TITANE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2602, 16 March 1889, Page 1 (Supplement)

TITANE.

BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE STRANGE MONSTER A BOTANIST CREATED.

I itAD never seen her handwriting before ; and yet, the instant the letter was brought to me, I knew it was from Paula, whom I had not seen for three long years, in fact, not since she had become the wife of Frederick Wertheim, the brilliant botanist whose researches had won the pbudits of the wholo scientific world, Paula aud I had been friends from childhood, and I had naturally expected to see her handwriting embellished with all manner of capricious little twists and cuvJs ; but I knew it was from her as soon as I saw my name on the envelope, despite the hurried nervous letters, and I felt iustiuctively that something was amiss. I broke the seal hurriedly--the sheet bore bur, two words, ' come' and her name,' Paula.' Suoti a request from hoc was to mo au

order. I did not hesitate au instant. Paula and lier husband lived on a large estate about six miles distant from the city. But my strolls had never led me in that direction ; it would havo brought up dreams of my childhood that were best forgotten—but there, it does no good to sentimentalize in this fashion. It was early autumn, and I had to urge my horse through a heavy fog. The chateau in which Paula lived was situated at the extremity of an alley of chestnut-trees whose boughs interlaced a long, dark tunnel. As I entered this alley, it seemed to me that far in tho black circle, -which looked like the cave of some terrible beast, I could seo the vague features of a horrid, grinning mask, shadowy as mist, which menaoed'me and dared mo to come on. Tho sinister impression of this hallucination was so strong that I drew rein and half stopped, leaning forward on my horse's neck to peer into the profound darkness. Then, driving tho spurs deep iu my horse's flanks, I dashed into the unknown. I was almost thrown by tho abruptness with which the horse stopped, for just before me was an iron gate, surmounted by a curiously carved head, a masterpiece of the iron-worker's skill which accounted for triy strange illusion of the moment before. And behind the twisted bars of the gate stood Paula, awaiting me, hor rosy baby in hor arms. Even in the darkness I could see that she was very pale and that, her face showed signs of suffering. I jumped from the saddle and JU au instant was raising to my lips the hand sho extended to me. Arrived at tho porch, sho stopped a moment as if listening. She could have heard nothing, for sho slowly pushed open the heavy door, which swung silently to disclose a heavily carpeted hall. And a momout later wo were in a small reception room lighted by caudles which throw a fitful gleam upon our faces. " Listen!" This was the first word sho had pronounced, and the sad tones of her voice told me sho had sulteiel ('aeply. "I have summoned you," she went on : "you are tho friend of my childhood. The bond between us has been strained, but it is not broken. Three years ago I became Frederick's wife. As a child I had thought of him, whom none might disobey ;~he won me with a word, his glance held me, and I felt myself conquered by his will. My weakness leaned upon bis strength ; I was proud to bow before this will that seemed to dominate all things. I speak of these matters because it is necessary that you should understand all for I have sore need of your help." "Why, what is tho matter? .Does Frederick dare " " Frederick is goodness itself, he loves mo—but, I am afraid, I fear—l fear him above all things. Why ? Oh, if I could but tell you, if I could but know myself ! But this fear which torments mo every day, and ovory night still more, is the more poignant because it is inexplicable !" "Bah! Terror, fear—these are mere words," said I, lightly, though I was far from feeling at ease, " Words which sound in our brains, nevertheless, which are intelligible to our reason, which awaken dread echocs. Why do you smile ? Do you not know that mystery is stronger than reason, that from it arises the aDguish of the unknown ?" In spite of myself, iu spite of my wish to appear sceptical, I felt most unpleasantly disturbed. Lowering my voice, I interrogated her in a gentler tone. This is what she told me: For six months past, that is to say since the birth of her child, Frederick, who until then had held his head high, like a soldier who feels his victory near, had all at once grown nervous. Of what problem was he seeking the solution ? What combat had he dared to undertake He became morbidly silent, and replied to his wife's questions only with haggard

looks, a3 if begging her not to arouse fome distressing memory. For days and nights he remained shut up in a hothouse which he had had constructed at great expeuse in the park. Weeks passed without his appearing at the chateau. Sometimes, in the night, he would creep silently into his wife's chamber. She had watchcd him while he believed her to bo sleeping. She had seen him seated on a lounge, with fixed eyes, staring at some fearful vision. There was in his contracted face an expression of indescribable horror. His frame shook, and his hands, agitated in a convulsive movement, seemed to ropulso some invisible enemy. Then—oil, she had studied him carefully in those brief moments—he had looked up with 1111 imperious, triumphant resolution. Spraining suddenly up, ho had fled—Paula had flown to the window, she had seen hira hurry toward the hot-house, whero the lights flared always from dusk to dawn like a lighthouse. Frankly and boldly she had questioned him. What was going on there in the park ? Why did he so obstinately refuse to let any one enter the hot-lvmsc ? With a shudder ho had coldly put her aside unanswered. Then, bravo hypocrite that she was, shi had tried to fathom the truth And sho had learned a strange thing. Each day Frederick made the gardener buy many pounds of fresh meat, and himself carried them in the evening to the bothouso. What could ho bo nourishing there ? Was it some dangerous, unknown animal that ho was compelled to feed, a creature with which ho was resigned to livo alone for some scientific purpose ? And what was that struggle to which his rebellions iu the silent night bore witness ? Was ho mad ? That thought had pierced the stricken heart of Paula like a dagger. She dared not question him more, as sho saw anguish bring wrinkles to liia face ; and, too, he avoided her. He came no more, as had been his wont, to chat with her in the intervals of his work. Sometimes, however, she saw him, haggard and bare-headed, striding up and' down the paths, wringing his hands, and over and anon casting nervous glances towards the liot-house. At last—and this was the last torment —one night, while sho slept, he had come, with a noiseless tread, into the chamber. She had felt that ho was there, and sho had suddenly opened her eyes. Frederick, standing there motionless, glared at his child's cradle with the hungry eyes of a madman, and his hands contracted as in supplication. "Frederick! Frederick! What are you doing here at this hour ? " He had muttered a brutal imprecation, and again had fled ! This is what Paula told me, and, as sho snake, I felt a reassuring sense of relief descend upon my heart. What was it, after all—a mere state of morbidness brought oil by excessive work._ I had been Frederick's pupil and friend for years, and I had often listened with wonder at tho boldness of the hypotheses he launched into when warmed up on one of his favourite topics. Was I not a physician, and did I not recognise the madness of fever when I was brought face to face with it ? So thinking, I reasoned with myself and, sure of my eloquence and tho power of reason, I went out into tho park iu search of Frederick. Night had fallen, and tho pathways wore" but dimly lighted by the stars Presently I saw the hot-houso of which Paula had spoken, It was largo and well-built, surmounted with a Manresque dome. Tho lights inside wore not yet

lit, but the stars glinted brightly on the curved glass-planes. So thorein lay the mystery. I almost laughed aloud, as I thought of Paula's childish fears. Ah I stood taking in the details of the structnre, a harried step grated on the gravelled path, Turning sharply about, I saw, or rather divined, in the deep shadows ol the trees, Frederick Wertlieim. " Frederick," said I, boldly, " do you not recognise mo ?" He stopped abruptly. "Frederick," I continued, "it is I," and I held out my hand, surprised not to feel his own. Then guided, as it soomed to me, rather by the sound of my voice than by his eyes, he leaned forward, and, in a harsh, cracked voice, which sounded like the breaking of a branch, he said : "Youl What do you want? Leave me !" " What ! Is this the way you receive mo after so long a separation ? Havo you forgotten our old friendship ?" He was undecided, wavering where ho stood. I noticed, for the first time, that he carried on his arm a basket which seemed to bo quite heavy. " I cannot stop," ho said ; "let mo pass." " Why, certainly you oan pass," I replied : " but you will not prevent me, I suppose, from following you. I want to have an old-time chat with you." He chuckled in an uncanny fashion. "You would follow me ? Bah !" "On my soul, professer, this glass palace must conceal some treasure of which you are very jealous." With his free hand he seized my arm, and, as T kept silent, he leaned forward as one who listens. I seemed to make j out some faint, singular sound, something like the gliding of a reptile through the grass. "She is waiting for mc !" he cried, in a tone in which I could detect an illsuppressed terror; " I must go !" " Well, if you must, let us go in together." "He seemed to hesitate still. Then, with a determined gesture, he muttered : '' Come, then ; even you could defend mo, if by any chance " He did not complete the sentence. But as his hand glided over mine, I felt that it was cold as ice. He led me now. We arrived before the door of tho hot-house. He drew a key from his pocket, and turned it in the lock, and, as I stopped forward, seeing nothing about me in the darkness, ho drew me back with sudden violence. " For your life," he whispered, "do not move !" Ia spite of my assurauce, I felt a vague, unreasoning dread seize upon me. Again I heard that strauge rustling which had struck me before ; it was a gentle, gliding sound, such as is made by a paper slipping across a marble floor. All at once, I knew not how, Frederick caused a glaring-, bliuding light to illuminate the hot-house, and—horrified, my hair rising upon my head—l fell back against the door, my hands clutching its iron bars ! In the centre of the room, in the midst of an endless variety of fantasticallyformed plants, a being, a nightmare, a horror, arose before my eyes ; a hydra, a polyp —a thing no man eould name. It had the body of a colossal gourd, and from its surface innumerable artn3 readied out, with glaucous bulbs like eyes, at tho end of each. The inner body seemed green, the arms were of reddish purple, and, as they spread out to those ghoulish eyes, the blood-red soemtd to blond and mingle to tho greenness of a putrescent

corpse. My eyes closed involuntarily, and I felt a terrible griping at my heart; and still I heard that gliding sound, which I divined came from those arms as they reached forth and contracted within themselves again incessantly. At last, surprised that I had not been seized by this hideous and monstrous thing, I mustered up strength to look at it. Frederick, who was now as pale as death, had taken from tho basket a piece of meat, and, with infinite precautions, balancing gingerly on the tips of his toes, as if he feared lest his hand be touched by those horrible tentacles, he placed the raw morsel on the extremity of a cluster of those waving arms. And suddenly, as if they were of elastic, tho arms drew in upon themselues, dragging the meat, which was thus brought to tho shortest arms, which I now saw composed an inner circle. Then all the arms bent in towards tho centre till I could no longer soo thcineat.

Shuddering and sick at heart, I glanced at Frederick. His head was covered with perspiration, his teeth chattered— the demoniac bruto was motionless now, ravenous over its monstrous deglutition. " She eats, Titaue eats ho whispered. " Titane ?' I repeated after him stupidly. " You do not know, you cannot understand ! Do you not recogniso her ? Now, look, see, she is tamed " and all at once I comprehended—l saw that " Titane " was this monstrous beast. For nearly an hour she will be this way,' said Frederick; "ah, I know why you havo come !_ They think me mad ! But it is not t nls — m ad, I ! —I, who by a miracle of perseverance, by a master work of selection, have developed the insectivorous plant Drown to this formidable size. You will see it, this monster, hold out its tentacles to me in an instant empty—and I must nourish, 1 must feed it, or "he glanced about him apprehensively. "Or ?" I repeated, "Listen," said he; "and you shall know my secret. You know with what ardour I followed the discoveries of Nitschkc. Warming, and Darwin iu the study of those strange plants that are intermediate between the vegetable and animal worlds, which entrap insects, seize them, and feed upon them, slowly absorbing and sucking nourishment from them. I was sure of the results of these strange studies, I did not doubt the end for an instant, and I said to myself that the Drosera, tho Dionte, the Drosophjllum are—listen to me well, now—the degenerate posterity of monstrous animals whose terrible forms have remained to us in the legends of the most primitive people. Hydras, chimeras, krakens, dragons—all have existed, the human imagination has created nothing. But by climatic adaptations, because of geological transplantations, and the thousaud-aud-one modifying forces of nature, these formidable beings, deprived of the nourishment that was necessary to them, have retrogressed, by a kind of invested atavism, into the vegetable form, havo become immovable, attached to the soil by roots. They were compelled to seek their chief nourishment directly from the earth itself, and they have become plants again, preserviug only the supreme aptitude, sole vestige of their lost life, the faculty of animal nutrition. " I determined to reconstitute this atropic genus; I determined that I would change the plant back into the beast. Ah, how many attempts have failed ? At length chance—all our scicnce is but the child of chauce—placed iu my hands a Drosera of exceptional sizo. I havo nourished her, and I havo developed within her the remnants of the animal juices. Little by little she has evolved and grown, until, at last-, tho acme of deduction, the hydra, the dragon liveagain. Behold my Titane—enormous and sublime ! Behold her, ferocious in tho hunger that I oannot sato

And as two tentacles separated themselves from the mass und waved softly in the air, with a hideous ceaseless motion, he gently laid upon them a fresh piece of flesh. " But you do not know all," he continued, in a low tone ; "if Titnne would be very hungry—l did not forsee this — in her present condition of ferocious power, she would tear herself from the place to which her now enfeebled roots bind licr ! And then a terrible and allpowerful brute, she would drag "ler slimy and enormous bulk out into the world where there are men and women and little children—and what has been my triumph would become my crime ! " I fear that she may escape some day, and less she become hungry, I watch her every hour, night and day. Were I once but a few minutes late, and I know that she would hurl herself upon tbo world, menacing my wife and child, whom she would first encounter ! Let her eat, let her cat, for she must not wish to move from here." And again he tossed down great masses of meat. And through the fibres of this horrible plant passed purplo tides of the extracted blood. At this moment, as I stood speechless, overwhelmed with the intensity of my repulsiun, the barred door, which I had not securely shut, swung open, and Paula appeared. Her courage had beeu stronger than her fear. Now that she knew that I was there, she had the boldness to violate the secrecy of this chamber of horrors, " Frederick !'' she cried. But to her call a blood-curdling shriek responded. In his surprise at her sudden appearance, Frederick had recoiled a step, and forgetful of his danger, touched with his haud the monster's tentacles. With lightning rapidity all the hideous trumpet-mouths had seized upon the hand, grasping the wrist, the fore-arm ! Oh, horror ! I saw it drawn down down down by that resistless suction. I seized him about the body, straining every muscle to draw him from the embrace of the temple Titane—but the brute was stronger than I. Then my eyes fell upon the axe in the corner. " The trunk ! the trunk !" I cried to Paula ; " cut it, hack it !" Weak as she was with fright, she seized the axe and swung its shining blade and struck one blow that cut through the very roots of the plant. It seemed to make an effort to rise, to hurl itself at us. perhaps, and then, powerless, suddenly collapsed with a flaccid sound like wet linen, and at the same time I pulled the unfortunate Frederick loose from the relaxed tentacles. Paula caught him in her arms. He opened his eyes, and, in a last spasm, fixed them on me as he said : " Assassin 1 you have killed Titane!" And he fell back dead.—Translated from the French of Sules Lermina, by L, S. Nassault.