# The Soul Machine

Extracted from Pall Mall magazine, 1911 Nov pp. 743–754. Illustrations by Howard Somerville omitted.
THE SOUL MACHINE.
By OWEN OLIVER
I. The Unknown Power.
THE blinds of the lecture-room were drawn, but a fussy little breeze had joined their enemy the sun, and the allies made sudden sorties through the flapping defences. In one of these incursions the light fell upon the upturned face of the girl in the front row. She was watching the professor—she always did—with a frightened, but not unwilling, fascination; and, as usual, he was watching her. She had, it occurred to him then, the look of a martyr; and her light hair, lit by the sun, passed very well for a halo. He was a very tall, very dark, very stern-looking man, and young for his position. People said that he would make a great name.
“All the known powers of the universe,” he was saying, “are forms of vibration. The unknown power that we call the soul no doubt is like the rest.”
A spectacled student noted the statements neatly:
| Powers | =vibrations |
| Soul | =ditto. |
A tall girl in black glanced impatiently at her watch. A bored youth dropped ink on his pad, and watched the blots spread. A dumpty girl drew the professor as a windmill with whirling arms. A bronzed man skirmished under the desk for a red-haired girl’s hand.
The girl in the front row shivered. She felt that she was being drawn to the edge of the abysmal unknown.
“One by one we discover the secrets of the vibrations; and so we catch the powers, and make them our servants. Some day we shall catch the soul!”
The spectacled man added to his notes, and the bored youth added to his blots. The tall girl concluded that “Fred” must be waiting outside by now. The dumpty girl added a chubby soul dodging the windmill. The bronzed man looked at the red-haired girl as if he meant, “Some day I shall catch you!” The girl in the front row clasped her hands. The professor’s eyes seemed to claim that her capture was completed.
“I can even fancy how we shall do it,” he went on. “We shall keep guessing at the form of the vibrations—discovery always begins with a guess—and testing our guesses; and some day we shall happen to guess right. We shall make some contrivance that would vibrate in unison with the soul vibrations, if they existed; and we shall find that it does and they do, and then we shall set to work to capture them.
“We shall begin by connecting the vibrating contrivance with some mechanism to register the vibrations, just as the ‘record’ of a phonograph registers speech in the form of minute indentations or lines. The next step—and this is the difficult one—will be to turn this inexpressive record back into the thoughts which it represents, as a phonograph turns the lines and indentations back into speech. When we have invented this machine the first part of our task will be done. We shall have caught the soul, and its secrets will be secrets no more.”
He paused. The spectacled student made more notes, and the blotter more blots. The tall girl once more consulted her watch. The dumpty girl touched up the “soul” so that it made faces at the windmill. The bronzed man tried to catch the red-haired girl in a primitive form of soul machine—the pressure of two big hands upon a small one. The girl in the front row looked at the professor with eyes like lamps.
“And then”—the professor leaned forward, and his eyes seemed to seize her—“we shall tame the wild force that we have trapped. The soul is the hardest of the powers to catch, but it will be the easiest to subdue to service. It is its very nature to realise in action what is presented to it as the thing to be done. The controller of the soul machine will only have to turn the machine backwards to impress his own will on other souls. The rule of the world will be in the hands of the man who invents the soul-machine.”
He bowed to indicate the end of his lecture. The spectacled student hurried to his next class-room. The tall girl hurried to her waiting escort. The dumpty girl hurried home, and the bored youth to a music-hall. The red-haired girl hurried into the passage. The bronzed man overtook her and seized her,
“Caught, little soul!” he whispered almost fiercely.
“Oh, Jack!” she cried. “Be good to me!”
The girl in the front row rose slowly and gathered up her books. The professor glanced at her, and she put them down again. When they were alone he held out his hand. She hesitated, then gave him hers. They had not spoken before.
“I think we have got as far as vibrating in sympathy,” he suggested.
“Sometimes,” she answered, without looking at him, “I think that you have hypnotised me.”
“I shouldn’t call it hypnotism,” he said. “When two minds—two anythings—vibrate in unison, the stronger sets the pace. That is all.”
“And yours is the stronger.” She drew a deep breath. “You wished me to stay.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Is that so hard to guess?” he asked, rather awkwardly.
“Oh!” the girl cried sharply. “It isn’t that. … Don’t pretend.”
“No,” he said, “I won’t. We shall be good friends, I hope; but it isn’t that. My life has bigger things than—friendship. I want assistance, and I chose you, because we are ‘in unison,’ for one thing; because I can trust you, for another.”
“Because you are the stronger, and I can’t be false, I suppose. I don't think I should be anyhow. Yes? What is it?”
“I have invented the Soul Machine, he stated. “It is in my private laboratory upstairs.”
The girl quivered and looked at him with frightened eyes.
“The—soul—machine,” she echoed.
“The soul machine,” he repeated. “Up to a point, that is. It registers, but it does not reproduce—yet. It will, with your assistance.”
“Am I the first victim?” she asked. She spoke as an inquirer, not as one with a voice in the decision.
“No,” he said, “rather you will be—part of the machine, I think. I shall not hurt you, Do not be nervous.”
She clasped and unclasped her hands.
“You know,” she said slowly, “that I have no choice; that I must obey.”
“Do you wish to disobey?” he asked. She shook her head.
“You have hypnotised me, I think,” she said. “I … It is as you said. My mind has to follow yours. … Be good to me—as good as you can be.”
“I will be as good to you as I can be,” he promised. “Come!”
She followed him upstairs.
III. The Fifth Dial.
The laboratory consisted of two rooms, one entered through the other. The outer room was filled with ordinary scientific apparatus, and lit by two windows that looked out upon a field of housetops. The inner room, when he opened the door, was quite dark.
“Some of the things are affected by sunlight,” he explained. “I will turn on the light as soon as we are inside. Give me your hand, Miss——”
“Myra Hamilton,” she said, staring into the darkness within. “Shall I ever come out again?”
“Of course! You don’t think I am going to murder you in the dark, do you? I will turn on a little light first, if you are afraid. … There! Now come in.”
She entered, closed the door, and stood with her back against it looking at the curtains that surrounded the centre of the room. He pulled a lever, the curtains rolled back slowly, and she saw the soul machine.
A powerful electric dynamo stood at one end. This did not differ from other dynamos. The soul machine proper occupied a space of about twelve feet long by five feet wide, rose about five feet from the floor, and descended into a space beneath—a rotary apparatus with complicated attachments.
The central rotary portion consisted of an elliptical chain-band revolving on broad-flanged wheels. The band carried four and twenty discs of a whitish material, like alabaster, mounted on short stems. These, the professor explained, were the receivers that took up the vibrations of the soul, or group of souls, to which they were “set.”
The “setters” were a number of tiny-coloured electric globes—nearly a hundred—arranged in a double row on each side of the upper course of the discs or receivers. Silvered reflectors were placed behind them to throw their light upon the discs. They sensitised the receivers, he explained, much as light affects a photographic film, but with the important difference that the sensitisation could be “wiped out,” and the discs used again and again.
The lower course of the receivers ran in a kind of tank sunk beneath the floor. A number of nozzles projected slantwise on one side. These, the professor said, emitted a powerful chemical spray upon the discs. The object of this was twofold. The impact of the spray caused the discs to rotate upon their axes in addition to their elliptical motion—much as the planets revolve in their orbits—which was essential to their function. Secondly, the spray wiped out the impression of one moment and left them free for that of the next.
The discs were carried round from left to right, coming up on the left from the pit, cleaned like a slate for their next impression, and taking that as the lights fitted them for it. They carried the impression to the far end of the machine toward a curious apparatus there. The professor called it the diaphragm. It stood upon a platform about four feet square poised upon a complicated arrangement of pulleys and wheels and steel balls running upon other steel balls. The diaphragm itself was hung upon wires with similar elaborations. It was about four feet long, about a foot wide, and perhaps two inches thick. It appeared to be a slab of cream-coloured wax, convoluted like a walnut, or a huge brain spread out in the form of a tablet. The wires were gathered up in a waxen globe, somewhat like a spherical brain. Other wires ran from this to five dials.
“These,” said the professor, “are the recorders. Will you attend to me carefully, Myra?”
“Yes,” she said, “master!”
There was a touch of sarcasm in her voice as she uttered the submissive word, and her eyes flashed with a light of their own, for the first time. It had occurred to her that he could not make her attend unless she chose.
“I understand, Myra,” he said quietly. “Yes. You have a choice. You cannot help obeying; but your obedience is of little use unless you try to make it useful. It is for you to choose whether you will assist me in the greatest discovery of all time. If you refuse you can go—go now, and return no more. If you agree you will have no more choice. You will be bound ever after. I give you fair warning. Now choose.”
They looked at each other for a long while.
“You could release me,” she suggested, “at any time afterwards?”
“Yes; but I should not.”
She drew a very deep breath.
“I think you have hypnotised me,” she gasped. “I … Your slave is ready, master. … I never thought to be that to any man. … Go on.”
He shook her hand with some warmth.
“You will be my partner in the greatest work ever done!” he declared. “Thank you! … Well, now you will attend carefully. The diaphragm takes down the vibrations of the soul and exhibits them in a kind of spectrum—bands of colour with little breaks between. Certain colours stand for certain affections of the mind. Anger widens the red. Disappointment darkens the green. Intense mental exertion makes the yellow wide and faint. Pain brings out certain dark bands; and so on. In that way we might tell from the spectrum with practice that a soul was, let us say, angry and disappointed; perhaps even that it was angry and disappointed because it had failed in some hoped-for mental achievement; but that is hopelessly inadequate to show the real soul. The dials do not even tell us as much as that. They merely indicate the intensity of certain of the primitive colours, and therefore of the mental facts for. which these stand. In short, the diaphragm at present represents the soul, but it does not re-translate it into your mind or mine. That is our problem in the future. … Well, now you will like to see it at work.”
The girl shrank away from him.
“Not me!” she begged. “Not me!”
“Not if you are frightened,” he said composedly. “You shall see it at work on me. Then perhaps you will believe that it is harmless. Sit in this chair and watch. … This is the arrangement that sets the machine to its particular ‘victim,’ as you would call
He operated a keyboard that looked like that of a small typewriter.
“I have written down my soul characters,” he said. “I will explain them to you some other time. Now the soul machine can capture me!”
He came back and stood on a marble slab beside the diaphragm where a number of levers jutted out.
“It can’t catch you unless you stand there?” she asked.
“It could catch me if I stood on the top of the Himalayas!” he declared. “Or if I lived in Mars. I stand here because it is the one place where I can both reach the operating levers and see the diaphragm and the dials. That is all. … Now!”
He pulled a lever. The electric machinery buzzed and crackled, and long bluish sparks sprang from one place to another. The little electric lights above shone out in a wonderful spangle of colours, some vivid, some bright, some pale, some barely visible, some apparently not lit at all; defects in his character, perhaps, the girl fancied. … She did not like the powerful black globe. It represented his cruelty, she told herself.
The band went round, and the spray hissed, and the discs revolved faster and faster.
“Look!” he cried, and pointed to the diaphragm. A spectrum like a many-coloured rainbow shone upon the convoluted slab; and the girl roused to sudden interest.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It is I,” he said, “so far as this kind of diaphragm will represent me; I as I am at this moment; the extraordinary medley of thoughts and feelings that exist even in a comparatively restful mind. The dials show better how restful.”
He nodded at the indexes, and she went up to them. They registered from 0 to 100 she saw, and the highest pointer was at 7 now.
“Think of things,” she begged excitedly. “Think of things!”
“You shall tell me what to think of,” he proposed; and the girl clapped her hands.
“Work a sum,” she told him. “I will put it down on this slate. … There! … Now work it. … This first dial is going up 9—10—11. … What does it stand for?”
“It estimates intellectual work,” he stated. “The second dial has gone from 2$^1$⁄$_2$ to 3$^3$⁄$_4$ you may have noticed. That is the physical effort.”
“The third dial has gone up a little, too. What is that for?”
“Effort of will. The effort to work a simple sum is small in an educated man. It has become a habit. … Is the sum right?”
“Yes. The fourth dial has gone up just a little.”
“The satisfaction which I get from my good arithmetic! That dial represents emotion.”
She made him rack his memory, compose a verse, hum a tune, think of a good dinner, and explain the changes of the spectrum and of the dials that followed from each.
“And now,” she said at last, “think of me!”
Changes took place in the rainbow of colours and in the dials as before. They represented his effort of attention, his esthetic appreciation of her appearance, his satisfaction at having her assistance, and so on, he explained.
“And the fifth dial has gone up from 1$^1$⁄$_2$ to over 4,” she said. “What does that dial mean?”
“That dial?” he said. “Oh, it is rather a tentative one. I meant it to indicate personal regard, or affection as we call it, in its higher degrees. I haven’t done much with it.”
“I should imagine not,” said the girl, “if you have only taken down yourself!”
“It’s up to 4$^1$⁄$_2$,” he apologised. “I really do appreciate your assistance, and—and I feel that we shall easily grow friendly, and—it’s gone to 5—5$^1$⁄$_2$! It will go higher in time. If you wait—nearly six …”
“Please stop the machine,” the girl said irritably. “I want to talk.”
He laughed good-humouredly and stopped the machine.
“I should not have promised,” she protested, “if I had known that you had so little regard for people. I should have been too much afraid of you. And I am. … The machine shows that you are hard and unfeeling. … I wonder if I can break my promise. I wonder.”
“No,” he said. “You cannot.”
“You could let me.”
“No, I cannot. Myra, don’t you understand? The success of this machine means the regeneration of the universe. If ten thousand people had to be sacrificed it would be my duty to do it; and you are only one.”
The girl swayed a little.
“Then I am to be sacrificed,” she said. “Oh, I knew! I knew!”
“It depends on what you call sacrifice,” he said. “I think, if you understand it rightly—but we will talk of that another time. Come at eleven to-morrow morning, Myra.”
“I will not come!” she cried.
The professor looked at her, and her eyes and voice sank.
“I will come,” she promised.
Then she went. She kept saying one word over and over to herself on the way home. “Six! Six! Six!”
III. Elaine.
There was a feeling very like compassion in the professor’s mind as he went toward the laboratory door. He expected to see a little black-robed, pale-faced figure looking at him with doubtful eyes. Instead he found Myra radiant in white muslin, with a bright flower-hat, and roses at her bosom, and pretty pink roses on her cheeks, and holding a gay little parasol. She smiled at his surprise.
“Decked for the sacrifice!” she said with a laugh that was not wholly a laugh.
“It is not a sacrifice,” he protested, “if you will understand. … You look very sweet, child.”
“The dial will go to six and a half,” she said sarcastically. “Let’s try.”
“The dials must take you down this morning,” he told her.
“No!” she cried. “I won't, I won't.”
“You must,” he said quietly. “Come.”
He went to the inner room. She followed him. She dropped the parasol as she went, and let it lie. She had meant to catch him in Eve’s woman-machine of adornment and smiles; and her wiles, she told herself, had failed.
“Sit down,” he said, and handed her a chair. She sank in it.
“I can’t see the diaphragm and the dials from here,” she objected.
“I do not wish you to,” he answered.
He experimented with the “setter” that looked like a typewriter for a time, while Myra stared in front of her without looking round.
“Ah!” he said suddenly. “I’ve got you.” She gave a cry. “Don’t be frightened. I am merely going to take you down as I did with myself yesterday. I shall do nothing else to-day.”
“And afterwards?” she asked in a dull voice.
“I shall not hurt you at any time.”
“But——?”
“Hush! I will explain afterwards. Now we will begin.”
“I want to see!” she protested, in the same dull, hopeless voice.
“Some other time you shall see, Myra, I don’t want your attention distracted to-day.”
He moved the lever—she heard it click—and the lamps flashed out and the spinning discs went whirling round; but she sat quite still as she had been bidden.
“Think of your schooldays,” he commanded; “your prizes, if you took any. Try to remember some dates. The Magna Charta. Its chief provisions. Can you think out a proposition in geometry? The angles of the base of an isosceles triangle. Ah! You know it, I see. Now—attend carefully please. Tell me what I told you about this machine last night.”
She told him. Then he put other questions, gave her paper and a pencil to draw; made her play as if on a piano; told her to sing a song. She sang softly the first verse of “She is far from the Land.” She had a very good voice. Singing, in fact, was her accomplishment.
“And now the last verse,” he asked, “not merely for the machine, but for your beautiful singing. … Thank you, Myra.”
“It would be 6$^3$⁄$_4$ now, don’t you think?” she asked suddenly. “Won't you let me go now, and try it on yourself?”
“Presently,” he said. “Presently. We'll see what you make of the fifth dial. You are of a warmer disposition than I, and we ought to get some interesting results. Think of some relative; one whom you like. … None you like much, I gather.”
“They are dead … When my mother——”
“I see,” he interrupted. “I see. I’m sorry I asked you. Think of someone else. Think of me. Poor little Myra!” He laid his hand on her shoulder. She gave a cry. There was a snapping sound, and then a noise as if a spring was broken and a clock was running down. The professor sprang back and stopped the machine. He looked at the index of the fifth dial. It had gone to 100, and then the spring had broken. Myra rose and saw it, too, and stood wringing her hands.
“There is a difference between six and a hundred,” she said in a voice that seemed to come from a long way off, “isn’t there?”
“It would be more than six now, Myra,” the professor said. It was he who flushed. The girl was very white.
“It would be—shall we say 7 or 8?” She laughed feebly. “Well, now you know why I chose to obey you. I am ashamed and sorry; but—you know … You remember Elaine, perhaps? ‘I have gone mad. I love you. Let me die.’ … It was really the only thing to do! I am ready for the sacrifice now. Let it be soon. To-day. What is it?”
“Come into the other room,” he said hoarsely. He wiped his forehead.
“No; not the light of day! You must do it now. I shall die of shame, like Elaine, if you don’t. I mean it. I am that sort. What is it? Tell me very exactly.”
He wiped his forehead once more.
“There is only one diaphragm,” he said, “that is adequate to receive the impressions of human souls and give them out as they really are. It is a human soul.”
“Yes,” she said. She was very calm now. “Go on.”
“It must be a soul that will give itself up to the task; remove its own thoughts and feelings and will—or submit to have them removed.”
“A clean soul with no stains that will not come out. You are that, Myra.”
“Go on,”
“A soul that I can control. There might be others, but … The final object of the machine is to put my desires—my best and worthiest desires, please God!—into the world, and make it better. The diaphragm to do that must be a soul that is not only all the things that I have said, but completely in sympathy with mine. There is only you, Myra. Shall the work be done or undone? I have no right to compel you, I see now. I give you back your power to choose.”
He looked steadily in her eyes.
“I have told you,” she said, “that I choose to die. I should die anyhow now you know how I feel about you. Oh, yes, I should. You think one doesn’t die of shame, but there’s such a thing as tormenting the life out of yourself! I'd rather die quickly, and—and please you.”
“You will not die,” he said. “You will merely lose consciousness of identity—entirely while you act as the receiver and reproducer of the soul machine, to a lesser extent at other times. You will eat and drink and sleep and feel, but I fear that you will not think very much, or remember very well, or do things of your own accord. It is a great sacrifice, of course, but you will not know what you miss; and your life will be more useful than a million ordinary lives put together. I will give you my utmost care. Do everything that can be done for your comfort——” He hesitated. “Myra,” he said suddenly, “will you put off the—the sacrifice for a year? Marry me to-morrow, and let me endeavour to give you a year of happiness first.”
The girl threw back her head scornfully.
“I would sooner die a thousand times!” she cried. “I cannot deny that I love you, but I hate myself for doing it. Hate—hate—hate! It is now or never. Kill my soul, my identity, whatever you call it, to-day, or you never shall. I will kill myself, if you do not, and escape you. I hate the idea of marrying you so much that I will not do it, though I believe that in the year I would win your affection, and make it impossible for you to—to kill me! It is killing. … Well, if you don’t, I shall.”
The professor groaned.
“It must be,” he said. “It must be. I shall suffer in doing it, Myra.”
“You should suffer,” she said, “and perhaps—— You shall do one thing for me. Before I cease to be Myra Hamilton and become an automaton, we will have one afternoon to know each other. You should know what you have destroyed to make a diaphragm! You shall take me up the river. We will talk of music, pictures, books, our hopes and our ideas of life. I will sing to you. We will be just two friends together. In the evening we will come back here, and then—— We'll forget that now. Will you take me?”
“Yes,” he said, “if you wish it.” He shivered, and his voice shook.
“I wish it. … No word of love or marriage. Promise, on your honour.”
“I promise.”
“And no drawing back when the time comes. I shall not.”
“And I dare not, Myra. You do not understand. It is to save the world; and the world is many millions, and you are only one.”
“Only one, and valued at six degrees. Come—I am going to make that six into sixteen this afternoon, perhaps six and twenty. I want you to be sorry afterwards for Elaine!”
IV. The New Diaphragm.
The setting sun was reddening the sky when the professor and Myra re-entered the laboratory. She carried a great bunch of wild flowers that she had gathered. Some of her hair fell loose when she took off her hat, and made her look very young.
“And now,” she said, “you shall make your new diaphragm. Will you remember that it was once rather a nice girl? You thought so this afternoon.”
“Oh, Myra——”
“Hush! It has to be. It is fixed in your mind beyond altering. Don’t salve your conscience by pretending to be overruled by me! It is fixed in my mind, too. Do it quickly. I am ready. … Hush! Don’t talk!”
The professor moved the diaphragm from its slab, and set a library chair there. He heaped it with cushions.
“Sit there, Myra,” he said. “You will not feel any pain. When the machine starts you will know no more—as yourself—until it stops. Then I shall take you home.”
“Me,” said the girl thoughtfully. “Me. You call it that? Well, it will not know what it has lost, will it?”
“I shall,” he cried with sudden compassion.
The girl smiled over her shoulder as she went to the chair.
“I think,” she said, “your fifth dial will go higher than six when you think of me. That is why I made you take me out this afternoon.”
“Oh, Myra!” he groaned.
“That will be your sacrifice, you see. Will you arrange the cushions, and make the diaphragm comfortable? Yes, it will go higher than six, won’t it?—when you think of your poor little soulless, helpless diaphragm? … That is very comfortable. Thank you!”
She smiled up at him without a tremor.
“I have the best part, after all,” she told him. “I shall forget, and you will remember. Good-bye!”
“Oh, Myra! Don’t you see, I am like the signalman who must send the train to destruction—a thousand lives—or upon his child. The world needs your soul, and I—— May I kiss you once?”
“Yes,” she said. “I shall forget, and you will remember.”
She lifted her face to his, put her arms round his neck like a child, and returned his kisses—for there were more than one.
“Think of this,” she said, “when you take down your thoughts on your brand-new diaphragm. Good-bye! Please do it now.”
She sank back upon the cushions with sudden weariness, and lay there smiling; and a wonderful moment of beauty came to her. The professor looked at her and felt very faint.
“Myra,” he cried, “it is my duty, and I damn myself if I refuse to do it; but I cannot!”
His face worked painfully, and he strode up and down.
“It is you who are damning me!” he cried, as if he had lost his reason. “You vowed to help me—declared that you were ready. It was all pretence. You meant to win me over with your fascinations. You talked glibly of dying, but you did not mean it. You meant to make me love you and marry you. I might have saved the world, and now—— I will do it! He laid his hand on the lever, dropped it with a groan. “After all,” he said, “your life is your own. Go! It is I who will die!”
She sat up in the chair and looked at him with her hand on her chin.
“My life is my own,” she said, “and all that I have to give. I give it gladly!”
She leaned forward, holding by the arm of the chair, and put down a lever. Then the powers imprisoned in the machine fell upon her suddenly, and she dropped across the arm of the chair. He threw himself upon the levers wildly and pulled two together. The room seemed to fill with lightning and thunder. The soul machine fell to pieces. The boarded window blew out. He saw a calm evening sky, and then he saw nothing.
A pretty young girl, with her head and hands bandaged, brought the professor to his home in a cab. He was unconscious. A policeman who came with them told his sister of the explosion at the laboratory. They had found the young lady sitting on the floor, holding the professor in her arms, he said. She had been sensible enough at first, and had ordered the cab, but on the way she seemed to have gone dazed, and “lost herself.”
The professor’s sister drew Myra to her and kissed her.
“Who are you, dear?” she asked.
The girl stared blankly, and gave a laugh that had no laughter in it.
"I am the new diaphragm,” she said.
V. The Saving Of The Soul.
A fortnight later, when the professor was well enough to go out, he told his sister the whole story. She made no comment till the end, but he noticed that she shrank from him.
“There is only one thing that you can do,” she said, after a painful pause. “You must marry her.”
“God knows,” he said, “I am willing enough; but Myra——”
“There is no Myra,” his sister said. “You murdered her. God forgive you. I don’t think He will. Myra loved you, and marriage is the best way to protect what is left of her. You will go away, of course, and leave her with me; but she has a right to your name. You must marry her.”
“If she is willing——”
“Willing? If you ask her she will look at you and say, ‘Am I?’ … Oh, George!” His sister cried a little.
They said no more till they heard Myra’s step in the passage. She had lived with them since the explosion. She did not speak when she came in—she never spoke till she was spoken to—but when the professor’s sister kissed her she returned the kiss and smiled.
“Would you like to go out with George, darling?” the sister asked, holding the girl round the waist.
Myra looked at the professor.
“Would I?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, Myra. Run and put on your hat.”
“Which hat?” she demanded helplessly.
“I will come and dress you, darling,” the sister offered.
Myra followed her obediently. Presently she came back in muslin and roses. He had bought her a hat and dress like those that the explosion had spoiled.
“She almost chose them for herself,” the sister claimed, with a faint hope in her voice, “didn’t you, dear helpless one?”
“Did I?” the girl asked. She looked at the professor for instruction.
“Shall we go now, Myra?” he said.
“Shall we?” She always answered questions so.
“Yes, dear,” he said, and then they went; and the professor’s sister laid her head on the table and cried.
“Where shall we go, Myra?” he inquired, when they were outside.
“You know,” she said.
“On the river?” he suggested. ““Where we went that afternoon? You remember, Myra?”
“Dol?” She looked at him doubtfully. “I don’t think I remember, because—I am a diaphragm.”
He groaned.
“Do you remember what that is?” he asked.
“No,” she denied.
He groaned again.
“We will go on the river,” he decided. “Oh, Myra, you smiled so that afternoon! Will you ever smile again?”
“Of course,” she said, “if you tell me to smile.”
She looked at him for her orders, and he made a sound that was almost a sob.
“We will go in a motor,” he offered. “You like motors. … Well, you did. … I think you do now if you knew what you liked.”
He hired a motor and drove it out into the country and along the river banks. Myra sat quite still with her hands folded. She looked at things if the professor told her to look, but made no remark. The blue sky, the sweet air, the green fields, the little children who tried to race them and clamoured for pennies, the hills covered with trees, the valleys covered with grass and flowers, the white-sailed boats—none of the earth’s good things seemed to move her to thoughts of her own. She was just a soul diaphragm, it seemed, waiting for impressions from her master, and faintly reflecting his pleasure. For when he told her that things were good or beautiful she sometimes smiled faintly.
“You know,” she agreed.
They came to the boat-stage presently and took a little skiff. He put her tenderly among the cushions and rowed till they reached a backwater, and there he stopped under a tree among the water-lilies. She had been so pleased with them a fortnight before.
“Would you like to gather some, Myra?” he asked.
“Shall I?” She waited as always for his orders.
“Oh, Myra!” he begged, “can’t you want to do anything?”
“I want what you want,” she said.
“Do you? … I want you to marry me, Myra. Will you?”
“If you tell me to,” she assented composedly.
“I want you to love me, Myra.” He held her hands. “Will you?”
She frowned and bit her lips.
“If you want me to,” she demanded, “why don’t you make me?”
“I want you to make yourself,” he entreated.
“But, of course, I can’t!” she said. “How can I? I am only a diaphragm.”
“Don't,” he begged hoarsely; “don’t.” He dropped his face in his hands, and his body shook. He was haggard when he looked up.
“Myra,” he said, “it’s no use telling you, because you can’t understand, but I want to say it. The machine shall never be made again. I see now that it was blasphemous folly. We cannot save souls; they must save themselves. Neither can we destroy them. Some day—perhaps after we are both dead, Myra—yours will come back to you; perhaps, in God’s goodness, to mine! Meanwhile I shall be punished enough, Myra. I shall break a little piece off my heart every day for want of the love that you cannot give me. Don't you understand a little, dear?”
There was silence for five minutes, ten; then, for the first time for a fortnight, Myra spoke of her own accord.
“Come and sit beside me,” she said, in a sweet, steady voice, “and—yes, I think you may hold my hands. … No; you must not kiss me yet. … Listen! There is a soul machine. It is called love. Souls must save themselves, as you say; but love can show them the way. I learnt that as I sat in the ruined laboratory holding you in my arms. The floor shook, and I thought perhaps we should go through, and I wanted to fend you from the fall. … No; you must not kiss me yet. … I love you very much. … I thought, if he dies he will lose his soul—and if he lives, unless he gives up this wicked plan of his own accord. Perhaps if he sees me as I might have been, as a poor helpless, soulless creature, who was once a girl that he thought pretty and bright and sweet—I could see that you thought that—perhaps he will be sorry and save himself then. Perhaps he will offer his ambition, his name, his love—Oh! I wanted that!—to this poor hurt, helpless, foolish thing.… And then, I thought, I will love him so dearly, I will be so good to him, that he will be glad that he has only sacrificed a machine and not a soul—two souls. … I love you very much. … And now you shall kiss me!”
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1933, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 90 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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