

















                           The Diamond Lens

                         By FITZ-JAMES O'BRIEN

This story, published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1858, was the first
of the great weird-scientific stories. It won immediate popularity for
the author--a popularity which continued unbroken until his death in
the Civil War.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales April
1929. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]


_1. The Bending of the Twig_

From a very early period of my life the entire bent of my inclinations
had been towards microscopic investigations. When I was not more than
ten years old, a distant relative of our family, hoping to astonish
my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me, by drilling
in a disk of copper a small hole, in which a drop of pure water was
sustained by capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus,
magnifying some fifty diameters, presented, it is true, only indistinct
and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently wonderful to work up my
imagination to a preternatural state of excitement.

Seeing me so interested in this rude instrument, my cousin explained
to me all that he knew about the principles of the microscope, related
to me a few of the wonders which had been accomplished through its
agency, and ended by promising to send me one regularly constructed,
immediately on his return to the city. I counted the days, the hours,
the minutes, that intervened between that promise and his departure.

Meantime I was not idle. Every transparent substance that bore the
remotest resemblance to a lens I eagerly seized upon, and employed
in vain attempts to realize that instrument, the theory of whose
construction I as yet only vaguely comprehended. All panes of glass
containing those oblate spheroidal knots familiarly known as "bull's
eyes" were ruthlessly destroyed, in the hope of obtaining lenses of
marvelous power. I even went so far as to extract the crystalline humor
from the eyes of fishes and animals, and endeavored to press it into
the microscopic service. I plead guilty to having stolen the glasses
from my Aunt Agatha's spectacles, with a dim idea of grinding them
into lenses of wondrous magnifying properties--in which attempt it is
scarcely necessary to say that I totally failed.

At last the promised instrument came. It was of that order known
as Field's simple microscope, and had cost perhaps about fifteen
dollars. As far as educational purposes went, a better apparatus could
not have been selected. Accompanying it was a small treatise on the
microscope--its history, uses, and discoveries. I comprehended then
for the first time the _Arabian Nights Entertainments_. The dull veil
of ordinary existence that hung across the world seemed suddenly to
roll away, and to lay bare a land of enchantments. I felt towards my
companions as the seer might feel towards the ordinary masses of men.
I held conversations with nature in a tongue which they could not
understand. I was in daily communication with living wonders, such as
they never imagined in their wildest visions. I penetrated beyond the
external portal of things, and roamed through the sanctuaries. Where
they beheld only a drop of rain slowly rolling down the window-glass,
I saw a universe of beings animated with all the passions common to
physical life, and convulsing their minute sphere with struggles as
fierce and protracted as those of men. In the common spots of mold,
which my mother, good housekeeper that she was, fiercely scooped away
from her jam pots, there abode for me, under the name of mildew,
enchanted gardens, filled with dells and avenues of the densest foliage
and most astonishing verdure, while from the fantastic boughs of these
microscopic forests hung strange fruits glittering with green, and
silver and gold.

It was no scientific thirst that at this time filled my mind. It was
the pure enjoyment of a poet to whom a world of wonders has been
disclosed. I talked of my solitary pleasures to none. Alone with my
microscope, I dimmed my sight, day after day and night after night,
poring over the marvels which it unfolded to me. I was like one who,
having discovered the ancient Eden still existing in all its primitive
glory, should resolve to enjoy it in solitude, and never betray to
mortal the secret of its locality. The rod of my life was bent at this
moment. I destined myself to be a microscopist.

Of course, like every novice, I fancied myself a discoverer. I was
ignorant at the time of the thousands of acute intellects engaged in
the same pursuit as myself, and with the advantage of instruments a
thousand times more powerful than mine. The names of Leeuwenhoek,
Williamson, Spencer, Ehrenberg, Schultz, Dujardin, Schacht and
Schleiden were then entirely unknown to me, or if known, I was ignorant
of their patient and wonderful researches. In every fresh specimen of
cryptogamia which I placed beneath my instrument I believed that I
discovered wonders of which the world was as yet ignorant. I remember
well the thrill of delight and admiration that shot through me the
first time that I discovered the common wheel animalcule (_Rotifera
vulgaris_) expanding and contracting its flexible spokes, and seemingly
rotating through the water. Alas! as I grew older, and obtained some
works treating of my favorite study, I found that I was only on the
threshold of a science to the investigation of which some of the
greatest men of the age were devoting their lives and intellects.

As I grew up, my parents, who saw but little likelihood of anything
practical resulting from the examination of bits of moss and drops of
water through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious that I
should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should enter the
counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant, who
carried on business in New York. This suggestion I decisively combated.
I had no taste for trade; I should only make a failure; in short, I
refused to become a merchant.

But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were
staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor; and
therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha, I
should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to place
me above want, it was decided that, instead of waiting for this,
I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years in
rendering myself independent.

After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and
selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New York
Academy. This disposition of my future suited me. A removal from my
relatives would enable me to dispose of my time as I pleased without
fear of detection. As long as I paid my Academy fees, I might shirk
attending the lectures if I chose; and, as I never had the remotest
intention of standing an examination, there was no danger of my being
"plucked." Besides, a metropolis was the place for me. There I could
obtain excellent instruments, the newest publications, intimacy with
men of pursuits kindred with my own--in short, all things necessary
to insure a profitable devotion of my life to my beloved science. I
had an abundance of money, few desires that were not bounded by my
illuminating mirror on one side and my object-glass on the other; what,
therefore, was to prevent my becoming an illustrious investigator of
the veiled worlds? It was with the most buoyant hope that I left my New
England home and established myself in New York.


_2. The Longing of a Man of Science_

My first step, of course, was to find suitable apartments. These I
obtained, after a couple of days' search, in Fourth Avenue; a very
pretty second-floor unfurnished, containing sitting-room, bedroom,
and a smaller apartment which I intended to fit up as a laboratory.
I furnished my lodgings simply, but rather elegantly, and then
devoted all my energies to the adornment of the temple of my worship.
I visited Pike, the celebrated optician, and passed in review his
splendid collection of microscopes--Field's Compound, Hingham's,
Spencer's, Nachet's Binocular (that founded on the principles of the
stereoscope), and at length fixed upon that form known as Spencer's
Trunnion Microscope, as combining the greatest number of improvements
with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with this I purchased
every possible accessory--draw-tubes, micrometers, a _camera-lucida_,
leverstage, achromatic condensers, white cloud illuminators, prisms,
parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes,
fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles, all of which would have
been useful in the hands of an experienced microscopist, but, as I
afterwards discovered, were not of the slightest present value to me.
It takes years of practise to know how to use a complicated microscope.
The optician looked suspiciously at me as I made these wholesale
purchases. He evidently was uncertain whether to set me down as some
scientific celebrity or a madman. I think he inclined to the latter
belief. I suppose I was mad. Every great genius is mad upon the subject
in which he is greatest. The unsuccessful madman is disgraced and
called a lunatic.

Mad or not, I set myself to work with a zeal which few scientific
students have ever equaled. I had everything to learn relative to the
delicate study upon which I had embarked--a study involving the most
earnest patience, the most rigid analytic powers, the steadiest hand,
the most untiring eye, the most refined and subtile manipulation.

For a long time half my apparatus lay inactively on the shelves of my
laboratory, which was now most amply furnished with every possible
contrivance for facilitating my investigations. The fact was that I did
not know how to use some of my scientific implements--never having been
taught microscopics--and those whose use I understood theoretically
were of little avail, until by practise I could attain the necessary
delicacy of handling. Still, such was the fury of my ambition, such
the untiring perseverance of my experiments, that, difficult of credit
as it may be, in the course of one year I became theoretically and
practically an accomplished microscopist.

During this period of my labors, in which I submitted specimens of
every substance that came under my observation to the action of my
lenses, I became a discoverer--in a small way, it is true, for I was
very young, but still a discoverer. It was I who destroyed Ehrenberg's
theory that the _Volvox globator_ was an animal, and proved that his
"monads" with stomachs and eyes were merely phases of the formation
of a vegetable cell, and were, when they reached their mature state,
incapable of the act of conjugation, or any true generative act,
without which no organism rising to any stage of life higher than
vegetable can be said to be complete. It was I who resolved the
singular problem of rotation in the cells and hairs of plants into
ciliary attraction, in spite of the assertions of Mr. Wenham and
others, that my explanation was the result of an optical illusion.

But notwithstanding these discoveries, laboriously and painfully
made as they were, I felt horribly dissatisfied. At every step I
found myself stopped by the imperfections of my instruments. Like all
active microscopists, I gave my imagination full play. Indeed, it is
a common complaint against many such, that they supply the defects
of their instruments with the creations of their brains. I imagined
depths beyond depths in nature which the limited power of my lenses
prohibited me from exploring. I lay awake at night constructing
imaginary microscopes of immeasurable power, with which I seemed
to pierce through all the envelopes of matter down to its original
atom. How I cursed those imperfect mediums which necessity through
ignorance compelled me to use! How I longed to discover the secret of
some perfect lens, whose magnifying power should be limited only by
the resolvability of the object, and which at the same time should be
free from spherical and chromatic aberrations, in short from all the
obstacles over which the poor microscopist finds himself continually
stumbling! I felt convinced that the simple microscope, composed
of a single lens of such vast yet perfect power, was possible of
construction. To attempt to bring the compound microscope up to such a
pitch would have been commencing at the wrong end; this latter being
simply a partially successful endeavor to remedy those very defects of
the simple instrument, which, if conquered, would leave nothing to be
desired.

It was in this mood of mind that I became a constructive microscopist.
After another year passed in this new pursuit, experimenting on every
imaginable substance--glass, gems, flints, crystals, artificial
crystals formed of the alloy of various vitreous materials--in short,
having constructed as many varieties of lenses as Argus had eyes, I
found myself precisely where I started, with nothing gained save an
extensive knowledge of glass-making. I was almost dead with despair. My
parents were surprized at my apparent want of progress in my medical
studies (I had not attended one lecture since my arrival in the city),
and the expenses of my mad pursuit had been so great as to embarrass me
very seriously.

I was in this frame of mind one day, experimenting in my laboratory
on a small diamond--that stone, from its great refracting power,
having always occupied my attention more than any other--when a young
Frenchman, who lived on the floor above me, and who was in the habit of
occasionally visiting me, entered the room.

I think that Jules Simon was a Jew. He had many traits of the Hebrew
character: a love of jewelry, of dress, and of good living. There was
something mysterious about him. He always had something to sell, and
yet went into excellent society. When I say sell, I should perhaps
have said peddle; for his operations were generally confined to the
disposal of single articles--a picture, for instance, or a rare carving
in ivory, or a pair of duelling-pistols, or the dress of a Mexican
_caballero_. When I was first furnishing my rooms, he paid me a visit,
which ended in my purchasing an antique silver lamp, which he assured
me was a Cellini--it was handsome enough even for that--and some other
knickknacks for my sitting-room. Why Simon should pursue this petty
trade I never could imagine. He apparently had plenty of money, and had
the _entrée_ of the best houses in the city--taking care, however, I
suppose, to drive no bargains within the enchanted circle of the Upper
Ten. I came at length to the conclusion that this peddling was but a
mask to cover some greater object, and even went so far as to believe
my young acquaintance to be implicated in the slave-trade. That,
however, was none of my affair.

On the present occasion, Simon entered my room in a state of
considerable excitement.

"_Ah! mon ami!_" he cried, before I could even offer him the ordinary
salutation, "it has occurred to me to be the witness of the most
astonishing things in the world. I promenade myself to the house of
Madame--how does the little animal--_le renard_--name himself in the
Latin?"

"Vulpes," I answered.

"Ah! yes--Vulpes. I promenade myself to the house of Madame Vulpes."

"The spirit medium?"

"Yes, the great medium. Great heavens! what a woman! I write on a slip
of paper many of questions concerning affairs the most secret--affairs
that conceal themselves in the abysses of my heart the most profound;
and behold! by example! what occurs? This devil of a woman makes me
replies the most truthful to all of them. She talks to me of things
that I do not love to talk of to myself. What am I to think? I am fixed
to the earth!"

"Am I to understand you, Monsieur Simon, that this Mrs. Vulpes replied
to questions secretly written by you, which questions related to events
known only to yourself?"

"Ah! more than that, more than that," he answered, with an air of some
alarm. "She related to me things----But," he added, after a pause, and
suddenly changing his manner, "why occupy ourselves with these follies?
It was all the biology, without doubt. It goes without saying that it
has not my credence.--But why are we here, _mon ami_? It has occurred
to me to discover the most beautiful thing as you can imagine--a vase
with green lizards on it, composed by the great Bernard Palissy. It is
in my apartment; let us mount. I go to show it to you."

I followed Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy
and his enameled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the dark
a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist, Madame
Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if this spiritualism should be
really a great fact? What if, through communication with more subtile
organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the goal, which
perhaps a life of agonizing mental toil would never enable me to attain?

While purchasing the Palissy vase from my friend Simon, I was mentally
arranging a visit to Madame Vulpes.


_3. The Spirit of Leeuwenhoek_

Two evenings after this, thanks to an arrangement by letter and the
promise of an ample fee, I found Madame Vulpes awaiting me at her
residence alone. She was a coarse-featured woman, with keen and rather
cruel dark eyes, and an exceedingly sensual expression about her mouth
and under jaw. She received me in perfect silence, in an apartment on
the ground floor, very sparely furnished. In the center of the room,
close to where Mrs. Vulpes sat, there was a common round mahogany
table. If I had come for the purpose of sweeping her chimney, the woman
could not have looked more indifferent to my appearance. There was no
attempt to inspire the visitor with awe. Everything bore a simple
and practical aspect. This intercourse with the spiritual world was
evidently as familiar an occupation with Mrs. Vulpes as eating her
dinner or riding in an omnibus.

"You come for a communication, Mr. Linley?" said the medium, in a dry,
businesslike tone of voice.

"By appointment--yes."

"What sort of communication do you want?--a written one?"

"Yes--I wish for a written one."

"From any particular spirit?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever known this spirit on this earth?"

"Never. He died long before I was born. I wish merely to obtain from
him some information which he ought to be able to give better than any
other."

"Will you seat yourself at the table, Mr. Linley," said the medium,
"and place your hands upon it?"

I obeyed--Mrs. Vulpes being seated opposite to me, with her hands also
on the table. We remained thus for about a minute and a half, when a
violent succession of raps came on the table, on the back of my chair,
on the floor immediately under my feet, and even on the window-panes.
Mrs. Vulpes smiled composedly.

"They are very strong tonight," she remarked. "You are fortunate." She
then continued, "Will the spirits communicate with this gentleman?"

Vigorous affirmative.

"Will the particular spirit he desires to speak with communicate?"

A very confused rapping followed this question.

"I know what they mean," said Mrs. Vulpes, addressing herself to me;
"they wish you to write down the name of the particular spirit that
you desire to converse with. Is that so?" she added, speaking to her
invisible guests.

That it was so was evident from the numerous affirmatory responses.
While this was going on, I tore a slip from my pocket-book, and
scribbled a name, under the table.

"Will this spirit communicate in writing with this gentleman?" asked
the medium once more.

After a moment's pause, her hand seemed to be seized with a violent
tremor, shaking so forcibly that the table vibrated. She said that a
spirit had seized her hand and would write. I handed her some sheets
of paper that were on the table, and a pencil. The latter she held
loosely in her hand, which presently began to move over the paper with
a singular and seemingly involuntary motion. After a few moments had
elapsed, she handed me the paper, on which I found written, in a large,
uncultivated hand, the words:

     He is not here, but has been sent for.

A pause of a minute or so now ensued, during which Mrs. Vulpes remained
perfectly silent, but the raps continued at regular intervals. When the
short period I mention had elapsed, the hand of the medium was again
seized with its convulsive tremor, and she wrote, under this strange
influence, a few words on the paper, which she handed to me. They were
as follows:

     I am here. Question me.

                LEEUWENHOEK.

I was astounded. The name was identical with that I had written beneath
the table, and carefully kept concealed. Neither was it at all probable
that an uncultivated woman like Mrs. Vulpes should know even the name
of the great father of microscopics. It may have been biology; but
this theory was soon doomed to be destroyed. I wrote on my slip--still
concealing it from Mrs. Vulpes--a series of questions, which, to avoid
tediousness, I shall place with the responses, in the order in which
they occurred:

    I.--Can the microscope be brought to perfection?

    SPIRIT.--Yes.

    I.--Am I destined to accomplish this great task?

    SPIRIT.--You are.

    I.--I wish to know how to proceed to attain this end. For the love
    which you bear to science, help me!

    SPIRIT.--A diamond of one hundred and forty carats, submitted to
    electro-magnetic currents for a long period, will experience a
    rearrangement of its atoms _inter se_, and from that stone you will
    form the universal lens.

    I.--Will great discoveries result from the use of such a lens?

    SPIRIT.--So great that all that has gone before is as nothing.

    I.--But the refractive power of the diamond is so immense, that the
    image will be formed within the lens. How is that difficulty to be
    surmounted?

    SPIRIT.--Pierce the lens through its axis, and the difficulty is
    obviated. The image will be formed in the pierced space, which will
    itself serve as a tube to look through. Now I am called.
    Good-night.

I can not at all describe the effect that these extraordinary
communications had upon me. I felt completely bewildered. No biological
theory could account for the _discovery_ of the lens. The medium might,
by means of biological _rapport_ with my mind, have gone so far as to
read my questions, and reply to them coherently. But biology could
not enable her to discover that magnetic currents would so alter the
crystals of the diamond as to remedy its previous defects, and admit
of its being polished into a perfect lens. Some such theory may have
passed through my head, it is true; but if so, I had forgotten it. In
my excited condition of mind there was no course left but to become a
convert, and it was in a state of the most painful nervous exaltation
that I left the medium's house that evening. She accompanied me to the
door, hoping that I was satisfied. The raps followed us as we went
through the hall, sounding on the balusters, the flooring, and even the
lintels of the door. I hastily expressed my satisfaction, and escaped
hurriedly into the cool night air. I walked home with but one thought
possessing me--how to obtain a diamond of the immense size required. My
entire means multiplied a hundred times over would have been inadequate
to its purchase. Besides, such stones are rare, and become historical.
I could find such only in the regalia of Eastern or European monarchs.


_4. The Eye of Morning_

There was a light in Simon's room as I entered my house. A vague
impulse urged me to visit him. As I opened the door of his sitting-room
unannounced, he was bending, with his back toward me, over a carcel
lamp, apparently engaged in minutely examining some object which he
held in his hands. As I entered, he started suddenly, thrust his hand
into his breast pocket, and turned to me with a face crimson with
confusion.

"What!" I cried, "poring over the miniature of some fair lady? Well,
don't blush so much; I won't ask to see it."

Simon laughed awkwardly enough, but made none of the negative
protestations usual on such occasions. He asked me to take a seat.

"Simon," said I, "I have just come from Madame Vulpes."

This time Simon turned as white as a sheet, and seemed stupefied, as
if a sudden electric shock had smitten him. He babbled some incoherent
words, and went hastily to a small closet where he usually kept his
liquors. Although astonished at his emotion, I was too preoccupied with
my own idea to pay much attention to anything else.

"You say truly when you call Madame Vulpes a devil of a woman," I
continued. "Simon, she told me wonderful things tonight, or rather was
the means of telling me wonderful things. Ah! if I could only get a
diamond that weighed one hundred and forty carats!"

Scarcely had the sigh with which I uttered this desire died upon
my lips, when Simon, with the aspect of a wild beast, glared at me
savagely, and, rushing to the mantelpiece, where some foreign weapons
hung on the wall, caught up a Malay creese, and brandished it furiously
before him.

"No!" he cried in French, into which he always broke when excited. "No!
you shall not have it! You are perfidious! You have consulted with that
demon, and desire my treasure! But I shall die first! Me! I am brave!
You can not make me fear!"

All this, uttered in a loud voice trembling with excitement, astounded
me. I saw at a glance that I had accidentally trodden upon the edges of
Simon's secret, whatever it was. It was necessary to reassure him.

"My dear Simon," I said, "I am entirely at a loss to know what you
mean. I went to Madame Vulpes to consult her on a scientific problem,
to the solution of which I discovered that a diamond of the size I
just mentioned was necessary. You were never alluded to during the
evening, nor, so far as I was concerned, even thought of. What can be
the meaning of this outburst? If you happen to have a set of valuable
diamonds in your possession, you need fear nothing from me. The diamond
which I require you could not possess; or, if you did possess it, you
would not be living here."

Something in my tone must have completely reassured him; for his
expression immediately changed to a sort of constrained merriment,
combined, however, with a certain suspicious attention to my movements.
He laughed, and said that I must bear with him; that he was at certain
moments subject to a species of vertigo, which betrayed itself in
incoherent speeches, and that the attacks passed off as rapidly as
they came. He put his weapon aside while making this explanation, and
endeavored, with some success, to assume a more cheerful air.

All this did not impose on me in the least. I was too much accustomed
to analytical labors to be baffled by so flimsy a veil. I determined to
probe the mystery to the bottom.

"Simon," I said, gayly, "let us forget all this over a bottle of
Burgundy. I have a case of Lausseure's _Clos Vougeot_ downstairs,
fragrant with the odors and ruddy with the sunlight of the Côte d'Or.
Let us have up a couple of bottles. What say you?"

"With all my heart," answered Simon, smilingly.

I produced the wine and we seated ourselves to drink. It was of
a famous vintage, that of 1848, a year when war and wine throve
together--and its pure but powerful juice seemed to impart renewed
vitality to the system. By the time we had half finished the second
bottle, Simon's head, which I knew was a weak one, had begun to yield,
while I remained calm as ever, only that every draft seemed to send a
flush of vigor through my limbs. Simon's utterance became more and more
indistinct. He took to singing French _chansons_ of a not very moral
tendency. I rose suddenly from the table just at the conclusion of one
of those incoherent verses, and, fixing my eyes on him with a quiet
smile, said: "Simon, I have deceived you. I learned your secret this
evening. You may as well be frank with me. Mrs. Vulpes, or rather one
of her spirits, told me all."

He started with horror. His intoxication seemed for the moment to fade
away, and he made a movement towards the weapon that he had a short
time before laid down. I stopped him with my hand.

"Monster," he cried, passionately, "I am ruined! What shall I do? You
shall never have it! I swear by my mother!"

"I don't want it," I said; "rest secure, but be frank with me. Tell me
all about it."

The drunkenness began to return. He protested with maudlin earnestness
that I was entirely mistaken--that I was intoxicated; then asked me to
swear eternal secrecy, and promised to disclose the mystery to me. I
pledged myself, of course, to all. With an uneasy look in his eyes, and
hands unsteady with drink and nervousness, he drew a small case from
his breast and opened it. Heavens! How the mild lamplight was shivered
into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond
that glittered in the case! I was no judge of diamonds, but I saw at a
glance that this was a gem of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon
with wonder, and--must I confess it?--with envy. How could he have
obtained this treasure? In reply to my questions, I could just gather
from his drunken statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence
was affected) that he had been superintending a gang of slaves engaged
in diamond-washing in Brazil; that he had seen one of them secrete a
diamond, but, instead of informing his employers, had quietly watched
the negro until he saw him bury his treasure; that he had dug it up
and fled with it, but that as yet he was afraid to attempt to dispose
of it publicly--so valuable a gem being almost certain to attract too
much attention to its owner's antecedents--and he had not been able
to discover any of those obscure channels by which such matters are
conveyed away safely. He added, that, in accordance with the Oriental
practise, he had named his diamond with the fanciful title of "The Eye
of Morning."

While Simon was relating this to me, I regarded the great diamond
attentively. Never had I beheld anything so beautiful. All the glories
of light, ever imagined or described, seemed to pulsate in its
crystalline chambers. Its weight, as I learned from Simon, was exactly
one hundred and forty carats. Here was an amazing coincidence. The
hand of destiny seemed in it. On the very evening when the spirit of
Leeuwenhoek communicates to me the great secret of the microscope, the
priceless means which he directs me to employ start up within my easy
reach! I determined, with the most perfect deliberation, to possess
myself of Simon's diamond.

I sat opposite to him while he nodded over his glass, and calmly
revolved the whole affair. I did not for an instant contemplate so
foolish an act as a common theft, which would of course be discovered,
or at least necessitate flight and concealment, all of which must
interfere with my scientific plans. There was but one step to be
taken--to kill Simon. After all, what was the life of a little peddling
Jew, in comparison with the interests of science? Human beings are
taken every day from the condemned prisons to be experimented on by
surgeons. This man, Simon, was by his own confession a criminal, a
robber, and I believed on my soul a murderer. He deserved death quite
as much as any felon condemned by the laws: why should I not, like
government, contrive that his punishment should contribute to the
progress of human knowledge?

The means for accomplishing everything I desired lay within my reach.
There stood upon the mantelpiece a bottle half full of French laudanum.
Simon was so occupied with his diamond, which I had just restored to
him, that it was an affair of no difficulty to drug his glass. In a
quarter of an hour he was in a profound sleep.

I now opened his waistcoat, took the diamond from the inner pocket in
which he had placed it, and removed him to the bed, on which I laid
him so that his feet hung down over the edge. I had possessed myself of
the Malay creese, which I held in my right hand, while with the other
I discovered as accurately as I could by pulsation the exact locality
of the heart. It was essential that all the aspects of his death should
lead to the surmise of self-murder. I calculated the exact angle at
which it was probable that the weapon, if leveled by Simon's own hand,
would enter his breast; then with one powerful blow I thrust it up to
the hilt in the very spot which I desired to penetrate. A convulsive
thrill ran through Simon's limbs. I heard a smothered sound issue from
his throat, precisely like the bursting of a large air-bubble, sent up
by a diver, when it reaches the surface of the water; he turned half
round on his side, and, as if to assist my plans more effectually, his
right hand, moved by some mere spasmodic impulse, clasped the handle
of the creese, which it remained holding with extraordinary muscular
tenacity. Beyond this there was no apparent struggle. The laudanum,
I presume, paralyzed the usual nervous action. He must have died
instantly.

There was yet something to be done. To make it certain that all
suspicion of the act should be diverted from any inhabitant of the
house to Simon himself, it was necessary that the door should be found
in the morning _locked on the inside_. How to do this, and afterwards
escape myself? Not by the window; that was a physical impossibility.
Besides, I was determined that the windows _also_ should be found
bolted. The solution was simple enough. I descended softly to my own
room for a peculiar instrument which I had used for holding small
slippery substances, such as minute spheres of glass, etc. This
instrument was nothing more than a long slender hand-vise, with a very
powerful grip, and a considerable leverage, which last was accidentally
owing to the shape of the handle. Nothing was simpler than, when the
key was in the lock, to seize the end of its stem in this vise, through
the keyhole, from the outside, and so lock the door. Previously,
however, to doing this, I burned a number of papers on Simon's hearth.
Suicides almost always burn papers before they destroy themselves.
I also emptied some more laudanum into Simon's glass--having first
removed from it all traces of wine--cleaned the other wine-glass, and
brought the bottles away with me. If traces of two persons drinking had
been found in the room, the question naturally would have arisen, Who
was the second? Besides, the wine-bottles might have been identified as
belonging to me. The laudanum I poured out to account for its presence
in his stomach, in case of a post-mortem examination. The theory
naturally would be, that he first intended to poison himself, but,
after swallowing a little of the drug, was either disgusted with its
taste, or changed his mind from other motives, and chose the dagger.
These arrangements made, I walked out, leaving the gas burning, locked
the door with my vise, and went to bed.

Simon's death was not discovered until nearly 3 in the afternoon. The
servant, astonished at seeing the gas burning--the light streaming on
the dark landing from under the door--peeped through the keyhole and
saw Simon on the bed. She gave the alarm. The door was burst open, and
the neighborhood was in a fever of excitement.

Everyone in the house was arrested, myself included. There was an
inquest; but no clue to his death beyond that of suicide could be
obtained. Curiously enough, he had made several speeches to his
friends the preceding week, that seemed to point to self-destruction.
One gentleman swore that Simon had said in his presence that "he was
tired of life." His landlord affirmed that Simon, when paying him
his last month's rent, remarked that "he should not pay him rent much
longer." All the other evidence corresponded--the door locked inside,
the position of the corpse, the burnt papers. As I anticipated, no one
knew of the possession of the diamond by Simon, so that no motive was
suggested for his murder. The jury, after a prolonged examination,
brought in the usual verdict, and the neighborhood once more settled
down into its accustomed quiet.


_5. Animula_

The three months succeeding Simon's catastrophe I devoted night and day
to my diamond lens. I had constructed a vast galvanic battery, composed
of nearly two thousand pairs of plates--a higher power I dared not use,
lest the diamond should be calcined. By means of this enormous engine
I was enabled to send a powerful current of electricity continually
through my great diamond, which it seemed to me gained in luster
every day. At the expiration of a month I commenced the grinding and
polishing of the lens, a work of intense toil and exquisite delicacy.
The great density of the stone, and the care required to be taken with
the curvatures of the surfaces of the lens, rendered the labor the
severest and most harassing that I had yet undergone.

At last the eventful moment came; the lens was completed. I stood
trembling on the threshold of new worlds. I had the realization of
Alexander's famous wish before me. The lens lay on the table, ready
to be placed upon its platform. My hand fairly shook as I enveloped a
drop of water with a thin coating of oil of turpentine, preparatory
to its examination--a process necessary in order to prevent the rapid
evaporation of the water. I now placed the drop on a thin slip of
glass under the lens, and throwing upon it, by the combined aid of a
prism and a mirror, a powerful stream of light, I approached my eye to
the minute hole drilled through the axis of the lens. For an instant
I saw nothing save what seemed to be an illuminated chaos, a vast
luminous abyss. A pure white light, cloudless and serene, and seemingly
limitless as space itself, was my first impression. Gently, and with
the greatest care, I depressed the lens a few hair's-breadths. The
wondrous illumination still continued, but as the lens approached the
object a scene of indescribable beauty was unfolded to my view.

I seemed to gaze upon a vast space, the limits of which extended far
beyond my vision. An atmosphere of magical luminousness permeated the
entire field of view. I was amazed to see no trace of animalculous
life. Not a living thing, apparently, inhabited that dazzling expanse.
I comprehended instantly that, by the wondrous power of my lens, I had
penetrated beyond the grosser particles of aqueous matter, beyond the
realms of infusoria and protozoa, down to the original gaseous globule,
into whose luminous interior I was gazing, as into an almost boundless
dome filled with a supernatural radiance.

It was, however, no brilliant void into which I looked. On every side
I beheld beautiful inorganic forms, of unknown texture, and colored
with the most enchanting hues. These forms presented the appearance of
what might be called, for want of a more specific definition, foliated
clouds of the highest rarity; that is, they undulated and broke into
vegetable formations, and were tinged with splendors compared with
which the gilding of our autumn woodlands is as dross compared with
gold. Far away into the illimitable distance stretched long avenues of
these gaseous forests, dimly transparent, and painted with prismatic
hues of unimaginable brilliancy. The pendent branches waved along the
fluid glades until every vista seemed to break through half-lucent
ranks of many-colored drooping silken pennons. What seemed to be
either fruits or flowers, pied with a thousand hues, lustrous and ever
varying, bubbled from the crowns of this fairy foliage. No hills, no
lakes, no rivers, no forms animate or inanimate, were to be seen,
save those vast auroral copses that floated serenely in the luminous
stillness, with leaves and fruits and flowers gleaming with unknown
fires, unrealizable by mere imagination.

How strange, I thought, that this sphere should be thus condemned
to solitude! I had hoped, at least to discover some new form of
animal life--perhaps of a lower class than any with which we are at
present acquainted, but still, some living organism. I found my newly
discovered world, if I may so speak, a beautiful chromatic desert.

While I was speculating on the singular arrangements of the internal
economy of Nature, with which she so frequently splinters into atoms
our most compact theories, I thought I beheld a form moving slowly
through the glades of one of the prismatic forests. I looked more
attentively, and found that I was not mistaken.

Words can not depict the anxiety with which I awaited the nearer
approach of this mysterious object. Was it merely some inanimate
substance, held in suspense in the attenuated atmosphere of the
globule? or was it an animal endowed with vitality and motion? It
approached, flitting behind the gauzy, colored veils of cloud-foliage,
for seconds dimly revealed, then vanished. At last the violet pennons
that trailed nearest to me vibrated; they were gently pushed aside, and
the form floated out into the broad light.

It was a female human shape. When I say human, I mean it possessed the
outlines of humanity--but there the analogy ends. Its adorable beauty
lifted it illimitable heights beyond the loveliest daughter of Adam.

I can not, I dare not, attempt to inventory the charms of this divine
revelation of perfect beauty. Those eyes of mystic violet, dewy and
serene, evade my words. Her long, lustrous hair following her glorious
head in a golden wake, like the track sown in heaven by a falling star,
seems to quench my most burning phrases with its splendors. If all the
bees of Hybla nestled upon my lips, they would still sing but hoarsely
the wondrous harmonies of outline that enclosed her form.

She swept out from between the rainbow-curtains of the cloud-trees
into the broad sea of light that lay beyond. Her motions were those
of some graceful naiad, cleaving, by a mere effort of her will, the
clear, unruffled waters that fill the chambers of the sea. She floated
forth with the serene grace of a frail bubble ascending through the
still atmosphere of a June day. The perfect roundness of her limbs
formed suave and enchanting curves. It was like listening to the most
spiritual symphony of Beethoven the divine, to watch the harmonious
flow of lines. This, indeed, was a pleasure, cheaply purchased at
any price. What cared I, if I had waded to the portal of this wonder
through another's blood? I would have given my own to enjoy one such
moment of intoxication and delight.

Breathless with gazing on this lovely wonder, and forgetful for an
instant of everything save her presence, I withdrew my eye from the
microscope eagerly--alas! As my gaze fell on the thin slide that lay
beneath my instrument, the bright light from mirror and from prism
sparkled on a colorless drop of water! There, in that tiny bead of dew,
this beautiful being was forever imprisoned. The planet Neptune was not
more distant from me than she. I hastened once more to apply my eye to
the microscope.

Animula (let me now call her by that dear name which I subsequently
bestowed on her) had changed her position. She had again approached
the wondrous forest, and was gazing earnestly upwards. Presently one
of the trees--as I must call them--unfolded a long ciliary process,
with which it seized one of the gleaming fruits that glittered on its
summit, and, sweeping slowly down, held it within reach of Animula. The
sylph took it in her delicate hand and began to eat. My attention was
so entirely absorbed by her, that I could not apply myself to the task
of determining whether this singular plant was or was not instinct with
volition.

I watched her, as she made her repast, with the most profound
attention. The suppleness of her motions sent a thrill of delight
through my frame; my heart beat madly as she turned her beautiful
eyes in the direction of the spot in which I stood. What would I not
have given to have had the power to precipitate myself into that
luminous ocean, and float with her through those groves of purple and
gold! While I was thus breathlessly following her every movement, she
suddenly started, seemed to listen for a moment, and then cleaving
the brilliant ether in which she was floating, like a flash of light,
pierced through the opaline forest, and disappeared.

Instantly a series of the most singular sensations attacked me. It
seemed as if I had suddenly gone blind. The luminous sphere was
still before me, but my daylight had vanished. What caused this
sudden disappearance? Had she a lover or a husband? Yes, that was the
solution! Some signal from a happy fellow-being had vibrated through
the avenues of the forest, and she had obeyed the summons.

The agony of my sensations, as I arrived at this conclusion, startled
me. I tried to reject the conviction that my reason forced upon me. I
battled against the fatal conclusion--but in vain. It was so. I had no
escape from it. I loved an animalcule!

It is true that, thanks to the marvelous power of my microscope, she
appeared of human proportions. Instead of presenting the revolting
aspect of the coarser creatures, that live and struggle and die, in the
more easily resolvable portions of the water-drop, she was fair and
delicate and of surpassing beauty. But of what account was all that?
Every time that my eye was withdrawn from the instrument, it fell on a
miserable drop of water, within which, I must be content to know, dwelt
all that could make my life lovely.

Could she but see me once! Could I for one moment pierce the mystical
walls that so inexorably rose to separate us, and whisper all that
filled my soul, I might consent to be satisfied for the rest of my
life with the knowledge of her remote sympathy. It would be something
to have established even the faintest personal link to bind us
together--to know that at times, when roaming through those enchanted
glades, she might think of the wonderful stranger, who had broken the
monotony of her life with his presence, and left a gentle memory in her
heart!

But it could not be. No invention of which human intellect was capable
could break down the barriers that nature had erected. I might feast
my soul upon her wondrous beauty, yet she must always remain ignorant
of the adoring eyes that day and night gazed upon her, and, even when
closed, beheld her in dreams. With a bitter cry of anguish I fled from
the room, and, flinging myself on my bed, sobbed myself to sleep like a
child.


_6. The Spilling of the Cup_

I arose the next morning almost at daybreak, and rushed to my
microscope. I trembled as I sought the luminous world in miniature
that contained my all. Animula was there. I had left the gas-lamp,
surrounded by its moderators, burning, when I went to bed the night
before. I found the sylph bathing, as it were, with an expression
of pleasure animating her features, in the brilliant light which
surrounded her. She tossed her lustrous golden hair over her shoulders
with innocent coquetry. She lay at full length in the transparent
medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and gamboled with the
enchanting grace that the nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when she
sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to
satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I lessened
the lamplight considerably. By the dim light that remained, I could see
an expression of pain flit across her face. She looked upward suddenly,
and her brows contracted. I flooded the stage of the microscope again
with a full stream of light, and her whole expression changed. She
sprang forward like some substance deprived of all weight. Her eyes
sparkled and her lips moved. Ah! if science had only the means of
conducting and reduplicating sounds, as it does the rays of light, what
carols of happiness would then have entranced my ears! what jubilant
hymns to Adonis would have thrilled the illumined air!

I now comprehended how it was that the Count de Gabalis peopled his
mystic world with sylphs--beautiful beings whose breath of life was
lambent fire, and who sported forever in regions of purest ether and
purest light. The Rosicrucian had anticipated the wonder that I had
practically realized.

How long this worship of my strange divinity went on thus I scarcely
know. I lost all note of time. All day from early dawn, and far into
the night, I was to be found peering through that wonderful lens. I saw
no one, went nowhere, and scarce allowed myself sufficient time for my
meals. My whole life was absorbed in contemplation as rapt as that of
any of the Romish saints. Every hour that I gazed upon the divine form
strengthened my passion--a passion that was always overshadowed by the
maddening conviction, that, although I could gaze on her at will, she
never, never could behold me!

At length, I grew so pale and emaciated, from want of rest and
continual brooding over my insane love and its cruel conditions, that
I determined to make some effort to wean myself from it. "Come," I
said, "this is at best but a fantasy. Your imagination has bestowed on
Animula charms which in reality she does not possess. Seclusion from
female society has produced this morbid condition of mind. Compare her
with the beautiful women of your own world, and this false enchantment
will vanish."

I looked over the newspapers by chance. There I beheld the
advertisement of a celebrated _danseuse_ who appeared nightly at
Niblo's. The Signorina Caradolce had the reputation of being the most
beautiful as well as the most graceful woman in the world. I instantly
dressed and went to the theater.

The curtain drew up. The usual semicircle of fairies in white muslin
were standing on the right toe around the enameled flower-bank, of
green canvas, on which the belated prince was sleeping. Suddenly a
flute is heard. The fairies start. The trees open, the fairies all
stand on the left toe, and the queen enters. It was the Signorina. She
bounded forward amid thunders of applause, and, lighting on one foot,
remained poised in air! Heavens! was this the great enchantress that
had drawn monarchs at her chariot-wheels? Those heavy muscular limbs,
those thick ankles, those cavernous eyes, that stereotyped smile, those
crudely painted cheeks! Where were the vermeil blooms, the liquid
expressive eyes, the harmonious limbs of Animula?

The Signorina danced. What gross, discordant movements! The play of her
limbs was all false and artificial. Her bounds were painful athletic
efforts; her poses were angular and distressed the eye. I could bear
it no longer; with an exclamation of disgust that drew every eye
upon me, I rose from my seat in the very middle of the Signorina's
_pas-de-fasination_, and abruptly quitted the house.

I hastened home to feast my eyes once more on the lovely form of
my sylph. I felt that henceforth to combat this passion would be
impossible. I applied my eye to the lens. Animula was there--but
what could have happened? Some terrible change seemed to have taken
place during my absence. Some secret grief seemed to cloud the lovely
features of her I gazed upon. Her face had grown thin and haggard;
her limbs trailed heavily; the wondrous luster of her golden hair had
faded. She was ill!--ill, and I could not assist her! I believe at that
moment I would have gladly forfeited all claims to my human birthright,
if I could only have been dwarfed to the size of an animalcule, and
permitted to console her from whom fate had forever divided me.

I racked my brain for the solution of this mystery. What was it that
afflicted the sylph? She seemed to suffer intense pain. Her features
contracted, and she even writhed, as if with some internal agony. The
wondrous forests appeared also to have lost half their beauty. Their
hues were dim and in some places faded away altogether. I watched
Animula for hours with a breaking heart, and she seemed absolutely to
wither away under my very eye. Suddenly I remembered that I had not
looked at the water-drop for several days. In fact, I hated to see it;
for it reminded me of the natural barrier between Animula and myself.
I hurriedly looked down on the stage of the microscope. The slide was
still there--but, great heavens! the water-drop had vanished! The awful
truth burst upon me; it had evaporated, until it had become so minute
as to be invisible to the naked eye; I had been gazing on its last
atom, the one that contained Animula--and she was dying!

I rushed again to the front of the lens, and looked through. Alas! the
last agony had seized her. The rainbow-hued forests had all melted
away, and Animula lay struggling feebly in what seemed to be a spot
of dim light. Ah! the sight was horrible: the limbs once so round and
lovely shriveling up into nothings; the eyes--those eyes that shone
like heaven--being quenched into black dust; the lustrous golden hair
now lank and discolored. The last throe came. I beheld that final
struggle of the blackening form--and I fainted.

When I awoke out of a trance of many hours, I found myself lying amid
the wreck of my instrument, myself as shattered in mind and body as it.
I crawled feebly to my bed, from which I did not rise for months.

They say now that I am mad; but they are mistaken. I am poor, for I
have neither the heart nor the will to work; all my money is spent, and
I live on charity. Young men's associations that love a joke invite me
to lecture on optics before them, for which they pay me, and laugh at
me while I lecture. "Linley, the mad microscopist," is the name I go
by. I suppose that I talk incoherently while I lecture. Who could talk
sense when his brain is haunted by such ghastly memories, while ever
and anon among the shapes of death I behold the radiant form of my lost
Animula!






