Fatal Inheritance (10 page)

‘The endeavour to explain these mysterious phenomena by scientific investigators has resulted in their adoption of one or other of two hypotheses, namely:

‘1. That the phenomena are really of supernormal origin and emanate from the disincarnate spirits of the other beings, who return to earth and take temporary possession of the organism of the medium, talking through her mouth and writing with her hand while she is in a somnambulistic state.

‘2. That the phenomena are the product of and originate in the subliminal consciousness of the medium.

‘The first theory, exemplified by Mrs Jackson’s earlier address, adduces as the essential argument in its support the frequently observed occurrence of mediums in trances speaking languages or expressing information that they do not know and cannot possibly know in their ordinary lives.

‘The second theory, instead, credits the subliminal consciousness of the true medium with quite extraordinary powers of knowledge, memory, invention and understanding. When I first began regularly attending the séances of Hélène Smith, I hesitated for some time before coming to a final conclusion about which theory best describes the phenomena I then saw, and of which you have all been a witness today. In my present lecture, I will defend the hypothesis of the second theory.

‘Let me attempt to explain why, by first saying that of all the traits that I discover in her tale of Martian romance – which consists in several dozen sessions similar to that which you witnessed today, but greatly varied and containing very little repetition of information – the most salient feature is undoubtedly this:
its profoundly infantile character.
’

The audience gasped collectively. Surely this was unheard-of insolence, stated so bluntly in the hallowed circles of the SPR!

‘The candour and imperturbable naivety of childhood,’ continued the professor, ignoring the noise, ‘which doubts nothing because it is ignorant of everything, is necessary in order for one to launch himself seriously upon an enterprise such as the pretended exact and authentic depictions of an unknown world. An adult who is at all cultivated and has any experience of life would never waste time in elaborating similar nonsense; Mademoiselle Smith less than anyone, intelligent and cultivated as she is in her normal state.

‘In general, it is the sitters who gather as much as they can of the strange words pronounced by Mademoiselle Smith in her states of trance, but, as you have just seen, that is very little, since Hélène, in her Martian state, often speaks with a tremendous volubility. Moreover, a distinction must be made between the relatively clear and brief phrases that are later translated by Esenale, and the rapid and confused gibberish the signification of which can never be obtained, probably because it really has none, being only a pseudo-language.

‘Although as you saw, Hélène can preserve a certain memory of her visions in the waking state, and make reproductions of some of the things she saw, her verbo-motor hallucinations of articulation and of writing seem to be totally incompatible with her preservation of the waking state, and are invariably followed by amnesia. Hélène is always totally absent or entranced while her hand writes mechanically, and she is not aware of speaking Martian automatically, and does not recollect it. This incapacity of the normal personality of Mademoiselle Smith to observe at the time or remember afterwards any of her verbo-motor automatisms denotes a more profound perturbation than that which she experiences during her reception of visual hallucinations. For this reason, it is not surprising to me that her visual experiences bear an obvious resemblance to those which surround her in her ordinary life: the Martians closely resemble the human beings of our own planet in their appearance, and their houses and trees are mere fanciful variations upon ours.

‘The Martian language, produced in a state of deeper trance leaving no memory behind, appears far less similar to anything familiar to us. Yet proceeding by analogy, I determined to inspect it more closely to see whether, in fact, it was not actually much more similar to Mademoiselle Smith’s native French than it appeared on the surface. I began by a complete examination of the strange alphabet in which she wrote down the Martian sentences during her experiences of automatic writing.

‘Now, it is not always easy to represent a language and its pronunciation by means of the typographical characters of another. Happily, the Martian, upon detailed examination and in spite of its strange appearance and the fifty millions of leagues which separate us from the red planet, turned out to be in reality so near a neighbour to French in both alphabet and syntax, that one can only conclude that either French-speakers are astoundingly lucky in having a language that is so close a neighbour to Martian, or that Mademoiselle Smith has invented the Martian language entirely, based on her intimate subliminal knowledge of her mother tongue. Let me give two simple examples supporting my claim that the pretended Martian language is nothing but an infantile travesty of French: it will suffice for you to contemplate for one moment the two sentences spoken in Martian here in this hall, whose translations are written upon the board before you:

‘Cé évé pléva ti di benez essat riz tes midée durée!’

‘Dodé né ci haudan té méss métiche Astané!
’

‘If you compare these sentences to their English translations, you may already be struck by a general similarity in sentence structure, compared for example with that of the Chinese. However, a moment’s examination will show you that their relationship to French is yet one degree closer, in that the French translation admits of a word-by-word correspondence! Take for example the first sentence, rendered in English as “I am sad to find you still living upon this ugly Earth”, which is as good a translation from the French as can be expected. But consider now the actual French as it proceeded from Hélène’s very mouth:
“Je suis chagrin de te retrouver vivant sur cette laide terre!”
Here, each word in Martian has its exact equivalent in French, and, as a further indication, we note that the short words
“de”, “te”, “sur”
in French correspond to equally short monosyllables in the Martian. Comparing the French and the English of the second sentence reveals the same peculiarity: whereas “This is the house of the great man Astané” will not allow for a word-for-word correspondence, the French
“Ceci est la maison du grand homme Astané”
does, thanks to the contraction of the two words “of the” into the single French “
du
” which, remarkably, also exists in the Martian “
té
”.

‘If I add that the consonants which appear in the Martian language correspond very exactly to equivalent consonants in French, and that I have verified these claims on a great number of other Martian sentences pronounced over the course of dozens of séances, this will explain why I have been led to the inescapable conclusion that the Martian language is nothing but French, metamorphosed and carried to a higher diapason.

‘Now, my argument would not be complete if I did not have a theory justifying, at the same time, the complete dissimilarity of the individual Martian words with those of the French, for it must be acknowledged that there is no trace of parentage, of filiation, of any resemblance whatever between the Martian and French vocabularies.

‘But in fact, this apparent contradiction carries its explanation in itself, and gives us the key to Martian. This fantastic idiom is quite evidently the naive and somewhat puerile work of an infantile imagination, which had the idea of creating a new language, but which even while creating strange and unknown words, caused them to run in the accustomed moulds of the only real language that it knew. The Martian of Mademoiselle Smith, in other words, is the product of a brain or a personality which certainly has taste and aptitude for linguistic exercises, but which never knew that French takes little heed of the logical connection of ideas, and did not take the trouble to make innovations in the matter of phonetics, of grammar, or of syntax.

‘The process of creation of Martian seems to have consisted in simply taking certain French phrases as such and replacing each word by some other chosen at random. That is why not only the order but even the structure and number of syllables of French words can be recognised in many Martian words.

‘Yet the search for originality inherent in the creation of new language represents an effort of imagination with which Mademoiselle Smith must certainly be credited. Homage must also be rendered to the labour of memorisation necessitated by the making of a mental dictionary. She has sometimes, indeed, fallen into errors; the stability of her vocabulary has not always been perfect. But, finally, after the first hesitation and independently of some later confusions, it gives evidence of a praiseworthy terminological consistency, and which, no doubt, in time, and with some suggestive encouragement, would result in the elaboration of a very complete language.

‘The preceding analysis of the Martian language furnishes its support to the considerations which the content of the romance has already suggested to us in regard to its author. To imagine that by twisting the sounds of French words a new language capable of standing examination could actually be created, and to wish to make it pass for that of the planet Mars, would be the climax of silly fatuity or of imbecility were it not simply a trait of naive candour well worthy of the happy age of childhood.

‘If, however, one takes into account the great facility for languages known to have been possessed by Mademoiselle Smith’s father, the question naturally arises whether in the Martian we are not in the presence of an awakening and momentary display of a hereditary faculty, dormant under the normal personality of Hélène, and from which she has never profited in an effective or conscious manner. It is a fact of common observation that gifts and aptitudes often skip a generation and seem to pass directly from the grandparents to the grandchildren, forgetting the intermediate link. Who knows whether Mademoiselle Smith, someday, may not cause the polyglot aptitudes of her father to bloom again with greater brilliancy, for the glory of science, through a brilliant line of philologists and linguists of genius?

‘Let me insist once again upon my total conviction that while everything learnt from Hélène’s visual and auditive hallucinations is a pure production of her subliminal consciousness, thus revealing the infantile elements which all of us carry deep within and which rarely or never emerge in our conscious state, I do not for one moment suggest the slightest effort at fraud or conscious manipulation on her part. Knowing Hélène as I do, I would lay down my honour as a guarantee that she is totally unaware of the tricks her subconscious is playing upon her, and hears and sees the messages exactly as though they proceed from the exterior. And above and beyond this statement, I would also beg to observe that while clearly containing, as I have shown, all the hallmarks of the infantile subconscious, her inventions reveal tremendous and impressive powers of creation and imagination which can only lead me to have the greatest admiration for a brain able to produce such a wealth of visionary material and, furthermore, unlike most, able to find its own startling and unusual manner of bringing this material to its conscious attention when it usually remains unrecognised, or expressed only through the confusion of dreams.

‘It is hardly necessary to add, in conclusion, that the whole spiritistic or occult hypothesis seems to me to be absolutely superfluous and unjustified in the case of the Martian of Hélène Smith. Autosuggestibility set in motion by certain stimulating influences of the environment amply suffices to account for the entire Martian romance.’

He stopped speaking and laid his papers down upon the lectern. But poor Professor Flournoy – his carefully thought-out efforts had fallen largely on deaf ears! None of the enthusiasm which had greeted Mrs Jackson’s address was expressed now, and it was only due to an extreme of courtesy that scattered and unenthusiastic applause was heard at all, while a couple of voices even cried out observations such as ‘Shocking!’ and ‘Boo!’ He gave a resigned smile, bowed slightly, and left the stage.

I remained in my seat as people stood up all around me, collecting their scarves and wraps. My head was spinning with the ideas set in motion by the professor’s speech, which so remarkably pulled together the ideas that had been knocking about loosely in my head. Subliminal consciousness, unconscious infantile impulses emerging in states of trance, their expression by automatic writing, the role of heredity – even the mention of heredity from the grandfather that I had so lately discussed with Carl – or Professor Correns, rather. I sat turning these notions over in my mind, trying to find out what notion within them was tickling my brain, until I suddenly realised that the room was nearly empty, and only a few grey-bearded men remained clustered together near the door! I recognised Professor Flournoy and Mr Myers amongst them, as well as the famous Sir Oliver Lodge. But what about Dr Bernstein, the man I had come here to see! I jumped out of my seat at once. Had I in my stupidity let him disappear?

Approaching the group, I addressed myself to Sir Oliver, reminding him of the circumstances in which we had last met. He hesitated for a moment, then laughed as the recollection struck him.

‘Mrs Weatherburn – of course! Delighted to see you here. So, you have become a believer!’ he exclaimed with enthusiasm. ‘As I remember, you used to be something of a sceptic. Am I not right?’

‘I was,’ I said diplomatically. ‘But now I realise that we are surrounded by mysteries that science is not yet able to explain. Today’s demonstration was particularly fascinating. I had read about automatic writing, but never witnessed it. In fact, ever since reading this book I have greatly wished to meet its author,’ I added, extracting Dr Bernstein’s volume from my muff and showing it around.

‘Why, then you are in luck,’ he said, ‘for the very man is standing in front of you,’ and he indicated the gentleman next to him, short of stature, wearing the pointed beard that all doctors of psychology seemed to feel the need to sport as a badge of their identification with the ideas of Dr Freud, and smiling in surprised amusement at being so suddenly and so anxiously sought. Sir Oliver kindly performed the necessary introductions.

‘To tell the truth, I wished to speak to you on a very particular matter,’ I confided to the doctor in a low tone as soon as the general conversation about the day’s events had died down somewhat, and the other gentlemen had taken up their canes and umbrellas in preparation for departure. ‘If you are willing, perhaps we could talk in private for some moments?’

‘But certainly,’ he replied, casting me a glance bright with interest, and he led me out of the lecture room into the front hall of the building. After a glance outside, where freezing sleet continued to pour down as it had been doing relentlessly since the morning, he led me across the hall into a smaller, empty room equipped with desks and a blackboard.

‘We shall be quite quiet here,’ he said kindly. ‘Now, do tell me how I can be of service to you.’

‘Do you remember a concert in Zürich at the end of December, in which you heard a violinist named Sebastian Cavendish?’

He started visibly and looked at me with an entirely new expression. Clearly he had not expected this: Frau Bochsler must not have had the opportunity to tell him about my visit to her. Although he controlled it carefully, his reaction  struck me as quite strong; there was a tension, a sudden attention that intrigued me greatly, and something fleeting in his eyes. What was it? A stab of pain?

I also took care to show nothing particular, but I felt very alert. The more so since the man, a trained psychologist, must probably know more about my thoughts and feelings than an ordinary person would. It was not, of course, that I had anything to hide; only that I preferred to remain in the shadows, as it were, observing while providing no food for observation. A difficult task before a man who looked at one like a mind-reader.

‘Of course, of course,’ he said in quite a natural voice, belying the palpable strain I noticed in his jaw and shoulders. ‘A beautiful concert, quite unforgettable. I read about the sad death of the young artist in the newspaper a short time afterwards. A terrible loss.’

Ordinary words, and yet how significant they sounded in his mouth. Was this simply the way of all psychologists, to bring out the deeper meaning behind the everyday?

‘The reason I am here,’ I explained, ‘is that his family has asked me to make some attempt to understand why he killed himself. You know that it was a suicide?’

‘I read it,’ replied the doctor, ‘but I know nothing more.’

‘Neither do they,’ I told him. ‘You see, all appeared to be going wonderfully well in his life. He was engaged to a lovely young woman, his career was brilliant, he was a beloved and successful artist. He left a note, however, which seems to indicate that he learnt something deeply troubling about himself in those final days before his death. His mother and his fiancée seem to have no idea what that thing could possibly be. Yet it was something terrible enough for him to take his own life, without even choosing to share it with them. They have remained stunned by it all.’

‘That seems hard,’ he said softly. ‘He really gave no explanation?’

‘All he said in his note was that he had found out this terrible thing, and could not go on. The only clue is that he used the words ‘cursed inheritance’ and said it was too dangerous to take risks with it. His fiancée is quite desperate. She has asked me to find out, if I can, exactly what it was that he discovered in those last days. I am trying to follow his traces step by step during the last days of his life, and to speak to everyone he spoke to then, in the effort to discover something, anything at all, out of the ordinary. I have already been in Zürich, and with the help of Frau Bochsler I have talked with nearly everyone who attended the party at her home that followed Sebastian’s concert. You, however, were away, and as Frau Bochsler remembers seeing you having an animated conversation with Sebastian, she encouraged me to try to meet you here.’

‘I see,’ he said slowly. ‘I see. Yet you have also read my book.’ He came to a complete stop.

‘Frau Bochsler gave it to me,’ I told him, ‘and I did read some of it, particularly the chapter about your own patient, Lydia K. It was fascinating. But I admit that that is not the reason why I wished to see you. I am sorry,’ I added, taking his silence as a sign of disappointment.

‘No, no,’ he said. ‘That is not why I ask you whether you read it. It is because of something that did happen, on that evening at Frau Bochsler’s.’

An electric tingle traversed me.

‘I cannot possibly see how what I said could have any connection to the young man’s suicide,’ he went on. ‘And yet, it was strange. Perhaps it was wrong of me to mention it to him, but, you see, I was violently excited and moved by his physical appearance. I really do not think I am dreaming when I tell you that he bore a remarkable resemblance to a person I once knew well. To Lydia K., in fact.’

‘He resembled Lydia K.!’ I exclaimed, truly surprised.

‘Astonishingly, to my eyes,’ he replied, ‘although there is no one else who could verify my feelings on the matter. But I will tell you that I could hardly take my eyes off him for the entire evening. He was a lively young man, full of laughter. It was only when he remained calm and stationary that the resemblance sprang to view; when he was talking and laughing, it ceased to be visible to me. Thus, I felt the need to stare at him continually, in an attempt to catch him at those moments when he should be listening attentively, in order to question and confirm what I was seeing again and again, a hundred times.’

‘Did you think there was a chance that it was a family resemblance?’ I asked.

‘Naturally I did! If you have read my book, you know how much I searched for Lydia after she disappeared from my life. No, what am I saying? Of course you cannot know that – obviously I did not write about it in the book. But I can tell you now that I wrote many letters to Mr Charles King, her guardian, and called at his house in London more than once in the years after she was taken away from me. But he neither answered my letters nor received me, and I was unable to find out the true identity of the ward who had been using his name. He died five or six years later, and with him my last hope of finding her. But the dream of seeing her again someday has never left my heart. She was a most interesting person; a most extraordinary case.’

‘And you talked to Sebastian about this?’ I said, much excited. Surely, after the violin, here was yet another tale of inheritance arising out of the mists of time.

‘I did, and I mentioned the name of Lydia King, but he had no knowledge of any such person, not even of the Christian name Lydia. Everyone in the room was referring to the fact that Sebastian was the grandson of a famous violinist named Joseph Krieger, so I even suggested to him that Lydia Krieger might have been her true name, but he told me that his mother’s name was Tanis, not Lydia; he knew of no Lydia. My gently probing questions revealed that his mother had not the slightest peculiarity in writing, nor any strong physical resemblance to her son other than a general effect of height and bearing, and also that she married in 1869, before I ever met Lydia.’

‘How did he seem when he reacted to your remarks?’ I asked. ‘Shocked or surprised?’

‘Not at all. Slightly amused and not particularly interested,’ he said. ‘I believe he actually remarked that it was rather a pity that there was no Lydia in his family, for he had always regretted being the only child of a widowed mother, and would have much appreciated the sort of extended family filled with grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins that some of his friends enjoyed. But he certainly did not say this in a tragic manner. He was not a tragically minded person, but one more inclined, I should say, to laugh off adversity.’

‘And that is all you told him? Only that you noticed a physical resemblance to a Lydia King you once knew, who would be in her fifties at the present time? And you asked if he was acquainted with any such person?’

‘Well, I told him a few words about how I had known Lydia and what kind of patient she was, and that I had lost sight of her long ago and often wondered what had become of her.’

‘And he did not appear especially moved.’

‘No. Perhaps he would have been more interested if his attention had not been solicited by so many other admirers that evening, but it is certain that what I was telling him did not strike any particular chord.’

‘You are a psychologist,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘you are used to reading human reactions. You do not think it possible that what you told him actually had a stronger effect than what he showed? That it really did provoke a deep inner disturbance? That it meant something to him which he was able to successfully hide?’

‘Unless he was one of the greatest actors in the world, and able to control himself so completely in a situation of which he had no previous warning, I should have to say that that is completely impossible. His reaction corresponded in every way to that of a person who had never heard of any Lydia, K., King, Krieger or otherwise. I think I can state with certainty that the name simply meant nothing to him, and neither did the mention of automatic writing. He seemed perfectly unfamiliar with the phenomenon, probably viewing it as no more than a fad which fascinates the kind of person who attends meetings such as today’s in this building.’

‘But that “cursed inheritance”,’ I persisted. ‘If, stimulated by your remarks, he did make enquiries, and discovered that he was related in some distant way to your Lydia, might not the cursed inheritance then refer to madness?’

‘But Lydia was not mad! She was as sane as you or I – or as Sebastian himself – outside of her trances. And he was not likely to consider himself mad, either. Gifted with a wild and creative imagination he certainly was, but without a trace of hysteria or any other mental disease. Unless, perhaps, he too was subject to trances?’

‘I have heard absolutely nothing of the kind,’ I admitted.

‘Then I cannot see what it could have meant to him. No, however we turn it around, it seems quite impossible to me that our conversation could possibly have led to his suicide. I would be most surprised to learn that he had even gone so far as to make enquiries. He did not seem to take the idea of a connection between Lydia and himself at all seriously.’

‘And what about you? You must have been very disappointed by his reaction,’ I said.

‘Not by his reaction, but by the plain fact that he knew nothing,’ he admitted. ‘For me, on that evening when I saw his face and the traits that reminded me so strongly of her, I knew a moment of ecstatic hope that was then dashed. I did not say this to anyone, of course. But Lydia was like a shooting star that once traversed my life, illuminating everything, and then lost forever. Nothing has ever been the same for me since then. Nothing.’

I squeezed the old man’s hand as I shook it goodbye, for the sadness in his eyes was deeper than tears. To my surprise, he squeezed mine gently back.

‘I have never spoken of all this to a living soul,’ he said. ‘Not a single person has known of my feelings for Lydia. For years after she went, I hoped for some message from her. Of course, she could not write, but I thought that perhaps she might manage to have a message conveyed to me someday, through another person. But nothing came, nothing but the years of silence. And then suddenly, from out of the chaos and turmoil of existence, an echo of her face was flung up at me from an unexpected source – and now it is lost again.’ He sighed deeply, and added philosophically, ‘Surprising physical resemblances can occasionally occur as the result of pure chance. I have been told more than once that I myself greatly resemble Sigmund Freud.’

‘That is just because of the beard,’ I said.

‘The beard and more,’ he replied with the ghost of a smile. ‘Inheritance is not merely something passed from parents to children, you know. Its consequences spread through entire countries, entire races. You must not give it too much importance.’

But Sebastian did, I thought, as I forced my way out of the front door into the blast of icy wind that hurled itself inside the building, as though for shelter. Something about inheritance was important enough for him to die for.