THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE THREE EYES
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE WOMAN or MYSTERY
THE GOLDEN TRIANGLE
THE SECRET OP SAREK
EYES or INNOCENCE
Berangere stopped
THE THREE EYES
BY
MAURICE LEBLANC
TRANSLATED BT
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA M MATTOS
FRONTISPIECE BY
G. W. GAGE
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
Copyright, 1921, by
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
All right! reserved
PRINTED IN U. S. A
TIE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAOB
I BEROERONNETTE 9
II THE "TRIANGULAR CIRCLES" ... 23
III AN EXECUTION 39
IV NOEL DOROEROUX'S SON 51
V THE Kiss 66
VI ANXIETIES 86
VII THE FIERCE-EYED MAN 99
VIII "SOME ONE WILL EMERGE FROM THE
DARKNESS" 113
IX THE MAN WHO EMERGED FROM THE
DARKNESS . 132
X THE CROWD SEES 148
XI THE CATHEDRAL 161
XII THE "SHAPES" 174
XIII THE VEIL is LIFTED 192
XIV MASSIGNAC AND VELMONT .... 214
XV THE SPLENDID THEORY 227
XVI WHERE LIPS UNITE 247
XVII SUPREME VISIONS 262
XVIII THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONT . . . .275
XIX THE FORMULA . . 293
THE THREE EYES
THE THREE EYES
CHAPTER I
BERGERONNETTE
FOB me the strange story dates back to that
autumn day when my uncle Dorgeroux ap-
peared, staggering and unhinged, in the door-
way of the room which I occupied in his house,
Haut-Meudon Lodge.
None of us had set eyes on him for a week.
A prey to that nervous exasperation into which
the final test of any of his inventions invariably
threw him, he was living among his furnaces
and retorts, keeping every door shut, sleeping
on a sofa, eating nothing but fruit and bread.
And suddenly he stood before me, livid, wild-
eyed, stammering, emaciated, as though he had
lately recovered from a long and dangerous ill-
ness.
He was really altered beyond recognition!
For the first time I saw him wear unbuttoned
the long, threadbare, stained frock-coat which
fitted his figure closely and which he never dis-
10 THE THREE EYES
carded even when making his experiments or
arranging on the shelves of his laboratories the
innumerable chemicals which he was in the habit
of employing. His white tie, which, by way of
contrast, was always clean, had become un-
fastened; and his shirt-front was protruding
from his waistcoat. As for his good, kind face,
usually so grave and placid and still so young
beneath the white curls that crowned his head,
its features seemed unfamiliar, ravaged by con-
flicting expressions, no one of which obtained
the upper hand over the others: violent expres-
sions of terror and anguish in which I was sur-
prised, at moments, to observe gleams of the
maddest and most extravagant delight.
I could not get over my astonishment. What
had happened during those few days? What
tragedy could have caused the quiet, gentle Noe'l
Dorgeroux to be so utterly beside himself?
" Are you ill, uncle? " I asked, anxiously, for
I was exceedingly fond of him.
" No," he murmured, " no, I'm not ill."
"Then what is it? Please, what's the mat-
ter? "
"Nothing's the matter . . . nothing, I tell
you."
I drew up a chair. He dropped into it and,
at my entreaty, took a glass of water; but his
BERGERONNETTE 11
hand trembled so that he was unable to lift it
to his lips.
" Uncle, speak, for goodness' sake ! " I cried.
" I have never seen you in such a state. You
must have gone through some great excitement."
" The greatest excitement of my life," he said,
in a very low and lifeless voice. " Such excite-
ment as nobody can have ever experienced be-
fore . . . nobody . . . nobody . . . ."
" Then do explain yourself."
" No, you wouldn't understand. ... I don't
understand either. It's so incredible ! It is
taking place in the darkness, in a world of dark-
There was a pencil and paper on the table.
His hand seized the pencil; and mechanically
he began to trace one of those vague sketches to
which the action of an overmastering idea grad-
ually imparts a clearer definition. And his
sketch, as it assumed a more distinct form, ended
by representing on the sheet of white paper three
geometrical figures which might equally well
have been badly-described circles or triangles
with curved lines. In the centre of these figures,
however, he drew a regular circle which he black-
ened entirely and which he marked in the middle
with a still blacker point, as the iris is marked
with the pupil :
12 THE THKKI-: I:YI:S
"There, there!" he cried, suddenly, starting
up in his agitation. " Look, that's what is
throbbing and quivering in the darkness. Isn't
it enough to drive one mad? Look! . . ."
He had seized another pencil, a red one, and,
rushing to the wall, he scored the white plaster
with the same three incomprehensible figures, the
three " triangular circles," in the centre of which
he took the pains to draw irises furnished with
pupils :
"Look! They're alive, aren't they? You see
they're moving, you can see that they're afraid.
You can see, can't you? They're alive ! They're
alive!"
I thought that he was going to explain. But,
if so, he did not carry out his intention. His
eyes, which were generally full of life, frank and
open as a child's, now bore an expression of dis-
trust. He began to walk up and down and con-
tinued to do so for a few minutes. Then, at
last, opening the door and turning to me again,
he said, in the same breathless tone as before:
" You will see them, Vivien ; you will have to
see them too and tell me that they are alive, as
I have seen them alive. Come to the Yard in
an hour's time, or rather when you hear a
whistle, and you shall see them, the three eyes,
BEKGERONNETTE 13
and plenty of other things besides. You'll see."
He left the room.
The house in which we lived, the Lodge, as it
was called, turned its back upon the street and
faced an old, steep, ill-kept garden, at the top
of which was the big yard in which my uncle had
now for many years been squandering the rem-
nants of his capital on useless inventions.
As far back as I could remember, I had al-
ways seen that old garden ill-tended and the
long, low house in a constant state of dilapida-
tion, with its yellow plaster front cracked and
peeling. I used to live there in the old days
with my mother, who was my aunt Dorgeroux's
sister. Afterwards, when both the sisters were
dead, I used to come from Paris, where I was
going through a course of study, to spend my
holidays with my uncle. He was then mount-
ing the death of his poor son Dominique, who
was treacherously murdered by a German air-
man whom he had brought to the ground after
a terrific fight in the clouds. My visits to some
extent diverted my uncle's thoughts from his
grief. But I had had to go abroad ; and it was
not until after a very long absence that I re-
turned to Haut-Meudon Lodge, where I had now
14 THE THREE EYES
been some weeks, waiting for the end of the va-
cation and for my appointment as a professor at
Grenoble.
And at each of my visits I had found the same
habits, the same regular hours devoted to meals
and walks, the same monotonous life, inter-
rupted, at the time of the great experiments, by
the same hopes and the same disappointments.
It was a healthy, vigorous life, which suited tin*
tastes and the extravagant dreams of XoM Dor-
geroux, whose courage and confidence no trial
was able to defeat or diminish.
I opened my window. The sun shone down
upon the walls and buildings of the Yard. Not
a cloud tempered the blazing sky. A scent of
late roses quivered on the windless air.
" Victorien ! " whispered a voice below me,
from a hornbeam overgrown with red creeper.
I knew that it must be Brangere, my uncle's
god-daughter, reading, as usual, on a stone
bench, her favourite seat.
" Have you seen your god-father? '' I asked.
"Yes," she replied. "He was goin<; through
the garden and back to his Yard. He looked so
queer!"
Brangere pushed aside the leafy curtain at
a place where the trelliswork which closed the
BERGERONNETTE 15
arbour was broken ; and her pretty face, crowned
with rebellious golden curls, came into view.
" This is pleasant ! " she said laughing. " My
hair's caught. And there are spiders' webs too.
Ugh! Help!"
These are childish recollections, insignificant
details. Yet why did they remain engraved on
my memory with such precision? It is as though
all our being becomes charged with emotion at
the approach of the great events which we are
fated to encounter and our senses thrilled be-
forehand by the inpalpable breath of a distant
storm.
I hastened down the garden and ran to the
hornbeam. Be>angere was gone. I called her.
I received a merry laugh in reply and saw her
farther away, swinging on a rope which she had
stretched between two trees, under an arch of
leaves.
She was delicious like that, graceful and light
as a bird perched on some swaying bough. At
each swoop, all her curls flew now in this direc-
tion, now in that, giving her a sort of moving
halo, with which mingled the leaves that fell
from the shaken trees, red leaves, yellow leaves,
leaves of every shade of autumn gold.
Notwithstanding the anxiety with which my
uncle's excessive agitation had filled my mind, I
16 THE THKEE EYES
lingered before the eight of this incomparable
light-hearteduess and, giving the girl the pet
name formed years ago from her Christian name
of Berangere, I said, under my voice and almost
unconsciously :
" Bergeronnette ! "
She jumped out of her swing and, planting
herself in front of me, said :
" You're not to call me that any longer, Mr.
Professor!"
Why not? "
" It was all right once, when I was a little
mischief of a tomboy, hopping and skipping all
over the place. But now . . ."
" Well, your god-father still calls you that."
"My god-father has every right to."
"And I?"
" No right at all."
This is not a love-story; and I did not mean
to speak of Be"rangere before coming to the mo-
mentous part which, as everybody knows, she
played in the adventure of the Three Eyes. But
this part was so closely interwoven, from the
beginning and during all the early period of the
adventure, with certain episodes of our intimate
life that the clearness of my narrative would
suffer if it were not mentioned, however briefly.
Well, twelve years before the time of which
BERGERONNETTE 17
I am speaking, there arrived at the Lodge a
little girl to whom my uncle was god-father and
from whom he used to receive a letter regularly
on each 1st of January, bringing him her good
wishes for the new year. She lived at Toulouse
with her father and mother, who had formerly
been in business at Mendon, near my uncle's
place. Now the mother had died ; and the father,
without further ceremony, sent the daughter to
Noe*l Dorgeroux with a short letter of which I
remember a few sentences:
" The child is dull here, in the town. ... My
business " Massignac was a wine-agent
" takes me all over the country . . . and
Be*rangdre is left behind alone. ... I was think-
ing that, in memory of our friendly relations,
you might be willing to keep her with you for
a few weeks. . . . The country air will restore
the colour to her cheeks. . . ."
My uncle was a very kindly, good-hearted man.
The few weeks were followed by several months
and then by several years, during which the
worthy Massignac at intervals announced his
intention of coming to Meudon to fetch the child.
So it came about that Be>angre did not leave
the Lodge at all and that she surrounded my
18 THE THREE EYES
uncle with so much gay and boisterous affection
that, in spite of his apparent indifference, Noel
Dorgeroux had felt unable to part with his god-
daughter. She enlivened the silent old house
with her laughter and her charm. She was the
element of disorder and delightful irresponsi-
bility which gives a value to order, discipline
and austerity.
Returning this year after a long absence, I had
found, instead of the child whom I had known,
a girl of twenty, just as much a child and just
as boisterous as ever, but exquisitely pretty,
graceful in form and movement and possessed of
the mystery which marks those who have led
solitary lives within the shadow of an old and
habitually silent man. From the first I felt that
my presence interfered with her habits of free-
dom and isolation. At once audacious and shy,
timid and provocative, bold and shrinking, she
seemed to shun me in particular; and, during
two months of a life lived in common, when I
saw her at every meal and met her at every turn,
I had failed to tame her. She remained remote
and wild, suddenly breaking off our talks and
displaying, where I was concerned, the most
capricious and inexplicable moods.
Perhaps she had an intuition of the profound
disturbance that was awaking within me; per-
BERGERONNETTE 19
haps her confusion was due to my own embar-
rassment. She had often caught my eyes fixed
on her red lips or observed the change that came
over my voice at certain times. And she did
not like it. Man's admiration disconcerted her.
Look here," I said, adopting a roundabout
method so as not to startle her, " your god-father
maintains that human beings, some of them more
than others, give forth a kind of emanation.
Remember that Noe'l Dorgeroux is first and fore-
most a chemist and that he sees and feels things
from the chemist's point of view. Well, to his
mind, this emanation is manifested by the emis-
sion of certain corpuscles, of invisible sparks
which form a sort of cloud. This is what hap-
pens, for instance, in the case of a woman. Her
charm surrounds you . . ."
My heart was beating so violently as I spoke
these words that I had to break off. Still, she
did not seem to grasp their meaning; and she
said, with a proud little air:
"Your uncle tells me all about his theories.
It's true, I don't understand them a bit. How-
ever, as regards this one, he has spoken to me
of a special ray, which he presupposed to explain
that discharge of invisible particles. And he
calls this ray after the first letter of my name,
the B-ray."
20 THE THREE EYES
" Well done, Be"rangre ; that makes you the
god-mother of a ray, the ray of seductiveness and
charm."
" Not at all," she cried, impatiently. " It's not
a question of seductiveness but of a material in-
carnation, a fluid which is even able to become
visible and to assume a form, like the apparitions
produced by the mediums. For instance, the
other day . . ."
She stopped and hesitated; her face betrayed
anxiety; and I had to press her before she con-
tinued :
" No, no," she said, " I oughtn't to speak of
that. It's not that your uncle forbade me to.
But it has left such a painful impression. . . ."
"What do you mean, Be"rangdrc? "
" I mean, an impression of fear and suffering.
I saw, with your uncle, on a wall in the Yard,
the most frightful things: images which repre-
sented three sort of eyes. Were they eyes?
I don't know. The things moved and looked at
us. Oh, I shall never forget it as long as I live."
" And my uncle? "
"Your uncle was absolutely taken aback. I
had to hold him up and bring him round, for he
fainted. When he came to himself, the images
had vanished."
" And did he say nothing? "
BERGERONNETTE 21
" He stood silent, gazing at the wall. Then I
asked him, * What is it, god-father? ' Presently
he answered, * I don't know, I don't know : it
may be the rays of which I spoke to you, the
B-rays. If so, it must be a phenomenon of ma-
terialization.' That was all he said. Very soon
after, he saw me to the door of the garden ; and
he has shut himself up in the Yard ever since.
I did not see him again until just now."
She ceased. I felt anxious and greatly puzzled
by this revelation :
" Then, according to you, Be"rangere," I said,
"my uncle's discovery is connected with those
three figures? They were geometrical figures,
weren't they? Triangles?"
She formed a triangle with her two fore-fingere
and her two thumbs :
" There, the shape was like that. ... As for
their arrangement . . ."
She picked up a twig that had fallen from a
tree and was beginning to draw lines in the sand
of the path when a whistle sounded.
" That's god-father's signal when he wants me
in the Yard," she cried.
" No," I said, " to-day it's for me. We fixed
it."
" Does he want you? "
" Yes, to tell me about his discovery."
22 THE THREE EYES
" Then I'll come too."
" He doesn't expect you, Be"rangere."
" Yes, he does ; yes, he does."
I caught hold of her arm, but she escaped me
and ran to the top of the garden, where I came
up with her outside a small, massive door in a
fence of thick planks which connected a shed and
a very high wall.
She opened the door an inch or two. I in-
sisted :
"Don't do it, Be>ang&re! It will only vex
him."
" Do you really think so? " she said, wavering
a little.
" I'm positive of it, because he asked me and
no one else. Come, Be>angere, be sensible/'
She hesitated. I went through and closed the
door upon her.
CHAPTER II
THE " TRIANGULAR CIRCLES "
WHAT was known at Meudon as No61 Dor-
geroux's Yard was a piece of waste-land
in which the paths were lost amid the withered
grass, nettles and stones, amid stacks of empty
barrels, scrap-iron, rabbit-hutches and every kind
of disused lumber that rusts and rots or tumbles
into dust.
Against the walls and outer fences stood the
workshops, joined together by driving-belts and
shafts, and the laboratories filled with furnaces,
pneumatic receivers, innumerable retorts, phials
and jars containing the most delicate products
of organic chemistry.
The view embraced the loop of the Seine, which
lay some three hundred feet below, and the hills
of Versailles and Sevres, which formed a wide
circle on the horizon towards which a bright
autumnal sun was sinking in a pale blue sky.
"Victorien!"
My uncle was beckoning to me from the door-
way of the workshop which he used most often.
I crossed the Yard.
23
24 THE THREE EYES
" Come in," he said. " We must have a talk
first. Only for a little while: just a few
words."
The room was lofty and spacious and one cor-
ner of it was reserved for writing and resting,
with a desk littered with papers and drawings,
a couch and some old, upholstered easy-chairs.
My uncle drew one of the chairs up for me. He
seemed calmer, but his glance retained an un-
accustomed brilliance.
" Yes," he said, " a few words of explanation
beforehand will do no harm, a few words on the
past, the wretched past which is that of every
inventor who sees fortune slipping away from
him. I have pursued it for so long! I have al-
ways pursued it. My brain had always seemed
to me a vat in which a thousand incoherent ideas
were fermenting, all contradicting one another
and mutually destructive And then there was
one that gained strength. And thenceforward
I lived for that one only and sacrificed every-
thing for it. It was like a sink that swallowed
up all my money and that of others . . . and
their happiness and peace of mind as well.
Think of my poor wife, Victorien. You remem-
ber how unhappy she was and how anxious about
the future of her son, of my poor Dominique!
And yet I loved her so devotedly. . . ."
THE " TRIANGULAR CIRCLES " 25
He stopped at this recollection. And I seemed
to see my aunt's face again and to hear her tell-
ing my mother of her fears and her forebodings :
" IIc will ruin us," she used to say. "He
keeps on making me sell out. He considers
nothing."
" She did not trust me," Noe*l Dorgeroux con-
tinued. "Oh, I had so many disappointments,
so many lamentable failures! Do you remem-
ber, Victorien, do you remember my experiment
on intensive germination by means of electric
currents, my experiments with oxygen and all
the rest, all the rest, not one of which succeeded?
The pluck it called for! But I never lost faith
for a minute ! . . . One idea in particular buoyed
me up and I came back to it incessantly, as
though I were able to penetrate the future. You
know to what I refer, Victorien : it appeared and
reappeared a score of times under different
forms, but the principle remained the same. It
was the idea of utilizing the solar heat. It's all
there, you know, in the sun, in its action upon us,
upon cells, organisms, atoms, upon all the more
or less mysterious substances that nature has
placed at our disposal. And I attacked the
problem from every side. Plants, fertilizers, dis-
eases of men and animals, photographs: for all
these I wanted the collaboration of the solar
26 Till: TIIKKE EYES
rays, utilized by the aid of special processes
which were mine alone, my secret and nobody
else's."
My uncle Dorgeroux was talking with renewed
eagerness; and his eyes shone feverishly. He
now held forth without interrupt in^ himself:
" I will not deny that there was an element
of chance about my discovery. Chance plays its
part in everything. There never was a discovery
that did not exceed our inventive etVort ; and I
can confess to you, Victorien. th;it I do not even
now understand what has happened. No, I can't
explain it by a long way; and I can only just
believe it. But, all the same, if I had not sought
in that direction, the thing won 1*1 not have oc-
curred. It was due to me that the incompre-
hensible miracle took place. The picture is out-
lined in the very frame which I constructed, on
the very canvas which I prepared ; and, as you
will perceive, Victorian, it is my will that makes
the phantom which you are about to see emerge
from the darkness."
He expressed himself in a tone of pride with
which was mingled a certain uneasiness, as
though he doubted himself and as though his
words overstepped the actual limits of truth.
"You're referring to those three sort of
eyes, aren't you? " I asked.
THE " TRIANGULAR CIRCLES " 27
What's that? " he exclaimed, with a start.
"Who told you? B6rangere, I suppose! She
shouldn't have. That's what we must avoid at
all costs: indiscretions. One word too much
and I am undone ; my discovery is stolen. Only
think, the first man that comes along . . ."
I had risen from my chair. He pushed me to-
wards his desk:
"Sit down here, Victorien," he said, "and
write. You mustn't mind my taking this pre-
caution. It is essential. You must realize what
you are pledging yourself to do if you share in
my work. Write, Victorien."
" What, uncle? "
"A declaration in which you acknowledge
that . . . But I'll dictate it to you. That'll be
better."
I interrupted him :
" Uncle, you distrust me."
" I don't distrust you, my boy. I fear an im-
prudence, an indiscretion. And, generally
speaking, I have plenty of reasons for being
suspicious."
" What reasons, uncle? "
" Reasons," he replied, in a more serious voice,
"which make me think that I am being spied
upon and that somebody is trying to discover
what my invention is. Yes, somebody came in
28 THE THREE EYES
here, the other night, and mmmaged among my
papers."
" Did they find anything? "
"No. I always carry the most important
notes and formulae on me. Still, you can
imagine what would happen if they succeeded.
So you do admit, don't you, that I am obliged
to be cautious? Write down that I have told
you of my investigations and that YOU have seen
what I obtain on the wall in the Yard, at the
place covered by a black-serge curtain."
I took a sheet of paper and a pen. But he
stopped me quickly:
" No, no," he said, " it's absurd. It wouldn't
prevent . . . Besides, you won't talk, I'm sure
of that. Forgive me, Victorien. I am so hor-
ribly worried ! "
" You needn't fear any indiscretion on my
part," I declared. " But I must remind you that
Berangere also has seen what there was to see."
" Oh," he said, " she wouldn't understand ! "
" She wanted to come with me just now."
" On no account, on no account ! She's still
a child and not fit to be trusted with a secret
of this importance. . . . Now come along."
But it so happened that, as we were leaving
the workshop, we both of us at the same time
saw Berangere stealing along one of the walls
THE TRIANGULAR CIRCLES " 29
of the Yard and stopping in front of a black
curtain, which she suddenly pulled aside.
" Brangere ! " shouted my uncle, angrily.
The girl turned round and laughed.
" I won't have it! I will not have it! " cried
NoCl Dorgeroux, rushing in her direction. " I
won't have it, I tell you! Get out, you mis-
chief!"
Be>angere ran away, without, however, dis-
playing any great perturbation. She leapt on
a stack of bricks, scrambled on to a long plank
which formed a bridge between two barrels and
began to dance as she was wont to do, with her
arms outstretched like a balancing-pole and her
bust thrown slightly backwards.
" You'll lose your balance," I said, while my
uncle drew the curtain.
" Never! " she replied, jumping up and down
on her spring-board.
She did not lose her balance. But the plank
shifted and the pretty dancer came tumbling
down among a heap of old packing-cases.
I ran to her assistance and found her lying on
the ground, looking very white.
" Have you hurt yourself, Brangere? "
"No ... hardly . . . just my ankle . . . per-
haps I've sprained it."
I lifted her, almost fainting, in my arms and
30 THE THREE EYES
carried her to a wooden bench a little farther
away.
She let me have my way and even pnt one arm
round my neck. Her eyes were closed. Her red
lips opened and I inhaled the cool fragrance of
her breath.
"Be>angere!" I whispered, trembling with
emotion.
When I laid her on the bench, her arm held
me more tightly, so that I had to l>end my head
with my face almost touching hers. I meant to
draw back. But the temptation was too much
for me and I kissed her on the lips, gently at
first and then with a brutal violence which
brought her to her senses.
She repelled me with an indignant movement
and stammered, in a despairing, rebellious tone:
" Oh, it's abominable of you ! . . . It's shame-
ful!"
In spite of the suffering caused by her sprain.
she had managed to stand up. while 1. stupefied
by my thoughtless conduct, stood bowed before
her, without daring to raise my head.
We remained for some seconds in this attitude,
in an embarrassed silence through which I could
catch the hurried rhythm of her breathing. T
tried gently to take her hands. But she released
them at once and said :
THE " TRIANGULAR CIRCLES " 31
" Let me be. I shall never forgive you, never."
" < 'ome, Be"rangere, you will forget that."
" Leave me alone. I want to go indoors."
u But you can't, Berangere."
" Here's god-father. He'll take me back."
My reasons for relating this incident will ap-
pear in the sequel. For the moment, notwith-
standing the profound commotion produced by
the kiss which I had stolen from Be>angere, my
thoughts were so to speak absorbed by the mys-
terious drama in which I was about to play a
part with my uncle Dorgeroux. I heard my uncle
asking Berangere if she was not hurt. I saw
her leaning on his arm and, with him, making
for the door of the garden. But, while I re-
mained bewildered, trembling, dazed by the ador-
able image of the girl whom I loved, it was my
uncle whom I awaited and whom I was impatient
to see returning. The great riddle already held
me captive.
"Let's make haste," cried Noe'l Dorgeroux,
when he came back. " Else it will be too late
and we shall have to wait until to-morrow."
He led the way to the high wall where he had
caught Berangere in the act of yielding to her
curiosity. This wall, which divided the Yard
from the garden and which I had not remarked
32 THE THREE EYES
particularly on my rare visits to the Yard, was
now daubed with a motley mixture of colours,
like a painter's palette. Red ochiv. indigo, pur-
ple and saffron were spread over it in thick and
uneven layers, which whirled around a more
thickly-coated centre. But, at the far end, a
wide curtain of black serge, like a photographer's
cloth, running on an iron rod supported by
brackets, hid a rectangular space some three or
four yards in width.
" What's that? " I asked my uncle. " Is this
the place? "
" Yes," he answered, in a husky voice, " it'8
behind there."
" There's still time to change your mind," I
suggested.
" What makes you say that? "
" I feel that you are afraid of letting me know.
You are so upset."
" I am upset for a very different reason."
"Why?"
"Because I too am going to see."
" But you have done so already."
" One always sees new things, Victorien ; that's
the terrifying part of it."
I took hold of the curtain.
" Don't touch it, don't touch it ! " he cried.
* No one has the right, except myself. Who
THE " TRIANGULAR CIRCLES " 33
knows what would happen if any one except me
were to open the closed door ! Stand back, Vic-
torien. Take np your position at two paces from
the wall, a little to one side. . . . And now
look!"
His voice was vibrant with energy and im-
placable determination. His expression was
that of a man facing death ; and, suddenly, with
a single movement, he drew the black-serge cur-
tain.
My emotion, I am certain, was just as great
as N < " I Dorgeroux's and my heart beat no less
violently. My curiosity had reached its utmost
bounds; moreover, I had a formidable intuition
that I was about to enter into a region of mys-
tery of which nothing, not even my uncle's dis-
concerting words, was able to give me the re-
motest idea. I was experiencing the contagion
of what seemed to me in him to be a diseased
condition; and I vainly strove to subject it in
myself to the control of my reason. I was tak-
ing the impossible and the incredible for granted
beforehand.
And yet I saw nothing at first ; and there was,
in fact, nothing. This part of the wall was bare.
The only detail worthy of remark was that it
was not vertical and that the whole base of the
34 THE THREE EYES
wall had been thickened so as to form a slightly
inclined plane which sloped upwards to a height
of nine feet. What was the reason for this work,
when the wall did not need strengthening?
A coating of dark grey plaster, about half an
inch thick, covered the whole panel. When
closely examined, however, it was not painted
over, but was rather a layer of some substance
uniformly spread and showing no trace of a
brush. Certain gleams proved that this layer
was quite recent, like a varnish newly applied.
I observed nothing else; and Heaven knows that
I did my utmost to discover any peculiarity!
" Well, uncle? " I asked.
"Wait," he said, in an agonized voice,
" wait ! . . . The first indication is beginning."
"What indication?"
" In the middle . . . like a diffused light. Do
you see it? "
" Yes, yes, I think I do."
It was as when a little daylight is striving to
mingle with the waning darkness. A lighter
disk became marked in the middle of the panel ;
and this lighter shade spread towards the edges,
while remaining more intense at its centre. So
far there was no very decided manifestation of
anything out of the way; the chemical reaction
of a substance lately hidden by the curtain and
THE " TRIANGULAR CIRCLES " 35
now exposed to the daylight and the sun was
quite enough to explain this sort of inner illu-
mination. Yet something gave one the haunting
though perhaps unreasonable impression that an
extraordinary phenomenon was about to take
place. For that was what I expected, as did my
uncle Dorgeroux.
And all at once he, who knew the premonitory
symptoms and the course of the phenomenon,
started, as though he had received a shock.
At the same moment, the thing happened.
It was sudden, instantaneous. It leapt in a
flash from the depths of the wall. Yes, I know,
a spectacle cannot flash out of a wall, any more
than it can out of a layer of dark-grey substance
only half an inch thick. But I am setting down
the sensation which I experienced, which is the
same that hundreds and hundreds of people ex-
perienced afterwards, with a like clearness and a
like certainty. It is no use carping at the un-
deniable fact: the thing shot out of the depths
of the ocean of matter and it appeared violently,
like the rays of a lighthouse flashing from the
very womb of the darkness. After all, when we
step towards a mirror, does our image not appear
to us from the depth of that horizon suddenly
unveiled?
Only, you see, it was not our image, my uncle
36 THE THREE EYES
Dorgeroux's or mine. Nothing was reflected, be-
cause there was nothing to reflect and no reflect-
ing screen. What I saw was . . .
On the panel were " three geometrical figures
which might equally well have been badly de-
scribed circles or triangles composed of curved
circles. In the centre of these figures was drawn
a regular circle, marked in the middle with a
blacker point, as the iris is marked by the pupil."
I am deliberately using the terminology which
I employed to describe the images which my
uncle had drawn in red chalk on the plaster
of my room, for I had no doubt that he was then
trying to reproduce those same figures, the ap-
pearance of which had already upset him.
" That's what you saw, isn't it, uncle? " I
asked.
" Oh," he replied, in a low voice, " I saw much
more than that, very much more ! . . . Wait and
look right into them."
I stared wildly at the three " triangular
circles," as I have called them. One of them was
set above the two others; and these two, which
were smaller and less regular but exactly alike,
seemed, instead of looking straight before them,
to turn a little to the right and to the left.
Where did they come from? And what did they
mean?
THE TRIANGULAR CIRCLES " 37
" Look," repeated my uncle. " Do you see? "
" Yes, yes," I replied, with a shudder. The
thing's moving."
It was in fact moving. Or rather, no, it was
not: the outlines of the geometrical figures re-
mained stationary; and not a line shifted its
place within. And yet from all this immobility
something emerged which was nothing else than
motion.
I now remembered my uncle's words:
" They're alive, aren't they? You can see
them opening and showing alarm! They're
alive!"
They were alive! The three triangles were
alive ! And, as soon as I experienced this precise
and undeniable feeling that they were alive, I
ceased to regard them as an assemblage of life-
less lines and began to see in them things which
were like a sort of eyes, misshapen eyes, eyes
different from ours, but eyes furnished with
irises and pupils and throbbing in an abysmal
darkness.
" They are looking at us ! " I cried, quite beside
myself and as feverish and unnerved as my uncle,
He nodded his head and whispered:
" Yes, that's what they're doing."
The three eyes were looking at us. We were
conscious of the scrutiny of those three eyes,
38 THE THREE EYES
without lids or lashes, but full of an intense life
which was due to the expression that animated
them, a changing expression, by turns serious,
proud, noble, enthusiastic and, above all, sad,
grievously sad.
I feel how improbable these observations must
appear. Nevertheless they correspond most
strictly with the reality as it was beheld at a
later date by the crowds that thronged to Haut-
Meudon Lodge. Like my uncle, like myself,
those crowds shuddered before three combina-
tions of motionless lines which had the most
heart-rending expression, just as at other mo-
ments they laughed at the comical or gayer ex-
pression which they were compelled to read into
those same lines.
And on each occasion the spectacle which I
am now describing was repeated in exactly the
same order. A brief pause, followed by a series
of vibrations. Then, suddenly, three eclipses,
after which the combination of three triangles
began to turn upon itself, as a whole, slowly at
first and then with increasing rapidity, which
gradually became transformed into so swift a ro-
tation that one distinguished nothing but a mo-
tionless rose-pattern.
After that, nothing. The panel was empty.
CHAPTER III
AN EXECUTION
IT must be understood that, notwithstanding
the explanations which I must needs offer,
the development of all these events took but very
little time: exactly eighteen seconds, as I had
the opportunity of calculating afterwards. But,
during these eighteen seconds and this again
I observed on many an occasion the spectator
received the illusion of watching a complete
drama, with its preliminary expositions, its plot
and its culmination. And when this obscure,
illogical drama was over, you questioned what
you had seen, just as you question the night-
mare which wakes you from your sleep.
Nevertheless it must be said that none of all
this partook in any way of those absurd optical
illusions which are so easily contrived or of those
arbitrary ideas on which a whole pseudo-scien-
tific novel is sometimes built up. There is no
question of a novel, but of a physical phenom-
enon, an absolutely natural phenomenon, the ex-
planation of which, when it comes to be known,
is also absolutely natural.
39
40 THE THREE EYES
And I beg those who are not acquainted with
this explanation not to try to guess it. Let them
not worry themselves with suppositions and in-
terpretations. Let them forget, one by one, the
theories over which I myself am lingering: all
that has to do with B-rays, materializations, or
the effect of solar heat. These are so many roads
that lead nowhere. The best plan is to be guided
by events, to have faith and to wait.
" It's finished, uncle, isn't it? " I asked.
" It's the beginning," he replied.
" How do you mean? The beginning of what?
What's going to happen? "
" I don't know."
I was astounded:
"You don't know? But you knew just now,
about this, about those strange eyes! . . ."
"It all starts with that. But other things
come afterwards, things which vary and which
I know nothing about ! "
"But how can that be possible?" I asked.
" Do you mean to say that you don't know any-
thing about them, you who prepared everything
for them? "
" I prepared them, but I do not control them.
As I told you, I have opened a door which leads
into the darkness; and from that darkness un-
foreseen images emerge."
AN EXECUTION 41
" But is the thing that's coming of the same
nature as those eyes? "
" No."
" Then what is it, uncle? "
" The thing that's coming will be a represen-
tation of images in conformity with what we are
accustomed to see."
"Things which we shall understand, there-
fore? "
" Yes, we shall understand them ; and yet they
will be all the more incomprehensible."
I often wondered, during the weeks that fol-
lowed, if my uncle's words were to be fully relied
upon and if he had not uttered them in order to
mislead me as to the origin and meaning of his
discoveries. How indeed was it possible to think
that the key to the riddle remained unknown to
him? But at that moment I was wholly under
his influence, steeped in the great mystery that
surrounded us; and, with a constricted feeling
at my heart, with all my overetimulated senses,
I thought of nothing but gazing into the miracu-
lous panel.
A movement on my uncle's part warned me. I
gave a start. The dawn was rising over the grey
surface.
I saw, first of all, a, cloudy radiance whirling
around a central point, towards which all the
42 THE THREE EYES
luminous spirals rushed and in which they were
swallowed up while whirling upon themselves.
Next, this point expanded into an ever wider
circle, covered with a light, hazy veil which grad-
ually dispersed, revealing a vague, floating
image, like the apparitions raised by spiritualists
and mediums at their sittings.
Then followed as it were a certain hesitation.
The phantom image was striving with the Diffuse
shadow and seeking to attain life and light.
Certain features became more pronounce!.
Outlines and separate planes took shap*-: and at
last a flood of light issued from tin* phantom
image and turned it into a dazzling picture,
which seemed to be bathed in sunlight.
It was a woman's face.
I remember that at that moment my mental
confusion was such that I felt like darting for-
ward to feel the marvellous wall and lay my
hands upon the living material in which the in-
credible phenomenon was vibrating. But my
uncle dug his fingers into my arm :
" I won't have you move ! " he growled. " If
you budge an inch, the whole thing will fade
away. Look ! "
I did not move; indeed, I doubt whether I
could have done so. My legs were giving way
beneath me. Both of us, my uncle and I,
AN EXECUTION 43
dropped into a sitting posture on the fallen trunk
of a tree.
" Look, look ! " he commanded.
The woman's face had approached in our di-
rection until it was twice the size of life. The
first thing that struck us was the cap, which was
that of a nurse, with the head-band tightly drawn
over the forehead and the veil around the head.
The features, handsome and regular and still
young, wore that look of almost divine dignity
which the primitive painters used to give to the
saints who are suffering or about to suffer mar-
tyrdom, a nobility compounded of pain and
ecstasy, of resignation and hope, of smiles and
tears. Bathed in that light which really seemed
to be an inward flame, the woman opened, upon
a scene invisible to us, a pair of large dark eyes
which, though filled with nameless terror, never-
theless were not afraid. The contrast was re-
markable : her resignation was defiant ; her fear
was full of pride.
" Oh," stammered my uncle, " I seem to ob-
serve the same expression as in the Three Eyes
which were there just now. Do you see : the same
dignity, the same gentleness . . . and also the
same dread?"
" Yes," I replied, " it's the same expression,
the same sequence of expressions."
44 THE THREE EYES
And, while I spoke and while the woman still
remained in the foreground, outside the frame
of the picture, I felt certain recollections arise
within me, as at the sight of the portrait of a
person whose features are not entirely unfamil-
iar. My uncle received the same impression, for
he said:
" I seem to remember . . ."
But at that moment the strange face withdrew
to the plane which it occupied at first. The
mists that created a halo round it drifted away.
The shoulders came into view, followed by the
whole body. We now saw a woman standing,
fastened by bonds that gripped her bust and
waist to a post the upper end of which rose a
trifle above her head.
Then all this, which hitherto had given the
impression of fixed outlines, like the outlines of
a photograph, for instance, suddenly became
alive, like a picture developing into a reality,
a statue stepping straight into life. The bust
moved. The arms, tied behind, and the impris-
oned shoulders were struggling against the cords
that were hurting them. The head turned
slightly. The lips spoke. It was no longer an
image presented for us to gaze at: it was life,
moving and living life. It was a scene taking
place in space and time. A whole background
AN EXECUTION 45
came into being, filled with people moving to and
fro. Other figures were writhing, bonnd to
poets. I counted eight of them. A squad of
soldiers marched up, with shouldered rifles.
They were spiked helmets.
My uncle observed :
" Edith CavelL"
" Yes," I said, with a start, " I recognize her:
Edith Cavell; the execution of Edith Cavell."
Once more and not for the last time, in setting
down such phrases as these, I realize how ridicu-
lous they must sound to any one who does not
know to begin with what they signify and what
is the exact truth that lies hidden in them.
Nevertheless, I declare that this idea of some-
thing absurd and impossible did not occur to
the mind when it was confronted with the phe-
nomenon. Even when no theory had as yet sug-
gested the smallest element of a logical explana-
tion, people accepted as irrefutable the evidence
of their own eyes. All those who saw the thing
and whom I questioned gave me the same an-
swer. Afterwards, they would correct them-
selves and protest. Afterwards, they would
plead the excuse of hallucinations or visions re-
ceived by suggestion. But, at the time, even
though their reason was up in arms and though
they, so to speak, " kicked " against facts which
46 THE THREE EYES
had no visible cause, they were compelled to bow
before them and to follow their development as
they would the representation of a succession of
real events.
A theatrical representation, if you like, or
rather a cinematographic representation, for, on
the whole, this was the impression that emerged
most clearly from all the impressions received.
The moment Miss Cavell's image had assumed
the animation of life, I turned round to look
for the apparatus, standing in some corner of the
Yard, which was projecting that animated pic-
ture; and, though I saw nothing, though I at
once understood that in any case no projection
could be effected in broad daylight and without
omitting shafts of light, yet I received and re-
tained that justifiable impression. There was
no projector, no, but there was a screen: an
astonishing screen which received nothing from
without, since nothing was transmitted, but
which received everything from within. And
that was really the sensation experienced. The
images did not come from the outside. They
sprang to the surface from within. The horizon
opened out on the farther side of a solid material.
The darkness gave forth light.
Words, words, I know! Words which I heap
upon words before I venture to write those which
AN EXECUTION 47
express what I saw issuing from the abyss in
which Miss Cavell was about to undergo the
death-penalty. The execution of Miss Cavell!
Of course I said to myself, if it was a cinemato-
graphic representation, if it was a film and how
could one doubt it? at any rate it was a film
like ever so many others, faked, fictitious, based
upon tradition, in a conventional setting, with
paid performers and a heroine who had thor-
oughly studied the part. I knew that. But, all
the same, I watched as though I did not know
it. The miracle of the spectacle was so great
that one was constrained to believe in the whole
miracle, that is to say, in the reality of the repre-
sentation. No fake was here. No make-believe.
No part learned by heart. No performers and
no setting. It was the actual scene. The actual
victims. The horror which thrilled me during
those few minutes was that which I should have
felt had I beheld the murderous dawn of the
8th of October, 1915, rise across the thrice-ac-
cursed drill-ground.
It was soon over. The firing-platoon was
drawn up in double file, on the right and a little
aslant, so that we saw the men's faces between
the rifle-barrels. There were a good many of
them: thirty, forty perhaps, forty butchers,
booted, belted, helmeted, with their straps under
48 THE THREE EYES
their chins. Above them hung a pale sky,
streaked with thin red clouds. Opposite them
. . . opposite them were the eight doomed vic-
tims.
There were six men and two women, all belong-
ing to the people or the lower middle-class.
They were now standing erect, throwing forward
their chests as they tugged at their bonds.
An officer advanced, followed by four Feld-
webel carrying unfurled handkerchiefs. Not
any of the people condemned to death consented
to have their eyes bandaged. Nevertheless, their
faces were wrung with anguish; and all, with
an impulse of their whole being, seemed to rush
forward to their doom.
The officer raised his sword. The soldiers
took aim.
A supreme effort of emotion seemed to add to
the stature of the victims : and a cry issued from
their lips. Oh, I saw and heard that cry, a
fanatical and desperate cry in which the martyrs
shouted forth their triumphant faith.
The officer's arm fell smartly. The interven-
ing space appeared to tremble as with the rum-
bling of thunder. I had not the courage to look ;
and my eyes fixed themselves on the distraated
countenance of Edith Cavell.
AN EXECUTION 49
She also was not looking. Her eyelids were
closed. Bnt how she was listening! How her
features contracted under the clash of the atro-
cious sounds, words of command, detonations,
cries of the victims, death-rattles, moans of
agony. By what refinement of cruelty had her
own end been delayed? Why was she con-
demned to that double torture of seeing others
die before dying herself?
Still, everything must be over yonder. One
party of the butchers attended to the corpses,
while the others formed into line and, pivoting
upon the officer, marched towards Miss Cavell.
They thus stepped out of the frame within which
we were able to follow their movements; but I
was able to perceive, by the gestures of the offi-
cer, that they were forming up opposite Nurse
Cavell, between her and us.
The officer stepped towards her, accompanied
by a military chaplain, who placed a crucifix
to her lips. She kissed it fervently and tenderly.
The chaplain then gave her his blessing; and she
was left alone. A mist once more shrouded the
scene, leaving her whole figure full in the light.
Her eyelids were still closed, her head erect and
her body rigid.
She was at that moment wearing a very sweet
50 THE THREE EYES
and very tranquil expression. Not a trace of
fear distorted her noble countenance. She stood
awaiting death with saintly serenity.
And this death, as it was revealed to us, was
neither very cruel nor very odious. The upper
part of the body fell forward. The head drooped
a little to one side. But the shame of it lay in
what followed. The officer stood close to the
victim, revolver in hand. And he was pressing
the barrel to his victim's temple, when, suddenly,
the mist broke into dense waves and the whole
picture disappeared. . . .
CHAPTER IV
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON
THE spectator who has just been watching
the most tragic of films finds it easy to
escape from the sort of dark prison-house in
which he was suffocating and, with the return of
the light, recovers his equilibrium and his self-
possession. I, on the other hand, remained for a
long time numb and speechless, with my eyes
riveted to the empty panel, as though I expected
something else to emerge from it. Even when it
was over, the tragedy terrified me, like a night-
mare prolonged after waking, and, even more
than the tragedy, the absolutely extraordinary
manner in which it had been unfolded before my
eyes. I did not understand. My disordered
brain vouchsafed me none but the most grotesque
and incoherent ideas.
A movement on the part of Noel Dorgeroux
drew me from my stupor: he had drawn the cur-
tain across the screen.
At this I vehemently seized my uncle by his
two hands and cried:
si
52 THE THREE EYES
"What does all this mean? It's maddening!
What explanation are you able to give? "
" None," he said, simply.
" But still . . . you brought me here."
"Yes, that you miirht nlso sec :unl to make
sure that my eyes had not deceived me."
" Therefore you have already witnessed other
scenes in that same setting? "
"Yes, other sights . . . three timos before."
"What, uncle? Can you specify thMii? "
"Certainly: what I saw yesterday, for in-
stance."
"What was that. unrl. ' "
He pushed me a little and gazed at me, at
first without replying. Then, speaking in a
very low tone, with deliberate conviction, he
said:
" The battle of Trafalgar."
I wondered if he was making fun of mo. But
X <<"! Dorgeroux was little addicted to banter at
any time; and he would not have selected such
a moment as this to depart from his customary
gravity. No, he was speaking seriously; and
what he said suddenly struck me as so humorous
that I burst out laughing :
"Trafalgar! Don't be offended, uncle; but
it's really too quaint ! The battle of Trafalgar,
which was fought in 1805? "
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON 53
He once more looked at me attentively :
" Why do you laugh? " he asked.
" Good heavens, I laugh, I laugh . . . because
. . . well, confess . . ."
He interrupted me :
" You're laughing for very simple reasons, Vic-
torien, which I will explain to you in a few
words. To begin with, you are nervous and ill
at ease ; and your merriment is first and foremost
a reaction. But, in addition, the spectacle of
that horrible scene was so what shall I say?
so convincing that you looked upon it, in
spite of yourself, not as a reconstruction of the
murder, but as the actual murder of Miss Cavell.
Is that true? "
" Perhaps it is, uncle."
" In other words, the murder and all the in-
famous details which accompanied it must have
been don't let us hesitate to use the word
must have been cinematographed by some unseen
witness from whom I obtained that precious film :
and my invention consists solely in reproducing
the film in the thickness of a gelatinous layer
of some kind or other. A wonderful, but a credi-
ble discovery. Are we still agreed? "
" Yes, uncle, quite."
" Very well. But now I am claiming some-
thing very different. I am claiming to have
64 THE THREE EYES
witnessed an evocation of the battle of Trafalgar!
If so, the French and English frigates must have
foundered before my eyes! I must have seen
Nelson die, struck down at the foot of his main-
mast! That's quite another matter, is it not?
In 1805 there were no cinematographic films.
Therefore this can be only an absurd parody.
Thereupon all your emotion vanishes. My repu-
tation fades into thin air. And you laugh! I
am to you nothing more than an old impostor,
who, instead of humbly showing you his curious
discovery, tries in addition to persuade you that
the moon is made of green cheese! A humbug,
what? "
We had left the wall and were walking to-
wards the door of the garden. The sun was
setting behind the distant hills. I stopped and
said to Noel Dorgeroux :
"Forgive me, uncle, and please don't think
that I am over lacking in the respect I owe you.
There is nothing in my amusement that need
annoy you, nothing to make you suppose that I
suspect your absolute sincerity."
" Then what do you think? What is your con-
clusion? "
" I don't think anything, uncle. I have ar-
rived at no conclusion and I am not even trying
to do so, at present. I am out of my depth, per-
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON 55
plexed, at the same time dazed and dissatisfied,
as though I felt that the riddle was even more
wonderful than it is and that it would always
remain insoluble."
We were entering the garden. It was his turn
to stop me:
" Insoluble ! That is really your opinion? "
" Yes, for the moment."
" You can't imagine any theory? "
" No."
" Still, you saw? You have no doubts? "
" I certainly saw. I saw first three strange
eyes that looked at us ; then I witnessed a scene
which was the murder of Miss Cavell. That is
what I saw, just as you did, uncle; and I do not
for a moment doubt the undeniable evidence of
my own eyes."
He held out his hand to me :
" That's what I wanted to know, my boy. And
thank you."
I have given a faithful account of what hap-
pened that afternoon. In the evening we dined
together by ourselves, Be>angere having sent
word to say that she was indisposed and would
not leave her room. My uncle was deeply ab-
sorbed in thought and did not say a word on what
had happened in the Yard.
66 THE THREE EYES
I slept hardly at all, haunted by the recollec-
tion of what I had seen and tormented hy a score
of theories, which I need not mention here, for
not one of them was of the slightest value.
Next day, Brangere did not come downstairs.
At luncheon, my uncle preserved the same si-
lence. I tried many times to make him talk,
but received no reply.
My curiosity was too intense to allow my uncle
to get rid of me in this way. I took up my
position in the garden before he left the house.
Not until five o'clock did he go up to the Yard.
" Shall I come with you, uncle? " I suggested,
boldly.
He grunted, neither granting my request nor
refusing it. I followed him. He walked across
the Yard, locked himself into his principal work-
shop and did not leave it until an hour later :
" Ah, there you are ! " he said, as though he
had been unaware of any presence.
He went to the wall and briskly drew the cur-
tain. Just then he asked me to go back to the
workshop and to fetch something or other which
he had forgotten. When I returned, he said,
excitedly :
" It's finished, it's finished ! "
" What is, uncle? "
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON 57
" The Eyes, the Three Eyes."
" Oh, have you seen them? "
" Yes ; and I refuse to believe ... no, of
course, it's an illusion on my part. . . . How
could it be possible, when you come to think of
it? Imagine, the eyes wore the expression of
my dead son's eyes, yes, the very expression of
my poor Dominique. It's madness, isn't it?
And yet I declare, yes, I declare that Dominique
was gazing at me ... at first with a sad and
sorrowful gaze, which suddenly became the terri-
fied gaze of a man who is staring death in the
face. And then the Three Eyes began to revolve
upon themselves. That was the end."
I made Noel Dorgeroux sit down :
" It's as you suppose, uncle, an illusion, an
hallucination. Just think, Dominique has been
dead so many years! It is therefore incredi-
ble . . ."
" Everything is incredible and nothing is," he
said. "There is no room for human logic in
front of that wall."
I tried to reason with him, though my mind
was becoming as bewildered as his own. But he
silenced me :
"That'll do," he said. "Here's the other
thing beginning."
58 THE THREE EYES
He pointed to the screen, which was showing
signs of life and preparing to reveal a new pic-
ture.
" But, uncle," I said, already overcome by ex-
citement, " where does that come from? "
" Don't speak," said Noel Dorgeroux. " Not
a word."
I at once observed that this other thing bore no
relation to what I had witnessed the day before;
and I concluded that the scenes presented must
occur without any prearranged order, without
any chronological or serial connection, in short,
like the different films displayed in the course
of a performance.
It was the picture of a small town as seen
from a neighbouring height. A castle and a
church-steeple stood out above it. The town was
built on the slope of several hills and at the in-
tersection of the valleys, which met among
clumps of tall, leafy trees.
Suddenly, it came nearer and was seen on a
larger scale. The hills surrounding the town
disappeared; and the whole screen was filled
with a crowd swarming with lively gestures
around an open space above which hung a bal-
loon, held captive by ropes. Suspended from the
balloon was a receptacle serving probably for
the production of hot air. Men were issuing from
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON 59
the crowd on every hand. Two of them climbed
a ladder the top of which was leaning against
the side of a car. And all this, the appearance
of the balloon, the shape of the appliances em-
ployed, the use of hot air instead of gas, the
dress of the people ; all this struck me as possess-
ing an old-world aspect.
" The brothers Montgolfier," whispered my
uncle.
These few words enlightened me. I remem-
bered those old prints recording man's first
ascent towards the sky, which was accomplished
in June, 1783. It was this wonderful event which
we were witnessing, or, at least, I should say,
a reconstruction of the event, a reconstruction
accurately based upon those old prints, with a
balloon copied from the original, with costumes
of the period and no doubt, in addition, the actual
setting of the little town of Annonay.
But then how was it that there was so great a
multitude of townsfolk and peasants? There
was no comparison possible between the usual
number of actors in a cinema scene and the in-
credibly tight-packed crowd which I saw moving
before my eyes. A crowd like that is found only
in pictures which the camera has secured di-
rect, on a public holiday, at a march-past of
troops or a royal procession.
60 THE THREE EYES
However, the wavelike eddying of the crowd
suddenly subsided. I received the impression of
a great silence and an anxious period of waiting.
Some men quickly severed the ropes with hatch-
ets. Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier lifted
their hats.
And the balloon rose in space. The people in
the crowd raised their arms and filled the air
with an immense clamour.
For a moment, the screen showed us the two
brothers, by themselves and enlarged. With the
upper part of their bodies leaning from the car,
each with one arm round the other's waist and
one hand clasping the other's, they seemed to be
praying with an air of unspeakable ecstasy and
solemn joy.
Slowly the ascent continued. And it was then
that something utterly inexplicable occurred : the
balloon, as it rose above the little town and the
surrounding hills, did not appear to my uncle
and me as an object which we were watching
from an increasing depth below. No, it was the
little town and the hills which were sinking and
which, by sinking, proved to us that the balloon
was ascending. But there was also this abso-
lutely illogical phenomenon, that we remained
on the same level as the balloon, that it retained
the same dimensions and that the two brothers
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON 61
stood facing us, exactly as though the photograph
had been taken from the car of a second balloon,
rising at the same time as the first with an ex-
acilif and mathematically identical movement!
The scene was not completed. Or rather it
was transformed in accordance with the method
of the cinematograph, which substitutes one pic-
ture for another by first blending them together.
Imperceptibly, when it was perhaps some fifteen
hundred feet from the ground, the Montgolfier
balloon became less distinct and its vague and
softened outlines gradually mingled with the
more and more powerful outlines of another
shape which soon occupied the whole space and
which proved to be that of a military aeroplane.
Several times since then the mysterious screen
has shown me two successive scenes of which
the second completed the first, thus forming a
diptych which displayed the evident wish to con-
vey a lesson by connecting, across space and time,
two events which in this way acquired their full
significance. This time the moral was clear : the
peaceable balloon had culminated in the murder-
ous aeroplane. First the ascent at Annonay.
Then a fight in mid-air, a fight between the mono-
plane which I had seen develop from the old-
fashioned balloon and the biplane upon which
I beheld it swooping like a bird of prey.
62 THE THREE EYES
Was it an illusion or a " faked representa-
tion?" For here again we saw the two aero-
planes not in the normal fashion, from below,
"but as if we were at the same height and moving
at the same rate of speed. In that case, were
we to admit that an operator, perched on a third
machine, was calmly engaged in " filming " the
shifting fortunes of the terrible battle? That
was impossible, surely!
But there was no good purpose to be served by
renewing these perpetual suppositions over and
over again. Why should I doubt the unimpeach-
able evidence of my eyes and deny the undeni-
able? Real aeroplanes were manoeuvring before
my eyes. A real fight was taking place in the
thickness of that old wall.
It did not last long. The man who was alone
was attacking boldly. Time after time his ma-
chine-gun flashed forth flames. Then, to avoid
the enemy's bullets, he looped the loop twice,
each time throwing his aeroplane in such a po-
sition that I was able to distinguish on the can-
vas the three concentric circles that denote the
Allied machines. Then, coming nearer and at-
tacking his adversaries from behind, he returned
to his gun.
The Hun biplane I observed the iron cross
dived straight for the ground and recovered
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON 63
itself. The two men seemed to be sitting tight
under their furs and masks. There was a third
machine-gun attack. The pilot threw up his
hands. The biplane capsized and fell.
I saw this fall in the most inexplicable fashion.
At first, of course, it seemed swift as lightning.
And then it became infinitely slow and even
ceased, with the machine overturned and the
two Ixxlies motionless, head downwards and arms
outstretched.
Then the ground shot up with a dizzy speed,
devastated, shell-holed fields, swarming with
thousands of French poilus.
The biplane came down beside a river. From
the shapeless fuselage and the shattered wings
two legs appeared.
And the French plane landed almost imme-
diately, a short way off. The victor stepped out,
pushed back the soldiers who had run up from
every side and, moving a few yards towards his
motionless prey, took off his mask and made the
sign of the cross.
"Oh," I whispered, "this is dreadful! And
how mysterious ! . . ."
Then I saw that Noel Dorgeroux was on his
knees, his face distorted with emotion :
" What is it, uncle? " I asked.
Stretching towards the wall his trembling
64 THE THREE EYKS
hands, which were clasped together, he stam-
mered:
"Dominique! I recognize my son! It's he!
Oh, Pm terrified!"
I also, as I gazed at the victor, recovered in
my memory the time-effaced image of my poor
cousin.
" It's he ! " continued my nncle. * I was right
... the expression of the Three Eyes .... Oh !
I can't look! ... I'm afraid! "
" Afraid of what, uncle? "
" They are going to kill him ... to kill him
before my eyes ... to kill him as they actually
did kill him . . . Dominique! Dominique!
Take care ! " he shouted.
I did not shout : what warning cry could reach
the man about to die? But the same terror
brought me to my knees and made me wring my
hands. In front of us, from underneath the
shapeless mass, among the heaped-up wreckage,
something rose up, the swaying body of one of
the victims. An arm was extended, aiming a
revolver. The victor sprang to one side. It was
too late. Shot through the head, he spun round
upon his heels and fell beside the dead body of
his murderer.
The tragedy was over.
My uncle, bent double, was sobbing pitifully
NOEL DORGEROUX'S SON 65
a few paces from my side. He had witnessed
the actual death of his son, foully murdered in
the great war by a German airman !
CHAPTER V
THE KISS
BERANGERE next day resumed her place at
meals, looking a little pale and wearing a
more serious face than usual. My uncle, who
had not troubled about her during the last two
days, kissed her absent-mindedly. We lunched
without a word. Not until we had nearly ended
did No61 Dorgeroux speak to his god-child:
" Well, dear, are you none the worse for your
fall?"
" Not a bit, god-father; and I'm only sorry that
I didn't see . . . what you saw up there, yester-
day and the day before. Are you going there
presently, god-father? "
" Yes, but I'm going alone."
This was said in a peremptory tone which al-
lowed of no reply. My uncle was looking at me.
I did not stir a muscle.
Lunch finished in an awkward silence. As he
was about to leave the room, Noel Dorgeroux
turned back to me and asked :
" Do you happen to have lost anything in the
Yard? "
THE KISS 67
" No, nncle. Why do you ask? "
" Because," he answered, with a slight hesita-
tion," because I found this on the ground, just
in front of the wall."
He showed me a lens from an eye-glass.
" But you know, uncle," I said, laughing,
" that I don't wear spectacles or glasses of any
kind."
" No more do I ! " Berangere declared.
" That's so, that's so," Noel Dorgeroux replied,
in a thoughtful tone. " But, still, somebody
has been there. And you can understand my
uneasiness."
In the hope of making him speak, I pursued
the subject :
" What are you uneasy about, uncle? At the
worst, some one may have seen the pictures pro-
duced on the screen, which would not be enough,
so it seems to me, to enable the secret of your
discovery to be stolen. Remember that I myself,
who was with you, am hardly any wiser than I
was before."
I felt that he did not intend to answer and
that he resented my insistence. This irritated
me.
" Listen, uncle," I said. " Whatever the rea-
sons for your conduct may be, you have no right
to suspect me ; and I ask and entreat you to give
68 THE THREE EYES
me an explanation. Yes, I entreat you, for I
cannot remain in this uncertainty. Tell me,
uncle, was it really your son whom you saw die,
or were we shown a fabricated picture of his
death? Then again, what is the unseen and om-
nipotent entity which causes these phantoms to
follow one another in that incredible magic lan-
tern? Never was there such a problem, never so
many irreconcilable questions. Look here, last
ni^lit, while I was trying for hours to get to sleep,
I imagined it's an absurd theory, I know, but,
all the same, one has to cast about well, I
remembered that you had spoken to B6rangere
of a certain inner force which. radiated from us
and emitted what you have named the B-rays,
after your god-daughter. If so, might one not
suppose that, in the circumstances, this force,
emanating, uncle, from your own brain, which
was haunted by a vague resemblance between the
expression of the Three Eyes and the expression
of your own, might we not suppose that this
force projected on the receptive material of the
wall the scene which was conjured up in your
mind? Don't you think that the screen which
you have covered with a special substance regis-
tered your thoughts just as a sensitive plate,
acted upon by the sunlight, registers forms and
outlines? In that case . . ."
THE KISS 69
I broke off. As I spoke, the words which I
was using seemed to me devoid of meaning. My
uncle, however, appeared to be listening to them
with a certain willingness and even to be waiting
for what I would say next. But I did not know
what to say. I had suddenly come to the end
of my tether; and, though I made every effort to
detain Nol Dorgeroux by fresh arguments, I
felt that there was not a word more to be said
between us on that subject.
Indeed, my uncle went away without answer-
ing one of my questions. I saw him, through the
window, crossing the garden.
I gave way to a movement of anger and ex-
claimed to Berangere:
"I've had enough of this! After all, why
should I worry myself to death trying to under-
stand a discovery which, when you think of it,
is not a discovery at all? For what does it con-
sist of? No one can respect Noel Dorgeroux
more than I do; but there's no doubt that this,
instead of a real discovery, is rather a stupefying
way of deluding one's self, of mixing up things
that exist with things that do not exist and of
giving an appearance of reality to what has none.
Unless . . . But who knows anything about it?
It is not even possible to express an opinion.
The whole thing is an ocean of mystery, over-
70 TIIK THREE EYES
hung by mountainous clouds which descend upon
one and stifle one! "
My ill-humour suddenly turned against
Berangere. She had listened to me with a look
of disapproval, feeling angry perhaps at my
blaming her god-fat her; and she was now slip-
ping towards the door. I stopped her as she was
passing; and, in a fit of rancour which was for-
eign to my nature, I let fly:
" Why are you leaving the room ? Why do
you always avoid me as you do? Speak, can't
you? What have you against me? Yes, I know,
my thoughtless conduct, the other day. But do
you think T would have acted like that if you
weren't always keeping up that sulky reserve
with me? Hang it all, I've known you as quite
a little girl! I've held your skipping-rope for
you when you were just a slip of a child ! Then
why should I now be made to look on you as a
woman and to feel that you are indeed a woman
... a woman who stirs me to the very depths
of my heart? "
She was standing against the door and gazing
at me with an uudefinable smile, which contained
a gleam of mockery, but nothing provocative
and not a shade of coquetry. I noticed for the
first time that her eyes, which I thought to be
THE KISS 71
grey, were streaked with green and, as it were,
flecked with specks of gold. And, at the same
time, the expression of those great eyes, bright
and limpid though they were, struck me as the
most unfathomable thing in the world. What
was passing in those limpid depths? And why
did my mind connect the riddle of those eyes
with the terrible riddle which the three geomet-
rical eyes had set me?
However, the recollection of the stolen kiss
diverted my glance to her red lips. Her face
turned crimson. This was a last, exasperating
insult.
" Let me be ! Go away ! " she commanded,
quivering with anger and shame.
Helpless and a prisoner, she lowered her head
and bit her lips to prevent my seeing them.
Then, when I tried to take her hands, she thrust
her outstretched arms against my chest, pushed
me back with all her might and cried:
" You're a mean coward ! Go away ! I loathe
and hate you ! "
Her outburst restored my composure. I was
ashamed of what I had done and, making way
for her to pass, I opened the door for her and
said:
"I beg your pardon, Be>angere. Don't be
71* THE THREE EYES
angrier with me than you can help. I promise
you it shan't occur again."
Once more, the story of the Three Eyes is
closely bound up with all the details of my love,
not only in my recollection of it, but also in
actual fact. While the riddle itself is alien to
it and may be regarded solely in its aspect of a
scientific phenomenon, it is impossible to de-
scribe how humanity came to know of it and
was brought into immediate contact with it,
without at the same time revealing all the
vicissitudes of my sentimental adventure. The
riddle and this adventure, from the point of view
with which we are concerned, are integral parts
of the same whole. The two must be described
simultaneously.
At the moment, being somewhat disillusionized
in both respects, I decided to tear myself away
from this twofold preoccupation and to leave my
uncle to his inventions and Brangre to her
sullen mood.
I had not much difficulty in carrying out my
resolve in so far as Noel Dorgeroux was con-
cerned. We had a long succession of wet days.
The rain kept him to his room or his laboratories ;
and the pictures on the screen faded from my
mind like diabolical visions which the brain re-
THE KISS 73
fuses to accept. I did not wish to think of them ;
and I thought of them hardly at all.
But Be"rangere's charm pervaded me, notwith-
standing the good faith in which I waged this
daily battle. Unaccustomed to the snares of
love, I fell an easy prey, incapable of defence.
Be"rangere's voice, her laugh, her silence, her
day-dreams, her way of holding herself, the fra-
grance of her personality, the colour of her hair
served me as so many excuses for exaltation,
rejoicing, suffering or despair. Through the
breach now opened in my professorial soul, which
hitherto had known few joys save those of study,
came surging all the feelings that make up the
delights and also the pangs of love, all the emo-
tions of longing, hatred, fondness, fear, hope
. . . and jealousy.
It was one bright and peaceful morning, as I
was strolling in the Meudon woods, that I caught
sight of Be>angre in the company of a man.
They wre standing at a corner where two roads
met and were talking with some vivacity. The
man faced me. I saw a type of what would be
described as a coxcomb, with regular features,
a dark, fan-shaped beard and a broad smile which
displayed his teeth. He wore a double eye-glass.
Be>angere heard the sound of my footsteps,
as I approached, and turned round. Her atti-
74 THE THREE EYES
tude denoted hesitation and confusion. But she
at once pointed down one of the two roads, as
though giving a direction. The fellow raised
his hat and walked away. B6rangdre joined me
and, without much restraint, explained:
" It was somebody asking his way."
" But you know him, BSrangSre? " I objected.
" I never saw him before in my life," she de-
clared.
" Oh, come, come ! Why, from the manner
you were speaking to him . . . Look here,
Berangere, will you take your oath on it? "
She started:
" What do you mean? Why should I take an
oath to you? I am not accountable to you for
my actions."
" In that case, why did you tell me that he was
enquiring his way of you? I asked you no ques-
tion."
" I do as I please," she replied, curtly.
Nevertheless, when we reached the Lodge, she
thought better of it and said :
"After all, if it gives you any pleasure, I
can swear that I was seeing that gentleman for
the first time and that I had never heard of him.
I don't even know his name."
We parted.
THE KISS 75
" One word more," I said. " Did you notice
that the man wore glasses? "
" So he did ! " she said, wjth some surprise.
" Well, what does that prove? "
" Remember, your uncle found a spectacle-lens
in front of the wall in the Yard."
She stopped to think and then shrugged her
shoulders:
" A mere coincidence ! Why should you con-
nect the two things? "
Be>angere was right and I did not insist.
Nevertheless and though she had answered me
in a tone of undeniable candour, the incident
left me uneasy and suspicious. I would not
admit that so animated a conversation could
take place between her and a perfect stranger
who was simply asking her the way. The man
was well set-up and good-looking. I suffered
tortures.
That evening Be>angere was silent. It struck
me that she had been crying. My uncle, on the
contrary, on returning from the Yard, was talka-
tive and cheerful; and I more than once felt
that he was on the point of telling me some-
thing. Had anything thrown fresh light on his
invention?
Next day, he was just as lively:
76 THE THREE EYES
" Life is very pleasant, at times," he said.
And he left us, rubbing his hands.
Be"rangere spent all the parly part of the aft-
ernoon on a bench in the garden, where I could
see her from my room. She sat motionless and
thoughtful.
At four o'clock, she came in, walked across
the hall of the Lodge and went out by the front
door.
I went out too, half a minute later.
The street which skirted the house turned and
likewise skirted, on the left, the garden and the
Yard, whereas on the right the property was
bordered by a narrow lane which led to some
fields and abandoned quarries. Be>angere often
went this way; and I at once saw, by her slow
gait, that her only intention was to stroll wher-
ever her dreams might lead her.
She had not put on a hat. The sunlight
gleamed in her hair. She picked the stones on
which to place her feet, so as not to dirty her
shoes with the mud in the road.
Against the stout plank fence which at this
point replaced the wall enclosing the Yard stood
an old street-lamp, now no longer used, which
was fastened to the fence with iron clamps.
Berangere stopped here, all of a sudden, evi-
THE KISS 77
dently in obedience to a thought which, I con-
fess, had often occurred to myself and which I
had had the courage to resist, perhaps because
I liad not perceived the means of putting it
into execution.
Be>angere saw the means. It was only neces-
sary to climb the fence by using the lamp, in
order to make her way into the Yard without her
uncle's knowledge and steal a glimpse of one of
those sights which he guarded so jealously for
himself.
She made up her mind without hesitation;
and, when she was on the other side, I too had
not the least hesitation in following her example.
I was in that state of mind when one is not un-
duly troubled by idle scruples; and there was
no more indelicacy in satisfying my legitimate
curiosity than in spying upon B6rangere's ac-
tions. I therefore climbed over also.
My scruples returned when I found myself
on the other side, face to face with Be*rangere,
who had experienced some difficulty in getting
down. I said, a little sheepishly:
" This is not a very nice thing we're doing,
Berangere; and I presume you mean to give it
up."
She began to laugh :
78 THE THREE EYES
" You can give it up. I intend to go on. If
god-father chooses to distrust us, it's his look-
out."
I did not try to restrain her. She slipped
softly between the nearest two sheds. I fol-
lowed close upon her heels.
In this way we stole to the end of the open
ground which occupied the middle of the Yard
and we saw Noel Dorgeroux standing by the
screen. He had not yet drawn the black-serge
curtain.
" Look," Be>angere whispered, " over there :
you see a stack of wood with a tarpaulin over it?
We shall be all right behind that."
"But suppose my uncle looks round while
we're crossing? "
" He won't."
She was the first to venture across; and I
joined her without any mishap. We were not
more than a dozen yards from the screen.
" My heart's beating so ! " said Be>angre.
" I've seen nothing, you know : only those sort
of eyes. And there's a lot more, isn't there? "
Our refuge consisted of two stacks of small
short planks, with bags of sand between the
stacks. We sat down here, in a position which
brought us close together. Nevertheless Be>an-
gere maintained the same distant attitude as
THE KISS 79
before; and I now thought of nothing but what
my uncle was doing.
He was holding his watch in his hand and con-
sulting it at intervals, as though waiting for a
time which he had fixed beforehand. And that
time arrived. The curtain grated on its metal
rod. The screen was uncovered.
From where we sat we could see the bare sur-
face as well as my uncle could, for the interven-
ing space fell very far short of the length of an
ordinary picture-palace. The first outlines to
appear were therefore absolutely plain to us.
They were the lines of the three geometrical
figures which I knew so well : the same propor-
tions, the same arrangement, the same impassive-
ness, followed by that same palpitation, coming
entirely from within, which animated them and
made them live.
" Yes, yes," whispered Be"rangere, " my god-
father said so one day : they are alive, the Three
Eyes."
" They are alive," I declared, " and they gaze
at you. Look at the two lower eyes by them-
selves; think of them as actual eyes; and you
will see that they really have an expression.
There, they're smiling now."
"You're right, they're smiling."
"And see what a soft and gentle look they
80 THE THREE EYES
have now ... a little serious also .... Oh,
B^rangere, it's impossible ! "
" What? "
" They have your expression, BeYangdre, your
expression."
" What nonsense ! It's ridiculous ! "
" The very expression of your eyes. You don't
know it yourself. But I do. They have never
looked at me like that; but, all the same, they
are your eyes, it's their expression, their charm.
I know, because these make me feel . . . eh, as
yours do, Be>angere ! "
But the end was approaching. The three
geometrical figures began to revolve upon them-
selves with the same dizzy motion which reduced
them to a confused disk which soon vanished.
" They're your eyes, Be>angere," I stammered ;
" there's not a doubt about it ; it was as though
you were looking at me."
Yes, she had the same look; and I could not
but remember then that Edith Cavell had also
looked in that way at Nol Dorgeroux and me,
through the three strange eyes, and that Noe"!
Dorgeroux similarly had recognized the look in
his son's eyes before his son himself appeared to
him. That being so, was I to assume that each
of the films there is no other word for them
was preceded by the fabulous vision of thre&
THE KISS 81
geometrical figures containing, captive and alive,
lhr very expression in the eyes of one of the
persons about to come to life upon the screen?
It was a lunatic assumption, as were all those
wlnYh I was making! I blush to write it down.
But, in that case, what were the three geomet-
rical figures? A cinema trade-mark? The
trade-mark of the Three Eyes? What an ab-
surdity ! What madness ! And yet ...
" Oh," said Be>angere, making as if to rise, " I
oughtn't to have come! It's suffocating me.
Can you explain?"
" No, Be>angere, I can't. It's suffocating me
too. Do you want to go? "
"No," she said, leaning forward. "No, I
want to see."
And we saw. And, at the very moment when
a muffled cry escaped our lips, we saw Noel Dor-
geroux slowly making a great sign of the cross.
Opposite him, in the middle of the magic space
on the wall, was he himself this time, standing
not like a frail and shifting phantom, but like
a human being full of movement and life. Yes,
Not 5 ! Dorgeroux went to and fro before us and
before himself, wearing his usual skull-cap,
dressed in his long frock-coat. And the setting
in which he moved was none other than the Yard,
the Yard with its shed, its workshops, its dis-
82 THE THREE EYES
order, its heaps of scrap-iron, its stacks of wood,
its rows of barrels and its wall, with the rec-
tangle of the serge curtain !
I at once noticed one detail : the serge curtain
covered the magic space completely. It was
therefore impossible to imagine that this scene,
at any rate, had been recorded, absorbed by the
screen, which, at that actual moment, must have
drawn it from its own substance in order to pre-
sent that sight to us! It was impossible, be-
cause Noel Dorgeroux had his back turned to the
wall. It was impossible, because we saw the
wall itself and the door of the garden, because
the gate was open and because I, in my turn,
entered the Yard.
" You ! It's you ! " gasped Be>angere.
" It's I on the day when your uncle told me
to come here," I said, astounded, " the day when
I first saw a vision on the screen."
At that moment, on the screen, Noel Dorjjeroux
beckoned to me from the door of his workshop.
We went in together. The Yard remained
empty; and then, after an eclipse which lasted
only a second or two, the same scene reappeared,
the little garden-door opened ai:ain and Heran-
gere, all smiles, put her head through. She
seemed to be saying:
THE KISS 83
"Nobody here. They're in the office. Upon
my word, I'll risk it ! "
And she crept along the wall, towards the
serge curtain.
All this happened quickly, without any of the
vibration seen in the picture-theatres, and so
clearly and plainly that I followed our two
images not as the phases of an incident buried
in the depths of time, but as the reflection in a
mirror of a scene in which we were the imme-
diate actors. To tell the truth, I was confused
at seeing myself over there and feeling myself
to be where I was. This doubling of my per-
sonality made my brain reel.
" Victorien," said Be"rangere, in an almost in-
audible voice, " you're going to come out of your
uncle's workshop as you did the other day, aren't
you?"
" Yes," I said, " the details of the other day
are beginning all over again."
And they did. Here were my uncle and I com-
ing out of the workshop. Here was B6rangere,
surprised, running away and laughing. Here
she was, climbing a plank lying across two
barrels and dancing, ever so gracefully and
lightly ! And then, as before, she fell. I darted
forward, picked her up, carried her and laid her
84 THE THREE EYES
on the bench. She put her arms round me ; our
faces almost touched. And, as before, gently at
first and then roughly and violently, I kissed
her on the lips. And, as on that occasion, she
rose to her feet, while I crouched before her.
Oh, how well I remember it all ! I remember
and I still see myself. I see myself yonder,
bending very low not daring to lift my head, and
I see Berangere, standing up, covered with
shame, trembling with indignation.
Indignation? Did she really seem indignant?
But then why did her dear face, the face on the
screen, display such indulgence and gentleness?
Why did she smile with that expression of un-
speakable gladness? Yes, I swear it was glad-
ness. Yonder, in the magic space where that
exciting minute was being reenacted, there stood
over me a happy creature who was gazing at me
with joy and affection, who was gazing at me
thus because she knew that I could not see her
and because she could not know that one day
I should see her.
"Berangere! . . . Berangere! . . ."
But suddenly, while the adorable vision yon-
der continued, my eyes were covered as with a
veil. Berangere had turned towards me and put
her two hands over my eyes, whispering:
" Don't look. I won't have you look. Be-
THE KISS 85
sides, it's not true. That woman's lying, it's
not me at all .... No, no, I never looked at
you like that."
Her voice grew fainter. Her hands dropped
to her sides. And, with all the strength gone
out of her, she let herself fall against my shoul-
der, gently and silently.
Ten minutes later, I went back alone. B6ran-
gere had left me without a word, after her un-
expected movement of surrender.
Next morning I received a telegram from the
rector of the university, calling me to Grenoble.
BSrangere did not appear as I was leaving. But,
when my uncle brought me to the station, I saw
her, not far from the Lodge, talking with that
confounded coxcomb whom she pretended not to
know.
CHAPTER VI
ANXIETIES
U '\7'OU seem very happy, uncle!" said I to
X Nol Dorgeroux, who walked briskly on
the way to the station, whistling one gay tune
after another.
" Yes," he replied, " I am happy as a man is
who has come to a decision."
" You've come to a decision, uncle? "
" And a very serious one at that. It has cost
me a sleepless night; but it's worth it."
May I ask . . . ? "
" Certainly. In two words, it's this : I'm go-
ing to pull down the sheds in the Yard and build
an amphitheatre there."
" What for? "
" To exploit the thing ... the thing you
know of."
" Now do you mean, to exploit it? "
" Why, it's a tremendously important discov-
ery ; and, if properly worked, it will give me the
money which I have always been trying for, not
for its own sake, but because of the resources
ANXIETIES 87
which it will bring me, money with the aid of
which I shall be able to continue my labours
without being checked by secondary considera-
tions. There are millions to be made, Victorien,
millions ! And what shall I riot accomplish with
millions ! This brain of mine," he went on, tap-
ping his forehead, "is simply crammed with
ideas, with theories which need verifying. And
it all takes money .... Money! Money!
You know how little I care about money ! But
I want millions, if I am to carry through my
work. And those millions I shall have ! "
Mastering his enthusiasm, he took my arm and
explained :
" First of all, the Yard cleared of its rubbish
and levelled. After that, the amphitheatre, with
five stages of benches facing the wall. For of
course the wall remains : it is the essential point,
the reason for the whole thing. But I shall
heighten and widen it; and, when it is quite
unobstructed, there will be a clear view of it
from every seat. You follow me, don't you? "
" I follow you, uncle. But do you think peo-
ple will come? "
"Will they come? What! You, who know,
ask me that question ! Why, they will pay gold
for the worst seat, they'll give a king's ransom
to get in ! I'm so sure of it that I shall put all
88 THE THREE EYES
I have left, the last remnant of my savings, into
the business. And within a year I shall have
amassed incalculable wealth."
" The place is quite small, uncle, and you will
have only a limited number of seats."
"A thousand, a thousand seats, comfortably!
At two hundred francs a seat to begin with, at
a thousand francs! . . ."
" I say, uncle ! Seats in the open air, exposed
to the rain, to the cold, to all sorts of weather ! "
"I've foreseen that objection. The Yard will
be closed on rainy days. I want bright day-
light, sunshine, the action of the light and other
conditions besides, which will still further de-
crease the number of demonstrations. But that
doesn't matter : each seat will cost two thousand
francs, five thousand francs, if necessary! I t ! 1
you, there's no limit! No one will be content
to die without having been to Noel Dorgeroux's
Yard! Why, Victorien, you know it as well as
I do! When all is said, the reality is more
extraordinary than anything that you can
imagine, even after what you have seen with
your own eyes."
I could not help asking him :
" Then there are fresh manifestations? "
He replied by nodding his head:
" It's not so much that they're new%" he said,
ANXIETIES 89
" as that, above all, they have enabled me, with
the factors which I already possess, to probe the
truth to the bottom."
"Uncle! Uncle!" I cried. "You mean to
say that you know the truth?"
" I know the whole truth, my boy," he declared.
" I know how much is my work and how much
has nothing to do with me. What was once
darkness is now dazzling light."
And he added, in a very serious tone:
" It is beyond all imagination, my boy. It
is beyond the most extravagant dreams; and yet
it remains within the province of facts and cer-
tainties. Once humanity knows of it, the earth
will pass through a thrill of religious awe; and
the people who come here as pilgrims will fall
upon their knees as I did fall upon their
knees like children who pray and fold their hands
and weep ! "
His words, which were obviously exaggerated,
seemed to come from an ill-balanced mind. Yet
I felt the force of their exciting and feverish
influence :
" Explain yourself, uncle, I beg you."
" Later on, my boy, when all the points have
been cleared up."
" What are you afraid of? "
" Nothing from you."
90 T11E THREE EYES
" From whom then? "
"Nobody. But I have my misgivings . . .
qnite wrongly, perhaps. Still, certain facts lead
me to think that I am being spied upon and that
some one is trying to discover my secret. It's
just a few clues . . . things that have been
moved from their place . . . and, above all, a
vague intuition."
"This is all very indefinite, uncle."
" Very, I admit," he said, drawing himself
up. " And so forgive me if my precautions are
excessive . . . and let's talk of something else:
of yourself, Victorien, of your plans ..."
" I have no plans, uncle."
"Yes, you have. There's one at least that
you're keeping from me."
" How so? "
He stopped in his walk and said :
" You're in love with Be>angere."
I did not think of protesting, knowing that
Noe"! Dorgeroux had been in the Yard the day
before, in front of the screen :
" I am, uncle, I'm in love with B6rangere, but
she doesn't care for me."
" Yes, she does, Victorien."
I displayed some slight impatience:
" Uncle, I must ask you not to insist. Be*ran-
gere is a mere child; she does not know what
ANXIETIES 91
she wants ; she is incapable of any serious feel-
ing ; and I do not intend to think about her any
more. On my part, it was just a fancy of which
I shall soon be cured."
Noe"! Dorgeroux shrugged his shoulders:
" Lovers' quarrels ! Now this is what I have
to say to you, Victorien. The work at the Yard
will take up all the winter. The amphitheatre
will be open to the public on the fourteenth of
May, to the day. The Easter holidays will fall
a month earlier; and you shall marry my god-
daughter during the holidays. Not a word;
leave it to me. And leave both your settlements
and your prospects to me as well. You can un-
derstand, my boy, that, when money is pouring
in like water as it will without a doubt
Victorien Beaugrand will throw up a profession
which does not give him sufficient leisure for his
private studies and that he will live with me, he
and his wife. Yes, I said his wife; and I stick
to it. Good-bye, my dear chap, not another
word."
I walked on. He called me back:
" Say good-bye to me, Victorien."
He put his arms round me with greater fervour
than usual ; and I heard him murmur :
"Who can tell if we shall ever meet again?
At my age! And threatened as I am, too!"
92 THE TEHEE EYES
I protested. He embraced me yet again :
" You're right. I am really talking nonsense.
You think of your marriage. Be>angere is a
dear, sweet girl. And she loves you. Good-bye
and bless you! I'll write to you. Good-bye."
I confess that Noel Dorgeroux's ambitions, at
least in so far as they related to the turning of
his discovery to practical account, did not strike
me as absurd ; and what I have said of the things
seen at the Yard will exempt me, I imagine, from
stating the reasons for my confidence. For the
moment, therefore, I will leave the question aside
and say no more of those three haunting eyes
or the phantasmal scenes upon the magic screen.
But how could I indulge the dreams of tlu- fu-
ture which Noel Dorgeroux suggested? How
could I forget Be>angere's hostile attitude, her
ambiguous conduct?
True, during the months that followed, I often
sought to cling to the delightful memory of the
vision w r hich I had surprised and the charming
picture of BSrangere bending over me with that
soft look in her eyes. But I very soon pulled
myself up and cried :
" I saw the thing all wrong ! What I took for
affection and, God forgive me, for love was only
the expression of a woman triumphing over a
ANXIETIES 93
man's abasement ! Be"rangere does not care for
me. The movement that threw her against my
shoulder was due to a sort of nervous crisis;
and she felt so much ashamed of it that she at
once pushed me away and ran indoors. Besides,
she had an appointment with that man the very
next day and, in order to keep it, let me go with-
out saying good-bye to me."
My months of exile therefore were painful
months. I wrote to Be"rangre in vain. I re-
ceived no reply.
My uncle in his letters spoke of nothing but
the Yard. The works were making quick prog-
ress. The amphitheatre was growing taller and
taller. The wall was quite transformed. The
last news, about the middle of March, told me
that nothing remained to be done but to fix the
thousand seats, which had long been on order,
and to hang the iron curtain which was to pro-
tect the screen.
It was at this period that Noel Dorgeroux's
misgivings revived, or at least it was then that he
mentioned them when writing to me. Two books
which he bought in Paris and which he used to
read in private, lest his choice of a subject should
enable anyone to learn the secret of his discovery,
had been removed, taken away and then restored
to their place. A sheet of paper, covered with
94 THE THREE EYES
notes and chemical formulae, disappeared.
There were footprints in the garden. Tin; writ-
ing-desk had been broken open, in the room where
he worked at the Lodge since the demolition of
the sheds.
This last incident, I confess, caused me a cert-
ain alarm. My uncle's fears were shown to be
based upon a serious fact. There was evidently
some one prowling around the Lodge and forc-
ing an entrance in pursuance of a scheme whose
nature was easy to guess. Involuntarily I
thought of the man with the glasses and his re-
lations with Be>angere. There was no know-
ing ....
I made a fresh attempt to persuade the girl
to communicate with me:
" You know what's happening at the Lodge,
don't you?" I wrote. "How do you explain
those facts, which to me seem pretty significant?
Be sure to send me word if you feel the least
uneasiness. And keep a close watch in the mean-
time."
I followed up this letter with two telegrams
dispatched in quick succession. But Beran-
gere's stubborn silence, instead of distressing
me, served rather to allay my apprehensions.
She would not have failed to send for me had
ANXIETIES 95
there been any danger. No, my uncle was mis-
taken. He was a victim to the feverish condition
into which his discovery was throwing him. As
the date approached on which he had decided to
make it public, he felt anxious. But there was
nothing to justify his apprehensions.
I allowed a few more days to elapse. Then I
wrote B6rangere a letter of twenty pages, filled
with reproaches, which I did not post. Her be-
haviour exasperated me. I suffered from a bit-
ter fit of jealousy.
At last, on Saturday, the twenty-ninth of
March, I received from my uncle a registered
bundle of papers and a very explicit letter, which
I kept and which I am copying verbatim:
" MY DEAR VICTORIEN,
" Recent events, combined with certain very
serious circumstances of which I will tell you,
prove that I am the object of a cunningly devised
plot against which I have perhaps delayed de-
fending myself longer than I ought. At any
rate, it is my duty, in the midst of the dangers
which threaten my very life, to protect the mag-
nificent discovery which mankind will owe to
my efforts and to take precautionary measures
which you will certainly not think unwarranted.
" I have, therefore, drawn up as I always
96 THE THREE EYES
refused to do before a detailed report of my
discovery, the investigations that led up to it
and the conclusions to which my experiments
have led me. However improbable it may seem,
however contrary to all the accepted laws, the
truth is as I state and not otherwise.
" I have added to my report a very exact de-
finition of the technical processes which should
be employed in the installation and exploitation
of my discovery, as also of my special views upon
the financial management of the amphitheatre,
the advertising, the floating of the business and
the manner in which it might subsequently be
extended by building in the garden and where
the Lodge now stands a second amphitheatre to
face the other side of the wall.
" I am sending you this report by the same
post, sealed and registered, and I will ask you
not to open it unless I come by some harm. As
an additional precaution, I have not included in
it the chemical formula which has resulted from
my labours and which is the actual basis of my
discovery. You will find it engraved on a small
and very thin steel plate which I always carry
inside the lining of my waistcoat. In this way
you and you alone will have in your hands all
the necessary factors for exploiting the inven-
tion. This will need no special qualifications
ANXIETIES 97
or scientific preparation. The report and the
formula are ample. Holding these two, you are
master of the situation ; and no one can ever rob
you of the material profits of the wonderful se-
cret which I am bequeathing to you.
"And now, my dear boy, let us hope that all
my presentiments are unfounded and that we
shall soon be celebrating together the happy
events which I foresee, including first and fore-
most your marriage with Be>angre. I have not
yet been able to obtain a favourable reply from
her and she has for some time appeared to me to
be, as you put it, in a rather fanciful mood ; but
I have no doubt that your return will make
her reconsider a refusal which she does not even
attempt to justify.
" Ever affectionately yours,
" NOEL DORGEROUX."
This letter reached me too late to allow me
to catch the evening express. Besides, was there
any urgency for my departure? Ought I not
to wait for further news?
A casual observation made short work of my
hesitation. As I sat reflecting, mechanically
turning the envelope in my hands, I perceived
that it had been opened and then fastened down
again ; what is more, this had been done rather
98 THE THREE EYES
clumsily, probably by some one who had only a
few seconds at his disposal.
The full gravity of the situation at once flashed
across my mind. The man who had opened the
letter before it was dispatched and who beyond
a doubt was the man whom Noel Dorgeroux ac-
cused of plotting, this man now knew that Noel
Dorgeroux carried on his person, in the lining of
his waistcoat, a steel plate bearing an inscrip-
tion containing the essential formula.
I examined the registered packet and observed
that it had not been opened. Nevertheless, at
all costs, though I was firmly resolved not to
read my uncle's report, I undid the string and
discovered a pasteboard tube. Inside this tube
was a roll of paper which I eagerly examined.
It consisted of blank pages and nothing else.
The report had been stolen.
Three hours later, I was seated in a night
train which did not reach Paris until the after-
noon of the next day, Sunday. It was four
o'clock when I walked out of the station at Meu-
don. The enemy had for at least two days known
the contents of my uncle's letter, his report and
the dreadful means of procuring the formula.
CHAPTER VII
THE FIERCE-EYED MAN
THE staff at the Lodge consisted in its en-
tirety of one old maid-servant, a little deaf
and very short-sighted, who combined the func-
tions, as occasion demanded, of parlour-maid,
cook and gardener. Notwithstanding these
manifold duties, Valentine hardly ever left her
kitchen-range, which was situated in an exten-
sion built on to the house and opening directly
upon the street.
This was where I found her. She did not seem
surprised at my return nothing, for that mat-
ter, ever surprised or perturbed her and I at
once saw that she was still living outside the
course of events and that she would be unable to
tell me anything useful. I gathered, however,
that my uncle and Berangere had gone out half
an hour earlier.
Together? " I asked.
" Good gracious, no ! The master came
through the kitchen and said, ' I'm going to post
a letter. Then I shall go to the Yard.' He
99
100 THE THREE EYES
left a bottle behind him, you know, one of those
blue medicine-bottles which he uses for his ex-
periments."
" Where did he leave it, Valentine? "
" Why, over there, on the dresser. He must
have forgotten it when he put on his overcoat,
for he never parts with those bottles of his."
" It's not there, Valentine."
" Now that's a funny thing ! M. Dorgeroux
hasn't been back, I know."
" And has no one else been? "
" No. Yes, there has, though ; a gentleman, a
gentleman who came for Mile. Be~rangre a little
while after."
" And did you go to fetch her? "
" Yes."
"Then it must have been while you were
away . . ."
" You don't mean that ! Oh, how M. Dorger-
oux will scold me ! "
" But who is the gentleman? "
" Upon my word, I couldn't tell you .... My
sight is so bad . . . ."
" Do you know him? "
" No, I didn't recognize his voice."
"And did they both go out, Be>angere and
he?"
" Yes, they crossed the road . . . opposite."
THE FIERCE-EYED MAN 101
Opposite meant the path in the wood.
I thought for a second or two; and then, tear-
ing a sheet of paper from my note-book, I wrote :
"Mv DEAR UN T CLB,
" Wait for me, when you come back, and don't
leave the Lodge on any account. The danger is
imminent.
" VICTORIEN."
" Give this to M. Dorgeroux as soon as you see
him, Valentine. I shall be back in half an hour."
The path ran in a straight line through dense
thickets with tiny leaves burgeoning on the twigs
of the bushes. It had rained heavily during the
last few days, but a bright spring sun was drying
the ground and I could distinguish no trace of
footsteps. After walking three hundred yards,
however, I met a small boy of the neighbourhood,
whom I knew by sight, coming back to the vil-
lage and pushing his bicycle, which had burst
a tyre.
" You don't happen to have seen Mile. Beran-
gere, have you? " I asked.
" Yes," he said, " with a gentleman."
" A gentleman wearing glasses? "
" Yes, a tall chap, with a big beard."
" Are they far away? "
"When I saw them, they were a mile and a
102 THE THREE EYES
quarter from here. I turned back later . . .
they had taken the old road . . . the one that
goes to the left."
I quickened my pace, greatly excited, for I
was conscious of an increasing dread. I reached
the old road. But, a little farther on, it brought
me to an open space crossed by a number of
paths. Which was I to take?
Feeling more and more anxious, I called out :
" Berangere ! . . . Brangere ! "
Presently I heard the hum of an engine and
the sound of a motor-car getting under way. It
must have been five hundred yards from where
I was. I turned down a path in which, almost
at once, I saw footsteps very clearly marked in
.the mud, the footsteps of a man and of a woman.
These led me to the entrance of a cemetery which
had not been used for over twenty years and
which, standing on the boundary of two parishes,
had become the subject of claims, counterclaims
and litigation generally.
I made my way in. The tall grass had been
trampled down along two lines which skirted
the wall, passed before the remnants of what
had once been the keeper's cottage, joined around
the kerb of a cistern fitted up as a well and
were next continued to the wall of a half-de-
molished little mortuary chapel.
THE FIERCE-EYED MAN 103
Between the cistern and the chapel the soil
had been trodden several times over. Beyond
the chapel there was only one track of footsteps,
those of a man.
I confess that just then my legs gave way be-
neath me, although there was no trace of a defi-
nite idea in my mind. I examined the inside of
the chapel and then walked round it.
Something lying on the ground, at the foot of
the only wall that was left wholly standing,
attracted my attention. It was a number of
bits of loose plaster which had fallen there and
which were of a dark-grey colour that at once
reminded me of the sort of wash with which the
screen in the Yard was coated.
I looked up. More pieces of plaster of the
same colour, placed flat against the wall and
held in position by clamp-headed nails, formed
another screen, an incomplete, broken screen, on
which I could plainly see that a quite fresh layer
of substance had been spread.
By whom? Evidently by one of the two per-
sons whom I was tracking, by the man with the
eye-glasses or by Be"rangere, perhaps even by
both. But with what object? Was it to conjure
up the miraculous vision? And was I to believe
the supposition really forced itself upon me
as a certainty that the fragments of plaster
104 THE THREE EYES
had first been stolen from the rubbish in the
Yard and then pieced together like a mosaic?
In that case, if the conditions were the same,
if the necessary substance was spread precisely
in accordance with the details of the discovery,
if I was standing opposite a screen identical at
all points with the other, it was possible . . .
it was possible . . .
While this question was taking shape, my mind
received so plain an answer that I saw the Three
Eyes before they emerged from the depths
whence I was waiting for them to appear. The
image which I was evoking blended gradually
with the real image which was forming and
which presently opened its threefold gaze upon
me, a fixed and gloomy gaze.
Here, then, as yonder, in the abandoned ceme-
tery as in the Yard where Noel Dorgeroux sum-
moned his inexplicable phantoms from the void,
the Three Eyes were awakening to life. Chipped
in one place, cracked in another, they looked
through the fragments of disjointed plaster as
they had done through the carefully tended
screen. They gazed in this solitude just as
though Noel Dorgeroux had been there to kindle
and feed their mysterious flame.
The gloomy eyes, however, were changing their
expression. They became wicked, cruel, im-
THE FIERCE-EYED MAN 105
placable, ferocious even. Then they faded away ;
and I waited for the spectacle which those three
geometrical figures generally heralded. And in
fact, after a break, there was a sort of pulsating
light, but so confused that it was difficult for
me to make out any clearly defined scenes.
I could barely distinguish some trees, a river
with an eyot in it, a low-roofed house and some
people ; but all this was vague, misty, unfinished,
broken up by the cracks in the screen, impeded
by causes of which I was ignorant. One might
have fancied a certain hesitation in the will that
evoked the image. Moreover, after a few fruit-
less attempts and an effort of which I perceived
the futility, the image abruptly faded away and
everything relapsed into death and emptiness.
" Death and emptiness," I said aloud.
I repeated the words several times over. They
rang within me like a funereal echo with which
the memory of Brangere was mingled. The
nightmare of the Three Eyes became one with
the nightmare that drove me in pursuit of her.
And I remained standing in front of the grue-
some chapel, uncertain, not knowing what to do.
Be>angere's footprints brought me back to the
well, near which I found in four places the marks
of both her slender soles and both her pointed
heels. The well was covered with a small, tiled
106 THE THREE EYES
dome. Formerly a bucket was lowered by means
of a pulley to bring up the rainwater that had
been gathered from the roof of the house.
There was of course no valid reason to make
me believe that a crime had been committed.
The footmarks did not constitute a sufficient
clue. Nevertheless I felt myself bathed in per-
spiration; and, leaning over the open mouth,
from which floated a damp and mildewed breath
I faltered:
"Berangere!"
I heard not a sound.
I lit a piece of paper, which I screwed into a
torch, throwing a glimmer of light into the
widened reservoir of the cistern. But I saw
nothing save a sheet of water, black as ink and
motionless.
" No," I protested, " it's impossible. I have
no right to imagine such an atrocity. Why
should they have killed her? It was my uncle
who was threatened, not she."
At all events I continued my search and fol-
lowed the man's single track. This led me to
the far side of the cemetery and then to an avenue
of fir-trees, where I came upon some cans of
petrol. The motor-car had started from here.
The tracks of the tyres ran through the wood.
I went no farther. It suddenly occurred to
THE FIERCE-EYED MAN 107
me that I ought before all to think of my uncle,
to defend him and to take joint measures with
him.
I therefore turned in the direction of the post-
office. But, remembering that this was Sunday
and that my uncle after dropping his letter in
the box, had certainly gone back to the Yard,
I ran to the Lodge and called out to Valentine:
"Has my uncle come in? Has he had my
note?
" No, no," she said. " I told you, the master
has gone to the Yard."
" Exactly : he must have come this way ! "
" Not at all. Coming from the post-office, he
would go straight through the new entrance to
the amphitheatre."
" In that case," I said, " all I need do is to
go through the garden."
I hurried away, but the little door was locked.
And from that moment, though there was no-
thing to prove my uncle's presence in the Yard,
I felt certain that he was there and also felt
afraid that my assistance had come too late.
I called. No one answered. The door re-
mained shut.
Then, terrified, I went back to the house and
out into the street and ran round the premises
on the left, in order to go in by the new entrance.
108 THE THREE EYES
This turned out to be a tall gate, flanked on
either side by a ticket-office and giving access
to a large courtyard, in which stood the back of
the amphitheatre.
This gate also was closed, by means of a strong
chain which my uncle had padlocked behind him.
What was I to do? Remembering how B6ran-
gere and then I myself had climbed over the
wall one day, I followed the other side of the
Yard, in order to reach the old lamp-post. The
same deserted path skirted the same stout plank
fence, the corner of which ran into the fields.
When I came to this corner, I saw the lamp-
post. At that moment, a man appeared on the
top of the wall, caught hold of the post and let
himself down by it. There was no room for
doubt ; the man leaving the Yard in this way had
just been with my uncle. What had passed be-
tween them?
The distance that separated us was too great
to allow me to distinguish his features. As
soon as he saw me, he turned down the brim of his
soft hat and drew the two ends of a muffler over
his face. A loose-fitting grey rain-coat concealed
his figure. I received the impression, however,
that he was shorter and thinner than the man
with the eye-glasses.
" Stop ! " I cried, as he moved away.
THE FIERCE-EYED MAN 109
My summons only hastened his flight; and it
was in vain that I darted forward in his pur-
suit, shouting insults at him and threatening
him with a revolver which I did not possess. He
covered the whole width of the fields, leapt over
a hedge and reached the skirt of the woods.
I was certainly younger than he, for I soon
perceived that the interval between us was de-
creasing; and I should have caught him up, if
we had been running across open country. But
I lost sight of him at the first clump of trees;
and I was nearly abandoning the attempt to
come up with him, when, suddenly, he retraced
his steps and seemed to be looking for something.
I made a rush for him. He did not appear to
be perturbed by my approach. He merely drew
a revolver and pointed it at me, without saying
a word or ceasing his investigations.
I now saw what his object was. Something
lay gleaming in the grass. It was a piece of
metal which, I soon perceived, was none other
than the steel plate on which Noel Dorgeroux
had engraved the chemical formula.
We both flung ourselves on the ground at
the same time. I was the first to seize the strip
of steel. But a hand gripped mine; and on this
hand, which was half-covered by the sleeve of
the rain-coat, there was blood.
110 THE THREE EYES
I was startled and suffered from a moment's
faintness. The vision of Noel Dorgeroux dying,
nay, dead, had flashed upon me so suddenly that
the man succeeded in overpowering me and
stretching me underneath him.
As we thus lay one against the other, with
our faces almost touching, I saw only part of
his, the lower half being hidden by the muffler.
But his two eyes glared at me, under the shadow
of his hat; and we stared at each other in si-
lence, while our hands continued to grapple.
Those eyes of his were cruel and implacable,
the eyes of a murderer whose whole being is bent
upon the supreme effort of killing. Where had
I seen them before? For I certainly knew those
fiercely glittering eyes. Their gaze penetrated
my brain at a spot into which it had already
been deeply impressed. It bore a familiar look,
a look which had crossed my own before. But
when? In what eyes had I seen that expression?
In the eyes looming out of the wall perhaps?
The eyes shown on the fabulous screen?
Yes, yes, those were the eyes! I recognized
them now ! They had shone in the infinite space
that lay in the depths of the plaster! They had
lived before my sight, a few minutes ago, on the
ruined wall of the mortuary chapel. They were
the same cruel, pitiless eyes, the eyes which had
THE FIERCE-EYED MAN 111
perturbed me then even as they were perturbing
me now, sapping my last remnant of strength.
I released my hold. The man sprang up,
caught me a blow on the forehead with the butt
of his revolver and ran away, carrying the steel
plate with him.
This time I did not think of pursuing him.
Without doing me any great hurt, the blow which
I received had stunned me. I was still tottering
on my feet when I heard, in the woods, the same
sound of an engine being started and a car get-
ting under way which I had heard near the ceme-
tery. The motor-car, driven by the man with
the eye-glasses, had come to fetch my assailant.
The two confederates, after having probably rid
themselves of Be>angere and certainly rid them-
selves of Noel Dorgeroux, were making off ....
My heart wrung with anguish, I hurried back
to the foot of the old lamp-post, hoisted myself
to the top of the fence and in this way jumped
into the front part of the Yard, contained be-
tween the main wall and the new structure of
the amphitheatre.
This wall, entirely rebuilt, taller and wider
than it used to be, now had the size and the im-
portance of the outer wall of a Greek or Roman
amphitheatre. Two square columns and a
canopy marked the place of the screen, whose
112 THE THREE EYES
plaster, from the distance at which I stood, did
not seem yet to ^>e coated with its layer of a
dark-grey composition, which explained why my
uncle had left it uncovered. Nor could I at first
see the lower part, which was concealed by a
heap of materials of all kinds. But how certain
I felt of what I should see when I came nearer !
How well I knew what was there, behind those
planks and building-stones!
My legs were trembling. I had to seek a sup-
port. It cost me an untold effort to take a few
steps forward.
Right against the wall, in the very middle of
his Yard, Noe'l Dorgeroux lay prone, his arms
twisted beneath him.
A cursory inspection showed me that he had
been murdered with a pick-axe.
CHAPTER VIII
" SOME ONE WILL EMERGE FROM THE DARKNESS "
Tk TOT WITHSTANDING Noel Dorgeroux's ad-
X\ vanced age, there had been a violent strug-
gle. The murderer, whose footprints I traced
along the path which led from the fence to the
wall, had flung himself upon his victim and had
first tried to strangle him. It was not until
later, in the second phase of the contest, that he
had seized a pick-axe with which to strike Noel
Dorgeroux.
Nothing of intrinsic value had been stolen.
I found my uncle's watch and note-case un-
touched. But the waistcoat had been opened;
and the lining, which formed a pocket, was, of
course, empty.
For the moment I wasted no time in the Yard.
Passing through the garden and the Lodge, where
I told old Valentine in a few words what had
happened, I called the nearest neighbours, sent
a boy running to the mayor's and went on to the
disused cemetery, accompanied by some men
with ropes, a ladder and a lantern. It was grow-
ing dark when we arrived.
113
114 THE THREE EYES
I had decided to go down the cistern myself;
and I did so without experiencing any great emo-
tion. Notwithstanding the reasons which led me
to fear that Berangere might have been thrown
into it, the crime appeared to me to be absolutely
improbable. And I was right. Nevertheless, at
the bottom of the cistern, which was perforated
by obvious cracks and held only a few puddles
of stagnant water, I picked up in the mud, among
the stones, brickbats and potsherds, an empty
bottle, the neck of which had been knocked off.
I was struck by its blue colour. This was doubt-
less the bottle which had been taken from the
dresser at the Lodge. Besides, when I brought
it back to the Lodge that evening, Valentine
identified it for certain.
What had happened might therefore be recon-
structed as follows : the man with the eye-glasses,
having the bottle in his possession, had gone to
the cemetery to meet the motor-car which was
waiting for him and had stopped in front of the
chapel, to which were nailed the fragments from
the old wall in the Yard. These fragments he
had smeared with the liquid contained in the
bottle. Then, when he heard me coming, he
threw the bottle down the well and, without
having time to see the picture which I myself
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 115
went off in the car to pick up Noel Dorgeroux's
was to see ten minutes later, he ran away and
murderer near the Yard.
Things as they turned out confirmed my ex-
planation, or at least confirmed it to a great ex-
tent. But what of Be"rangdre? What part had
she played in all this? And where was she now?
The enquiry, first instituted in the Yard by
the local police, was pursued next day by a
magistrate and two detectives, assisted by my-
self. We learnt that the car containing the two
accomplices had come from Paris on the morning
of the day before and that it had returned to
Paris the same night. Both coming and going
it had carried two men whose descriptions tallied
exactly with that of the two criminals.
We were favoured by an extraordinary piece
of luck. A road-mender working near the orna-
mental water in the Bois de Boulogne told us,
when we asked him about the motor-car, that he
recognized it as having been garaged in a coach-
house close by the house in which he lived and
that he recognized the man with the eye-glasses
as one of the tenants of this same house!
He gave us the address. The house was be-
hind the Jardin des Batignolles. It was an
old barrack of a tenement-house swarming with
116 THE THREE EYES
tenants. As soon as we had described to the
concierge the person for whom we were search-
ing, she exclaimed:
" You mean M. Velmot, a tall, good-looking
man, don't you? He has had a furnished flat
here for over six months, but he only sleeps here
now and again. He is out of town a great deal."
" Did he sleep at home last night? "
"Yes. He came back yesterday evening, in
his motor, with a gentleman whom I had never
seen before; and they did not leave until this
morning."
" In the motor? "
" No. The car is in the garage."
"Have you the key of the flat?"
" Of course ! I do the housework ! "
" Show us over, please."
The flat consisted of three small rooms; a
dining-room and two bedrooms. It contained no
clothes or papers. M. Velmot had taken every-
thing with him in a portmanteau, as he did each
time he went away, said the concierge. But
pinned to the wall, amid a number of sketches,
was a drawing which represented the Three
Eyes so faithfully that it could not have been
made except by some one who had seen the
miraculous visions.
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 117
" Let's go to the garage," said one of the de-
tectives.
We had to call in a locksmith to gain ad-
mittance. In addition to the muffler and a coat
stained with blood we found two more mufflers
and three silk handkerchiefs, all twisted and
spoilt. The identification-plate of the car had
been recently unscrewed. The number, newly
repainted, must be false. Apart from these de-
tails there was nothing specially worth noting.
I am trying to sum up the phases of the pre-
liminary and magisterial enquiries as briefly as
possible. This narrative is not a detective-story
any more than a love-story. The riddle of the
Three Eyes, together with its solution, forms the
only object of these pages and the only interest
which the reader can hope to find in them. But,
at the stage which we have reached, it is easy
to understand that all these events were so
closely interwoven that it is impossible to sepa-
rate one from the other. One detail governs the
next, which in its turn affects what came before.
So I must repeat my earlier question: what
part was Brangere playing in it all? And what
had become of her? She had disappeared, sud-
denly, somewhere near the chapel. Beyond that
point there was not a trace of her, not a clue.
118 THE THREE EYES
And this inexplicable disappearance marked the
conclusion of several successive weeks during
which, we are bound to admit, the girl's be-
haviour might easily seem odd to the most in-
dulgent eyes.
I felt this so clearly that I declared, emphati-
cally, in the course of my evidence :
" She was caught in a trap and carried off."
" Prove it," they retorted. " Find some jus-
tification for the appointments which she made
and kept all through the winter with the fellow
whom you call the man with the glasses, in other
words, with the man Velmot,"
And the police based their suspicions on a
really disturbing charge which they had discov-
ered and which had escaped me. During his
struggle with his assailant, very likely at the
moment when the latter, after reducing him to
a state of helplessness, had moved away to fetch
the pick-axe, Noel Dorgeroux had managed to
scrawl a few words with a broken flint at the
foot of the screen. The writing was very faint
and almost illegible, for the flint in places had
merely scratched the plaster; nevertheless, it
was possible to decipher the following:
"B-ray .... Berge . . ."
The term " B-ray " evidently referred to Noel
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 119
Dorgeroux's invention. My uncle's first thought,
when threatened with death, had been to convey
in the briefest (but, unfortunately, also the most
unintelligible) form the particulars which would
save his marvellous discovery from oblivion.
" B-ray " was an expression which he himself
understood but which suggested nothing to those
who did not know what he meant by it.
The five letters " B.E.R.G.E.," on the other
hand, allowed of only one interpretation.
" Berge " stood for Bergeronnette, the pet name
by which Noe'l Dorgeroux called his god-daugh-
ter.
"Very well," I exclaimed before the magis-
trate, who had taken me to the screen. " Very
well, I agree with your interpretation. It re-
lates to Be"rangere. But my uncle was simply
wishing to express his love for her and his ex-
treme anxiety on her behalf. In writing his
god-daughter's name at the very moment when
he is in mortal danger, he shows that he is un-
easy about her, that he is recommending her
to our care."
" Or that he is accusing her," retorted the
magistrate.
Be"rangere accused by my uncle! Be"rangre
capable of sharing in the murder of her god-
father! I remember shrugging my shoulders.
120 THE THREE EYES
But there was no reply that I could make beyond
protests based upon no actual fact and contra-
dicted by appearances.
All that I said was :
" I fail to see what interest she could have
had! . . ."
"A very considerable interest: the exploita-
tion of the wonderful secret which you have men-
tioned."
" But she is ignorant of the secret ! "
" How do you know? She's not ignorant of
it, if she is in league with the two accomplices.
The manuscript which M. Dorgeroux sent you
has disappeared: who was in a better position
than she to steal it? However, mark me, I make
no assertions. I have my suspicions, that's all ;
and I'm trying to discover what I can."
But the most minute investigations led to no
result. Was Berangere also a victim of the two
criminals?
Her father was written to, at Toulouse. The
man Massignac replied that he had been in bed
for a fortnight with a sharp attack of influenza,
that he would come to Paris as soon as he was
well, but that, having had no news of his daugh-
ter for years, he was unable to furnish any par-
ticulars about her.
So, when all was said and done, whether kid-
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 121
napped, as I preferred to believe, or in hiding,
as the police suspected, B6rangere was nowhere
to be found.
Meanwhile, the public was beginning to grow
excited about a case which, before long, was to
rouse it to a pitch of delirium. No doubt at
first there was merely a question of the crime it-
self. The murder of NoSl Dorgeroux, the abduc-
tion of his god-daughter the police consented,
at my earnest entreaties, to accept this as the
official version the theft of my uncle's manu-
script, the theft of the formula: all this, at the
outset, only puzzled men's minds as a cunningly-
devised conspiracy and a cleverly-executed crime.
But not many days elapsed before the revelations
which I was constrained to make diverted all the
attention of the newspapers and all the curiosity
of the public to Noe'l Dorgeroux's discovery.
For I had to speak, notwithstanding the prom-
ise of silence which I had given my uncle. I
had to answer the magistrate's questions, to tell
all I knew, to explain matters, to enter into de-
tails, to write a report, to protest against ill-
formed judgments, to rectify mistakes, to specify,
enumerate, classify, in short, to confide to the
authorities and incidentally to the eager report-
ers all that my uncle had said to me, all his
dreams, all the wonders of the Yard, all the
122 THE THREE EYES
phantasmal visions which I had beheld upon the
screen.
Before a week was over, Paris, France, the
whole world knew in every detail, save for the
points which concerned Berangere and myself
alone, what was at once and spontaneously de-
scribed as the mystery of the Three Eyes.
Of course I was met with irony, sarcasm and
uproarious laughter. A miracle finds no be
lievers except among its astounded witnesses.
And what but a miracle could be put forward
as the cause of a phenomenon which, I main-
tained, had no credible cause? The execution
of Edith Cavell was a miracle. So was the
representation of the fight between two airmen.
So was the scene in which Noel Dorgeroux's son
was hit by a bullet. So, above all, was the loom-
ing of those Three Eyes, which throbbed with
life, which gazed at the spectator and which were
the eyes of the very people about to figure in
the spectacle as the actors thus miraculously
announced !
Nevertheless, one by one, voices were raised in
my defence. My past was gone into, the value
of my evidence was weighed ; and, though people
were still inclined to accuse me of being a vision-
ary or a sick man, subject to hallucinations, at
least they had to admit my absolute bona fides.
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 123
A party of adherents took up the cudgels for
me. There was a noisy battle of opinions. Ah,
my poor uncle Dorgeroux had asked for wide
publicity for his amphitheatre! His fondest
wishes were far exceeded by the strident and
tremendous clamour which continued like an un-
broken peal of thunder.
For the rest, all this uproar was dominated
by one idea, which took shape gradually and
summed up the thousand theories which every
one was indulging. I am copying it from a
newspaper-article which I carefully preserved :
" In any case, whatever opinion we may hold
of Noel Dorgeroux's alleged discovery, whatever
view we may take of M. Victorien Beaugrand's
common sense and mental equilibrium, one thing
is certain, which is that we shall sooner or later
know the truth. When two such competent peo-
ple as Velinot and his accomplice join forces
to accomplish a definite task, namely, the theft
of a scientific secret, when they carry out their
plot so skilfully, when they succeed beyond all
hopes, their object, it will be agreed, is certainly
not that they may enjoy the results of their
enterprise by stealth.
" If they have Noel Dorgeroux's manuscript in
their hands, together with the chemical formula
124 THE THREE EYES
that completes it, their intention beyond a doubt
is to make all the profits on which Noel Dor-
geroux himself was counting. To make these
profits the secret must first be exploited. And,
to exploit a secret of this kind, its possessors
must act openly, publicly, in the face of the
world. And, to do this, it will not pay them
to settle down in a remote corner in France or
elsewhere and to set up another enterprise. It
will not pay, because, in any case, there would
be the same confession of guilt. No, it will pay
them better and do them no more harm to take
up their quarters frankly and cynically in the
amphitheatre of the Yard and to make use of
what has there been accomplished, under the
most promising conditions, by Noel Dorgeroux.
" To sum up, therefore. Before long, some
one will emerge from the darkness. Some one
will remove the mask from his face. The sequel
and the conclusion of the unfinished plot will
be enacted in their fullness. And, three weeks
hence, on the date fixed, the 14th of May, we shall
witness the inauguration of the amphitheatre
erected by Noel Dorgeroux. And this inaugura-
tion will take place under the vigorous manage-
ment of the man who will be, who already is, the
owner of the secret: a formidable person, we
must admit."
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 125
The argument was strictly logical. Stolen
jewels are sold in secret. Money changes hands
anonymously. But an invention yields no profit
unless it is exploited.
Meanwhile the days passed and no one emerged
from the darkness. The two accomplices be-
trayed not a sign of life. It was now known
that Velmot, the man with the glasses, had prac-
tised all sorts of callings. Some Paris manu-
facturers, for whom he had travelled in the prov-
inces, furnished an exact description of his per-
son. The police learnt a number of things about
him, but not enough to enable them to lay hands
upon him.
Nor did a careful scrutiny of Noe'l Dorger-
oux's papers supply the least information. All
that the authorities found was a sealed, un-
addressed envelope, which they opened. The
contents surprised me greatly. They consisted
of a will, dated five years back, in which Noel
Dorgeroux, while naming me as his residuary
legatee, gave and bequeathed to his god-daughter,
BSrangere Massignac the piece of ground known
as the Yard and everything that the Yard might
contain on the day of his death. With the ex-
ception of this document, which was of no im-
portance, since my uncle, in one of his last let-
ters to me, had expressed different intentions,
126 THE THREE EYES
they found nothing but immaterial notes which
had no bearing upon the great secret. There-
upon they indulged in the wildest conjectures
and wandered about in a darkness which not
even the sworn chemists called in to examine
the screen were able to dispel. The wall re-
vealed nothing in particular, for the layer of
plaster with which it was covered had not re-
ceived the special glaze ; and it was precisely the
formula of this glaze that constituted Noel Dor-
geroux's secret.
But the glaze existed on the old chapel in the
cemetery, where I had seen the geometrical figure
of the Three Eyes appear. Yes, they certainly
found something clinging to the surface of the
fragments of plaster taken from that spot. But
they were not able with this something to pro-
duce a compound capable of yielding any sort
of vision. The right formula was obviously lack-
ing; and so, no doubt, was some essential in-
gredient which had already been eliminated by
the sun or the rain.
At the end of April there was no reason to
believe in the prophecies which announced a
theatrical culmination as inevitable. And the
curiosity of the public increased at each fresh
disappointment and on each new day spent in
waiting. Noel Dorgeroux's yard had become a
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 127
place of pilgrimage. Motor-cars and carriages
arrived in swarms. The people crowded outside
the locked gates and the fence, trying to catch
a glimpse of the wall. I even received letters
containing offers to buy the Yard at any price
that I chose to name.
One day, old Valentine showed into the draw-
ing-room a gentleman who said that he had come
on important business. I saw a man of medium
height with hair which was turning grey and
with a face which was wider than it was long
and which was made still wider by a pair of
bushy whiskers and a perpetual smile. His
threadbare dress and down-at-heel shoes denoted
anything but a brilliant financial position. He
expressed himself at once, however, in the lan-
guage of a person to whom money is no object :
" I have any amount of capital behind me,"
he declared, cheerfully and before he had even
told me his name. " My plans are made. All
that remains is for you and me to come to terms."
"What on?" I asked.
"Why, on the business that I have come to
propose to you ! "
" I am sorry, sir," I replied, " but I am doing
no business."
" That's a pity ! " he cried, still more cheer-
fully and with his mouth spreading still farther
128 THE THREE EYES
across his face. " That's a pity ! I should have
been glad to take you into partnership. How-
ever, since you're 'not willing, I shall act alone,
without of course exceeding the rights which I
have in the Yard."
"Your rights in the Yard?" I echoed,
astounded at his assurance.
" Why, rather ! " he answered, with a loud
laugh. " My rights : that's the only word."
" I don't follow you."
" I admit that it's not very clear. Well, sup-
pose you'll soon understand suppose that I
have come into Noel Dorgeroux's property."
I was beginning to lose patience and I took
the fellow up sharply:
"I have no time to spare for jesting, sir.
Noel Dorgeroux left no relatives except myself."
" I didn't say that I had come into his property
as a relative."
"As what, then?"
" As an heir, simply ... as the lawful heir,
specifically named as such by Noel Dorgeroux."
I was a little taken aback and, after a mo-
ment's thought, rejoined :
"Do you mean to say that Noel Dorgeroux
made a will in your favour? "
" I do."
Show it to me."
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 129
"There's no need to show it to you: you've
seen it."
" I've seen it? "
"You saw it the other day. It must be in
the hands of the examining-magistrate or the
solicitor."
I lost my temper:
"Oh, it's that you're speaking of! Well, to
begin with, the will isn't valid. I have a letter
from my uncle . . ."
He interrupted me :
" That letter doesn't affect the validity of the
will. Any one will tell you that."
"And then?" I exclaimed. "Granting that
it is valid, Noe'l Dorgeroux mentions nobody in
it except myself for the Lodge and his god-daugh-
ter for the Yard. The only one who benefits,
except myself, is Be"rangre."
" Quite so, quite so," replied the man, without
changing countenance. " But nobody knows
what has become of Be>angere Massignac. Sup-
pose that she were dead . . ."
I grew indignant :
" She's not dead ! It's quite impossible that
she should be dead ! "
" Very well," he said, calmly. " Then suppose
that she's alive, that she's been kidnapped or
that she's in hiding. In any event, one fact is
130 THE THREE EYES
certain, which is that she is under twenty, con-
sequently she's a minor and consequently she
cannot administer her own property. From the
legal point of view she exists only in the person
of her natural representative, her guardian, who
in this case happens to be her father."
" And her father? " I asked, anxiously.
" Is myself."
He put on his hat, took it off again with a bow
and said:
" Theodore Massignac, forty-two years of age,
a native of Toulouse, a commercial traveller in
wines."
It was a violent blow. The truth suddenly
appeared to me in all its brutal nakedness. This
man, this shady and wily individual, was Bran-
gere's father; and he had come in the name of
the two accomplices, working in their interest
and placing at their service the powers with
which circumstances had favoured him.
" Her father? " I murmured. " Can it be pos-
sible? Are you her father? "
" Why, yes," he replied, with a fresh outburst
of hilarity, " I'm the girl's daddy and, as such,
the beneficiary, with the right to draw the profits
for the next eighteen months, of Noel Dorger-
oux's bequest. For eighteen months only ! You
-can imagine that I'm itching to take possession
SOME ONE WILL EMERGE 131
of the estate, to complete the works and to pre-
pare for the fourteenth of May an inauguration
worthy in every respect of my old friend Dor-
geroux."
I felt the beads of perspiration trickling down
my forehead. He had spoken the words which
were expected and foretold. He was the man of
whom public opinion had said:
" When the time comes, some one will emerge
from the darkness."
CHAPTER IX
THE MAN WHO EMERGED FROM THE DARKNESS
the time comes," they had said,
" some one will emerge from the dark-
ness. When the time comes, some one will re-
move the mask from his face."
That face now beamed expansively before me.
That some one, who was about to play the game
of the two accomplices, was Berangere's father.
And the same question continued to suggest it-
self, each time more painfully than the last:
. " What had been Berangere's part in the hor-
rible tragedy? "
There was a long, heavy silence between us.
I began to stride across the room and stopped
near the chimney, where a dying fire was smoul-
dering. Thence I could see Massignac in a
mirror, without his perceiving it; and his face,
in repose, surprised me by a gloomy expression
which was not unknown to me. I had probably
seen some photograph of him in B6rangere's
possession.
"It's curious," I said, "that your daughter
should not have written to you."
132
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 133
I had turned round very briskly; nevertheless
he had had time to expand his mouth and to
resume his smile:
" Alas," he said, " the dear child hardly ever
wrote to me and cared little about her poor
daddy. I, on the other hand, am very fond of
her. A daughter's always a daughter, you know.
So you can imagine how I jumped for joy when
I read in the papers that she had come into
money. I should at last be able to devote my-
self to her and to devote all my strength and
all my energy to the great and wonderful task of
defending her interests and her fortune."
He spoke in a honeyed voice and assumed a
false and unctuous air which exasperated me.
I questioned him:
" How do you propose to fulfill that task? "
" Why, quite simply," he replied, " by con-
tinuing Noe'l Dorgeroux's work."
" In other words? "
"By throwing open the doors of the amphi-
theatre."
" Which means? "
" Which means that I shall show to the public
the pictures which your uncle used to produce."
" Have you ever seen them? "
" No. I speak from your evidence and your
interviews."
134 THE THREE EYES
" Do you know how my uncle used to produce
them?"
" I do, since yesterday evening."
" Then you have seen the manuscript of which
I was robbed and the formula stolen by the
murderer? "
" Since yesterday evening, I say."
" But how? " I exclaimed, excitedly.
" How? By a simple trick."
"What do you mean? "
He showed me a bundle of newspapers of the
day before and continued, with a smirking
air:
" If you had read yesterday's newspapers, or
at least the more important of them, carefully,
you would have noticed a discreet advertisement
in the special column. It read, * Proprietor of
the Yard wishes to purchase the two documents
necessary for working. He can be seen this
evening in the Place Vendome.' Nothing much
in the advertisement, was there? But, to the
possessors of the two documents, how clear in
its meaning . . . and what a bait! To them
it was the one opportunity of making a profit,
for, with all the publicity attaching to the affair,
they were unable to benefit by the result of their
robberies without revealing their identity to the
public. My calculation was correct. After I
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 135
had waited an hour by the Vendome Column, a
very luxurious motor-car picked me up, you
might almost say without stopping, and, ten
minutes afterwards, dropped me at the Etoile,
with the documents in my possession. I spent
the night in reading the manuscript. Oh, my
dear sir, what a genius your uncle was! What
a revolution his discovery ! And in what a mas-
terly way he expounded it! I never read any-
thing so methodical and so lucid! All that re-
mains for me to do is mere child's-play."
I had listened to the man Massignac with
ever-increasing amazement. Was he assuming
that anybody would for a moment credit so
ridiculous a tale?
He was laughing, however, with a look of a
man who congratulates himself on the events
with which he is mixed up, or rather, perhaps,
on the very skilful fashion in which he believes
himself to have manipulated them.
With one hand, I pushed in his direction the
hat which he had laid on the table. Then I
opened the door leading into the hall.
He rose and said:
" I am staying close by, at the Station Hotel.
Would you mind having any letters sent there
which may come for me here? For I suppose
you have no room for me at the Lodge? "
136 THE THREE EYES
I abruptly gripped him by the arm and cried :
" You know what you're risking, don't you? "
" In doing what? "
" In pursuing your enterprise."
" Upon my word, I don't quite see . . ."
" Prison, sir, prison."
"Oh, come! Prison!"
" Prison, sir. The police will never accept all
your stories and all your lies! "
His mouth widened into a new laugh :
"What big words! And how unjust, when
addressed to a respectable father who seeks no-
thing but his daughter's happiness ! No, no, sir,
believe me, the inauguration will take place on
the fourteenth of May . . . unless, indeed, you
oppose the wishes which your uncle expresses
in his will . . . ."
He gave me a questioning look, which betrayed
a certain uneasiness; and I myself wavered as
to the answer which I ought to give him. My
hesitation yielded to a motive of which I did not
weigh the value clearly but which seemed to me
so imperious that I declared:
" I shall raise no opposition : not that I respect
a will which does not represent my uncle's real
intentions, but because I am bound to sacrifice
everything to his fame. If Noel Dorgeroux's
discovery depends on you, go ahead: the means
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 137
which you have employed to get hold of it do
not concern me."
With a fresh burst of merry laughter and a
low bow, the fellow left the room. That evening,
in the course of a visit to the solicitor, and next
day, through the newspapers, he boldly set forth
his claims, which, I may say, from the legal point
of view, were recognized as absolutely legitimate.
But, two days later, he was summoned to appear
before the examining-magistrate and an enquiry
was opened against him.
Against him is the right term. Certainly,
there was no fact to be laid to his charge. Cer-
tainly, he was able to prove that he had been ill
in bed, nursed by a woman-of-all-work who had
been looking after him for a month, and that he
had left his place in Toulouse only to come
straight to Paris. But what had he done in
Paris? Whom had he seen? From whom had
he obtained the manuscript and the formula?
He was unable to furnish explanations in reply
to any of these questions.
He did not even try:
" I am pledged to secrecy," he said. " I gave
my word of honour not to say anything about
those who handed me the documents I needed."
The man Massignac's word of Honour! The
man Massignac's scruples! Lies, of course!
138 THE THREE EYES
Hypocrisy! Subterfuge! But, all the same,
however suspect the fellow might be, it was diffi-
cult to know of what to accuse him or how to
sustain the accusation when made.
And then there was this element of strange-
ness, that the suspicion, the presumption, the
certainty that the man Massignac was the will-
ing tool of the two criminals, all this was swept
away by the great movement of curiosity that
carried people off their feet. Judicial proced-
ure, ordinary precautions, regular adjournments,
legal procrastinations which delay the entry into
possession of the legatees were one and all neg-
lected. The public wanted to see and know ; and
Theodore Massignac was the man who held the
prodigious secret.
He was therefore allowed to have the keys of
the amphitheatre and went in alone, or with
labourers upon whom he kept an eye, replacing
them by fresh gangs so as to avoid plots and
machinations. He often went to Paris, throw-
ing off the scent of the detectives who dogged
his movements, and returned with bottles and
cans carefully wrapped up.
On the day before that fixed for the inaugura-
tion, the police were no wiser than on the first
day in matters concerning the man Massignac,
or Velmot's hiding-place, or the murderer's, or
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 139
Berangere's. The same ignorance prevailed re-
garding Noel Dorgeroux's secret, the circum-
stances of his death and the ambiguous words
which he had scribbled on the plaster of the wall.
As for the miraculous visions which I have de-
scribed, they were denied or accepted as vigor-
ously and as unreasonably by both the disputing
parties. In short, nobody knew anything.
And this perhaps was the reason why the thou-
sand seats in the amphitheatre were sold out
within a few hours. Priced at a hundred francs
apiece, they were bought up by half-a-dozen spec-
ulators who got rid of them at two or three times
their original cost. How delighted my poor
uncle would have been had he lived to see it!
The night before the fourteenth of May, I slept
very badly, haunted by nightmares that kept on
waking me with a start. At the first glimmer
of dawn, I was sitting on the side of my bed
when, in the deep silence, which was barely
broken by the twittering of a few birds, I seemed
to hear the sound of a key in a lock and a door
creaking on its hinges.
I must explain that, since my uncle's death,
I had been sleeping next to the room that used
to be his. Now the noise came from that room,
from which I was separated only by a glazed
door covered with a chintz curtain. I listened
140 THE THREE EYES
and heard the sound of a chair moved from its
place. There was certainly some one in the next
room; and this some one, obviously unaware
that I occupied the adjoining chamber, was tak-
ing scarcely any precautions. But how had he
got in?
I sprang from the bed, slipped on my trousers,
took up a revolver and drew aside a corner of
the curtain. At first, the shutters were closed
and the room in darkness and I saw only an in-
distinct shadow. Then the window was opened
softly. Somebody lifted the iron bar and pushed
back the shutters, thus admitting the light.
I now saw a woman return to the middle of
the room. She was draped from head to foot
in a brown stuff cloak. Nevertheless I knew
her at once. It was Berangere.
I had a feeling not so much of amazement as
of sudden and profound pity at the sight of her
emaciated face, her poor face, once so bright and
eager, now so sad and wan. I did not even think
of rejoicing at the fact of her being alive, nor did
I ask myself what clandestine business had
brought her back to the Lodge. The one thing
that held me captive was the painful spectacle of
her pallid face, with its feverish, burning eyes
and blue eyelids. Her cloak betrayed the
shrunken figure beneath it.
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 141
Her heart must have been beating terribly, for
he held her two hands to her breast to suppress
its throbbing. She even had to lean on the edge
of the table. She staggered and nearly fell.
Poor BeTangere. I felt anguish-stricken as I
watched her.
She pulled herself together, however, and
looked around her. Then, with a tottering gait,
she went to the mantelpiece, where two old en-
gravings, framed in black with a gold beading,
hung one on either side of the looking-glass.
She climbed on a chair and took down the one on
the right, a portrait of D'Alembert.
Stepping down from the chair, she examined
the back of the frame, which was closed by a
piece of old card-board the edges of which were
fastened to the sides of the frame by strips of
gummed cloth. Be"rang&re cut these strips with
a pen-knife, bending back the tacks which held
the cardboard in position. It came out of the
frame ; and I then saw BSrangere had her back
turned in my direction, so that not a detail
escaped me I then saw that there was inserted
between the cardboard and the engraving a
large sheet of paper covered with my uncle's
writing.
At the top, in red ink, was a drawing of the
three geometrical eyes.
142 THE THREE EYES
Next came the following words, in bold black
capitals :
" Instructions for working my discovery,
abridged from the manuscript sent to my
nephew."
And next forty or fifty very closely-written
lines, in a hand too small to allow me to decipher
them.
Besides, I had not the time. Berangere merely
glanced at the paper. Having found the object
of her search and obtained possession of an ad-
ditional document which my uncle had provided
in case the manuscript should be lost, she folded
it up, slipped it into her bodice, replaced the
cardboard and hung the engraving where she
had found it.
Was she going away? If so, she was bound
to return as she had come, that is to say, evi-
dently, through Noel Dorgeroux's dressing-room,
on the other side of the bedroom, of which she
had left the communicating-door ajar. I was
about to prevent her and had already taken hold
of the door-handle, when suddenly she moved a
few steps towards my uncle's bed and fell on
her knees, stretching out her hands in despair.
Her sobs rose in the silence. She stammered
words which I was able to catch :
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 143
"God-father! ... My poor god-father! "
And she passionately kissed the coverlet of the
bed beside which she must often have sat up
watching my uncle when he was ill.
Her fit of crying lasted a long time and did
not cease until just as I entered. Then she
turned her head, saw me and stood up slowly,
without taking her eyes from my face :
" You ! " she murmured. " It's you ! "
Seeing her make for the door, I said:
" Don't go, Be"rangere."
She stopped, looking paler than ever, with
drawn features.
" Give me that sheet of paper," I said, in a
voice of command.
She handed it to me, with a quick movement.
After a brief pause, I continued :
" Why did you come to fetch it? My uncle
told you of its existence, didn't he? And you
. . . you were taking it to my uncle's murderers,
so that they migjit have nothing more to fear
and be the only persons to know the secret? . . .
Speak, Be>angre, will you? "
I had raised my voice and was advancing to-
wards her. She took another step back.
" You shan't move, do you hear, Stay where
you are. Listen to me and answer me!"
She made no further attempt to move. Her
144 THE THREE EYES
eyes were filled with such distress that I adopted
a calmer demeanour:
" Answer me," I said, very gently. " You
know that, whatever you may have done, I am
your friend, your indulgent friend, and that I
mean to help you . . . and advise you. There
are feelings which are proof against everything.
Mine for you is of that sort. It is more than
affection: you know it is, don't you, Be>angere?
You know that I love you? "
Her lips quivered, she tried to speak, but could
not. I repeated again and again:
" I love you ! . . . I love you ! "
And, each time, she shuddered, as though these
words, which I spoke with infinite emotion,
which I had never spoken so seriously or so
sincerely, as if these words wounded her in the
very depths of her soul. What a strange crea-
ture she was!
I tried to put my hand on her shoulder. She
avoided my friendly touch.
" What can you see to fear in me," I asked,
" when I love you? Why not confess every-
thing? You are not a free agent, are you? You
are being forced to act as you do and you hate it
all?"
Once more, anger was overmastering me. I
was exasperated by her silence. I saw no way
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 145
of compelling her to reply, of overcoming that
incomprehensible obstinacy except by clasping
her in my arms and yielding to the instinct of
violence which urged me towards some brutal
action.
I went boldly forward. But I had not taken
a step before she spun round on her heel, so
swiftly that I thought that she would drop to the
floor in the doorway. I followed her into the
other room. She uttered a terrible scream. At
the same moment I was knocked down by a sud-
den blow. The man Massignac, who had been
hiding in the dressing-room and watching us,
had leapt at me and was attacking me furiously,
while B6rangere fled to the staircase.
" Your daughter," I spluttered, defending my-
self, " your daughter ! . . . Stop her ! . . ."
The words were senseless, seeing that Massig-
nac, beyond a doubt, was Be>angre's accomplice,
or rather an inspiring force behind her, as indeed
he proved by his determination to put me out
of action, in order to protect his daughter against
my pursuit.
We had rolled over the carpet and each of us
was trying to master his adversary. The man
Massignac was no longer laughing. He was
striking harder blows than ever, but without us-
ing any weapon and without any murderous in-
146 THE THREE EYES
tent. I hit back as lustily and soon discovered
that I was getting the better of him.
This gave me additional strength. I succeeded
in flattening him beneath me. He stiffened
every muscle to no purpose. We lay clutching
each other, face to face, eye to eye. I took him
by the throat and snarled :
" Ah, I shall get it out of you now, you wretch,
and learn at last . . ."
And suddenly I ceased. My words broke off
in a cry of horror and I clapped my hand to
his face in such a way as to hide the lower part
of it, leaving only the eyes visible. Oh, those
eyes riveted on mine ! Why, I knew them ! Not
with their customary expression of smug and
hypocritical cheerfulness, but with the other ex-
pression which I was slowly beginning to remem-
ber. Yes, I remember them now, those two
fierce, implacable eyes, filled with hatred and
cruelty, those eyes which I had seen on the wall
of the chapel, those eyes which had looked at
me on that same day, when I lay gasping in the
murderer's grip in the woods near the Yard.
And again, as on that occasion, suddenly my
strength forsook me. Those savage eyes, those
atrocious eyes, the man Massignac's real eyes,
alarmed me.
He released himself with a laugh of triumph
THE MAN WHO EMERGED 147
and, speaking in calm and deliberate accents,
said :
" You're no match for me, young fellow !
Don't you come meddling in my affairs again ! "
Then, pushing me away, he ran off in the
same direction as Be"rang&re.
A few minutes later, I perceived that the sheet
of paper which the daughter had found behind
the old engraving had been taken from me by
the father; and then, but not till then, I under-
stood the exact meaning of the attack.
The amphitheatre was duly inaugurated on
the afternoon of that same day. Seated in the
box-office was the manager of the establishment,
the possessor of the great secret, Theodore
Massignac, Noel Dorgeroux's murderer.
CHAPTER X
THE CROWD
THEODORE MASSIGNAC was installed at
the box-office ! Theodore Massignac, when
a dispute of any kind occurred, left his desk and
hastened to settle it! Theodore Massignac
walked up and down, examining the tickets,
showing people to their places, speaking a pleas-
ant word here, giving a masterful order there
and doing all these things with his everlasting
smile and his obsequious graciousness.
Of embarrassment not the slightest sign.
Everybody knew that Theodore Massignac was
the fellow with the broad face and the wide-
cleft mouth who was attracting the general at-
tention. And everybody was fully aware that
Theodore Massignac was the man of straw who
had carried out the whole business and made
away with Noel Dorgeroux. But nothing inter-
fered with Theodore Massignac's jovial mood : not
the sneers, nor the apparent hostility of the
public, nor the more or less discreet supervision
of the detectives attached to his person.
148
THE CROWD SEES 149
He had even had the effrontery to paste on
boardings, to the right and left of the entrance,
a pair of great posters representing Noel Dor-
geroux's handsome face, with its grave and
candid features!
These posters gave rise to a brief altercation
between ns. It was pretty lively, though it
passed unnoticed by others. Scandalized by the
sight of them, I went up to him, a little while
before the time fixed for the opening; and, in a
voice trembling with anger, said :
" Remove those at once. I will not have them
displayed. The rest I don't care about. But
this is too much of a good thing: it's a disgrace
and an outrage."
He feigned an air of amazement :
" An outrage? You call it an outrage to
honour your uncle's memory and to display the
portrait of the talented inventor whose discovery
is on the point of revolutionizing the world?
I thought I was doing homage to him."
I was beside myself with rage :
" You shan't do it," I spluttered. " I will not
consent, I will not consent to be an accomplice
in your infamy."
"Oh, yes, you will!" he said, with a laugh.
" You'll consent to this as you do to all the rest.
It's all part of the game, young fellow. You've
150 THE THREE EYES
got to swallow it. You've got to swallow it be-
cause Uncle Dorgeroux's fame must be made to
soar above all these paltry trifles. Of course,
I know, a word from you and I'm jugged. And
then? What will become of the great invention?
In the soup, that's where it'll be, my lad, because
I am the sole possessor of all the secrets and
all the formulae. The sole possessor, do you
understand? Friend Velrnot, the man with the
glasses, is only a super, a tool. So is Berangere,
Therefore, with Theodore Massignac put away,
there's an end of the astounding pictures signed
' Dorgeroux.' No more glory, no more immor-
tality. Is that what you want, young man?"
Without waiting for any reply, he added :
" And then there's something else ; a word or
two which I overheard last night. Ha, ha, my
dear sir, so we're in love with Berangere ! We're
prepared to defend her against all dangers!
Well, in that case do be logical what have
I to fear? If you betray me, you betray your
sweetheart. Come, am I right or wrong?
Daddy and his little girl . . . hand and glove,
you might say. If you cut off one, what becomes
of the other? . . . Ah, you're beginning to un-
derstand! You'll be good now, won't you?
There, that's much better ! W T e shall see a happy
ending yet, you'll have heaps of children crowd-
THE CROWD SEES 151
ing round your knee and who will thank me
then for getting him a nice little settlement?
Why, Victorien !
He stopped and watched me, with a jeering
air. Clenching my fists, I shouted, furiously:
"You villain! . . . Oh, what a villain you
make yourself appear ! "
But some people were coming up and he turned
his back on me, after whispering:
" Hush, Victorien ! Don't insult your father-
in-law elect."
I restrained myself. The horrible brute was
right. I was condemned to silence by motives
so powerful that Theodore Massignac would
soon be able to fulfil his task without having to
fear the least revolt of conscience on my part.
Noel Dorgeroux and B6rangere were watching
over him.
Meanwhile, the amphitheatre was filling; and
the motorcars continued to arrive in swift suc-
cession, pouring forth the torrent of privileged
people who, because of their wealth or their
position, had paid from ten to twenty louis for
a seat. Financiers, millionaires, famous ac-
tresses, newspaper-proprietors, artistic and lit-
erary celebrities, Anglo-Saxon commercial mag-
nates, secretaries of great labour unions, all
152 THE THREE EYES
flocked with a sort of fever towards that un-
known spectacle, of which no detailed pro-
gramme was obtainable and which they were not
even certain of beholding, since it was impossible
to say whether Noel Dorgeroux's processes had
really been recovered and employed in the right
way. Indeed, no one, among those who believed
the story, was in a position to declare that
Theodore Massignac had not taken advantage
of the whole business in order to arrange the
most elaborate hoax. The very tickets and
posters contained the anything but reassuring
words :
" In the event of unfavourable weather, the
tickets will be available for the following day.
Should the exhibition be prevented by any other
cause, the money paid for the seats will not be
refunded; and no claims to that effect can be
entertained."
Yet nothing had restrained the tremendous
outburst of curiosity. Whether confident or
suspicious, people insisted on being there. Be-
sides, the weather was fine. The sun shone out
of a cloudless sky. Why not indulge in the
somewhat anxious gaiety that filled the hearts
of the crowd?
Everything was ready. Thanks to his wonder-
THE CROWD SEES 153
ful activity and his remarkable powers of or-
ganization, Theodore Massignac, assisted by ar-
chitects and contractors and acting on the plans
worked out, had completed and revised Noel
Dorgeroux's work. He had recruited a numer-
ous staff, especially a large and stalwart body
of men, who, as I heard, were lavishly paid
and who were charged with the duty of keeping
order.
As for the amphitheatre, built of reinforced
concrete, it was completely filled up, well laid
out and very comfortable. Twelve rows of el-
bowed seats, supplied with movable cushions,
surrounded a floor which rose in a gentle slope,
divided into twelve tiers arranged in a wide
semicircle. Behind these was a series of spa-
cious private boxes, and, at the back of all, a
lounge, the floor of which, nevertheless, was not
more than ten or twelve feet above the level of
the ground.
Opposite was the wall.
It stood well away from the seats, being built
on a foundation of masonry and separated from
the spectators by an empty orchestra. Further-
more, a grating, six feet high, prevented access
to the wall, at least as regards its central por-
tion ; and, when I say a grating, I mean a busi-
nesslike grating, with spiked rails and cross-
154 THE THREE EYES
bars forming too close a mesh to allow of the
passage of a man's arm.
The central part was the screen, which was
raised to about the level of the fourth or fifth
tier of seats. Two pilasters, standing at eight
or ten yards' distance from each other, marked
its boundaries and supported an overhanging
canopy. For the moment, all this space was
masked by an iron curtain, roughly daubed with
gaudy landscapes and ill-drawn views.
At half -past three there was not a vacant seat
nor an unoccupied corner. The police had or-
dered the doors to be closed. The crowd was
beginning to grow impatient and to give signs
of a certain irritability, which betrayed itself
in the hum of a thousand voices, in nervous
laughter and in jests which were becoming more
and more caustic.
" If the thing goes wrong," said a man by my
side, " we shall see a shindy."
I had taken up my stand, with some journalists
of my acquaintance, in the lounge, amid a noisy
multitude which was all the more peevish inas-
much as it was not comfortably seated like the
audience in the stalls.
Another journalist, who was invariably well-
informed and of whom I had seen a good deal
lately, replied:
THE CROWD SEES 155
" Yes, there will be a shindy ; but that is not
the worthy Massignac's principal danger. He
is risking something besides."
"What?" I asked.
" Arrest."
" Do you mean that? "
" I do. If the universal curiosity, which has
helped him to preserve his liberty so far, is satis-
fied, he's all right. If not, if he fails, he'll be
locked up. The warrant is out."
I shuddered. Massignac's arrest implied the
gravest possible peril to Be>ang&re.
" And you may be sure," my acquaintance con-
tinued, " that he is fully alive to what is hanging
over his head and that he is feeling anything but
chirpy at heart."
" At heart, perhaps," replied one of the others.
" But he doesn't allow it to appear on the sur-
face. There, look at him : did you ever See such
swank? "
A louder din had come from the crowd. Be-
low us, Theodore Massignac was walking along
the pit and crossing the empty space of the or-
chestra. He was accompanied by a dozen of
those sturdy fellows who composed the male staff
of the amphitheatre. He made them sit down on
two benches which were evidently reserved for
them and, with the most natural air, gave them
156 THE THREE EYES
his instructions. And his gestures so clearly de-
noted the sense of the orders imparted and ex-
pressed so clearly what they would have to do
if any one attempted to approach the wall that
a loud clamour of protest arose.
Massignac turned towards the audience, with-
out appearing in the least put out, and, with a
smiling face, gave a careless shrug of the shoul-
ders, as though to say :
"What's the trouble? I'm taking precau-
tions. Surely I'm entitled to do that ! "
And, retaining his bantering geniality, he took
a key from his waist-coat pocket, opened a little
gate in the railing and entered the last enclosure
before the wall.
This manner of playing the lion-tamer who
takes refuge behind the bars of his cage made
so comic an impression that the hisses became
mingled with bursts of laughter.
" The worthy Massignac is right," said my
friend the journalist, in a tone of approval. " In
this way he avoids either of two things: if he
fails, the malcontents won't be able to break
his head; and, if he succeeds, the enthusiasts
can't make a rush for the wall and learn the
secret of the hoax. He's a knowing one. He
has prepared for everything."
There was a stool in the fortified enclosure.
THE CROWD SEES 157
Theodore Massignac sat down on it half facing
the spectators, some four paces in front of the
wall, and, holding his watch towards us, tapped
it with his other hand to explain that the de-
cisive hour was about to strike.
The extension of time which he thus obtained
lasted for some minutes. But then the uproar
began anew and became deafening. People sud-
denly lost all confidence. The idea of a hoax
took possession of every mind, all the more as
people were unable to grasp why the spectacle
should begin at any particular time rather than
another, since it all depended solely on Theodore
Massignac.
" Curtain ! Curtain ! " they cried.
After a moment, not so much in obedience to
this order as because the hands of his watch
seemed to command it, he rose, went to the wall,
slipped back a wooden slab which covered two
electric pushes and pressed one of them with
his finger.
The iron curtain descended slowly and sank
into the ground.
The screen appeared in its entirety, in broad
daylight and of larger proportions than the or-
dinary.
I shuddered before this flat surface, over
which the mysterious coating was spread in a
158 THE THREE EYES
dark-grey layer. And the same tremor ran
through the crowd, which was also seized with
the recollection of my depositions. Was it
possible that we were about to behold one of
those extraordinary spectacles the story of which
had given rise to' so much controversial discus-
sion? How ardently I longed for it! At this
solemn minute, I forget all the phases of the
drama, all the loathing that I felt for Massignac,
all that had to do with B6rangere, the madness
of her actions, the anguish of my love, and
thought only of the great game that was lcing
played around my uncle's discovery. Would
what I had seen vanish in the darkness of the
past w r hich I myself, the sole witness of the
miracles, was beginning to doubt? Or would
the incredible vision arise once again and yet
again, to teach the future the name of Noel Dor-
geroux? Had I been right in sacrificing to the
victim's glory the vengeance called for by his
death? Or had I made myself the accomplice
of the murderer in not denouncing his abomina-
ble crime?
Yes, I was becoming his accomplice and even,
deep down in my consciousness, his collaborator
and his ally. Had I imagined that Massignae
had need of me, I would have hastened to his
THE CROWD SEES 159
side. I would have encouraged him with all my
confidence and assisted him to the full extent
of my ability. First and foremost I wished him
to emerge victoriously from the struggle which
he had undertaken. I wanted my uncle's secret
to come to life again. I wanted light to spring
from the shadow. I did not wish twenty years
of study and the supreme idea of that most noble
genius to be flung back into the abyss.
Now not a sound broke the profound silence.
The people's faces were set. Their eyes pierced
the wall like so many gimlets. They experienced
in their turn the anxiety of my own waiting for
that which was yet invisible and which was pre-
paring in the depths of the mysterious substance.
And the implacable will of a thousand spectators
united with that of Massignac, who stood there
below, with his back bent and his head thrust
forward; wildly questioning the impassive hori-
zon of the wall.
He was the first to see the first premonitory
gleam. A cry escaped his lips, while his two
hands frantically beat the air. And, almost at
the same second, like sparks crackling on every
side, other cries were scattered in the silence,
which was instantly restored, heavier and denser
than before.
160 THE THREE EYES
The Three Eyes were there.
The Three Eyes marked their three curved
triangles on the wall.
The ondookers had not, in the presence of this
inconceivable phenomenon, to submit to the sort
of initiation through which I had passed. To
them, from the outset, three geometrical figures,
dismal and lifeless though they were, represented
three eyes; to them also they were living eyes
even before they became animated. And the ex-
citement was intense when those lidless eyes,
consisting of hard, symmetrical lines, suddenly
became filled with an expression which made
them as intelligible to us as the eyes of a human
person.
It was a harsh, proud expression, containing
flashes of malignant joy. And I knew and
we all knew that this was not just a random
expression, with which the Three Eyes had been
arbitrarily endowed, but that of a being who
looked upon real life with that same look and
who was about to appear to us in real life.
Then, as always, the three figures began to
revolve dizzily. The disk turned upon itself.
And everything was interrupted ....
CHAPTER XI
THE CATHEDRAL
THE crowd could not recover from its stupe-
faction. It sat and waited. It had heard
through me of the Three Eyes, of their signifi-
cance as a message, a preliminary illustration,
something like the title or picture-poster of the
coming spectacle. It remembered Edith Cavell's
eyes, Philippe Dorgeroux's eyes, Be>angere's
eyes, all those eyes which I had seen again after-
wards; and it sat as though cramped in obstinate
silence, as though it feared lest a word or a move-
ment should scare away the invisible god who lay
hidden within the wall. It was now filled with
absolute certainty. This first proof of my sin-
cerity and perspicacity was enough; there was
not a single unbeliever left. The spectators
stepped straight into regions which I had reached
only by painful stages. Not a shadow of protest
impaired their sensibility. Not a doubt inter-
fered with their faith. Really, I saw around
me nothing but serious attention, restrained
enthusiasm, suppressed exaltation.
161
162 THE THREE EYES
And all this suddenly found vent in an im-
mense shout that rose to the skies. Before us,
on the screen which had but now been empty
and bare as a stretch of sand, there had come
into being, spontaneously, in a flash, hundreds
and thousands of men, swarming in unspeakable
confusion.
It was obviously the suddenness and com-
plexity of the sight which so profoundly stirred
the crowd. The sudden emergence of life in-
numerable out of nothingness convulsed it like
an electric shock. In front of it, where there
had been nothing, there now swarmed another
crowd, dense as itself, a crowd whose excitement
mingled with its own and whose uproar, which
it was able to divine, was added to its own!
For a few seconds I had the impression that it
was losing its mental balance and swaying to
and fro in an access of delirium.
However, the crowd once more regained its
self-control. The need, not of understanding
it seemed not to care about that at first but
of seeing and grasping the entire manifestation
of the phenomena mastered the force let loose
in its midst. It became silent again. It gazed.
And it listened,
Yonder I dare not say on the screen, for, in
truth, so abnormal were its dimensions that the
THE CATHEDRAL 163
picture overflowed the frame and was propelled
into the space outside yonder, that which had
impressed us as being disorder and chaos became
organized in accordance with a certain rhythm
which at length grew perceptible to us. The
movement to and fro was that of artisans per-
forming a well-regulated task ; and the task was
accomplished about an immense fabric in the
course of erection.
How all these artisans were clad in a fashion
absolutely different from our own; and, on the
other hand, the tools which they employed, the
appearance of their ladders, the shape of their
scaffoldings, their manner of carrying loads and
of hoisting the necessary materials in wicker
baskets to the upper floors, all these things, to-
gether with a multitude of further details,
brought us into the heart of a period which must
have been the thirteenth or fourteenth century.
There were numbers of monks supervising the
works, calling out orders from one end of the
vast site to the other, setting out measurements
and not disdaining themselves to mix the mortar,
to push a wheel-barrow or to saw a stone.
Women of the people, uttering their cries at the
top of their voices, walked about bearing jars
of wine with which they filled cups that were at
once emptied by the thirsty labourers. A beggar
164 THE THREE EYES
went by. Two tattered singers began to roar a
ditty, accompanying themselves on a sort of
guitar. And a troop of acrobats, all lacking an
arm, or a leg, or both legs, were preparing to
give their show, when the scene changed without
any transition, like a stage setting which is
altered by the mere pressure of a button.
What we now saw was the same picture of a
building in process of construction. But this
time we clearly distinguished the plan of the
edifice, the whole base of a Gothic cathedral dis-
playing its huge proportions. And on these
courses of masonry, which had reached the
lower level of the towers, and along the fronts
and before the niches and on the steps of the
porch, everywhere, in fact, swarmed stone-hew-
ers, masons, sculptors, carpenters, apprentices
and monks.
And the costumes were no longer the same.
A century or two had passed.
Next came a series of pictures which succeeded
one another without our being able to separate
the one from the other or to ascribe a beginning
or an end to any one of them. By a method no
doubt similar to that which, on the cinemato-
graph, shows us the growth of a plant, we saw
the cathedral rising imperceptibly, blossoming
like a flower whose exquisitely-moulded petals
THE CATHEDRAL 165
open one by one and, lastly, being completed be-
fore our eyes, all of itself, without any human
intervention. Thus came a moment when it
stood out against the sky in all its glory and
harmonious strength. It was Rheims Cathe-
dral, with its three recessed doorways, its host of
statues, its magnificent rose-windows, its won-
derful towers flanked by airy turrets, its flying
buttresses and the lacework of its carvings and
balconies, Rheims Cathedral such as the cen-
turies had beheld it, before its mutilation by the
Huns.
A long shudder passed through the crowd. It
understood what those who were not present
cannot easily be made to understand now, by
means of insignificant words : it understood that
in front of it there stood something other than
the photographic presentment of a building;
and, as it possessed the profound and accurate
intuition that it was not the victim of an un-
thinkable hoax, it became imbued and over-
whelmed by an utterly disturbing sense of wit-
nessing a most prodigious spectacle : the actual
erection of a church in the Middle Ages, the
actual work of a thirteenth-century building-
yard, the actual life of the monks and artists
who built Rheims Cathedral. Enlightened by its
subtle instinct, not for a second did it doubt the
166 THE THREE EYES
evidence of its eyes. What I had denied, or at
least what I had admitted only as an illusion,
with reservations and flashes of incredulity, the
crowd accepted with a certainty against which
it would have been madness to rebel. It had
faith. It believed with religious fervour. What
it saw was not an artificial evocation of the past
but that past itself, revived in all its living
reality.
Equally real was the gradual transformation
which continued to take place, no longer in the
actual lines of the building, but as one might
say in its substance and which was revealed by
progressive changes that could not be attributed
to any other cause than that of time. The great
white mass grew darker. The grain of the stones
became worn and weathered and they assumed
that appearance of rugged bark which the patient
gnawing of the years is apt to give them. It is
true, the cathedral did not grow old, yet lived,
for age is the beauty and the youth of the stones
by means of which man gives shape to his
dreams.
It lived and breathed through the centuries,
seeming all the fresher as it faded and the more
ornate as its legions of saints and angels became
mutilated. It chanted its solemn hymn into the
open sky over the houses which had gradually
THE CATHEDRAL 167
concealed its doorways and aisles, over the town
above whose crowded roofs it towered, over the
plains and hills which formed the dim horizon.
At different times people came and leant
against the balustrade of some lofty balcony or
appeared in the frame of the tall windows; and
the costume of these people enabled us to note
their successive periods. Thus we saw pre-
Revolutionary citizens, followed by soldiers of
the Empire, who in turn were followed by other
nineteenth-century civilians and by labourers
building scaffoldings and by yet more labourers
engaged in the work of restoration.
Then a final vision appeared before our eyes :
a group ef French officers in service uniform.
They hurriedly reached the top of the tower,
looked through their field-glasses and went down
again. Here and there, over the town and the
country, hovered those small, woolly clouds
which mark the bursting of a shell.
The silence of the crowd became anguished.
Their eyes stared apprehensively. We all felt
what was coming and we were all judging as a
whole a spectacle which had shown us the grad-
ual birth and marvellous growth of the cathedral
only by way of leading up to the dramatic climax.
We expected this climax. It followed from the
dominant idea which gave the film its unity and
168 THE THREE EYES
its raison d'etre. It was as logical as the last
act of a Greek tragedy. But how could we for-
see all the savage grandeur and all the horror
contained in that climax? How could we forsee
that the bombardment of Rheims Cathedral it-
self formed part of the climax only as a prepara-
tion and that, beyond the violent and sensational
scene which was about to rack our nerves and
shock our minds, there would follow yet another
scene of the most terrible nature, a scene which
was strictly accurate in every detail?
The first shell fell on the north-east part of the
cathedral at a spot which we could not see, be-
cause the building, though we were looking down
upon it from a slight elevation, presented only
its west front to our eyes. But a flame shot
up, like a flash of lightning, and a pillar of
smoke whirled into the cloudless sky.
And, almost simultaneously, three more sheila
followed, three more explosives, mingling their
puffs of smoke. A fifth fell a little more for-
ward, in the middle of the roof. A mighty flame
arose. Rheims Cathedral was on fire.
Then followed phenomena which are really in-
explicable in the present state of our cinemato-
graphic resources. I say cinematographic, al-
though the term is not perhaps strictly accurate;
but I do not know how else to describe the
THE CATHEDRAL 169
miraculous visions of the Yard. Nor do I know
of any comparison to employ when speaking of
the visible parabola of the sixth shell, which we
followed with our eyes through space and which
even stopped for a moment, to resume its
leisurely course and to stop again at a few inches
from the statue which it was about to strike.
This was a charming and ingenuous statue of
a saint lifting her arms to God, with the sweetest,
happiest and most trusting expression on her
face ; a masterpiece of grace and beauty ; a divine
creature who had stood for centuries, cloistered
in her shelter, among the nests of the swallows,
living her humble life of prayer and adoration,
and who now smiled at the death that threatened
her. A flash, a puff of smoke . . . and, in the
place of the little saint and her daintily-carved
niche, a yawning gap !
It was at this moment that I felt that anger
and hatred were awakening all around me. The
murder of the little saint had roused the indigna-
tion of the crowd; and it so happened that this
indignation found an occasion to express itself.
Before us, the cathedral grew smaller, while at
the same time it approached us. It seemed to
be leaving its frame, while the distant landscape
came nearer and nearer. A hill, bristling with
barbed wire, dug with trenches and strewn with
170 THE THREE EYES
corpses, rose and fell away ; and we saw its top,
which was fortified with bastions and cupolas
of reinforced concrete.
Enormous guns displayed their long barrels.
A multitude of German soldiers were moving
swiftly to and fro. It was the battery which was
shelling Rheims Cathedral.
In the centre stood a group of general officers,
field-glasses in hand, with sword-belts unbuckled.
At each shot, they watched the effect through
their glasses and then nodded their heads with
an air of satisfaction.
But a great commotion now took place among
them. They drew up in single rank, assuming
a stiff and automatic attitude, while the sol-
diers continued to serve the guns. And sud-
denly, from behind the fortress, a motor-car ap-
peared, accompanied by an escort of cavalry. It
stopped on the emplacement and from it there
alighted a man wearing a helmet and a long
fur-cloak, which was lifted at the side by the
scabbard of a sword of which he held the hilt.
He stepped briskly to the foreground. We
recognised the Kaiser.
He shook hands with one of the generals. The
others saluted more stiffly than ever and then,
at a sign from their master, extended and formed
THE CATHEDRAL 171
a semicircle around him and the general whose
hand he had shaken.
A conversation ensued. The general, after an
explanation accompanied by gestures that
pointed towards the town, called for a telescope
and had it correctly pointed. The Kaiser put
his eye to it.
One of the guns was ready. The order to fire
was given.
Two pictures followed each other on the screen
in quick succession : that of a carved stone balus-
trade smashed to pieces by the shell and that of
the emperor drawing himself up immediately
afterwards. He had seen! He had seen; and
his face, which appeared to us suddenly enlarged
and alone upon the screen, beamed with intense
delight !
He began to talk volubly. His sensual lips,
his upturned moustache, his wrinkled and fleshy
cheeks were all moving at the same time. But,
when another gun was obviously on the point of
firing, he held his peace and looked in the direc-
tion of the town. Just then he raised his hand
to a level just below his eyes, so that we saw
them by themselves, between the hand and the
peak of the helmet. They were hard, evil, proud,
implacable. They wore the expression of the
172 THE THREE EYES
miraculous Three Eyes that had throbbed before
us on the screen.
They lit up, glittering with an evil smile.
They saw what we saw at the same time, a whole
block of capitals and cornices falling to the
ground and more flames rising in angry pillars of
fire. Then the emperor burst out laughing.
One picture showed him doubled up in two and
holding his sides amid the group of generals all
seized with the same uncontrollable laughter.
He was laughing! He was laughing! It was
so amusing! Rheims Cathedral was ablaze!
The venerable fabric to which the kings of France
used to come for their coronation was falling
into ruins! The might of Germany was strik-
ing the enemy in his very heart! The German
heavy guns were things that were noble and
beautiful ! And it was he who had ordained it,
he, the emperor, the King of Prussia, master of
the world, William of Hohenzollern ! .... Oh,
the joy of laughing his fill, laughing to his heart's
content, laughing the frank, honest laughter of
a jolly German !
A storm of hoots and hisses broke loose in
the amphitheatre. The crowd had risen in a
body, shaking their fists and bellowing forth in-
sults. The attendants had to struggle with a
THE CATHEDRAL 173
troop of angry men who had invaded the or-
chestra.
Theodore Massignac, behind the bars of his
cage, stooped and pressed the button.
The iron curtain rose.
CHAPTER XII
THE "SHAPES"
ON the morning of the day following this
memorable spectacle, I woke late, after a
feverish night during which I twice seemed to
hear the sound of a shot.
" Nightmare ! " I thought, when I got up. " I
was haunted by the pictures of the bombardment;
and what I heard was the bursting of the shells."
The explanation was plausible enough: the
powerful emotions of the amphitheatre, coming
after my meeting with Berang&re in the course
of that other night and my struggle with Theo-
dore Massignac, had thrown me into a state of
nervous excitement. But, when I entered the
room in which my coffee was served, Theodore
Hassignac came running in, carrying a heap of
newspapers which he threw on the table; and I
saw under his hat a bandage which hid his fore-
head. Had he been wounded? And was I to be-
lieve that there had really been shots fired in
the Yard?
" Pay no attention," he said ; " a mere scratch.
I've bruised myself." And, pointing to the
174
THE "SHAPES" 175
newspapers : " Read that, rather. It's all about
the master's triumph."
I made no protest against the loathsome brute's
intrusion. The Master's triumph, as he said,
and Be>angere's safety compelled me to observe
a silence by which he was to benefit until the
completion of his plans. He had made himself
at home in Nol Dorgeroux's house ; and his atti-
tude showed that he was alive to his own rights
and to my helplessness. Nevertheless, despite
his arrogance, he seemed to me to be anxious and
absorbed. He no longer laughed; and, without
his cheery laugh, Theodore Massignac discon-
certed me more than ever.
" Yes," he continued, drawing himself up, " it's
a victory, a victory accepted by everybody. Not
one of all these articles strikes a false note. Be-
wilderment and enthusiasm, stupefaction and
high-flown praises, all running riot together.
They're everyone of them alike ; and, on the other
hand, there is no attempt at a plausible ex-
planation. Those fellows are all astounded.
They're like blind men walking without a stick.
Well, well, it's a thick-headed world! "
He came and stood in front of me and, bluntly:
"What then?" he said. " Cap't you guess?
It's really too funny! Now that I understand
the affair, I'm petrified by the idea that people
176 THE THREE EYES
don't see through it. An unprecedented discov-
ery, I agree, and yet so simple ! And, even then,
you can hardly call it a discovery. For, when
all is said and done . . . Look here, the whole
story is so completely within the capacity of the
first-comer that it won't take long to clear it up.
To-morrow or the next day, some one will say,
'The trick of the Yard?' I've got it! And
that's that. You don't want to be a man of
learning for that, believe me. On the contrary ! "
He shrugged his shoulders:
" And besides, I don't care. Let them find out
what they like: they'll still need the formula;
and that's hidden in my cellar and nowhere else.
Nobody knows it, not even our friend Velmot.
Noel Dorgeroux's steel plate? Melted down.
The instructions which he left at the back of
D'Alembert's portrait? Burnt to ashes. So
there's no danger of any competition. And, as
the seats in the amphitheatre are selling like hot
cakes, I shall have pocketed a million in less than
a fortnight, two millions in less than three weeks.
And then good-bye, gentlemen all, I'm off. By
Jove! It won't do to tempt Providence or the
gendarmes."
He took me by the lapels of my jacket and,
standing straight in front of me, with his eyes
on mine, said, in a more serious voice :
THE " SHAPES " 177
" There's only one thing that would ruffle me,
which is to think that all these beautiful pictures
can no longer appear upon the screen when I am
gone. It seems impossible, what? No more
miraculous sights? No more fairy- tales to make
people talk till Doomsday? That would never
do, would it? Noel Dorgeroux's secret must not
be lost. So I thought of you. Hang it, you're
his nephew ! Besides, you love my dear Be"ran-
gere. Some day or other you'll be married to
her. And then, as I'm working for her, it doesn't
matter whether the money comes to her through
you or through me, does it? Listen to me, Vic-
torien Beaugrand, and remember every word I
say. Listen to me. You've observed that the
base of the wall below the screen stands out a
good way. Noel Dorgeroux contrived a sort of
recess there, containing several carboys, filled
with different substances, and a copper vat. In
this vat we mix certain quantities of those in-
gredients in fixed proportions, adding a fluid
from a little phial prepared on the morning of
the performances, according to your uncle's
formula. Then, an hour or two before sunset,
we dip a big brush in the wash thus obtained and
daub the surface of the screen very evenly with
it. You do that for each performance, if you
want the pictures to be clear, and of course only
178 THE THREE EYES
on days when there are no clouds between the sun
and the screen. As for the formula, it is not
very long: fifteen letters and twelve figures in
all, like this . . ."
Massignac repeated slowly, in a less decided
tone:
" Fifteen letters and twelve figures. Once you
know them by heart, you can be easy. And I too.
Yes, what do I risk in speaking to you? You
swear that you won't tell, eh? And then I hold
you through Be>angere. Well, those fifteen
letters. . . ."
He was obviously hesitating. His words
seemed to cost him an increasing effort; and
suddenly he pushed me back, struck the table
angrily with his fist and cried:
" Well, no, then, no, no, no ! I shall not speak.
It would be too silly ! No, I shall keep this thing
in my own hands, yes ! Is it likely that I should
let the business go for two millions? Not for
ten millions! Not for twenty! I shall mount
guard for months, if necessary, as I did last
night, with my gun on my shoulder . . . and if
any one enters the Yard I'll shoot him as I would
a dog. The wall belongs to me, Theodore Massig-
nac. Hands off! Let no one dare to touch it!
Let no one try to rob me of the least scrap of it !
It's my secret ! It's my formula ! I bought the
THE " SHAPES " 179
goods and risked my neck in doing it. I'll de-
fend them to my last breath ; and, if I kick the
bucket, it can't be helped; I'll carry them with
me to the grave ! "
He shook his fist at invisible enemies. Then
suddenly, he caught hold of me again : " That's
what things have come to. My arrest, the gen-
darmes ... I don't care a hang. They'll never
dare. But the thief lurking in the darkness, the
murderer who fires at me, as he did last night,
while I was mounting guard .... For you
must have heard, Victorien Beaugrand? Oh, a
mere scratch! And I missed him too. But,
next time, the swine will give himself time to
take aim at me. Oh, the filthy swine! "
He began to shake me violently to and fro.
" But you too, Victorien, he's your enemy too!
Don't you understand? The man with the eye-
glass? That scoundrel Velmot? He wants to
steal my secret, but he also wants to rob you
of the girl you love. Sooner or later, you'll have
your hands full with him, just as I have. Won't
you defend yourself, you damned milksop, and
attack him when you get the chance? Suppose
I told you that Be>angre's in love with him?
Aha, that makes you jump! You're not blind
surely? Can't you see for yourself that it was
180 THE THREE EYES
for him she was working all the winter and that,
if I hadn't put a stop to it, I should have been
diddled? She's in love with him, Victorien.
She is the handsome Velmot's obedient slave.
Why don't you smash his swanking mug for him?
He's here. He's prowling about in the village.
I saw him last night. Blast it, if I could only
put a bullet through the beast's skin ! "
Massignac spat out a few more oaths, mingled
with offensive epithets which were aimed at my-
self as much as at Velmot. He described his
daughter as a jade and a dangerous madwoman,
threatened to kill me if I committed the least in-
discretion and at length, with his mouth full of
insults and his fists clenched, walked out back-
wards, like a man who fears a final desperate
assault from his adversary.
He had nothing to be afraid of. I remained
impassive under the storm of abuse. The only
things that had roused me were his accusation
against B6rangre and his blunt declaration of
her love for the man Velmot. But I had long
since resolved not to take my feelings for her
into account, to ignore them entirely, not even
to defend her or condemn her or judge her and
to refuse to accept my suffering until events had
afforded me undeniable proofs. I knew her to
THE " SHAPES " 181
be guilty of acts which I did not know of. Was
I therefore to believe her guilty of those of which
she was accused?
At heart, the feeling that seemed to persist was
a profound pity. The horrible tragedy in which
Be>angere was submerged was increasing in vio-
lence. Theodore Massignac and his accomplice
were now antagonists. Once again Noel Dor-
geroux's secret was about to cause an outburst of
passion; and everything seemed to foretell that
B6rangere would be swept away in the storm.
What I read in the newspapers confirmed what
Massignac had told me. The articles lie before
me as I write. They all express the same, more
or less pugnacious, enthusiasm; and none of
them gives a forecast of the truth which neverthe-
less was on the point of being discovered. While
the ignorant and superficial journalists go wildly
to work, heaping up the most preposterous sup-
positions, the really cultivated writers maintain
a great reserve and appear to be mainly con-
cerned in resisting any idea of a miracle to which
a section of the public might be inclined to give
ear:
" There is no miracle about it ! " they exclaim.
" We are in the presence of a scientific riddle
which will be solved by purely scientific means.
1S2 THE THREE EYES
In the meantime let us confess our total incom-
petence."
In any case, the comments of the press could
not fail to increase the public excitement to the
highest degree. At six o'clock in the evening the
amphitheatre was taken by assault. The wholly
inadequate staff vainly attempted to stop the in-
vasion of the crowd. Numbers of seats were
occupied by main force by people who had no
right to be there ; and the performance began in
tumult and confusion, amid the hostile clamour
and mad applause that greeted the man Massig-
nac when he passed through the bars of his cage.
True, the crowd lapsed into silence as soon as
the Three Eyes appeared, but it remained nerv-
ous and irritable; and the spectacle that fol-
lowed was not one to alleviate those symptoms.
It was a strange spectacle, the most difficult to
understand of all those which I saw. In the case
of the others, those which preceded and those
which followed, the mystery lay solely in the
fact of their presentment. We beheld normal,
natural scenes. But this one showed us thhif/x
that are contrary to the things that are, things
that might happen in the nightmare of a madman
or in the hallucinations of a man dying in de-
lirium.
THE " SHAPES " 183
I hardly know how to speak of it without my-
self appearing to have lost my reason; and I
really should not dare to do so if a thousand
others had not witnessed the same grotesque
phantasmagoria and above all if this crazy vision
it is the only possible adjective had not
happened to be precisely the determining cause
which set the public in the track of truth.
A thousand witnesses, I said, but I admit, a
thousand witnesses who subsequently differed in
their evidence, thanks to the inconsistency of the
impressions received and also to the rapidity
with which they succeeded one another.
And I myself, what did I see, after all? Ani-
mated shapes. Yes, that and nothing more.
Living shapes. Every visible thing has a shape.
A rock, a pyramid, a scaffolding round a house
has a shape; but you cannot say that they are
alive. Now this thing was alive. This thing
bore perhaps no closer relation to the shape of
a live being than to the shape of a rock, a pyramid
or a scaffolding. Nevertheless there was no
doubt that this thing acted in the manner of a
being which lives, moves, follows this or that di-
rection, obeys individual motives and attains a
chosen goal.
I will not attempt to describe these shapes.
184 THE THREE EYES
How indeed could I do so, considering that they
all differed from one another and that they even
differed from themselves within the space of a
second ! Imagine a sack of coal (the comparison
is forced upon one by the black and lumpy ap-
pearance of the Shapes), imagine a sack of coal
swelling into the body of an ox, only to shrink
at once to the proportions of the body of a dog,
and next to grow thicker or to draw itself out
lengthwise. Imagine this mass, which has no
more consistency than a jellyfish, now again
putting forth three little tentacles, resembling
hands. Lastly, imagine the picture of a town, a
town which is not horizontal but perpendicular,
with streets standing up like ladders and, along
these arteries, the Shapes rising like balloons.
This is the first vision ; and, right at the top of
the town, the Shapes come crowding from every
side, gathering upon a vast horizontal space,
where they swarm like ants.
I receive the impression and it is the'general
impression that the space is a public square.
A mound marks its centre. Shapes are standing
there motionless. Others approach by means of
successive dilations and contractions, which ap-
pear to constitute their method of advancing.
And in this way, on the passage of a group of
THE SHAPES " 185
no great dimensions, which seems to be carrying
a lifeless Shape, the multitude of the living
Shapes falls back.
What happens next? However clear my sen-
sations may be, however precise the memory
which I have retained of them, I hesitate to write
them down in so many words. I repeat, the
vision transcends the limits of absurdity, while
provoking a shudder of horror of which you are
conscious without understanding it. For, after
all what does it mean? Two powerful Shapes
protrude their three tentacles, which wind them-
selves round the lifeless Shape that has been
brought up, crush it, rend it, compress it and,
rising in the air, wave to and fro a small mass
which they have separated, like a severed head,
from the original Shape and which contains the
geometrical Three Eyes, staring, void of eyelids,
void of expression.
No, it means nothing. It is a series of uncon-
nected, unreal visions. And yet our hearts are
wrung with anguish, as though we had been pre-
sent at a murder or an execution. And yet those
incoherent visions were perhaps what contri-
buted most to the discovery of the truth. Their
absence of logic brought about a logical explana-
tion of the phenomena. The excessive darkness
kindled a first glimmer of light.
186 THE THREE EYES
To-day those things which, in looking up the
past, I describe as incoherent and dark seem to
me quite orderly and absolutely clear. But on
that late afternoon, with a storm brewing in the
distant sky, the crowd, recovering from its pain-
ful emotion, became more noisy and more aggres-
sive. The exhibition had disappointed the spec-
tators. They had not found what they expected
and they manifested their dissatisfaction by
threatening cries aimed at Theodore Massignac.
The incidents that were to mark the sudden close
of the performance were preparing.
" Mas-si-gnac ! Mas-si-gnac ! " they shouted,
in chorus.
Standing in the middle of his cage, with his
head turned towards the screen, he was watching
for possible premonitory signs of a fresh picture.
And, as a matter of fact, if you looked carefully,
the signs were there. One might say that, rather
than pictures, there were reflections of pictures
skimming over the surface of the wall like faint
clouds.
Suddenly Massignac extended one arm. The
faint clouds were assuming definite outlines ; and
we saw that, under this mist, the spectacle had
begun anew and was continuing.
But it continued as though under difficulties,
with intervals of total suspension and others of
THE " SHAPES " 187
semi-darkness during which the visions were cov-
ered by a mist. At such moments we saw almost
deserted streets in which most of the shops were
closed. There was no one at the doors or wind-
ows.
A cart, of which we caught sight now and
again, moved along these streets. It contained,
in front, two gendarmes dressed as in the days
of the Revolution and, at the back, a priest and a
man in a full-skirted coat, dark breeches and
white stockings.
An isolated picture showed us the man's head
and shoulders. I recognised and, generally
speaking, the whole audience in the amphitheatre
recognised the heavy-jowled face of King Louis
XVI. This expression was hard and proud.
We saw him again, after a few interruptions,
in a great square surrounded by artillery and
black with soldiers. He climbed the steep steps
of a scaffold. His coat and neck-tie had been
removed. The priest was supporting him.
Four executioners tried to lay hold of him.
I am obliged to interrupt my narrative, which
I am deliberately wording as drily as possible,
of these fleeting apparitions, in order to make
it quite clear that they did not at the moment
produce the effect of terror which my readers
might suppose. They were too short, too desul-
188 THE THREE EYES
tory, let me say, and so bad from the strictly
cinematographic point of view which the au-
dience adopted, in spite of itself, that they ex-
cited irritation and annoyance rather than dread.
The spectators had suddenly lost all confi-
dence. They laughed, they sang. They hooted
Massignac. And the storm of invective in-
creased when, on the screen, one of the execu-
tioners held up the head of the king and faded
away in the mist, together with the scaffold, the
soldiers and the guns.
There were a few more timid attempts at pic-
tures, attempts on the part of the film, in which
several persons say that they recognized Queen
Marie Antoinette, attempts which sustained the
patience of the onlookers who were anxious to
see the end of a spectacle which they had paid
so heavily to attend. But the violence could
no longer be restrained.
Who started it? Who was the first to rush
forward and provoke the disorder and the result-
ant panic? The subsequent enquiries failed to
show. There seems no doubt that the whole
crowd obeyed its impulse to give full expression
to its dissatisfaction and that the more turbulent
of its members seized the opportunity of be-
labouring Theodore Massignac and even of try-
ing to take the fabulous screen by storm. This
THE " SHAPES " 189
last attempt, at any rate, failed before the im-
penetrable rampart formed by the attendants,
who, armed with knuckledusters or truncheons,
repelled the flood of the invaders. As for Mas-
signac, who, after raising the curtain, had the
unfortunate idea of leaving his cage and running
to one of the exits, he was struck as he passed
and swallowed up in the angry swirl of rioters.
After that everybody attacked his neighbour,
with a frantic desire for strife and violence which
brought into conflict not only the enemies of
Massignac and the partisans of order, but also
those who were exasperated and those who had
no thought but of escaping from the turmoil.
Sticks and umbrellas were brandished on high.
Women seized one another by the hair. Blood
flowed. People fell to the ground, wounded.
I myself did my best to get out and shouldered
my way through this indescribable fray. It was
no easy work, for numbers of policemen and
many people who had not been able to obtain
entrance were thronging towards the exit-doors
of the amphitheatre. At last I succeeded in
reaching the gate through an opening that was
made amid the crowd.
" Room for the wounded man ! " a tall, clean-
shaven fellow was shouting, in a stentorian voice.
Two others followed, carrying in their arms
190 THE THREE EYES
an individual covered with rugs and overcoats.
The crowd fell back. The little procession
moved out. I seized my opportunity.
The tall fellow pointed to a private motor-car
waiting outside:
" Chauffeur, I'm requisitioning you. Orders of
the prefect of police. Come along, the two of
you, and get a move on ! "
The two men put the victim into the car and
took their places inside. The tall fellow sat
down beside the chauffeur; and the car drove off.
It was not until the very second when it turned
the corner that I conceived in a flash and with-
out any reason whatever the exact idea of what
this little scene meant. Suddenly I guessed the
identity of the wounded man who was hidden so
attentively and carried off so assiduously. And
suddenly also, notwithstanding the change of
face, though he wore neither beard nor glasses,
I gave a name to the tall, clean-shaven fellow.
It was the man Velinot.
I rushed back to the Yard and informed the
commissary of police who had hitherto had
charge of the Dorgeroux case. He whistled up
his men. They leapt into taxi-cabs and cars. It
was too late. The roads were already filled with
such a block of traffic that the commissary's car
was unable to move.
THE SHAPES " 191
And thus, in the very midst of the crowd, by
means of the most daring stratagem, taking ad-
vantage of a crush which he himself doubtless
had his share in bringing about, the man Vel-
mot had carried off his confederate and im-
placable enemy, Theodore Massignac.
CHAPTER XIII
THE VEIL IS LIFTED
1WILL not linger over the two films of this
second performance and the evident connec-
tion between them. At the present moment we
are too near the close of this extraordinary story
to waste time over minute, tedious, unimportant
details. We must remember that, on the follow-
ing morning, a newspaper printed the first part,
and, a few hours later, the second part of the
famous Pre>otelle report, in which the problem
was attacked in so masterly a fashion and solved
with so profoundly impressive a display of
method and logic. I shall never forget it. I
shall never forget that, during that night, while
I sat in my bedroom reflecting upon the manner
in which Massignac had been spirited away, dur-
ing that night when the long-expected thunder-
storm burst over the Paris district, Benjamin
Pre>otelle was writing the opening pages of his
report. And I shall never forget that I was on
the point of hearing of all this from Benjamin
Pre~votelle himself!
At ten o'clock, in fact, one of the neighbours
192
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 193
living nearest to the lodge, from whose house
my uncle or Berangdre had been in the habit of
telephoning, sent word to say that he was con-
nected with Paris and that I was asked to come
to the telephone without losing a minute.
I went round in a very bad temper. I was
worn out with fatigue. It was raining cats and
dogs; and the night was so dark that I knocked
against the trees and houses as I walked.
The moment I arrived, I took up the receiver.
Some one at the other end addressed me in a
trembling voice :
" M. Beaugrand . . . M. Beaugrand . . .
Excuse me ... I have discovered . . ."
I did not understand at first and asked who
was speaking.
" My name will convey nothing to you," was
the answer. " Benjamin Pre"votelle. I'm not a
person of any particular importance. I am an
engineer by profession ; I left the Central School
two years ago."
I interrupted him:
" One moment, please, one moment. . .
Hullo! . . . Are you there? . . . Benjamin Pre"-
votelle? But I know your name! . . . Yes, I re-
member, I've seen it in my uncle's papers."
" Do you mean that? You've seen my name in
Noel Dorgeroux's papers?"
194 THE THREE EYES
" Yes, in the middle of a paper, without com-
ment of any kind."
The speaker's excitement increased :
" Oh," he said, " can it be possible? If Noel
Dorgeroux made a note of my name, it proves
that he read a pamphlet of mine, a year ago,
and that he believed in the explanation of which
I am beginning to catch a glimpse to-day."
"What explanation?" I asked, somewhat im-
patiently.
"You'll understand, monsieur, you'll under-
stand when you read my report."
" Your report? "
" A report which I am writing now, to-night
.... Listen : I was present at both the exhibi-
tions in the Yard and I have discovered. . . ."
" Discovered what, hang it all? "
" The problem, monsieur, the solution of the
problem."
"What!" I exclaimed. "You've discovered
it?"
" Yes, monsieur. I may tell you it's a very
simple problem, so simple that I am anxious to
be first in the field. Imagine, if any one else
were to publish the truth before me ! So I rang
up Meudon on the chance of getting you called
to the telephone. ... Oh, do listen to me, mon-
sieur : you must believe me and help me. . . ."
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 195
" Of course, of course," I replied, " but I don't
quite see. . ."
" Yes, yes," Benjamin PrSvotelle implored, ap-
pealing to me, clinging to me, so to speak, in a
despairing tone of voice. " You can do a great
deal. I only want a few particulars. . . ."
I confess that Benjamin Pre>otelle's state-
ments left me a little doubtful. However, I an-
swered :
" If a few particulars can be of any use to
you . . ."
" Perhaps one alone will do," he said. " It's
this. The wall with the screen was entirely
rebuilt by your uncle, Noel Dorgeroux, was it
not? "
* Yes."
" And this wall, as you have said and as every
one had observed, forms a given angle with its
lower part."
" Yes."
"On the other hand, according to your de-
positions, Noel Dorgeroux intended to have a
second amphitheatre built in his garden and to
use the back of the same wall as a screen. That's
so, is it not? "
" Yes."
" Well, this is the particular which I want you
to give me. Have you noticed whether the back
196 THE THREE EYES
of the wall forms the same angle with its lower
part? "
" Yes, I've noticed that."
" In that case," said Benjamin PrSvotelle, with
a note of increasing triumph in his voice, " the
evidence is complete. Noel Dorgeroux and I
are agreed. The pictures do not come from the
wall itself. The cause lies elsewhere. I will
prove it; and, if M. Massignac would show a
little willingness to help. . ."
" Theodore Massignac was kidnapped this eve-
ning," I remarked.
" Kidnapped? What do you mean? "
I repeated :
"Yes, kidnapped; and I presume that the
amphitheatre will be closed until further notice."
" But this is terrible, it's awful ! " gasped Ben-
jamin PreVotelle. " Why, in that case they
couldn't verify my theory! There would never
be any more pictures! No, look here, it's im-
possible. Just think, I don't know the indis-
pensable formula! Nobody does, except Massig-
nac. Oh, no, it is absolutely necessary . . .
Hullo, hullo! Don't cut me off, mademoiselle!
. . . One moment more, monsieur. I'll tell you
the whole truth about the pictures. Three or
four words will be enough .... Hullo,
hullo! . . ."
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 197
Benjamin Pre>otelle's voice suddenly died
away. I was clearly aware of the insuperable
distance that separated him from me at the very
moment when I was about to learn the miracu-
lous truth which he in his turn laid claim to
have discovered.
I waited anxiously. A few minutes passed.
Twice the telephone-bell rang without my receiv-
ing any call. I decided to go away and had
reached the bottom of the stairs when I was sum-
moned back in a hurry. Some one was asking
for me on the wire.
" Some one ! " I said, going upstairs again.
" But it must be the same person."
And I at once took up the receiver:
" Are you there? Is that M. Pre~votelle? "
At first I heard only my name, uttered in a
very faint, indistinct voice, a woman's voice:
"Victorien .... Victorien . . . ."
" Hullo ! " I cried, very excitedly, though I
did not yet understand. " Hullo ! . . . Yes, it's
I, Victorien Beaugrand. I happened to be at the
telephone .... Hullo! . . . Who is it speak-
ing? "
For a few seconds the voice sounded nearer
and then seemed to fall away. After that came
perfect silence. But I had caught these few
words :
198 THE THREE EYES
" Help, Victorien ! ... My father's life is in
danger: help! . . . Come to the Blue Lion at
Bougival. . . ."
I stood dumbfounded. I had recognised Be>-
angere's voice :
" Be>angere," I muttered, " calling on me for
help. . . ."
Without even pausing to think, I rushed to
the station.
A train took me to Saint-Cloud and another
two stations further. Wading through the mud,
under the pelting rain, and losing my way in the
dark, I covered the mile or two to Bougival on
foot, arriving in the middle of the night. The
Blue Lion was closed. But a small boy dozing
under the porch asked me if I was M. Victorien
Beaugrand. When I answered that I was, he
said that a lady, by the name of Brang6re, had
told him to wait for me aad take me to her, at
whatever time I might arrive.
I trudged beside the boy, through the empty
streets of the little town, to the banks of the
Seine, which we followed for some distance. The
rain had stopped, but the darkness was still im-
penetrable.
" The boat is here," said the boy.
" Oh, are we crossing? "
" Yes, the young lady is hiding on the other
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 199
side. Be very careful not to make a noise."
We landed soon after. Then a stony path took
us to a house where the boy gave three knocks
on the door.
Some one opened the door. Still following
my guide, I went up a few steps, crossed a pas-
sage lighted by a candle and was shown into a
dark room with some one waiting in it. In-
stantly the light of an electric lamp struck me
full in the face.
The barrel of a revolver was pointed at me and
a man's voice said:
" Silence, do you understand? The least
sound, the least attempt at escape; and you're
dore for. Otherwise you have nothing to fear;
and the best thing you can do is to go to sleep."
The door was closed behind me. Two bolts
were shot.
I had fallen into the trap which the man Vel-
mot I did not hesitate to fix upon him at once
had laid for me through the instrumentality
of BSrangere.
This unaccountable adventure, like all those
in which B6rangere was involved, did not alarm
me unduly at the moment. I was no doubt too
weary to seek reasons for the conduct of the
girl and of the man under whose instructions
200 THE THREE EYES
she was acting. Why had she betrayed me?
How had I incurred the man Velinot's ill-will?
And what had induced him to imprison me, if I
had nothing to fear from him as he maintained?
These were all idle questions. After groping
through the room and finding that it contained a
bed, or rather a mattress and blankets, I took
off my boots and outer clothing, wrapped myself
in the blankets and in a few minutes was fast
asleep.
I slept well into the following day. Mean-
while some one must have entered the room, for
I saw on a table a hunk of new bread and a
bottle of water. The cell which I occupied was
a small one. Enough light to enable me to see
came through the slats of a wooden shutter,
which was firmly barricaded outside, as I dis-
covered after opening the narrow window. One
of the slats was half broken. Through the gap
I perceived that my prison overlooked from a
height of three or four feet a strip of ground at
the edge of which little waves lapped among the
reeds. Finding that, after crossing one river,
I was facing another, I concluded that Velmot
had brought me to an island in the Seine. Was
this not the island which I had beheld, in a
fleeting vision, on the chapel in the cemetery?
And was it not here that Velmot and Massignac
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 201
had established their head-quarters last win-
ter?
Part of the day passed in silence. But, about
five o'clock, I heard a sound of voices and out-
bursts of argument. This happened under my
room and consequently in a cellar the grating
of which opened beneath my window. On listen-
ing attentively, I seemed on several occasions
to recognize Massignac's voice.
The discussion lasted fully an hour. Then
some one made his appearance outside my win-
dow and called out :
" Hi, you chaps, come on and get ready ! . . . .
He's a stubborn beast and won't speak unless
we make him."
It was the tall fellow who, the day before, had
forced his way through the crowd in the Yard
by making an outcry about a wounded man. It
was Velmot, a leaner Velmot, without beard or
glasses, Velmot, the coxcomb, the object of Be"r-
angere's affections.
" I'll make him, the brute ! Think of it. I've
got him here, at my mercy: is it likely that I
shouldn't be able to make him spew up his secret?
No, no, we must finish it and by nightfall.
You're still decided? "
He received two growls in reply. He sneered :
"He's not half badly trussed up, eh? All
202 THE THREE EYES
right. I'll do without you. Only just lend me
a hand to begin with."
He stepped into a boat fastened to a ring on
the bank. One of the men pushed it with a
boat-hook between two stakes planted in the mud
and standing out well above the reeds. Velmot
knotted one end of a thick rope to the top of
each stake and in the middle fastened an iron
hook, which thus hung four or five feet above
the water.
" That's it," he said, on returning. " I shan't
want you any more. Take the other boat and go
and wait for me in the garage. I'll join you
there in three or four hours, when Massignac
has blabbed his little story and after I've had a
little plain speaking with our new prisoner.
And then we'll be off."
He walked away with his two assistants.
When I saw him again, twenty minutes later, he
had a newspaper in his hand. He laid it on a
little table which stood just outside my window.
Then he sat down and lit a cigar. He turned his
back to me, hiding the table from my view. But
at one moment he moved and I caught sight of
his paper, the Journal du Soir, which was folded
across the page and which bore a heading in
capitals running right across the width of the
sheet, with this sensational title :
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 203
THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MEUDON
APPARITIONS REVEALED"
I was shaken to the very depths of my being.
So the young student had not lied! Benjamin
Pre>otelle had discovered the truth and had man-
aged, in the space of a few hours, to set it forth
in the report of which he had spoken and to
make it public.
Glued to the shutter, how I strove to read the
opening lines of the article! These were the
only lines that met my eyes, because of the man-
ner in which the paper was folded. And how
great was my excitement at each word that I
made out!
I have carefully preserved a copy of that paper,
by which a part at least of the great mystery was
made known to me. Before reprinting the fa-
mous report, which Benjamin Pre"votelle had
published that morning, it said :
" Yes, the fantastic problem is solved. A con-
temporary published this morning, in the form
of ' An Open Letter to the Academy of Science,'
the most sober, luminous and convincing report
conceivable. We do not know whether the offi-
cial experts will agree with the conclusions of
the report, but we doubt if the objections, which
204 THE THREE EYES
for that matter are frankly stated by the author,
are strong enough, however grave they may be,
to demolish the theory which he propounds.
The arguments seem unanswerable. The proofs
are such as to compel belief. And what doubles
the value of this admirable theory is that it does
not merely appear to be unassailable, but opens
up to us the widest and most marvellous hori-
zons. In fact, Noel Dorgeroux's discovery is no
longer limited to what it is or what it seems to
be. It implies consequences which cannot be
foretold. It is calculated to upset all our ideas
of man's past and all our conceptions of his
future. Not since the beginning of the world
has there been an event to compare with this.
It is at the same time the most incomprehensible
event and the most natural, the most complex
and the simplest. A great scientist might have
announced it to the world as the result of medi-
tation. And he who, thanks both to able intui-
tion and intelligent observation has achieved this
inestimable glory is little more than a boy in
years.
" We subjoin a few particulars gleaned in the
course of an interview which Benjamin Pre>o-
telle was good enough to grant us. We apologize
for being able to give no more details concerning
his personality. How should it be otherwise:
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 205
Benjamin Pre>otelle is twenty-three years of age.
He . . ."
I had to stop here, as the subsequent lines
escaped my eyes. Was I to learn more?
Velmot had risen from his chair and was walk-
ing to and fro. After a brief disappearance, he
returned with a bottle of some liqueur, of which
he drank two glasses in quick succession. Then
he unfolded the newspaper and began to peruse
the report or rather to reperuse it, for I had no
doubt that he had read it before.
His chair was right against my shutter. He
sat leaning back, so that I was able to see, not
the end of the preliminary article, but the report
itself, which he read rather slowly.
The daylight, proceeding from a sky whose
clouds must have hidden the sun, was meantime
diminishing. I read simultaneously with Vel-
mot:
" An Open Letter to the Academy of Science
" I will beg you, gentlemen, to regard this
memorandum as only the briefest possible intro-
duction to the more important essay which I pro-
pose to write and to the innumerable volumes to
which it is certain to give rise in every country,
to which volumes also it will serve as a modest
preface.
206 THE THREE EYES
" I am writing hurriedly, allowing my pen to
run away with me, improvising hastily as I go
along. You will find omissions and defects
which I do not attempt to conceal and which are
due in equal proportions to the restricted number
of observations which we were able to make at
Meudon and to the obstinate refusal which M.
Theodore Massignac opposes to every request
for additional information. But the remarkable
feeling aroused by the miraculous pictures makes
it my duty to offer the results, as yet extremely
incomplete, of an investigation in respect of
which I have the legitimate ambition to reserve
the right of priority. I thus hope, by confining
my hypotheses to a definite channel, to assist to-
wards establishing the truth and relieving the
public mind.
" My investigations were commenced imme-
diately after the first revelations made by M.
Victorien Beaugrand. I collated all his state-
ments. I analysed all his impressions. I seized
upon all that Noel Dorgeroux had said. I went
over the details of all his experiments. And
in consequence of carefully weighing and exam-
ining all these things I did not come to the first
performance at Meudon with my hands in my
pockets, as a lover of sensations and a dabbler
in mystery. On the contrary, I came with a
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 207
well-considered plan and with a few working-
implements, deliberately selected and concealed
under my own clothing and that of some of my
friends who were good enough to assist me.
" First of all, a camera. This was a matter
of some difficulty. M. Theodore Massignac had
his misgivings and had prohibited the introduc-
tion of so much as the smallest Kodak. Never-
theless I succeeded. I had to. I had to provide
a definite answer to a first question, which might
be called the critical question: are the Meudon
apparitions due to individual or collective sug-
gestions, possessing no reality outside those who
experience them, or have they a real and external
cause? That answer may certainly be deduced
from the absolute identity of the impressions
received by all the spectators. But to-day I am
adducing a direct proof which I consider to be
unassailable. The camera refuses any sort of
suggestion. The camera is not a brain in which
the picture can create itself, in which an hallu-
cination is formed out of internal data. It is
a witness that does not lie and is not mistaken.
Well, this witness has spoken. The sensitive
plate certifies the phenomena to be real. I hold
at the disposal of the Academy seven negatives
of the screen thus obtained by instantaneous ex-
-OS THE THREE EYES
posures. Two of them, representing Rheims
Cathedral on fire, are remarkably clear.
" Here then the first point is settled : the screen
is the seat of an emanation of Light-rays.
" While I was obtaining the proofs of this
emanation, I submitted it to the means of investi-
gation which physics places at our disposal. I
was not, unfortunately, able to make as many or
as accurate experiments as I should have wished.
The distance of the wall, the local arrangements
and the inadequacy of the light emitted by the
screen were against me. Nevertheless, by using
the spectroscope and the polarimeter, I ascert-
ained that this light did not appear to differ
perceptibly from the natural light diffused by a
white surface.
" But a more tangible result and one to which
I attach the greatest importance was obtained
by examining the screen by means of a revolving
mirror. It is well known that, if our ordinary
cinematographic pictures projected on a screen
be viewed in a mirror to which we impart a rapid
rotary movement, the successive pictures are dis-
located and yield images in the field of the
mirror. A similar effect can be obtained, though
less distinctly, by turning one's head quickly so
as to project the successive pictures upon differ-
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 209
ent points of the retina. It was therefore in-
dicated that I should apply this method of
analysis to the animated projections produced at
Meudon. I was thus able to prove positively
that these projections, like those of the ordinary
cinematograph, break up into separate and suc-
cessive images, but with a rapidity which is not-
ably greater than in the operations to which we
are accustomed, for I found that they average
28 to the second. On the other hand, these
images are not emitted at regular intervals. I
observed rhythmical alterations of acceleration
and retardation and I am inclined to believe that
the rhythmical variations are not unconnected
with the extraordinary impression of steroscopic
relief which all the spectators at Meudon re-
ceived.
" The foregoing observations led up to a scien-
tific certainty and naturally guided my investi-
gations into a definite channel : the Meudon pic-
tures are genuine cinematographic projections
thrown upon the screen and perceived by the
spectators in the ordinary manner. But where
is the projecting-apparatus? How does it work?
This is where the gravest difficulty lies, for hith-
erto no trace of an apparatus has been discov-
ered, nor even the least clue to the existence of
any apparatus whatever.
210 THE THREE EYES
" Is it allowable to suppose, as I did not fail
to do, that the projections may proceed from
within the screen, by means of an underground
device which it is not impossible to imagine?
This last theory would obviously greatly relieve
our minds, by attributing the visions to some
clever trick. But it was not without good reason
that first M. Victorien Beaugrand and after-
wards the audience itself refused to accept it.
The visions bear a stamp of authenticity and
unexpectedness which strikes all who see them,
without any exception. Moreover, the special-
ists in cinematographic " faking," when ques-
tioned, frankly proclaim that their expert know-
ledge is at a loss and their technique at fault.
It may even be declared that the exhibitor of
these images possesses no power beyond that of
receiving them on a suitable screen and that he
himself does not know what is about to appear
on the screen. Lastly, it may be added that the
preparation of such films as that would be a
long and complicated operation, necessitating an
extensive equipment and a numerous staff of
actors; and it is really impossible that these
preparations can have been effected in absolute
secrecy.
" This is exactly the point to which my en-
quiries had led me on the night before the last,
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 211
after the first performance. I will not presume
to say that I knew more than any chance mem-
ber of the public about that which constitutes
the fundamental nature of the problem. Never-
theless, when I took my seat at the second per-
formance, I was in a better condition mentally
than any of the other onlookers. I was standing
on solid ground. I was selfcontrolled, free of
feverish excitement or any other factor that
might diminish the intensity of my attention. I
was hampered by no preconceived ideas ; and no
new idea, no new fact could come within my
grasp without my immediately perceiving it.
" This was what happened. The new fact was
the bewildering and mystifying spectacle of the
grotesque Shapes. I did not at once draw the
conclusion which this spectacle entailed, or at
least I was not aware of so doing. But my per-
ceptions were aroused. Those beings equipped
with three arms became connected in my mind
with the initial riddle of the Three Eyes. If I
did not yet understand, at least I had a presenti-
ment of the truth ; if I did not know, at least I
suspected that I was about to know. The door
was opening. The light was beginning to dawn.
" A few minutes later, as will be remembered,
came the gruesome picture of a cart conveying
two gendarmes, a priest and a king who was
212 THE THREE EYES
being led to his death. It was a confused, frag-
mentary, mutilated picture, continually broken
up and pieced together again. Why? For, after
all, the thing was not normal. Until then, as we
know and as M. Victorien Beaugrand had told
us, until then the pictures were always admirably
distinct. And suddenly we beheld a flickering,
defective image, confused, dim and at moments
almost invisible. Why?
" At that critical instant, this was the only
train of thought permissible. The horror and
strangeness of the spectacle no longer counted.
Why was this, technically speaking, a defective
picture? Why was the faultless mechanism,
which until now had worked with perfect smooth-
ness, suddenly disordered? What was the grain
of sand that had thrown it out of gear?
" Really the problem was proposed to me with
a simplicity that confounded me. The terms of
the problem were familiar to all. We had be-
fore us cinematographic pictures. These cine-
matographic pictures did not proceed from the
wall itself. They did not come from any part
of the amphitheatre. Then whence were they
projected? And what obstacle was now prevent-
ing their free projection?
" Instinctively, I made the only movement that
could be made, the movement which a child would
THE VEIL IS LIFTED 213
have made if that elementary question had been
put to it : I raised my eyes to the sky.
" It was absolutely clear, an immense, empty
sky.
" Clear and empty, yes, but in the part which
my eyes were able to interrogate. Was it the
same in the part hidden from my view by the
upper wall of the amphitheatre?
" The mere silent utterance of the words which
propounded the question was enough to make me
almost swoon with anxiety. They bore the tre-
mendous truth within themselves. I had only to
speak them for the great mystery to vanish ut-
terly.
" With trembling limbs and a heart that al-
most ceased to beat, I climbed to the top of the
amphitheatre and gazed at the horizon. Yonder,
towards the west, light clouds were float-
ing ... ."
CHAPTER XIV
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT
CLOUDS were floating .... Clouds were
floating. . . ."
These words of the report, which I repeated
mechanically while trying to decipher what fol-
lowed, were the last that I was able to read.
Night was falling rapidly. My eyes, tired by the
strain and difficulty of reading, strove in vain
against the increasing darkness and suddenly
refused to obey any further effort.
Besides, Velmot rose soon after and walked
to the bank of the river. The time had come
for action.
What that action was to be I did not ask.
Since the beginning of my captivity, I had enter-
tained no personal fears, even though Velmot
had referred to an interview, accompanied by " a
little plain-speaking," which he had in store for
me. But the great secret of the Yard continued
to possess my thoughts so much that nothing
that happened had any effect upon me except in
so far as it was useful or injurious to Noel Dor-
214
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT 215
geroux's cause. There was some one now who
knew the truth; and the world was about to
learn it. How could I trouble about anything
else? How could anything interest me except
Benjamin Prvotelle's accurate arguments, the
Ingenuity of his investigations and the important
results which he had achieved?
Oh, how I too longed to know! What could
the new theory be? Did it fit in with all the
teaching of reality? And would it fully satisfy
me, who, when all was said, had penetrated far-
ther than any other into the heart of that reality
and reaped the largest harvest of observations?
What astonished me was that I did not under-
stand. And I am even more astonished now.
Though standing on the very threshold of the
sanctuary, the door of which was opened to me,
I was unable to see. No light flashed upon me.
What did Benjamin Pre>otelle mean to say?
What was the significance of those clouds drift-
ing in a corner of the sky? If they tempered
the light of the sunset and thus exerted an in-
fluence over the pictures of the screen, why did
Benjamin Pr6votelle ask me on the telephone
about the surface of the wall which faced pre-
cisely the opposite quarter of the heavens, that is
the east? And why did he accept my answer
as confirming his theory?
216 THE THREE EYES
Velmot's voice drew me from my dreams and
brought me back to the window which I had left
a few minutes earlier. He was stooping over
the grating and sneering :
" Well, Massignac, are you ready for the opera-
tion? I'll get you out this way: that'll save my
dragging you round by the stairs."
Velmot went down the stairs ; and I soon heard
beneath me the loud outburst of a renewed argu-
ment, ending in howls and then in a sudden si-
lence which was the most impressive of all. I
now received my first notion of the terrible scene
which Velmot was preparing; and, without wast-
ing my pity on the wretched Massignac, I shud-
dered at the thought that my turn might come
next.
The thing was done as Velmot had said. Mas-
signac, bandaged like a swathed mummy, rigid
and gagged, rose slowly from the cellar. Velmot
then returned, dragged him by the shoulders to
the edge of the river and tipped him into the
boat.
Then, standing on the bank, he addressed him
as follows :
" Now, Massignac, my beauty, this is the third
time that I'm appealing to your common sense ;
and I'll do it again presently, for the fourth
time, if you force me to. But you're going to
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT 217
give in, I fancy. Come, think a moment. Think
what you would do in my place. You'd act your-
self as I am doing, wouldn't you? Then what
are you waiting for? Why don't you speak?
Does your gag bother you? Just nod your head
and I'll move it. Do you agree? No? In that
case you mustn't be surprised if we start upon
the fourth and last phase of our conversation.
All my apologies if it strikes you as still more
unpleasant."
Velmot sat down beside his victim, wielded the
boat-hook and pushed the boat between the two
stakes projecting above the water.
These two stakes marked the boundaries of
the field of vision which the gap in the shutter
afforded me. The water played around them,
spangled with sparks of light. The moon had
appeared from behind the clouds; and I dis-
tinctly saw every detail of the " operation," to
use Velmot's expression.
" Don't resist, Massignac," he said. " It won't
help .... Eh? What? You think I'm too
rough, do you? My lord's made of glass, is he?
Now then! Yoop! Is that right? Capital!"
He had stood Massignac up against himself
and placed his left arm round him. With his
right hand he took hold of the iron hook fastened
to the rope between the two stakes, pulled it
218 THE THREE EYES
down and inserted the point under the bonds
with which Massignac was swathed, at the
height of the shoulders.
" Capital ! " he repeated. " You see, I needn't
trouble to hold you. You're standing up all by
yourself, my boy, like a monkey on a stick.''
He took the boat-hook again, hooked it into
the stones on the bank and made the boat glide
from under Massignac's body, which promptly
sank. The rope had sagged. Only half of his
body emerged above the water.
And Velmot said to his former confederate, in
a low voice, which I could hear, however, without
straining my ears. I have always believed that
Velmot spoke that day with the intention that
I should hear :
" This is what I had in mind, old chap ; and we
haven't much more to say to each other.
Remember, in an hour from now, possibly sooner,
the water will be above your mouth, which won't
make it very easy for you to speak. And of
that hour I ought in decency to give you fifty
minutes for reflection."
He splashed a little water over Massignac's
head with the boat-hook. Then he continued,
with a laugh:
" You quite grasp the position, don't you ? The
rope by which you're fastened, like an ox in a
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT 219
stall, is fixed to the two stakes by a couple of
slip-knots, nothing more ... so that, at the least
movement, the knots slip down an inch or so.
You will have noticed it just now, when I let
you go. Blinkety blump! You went down a
half a head lower! Besides that, the weight
alone of your body is enough. . . . You're slip-
ping, old fellow, you're slipping all the time ; and
nothing can stop you . . . unless, of course, you
speak. Are you ready to speak?"
The moonbeams shifted to and fro, casting
light or shade upon the horrible scenes. I could
see the black shape of Massignac, who himself
always remained in semidarkness. The water
came half-way up his chest.
Velmot continued :
" Logically, old fellow, you're bound to speak.
The position is so clear. We plotted between us
a little piece of business which succeeded, thanks
to our joint efforts; but you have pocketed all
the profits, thanks to your trickery. I want my
share, that's all. And for this you need do no
more than tell me Noel Dorgeroux's famous
formula and supply me with the means of making
the experiment to begin with. After that I'll give
you back your liberty for I shall feel certain that
you will allow me my share of the profits, for fear
of competition. Is it a bargain? "
220 THE THREE EYES
Theodore Massignac must have made a gesture
of denial or uttered a grunt of refusal, for he
received a smack across the face which resounded
through the silence.
" I'm sure you'll excuse me, old fellow," said
Velmot, " but you'd try the patience of a plaster
saint ! Do you really mean to say that you would
rather croak? Or perhaps you think I intend to
give in? Or that some one will come and help
you out of your mess? You ass! You chose
this place yourself last winter! No boats come
this way. Opposite, nothing but fields. So
there's no question of a rescue. Nor of pity
either! Why, hang it all, don't you realize the
positions? And yet I showed you the article in
this morning's paper. With the exception of the
formula, it's all set out there: all Dorgeroux's
secret and all yours! So who's to tell us that
they won't quite easily find the formula? Who's
to tell us that, in a fortnight, in a week, the whole
thing won't be given away and that I shall have
had my hands on a million of money, like a fool,
without grabbing it? Oh, no, that would never
do!"
There was a pause. A ray of light gave me a
glimpse of Massignac. The water had risen
above his shoulders.
" I've nothing more to say to you," said Velmot.
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT 221
"We'll make an end of it. Do you refuse?"
He waited for a moment and continued :
" In that case, since you refuse, I won't insist :
what's the good ? You shall decide your own fate
and take the final plunge. Good-bye, old man.
I'm going to drink a glass and smoke a pipe to
your health."
He bent towards his victim and added:
" Still, it's a chap's duty to provide for every-
thing. If, by chance you think better of it, if
you have an inspiration at the last moment, you
have only to call me, quite softly. . . . There,
I'm loosening your gag a bit. . . . Good-bye,
Theodore."
Velmot pushed the boat back and landed,
grumbling :
" It's a dog's life ! What a fool the brute is ! "
As arranged, he sat down again, after bringing
the chair and table to the water's edge, poured
himself out a glass of liqueur and lit his pipe :
" Here's to your good health, Massignac," he
said. " At the present rate, I can see that, in
twenty minutes from now, you'll be having a
drink too. Whatever you do, don't forget to
call me. I'm listening for all I'm worth, old
chum."
The moon had become veiled with clouds, which
must have been very dense, for the bank grew so
222 THE THREE EYES
dark that I could hardly distinguish Velmot's
figure. As a matter of fact, I was persuaded
that the implacable contest would end in some
compromise and that Velmot would give way or
Massignac speak. Nevertheless, ten or perhaps
fifteen minutes passed, minutes which seemed to
me interminable. Velmot smoked quietly and
Massignac gave a series of little whimpers, but
did not call out. Five minutes more. Velmot
rose angrily :
" It's no use whining, you blasted fool ! I've
had enough of messing about. Will you speak?
No? Then die, you scamp ! "
And I heard him snarling between his teeth:
" Perhaps I shall manage better with the other
one."
Whom did he mean by "the other one"? Me?
In point of fact, he turned to the left, that is
towards the part of the house where the door
was:
" Damn it ! " he swore, almost immediately.
There was an ejaculation. And then I heard
nothing more from that direction.
What had happened? Had Velmot knocked
against the wall, in the dark, or against an open
shutter?
I could not see him from where I stood. The
table and chair were faintly outlined in the gloom.
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT 223
Beyond was the pitchy darkness from which came
Massignac's muffled whimper.
" Velmot is on his way/' I said to myself. " A
few seconds more and he will be here."
The reason for his coming I did not understand,
any more than the reason for trepanning mo.
Did he think that I knew the formula and that
I had refrained from denouncing Massignac
because of an understanding between him and
myself? In that case, did he mean to compel
me to speak, by employing with me the same
methods as with his former accomplice? Or
was it a question of B6rangere between us, of
the BSrangere whom we both loved and whose
name, to my surprise, he had not even mentioned
to Massiguac? These were so many problems
to which he would provide the reply :
" That is," I thought, " if he comes."
For, after all, he was not there ; and there was
not a sound in the house. What was he doing?
For some little while I stood with my ear glued
to the door by which he should have entered,
ready to defend myself though unarmed.
He did not come.
I went back to the window. There was no
sound on that side either.
And the silence was terrible, that silence which
seemed to increase and to spread all over the
224 THE THREE EYES
river and into space, that silence which was no
longer broken even by Massignac's stifled
moaning.
In vain I tried to force my eyes to see. The
w r ater of the river remained invisible. I no
longer saw and I no longer heard Theodore
Massignac.
I could no longer see him and I could no longer
hear him. It was a terrifying reflection ! Had
he slipped down? Had the deadly, suffocating
water risen to his mouth and nostrils?
I struck the shutter with a mighty blow of
my fist. The thought that Massignac was dead
or about to die, that thought which until then I
had not realised very clearly, filled me with dis-
may. Massignac's death meant the definite and
irreparable loss of the secret. Massignac's
death meant that Noel Dorgeroux was dying for
the second time.
I redoubled my efforts. There was certainly
no doubt in my mind that Velmot was at hand
and that he and I would have to fight it out;
but I did not care about that. No consideration
could stop me. I had then and there to hasten to
the assistance not of Massignac, but as it ap-
peared to me, of Noel Dorgeroux, whose wonder-
ful work was about to be destroyed. All that I
had done hitherto, in protecting by my silence,
MASSIGNAC AND VELMOT 225
Theodore Massignac's criminal enterprise, I was
bound to continue by saving from death the man
who knew the indispensable formula.
As my fists were not enough, I broke a chair
and used it to hammer one of the bars. More-
over, the shutter was not very strong, as some of
the slats were already partly missing. Another
split and yet another. I was able to slip my arm
through and to lift an iron cross-bar hinged to
the outside. The shutter gave way at once. I
had only to step over the window-sill and drop
to the ground below.
Velmot was certainly leaving the field clear
for me.
Without losing an instant, I passed by the
chair, threw over the table and easily found the
boat:
" I'm here! " I shouted to Massignac. Hold
on!"
With a strong push I reached one of the stakes,
repeating :
" Hold on ! Hold on ! I'm here ! "
I seized the rope in both hands, at the level of
the water, and felt for the hook, expecting to
strike against Massignac's head.
I touched nothing. The rope had slipped
down ; the hook was in the water and carried no
220 THE THKEE EYES
weight. The body must have gone to the bottom ;
arid the current had swept it away.
Nevertheless, on the off-chance, I dipped my
hand as far as I could into the water. But a
shot suddenly pulled me up short. A bullet had
whistled past my ear. At the same time, Velmot,
whom I could just make out crouching on the
bank, like a man dragging himself on all fours,
stuttered, in a choking voice :
" Oh, you scum, you took your opportunity, did
you? And you think perhaps you're going to
save Massignac? Just you wait a bit, you
blighter!"
He fired two more shots, guessing at my
whereabouts, for I was sculling away rapidly.
Neither of them touched me. Soon I was out
of range.
CHAPTER XV
THE SPLENDID THEORY
IT is not only to-day, when I am relating that
tragic scene, that it appears to me in the
light of a subsidiary episode to my story. I
already had that impression at the time when it
was being enacted. My reason for laying no
greater stress on my alarm and on the horror
of certain facts is that all this was to me only
an interlude. Massignac's sufferings and his dis-
appearance and Velmot's inexplicable behaviour,
in abandoning for some minutes the conduct of
a matter to which he had until then applied him-
self with such diabolical eagerness, were just so
many details which became blotted out by the
tremendous events represented by Benjamin
Pr6votelle's discovery.
And to such an extent was this event the
central point of all my preoccupations that the
idea had occurred to me, as I rushed to Massig-
nac's assistance, of snatching from the chair the
newspaper in which I had read the first half of
the essay ! To be free meant above all things
227
228 THE THREE EYES
even above saving Massignac and, through niiu,
the formula the opportunity of reading the
rest of the essay and of learning what the whole
world must already have learnt !
I made the circuit of the island in my boat
and, shaping my course by certain lights, ran her
ashore on the main bank. A tram went by.
Some of the shops were open. I was between
Bougival and Port-Marly.
At ten o'clock in the evening I was sitting in a
bedroom in a Paris hotel and unfolding a news-
paper. But I had not had the patience to wait
so long. On the way, by the feeble lights of the
tram-car, I glanced at a few lines of the article.
One word told me everything. I too was ac-
quainted with Benjamin Pre>otelle's marvellous
theory. I knew and, knowing, I believed.
The reader will recall the place which I had
reached in my uncomfortable perusal of the
report. Benjamin Pr6votelle's studies and ex-
periments had led him to conclude, first, that
the Meudon pictures were real cinematographic
projections and, next, that these projections,
since they came from no part of the amphitheatre,
must come from some point more remote. Now
the last picture, that representing the revolu-
tionary doings of the 21st January, was hampered
by some obstacle. What obstacle? His mental
TOE SPLENDID THEORY 229
condition being what it was, what could Benja-
min Prevotelle do other than raise his eyes to
the sky?
The sky was clear. Was it also clear beyond
the part that could be observed from the lower
benches of the am phi-theatre? Benjamin Pr6-
votelle climbed to the top and looked at the
horizon.
Yonder, towards the west, clouds were floating.
And Benjamin Prevotelle continued, repeating
his phrase :
" Clouds were floating ! And, because of the
fact that clouds were floating on the horizon, the
pictures on the screen grew less distinct or even
vanished altogether. It may be said that this
was a coincidence. On three separate occasions,
when the film lost its brilliancy, I turned towards
the horizon : on each occasion clouds were passing.
Could three coincidences of this kind be due to
chance? Can any scientific mind fail to see
herein a relation of cause and elTect or to admit
that, in this instance, as in that of many visions
previously observed, which were disturbed by an
unknown cause, the interposition of the clouds
acted as a veil by intercepting the projection on
its way? I was not able to make a fourth test.
But that did not matter. I had now advanced
230 THE THREE EYES
so far that I was able to work and reflect without
being stopped by any obstacle. There is no such
thing as being checked mid-way in our pursuit of
certain truths. Once we catch a glimpse of
them, they become revealed in their entirety.
" At first, to be sure, scientific logic, instead of
referring the explanation which I was so eagerly
seeking to the data of human science, flung me,
almost despite myself, into an ever more myste-
rious region. And, when, after this second
display, I returned home this was three hours
ago at most I asked myself whether it would
not be better to confess my ignorance than to go
rushing after theories which suddenly seemed to
me to lie beyond the confines of science. But how
could I have done so? Despite myself I con-
tinued to work at the problem, to imagine. In-
duction fitted into deduction. Proofs were
accumulating. Even as I was hesitating to enter
upon a path whose direction confounded me, I
reached the goal and found myself sitting down
to a table, pen in hand, to write a report which
was dictated by my reason as much as by my
imagination.
" Thus the first step was taken : in obedience
to the imperious summons of reality, I admitted
the theory of extra-terrestrial communications,
or at least of communications coming from be-
THE SPLENDID THEORY 231
yond the clouds. Was I to think that they
emanated from some airship hovering in the sky,
beyond that cloud-belt? Leaving aside the fact
that such airship was ever observed, we must
remark that luminous projections powerful
enough to light the screen at Meudon from a di-
stance of several miles would leave in the air a
trail of diffused light which could not escape
notice. Lastly, in the present condition of
science, we are at liberty to declare positively
that such projections would be quite incapable of
realization.
" What then? Were we to cast our eyes
farther, traverse space at one bound and assume
that the projections have an origin which is not
only extraterrestrial but extrahuman?
" Now the great word is written. The idea is
no longer my property. How will it be received
by those to whom this report will reveal it to-
morrow? Will they welcome it with the same
fervour and the same awe-struck emotion that
thrilled me, with the distrust at the beginning
and the same final enthusiasm?
" Let us, if you will, recover our composure.
The examination of the phenomena has led us to
a very definite conclusion. However startling
this conclusion be, let us examine it also, with
perfect detachment, and try to subject it to all
232 THE THREE EYES
the tests which we are able to impose upon it.
" ExtrahUman projections : what does that
mean? The expression seems vague; and our
thoughts wander at random. Let us look into
the matter more closely. Let us first of all esta-
blish as an impassable boundary the frontiers
of our solar system and, in this immense circle,
concentrate our gaze upon the more accessible
and consequently the nearer points. For, when
all is said, if there be really projections, they
must necessarily, whether extrahurnan or human,
emanate from fixed points, situated in space.
They must therefore emanate from those lumi-
naries within sight of the earth to which, in the
last report, we have some right to attribute the
origin of those projections. I consider that there
are five such fixed points: the moon, the sun,
Jupiter, Mars and Venus.
" If, furthermore, we suppose as the more likely
theory that the projections follow a rectilinear di-
rection, then the unknown luminary from which
the apparitions emanate will have to satisfy two
conditions: first, it must be in such a position
that photographs can be taken from it ; secondly,
it must be in such a position that the images
obtained can be transmitted to us. Let us take
as an instance a case in which it is possible to
fix the place and date. The first Montgolfier
THE SPLENDID THEORY 233
balloon, filled with hot air, was sent up from
Annonay at four o'clock in the afternoon on the
5th of June, 1783. It is easy, by referring to the
contemporary calendars, to learn which celestial
bodies were at that moment above the horizon
and at what height. We thus find that Mars,
Jupiter and the moon were invisible, whereas
the sun and Venus were at 50 and 23 degrees re-
spectfully above the horizon of Annonay and, of
course, towards the west. These two luminaries
alone then were in a position to witness the ex-
periment of the brothers Montgolfier. But they
did not witness it from the same altitude : a view
taken from the sun would have shown things as
seen from above, whereas, at the same hour,
Venus would have shown then from an angle
very nearly approaching the horizontal.
"This is a first clue. Are we able to check
it? Yes, by turning up the date on which the
projections of the view then secured as observed
by Victorien Beaugrand and by determining
whether, on that date, the projecting luminary
was able to light up the screen at Mention.
Well, on that day, at the hour which Victorien
Beaugrand has given us, Mars and the moon were
invisible, Jupiter was in the east, the sun close
to the horizon and Venus a little way above it.
Projections emanating from the last-named
234 THE THREE EYES
planet could therefore have fallen upon the
screen, which as we know faced westwards.
" This example shows us that, however frail
my theory may appear, we are now able and shall
be even better able in the future to subject it to a
strict control. I did not fail to resort to this
method in respect of the other pictures, and I
will give in a special table, appended to this essay,
a list of the data which I have verified, a list
necessarily drawn up, in some haste. Well, in
all the cases which I examined, the views were
they can logically be referred to the planet Venus
taken and projected under such conditions that
and to that planet alone.
" Yet again, two of these views, that which re-
vealed to Victorien Beaugrand and his uncle
the execution of Miss Cavell and that which en-
abled us to witness the bombardment of Rheims,
seem to have been taken, the first in the morning,
because Miss Cavell was executed in the morning,
and the second from the east, because it showed a
shell fired at a statue which stood on the east
front of the cathedral. This proves that the
views could be taken indifferently in the morning
or the evening, from the west or the east ; and it
is surely a powerful argument in favour of my
theory, because Venus, which is both the Evening
and the Morning Star, faces the earth at day-
THE SPLENDID THEORY 235
break from the east and at sunset from the west
and because Noel Dorgeroux (as M. Victorien
Beaugrand has just confirmed to me by tele-
phone), because Noe'l Dorgeroux, that magnifi-
cent visionary, had had his wall constructed with
two surfaces having an identical inclination to-
wards the sky, one facing west f the other east
and each in turn exposed to the rays of Venus
the Evening Star and Venus the Morning Star!
"These are the proofs which I am able to
furnish for the time being. There are others.
There is for instance the time of the apparitions.
Venus is sinking towards the horizon; on the
earth twilight reigns; and the pictures can be
formed regardless of the sunlight. Remark also
that Noel Dorgeroux, deferring all his experi-
ments, last winter altered the whole arrangement
of the Yard and demolished the old garden. Now
this break coincides exactly with a period during
which the position of Venus on the farther side
of the sun prevented it from communicating with
the earth. All these proofs will be reinforced
by a more exhaustive essay and by an analytical
examination of the pictures that have been or
will be shown to us.
" But though I have written this report with-
out stopping to answer the objections and difficul-
ties which arise at every line, though I have been
236 THE THREE EYES
contented myself with setting forth the logical
and almost inevitable sequence of the deductions
which led up to my theory. I should be failing
in respect to the academy and to the public if I
allowed it to be believed that I am not fully
conscious of the weight of those objections and
difficulties. I did not, however, consider this a
reason for abandoning my task. Though it be
our duty to bow when science utters a formal
veto, on the other hand duty orders us to per-
sist when science is content merely to confess its
ignorance. This is the twofold principle which
I observed in seeking no longer the source of the
projections, but rather the manner in which they
were able to appear, for that is where the whole
problem lies. It is easy to declare that they
emanate from Venus; it is not easy to explain
how they travel through space and how they
exercise their action, at a distance of many mil-
lions of miles, on an imperceptible screen with
a surface of three or four hundred square feet.
I am confronted with physical laws which I am
not entitled to transgress. I am entitled at most
to advance where science is obliged to be mute.
" Therefore and without any sort of discussion
I admit that we are debarred from supposing
that light can be the agent of the transmissions
which have been observed. The laws of diffrac-
THE SPLENDID THEORY 237
tion indeed are absolutely opposed to the strictly
rectilinear propagation of luminous rays and
hence to the formation and reception of pictures
at the exceptional distances actually under con-
sideration. Not only are the laws of geometrical
optics merely a somewhat rough approximation,
but the complicated refractions which would in-
evitably occur in the atmospheres of the earth and
Venus would disturb the optical images. The
veto of science therefore is peremptory in so far
as the possibility of these optical transmissions
is concerned.
" For that matter, I should be quite willing
to believe that the inhabitants of Venus have
already tried to correspond with us through the
intermediary of luminous signals and that, if
they abandoned their endeavours, this was pre-
cisely because the imperfection of our human
science made them useless. We know in fact that
Lowell and Schiaparelli saw on the face of Venus
brilliant specks and a transient gleam which they
themselves attributed either to volcanic erup-
tions or, as is more probable, to the attempts at
communication of which I have spoken.
" But science does not prevent us from asking
ourselves whether, after the failure of these
attempts, the inhabitants of Venus did not resort
to another method of correspondence. How can
238 THE THREE EYES
we avoid thinking, for instance, of the X-rays,
whose strictly rectilinear path would allow of
the formation of pictures so clear that one could
wish for nothing better? In fact it is not impos-
sible that these rays are employed for the emis-
sion received on the Meudon screen, though the
quality of the light when analyzed in the spectro-
scope makes the supposition highly improbable.
But how are we to explain by means of X-rays the
taking of the terrestrial views of which we saw
the moving outline on the screen? We know, of
course, if we go back to the concrete example to
which I referred just now, we know that neither
the brothers Montgolfier nor the surrounding
landscape emitted X-rays. It is not therefore
through the medium of these rays that the
Venusians can have secured the instantaneous
photographs which they afterwards transmitted
to us.
" Well, this exhausts all the possibilities of an
explanation which can be referred to the present
data of science. I declare positively that to-day,
in this essay, I should not have dared to venture
into the domain of theory and to suggest a solu-
tion in which my own labours are involved, if
Noal Dorgeroux had not in a manner authorized
me to do so. The fact is that, twelve months
ago, I issued a pamphlet, entitled An Essay on
THE SPLENDID THEORY 239
Universal Gravitation, which fell flat on publica-
tion, but which must have attracted Noel Dor-
geroux's particular attention, because his nephew,
Victorien Beaugrand, found my name written
among his papers and because Noe'l Dorgeroux
cannot have known my name except through this
pamphlet. Nor would he have taken the trouble
to write it down, if the theory of the rays of
gravitation which I developed in my pamphlet
had not appeared to him to be exactly adapted to
the problem raised by his discovery?
" I will therefore ask the reader to refer to my
pamphlet. He will there find the results, vague
but by no means negligible, which I was able to
explain by my experiments with this radiation.
He will see that it is propagated in a strictly
rectilinear direction and with a speed which is
thrice that of light, so that it would not take more
than 46 seconds to reach Venus at the time when
she is nearest to the earth. He will see lastly
that, though the existence of these rays, thanks to
which universal attraction is exercised according
to the Newtonian laws, is not yet admitted and
though I have not yet succeeded in making them
visible by means of suitable receivers, I neverthe-
less give proofs of their existence which must be
taken into consideration. And Noel Dorgeroux's
240 THE THREE EYES
approval also is a proof that they must not be
neglected.
" On the other hand, we have the right to be-
lieve that, while our poor rudimentary science
may, after centuries and centuries of efforts, have
remained ignorant of the essential factor of the
equilibrium of the planets, the Venusian scien-
tists long since passed this inferior stage of know-
ledge and that they possess photographic receiv-
ers which allow films to be taken by means of the
rays of gravitation and this by methods of truly
wonderful perfection. They were therefore wait-
ing. Looking down upon our planet, knowing
all that happened here, witnessing our helpless-
ness, they were waiting to communicate with us
by the only means that appeared to them possible.
They were waiting, patiently and persistently,
formidably equipped, sweeping our soil with the
invisible sheaves of rays assembled in their pro-
jectors and receivers, searching and prying into
every nook and corner.
" And one day the wonderful thing happened.
One day the shaft of rays struck the layer of
substance on the screen where and where alone
the spontaneous work of chemical decomposition
and immediate reconstitution could be per-
formed. On that day, thanks to Noel Dorgeroux
THE SPLENDID THEORY 241
and thanks to luck, as we must confess, for Noel
Dorgeroux was pursuing an entirely different
series of experiments on that particular day, the
Venusians established the connection between the
two planets. The greatest fact in the history of
the world was accomplished.
" There is evidence even that the Venusians
knew of Noe"! Dorgeroux's earlier experiments,
that they realized their importance, that they in-
terested themselves in his labours and that they
followed the events of his life, for it is now many
years since they took the pictures showing how
his son Dominique was killed in the war. But
I will not recapitulate in detail each of the films
displayed at Meudon. This is a work which any-
body can now perform in the light of the theory
which I am setting forth. But we must consider
attentively the process by which the Venusians
tried to give those films a sort of uniformity.
It has been rightly said that the sign of the Three
Eyes is a trade-mark, like the mark of any of our
great cinematograph-producers, a trade-mark
also very strikingly proves the superhuman re-
sources possessed by the Venusians, since they
succeed in giving to those Three Eyes, which have
no relation to our human eyes, not only the ex-
pression of our eyes but something much more
impressive, the expression of the eyes of the per-
242 THE THREE EYES
son destined to be the principal character in the
film.
" But why was this particular mark chosen?
Why eyes and why three? At the stage which we
have now reached, need w r e answer this question?
The Venusians themselves have furnished the re-
ply by showing us that apparently absurd film in
which Shapes assuredly lived and moved in our
sight in accordance with the lines and principle
of Venusian life. Were we not the breathless
spectators of a picture taken among them and
from them? Did we not behold, to make a com-
panion picture to the death of Louis XVI, an
incident representing the martyrdom of some
great personage whom the executioners tore to
pieces with their three hands, severing from his
body a sort of shapeless head provided with
three eyes?
" Three Hands ! Three Eyes ! Dare I, on the
strength of this fragile basis, go beyond what we
saw and declare that the Venusian possesses the
complete symmetry of the triangle, just as man,
with his two eyes, his two ears and his two arms,
possesses bilateral symmetry? Shall I try to
explain his method of progressing by successive
distentions and of moving vertically along
vertical streets, in towns built perpendicularly f
Shall I have the courage to state, as I believe, that
THE SPLENDID THEORY 243
he is provided with organs which give him a mag-
netic sense, a sense of space, an electric sense and
so on, organs numbered by threes? No. These
are details with which the Venusian scientists
will supply us on the day when it pleases them
to enter into correspondence with us.
" And, believe me, they will not fail to do so.
All their efforts for centuries past have been
directed towards this object. ' Let us talk/
they will say to us soon as they must have said to
Noel Dorgeroux and as they no doubt succeeded
in doing with him. It must have been a stirring
conversation, from which the great seer derived
such power and certainty that it is to him that I
will refer, before concluding, in order to add
to the discussion the two positive proofs which he
himself tried to write at the foot of the screen
during the few seconds of his death-struggle, a
twofold declaration made by the man, who in de-
parting this life, knew:
" ' B-ray. ... B E R G E ...
" When thus expressing his supreme belief in
the B-rays, Noe'l Dorgeroux no longer indicated
that unknown radiation which he had once im-
agined to explain the phenomena of the screen
and which would have consisted of the materiali-
zation of pictures born within and projected by
ourselves. More far-seeing, better-informed as
244 THE TIIREE EYES
the result of his experiments, abandoning more-
over his attempt to connect the new facts with
the action of the solar heat which he had so often
utilized, he plainly indicated those rays of gravi-
tation of whose existence he had learnt through
my pamphlet and also perhaps through his com-
munications with the Venusiaus, those rays
which are habitually employed by them in the
same manner as that in which the light-rays are
employed by the humblest photographer.
"And the five letters B E R G E are not
the first two syllables of the word Bergeronnette.
That was the fatal error of which Berangere
Massignac was the victim. They form the word
Berger, complete all but the last letter. At the
moment of his death, in his already overshadowed
brain, Noel Dorgeroux, in order to name Venus,
could find no other expression than VEtoile du
Berger, the Shepherd's Star; and his enfeebled
hand was able to write only the first few letters.
The proof therefore is absolute. The man who
knew had time to tell the essential part of what
he knew: by means of the rays of gravitation,
the Shepherd's Star sends its living messages to
the earth.
"If we accept the successive deductions
stated in this preliminary essay, which I trust
will one day prove to be in a manner a replica
THE SPLENDID THEORY 245
of the report stolen from Noel Dorgeroux, there
still remain any number of points concerning
which we possess not a single element of truth.
What is the form of the recording- and projecting-
apparatus employed by the Venusians? By
what prodigious machinery do they obtain a per-
fect fixity in the projections between two stars
each animated with such complicated movements
in space (at present we know of seventeen in the
earth alone) ? And, to consider only what is
close at hand, what is the nature of the screen
employed for the Meudon projections? What is
that dark-grey substance with which it is coated?
How is that substance composed? How is it able
to reconstruct the pictures? These are so many
questions which our scientific attainments are in-
capable of solving. But at least we have no right
to pronounce them insoluble; and I will go
farther and declare that it is our duty to study
them by all the means which the public authori-
ties are bound to place at our disposal. This M.
M assignac is said to have disappeared from sight.
Let the opportunity be seized, let the Meudon
Amphitheatre be declared national property!
It is out of the question that an individual should,
to the detriment of all mankind, remain the sole
possessor of such tremendous secrets and have it
in his power, if he please and in obedience to a
246 THE THREE EYES
mere whim, to destroy them for all time. The
thing cannot be allowed. Before many days have
elapsed we must enter into unbroken relations
with the inhabitants of Venus. They will tell us
the age-old history of our past, reveal to us the
great problems which they have elucidated and
assist us to benefit by the conquests of a civiliza-
tion beside which our own as yet seems nothing
but confusion, ignorance, the lisping of babes and
the stammering of savages. . . ."
CHAPTER XVI
WHERE LIPS UNITE
WE have but to read the newspapers of the
period, to realize that the excitement
caused by the Meudon pictures reached its cul-
minating point as the result of Benjamin Pre-
votelle's essay. I have four of those newspapers,
dated the following day, on my table as I write.
Not one of them contains throughout its eight
pages a single line that does not refer to what at
once became known as the Splendid Theory.
For the rest, the chorus of approval and en-
thusiasm was general, or very nearly so. There
were barely a few cries of vehement protest
uttered by experts who felt exasperated by the
boldness of the essay even more than by the gaps
occurring in it. The great mass of the public saw
in all this not a theory but a fact and accepted
it as such with the faith of true believers con-
fronted with the divine truth. Every one con-
tributed his own proof as yet one more stone
added to the edifice. The objections, however
strong they might me and they were set forth
247
248 THE THREE EYES
without compromise seemed temporary and
capable of being removed by closer study and a
more careful confirmation of the phenomena.
And it is with this conclusion, Benjamin Pr6-
votelle's own conclusion, that all the articles, all
the interviews and all the letters that appeared
end. The measures recommended by Benjamin
Pre"votelle were loudly called for. Action must
be taken without delay and a series of experi-
ments must be made in the Meudon amphitheatre.
Amid this effervescence, the kidnapping of
Massignac went for little. The man Massignac
had disappeared? There was nothing to enable
one to tell who had carried him off or where he
was confined? Very well. It made very little
difference. As Benjamin Prvotelle said, the
opportunity was too good to miss. The doors
of the Yard had been sealed on the first morn-
ing. What were we waiting for? Why not be-
gin the experiments at once?
As for me, I did not breathe a word of my
Bougival adventure, in the constant fear of im-
plicating Brangere, who was directly involved
in it. All the same, I returned to the banks of
the Seine. My rough and ready enquiries
showed that Massignac and Velmot had lived
on the island during a part of the winter in the
company of a small boy who, when they were
WHERE LIPS UNITE 249
away, looked after the house which one of them
had hired under a false name. I explored the
island and the house. No one was living there
now. I found a few pieces of furniture, a few
household implements, nothing more.
On the fourth day, a provisional committee,
appointed ad hoc, met in the Yard about the
middle of the afternoon. As the sky was cloudy,
they contented themselves with examining the
carboys discovered in the basement of the walls
and, after lowering the curtain, with cutting off
strips of the dark-grey substance at different
points of the screen along the edges.
The analysis revealed absolutely nothing out
of the way. They found an amalgam of organic
materials and acids which it would be tedious
to enumerate and which, however employed, sup-
plied not the smallest explanation of the very
tiniest phenomena. But, on the sixth day, the
sky became clear and the committee returned,
together with a number of official persons and
mere sightseers who had succeeded in joining
them.
The wait in front of the screen was fruitless
and just a little ridiculous. All those people
looking out for something that did not happen,
standing with wide-open eyes and distorted faces,
in front of a wall that had nothing on it, wore
250 THE THREE EYES
an air of solemnity which was delightfully
comical.
An hour was spent in anxious expectation.
The wall remained impassive.
The disappointment was all the greater inas-
much as the public had been waiting for this
test as the expected climax of this most sensa-
tional tragedy. Were we to give up all hope
of knowing the truth and to admit that Noel
Dorgeroux's formula alone was capable of pro-
ducing the pictures? I, for one, was convinced
of it. In addition to the substances removed,
there was a solution, compounded by Massignac
from Noel Dorgeroux's formula, which solution
he kept carefully, as my uncle used to do, in blue
phials or bottles and which was spread over the
screen before each exhibition in order to give it
the mysterious power of evoking the images.
A thorough search was instituted, but no
phials, no blue bottles came to light.
There was no doubt about it: people were be-
ginning to regret the disappearance, perhaps the
death of the man Massignac. Was the great
secret to be lost at the very moment when Ben-
jamin Prevotelle's theory had proved its incom-
parable importance?
Well, on the morning of the eleventh day after
the date of Benjamin Prevotelle's essay, that is
WHERE LIPS UNITE 251
to say, the 27th of May, the newspapers printed
a note signed by Theodore Massignac in which
he announced that, in the late afternoon of that
same day, the third exhibition in the Yard would
take place under his own direction.
He actually appeared at about twelve o'clock
in the morning. The doors were closed and
guarded by four detectives and he was unable to
obtain admission. But at three o'clock an offi-
cial from the Prefecture of Police arrived, armed
with full powers of negotiation.
Massignac laid down his conditions. He was
once more to become the absolute master of the
Yard, which was to be surrounded by detectives
and closed between the performances to every-
body except himself. None of the spectators was
to carry a camera or any other instrument.
Everything was conceded; everything was
overlooked, in order to continue the interrupted
series of miraculous exhibitions and to resume
the communications with Venus. This capitu-
lation on the part of the authorities before the
audacity of a man whose crime was known to
them showed that Benjamin Pre>otelle's theory
was adopted in government circles.
The fact is and there was no one who failed
to see it that those in power were giving way
in the hope of presently turning the tables and,
252 THE THREE EYES
by some subterfuge, laying hands on the screen
at the moment when it was in working-order.
Massignac felt this so clearly that, when the
doors opened, he had the effrontery to distribute
a circular couched in the following terms :
WARNING
" The audience is hereby warned that any at-
tack on the management will have as its imme-
diate consequence the destruction of the screen
and the irreparable loss of Noel Dorgerouv's
secret"
For my part, as I had had no proof of Massig-
nac's death, I was not surprised at his return.
But the alteration in his features and attitude
astounded me. He looked ten years older; his
figure was bent ; and the everlasting smile, which
used to be his natural expression, no longer lit
up his face, which liad become emaciated, yellow
and anxious.
He caught sight of me and drew me to one
side:
" I say, that scoundrel has played the very
devil with me ! First he beat me black and blue,
down in a cellar. Next he lowered me into the
water to make me talk. I was ten days in bed
before I got over it! ... By Jingo, it's not his
WHERE LIPS UNITE 253
fault if I'm not there now, the villain ! . . . How-
ever, he's had his share too ... and he caught
it worse than I did, at least I hope so. The
hand that struck him was steady enough and
showed no sign of trembling."
I did not ask him what hand he meant or
how the tragedy had ended in the darkness.
There was only one thing that mattered:
" Massignac, have you read Benjamin Prvo-
telle's report? "
" Yes."
" Does it agree with the facts? Does it agree
with my uncle's account, the one which you've
read?"
He shrugged his shoulders:
"What business is that of yours? What
business is it of anybody's? Do I keep the pic-
tures to myself? You know I don't. On the
contrary, I'm trying to show them to everybody
and honestly to earn the money which they pay
me. What more do they want? "
" They want to protect a discovery. . ."
" Never ! Never ! " he exclaimed, angrily.
"Tell them to shut up and stop all that non-
sense ! I've bought Noel Dorgeroux's secret, yes,
bought and paid for it. Very well, I mean to
keep it for myself, for myself alone, against
everybody and in spite of any threat. I shan't
254 THE THREE EYES
talk now any more than I did when Velmot had
me in his grip and I was on the point of croak-
ing. I tell you, Victorien Beaugrand, Noel
Dorgeroux's secret will perish at my death. If
I die, it dies : I've taken my oath on it."
When Theodore Massignac, a few minutes
later, mored towards his seat, he no longer wore
his former air of a lion-tamer entering a cage,
but rather the aspect of a hunted animal which
is startled by the least sound and trembles at
the approach of the man with the whip. But
the chuckers-out were there, wearing their
ushers' chains and looking as fierce and aggres-
sive as ever. Their wages had been doubled, I
was told.
There was no need for the precaution. The
danger that threatened Massignac did not come
from the crowd, which preserved a religious si-
lence, as though it were preparing to celebrate
some solemn ritual. Massignac was received
with neither applause nor invective. The spec-
tators waited gravely for what was about to
happen, though no one guessed that that was
on the point of happening. Those seated on
the upper tiers, of whom I was one, often turned
their heads upwards. In the clear sky, shim-
WHERE LIPS UNITE 255
inering with gold, shone Venus, the Evening
Star.
What a moment! For the. first time in the
world's history men felt certain that they were
being contemplated by eyes which were not hu-
man eyes and watched by minds which differed
from their own minds. For the first time they
were connected in a tangible fashion with that
beyond, formerly peopled by their dreams and
their hopes alone, from which the friendly gaze
of their new brothers now fell upon them. These
were not legends and phantoms projected into
the empty heavens by our thirsting souls, but
living beings who were addressing us in the
living and natural language of the pictures, until
the hour, now near at hand, when we should
talk together like friends who had lost and found
one another.
Their eyes, their Three Eyes, were infinitely
gentle that day, filled with a tenderness which
seemed born of love and which thrilled us with
an equal tenderness, with the same love. What
were they presaging, those women's eyes, those
eyes of many women that quivered before us so
attractively and with such smiles and such de-
lightful promise? Of what happy and charm-
ing scenes of our past were we to be the aston-
ished witnesses?
256 THE THKEE EYES
I watched my neighbours. All, like myself,
were leaning towards the screen. The sight
affected their faces before it occurred. I noticed
the pallor of two young men beside me. A
woman whose face was hidden from my eyes by
a thick mourning-veil sat with her handkerchief
in her hand, ready to shed tears.
The first scene represented a landscape, full
of glaring light, which appeared to be an Italian
landscape, with a dusty road along which
cavalry-men, wearing the uniform of the revolu-
tionary armies, were galloping around a trav-
elling-carriage drawn by four horses. Then,
immediately afterwards, we saw in a shady gar-
den, at the end of an avenue of dark cypresses,
a house with closed shutters standing on a
flower-decked terrace.
The carriage stopped at the foot of the terrace
and drove off again after setting down an officer
who ran up to the door and knocked at it with
the pommel of his sword.
The door was opened almost at once. A tall
young woman rushed out of the house, with her
arms outstretched towards the officer. But, at
the moment when they were about to embrace,
they both took a few steps backwards, as though
to delay their happiness and in so doing to taste
its delights more fully.
WHERE LIPS UNITE 257
Then the screen showed ns the woman's face ;
and words cannot depict the expression of joy
and headlong love that turned this face, which
was neither very beautiful nor very young, into
something more alive with youth and beauty
than anything in this world.
After that, the lovers flung themselves into
each others' arms, as though their lives, too long
separated, were striving to make but one. Their
lips united.
We saw nothing more of the French officer
and his Italian lover. A new picture followed,
less bright but equally clear, the picture of a
long, battlemented rampart, marked with a
series of round, machicolated towers. Below
and in the centre, among the ruins of a bastion,
were trees growing in a semicircle around an
ancient oak-tree.
Gradually, from the shade of the trees, there
stepped into the sunlight a quite young girl,
clad in the pointed head-dress of the fifteenth
century and a full-skirted gown trailing along
the ground. She stopped with her hands open
and raised on high. She saw something that
we were unable to see. She wore a bewitching
smile. Her eyes were half-closed ; and her slen-
der figure seemed to sway as she waited.
What she was awaiting was the arrival of a
258 THE THREE EYES
young page, who came to her and kissed her lips
while she flung herself on his shoulder.
This enamoured couple certainly moved us, as
the first couple had done, by reason of the passion
and the languor that possessed them, but even
more by reason of the thought that they were
an actual couple, living, before our eyes and at
the present day, their real life of long ago. Our
sensations were no longer such as we experienced
at the earlier exhibitions. They had then been
full of hesitation and ignorance. We now knew.
In this late period of the world's existence, we
were beholding the life of human beings of the
fifteenth century. They were not repeating for
our entertainment actions which had been per-
formed before. They were performing them for
the first occasion in time and space. It was
their first kiss of love.
This, the feeling that one is seeing this, is a
feeling which surpasses everything that can be
imagined ! To see a fifteenth -century page and
damsel kissing each other on the lips !
To see, as we saw immediately afterwards, a
Greek hill! To see the Acropolis standing
against its sky of two thousand years ago, with
its houses and gardens, its palm-trees, its lanes,
its vestibules and temples, the Parthenon, not
in ruins, but in all its splendour and perfection!
WHERE LIPS UNITE 259
A host of statues surround it. Men and women
climb its stairways. And these men and women
are Athenians of the time of Pericles or Demos-
thenes !
They come and go in all directions. They
talk together. Then they drift away. A little
empty street runs down between two white walls.
A group passes and moves away, leaving behind
it a man and woman who stop suddenly, glance
around them and kiss each other fervently. And
we see, underneath the veil in which the woman's
forehead is shrouded, two great, black eyes whose
lids flutter like wings, eyes which open, close,
laugh and weep.
Thus we go back through the ages and we
understand that those who, gazing down upon
the earth, have taken these successive pictures
wish, in displaying them to us, to show us the
act, for-ever youthful and eternally renewed, of
that universal love of which they proclaim them-
selves, like us, to be the slaves and the zealous
worshippers. They too are governed and exalted
by the same law, though perhaps not expressed
in them by the intoxication of a like caress. The
same impulse sweeps them along. But do they
know the adorable union of the lips?
Other couples passed. Other periods were re-
viewed. Other civilizations appeared to us.
260 THE THREE EYES
.We saw the kiss of an Egyptian peasant and a
young girl; and that exchanged high up in a
hanging garden of Babylon between a princess
and a priest; and that which transfigured to
such a degree as to make them almost human
two unspeakable beings squatting at the door
of a prehistoric cave; and more kisses and yet
more.
They were brief visions, some of which were
indistinct and faded, like the colours of an an-
cient fresco, but yet searching and potent, be-
cause of the meaning which they assumed, full
at the same time of poetry and brutal reality,
of violence and serene loveliness.
And always the woman's eyes were the centre,
the purpose, as it were the justification of the
pictures. Oh, the smiles and the tears, the glad-
ness and the despair and the exquisite rapture
of all those eyes! How our friends up aloft
must also have felt all the charm of them, thus
to dedicate them to us! How they must have
felt and perhaps regretted all the difference be-
tween those eyes of ecstasy and enchantment and
their own eyes, so gloomy and void of all expres-
sion! There was such sweetness in those
women's eyes, such grace, such ingenuousness,
such adorable perfidy, such distress and such se-
ductiveness, such triumphant joy, such grateful
WHERE LIPS UNITE 261
humility . . . and such love, when they offered
their submissive lips to the man!
I was unable to see the end of those pictures.
There was a movement round about me in the
midst of the crowd, which was beside itself with
painful excitement; and I found myself next to
a woman in mourning, whose face was hidden be-
neath her veils.
She thrust these aside. I recognized Be"ran-
g&re. She raised her passionate eyes to mine,
flung her arms round my neck and gave me her
lips, while she stammered words of love. And
in this way I learnt, without any need of ex-
planation, that Massignac's insinuations against
his daughter were false, that she was the terror-
stricken victim of the two scoundrels and that
she had never ceased to love me.
CHAPTER XVII
SUPREME VISIONS
THE exhibition of the following day was
preceded by two important pieces of news
which appeared in the evening papers. A group
of financiers had offered Theodore Massignac
the sum of ten million francs in consideration
of Noel Dorgeroux's secret and the right to work
the amphitheatre. Theodore Massignac was to
give them his answer next day.
But, at the last moment, a telegram from the
south of France announced that the maid-of-all-
work who had nursed Massignac in his house at
Toulouse, a few weeks before, now declared that
her master's illness was feigned and that Mas-
signac had left the house on several occasions,
each time carefully concealing his absence from
all the neighbours. Now one of these absences
synchronized with the murder of Noel Dorger-
oux. The woman's accusation therefore obliged
the authorities to reopen an enquiry which had
already elicited so much presumptive evidence
of Theodore Massignac's guilt.
262
SUPREME VISIONS 263
The upshot of these two pieces of news was
that my uncle Dorgeroux's secret depended on
chance, that it would be saved by an immediate
purchase or lost for ever by Massignac's arrest.
This alternative added still further to the
anxious curiosity of the spectators, many of
whom correctly believed that they were witness-
ing the last of the Meudon exhibitions. They
discussed the articles in the papers and the
proofs or objections accumulated for or against
the theory. They said that Prerotelle, to whom
Massignac was refusing admission to the amphi-
theatre, was preparing a whole series of experi-
ments with the intention of proving the absolute
accuracy of his theory, the simplest of which
experiments consisted in erecting a scaffolding
outside the Yard and setting up an intervening
obstacle to intercept the rays that passed from
Venus to the screen.
I myself who, since the previous day, had
thought of nothing but Be>angere, whom I had
pursued in vain through the crowd amid which
she had succeeded in escaping me, I myself was
smitten with the fever and that day abandoned
the attempt to discover upon the close-packed
tiers of seats the mysterious girl whom I had
held to me all quivering, happy to abandon her-
self for a few moments to a kiss on which she
264 THE THREE EYES
bestowed all the fervour of her incomprehensible
soul. I forgot her. The screen alone counted,
to my mind. The problem of my life was swal-
lowed up in the great riddle which those solemn
minutes in the history of mankind set before us.
They began, after the most sorrowful and
heart-rending look that had yet animated the
miraculous Three Eyes, they began with that
singular phantasmagoria of creatures which
Benjamin Prevotelle proposed that we should
regard as the inhabitants of Venus and which,
for that matter, it was impossible that we should
not so regard. I will not try to define them with
greater precision nor to describe the setting in
which they moved. One's confusion in the pres-
ence of those grotesque Shapes, those absurd
movements and those startling landscapes was
so great that one had hardly time to receive very
exact impressions or to deduce the slightest
theory from them. All that I can say is that
we were the observers, as on the first occasion, of
a manifestation of public order. There were
numbers of spectators and a connected sequence
of actions tending towards a clearly-defined end,
which seemed to us to be of the same nature as
the first execution. Everything, in fact the
grouping of certain Shapes in the middle of an
empty space and around a motionless Shape, the
SUPREME VISIONS 265
actions performed, the cutting up of that isolated
Shape suggested that there was an execution
in progress, the taking of a life. In any case,
we were perfectly well aware, through the cor-
responding instance, that its real significance
resided only in the second part of the film. Since
nearly all the pictures were twofold, impressing
us by antithesis or analogy, we must wait awhile
to catch the general idea which directed this pro-
jection.
This soon became apparent ; and the mere nar-
rative of what we saw showed how right my uncle
Dorgeroux's prophecy was when he said :
" Men will come here as pilgrims and will fall
upon their knees and weep like children ! "
A winding road, rough with cobbles and cut
into steps, climbs a steep, arid, shadowless hill
under a burning sun. We almost seem to see
the eddies rising, like a scorching breath, from
the parched soil.
A mob of excited people is scaling the abrupt
slope. On their backs hang tattered robes ; their
aspect is that of the beggars or artisans of an
eastern populace.
The road disappears and appears again at a
higher level, where we see that this mob is pre-
ceding and following a company consisting of
soldiers clad like the Roman legionaries. There
266 THE THREE EYES
are sixty or eighty of them, perhaps. They are
marching slowly, in a ragged body, carrying
their spears over their shoulders, while some
are swinging their helmets in their hands. Now
and again one stops to drink.
From time to time we become aware that these
soldiers are serving as escort to a central group,
consisting of a few officers and of civilians clad
in long robes, like priests, and, a little apart
from them, four women, the lower half of whose
faces is hidden by a long veil. Then, suddenly
at a turn in the road, where the group has be-
come slightly disorganized, we see a heavy cross
outspread, jolting its way upwards. A man is
underneath, as it were crushed by the intolerable
burden which he is condemned to bear to the
place of martyrdom. He stumbles at each step,
makes an effort, stands up again, falls again,
drags himself yet a little farther, crawling,
clutching at the stones on the road, and then
moves no more. A blow from a staff, adminis-
tered by one of the soldiers, makes no difference.
His strength is exhausted.
At that moment, a man comes down the stony
path. He is stopped and ordered to carry the
cross. He cannot and quickly makes his escape.
But, as the soldiers with their spears turn back
towards the man lying on the ground, behold,
SUPREME VISIONS 267
three of the women intervene and offer to carry
the burden. One of them takes the end, the two
others take the two arms and thus they climb
the rugged hill, while the fourth woman raises
the condemned man and supports his hesitating
steps.
At two further points we are able to follow
the painful ascent of him who is going to his
death. And on each occasion his face is shown
by itself upon the screen. We do not recognize
it. It is unlike the face which we expected to
see, according to the usual representations. But
how much more fully satisfied the profound con-
ception which it evokes in us by its actual pres-
ence !
It is He: we cannot for a moment doubt it.
He lives before us. He is suffering. He is about
to die before us. He is about to die. Each of
us would fain avert the menace of that horrible
death ; and each of us prays with all his might
for some peaceful vision in which we may see
Him surrounded by His Desciples and His gentle
womenfolk. The soldiers, as they reach the
place of torture, assume a harsher aspect. The
priests with ritual gestures curse the stones amid
which the tree is to be raised and retire, with
hanging heads.
Here comes the cross, with the women bend-
268 THE THREE EYES
ing under it. The condemned man follows them.
There are two of them now supporting Him.
He stops. Nothing can save Him now. When
we see Him again, after a short interruption of
the picture, the cross is set up and the agony
has begun.
I do not believe that any assembly of men was
ever thrilled by a more violent and noble emotion
than that which held us in its grip at this hour,
which, let it be clearly understood, was the very
hour at which the world's destiny was settled
for centuries and centuries. We were not guess-
ing at it through legends and distorted narra-
tives. We did not have to reconstruct it after
uncertain documents or to conceive it according
to our own feelings and imagination. It was
there, that unparalleled hour. It lived before
us, in a setting devoid of grandeur, a setting
which seemed to us very lowly, very poverty-
stricken. The bulk of the sightseers had de-
parted. A dozen soldiers were dicing on a flat
stone and drinking. Four women were standing
in the shadow of a man crucified whose feet
they bathed with their tears. At the summit of
two other hillocks hard by, two figures were
writhing on their crosses. That was all.
But what a meaning we read into this gloomy
spectacle! What a frightful tragedy was en-
SUPREME VISIONS 269
acted before our eyes ! The beating of our hearts
wrung with love and distress was the very beat-
ing of that Sacred Heart. Those weary eyes
looked down upon the same things that we be-
held, the same dry soil, the same savage faces of
the soldiers, the same countenances of the grief -
stricken women.
When a last vision showed us His rigid and
emaciated body and His sweet ravaged head in
which the dilated eyes seemed to us abnormally
large, the whole crowd rose to its feet, men and
women fell upon their knees and, in a profound
silence that quivered with prayer, all arms were
despairingly outstretched towards the dying
God.
Such scenes cannot be understood by those who
did not witness them. You will no more find
their living presentment in the pages in which
I describe them than I can find it in the news-
papers of the time. The latter pile up adjectives,
exclamations and apostrophes which give no idea
of what the vivid reality was. On the other
hand, all the articles lay stress upon the essential
truth which emerges from the two films of that
day and, very rightly, declare that the second
explains and completes the first. Yonder also,
among our distant brethren, a God was delivered
270 THE THREE EYES
to the horrors of martyrdom; and, by connect-
ing the two events, they intended to convey to us
that, like ourselves, they possessed a religious
belief and ideal aspirations. In the same way,
they had shown us by the death of one of their
rulers and the death of one of our kings that
they had known the same political upheavals.
In the same way, they had shown us by visions
of lovers that, like us, they yielded to the power
of love. Therefore, the same stages of civiliza-
tions, the same efforts of belief, the same in-
stincts, the same sentiments existed in both
worlds.
How could messages so positive, so stimulating
have failed to increase our longing to know more
about it all and to communicate more closely?
How could we do other than think of the ques-
tions which it was possible to put and of the
problems which would be elucidated, problems
of the future and the past, problems of civiliza-
tion, problems of destiny?
But the same uncertainty lingered in us, keener
than the day before. What would become of
Noel Dorgeroux's secret? The position was
this: Massignac accepted the ten millions which
he was offered, but on condition that he was paid
the money immediately after the performance
and that he received a safe-conduct for America.
SUPREME VISIONS 271
Now, although the enquiries instituted at
Toulouse confirmed the accusations brought
against him by the maid-of -all-work, it was stated
that the compact was on the point of being con-
cluded, so greatly did the importance of Noel
Dorgeroux's secret outweigh all ordinary con-
sideration of justice and punishment. Finding
itself confronted with a state of things which
could not be prolonged, the government was
yielding, though constraining Massignac to sell
the secret under penalty of immediate arrest and
posting all around him men who were instructed
to lay him by the heels at the first sign of any
trickery. When the iron curtain fell, twelve po-
licemen took the place of the usual attendants.
And then began an exhibition to which special
circumstances imparted so great a gravity and
which was in itself so poignant and so implaca-
ble.
As on the other occasions, we did not at first
grasp the significance which the scenes projected
on the screen were intended to convey. These
scenes passed before our eyes as swiftly as the
love-scenes displayed two days before.
There was not the initial vision of the Three
Eyes. We plunged straight into reality. In the
middle of a garden sat a woman, young still and
beautiful, dressed in the fashion of 1830. She
272 THE THREE EYES
was working at a tapestry stretched on a frame
and from time to time raised her eyes to cast a
fond look at a little girl playing by her side.
The mother and child smiled at each other. The
child left her sand-pies and came and kissed her
mother.
For a few minutes there was merely this placid
picture of human life.
Then, a dozen paces behind the mother, a tall,
close-trimmed screen of foliage is gently thrust
aside and, with a series of imperceptible move-
ments, a man comes out of the shadow, a man,
like the woman, young and well -dressed.
His face is hard, his jaws are set. He has a
knife in his hand.
He takes three or four steps forward. The
woman does not hear him, the little girl cannot
see him. He comes still farther forward, with
infinite precautions, so that the gravel may not
creak under his feet nor any branch touch him.
He stands over the woman. His face displays
a terrible cruelty and an inflexible will. The
woman's face is still smiling and happy.
Slowly his arm is raised above that smile,
above that happiness. Then it descends, with
equal slowness; and suddenly, beneath the left
shoulder, it strikes a sharp blow at the heart.
There is not a sound; that is certain. At
SUPREME VISIONS 273
most, a sigh, like the one sigh emitted, in the
awful silence, by the crowd in the Yard.
The man has withdrawn his weapon. He
listens for a moment, bends over the lifeless body
that has huddled into the chair, feels the hand
and then steals back with measured steps to the
screen of foliage, which closes behind him.
The child has not ceased playing. She con-
tinues to laugh and talk.
The picture fades away.
The next shows us two men walking along a
deserted path, beside which flows a narrow river.
They are talking without animation ; they might
be discussing the weather.
When they turn round and retrace their steps,
we see that one of the two men, the one who
hitherto had been hidden behind his companion,
carries a revolver.
They both stop and continue to talk quietly.
But the face of the armed man becomes dis-
torted and assumes the same criminal expression
which we beheld in the first murderer. And
suddenly he makes a movement of attack and
ifires ; the other falls ; and the first flings himself
upon him and snatches a pocket-book from him.
There were four more murders, none of which
274 THE THREE EYES
had as its perpetrator or its victim any one who
was known to us. They were so many sensa-
tional incidents, very short, restricted to the
essential factors; the peaceful representation of
a scene in daily life and the sudden explosion of
crime in all its bestial horror.
The sight was dreadful, especially because of
the expression of confidence and serenity main-
tained by the victim, while we, in the audience,
saw the phantom of death rise over him. The
waiting for the blow which we were unable to
avert left us breathless and terrified.
And one last picture of a man appeared to us.
A stifled exclamation rose from the crowd. It
was Noel Dorgeroux.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY
exclamation of the crowd proved to me
that, at the sight of the great old man, who
was known to all by his portraits and by the
posters exhibited at the doors of the Yard, the
same thought had instantaneously struck us all.
We understood from, the first. After the series
of criminal pictures, we knew the meaning of
Noel Dorgeroux's appearance on the screen and
knew the inexorable climax of the story which
we were being told. There had been six victims.
My uncle would be the seventh. We were going
to witness his death and to see the face of the
murderer.
All this was planned with the most disconcert-
ing skill and with a logic whose implacable
rigour wrung our very souls. We were as
though imprisoned in a horribly painful track
which we were bound to follow to the end, not-
withstanding the unspeakable violence of our
sensations. I sometimes ask myself, in all sin-
cerity, whether the series of miraculous visions
276
276 THE THREE EYES
could have been continued much longer, so far
did the nervous tension which they demanded
exceed our human strength.
A succession of pictures showed us several
episodes of which the first dated back to a period
when Noel Dorgeroux certainly had not discov-
ered the great secret, for his son was still alive.
It was the time of the war. Dominique, in uni-
form, was embracing the old fellow, who was
weeping and trying to hold him back ; and, when
Dominique went, Noel Dorgeroux watched him
go with all the distress of a father who is not
to see his son again.
Next we have him again, once more in the
Yard, which is encumbered with its sheds and
workshops, as it used to be. Brangere, quite
a child, is running to and fro. She is thirteen
or fourteen at most.
We now follow their existence in pictures
which tell us with what hourly attention my
uncle Dorgeroux's labours were watched from
up yonder. He became old and bent. The little
one grew up, which did not deter her from play-
ing and running about.
On the day when we are to see her as I had
found her in the previous summer, we see at the
same time Noel Dorgeroux standing on a ladder
and daubing the wall with a long brush which
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY 277
he keeps dipping into a can. He steps back and
looks with a questioning gaze at. the wall where
the screen is marked out. There is nothing.
Nevertheless something vague and confused must
already have throbbed in the heart of the sub-
stance, because he seems to be waiting and seek-
ing. . . .
A click; and everything is changed. The
amphitheatre arises, unfinished in parts, as it
was on the Sunday in March when I discovered
my uncle's dead body. The new wall is there,
surrounded by its canopy. My uncle has opened
the recess contained in the basement and is ar-
ranging his carboys.
But, now, beyond the amphitheatre, which
grows smaller for an instant, we see the* trees
in the woods and the undulations of the adjoin-
ing meadow; and a man comes up on that side
and moves towards the path which skirts the
fence. I for my part recognize his figure. It
is the man with whom I was to struggle, half
an hour later, in the wood through which he
had just come. It is the murderer. He is
wrapped in a rain-coat whose upturned collar
touches the lowered brim of his hat. He walks
uneasily. He goes up to the lamp-post, looks
around him, climbs up slowly and makes his way
into the Yard. He follows the road which I
278 THE THREE EYES
myself took that day after him and thrusts for-
ward his head as I did.
Noel Dorgeroux is standing before the screen.
He has closed the recess and jotted down some
notes in a book. The victim suspects nothing.
Then the man throws off his wrap and his hat.
He turns his face in our direction. It is Mas-
signac.
The crowd was so much expecting to find that
it was he that there was no demonstration of
surprise. Besides, the pictures on this day were
of a nature that left no room for alien thoughts
or impressions. The consequences which might
ensue from the public proof of Massignac's guilt
were not apparent to us. We were not living
through the minutes which were elapsing in the
past but through those which were elapsing in
the present; and until the last moment we
thought only of knowing whether Noel Dorger-
oux, whom we knew to be dead, was going to
be murdered.
The scene did not last long. In reality my
uncle was not conscious for a second of the dan-
ger that threatened him ; and, contrary to what
was elicited at the enquiry, there was no trace
of that struggle of which the signs appeared to
have been discovered. This struggle occurred
afterwards, when my uncle had been struck down
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY 279
and was lying on the ground, motionless. It
took place between a murderer seized with in-
sensate fury and the corpse which he seemed bent
upon killing anew.
And in fact it was this act of savage brutality
that let loose the rage of the crowd. Held back
until then by a sort of unreasoning hope and
petrified, in its terror, at the sight of the loath-
some act accomplished on the screen, it was
stirred with anger and hatred against the living
and visible murderer whose existence suddenly
provoked it beyond endurance. It experienced a
sense of revolt and a need for immediate justice
which no considerations were able to stay. It
underwent an immediate change of attitude. It
withdrew itself abruptly from any sort of
memory or evocation of the past, to fling itself
into the reality of the present and to play its
part in the necessary action. And, obeying an
unanimous impulse, pouring helter-skelter down
the tiers and flowing like a torrent through every
gangway, it rushed to the assault of the iron cage
in which Massignac was sheltering.
I cannot describe exactly the manner in which
things took place. Massignac, who attempted to
take flight at the first moment of the accusation,
found in front of him the twelve policemen, who
next turned against the crowd when it came dash-
280 THE THREE EYES
ing against the rails of the high grille. But
what resistance were those twelve men able to
offer? The grille fell. The police were borne
down in the crush. In a flash I saw Massignac
braced against the wall and taking aim with two
revolvers held in his outstretched hands. A
number of shots rang out. Some of the aggres-
sors dropped. Then Massignac, taking advan-
tage of the hesitation which kept back the others,
stooped swiftly towards the electric battery in
the foundation. He pressed a button. Right at
the top of the wall, the canopy overhanging the
two pillars opened like a sluice and sent forth
streams of a bluish liquid, which seethed and
bubbled in a cascade over the whole surface of
the screen.
I then remembered Massignac's terrible
prophecy :
" If I die, it means the death of Noel Dorger-
oux's secret. We shall perish together."
In the anguish of peril, at the very bottom of
the abyss, he had conceived the abominable idea
and had the courage to carry out his threat. My
uncle's work was utterly destroyed.
Nevertheless I darted forward, as though I
could still avert the disaster by saving the scoun-
drel's life. But the crowd had seized upon its
prey and was passing it from hand to hand, like
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY 281
a howling pack worrying and rending the ani-
mal which it had hunted down.
I succeeded in shouldering my way through
with the aid of two policemen and then only
because Massignac's body had ended by falling
into the hands of a band of less infuriated assail-
ants, who were embarrassed by the sight of the
dying man. They formed themselves into a
group to protect his death -struggles and one of
them even, raising his voice above the din, called
to me:
" Quick, quick ! " he said, when I came near.
"He is speaking your name."
At the first glance at the mass of bleeding
flesh that lay on one of the tiers, between two
rows of seats, I perceived that there was no hope
and that it was a miracle that this corpse was
still breathing. Still it was uttering my name.
I caught the syllables as I stooped over the face
mauled beyond recognition and, speaking slowly
and distinctly, I said :
" It's I, Massignac, it's Victorien Beaugrand.
What have you to say to me? "
He managed to lift his eyelids, looked at me
with a dim eye which closed again immediately
and stammered:
" A letter ... a letter . . . sewn in the lin-
ing . . ."
282 THE THREE EYES
I felt the rags of cloth which remained of
his jacket. Massignac had clone well to sew up
the letter, for all the other papers had left bis
pocket. I at once read my name on the envelope.
" Open it ... open it," he said, in a whisper.
I tore open the envelope. There were only a
few lines scribbled in a large hand across the
sheet of paper, a few lines of which I took the
time to read only the first, which said:
" Berangere knows the formula."
" B6rangere ! " I exclaimed. " But where is
she? Do you know? "
I at once understood the imprudence of which
I had been guilty in thus mentioning the girl's
name aloud; and, bending lower down, I put my
ear to Massignac's mouth to catch his last words.
He repeated the name of Bdrangere time after
time, in the effort to pronounce the answer which
I asked for and which his memory perhaps re-
fused to supply. His lips moved convulsively
and he stammered forth some hoarse sounds
which were more like a death-rattle but which
yet enabled me to distinguish the words:
"Be>angre .... Chateau . . . Chateau de
Pr6-Bony . . . ."
However great the tension of the mind may
be when concentrated on an idea which entirely
absorbs it, we remain more or less subject to
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY 283
the thousand sensations that assail us. Thus, at
the very moment when I rose and, in a whisper,
repeated, " Chateau de Pre-Bony . . . de Pr6-
Bony," the vague impression that another had
heard the address which Massignac had given
began to take shape and consistency within me.
Nay more, I perceived, when it was too late, that
this other man, thanks to his position at my
side, must have been able to read as I had read,
the opening words of Theodore Massignac's let-
ter. And that other man's able make-up sud-
denly dropped away before my eyes to- reveal
the pallid features of the man Velmot.
I turned my head. The man had just made
his way out of the band of onlookers who stood
gathered round us and was slipping through
the shifting masses of the crowd. I called out.
I shouted his name. I dragged detectives in his
wake. It was too late.
And so the man Velmot, the implacable enemy
who had not hesitated to torture Massignac in
order to extract my uncle Dorgeroux's formula
from him, knew that Berangere was acquainted
with the formula ! And he had at the same time
learnt, what he doubtless did not know before,
where Be>angere was concealed.
The Chateau de PreXBony! Where was this
284 THE THREE EYES
country-house? In what corner of France had
Be>angere taken refuge after the murder of her
godfather? It could not be very far from Paris,
seeing that she had once asked for iny assistance
and that, two days ago, she had come to the
Yard. But, whatever the distance, how was I
to find it? There were a thousand country-
houses within a radius of twenty-five miles from
Paris.
" And yet," I said to myself, " the solution of
the tragedy lies there, in that country-house.
All is not lost and all may still be saved, but I
have to get there. Though, the miraculous
screen is destroyed, Massignac has given me the
means of reconstructing it, but I have to get
there. And I have to get there by day break,
or Velmot will have Berangere at his mercy."
I spent the whole evening in enquiries. I con-
sulted maps, gazetteers, directories. I asked
everywhere; I telephoned. No one was able to
supply the least hint as to the whereabouts of
the" Chateau de Pr6-Bony.
It was not until the morning, after an agitated
night, that a more methodical scrutiny of recent
events gave me the idea of beginning my investi-
gations in the actual district where I knew that
B6rangere had stayed. I hired a motor-car and
had myself driven towards Bougival. I had no
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY 285
great hope. But my fear lest Velmot should
discover Be"rangere's retreat before I did caused
me such intense suffering that I never ceased
repeating to myself:
" That's it .... I'm on the right track ....
I'm certain to find B6rangere; and the villain
shall not touch a hair of her head."
My love for the girl suddenly became purged
of all the doubts and suspicions that had poi-
soned it. For the rest, I did not trouble about
these details and troubled myself neither to ex-
plain her conduct nor to establish the least proof
for or against her. Even if her kiss had not
already wiped out every disagreeable recollec-
tion, the danger which she was incurring was
enough to restore all my faith in her and all my
affection.
My first enquiries at Ville d'Avray, Marnes and
Vaucresson told me nothing. The Chateau de
Pre"-Bony was unknown. At La Cello-Saint-
Cloud I encountered a fresh check. But here, in
an inn, I seemed to recover, thanks to the acci-
dent of a casual question, the traces of the man
Velmot: a tall, white-faced gentleman, I was
told, who often motored along the Bougival road
and who had been seen prowling outside the
village that very morning.
I questioned my informant more closely. It
280 THE THREE EYES
really was Velmot. He bad four hours' start of
me. And he knew where to go! And he was in
love with Bcrangere! Four hours 1 start, for that
clever and daring scoundrel, who was staking his
all on this last throw of the die! Who could
stop him? What scruples had he? To seize
upon Be>angere, to hold her in his power, to
compel her to speak: all this was now mere
child's play. And he was in love with Ber-
angere!
I remember striking the inn-table with my fist
and exclaiming, angrily :
" No, no, it's not possible ! . . . The house in
question is bound to be somewhere near here!
. . . They must show me the way ! "
Thenceforward I did not experience a mo-
ment's hesitation. On the one hand, I was not
mistaken in coming to this district. On the
other hand, I knew that Velmot, having heard
what Massignac said and knowing the country
by having lived in it, had begun his campaign
at dawn.
There was a crowd of people outside the inn.
Feverishly I put the questions which remained
unanswered. At last, some one mentioned a
cross-roads which was sometimes known by the
name of Pr6-Bony and which was on the Saint-
THE CHATEAU DE PKE-BONY 287
Cucufa road, some two or three miles away. One
of the roads which branched from it led to a
new house, of not very imposing appearance,
which was inhabited by a young married couple,
the Comte and Comtesse de Roncherolles.
I really had the impression that it was my
sheer will-power that had brought about this
favourable incident and, so to speak, created,
lock, stock and barrel and within my reach, that
unknown country-house which it behoved me to
visit that very instant.
I made my way there hurriedly. At the mo-
ment when I was walking across the garden, a
young man alighted from horseback at the foot
of the steps.
" Is this the Chateau de Pr6-Bony? " I asked.
He flung the reins of his horse to a groom and
replied, with a smile :
" At least that is what they call it, a little
pompously, at Bougival."
" Oh," I murmured, as though taken aback by
an unhoped for piece of news, " it's here . . .
and I am in time ! "
The young man introduced himself. It was
the Comte de Roncherolles.
" May I ask to whom I have the honour . . ."
" Victorien Beaugrand," I replied.
288 THE THREE EYES
And, without further preamble, confiding in
the man's looks, which were frank and friendly,
I said:
" I have come about Berangere. She's here,
isn't she? She has found a shelter here? "
The Comte de Roncherolles flushed slightly
and eyed me with a certain attention. I took
his hand :
" If you please, monsieur, tho position is very
serious. Be"rangere is being hunted down by an
extremely dangerous man."
"Who is that?"
" Velmot"
" Velmot? "
The count threw off all further disguise as
useless and repeated :
"Velmot! Velmot! The enemy whom she
loathes! . . . Yes, she has everything to fear
from the man. Fortunately, he does not know
where she is."
" He does know . . . since yesterday," I ex-
claimed.
"Granted. But he will need time to make
his preparations, to plan his move."
"He was seen not far from here, yesterday,
by people of the village."
I began to tell him what I knew. He did not
wait for me to finish. Evidentlv as anxious as
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY 289
myself, he drew me towards a lodge, standing
some distance from the house, which Berangere
occupied.
He knocked. There was no answer. But the
door was open. He entered and went upstairs
to Be>angere's room. She was not there.
He did not seem greatly surprised.
" She often goes out early," he said.
" Perhaps she is at the house? " I suggested.
" With my wife? No, my wife is not very
well and would not be up yet."
" What then? "
" I presume she has gone for her ordinary walk
to the ruins of the old castle. She likes the
view there, which embraces Bougival and the
whole river."
" Is it far? "
" No, just at the end of the park."
Nevertheless the park stretched some way
back; and it took us four or five minutes' walk
to reach a circular clearing from which we could
see a few lengths of broken wall perched on the
top of a ridge among some fallen heaps of stone-
work.
" There," said the count. " BSrangere has
been to this bench. She has left the book which
she was reading."
" And a scarf too," I said, anxiously. " Look,
290 THE THREE EYES
a rumpled scarf. . . . And the grass round about
shows signs of having been trampled on. ...
My God, I hope nothing has happened to the
poor child !
I had not finished speaking when we heard
cries from the direction of the ruins, cries for
help or cries of pain, we could not tell which.
We at once darted along the narrow path which
ran up the hill, cutting across the winding forest-
road. When we were half-way up, the cries
broke out again; and a woman's figure came
into view among the crumbling stones of the
old castle.
" Bexangre ! " I cried, increasing my pace.
She did not see me. She was running, as
though she had some one in pursuit of her, and
taking advantage of every bit of shelter that the
ruins offered. Presently a man appeared, look-
ing for her and threatening her with a revolver
which he carried in his hand.
" It's he ! " I stammered. " It's Velmot ! "
One after the other they entered the huddle of
ruins, from which we were now separated by
forty yards at most. We covered the distance
in a few seconds and I rushed ahead towards the
place through which Be>angre had slipped.
As I arrived, a shot rang out, some little way
off, and T heard moans. Despite my efforts, I
THE CHATEAU DE PRE-BONY 291
could get no farther forward, because the pas-
sage was blocked by brambles and trails of ivy.
My companion and I struggled desparately
against the branches which were cutting our
faces. At length we emerged oa a large plat-
form, where at first we saw no one among the
tall grass and the moss-grown rocks. Still, there
was that shot . . . and those cries of pain quite
close to where we stood. . . .
Suddenly the count, who was searching a short
distance in front of me, exclaimed :
" There she is ! ... Berangere ! Are you
hurt?"
I leapt towards him. Berangere lay out-
stretched in a tangle of leaves and herbage.
She was so pale that I had not a doubt but
that she was dead ; and I felt very clearly that
I should not be able to survive her. I even com-
pleted my thought by saying, aloud :
" I will avenge her first. The murderer shall
die by my hand, I swear it."
But the count, after a hurried inspection, de-
clared.
" She's not dead, she's breathing."
And I saw her open her eyes.
I fell on my knees besides her and, lifting her
fair and sorrow-stricken face in my hands, asked
her:
292 THE THREE EYES
"Where are you hurt, BSrangere? Tell me,
darling."
" I'm not hurt," she whispered. " It's the ex-
ertion, the excitement."
" But surely," I insisted, " he fired at you? "
" No, no," she said, " it was I who fired."
" Do you mean that? You fired? "
" Yes, with his revolver."
" But you missed him. He has made his es-
cape."
"I did not miss him. I saw him fall . . .
quite close to this ... on the edge of the ra-
vine."
This ravine was a deep cut in the ground, on
our right. The count went to the spot and called
to me. When I was standing beside him, he
showed me the body of a man lying head down-
wards, his face covered with blood. I ap-
proached and recognized Velmot. He was dead.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FORMULA
VELMOT dead, BSrangere alive: the joy of
it! The sudden sense of security! This
time, the evil adventure was over, since the girl
whom I loved had nothing more to fear. And
my thoughts at once harked back to Noel Dor-
geroux: the formula in which the great secret
was summed up was saved. With the clues and
the means of action which existed elsewhere,
mankind was now in a position to continue my
| uncle's work.
Be"rangere called me back:
" He's dead, isn't he? "
I felt intuitively that I ought not to tell her
r a truth which was too heavy for her to bear and
which she was afraid of hearing and I declared :
" Not at all. ... We haven't seen him. . . .
He must have got away. . . ."
My answer seemed to relieve her ; and she whis-
pered:
" In any case, he is wounded. ... I know I
hit him."
293
294 THE THREE EYES
" Rest, my darling," I said, " and don't worry
any more about anything."
She did as she was told ; and she was so weary
that she soon fell asleep.
Before taking her home, the count and I went
back to the body and lowered it down the slope
of the ravine, which we followed to the wall that
surrounded the estate. As there was a breach at
this spot, the count gave it as his opinion that
Velmot could not have entered anywhere but
here. And in fact a little lower down, at the
entrance to a lonely forest-road we discovered
his car. We lifted the body into it, placed the
revolver on the seat, drove the car to a distance
of half a mile and left it at the entrance to a
clearing. We met nobody on the road. The
death would beyond a doubt be ascribed to
suicide.
An hour later, Be>angere, now back to the
lodge and lying on her bed, gave me her hand,
which I covered with kisses. We were alone,
with no more enemies around us. There was no
hideous shape prowling in the dark. No one
w y as any longer able to thwart our rightful haoDi-
ness.
" The nightmare has passed/' I said. " There
is no obstacle left between you and me. You will
no longer try to run away, will you? "
THE FORMULA 295
I watched her with an emotion in which still
lingered no small anxiety. Dear little girl, she
was still, to me, a creature full of mystery and
the unknown ; and there were many secrets hid-
den in the shadowy places of that soul into which
I had never entered. I told her as much. She
in her turn looked at me for a long time, with
her tired and fevered eyes, so different from the
careless, laughing eyes which I had loved long
ago, and she whispered:
"Secrets? My secrets? No. There is only
one secret in me ; and that one secret is the cause
of everything."
" May I hear it? "
" I love you."
I felt a thrill of joy. Often I had experienced
a profound intuition of this love of hers, but it
had been spoilt by so much distrust, suspicion
and resentment. And now Be>angere was con-
fessing it to me, gravely and frankly.
"You love me," I repeated. "You love me.
Why did you not tell me earlier? How many
misfortunes would have been avoided! Why
didn't you?"
" I couldn't."
" And you can now, because there is no longer
any obstacle between us? "
" There is the same obstacle as ever."
296 THE THREE EYES
" Which is that? "
" My father."
I said in a lower voice:
" You know that Theodore Massignac is
dead?"
" Yes."
"Well, then?"
" I am Theodore Massignac's daughter."
I cried eagerly:
" Be"rangere, there is something I want to tell
you ; and I assure you beforehand . . ."
She interrupted me:
" Please don't say anything more. There's al-
ways that between us. It is a gulf which we
cannot hope to fill with words."
She seemed so much exhausted that I made a
movement to leave her. She stopped me:
" No," she said, " don't go. I am not going
to be ill ... for more than a day or two, at the
outside. First of all, I want everything to be
quite clear between us ; I want you to understand
every single thing that I have done. Listen to
me. . . ."
" To-morrow, Be>angere."
" No. to-day," she insisted. " I feel a need to
tell you at once what I have to say. Nothing
will do more to restore my peace of mind. Listen
to me. . . ."
THE FORMULA 297
She did not have to entreat me long. How
could I have wearied of looking at her and listen-
ing to her? We had been through such trials
when separated from each other that I was
afraid, after all, of being parted from her
now.
She put her arm round my neck. Her beau-
tiful lips were quivering beneath my eyes. See-
ing my gaze fixed upon them, she smiled :
" You remember, in the Yard . . . the first
time. . . . From that day, I hated you . . . and
adored you. ... I was your enemy . . . and
your slave. . . . Yes, all my independent and
rather wild nature was up in arms at not being
able to shake off a recollection which gave me
so much pain . . . and so much pleasure ! . . . I
was mastered. I ran away from you. I kept
on coming back to you . . . and I should have
come back altogether, if that man you know
whom I mean had not spoken to me one morn-
ing. . . ."
" Velmot ! What did he come for? What did
he want? "
" He came from my father. What he wanted,
as I perceived later, was through me to enter
into Noel Dorgeroux's life and rob him of the
secret of his invention."
" Why did you not warn me? "
298 THE THREE EYES
" From the first moment, Velmot asked me to
be silent. Later, he commanded it."
" You ought to have obeyed him. . . ."
" Had I committed the least indiscretion, he
would have killed you. I loved you. I was
afraid; and I was all the more afraid because
Velmot persecuted me with a love which my
hatred for him merely stimulated. How could
I doubt that his threat was seriously meant?
From that time onward, I was caught in the
wheels of the machine. What with one lie and
another, I became his accomplice ... or rather
their accomplice, for my father joined him in
the course of the winter. Oh, the torture of it !
That man who loved me . . . and that con-
temptible father! ... I lived a life of horror
. . . always hoping that they would grow tired
because their machinations were leading to
nothing."
"And what about my letters from Grenoble?
And my uncle's fears? "
" Yes, I know, my uncle often mentioned them
to me; and, without revealing the plot to him,
I myself put him on his guard. It was at my
request that he sent you that report which was
stolen. Only, he never anticipated murder.
Theft, yes; and, notwithstanding the watch
THE FORMULA 299
which I maintained, I could see that I was doing
no good, that my father made his way into the
Lodge at night, that he had at his disposal
methods of which I knew nothing. But between
that and murder, assassination! No, no, a
daughter cannot believe such things."
" So, on the Sunday, when Velmot came to
fetch you at the Lodge while Noel Dorgeroux
was out . . .?"
" That Sunday, he told me that my father had
given up his plan and wanted to say good-bye
to me and that he was waiting for me by the
chapel in the disused cemetery, where the two
of them had been experimenting with the frag-
ments removed from the old wall in the Yard.
As it happened, Velmot had taken advantage
of his call at the Lodge to steal one of the blue
phials which my uncle used. I did not notice
this before he had already poured part of the
liquid on the improvised screen of the chapel. I
was able to get hold of the phial and throw it
into the well. Just then you called me. Vel-
mot made a rush at me and carried me to his
motor-car, where, after stunning me with his fist
and binding me, he hid me under a rug. When I
recovered from my swoon, I was in the garage
at Batignolles. It was in the evening. I was
300 THE THREE EYES
able to push the car under a window which
opened on the street, and I jumped out. A
gentleman and a lady who were passing picked
me up, for I had sprained my ankle as I came to
the ground. They took me home with them.
Next morning I read in the papers that Noel
Dorgeroux had been murdered."
B6rangere hid her face in her hands :
" Oh, how I suffered ! Was I not responsible
for his death? And I should have given myself
up, if M. and Madame de Roncherolles, who were
the kindest of friends to me, had not prevented
me. To give myself up meant ruining my father
and, as a consequence, destroying Noel Dorger-
oux's secret. This last consideration decided
me. I had to repair the wrong which I had un-
wittingly committed and to fight against those
whom I had served. As soon as I was well again,
I set to work. Knowing of the existence of the
written instructions which NoSl Dorgeroux had
hidden behind the portrait of D'Alembert, I had
myself driven to the Lodge on the evening before,
or rather on the morning of the inauguration.
My intention was to see you and tell you every-
thing. But it so happened that the kitchen-
entrance was open and that I was able to go up-
stairs without attracting anybody's attention.
THE FORMULA 301
It was then that you surprised me, in godfather's
bedroom."
" Bnt why did yon mn away, BSrangere? "
"You had the documents; and that was
enough."
" No, you ought to have stayed and explained."
" Then you shouldn't have spoken to me of
love," she replied, sadly. "No one can love
Massignac's daughter."
" And the result, my poor darling," I said, with
a smile, "was that Massignac, who was in the
house, of which he had a key, and who overheard
our conversation, took the document and, through
your fault, remained the sole possessor of the
secret Not to mention that you left me face
to face with a formidable adversary ! "
She shook her head: "You had nothing to
fear from my father. Your danger came from
Velmot; and him I watched."
" How? "
" I had accepted an invitation to stay at the
Chateau de Pr6-Bony, because I knew that my
father and Velmot had lived in that neighbour-
hood during the past winter. Indeed, one day
I recognized Velmot's car coming down the hill
at Bougival. After some searching, I discovered
the shed in which he kept his car. Well, on the
302 THE THREE EYES
fifteenth of May, I was watching there when he
went in, accompanied by two men. From what
they said I gathered that they had carried off
my father at the end of the performance, that
they had taken him to an island in the river
where Velmot lay in hiding and that next day
Velmot was to resort to every possible method to
make him speak. I did not know what to do.
To denounce Velmot to the police meant supply-
ing them with convincing evidence against my
father. On the other hand, my friends the Ron-
cherolles were not at Pr-Bony. Longing for
assistance, I ran to the Blue Lion and telephoned
to you making an appointment with you there."
" I kept the appointment that same night,
Be>angere."
" You came that night? " she asked, surprised.
" Of course I did ; and at the door of the inn
I w r as met by a small boy, sent by you, who took
me to the island and to Vel mot's house and to
a room in which Velmot locked me up and from
which, on the following day, I witnessed Tho-
dore Massignac's torture and removal. My dear
Be>angere, it wasn't very clever of you ! "
She seemed stupefied and said : " I sent no
boy. I never left the Blue Lion and I waited for
you that night and all the morning. Somebody
must have given us away: I can't think who."
THE FORMULA 303
" It's a simple enough mystery," I said, laugh-
ing. "Velmot no doubt had a crony of some
sort in the inn, who told him of your telephone-
call. Then he must have sent that boy, who was
in his pay, to pick me up on my way to you."
" But why lay a trap for you and not for me? "
"Very likely he was waiting till next day to
capture you. Very likely he was more afraid of
me and wanted to seize the opportunity to keep
me under lock and key until Massignac had
spoken. Also no doubt he was obeying motives
and yielding to necessities of which we shall
never know and which moreover do not really
matter. The fact remians, Be>angere, that, next
day . . ."
" Next day," she resumed, " I managed to find
a boat and in the evening, to row round the
island to the place where my father was dying.
I was able to save him."
I in my turn was bewildered :
" What, it was you who saved him? You suc-
ceeded in landing, in finding Velmot in the dark,
in hitting him just as he was turning on me?
It was you who stopped him? It was you who
set Massignac free? "
I took her little hand and kissed it with emo-
tion. The dear girl ! She also had done all sho
could to protect Noe'l Dorgeroux's secret; and
304 THE THREE EYES
with what courage, with what undaunted pluck,
risking death twenty times over and not recoil-
ing, at the great hour of danger, from the terrible
act of taking life !
" You must tell me all this in detail, Be>an-
gere. Go on with your story. Where did you
take your father to? "
" To the river bank ; and from there, in a mar-
ket-gardener's cart, to the Chateau de Pr6-Bony,
where I nursed him."
" And Velmot? "
She gave a shudder :
" I did not see him again for days and days,
not until this morning. I was sitting on the
bench by the ruins, reading. Suddenly he stood
before me. I tried to run away. He prevented
me and said, ' Your father is dead. I have come
to you from him. Listen ! ' I distrusted him
but he went on to say, * I swear I come from him ;
and, to prove it, he told me that you knew the
formula. He confided it to you during his ill-
ness.' This was true. While I was nursing my
father, in this very lodge, he said to me one day,
' I can't tell what may happen, B6rangere. It
is possible that I shall destroy the screen at
Meudon, out of revenge. It will be a mistake.
In any case, I want to undo that act of mad-
ness beforehand.' He then made me learn the
THE FORMULA 305
formula by heart. And this was a thing which
no one except my father and myself could know,
because I was alone with him and kept the secret.
Velmot, consequently, was speaking the truth."
" What did you say? "
" I just said, ' Well? ' Velmot said, < His last
wish was that you should give me the formula.'
' Never ! ' I said. ' You lie ! My father made
me swear never to reveal it to any one, what-
ever happened, except to one person.' He
shrugged his shoulders: ' Victorien Beaugrand,
I suppose? ' * Yes.' ' Victorien Beaugrand
heard Massignac's last words. And he agrees
with me, or at least is on the point of doing so.'
' I refuse to believe it! ' 'Ask him for yourself.
He's up there, in the ruins . . .' "
" I, in the ruins? "
"That's what he said: 'In the ruins, fast-
ened to the foot of a tree. His life depends on
you. I offer it to you in exchange for the for-
mula. If not, he's a dead man.' I did not sus-
pect the trap which he was laying for me. I
ran towards the ruins as fast as I could. This
was what Velmot wanted. The ruins was a
deserted spot, which gave him the chance to
attack me. He took it at once, without even
trying to conceal his falsehood. ' Caught, baby ! '
he cried, throwing me to the ground. ' Oh, I
306 THE THREE EYES
knew you'd be sure to come! Only think, it's
your lover, it's the man you love! For you do
love him, don't you? ' Evidently his only ob-
ject was to obtain the secret from me by threats
and blows. But what happened was that his
rage against you and my hatred and loathing for
him made him lose his head. First of all he
wanted his revenge. He had me in his arms.
Oh, the villain!"
She once more hid her face in her hands. She
was very feverish ; and I heard her stammering :
"The villain! ... I don't know how I got
away from him. I was worn out. For all that,
I managed to give him a savage bite and to
release myself. He ran after me, brandishing
his revolver; but just as he caught me up, he
fell and let go of it. I picked it up at once.
When he came after me again, I fired. . . ."
She was silent. The painful story had ex-
hausted her. Her face retained an expression
of bewilderment and fright.
" My poor Be>angere," I said, " I have done
you a great wrong. I have often, far too often,
accused you in my heart, without guessing what
a wonderful, plucky creature you were."
" You could not be expected to understand
me."
"Why not?"
THE FORMULA 3OT
She murmured sadly :
" I am Massignac's daughter."
" No more of that ! " I cried. " You are the
one who always sacrificed herself and who al-
ways took the risk. And you are also the girl
I love, Berangere, the girl who gave me all her
life and all her soul in a kiss. Remember
Berangere ... the other day in the Yard, when
I found you again and when the sight of all
those visions of love threw you in my arms. . . ."
" I have forgotten nothing," she said, " and
I never shall forget."
" Then you consent? "
Once again she repeated:
" I am Massignac's daughter."
" Is that the only reason why you refuse me? "
" Can you doubt it? "
I allowed a moment to pass and said:
" So that, if your fate had willed it that you
were not Massignac's daughter, you would have
consented to be my wife? "
" Yes," she said, gravely.
The hour had come to speak; and how happy
was I to be able to do so. I repeated my sen-
tence:
" If fate had willed that you were not Mas-
signac's daughter. . . . Berangere, did it never
occur to you to wonder why there was so little
308 THE THREE EYES
affection between Massignac and you, why, on
the contrary, there was so much indifference?
When you were a child, the thought of going
back to him and living with him used to upset
you terribly. All your life was wrapped up in
the Yard. All your love went out to Noel Dor-
geroux. Don't you think, when all is said, that
we are entitled to interpret your girlish feelings
and instincts in a special sense? "
She looked at me in surprise:
" I don't understand," she said.
" You don't understand, because you have
never thought about these things. For instance,
is it natural that the death of the man whom
you called your father 1 should give you such
an impression of deliverance and relief? "
She seemed dazed:
" Why do you say, the man whom I called my
father? "
" Well," I replied, smiling, I have never seen
your birth-certificate. And, as I have no proof
of a fact which seems to me improbable . . ."
" But," she said, in a changed voice, " you have
not the least proof either that it is not so. . . ."
" Perhaps I have," I answered.
" Oh," said Be>angere, " it would be too ter-
rible to say that and not to let me learn the
truth at once ! "
THE FORMULA 309
" Do you know Massignac's writing? "
I took a letter from my pocket and handed it
to her:
" Read this, my darling. It is a letter which
Massignac wrote to me and which he handed to
me as he lay dying. I read only the first few
words to begin with and at once went off in
search of you. Read it, Be>angere, and have
no doubts : it is the evidence of a dead man."
She took the letter and read aloud :
" B6rangere knows the formula and must not
communicate it to any one except you alone,
Victorien. You will marry her, will you not?
She is not my daughter, but Noel Dorgeroux's.
She was born five months after my marriage,
as you can confirm by consulting the public
records. Forgive me, both of you, and pray for
me."
A long pause followed. Be>angere was weep-
ing tears of joy. A radiant light was being
thrown on her whole life. The awful weight
that had bowed her down in shame and despair
no longer bore upon her shoulders. She was at
last able to breathe and hold her head high and
look straight before her and accept her share
of happiness and love. She whispered:
310 THE THREE EYES
" Is it possible? Noel Dorgeroux's daughter?
Is it possible?"
" It is possible," I said, " and it is certain.
After his rightful struggle with Velmot and
after the care which you bestowed upon him
once you had saved him, Massignac repented.
Thinking of the day of his death, he tried to
atone for a part of his crimes and wrote you
that letter . . . which evidently possesses no
legal value, but which you and I will accept as
the truth. You are the daughter of Noel Dor-
geroux, Berangere, of the man whom you always
loved as a father . . . and who wanted us to
be married. Will you dream of disobeying his
wishes, Berangere? Do you not think that it is
our duty to join forces and together to complete
his enterprise? You know the indispensable for-
mula. By publishing it, we shall make Noel
Dorgeroux's wonderful life-work endure for ever.
Do you consent, Berangere? "
She did not reply at once; and, when I again
tried to convince her, I saw that she was listen-
ing with an absent expression, in which I was
surprised to find a certain anxiety :
"What is it, darling? You accept, do yon
not? "
" Yes, yes," she said, " but, before everything
I must try to jog my memory. Only think!
THE FORMULA 311
How careless of me not to have written the for-
mula down! Certainly, I know it by heart.
But, all the same . . ."
She thought for a long time, screwing up her
forehead and moving her lips. Suddenly she
said:
"A paper and pencil . . . quickly. . . ."
I handed her a writing-block. Swiftly, with
a trembling hand, she jotted down a few figures.
Then she stopped and looked at me with eyes
full of anguish.
I understood the effort which she had made
and, to calm her, said:
" Don't rack your brains now . . . it'll come
later. . . . What you need to-day is rest. Go
to sleep, my darling."
"I must find it ... at all costs. ... I
must. . . ."
" You'll find it some other time. You are tired
now and excited. Rest yourself."
She did as I said and ended by falling asleep.
But an hour after, she woke up, took the sheet
of paper again and, in a moment or two, stam-
mered:
" This is dreadful ! My brain refuses to work !
Oh, but it hurts, it hurts ! . . ."
The night was spent in these vain attempts.
Her fever increased. Next day she was de-
312 THE THREE EYES
lirious and kept on muttering letters and figures
which were never the same.
For a week, her life was despaired of. She
suffered horribly with her head and wore her-
self out scribbling lines on her bed clothes.
When she became convalescent and had re-
covered her consciousness, we avoided the sub-
ject and did not refer to it for some time. But
I felt that she never ceased to think of it and
that she continued to seek the formula. At
last, one day, she said with tears in her eyes:
" I have given up all hopes, dear. I repeated
that formula a hundred times after I had learnt
it; and I felt sure of my memory. But not a
single recollection of it remains. It must have
been when Velmot was clutching my throat.
Everything grew dark, suddenly. I know now
that I shall never remember."
She never did remember. The exhibitions at
the Yard were not resumed. The miraculous
visions did not reappear.
And yet what investigations were pursued!
How many companies have been promoted which
attempted to exploit the lost secret ! But all in
vain : the screen remained lifeless and empty, like
a blind man's eyes.
THE FORMULA 313
To Be>angere and me it would have meant a
sorrow incessantly renewed, if love had not
brought us peace and consolation in all things.
The authorities, who showed themselves fairly
easy-going, I think, in this case, never found
any traces of the woman who bore the name of
Massignac. I was dispatched on a mission to
the Far East. I sent out for her; and we were
married without attracting attention.
We often speak of Noel Dorgeroux's great
secret; and if Be"rangere's lovely eyes become
clouded with sadness:
"Certainly," I say, "the lost secret was a
wonderful thing. There was never anything
more thrilling than the Meudon pictures; and
those which we had a right to expect might have
opened up horizons which we are not able to
conceive. But are you quite sure that we ought
to regret them? Does a knowledge of the past
and the future spell happiness for mankind?
Is it not rather an essential law of our equilib-
rium that we should be obliged to live within
the narrow confines of the present and to see
before or behind us no more than lights which
are still just glimmering and lights which are
being faintly kindled? Our knowledge is ad-
justed to our strength; and it is not good to
learn and to decipher too quickly truths to which
314 THE THREE EYES
we have not had time to adapt our existence and
riddles which we do not yet deserve to know."
Benjamin Prvotelle made no attempt to con-
ceal his disappointment. I keep up a regular
correspondence with him. In every letter that
I receive from this great scientist I anticipate
his anxious question:
"Does she remember? May we hope?"
Alas, my answers leave him no illusions:
" Brangere remembers nothing. You must
not hope."
He consoles himself by waging a fierce contest
with those who still deny any value to his theory ;
and it must be confessed that, now that the screen
has been destroyed and it has become impossible
to support that theory by proofs which are in
any way material, the number of his adversaries
has increased and that they propound objections
which Benjamin Pre>otelle must find it ex-
tremely difficult to refute. But he has every
sincere and unprejudiced person on his side.
He likewise has the great public. We all
know, of our reasoned conviction, and we all
believe, out of our impulse of ardent faith, that,
though we now receive no communications from
our brothers in Venus, they, those beings with
the Three Eyes, are still interesting themselves
THE FORMULA 315
in us with the same fervour, the same watch-
fulness, the same impassioned curiosity. Look-
ing down upon us, they follow our every action,
they observe us, study us and pity us, they count
our misfortunes and our wounds and perhaps
also they envy us, when they witness our joys
and when, in some secret place, they surprise a
man and a maid, with love-laden eyes, whose
lips unite in a kiss.
THE END
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