The invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares [29]
"I hope it's just a joke," said Dora.
Faustine was not smiling. She seemed to be indignant.
Morel continued, "I could have told you when we arrived: 'We shall live for eternity.' Perhaps then we would have forced ourselves to maintain a constant gaiety, and that would have ruined everything. I thought: 'Any week we spend together, even if we do not feel obliged to use our time profitably, will be pleasant.' And wasn't it?" He paused. "Well, then, I have given you a pleasant eternity!
"To be sure, nothing created by man is perfect. Some of our friends are missing—it could not be helped. Claude has been excused; he was working on the theory, in the form of a novel with theological overtones, that man and God are at odds with one another,- he thinks it will bring him immortality and therefore he does not wish to interrupt his work. For two years now Madeleine has not been going to the mountains,- her health has been poor. Leclerc had already arranged to go to Florida with the Davies."
As an afterthought, he added, "Poor Charlie, of course—"
From his tone, which emphasized the word poor, from the mute solemnity and the changes of position and the nervous moving of chairs that occurred at once, I inferred that the man named Charlie had died; more precisely, that he had died recently.
Then, as if to reassure his audience, Morel said, "But I have him! If anyone would like to see him, I can show him to you. He was one of my first successful experiments."
He stopped talking as he appeared to perceive the change in the room. The audience had proceeded from an affable boredom to sadness, with a slight reproof for the bad taste of mentioning a deceased friend in a light-hearted recitation,- now the people seemed perplexed, almost horrified.
Morel quickly turned back to his yellow papers.
"For a long time now my brain has had two principal occupations: thinking of my inventions and thinking about—" The sympathy between Morel and his audience was definitely re-established.
"For example, as I open the pages of a book, or walk, or fill my pipe, I am imagining a happy life with—"
His words were greeted with bursts of applause.
"When I finished my invention it occurred to me, first as a mere exercise for the imagination, then as an incredible plan, that I could give perpetual reality to my romantic desire.
"My belief in my own superiority and the conviction that it is easier to make a woman fall in love with me than to manufacture heavens made me choose a spontaneous approach. My hopes of making her love me have receded now,-1 no longer have her confidence; nor do I have the desire, the will, to face life.
"I had to employ certain tactics, make plans." (Morel changed the wording of the sentence to mitigate the serious
implications.) "At first I wanted to convince her that she should come here alone with me—but that was impossible: I have not seen her alone since I told her of my love—or else to abduct her; but we would have been fighting eternally! Please note, by the way, that the word eternally is not an exaggeration."
There was a considerable stir in the audience. He was saying—it seemed to me—that he had planned to seduce her, and he was trying to be funny.
"Now I shall explain my invention."
Up to this point it was a repugnant and badly organized speech. Morel is a scientist, and he becomes more precise when he overlooks his personal feelings and concentrates on his own special field; then his style is still unpleasant, filled with technical words and vain attempts to achieve a certain oratorical force, but at least it is clearer. The reader can judge for himself: "What is the purpose of radio? To supply food, as it were, for the sense of hearing: by utilizing transmitters and receivers, we can take part in a conversation with Madeleine right in this room, even though she is thousands of miles away in a suburb of Quebec. Television does the same thing for the sense of sight. By achieving slower or faster vibrations, we can apply this principle to the other senses, to all the other senses.
"Until recently,