Whosoever Shall Offend Part 3

The Professor rose up in the shadow and came forward, just as a servant brought a lamp. He was celebrated as a traveller, and occupied the chair of comparative physiology in the University of Milan. He belonged to the modern type of scientific man, which has replaced the one of fifty years ago, who lived in a dressing-gown and slippers, smoked a long pipe, and was always losing his belongings through absence of mind. The modern professor is very like other human beings in dress and appearance, and has even been known to pride himself on the fit of his coat, just like the common people.

There were mutual greetings, for the Professor knew all the party, and everybody liked him. He was a big man, with a well-kept brown beard, a very clear complexion, and bright brown eyes that looked as if they would never need spectacles.

"And where have you been since we last saw you?" asked Corbario.

"Are your pockets full of snakes this time?" asked Aurora.

The Professor looked at her and smiled, realising that she was no longer the child she had been when he had seen her last, and that she was very good to look at. His brown eyes beamed upon her benevolently.

"Ah, my dear young lady, I see it is all over," he said. "You will never pull my beard again and turn my pockets inside out for specimens when I come back from my walks on the beach."

"Do you think I am afraid of you or your specimens?" laughed Aurora.

"I have got a terrible thing in my waistcoat pocket," the Professor answered. "Something you might very well be afraid of."

"What is it? It must be very small to be in your waistcoat pocket."

"It is a new form of death."

He beamed on everybody with increasing benevolence; but somehow n.o.body smiled, and the Signora Corbario s.h.i.+vered and drew her light cloak more closely round her, as the first gust of the night breeze came up from the rustling reeds that grew in the pool below.

"It is time to get ready for supper," said Folco. "I hope you are not hungry, Kalmon, for you will not get anything very elaborate to eat!"

"Bread and cheese will do, my dear fellow."

When Italians go to the country they take nothing of the city with them.

They like the contrast to be complete; they love the total absence of restraint; they think it delightful to dine in their shooting-coats and to eat coa.r.s.e fare. If they had to dress for dinner it would not be the country at all, nor if dinner had to begin with soup and end with sweets just as it does in town. They eat extraordinary messes that would make a Frenchman turn pale and a German look grave. They make portentous pasties, rich with everything under the sun; they eat fat boiled beef, and raw fennel, and green almonds, and vast quant.i.ties of cream cheese, and they drink sour wine like water; and it all agrees with them perfectly, so that they come back to the city refreshed and rested after a gastronomic treatment which would bring any other European to death's door.

The table was set out on the verandah that evening, as usual in spring, and little by little the Professor absorbed the conversation, for they all asked him questions, few of which could be answered shortly. He was one of those profoundly cultivated Italians who are often to be met nowadays, but whose gifts it is not easy to appreciate except in a certain degree of intimacy. They are singularly modest men as a rule, and are by no means those about whom there is the most talk in the world.

The party sat in their places when supper was over, with cloaks and coats thrown over them against the night air, while Kalmon talked of all sorts of things that seemed to have the least possible connection with each other, but which somehow came up quite naturally. He went from the last book on Dante to a new discovery in chemistry, thence to j.a.panese monks and their beliefs, and came back smiling to the latest development of politics, which led him quite naturally to the newest play, labour and capital, the German Emperor, and the immortality of the soul.

"I believe you know everything!" exclaimed Marcello, with an admiring look. "Or else I know nothing, which is really more probable!" The boy laughed.

"You have not told us about the new form of death yet," said Aurora, leaning on her elbows and burying her young hands in her auburn hair as she looked across the table at Kalmon.

"You will never sleep again if I tell you about it," answered the Professor, opening his brown eyes very wide and trying to look terrible, which was quite impossible, because he had such a kindly face. "You do not look frightened at all," he added, pretending to be disappointed.

"Let me see the thing," Aurora said. "Perhaps we shall all be frightened."

"It looks very innocent," Kalmon answered. "Here it is."

He took a small leather case from his pocket, opened it, and drew out a short blue gla.s.s tube, with a screw top. It contained half a dozen white tablets, apparently just like those in common use for five-grain doses of quinine.

A little murmur of disappointment went around the table. The new form of death looked very commonplace. Corbario was the only one who showed any interest.

"May I see?" he asked, holding out his hand to take the tube.

Kalmon would not give it to him, but held the tube before his eyes under the bright light of the lamp.

"Excuse me," he said, "but I make it a rule never to let it go out of my hands. You understand, don't you? If it were pa.s.sed round, some one might lay it down, it might be forgotten, somebody might take it for something else."

"Of course," said Folco, looking intently at the tube, as though he could understand something about the contents by mere inspection. "You are quite right. You should take no risks with such things--especially as they look so innocent!"

He leaned back in his chair again, as if satisfied, and his eyes met the Contessa's at the same moment. There was no reason why she should not have looked at him just then, but he rested one elbow on the table and shaded his eyes from the light.

"It is strange to reflect," said Kalmon, looking at the tube thoughtfully, "that one of those little things would be enough to put a Hercules out of misery, without leaving the slightest trace which science could discover."

Corbario was still shading his eyes from the light.

"How would one die if one took it?" asked Aurora. "Very suddenly?"

"I call it the sleeping death," answered the Professor. "The poisoned person sinks into a sweet sleep in a few minutes, smiling as if enjoying the most delightful dreams."

"And one never wakes up?" inquired Marcello.

"Never. It is impossible, I believe. I have made experiments on animals, and have not succeeded in waking them by any known means."

"I suppose it congests the brain, like opium," observed Corbario, quietly.

"Not at all, not at all!" answered Kalmon, looking benevolently at the little tube which contained his discovery. "I tell you it leaves no trace whatever, not even as much as is left by death from an electric current. And it has no taste, no smell,--it seems the most innocent stuff in the world."

Corbario's hand again lay on the table and he was gazing out into the night, as if he were curious about the weather. The moon was just rising, being past the full.

"Is that all you have of the poison?" he asked in an idle tone.

"Oh, no! This is only a small supply which I carry with me for experiments. I have made enough to send all our thirty-three millions of Italians to sleep for ever!"

Kalmon laughed pleasantly.

"If this could be properly used, civilisation would make a gigantic stride," he added. "In war, for instance, how infinitely pleasanter and more aesthetic it would be to send the enemy to sleep, with the most delightful dreams, never to wake again, than to tear people to pieces with artillery and rifle bullets, and to blow up s.h.i.+ps with hundreds of poor devils on board, who are torn limb from limb by the explosion."

"The difficulty," observed the Contessa, "would be to induce the enemy to take your poison quietly. What if the enemy objected?"

"I should put it into their water supply," said Kalmon.

"Poison the water!" cried the Signora Corbario. "How barbarous!"

"Much less barbarous than shedding oceans of blood. Only think--they would all go to sleep. That would be all."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I CALL IT THE SLEEPING DEATH,' ANSWERED THE PROFESSOR"]

"I thought," said Corbario, almost carelessly, "that there was no longer any such thing as a poison that left no traces or signs. Can you not generally detect vegetable poisons by the mode of death?"

"Yes," answered the Professor, returning the gla.s.s tube to its case and the latter to his pocket. "But please to remember that although we can prove to our own satisfaction that some things really exist, we cannot prove that any imaginable thing outside our experience cannot possibly exist. Imagine the wildest impossibility you can think of; you will not induce a modern man of science to admit the impossibility of it as absolute. Impossibility is now a merely relative term, my dear Corbario, and only means great improbability. Now, to ill.u.s.trate what I mean, it is altogether improbable that a devil with horns and hoofs and a fiery tail should suddenly appear, pick me up out of this delightful circle, and fly away with me. But you cannot induce me to deny the possibility of such a thing."

"I am so glad to hear you say that," said the Signora, who was a religious woman.