killed a frog this morning; at least most people would say I killed it. But had I killed it, though its head lay in one place and its severed61 body in another? Not a bit: I had only killed a piece of it. For I opened the body afterwards and took out the heart, which I put in a sterilised chamber62 of suitable temperature, so that it wouldn’t get cold or be infected by any microbe. That was about twelve o’clock to-day. And when I came out just now, the heart was beating still. It was alive, in fact. That’s full of suggestions, you know. Come and see it.”
The Terrace had been stirred into volcanic64 activity by the news of war: the vendor65 of some late edition had penetrated67 into its quietude, and there were half a dozen parlour-maids fluttering about like black and white moths68. But once inside Horton’s door isolation69 as of an Arctic night seemed to close round me. He had forgotten his latch-key, but his housekeeper, then newly come to him, who became so regular and familiar a figure in the Terrace, must have heard his step, for before he rang the bell she had opened the door, and stood with his forgotten latch-key in her hand.
“Thanks, Mrs. Gabriel,” said he, and without a sound the door shut behind us. Both her name and[13] face, as reproduced in some illustrated70 daily paper, seemed familiar, rather terribly familiar, but before I had time to grope for the association, Horton supplied it.
“Tried for the murder of her husband six months ago,” he said. “Odd case. The point is that she is the one and perfect housekeeper. I once had four servants, and everything was all mucky, as we used to say at school. Now I live in amazing comfort and propriety71 with one. She does everything. She is cook, valet, housemaid, butler, and won’t have anyone to help her. No doubt she killed her husband, but she planned it so well that she could not be convicted. She told me quite frankly who she was when I engaged her.”
Of course I remembered the whole trial vividly72 now. Her husband, a morose73, quarrelsome fellow, tipsy as often as sober, had, according to the defence cut his own throat while shaving; according to the prosecution74, she had done that for him. There was the usual discrepancy75 of evidence as to whether the wound could have been self-inflicted, and the prosecution tried to prove that the face had been lathered77 after his throat had been cut. So singular an exhibition of forethought and nerve had hurt rather than helped their case, and after prolonged deliberation on the part of the jury, she had been acquitted78. Yet not less singular was Horton’s selection of a probable murderess, however efficient, as housekeeper.
He anticipated this reflection.
“Apart from the wonderful comfort of having a perfectly79 appointed and absolutely silent house,”[14] he said, “I regard Mrs. Gabriel as a sort of insurance against my being murdered. If you had been tried for your life, you would take very especial care not to find yourself in suspicious proximity81 to a murdered body again: no more deaths in your house, if you could help it. Come through to my laboratory, and look at my little instance of life after death.”
Certainly it was amazing to see that little piece of tissue still pulsating82 with what must be called life; it contracted and expanded faintly indeed but perceptibly, though for nine hours now it had been severed from the rest of the organisation83. All by itself it went on living, and if the heart could go on living with nothing, you would say, to feed and stimulate84 its energy, there must also, so reasoned Horton, reside in all the other vital organs of the body other independent focuses of life.
“Of course a severed organ like that,” he said, “will run down quicker than if it had the co-operation of the others, and presently I shall apply a gentle electric stimulus85 to it. If I can keep that glass bowl under which it beats at the temperature of a frog’s body, in sterilised air, I don’t see why it should not go on living. Food—of course there’s the question of feeding it. Do you see what that opens up in the way of surgery? Imagine a shop with glass cases containing healthy organs taken from the dead. Say a man dies of pneumonia86. He should, as soon as ever the breath is out of his body, be dissected, and though they would, of course, destroy his lungs, as they will be full of pneumococci, his liver and digestive organs are probably healthy. Take them out, keep them in a sterilised atmosphere with the[15] temperature at 98·4, and sell the liver, let us say, to another poor devil who has cancer there. Fit him with a new healthy liver, eh?”
“And insert the brain of someone who has died of heart disease into the skull87 of a congenital idiot?” I asked.
“Yes, perhaps; but the brain’s tiresomely88 complicated in its connections and the joining up of the nerves, you know. Surgery will have to learn a lot before it fits new brains in. And the brain has got such a lot of functions. All thinking, all inventing seem to belong to it, though, as you have seen, the heart can get on quite well without it. But there are other functions of the brain I want to study first. I’ve been trying some experiments already.”
He made some little readjustment to the flame of the spirit lamp which kept at the right temperature the water that surrounded the sterilised receptacle in which the frog’s heart was beating.
“Start with the more simple and mechanical uses of the brain,” he said. “Primarily it is a sort of record office, a diary. Say that I rap your knuckles89 with that ruler. What happens? The nerves there send a message to the brain, of course, saying—how can I put it most simply—saying, ‘Somebody is hurting me.’ And the eye sends another, saying ‘I perceive a ruler hitting my knuckles,’ and the ear sends another, saying ‘I hear the rap of it.’ But leaving all that alone, what else happens? Why, the brain records it. It makes a note of your knuckles having been hit.”
He had been moving about the room as he spoke, taking off his coat and waistcoat and putting on in[16] their place a thin black dressing-gown, and by now he was seated in his favourite attitude cross-legged on the hearthrug, looking like some magician or perhaps the afrit which a magician of black arts had caused to appear. He was thinking intently now, passing through his fingers his string of amber63 beads91, and talking more to himself than to me.
“And how does it make that note?” he went on. “Why, in the manner in which phonograph records are made. There are millions of minute dots, depressions, pockmarks on your brain which certainly record what you remember, what you have enjoyed or disliked, or done or said. The surface of the brain anyhow is large enough to furnish writing-paper for the record of all these things, of all your memories. If the impression of an experience has not been acute, the dot is not sharply impressed, and the record fades: in other words, you come to forget it. But if it has been vividly impressed, the record is never obliterated93. Mrs. Gabriel, for instance, won’t lose the impression of how she lathered her husband’s face after she had cut his throat. That’s to say, if she did it.”
“Now do you see what I’m driving at? Of course you do. There is stored within a man’s head the complete record of all the memorable94 things he has done and said: there are all his thoughts there, and all his speeches, and, most well-marked of all, his habitual95 thoughts and the things he has often said; for habit, there is reason to believe, wears a sort of rut in the brain, so that the life-principle, whatever it is, as it gropes and steals about the brain, is continually stumbling into it. There’s your record,[17] your gramophone plate all ready. What we want, and what I’m trying to arrive at, is a needle which, as it traces its minute way over these dots, will come across words or sentences which the dead have uttered, and will reproduce them. My word, what Judgment96 Books! What a resurrection!”
Here in this withdrawn situation no remotest echo of the excitement which was seething97 through the streets penetrated; through the open window there came in only the tide of the midnight silence. But from somewhere closer at hand, through the wall surely of the laboratory, there came a low, somewhat persistent98 murmur99.
“Perhaps our needle—unhappily not yet invented—as it passed over the record of speech in the brain, might induce even facial expression,” he said. “Enjoyment or horror might even pass over dead features. There might be gestures and movements even, as the words were reproduced in our gramophone of the dead. Some people when they want to think intensely walk about: some, there’s an instance of it audible now, talk to themselves aloud.”
He held up his finger for silence.
“Yes, that’s Mrs. Gabriel,” he said. “She talks to herself by the hour together. She’s always done that, she tells me. I shouldn’t wonder if she has plenty to talk about.”
It was that night when, first of all, the notion of intense activity going on below the placid100 house-fronts of the Terrace occurred to me. None looked more quiet than this, and yet there was seething here a volcanic activity and intensity101 of living, both in the man who sat cross-legged on the floor and behind[18] that voice just audible through the partition wall. But I thought of that no more, for Horton began speaking of the brain-gramophone again.... Were it possible to trace those infinitesimal dots and pockmarks in the brain by some needle exquisitely102 fine, it might follow that by the aid of some such contrivance as translated the pockmarks on a gramophone record into sound, some audible rendering103 of speech might be recovered from the brain of a dead man. It was necessary, so he pointed80 out to me, that this strange gramophone record should be new; it must be that of one lately dead, for corruption104 and decay would soon obliterate92 these infinitesimal markings. He was not of opinion that unspoken thought could be thus recovered: the utmost he hoped for from his pioneering work was to be able to recapture actual speech, especially when such speech had habitually105 dwelt on one subject, and thus had worn a rut on that part of the brain known as the speech-centre.
“Let me get, for instance,” he said, “the brain of a railway porter, newly dead, who has been accustomed for years to call out the name of a station, and I do not despair of hearing his voice through my gramophone trumpet106. Or again, given that Mrs. Gabriel, in all her interminable conversations with herself, talks about one subject, I might, in similar circumstances, recapture what she had been constantly saying. Of course my instrument must be of a power and delicacy107 still unknown, one of which the needle can trace the minutest irregularities of surface, and of which the trumpet must be of immense magnifying power, able to translate the[19] smallest whisper into a shout. But just as a microscope will show you the details of an object invisible to the eye, so there are instruments which act in the same way on sound. Here, for instance, is one of remarkable108 magnifying power. Try it if you like.”
He took me over to a table on which was standing109 an electric battery connected with a round steel globe, out of the side of which sprang a gramophone trumpet of curious construction. He adjusted the battery, and directed me to click my fingers quite gently opposite an aperture110 in the globe, and the noise, ordinarily scarcely audible, resounded111 through the room like a thunderclap.
“Something of that sort might permit us to hear the record on a brain,” he said.
After this night my visits to Horton became far more common than they had hitherto been. Having once admitted me into the region of his strange explorations, he seemed to welcome me there. Partly, as he had said, it clarified his own thought to put it into simple language, partly, as he subsequently admitted, he was beginning to penetrate66 into such lonely fields of knowledge by paths so utterly untrodden, that even he, the most aloof and independent of mankind, wanted some human presence near him. Despite his utter indifference112 to the issues of the war—for, in his regard, issues far more crucial demanded his energies—he offered himself as surgeon to a London hospital for operations on the brain, and his services, naturally, were welcomed, for none brought knowledge or skill like[20] his to such work. Occupied all day, he performed miracles of healing, with bold and dexterous113 excisions which none but he would have dared to attempt. He would operate, often successfully, for lesions that seemed certainly fatal, and all the time he was learning. He refused to accept any salary; he only asked, in cases where he had removed pieces of brain matter, to take these away, in order by further examination and dissection114, to add to the knowledge and manipulative skill which he devoted to the wounded. He wrapped these morsels115 in sterilised lint116, and took them back to the Terrace in a box, electrically heated to maintain the normal temperature of a man’s blood. His fragment might then, so he reasoned, keep some sort of independent life of its own, even as the severed heart of a frog had continued to beat for hours without connection with the rest of the body. Then for half the night he would continue to work on these sundered pieces of tissue scarcely dead, which his operations during the day had given him. Simultaneously117, he was busy over the needle that must be of such infinite delicacy.
One evening, fatigued118 with a long day’s work, I had just heard with a certain tremor119 of uneasy anticipation120 the whistles of warning which heralded121 an air-raid, when my telephone bell rang. My servants, according to custom, had already betaken themselves to the cellar, and I went to see what the summons was, determined122 in any case not to go out into the streets. I recognised Horton’s voice. “I want you at once,” he said.
“But the warning whistles have gone,” said I, “And I don’t like showers of shrapnel.”
[21]“Oh, never mind that,” said he. “You must come. I’m so excited that I distrust the evidence of my own ears. I want a witness. Just come.”
He did not pause for my reply, for I heard the click of his receiver going back into its place. Clearly he assumed that I was coming, and that I suppose had the effect of suggestion on my mind. I told myself that I would not go, but in a couple of minutes his certainty that I was coming, coupled with the prospect123 of being interested in something else than air-raids, made me fidget in my chair and eventually go to the street door and look out. The moon was brilliantly bright, the square quite empty, and far away the coughings of very distant guns. Next moment, almost against my will, I was running down the deserted124 pavements of Newsome Terrace. My ring at his bell was answered by Horton, before Mrs. Gabriel could come to the door, and he positively125 dragged me in.
“I shan’t tell you a word of what I am doing,” he said. “I want you to tell me what you hear. Come into the laboratory.”
The remote guns were silent again as I sat myself, as directed, in a chair close to the gramophone trumpet, but suddenly through the wall I heard the familiar mutter of Mrs. Gabriel’s voice. Horton, already busy with his battery, sprang to his feet.
“That won’t do,” he said. “I want absolute silence.”
He went out of the room, and I heard him calling to her. While he was gone I observed more closely what was on the table. Battery, round steel globe, and gramophone trumpet were there, and some sort of[22] a needle on a spiral steel spring linked up with the battery and the glass vessel126, in which I had seen the frog’s heart beat. In it now there lay a fragment of grey matter.
Horton came back in a minute or two, and stood in the middle of the room listening.
“That’s better,” he said. “Now I want you to listen at the mouth of the trumpet. I’ll answer any questions afterwards.”
With my ear turned to the trumpet, I could see nothing of what he was doing, and I listened till the silence became a rustling127 in my ears. Then suddenly that rustling ceased, for it was overscored by a whisper which undoubtedly128 came from the aperture on which my aural129 attention was fixed130. It was no more than the faintest murmur, and though no words were audible, it had the timbre131 of a human voice.
“Well, do you hear anything?” asked Horton.
“Yes, something very faint, scarcely audible.”
“Describe it,” said he.
“Somebody whispering.”
“I’ll try a fresh place,” said he.
The silence descended132 again; the mutter of the distant guns was still mute, and some slight creaking from my shirt front, as I breathed, alone broke it. And then the whispering from the gramophone trumpet began again, this time much louder than it had been before—it was as if the speaker (still whispering) had advanced a dozen yards—but still blurred133 and indistinct. More unmistakable, too, was it that the whisper was that of a human voice, and every now and then, whether fancifully or not, I[23] thought I caught a word or two. For a moment it was silent altogether, and then with a sudden inkling of what I was listening to I heard something begin to sing. Though the words were still inaudible there was melody, and the tune134 was “Tipperary.” From that convolvulus-shaped trumpet there came two bars of it.
“And what do you hear now?” cried Horton with a crack of exultation135 in his voice. “Singing, singing! That’s the tune they all sang. Fine music that from a dead man. Encore! you say? Yes, wait a second, and he’ll sing it again for you. Confound it, I can’t get on to the place. Ah! I’ve got it: listen again.”
Surely that was the strangest manner of song ever yet heard on the earth, this melody from the brain of the dead. Horror and fascination strove within me, and I suppose the first for the moment prevailed, for with a shudder136 I jumped up.
“Stop it!” I said. “It’s terrible.”
His face, thin and eager, gleamed in the strong ray of the lamp which he had placed close to him. His hand was on the metal rod from which depended the spiral spring and the needle, which just rested on that fragment of grey stuff which I had seen in the glass vessel.
“Yes, I’m going to stop it now,” he said, “or the germs will be getting at my gramophone record, or the record will get cold. See, I spray it with carbolic vapour, I put it back into its nice warm bed. It will sing to us again. But terrible? What do you mean by terrible?”
Indeed, when he asked that I scarcely knew[24] myself what I meant. I had been witness to a new marvel137 of science as wonderful perhaps as any that had ever astounded138 the beholder139, and my nerves—these childish whimperers—had cried out at the darkness and the profundity140. But the horror diminished, the fascination increased as he quite shortly told me the history of this phenomenon. He had attended that day and operated upon a young soldier in whose brain was embedded141 a piece of shrapnel. The boy was in extremis, but Horton had hoped for the possibility of saving him. To extract the shrapnel was the only chance, and this involved the cutting away of a piece of brain known as the speech-centre, and taking from it what was embedded there. But the hope was not realised, and two hours later the boy died. It was to this fragment of brain that, when Horton returned home, he had applied142 the needle of his gramophone, and had obtained the faint whisperings which had caused him to ring me up, so that he might have a witness of this wonder. Witness I had been, not to these whisperings alone, but to the fragment of singing.
“And this is but the first step on the new road,” said he. “Who knows where it may lead, or to what new temple of knowledge it may not be the avenue? Well, it is late: I shall do no more to-night. What about the raid, by the way?”
To my amazement143 I saw that the time was verging144 on midnight. Two hours had elapsed since he let me in at his door; they had passed like a couple of minutes. Next morning some neighbours spoke of the prolonged firing that had gone on, of which I had been wholly unconscious.
[25]Week after week Horton worked on this new road of research, perfecting the sensitiveness and subtlety145 of the needle, and, by vastly increasing the power of his batteries, enlarging the magnifying power of his trumpet. Many and many an evening during the next year did I listen to voices that were dumb in death, and the sounds which had been blurred and unintelligible146 mutterings in the earlier experiments, developed, as the delicacy of his mechanical devices increased, into coherence147 and clear articulation148. It was no longer necessary to impose silence on Mrs. Gabriel when the gramophone was at work, for now the voice we listened to had risen to the pitch of ordinary human utterance149, while as for the faithfulness and individuality of these records, striking testimony150 was given more than once by some living friend of the dead, who, without knowing what he was about to hear, recognised the tones of the speaker. More than once also, Mrs. Gabriel, bringing in syphons and whisky, provided us with three glasses, for she had heard, so she told us, three different voices in talk. But for the present no fresh phenomenon occurred: Horton was but perfecting the mechanism151 of his previous discovery and, rather grudging152 the time, was scribbling153 at a monograph, which presently he would toss to his colleagues, concerning the results he had already obtained. And then, even while Horton was on the threshold of new wonders, which he had already foreseen and spoken of as theoretically possible, there came an evening of marvel and of swift catastrophe154.
I had dined with him that day, Mrs. Gabriel deftly156 serving the meal that she had so daintily[26] prepared, and towards the end, as she was clearing the table for our dessert, she stumbled, I supposed, on a loose edge of carpet, quickly recovering herself. But instantly Horton checked some half-finished sentence, and turned to her.
“You’re all right, Mrs. Gabriel?” he asked quickly.
“Yes, sir, thank you,” said she, and went on with her serving.
“As I was saying,” began Horton again, but his attention clearly wandered, and without concluding his narrative157, he relapsed into silence, till Mrs. Gabriel had given us our coffee and left the room.
“I’m sadly afraid my domestic felicity may be disturbed,” he said. “Mrs. Gabriel had an epileptic fit yesterday, and she confessed when she recovered that she had been subject to them when a child, and since then had occasionally experienced them.”
“Dangerous, then?” I asked.
“In themselves not in the least,” said he. “If she was sitting in her chair or lying in bed when one occurred, there would be nothing to trouble about. But if one occurred while she was cooking my dinner or beginning to come downstairs, she might fall into the fire or tumble down the whole flight. We’ll hope no such deplorable calamity158 will happen. Now, if you’ve finished your coffee, let us go into the laboratory. Not that I’ve got anything very interesting in the way of new records. But I’ve introduced a second battery with a very strong induction159 coil into my apparatus160. I find that if I link it up with my record, given that the record is a—a fresh one, it stimulates161 certain nerve centres. It’s odd,[27] isn’t it, that the same forces which so encourage the dead to live would certainly encourage the living to die, if a man received the full current. One has to be careful in handling it. Yes, and what then? you ask.”
The night was very hot, and he threw the windows wide before he settled himself cross-legged on the floor.
“I’ll answer your question for you,” he said, “though I believe we’ve talked of it before. Supposing I had not a fragment of brain-tissue only, but a whole head, let us say, or best of all, a complete corpse162, I think I could expect to produce more than mere43 speech through the gramophone. The dead lips themselves perhaps might utter—God! what’s that?”
From close outside, at the bottom of the stairs leading from the dining room which we had just quitted to the laboratory where we now sat, there came a crash of glass followed by the fall as of something heavy which bumped from step to step, and was finally flung on the threshold against the door with the sound as of knuckles rapping at it, and demanding admittance. Horton sprang up and threw the door open, and there lay, half inside the room and half on the landing outside, the body of Mrs. Gabriel. Round her were splinters of broken bottles and glasses, and from a cut in her forehead, as she lay ghastly with face upturned, the blood trickled163 into her thick grey hair.
“Ah! that’s not serious,” he said; “there’s[28] neither vein165 nor artery166 cut. I’ll just bind167 that up first.”
He tore his handkerchief into strips which he tied together, and made a dexterous bandage covering the lower part of her forehead, but leaving her eyes unobscured. They stared with a fixed meaningless steadiness, and he scrutinised them closely.
“But there’s worse yet,” he said. “There’s been some severe blow on the head. Help me to carry her into the laboratory. Get round to her feet and lift underneath168 the knees when I am ready. There! Now put your arm right under her and carry her.”
Her head swung limply back as he lifted her shoulders, and he propped169 it up against his knee, where it mutely nodded and bowed, as his leg moved, as if in silent assent170 to what we were doing, and the mouth, at the extremity171 of which there had gathered a little lather76, lolled open. He still supported her shoulders as I fetched a cushion on which to place her head, and presently she was lying close to the low table on which stood the gramophone of the dead. Then with light deft155 fingers he passed his hands over her skull, pausing as he came to the spot just above and behind her right ear. Twice and again his fingers groped and lightly pressed, while with shut eyes and concentrated attention he interpreted what his trained touch revealed.
“Her skull is broken to fragments just here,” he said. “In the middle there is a piece completely severed from the rest, and the edges of the cracked pieces must be pressing on her brain.”
[29]Her right arm was lying palm upwards172 on the floor, and with one hand he felt her wrist with finger-tips.
“Not a sign of pulse,” he said. “She’s dead in the ordinary sense of the word. But life persists in an extraordinary manner, you may remember. She can’t be wholly dead: no one is wholly dead in a moment, unless every organ is blown to bits. But she soon will be dead, if we don’t relieve the pressure on the brain. That’s the first thing to be done. While I’m busy at that, shut the window, will you, and make up the fire. In this sort of case the vital heat, whatever that is, leaves the body very quickly. Make the room as hot as you can—fetch an oil-stove, and turn on the electric radiator173, and stoke up a roaring fire. The hotter the room is the more slowly will the heat of life leave her.”
Already he had opened his cabinet of surgical instruments, and taken out of it two drawers full of bright steel which he laid on the floor beside her. I heard the grating chink of scissors severing174 her long grey hair, and as I busied myself with laying and lighting175 the fire in the hearth90, and kindling176 the oil-stove, which I found, by Horton’s directions, in the pantry, I saw that his lancet was busy on the exposed skin. He had placed some vaporising spray, heated by a spirit lamp close to her head, and as he worked its fizzing nozzle filled the air with some clean and aromatic177 odour. Now and then he threw out an order.
“Bring me that electric lamp on the long cord,” he said. “I haven’t got enough light. Don’t look at what I’m doing if you’re squeamish, for if[30] it makes you feel faint, I shan’t be able to attend to you.”
I suppose that violent interest in what he was doing overcame any qualm that I might have had, for I looked quite unflinching over his shoulder as I moved the lamp about till it was in such a place that it threw its beam directly into a dark hole at the edge of which depended a flap of skin. Into this he put his forceps, and as he withdrew them they grasped a piece of blood-stained bone.
“That’s better,” he said, “and the room’s warming up well. But there’s no sign of pulse yet. Go on stoking, will you, till the thermometer on the wall there registers a hundred degrees.”
When next, on my journey from the coal-cellar, I looked, two more pieces of bone lay beside the one I had seen extracted, and presently referring to the thermometer, I saw that between the oil-stove and the roaring fire and the electric radiator, I had raised the room to the temperature he wanted. Soon, peering fixedly178 at the seat of his operation, he felt for her pulse again.
“Not a sign of returning vitality,” he said, “and I’ve done all I can. There’s nothing more possible that can be devised to restore her.”
As he spoke the zeal179 of the unrivalled surgeon relaxed, and with a sigh and a shrug180 he rose to his feet and mopped his face. Then suddenly the fire and eagerness blazed there again. “The gramophone!” he said. “The speech centre is close to where I’ve been working, and it is quite uninjured. Good heavens, what a wonderful opportunity. She served me well living, and she shall serve me dead.[31] And I can stimulate the motor nerve-centre, too, with the second battery. We may see a new wonder to-night.”
Some qualm of horror shook me.
“No, don’t!” I said. “It’s terrible: she’s just dead. I shall go if you do.”
“But I’ve got exactly all the conditions I have long been wanting,” said he. “And I simply can’t spare you. You must be witness: I must have a witness. Why, man, there’s not a surgeon or a physiologist181 in the kingdom who would not give an eye or an ear to be in your place now. She’s dead. I pledge you my honour on that, and it’s grand to be dead if you can help the living.”
Once again, in a far fiercer struggle, horror and the intensest curiosity strove together in me.
“Be quick, then,” said I.
“Ha! That’s right,” exclaimed Horton. “Help me to lift her on to the table by the gramophone. The cushion too; I can get at the place more easily with her head a little raised.”
He turned on the battery and with the movable light close beside him, brilliantly illuminating182 what he sought, he inserted the needle of the gramophone into the jagged aperture in her skull. For a few minutes, as he groped and explored there, there was silence, and then quite suddenly Mrs. Gabriel’s voice, clear and unmistakable and of the normal loudness of human speech, issued from the trumpet.
“Yes, I always said that I’d be even with him,” came the articulated syllables183. “He used to knock me about, he did, when he came home drunk, and[32] often I was black and blue with bruises184. But I’ll give him a redness for the black and blue.”
The record grew blurred; instead of articulate words there came from it a gobbling noise. By degrees that cleared, and we were listening to some dreadful suppressed sort of laughter, hideous185 to hear. On and on it went.
“I’ve got into some sort of rut,” said Horton. “She must have laughed a lot to herself.”
For a long time we got nothing more except the repetition of the words we had already heard and the sound of that suppressed laughter. Then Horton drew towards him the second battery.
“I’ll try a stimulation186 of the motor nerve-centres,” he said. “Watch her face.”
He propped the gramophone needle in position, and inserted into the fractured skull the two poles of the second battery, moving them about there very carefully. And as I watched her face, I saw with a freezing horror that her lips were beginning to move.
“Her mouth’s moving,” I cried. “She can’t be dead.”
He peered into her face.
“Nonsense,” he said. “That’s only the stimulus from the current. She’s been dead half an hour. Ah! what’s coming now?”
The lips lengthened187 into a smile, the lower jaw188 dropped, and from her mouth came the laughter we had heard just now through the gramophone. And then the dead mouth spoke, with a mumble189 of unintelligible words, a bubbling torrent190 of incoherent syllables.
“I’ll turn the full current on,” he said.
[33]The head jerked and raised itself, the lips struggled for utterance, and suddenly she spoke swiftly and distinctly.
“Just when he’d got his razor out,” she said, “I came up behind him, and put my hand over his face, and bent191 his neck back over his chair with all my strength. And I picked up his razor and with one slit—ha, ha, that was the way to pay him out. And I didn’t lose my head, but I lathered his chin well, and put the razor in his hand, and left him there, and went downstairs and cooked his dinner for him, and then an hour afterwards, as he didn’t come down, up I went to see what kept him. It was a nasty cut in his neck that had kept him——”
Horton suddenly withdrew the two poles of the battery from her head, and even in the middle of her word the mouth ceased working, and lay rigid192 and open.
“By God!” he said. “There’s a tale for dead lips to tell. But we’ll get more yet.”
Exactly what happened then I never knew. It appeared to me that as he still leaned over the table with the two poles of the battery in his hand, his foot slipped, and he fell forward across it. There came a sharp crack, and a flash of blue dazzling light, and there he lay face downwards193, with arms that just stirred and quivered. With his fall the two poles that must momentarily have come into contact with his hand were jerked away again, and I lifted him and laid him on the floor. But his lips as well as those of the dead woman had spoken for the last time.
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收听单词发音
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1
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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2
withdrawn
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| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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3
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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6
relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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7
suburban
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| adj.城郊的，在郊区的 | |
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8
sundered
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| v.隔开，分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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9
metropolis
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| n.首府；大城市 | |
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10
inconveniently
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| ad.不方便地 | |
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11
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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12
spate
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| n.泛滥，洪水，突然的一阵 | |
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13
rattling
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| adj. 格格作响的, 活泼的, 很好的 adv. 极其, 很, 非常 动词rattle的现在分词 | |
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14
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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15
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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16
tranquillity
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| n. 平静, 安静 | |
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17
hoops
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| n.箍( hoop的名词复数 )；（篮球）篮圈；（旧时儿童玩的）大环子；（两端埋在地里的）小铁弓 | |
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18
phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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19
uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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20
middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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21
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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22
shutters
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| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
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23
strewed
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| v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满 | |
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24
mellowing
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| 软化，醇化 | |
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25
dozing
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| v.打瞌睡,假寐 n.瞌睡 | |
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26
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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27
smoothly
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| adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地 | |
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28
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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29
conjectured
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| 推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
housekeeper
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| n.管理家务的主妇，女管家 | |
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31
marketing
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| n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西 | |
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32
egress
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| n.出去；出口 | |
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33
fascination
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| n.令人着迷的事物，魅力，迷恋 | |
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34
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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35
recluse
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| n.隐居者 | |
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36
physicist
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| n.物理学家，研究物理学的人 | |
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37
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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38
wield
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| vt.行使，运用，支配；挥，使用(武器等) | |
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39
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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40
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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41
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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42
geologist
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| n.地质学家 | |
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43
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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44
dissected
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| adj.切开的，分割的，（叶子）多裂的v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的过去式和过去分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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45
reconstruction
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| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
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46
memoranda
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| n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式 | |
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47
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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48
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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49
surgical
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| adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的 | |
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50
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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51
pedants
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| n.卖弄学问的人，学究，书呆子( pedant的名词复数 ) | |
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52
rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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53
monograph
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| n.专题文章，专题著作 | |
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54
investigations
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| （正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究 | |
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55
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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56
confirmations
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| 证实( confirmation的名词复数 )； 证据； 确认； （基督教中的）坚信礼 | |
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57
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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58
entrench
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| v.使根深蒂固；n.壕沟；防御设施 | |
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59
mucous
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| adj. 黏液的，似黏液的 | |
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60
membrane
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| n.薄膜，膜皮，羊皮纸 | |
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61
severed
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的过去式和过去分词 )；断，裂 | |
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62
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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63
amber
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| n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的 | |
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64
volcanic
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| adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的 | |
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65
vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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66
penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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67
penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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68
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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69
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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70
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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71
propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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72
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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73
morose
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| adj.脾气坏的，不高兴的 | |
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74
prosecution
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| n.起诉，告发，检举，执行，经营 | |
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75
discrepancy
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| n.不同；不符；差异；矛盾 | |
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76
lather
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| n.(肥皂水的)泡沫，激动 | |
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77
lathered
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| v.（指肥皂）形成泡沫( lather的过去式和过去分词 )；用皂沫覆盖；狠狠地打 | |
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78
acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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79
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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80
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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81
proximity
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| n.接近，邻近 | |
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82
pulsating
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| adj.搏动的，脉冲的v.有节奏地舒张及收缩( pulsate的现在分词 )；跳动；脉动；受（激情）震动 | |
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83
organisation
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| n.组织，安排，团体，有机休 | |
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84
stimulate
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| vt.刺激，使兴奋；激励，使…振奋 | |
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85
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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86
pneumonia
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| n.肺炎 | |
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87
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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88
tiresomely
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| adj. 令人厌倦的，讨厌的 | |
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89
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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90
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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91
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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92
obliterate
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| v.擦去，涂抹，去掉...痕迹，消失，除去 | |
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93
obliterated
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| v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭 | |
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94
memorable
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| adj.值得回忆的，难忘的，特别的，显著的 | |
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95
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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96
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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97
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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98
persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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99
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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100
placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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101
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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102
exquisitely
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| adv.精致地；强烈地；剧烈地；异常地 | |
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103
rendering
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| n.表现，描写 | |
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104
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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105
habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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106
trumpet
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| n.喇叭，喇叭声；v.吹喇叭，吹嘘 | |
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107
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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108
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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109
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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110
aperture
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| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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111
resounded
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| v.（指声音等）回荡于某处( resound的过去式和过去分词 )；产生回响；（指某处）回荡着声音 | |
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112
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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113
dexterous
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| adj.灵敏的；灵巧的 | |
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114
dissection
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| n.分析；解剖 | |
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115
morsels
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| n.一口( morsel的名词复数 )；（尤指食物）小块，碎屑 | |
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116
lint
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| n.线头；绷带用麻布，皮棉 | |
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117
simultaneously
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| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
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118
fatigued
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| adj. 疲乏的 | |
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119
tremor
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| n.震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震 | |
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120
anticipation
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| n.预期，预料，期望 | |
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121
heralded
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| v.预示( herald的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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122
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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123
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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124
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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125
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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126
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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127
rustling
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| n. 瑟瑟声，沙沙声 adj. 发沙沙声的 | |
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128
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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129
aural
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| adj.听觉的，听力的 | |
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130
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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131
timbre
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| n.音色，音质 | |
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132
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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133
blurred
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| v.（使）变模糊( blur的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）难以区分；模模糊糊；迷离 | |
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134
tune
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| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
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135
exultation
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| n.狂喜，得意 | |
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136
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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137
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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138
astounded
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| v.使震惊(astound的过去式和过去分词)；愕然；愕；惊讶 | |
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139
beholder
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| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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140
profundity
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| n.渊博；深奥，深刻 | |
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141
embedded
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| a.扎牢的 | |
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142
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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143
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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144
verging
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| 接近，逼近（verge的现在分词形式） | |
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145
subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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146
unintelligible
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| adj.无法了解的，难解的，莫明其妙的 | |
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147
coherence
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| n.紧凑；连贯；一致性 | |
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148
articulation
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| n.（清楚的）发音；清晰度，咬合 | |
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149
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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150
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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151
mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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152
grudging
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| adj.勉强的，吝啬的 | |
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153
scribbling
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| n.乱涂[写]胡[乱]写的文章[作品]v.潦草的书写( scribble的现在分词 )；乱画；草草地写；匆匆记下 | |
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154
catastrophe
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| n.大灾难，大祸 | |
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155
deft
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| adj.灵巧的，熟练的（a deft hand 能手） | |
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156
deftly
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| adv.灵巧地，熟练地，敏捷地 | |
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157
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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158
calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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159
induction
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| n.感应，感应现象 | |
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160
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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161
stimulates
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| v.刺激( stimulate的第三人称单数 )；激励；使兴奋；起兴奋作用，起刺激作用，起促进作用 | |
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162
corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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163
trickled
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| v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动 | |
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164
dabbing
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| 石面凿毛，灰泥抛毛 | |
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165
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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166
artery
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| n.干线，要道；动脉 | |
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167
bind
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| vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬 | |
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168
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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169
propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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170
assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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171
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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172
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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173
radiator
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| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
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174
severing
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| v.切断，断绝( sever的现在分词 )；断，裂 | |
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175
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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176
kindling
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| n. 点火, 可燃物 动词kindle的现在分词形式 | |
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177
aromatic
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| adj.芳香的，有香味的 | |
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178
fixedly
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| adv.固定地；不屈地，坚定不移地 | |
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179
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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180
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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181
physiologist
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| n.生理学家 | |
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182
illuminating
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| a.富于启发性的，有助阐明的 | |
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183
syllables
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| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
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184
bruises
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| n.瘀伤，伤痕，擦伤( bruise的名词复数 ) | |
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185
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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186
stimulation
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| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
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187
lengthened
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| （时间或空间）延长，伸长( lengthen的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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188
jaw
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| n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训 | |
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189
mumble
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| n./v.喃喃而语，咕哝 | |
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190
torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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191
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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192
rigid
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| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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193
downwards
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| adj./adv.向下的（地），下行的（地） | |
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