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The Magic Skin-Part35_Honore de Balzac(1799-1850)_Translated Works(翻译文学)-第2页

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Let us call on Japhet--perhaps the chemist may have better luck than



the mechanic."

Valentin urged his horse into a rapid trot, hoping to find the



chemist, the celebrated Japhet, in his laboratory.

"Well, old friend," Planchette began, seeing Japhet in his armchair,



examining a precipitate; "how goes chemistry?"

"Gone to sleep. Nothing new at all. The Academie, however, has



recognized the existence of salicine, but salicine, asparagine,

vauqueline, and digitaline are not really discoveries----"



"Since you cannot invent substances," said Raphael, "you are obliged

to fall back on inventing names."



"Most emphatically true, young man."

"Here," said Planchette, addressing the chemist, "try to analyze this



composition; if you can extract any element whatever from it, I

christen it diaboline beforehand, for we have just smashed a hydraulic



press in trying to compress it."

"Let's see! let's have a look at it!" cried the delightedchemist; "it



may, perhaps, be a fresh element."

"It is simply a piece of the skin of an ass, sir," said Raphael.



"Sir!" said the illustriouschemist sternly.

"I am not joking," the Marquis answered, laying the piece of skin



before him.

Baron Japhet applied the nervous fibres of his tongue to the skin; he



had skill in thus detecting salts, acids, alkalis, and gases. After

several experiments, he remarked:



"No taste whatever! Come, we will give it a little fluoric acid to

drink."



Subjected to the influence of this ready solvent of animal tissue, the

skin underwent no change whatsoever.



"It is not shagreen at all!" the chemist cried. "We will treat this

unknown mystery as a mineral, and try its mettle by dropping it in a



crucible where I have at this moment some red potash."

Japhet went out, and returned almost immediately.



"Allow me to cut away a bit of this strange substance, sir," he said

to Raphael; "it is so extraordinary----"



"A bit!" exclaimed Raphael; "not so much as a hair's-breadth. You may

try, though," he added, half banteringly, half sadly.



The chemist broke a razor in his desire to cut the skin; he tried to

break it by a powerful electric shock; next he submitted it to the



influence of a galvanic battery; but all the thunderbolts his science

wotted of fell harmless on the dreadful talisman.



It was seven o'clock in the evening. Planchette, Japhet, and Raphael,

unaware of the flight of time, were awaiting the outcome of a final



experiment. The Magic Skin emerged triumphant from a formidable

encounter in which it had been engaged with a considerable quantity of



chloride of nitrogen.

"It is all over with me," Raphael wailed. "It is the finger of God! I



shall die!----" and he left the two amazed scientific men.

"We must be very careful not to talk about this affair at the



Academie; our colleagues there would laugh at us," Planchette remarked

to the chemist, after a long pause, in which they looked at each other



without daring to communicate their thoughts. The learned pair looked

like two Christians who had issued from their tombs to find no God in



the heavens. Science had been powerless; acids, so much clear water;

red potash had been discredited; the galvanic battery and electric



shock had been a couple of playthings.

"A hydraulic press broken like a biscuit!" commented Planchette.



"I believe in the devil," said the Baron Japhet, after a moment's

silence.



"And I in God," replied Planchette.

Each spoke in character. The universe for a mechanician is a machine



that requires an operator; for chemistry--that fiendish employment of

decomposing all things--the world is a gas endowed with the power of






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