NEW BODIES FOR OLD BY MAURICE RENARD NEW YORK THE MACAULAY COMPANY Copyright , 1923 By MAURICE RENARD PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA...

To H. G. Wells : I beg you, Sir, to accept this book. Of all the pleasures that its writing gave me, that of dedicating it to you is assuredly not the least. I conceived it under the inspiration of ideas that you cherish, and I could have wished that it had come nearer to your own works than it does, not in merit—that would be an absurd pretension—but, at any rate, in that pleasant quality shown in all your books, which allows the chastest minds, as well as those that exact the greatest realism,

It all happened on a certain winter evening more than a year ago, after the last men’s dinner-party I gave to my friends in the little house which I had taken furnished in the Avenue Victor Hugo. As my projected move was nothing more than the gratification of my vagrant fancy, we had celebrated my house- un warming as joyfully as we had celebrated the warming of yore, and the time for liqueurs having come (and also the time for jokes) each of us did his best to shine—more especially of course, t

The first Sunday in June was drawing to a close. The shadow of the motor-car was fleeting on ahead of me and getting longer every moment. Ever since the morning, people had been looking at me with anxious faces as I passed, just as one looks at a scene in a melodrama. With my leather helmet which gave me the look of a bald skull, my glasses like port-holes, or the eye-sockets of a skeleton, and my body clothed in tanned skin, I must have seemed to them some queer seal from the nether regions, or

The car slowly wound its way among the twists and turns of the labyrinth. Sometimes in presence of a cluster of roads the postman himself hesitated for a moment. “Since when have these zigzags taken the place of the straight avenue?” I asked. “Four years ago, Sir—about a year after the settling in of Mr. Learne in the château .” “Do you know the meaning of them? You may speak freely. I am the professor’s nephew.” “Oh, well, he’s ... he’s, well an eccentric man.” “What sort of unusual things does

Once outside, and without cover, it seemed to me that everything was spying on me; so I flung myself headlong into a little wood near the conservatory; then through the thorn and creepers I made my way towards my objective. It was very warm. I advanced with great difficulty and taking thousands of precautions to avoid scratches and tell-tale rents. At last the conservatory with its central dome and one of its bulging flanks loomed large before me. It was a side view that first presented itself.

Qui dort dîne. My slumber lasted till the next morning. And yet I never rested so ill. The bruised feeling caused by a day spent in a motor-car came over my loin-muscles, and for long I felt in them the ricochets of ghostly jolts and the twists of spectral skids. Then I was visited by dreams in which a world of miracle came to life. Brocéliande, the Shakespearean forest, began to move; in the press of it trees walked along arm in arm; a birch tree which looked like a lance made me a speech in Ge

A week later on, I was in ambush behind the door of my former bedroom—the yellow one—with my eye to the keyhole. Oh! it was not easy, or it did not appear so. Never had the left wing of Fonval been so jealously closed, even in the days when the monks had been cloistered there. How had I got in there? In the simplest manner possible. The Yellow Room is reached by the central hall—where every one could walk if he liked—by a series of three rooms. The hall joins on to the drawing-room, then comes t

Some days passed without any event which could satisfy either my love or my curiosity. Had Lerne grown suspicious of me, and contrived to have all my time taken up? In the morning, he would invite me to accompany him—one day on foot, and another in the motor-car. During those outings we would talk at random of scientific matters, and he would question me as if he really wished to judge of my capabilities. With the motor-car we used to cover much ground. In our walks, my uncle usually took the ro

“Well, my dear,” she said, “now that we have got as far as that, it is no use trying not to begin again, but I entreat you, no imprudences—safety first! Lerne, you know, Lerne! Ah, you don’t know what dangers there are for you—you above all—you especially!” I saw that she was brooding over the memory of tragic scenes. “But what are the dangers?” “That is just the worst of it, I do not know. I do not understand anything that is happening around. Anything! Anything! Except that Donovan Macbeth wen

I made my way as fast as I could back to Grey. The fête was in full swing, and the crowd of merry-makers received me with impertinent remarks and jokes. Five by the station clock! I profited by the time at my disposal to arrange things a little, so that my uncle might the more easily fall into the snare which he had spread with his own hands when he set me the task of repairing part of the machine of which I had a duplicate. Having put on my blue overalls, dirtied my hands and face, taken out my

The father of Macbeth came to fetch him without delay, accompanied by his other son. Since Lerne had written to him, nothing new had taken place at Fonval. The mystery went on, and more arrangements were made against my person. Emma no longer came downstairs; from the little drawing room I heard her busy with her futile amusements in the lay-figure room. Her little sharp heels went tap, tap, tap on the floor above. My nights were sleepless. The harassing idea of Lerne and Emma together kept me a

I opened my eyes on thick darkness in a place where there was neither noise nor smell. I wanted to say once more, “Do not begin, I am still awake,” but no word sounded. The delirium of the night was being prolonged. It seemed to me that the bellowing had got nearer, so much so, indeed, that I seemed to hear it in myself. I could not manage to master my ridiculous senses. I kept quiet. Then there grew in me the assurance that the mysterious business was at an end. Gradually the darkness lightened

During the eight days of my convalescence in the laboratory, nursed and kept quiet, and treated with drugs, I underwent the alternation of great sorrows; fits of despair each followed by a collapse. Every time I slept I thought I had dreamt this calamity. Now, it must be observed that the sensations at my awakening confirmed me in this error, which was, however, immediately dissipated. It is well known that those who have had a limb amputated, suffer a great deal, and refer their suffering to th

When I was in the black hide of the bull, I had sworn to myself, if my original shape were ever restored to me, to flee away at once, with or without Emma; and yet the autumn was growing old, and I had not yet left Fonval. The fact was, my treatment was now the exact reverse of what it had been. To begin with, I disposed of my time as I liked. The first use that I made of that liberty was to go to the shambles in the forest-clearing, and there efface all traces of my visit. A favoring god had no

Emma , Lerne and I were in the little drawing room after lunch, when the Professor had a sort of fainting-fit. It was not the first. I had already observed similar signs of breaking health in my uncle, but this one was very clear evidence. I could observe all the details of it, and it was accompanied by curious circumstances; that is why I shall speak about it more particularly. Any one who saw them and did not know all the facts would have attributed those incidents to intellectual overwork. To

But this plan was never carried out. Not that I hesitated to put it into action—I was always determined upon it, and any doubt that came to me about the existence of the danger to be avoided, arose only when all chance of realizing my projects had passed. As long as they were still possible, on the contrary, I awaited with patience the opportunity of accomplishing them, and I will even admit that my growing terror ceaselessly urged me to have done with it all. Everywhere danger showed itself to

Under the influence of an indifference most praiseworthy, in these unfortunate circumstances, the official doctor asked no questions, examined nothing. I told him how my late uncle had died of syncope. He had heard about his heart-disease, and this official doctor gave me the Burial Certificate. “Dr. Lerne is dead,” said he, “and our mission to-day will stop at that, if you please. For the rest, it is not our business to set investigations on foot which might bring us to contradict so eminent a

And now, here I am, in this house in the Avenue Victor Hugo, which I had taken for Emma, and I am alone with my strange memories, since she preferred to sacrifice her intoxicating and lucrative beauty to M. Alcide. Let us say no more about it! February is beginning. The fire is flaming behind me with the flapping sound of a waving flag. Since I came back to Paris, having nothing to do, and reading nothing, I write every evening and every morning, at this round table, the story of my singular adv