Short Fiction

his eyes and stared fixedly at Heraclius. They advanced, greeted each other ceremoniously and began to talk. The Doctor learnt that his companion was called Dagobert Félorme, and that he was Professor of modern languages at the college of Balançon. Heraclius did not notice anything wrong with the man’s mind and was wondering what could have brought him to such a place when suddenly the other stopped, grasped Heraclius’ hand firmly and said: “Do you believe in metempsychosis?” The Doctor swayed and began to stammer an answer. Their eyes met and for some time the two of them stood staring at each other. At last Heraclius was overcome by his emotion, and tears welled up in his eyes. He opened his arms and they embraced. Then, confiding in each other, they soon realized that they were inspired by the same faith and impregnated with the same doctrine. There was no point on which they differed. But as this astonishing similarity of thought began to be established, a feeling of peculiar uneasiness came over the Doctor, for it seemed to him that the more the stranger grew in his estimation, the more he himself lost in his own. He was seized with jealousy.

Suddenly his companion exclaimed:

“Metempsychosis⁠—It is I. It was I who discovered the evolution of souls and who welded the destinies of men. I was Pythagoras.”

The Doctor stopped dead, pale as a sheet.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I am Pythagoras.”

Once again they stared at each other, and then the stranger spoke again.

“I have been philosopher, architect, soldier, labourer, monk, mathematician, doctor, poet, sailor, in turn,” he said.

“So have I,” said Heraclius.

“I’ve written my life’s history in Latin, Greek, German, Italian, Spanish and French,” cried the other.

“So have I,” answered Heraclius.

Both stopped speaking and looked daggers at each other.

“In the year 184,” shouted the other, “I lived in Rome as a philosopher.”

Then the Doctor, shaking like a leaf in a gust of wind, drew his precious document from his pocket and brandished it like a pistol under his adversary’s nose. The latter sprang back.

“My manuscript,” he cried, and put out his hand to seize it.

“It’s mine,” roared Heraclius, and with surprising rapidity he raised the object of contention above his head, changed it to his other hand behind his back and did every sort of extraordinary trick with it to keep it out of his frenzied rival’s reach. The latter clenched his teeth, stamped his feet and roared: “Thief! Thief! Thief!”

Then with a quick and cunning movement he managed to get hold of a corner of the paper which Heraclius was trying to keep from him. For some seconds they pulled hard and angrily in opposite directions, and then, as neither would give way, the manuscript, which might be described as forming a living hyphen between them, acted as wisely as the late King Solomon might have done, by separating into two equal parts, with the result that the two warriors sat down with unexpected suddenness ten paces apart, each clutching his half of the spoils of victory between shrivelled fingers.

They did not move but sat staring at each other like rival forces which, having gauged each other’s strength, are loth to come to grips again. Dagobert Félorme began first:

“The proof that I am the author of this manuscript,” he said, “is that I knew of it before you.”

Heraclius did not answer, and the other went on:

“The proof that I am the author of this manuscript is that I can repeat it from end to end in the seven languages in which it is written.”

Heraclius did not answer⁠—but he was thinking hard. A revolution was taking place in him. There was no possible doubt⁠—victory lay with his rival. But this author⁠—whom at one time he had invoked with all his prayers, raised his indignation now as a false god. For, as a dethroned god himself, he revolted against divinity. Before he had come to regard himself as the author of the manuscript, he had longed to meet whoever had written it, but from the day when he began to say: “It was I who wrote this. Metempsychosis is I myself,” he could no longer sanction anyone usurping his place. Like a man who would burn his house down rather than see it occupied by someone else, he was prepared to burn both temple and god, to burn metempsychosis itself even, as soon as a stranger ascended the altar to which he had exalted himself.

And so, after a long silence, he said slowly and solemnly:

“You are mad.”

At this, his enemy dashed at him like a lunatic, and a fresh struggle more terrible than the first would have begun had not the guardians rushed up and re-imprisoned these religious fanatics in their respective cells.

For a month the Doctor did not leave his room. He passed his days alone with his head between his hands in profound meditation. From time to time the Dean and the Warden came to see him and by means of clever comparisons and delicate allusions gently assisted the change that was taking place in his mind. Thus they told him how a certain Dagobert Félorme, professor of languages at the college of Balançon, had gone mad while writing a philosophical treatise on the doctrine of Pythagoras, Aristotle and Plato⁠—a treatise which he had imagined he had begun under the Emperor Commodus.

At last, one beautiful sunny morning, the Doctor came to himself. Once more he was the Heraclius of the good old days. Warmly clasping the hands of his two friends he told them that he had renounced forever metempsychosis, expiations in animal form and transmigrations. Tapping himself on the breast he admitted that he had been entirely mistaken. A week later the doors of the asylum were opened to him.

XXIX

How One Sometimes Exchanges Scylla for Charybdis

Heraclius paused for a moment as he was leaving the fatal building and took a deep breath of the fine air of liberty. Then, with his brisk step of former