8
The years passed and the boy grew to be a man. He was always with Two-Legs, listening to his talk, helping him in his work and rejoicing with him each time that he came a step nearer to the goal.
They moved more than once from one country to another. Either it was the folk of the country who drove them away with their foolish fears, when they heard reports or saw sparks come from Two-Legs’ workshop, or else it occurred to him that his labours would meet with better success under another climate. But, whether he was in one place or another, he constantly thought of the same thing: how he was to catch the electric spirit and make him strong, so that he might be useful in man’s service.
He thought no more of the thunder and the lightning up in the sky. He knew well that it was the electric spirit that struck sparks up there and he wanted him to do the same in his workshop. Since he had begun the work with the magnetic iron, he no longer troubled about the glass tube and the amber and the sulphur ball. He did not even care to rub them any more, so small was the spirit when he came from them and so soon did he disappear again.
“The lightning also lasts only for a moment,” said his disciple. “It is mighty, Father Two-Legs, a thousand times mightier than any spark that you can rub out of the sulphur ball; but it only flames for a moment and then it is all over.”
“That’s just why I can’t use it,” said Two-Legs. “I want the lightning to last as long as I please ... for ever if I please. I must be able to kindle it and extinguish it and kindle it again, as easily as I can snap my fingers. Oh, if I only knew where the spirit really dwelt!”
“We know that,” said the disciple. “He lives in the amber and in the glass tube and in the sulphur ball, in iron and in the thunder-cloud and in me and in you and in everything in the world, you said.”
Two-Legs sat long and pondered with his head in his hands. His disciple waited in silence; and, at last, Two-Legs looked up:
“You know ... you know ...” he said and then was silent again for a while.
Then he said:
“You know ... sometimes I don’t believe at all that the spirit lives in any of the places that you say.”
“Where does he live then, Father Two-Legs?” asked his disciple.
“I believe he lives in the air,” said Two-Legs. “Not in the clouds, which are mere water and vapour, but in the pure air ... in the ether: the ether, do you understand? He lives there and goes now into one and now into the other and rather into the one than into the other. Do you remember how long we had to rub the glass before the spirit came? He was there reluctantly. Do you remember that, when the glass was wet, he did not come at all? He would sooner be in the water. He likes to dwell in iron and copper and zinc and silver and all the other metals. In the string that held the kite which we sent up into the thunder-cloud, he ran down as fast as the lightning and sent a spark into my finger. You know how he runs down the wire of the lightning-conductor into the ground. He remains there because the ground is moist. That is why you and I see no more of him, because we walk on the ground: he runs right through us into the ground and disappears. Yes, that’s how it is, that’s how it is!”
His eyes beamed. He could not explain it, but he saw, as in a vision, that this was how it must be. He went on talking about it; and his disciple knew that it was true, even though he could not understand it.
But then Two-Legs grew sad again:
“What is the use of it all, when I cannot even produce the spirit,” he said, “nor build him a house in which he would rather dwell than anywhere else in the world, so that I may always have plenty of him to come and go at my pleasure?”
He began to gaze at his magnetic needle: how two north ends or two south ends always repelled each other, while a north end and a south end immediately flew together.
“Now, if there were two spirits,” he said, “if the spark came and then the two rushed towards each other, if the powerful force were just the attraction of one for the other ...”
“Is that it?” asked the disciple.
“I don’t know,” said Two-Legs. “I could see and feel the wind; and the same with Steam. I discovered, at length, where he came from and where he was going. But I don’t know what the mighty spirit of electricity is, for all the years that I have been watching him. Perhaps I shall never come to know. But we will explore his ways nevertheless, diligently, by day and by night.”
He hammered wires of iron and zinc, of copper and silver, twisted them together, bent them against one another, rubbing them with the magnet and with the leather and with anything else that he could hit on. Gradually, he had no room for all of this in his house; and then he threw it outside the door.