The news came to him one day, after his removal to his new rooms in the Place Saint-Exupère, at the very moment when he least expected it. His joy at the event was greater than his progress in ataraxy should have allowed. Vague and flattering hopes arose within him, and when M. Goubin, who had become his favourite pupil since the betrayal of M. Roux, came that same evening to take him for their usual stroll to the Café de la Comédie, he found him beaming all over with smiles.
The night was bright with stars, and as he went along the uneven pavements, M. Bergeret studied the sky. He was interested in the lighter side of astronomy, and pointed out to M. Goubin a beautiful red star over against Gemini.
“That is Mars,” he said. “I wish there were such things as glasses strong enough to see its inhabitants and their industries.”
“But, dear Master,” said M. Goubin, “were you not telling me some short time ago that the planet Mars was not inhabited, that none of the celestial bodies were inhabited, and that life, such as we conceive it, was a disease confined to our planet alone, a kind of decay spread over the surface of our rotting world?”
“Did I say that?” asked M. Bergeret.
“As far as I can remember that is what you said, dear Master,” replied M. Goubin.
And his memory had not played him false. After the betrayal of M. Roux, M. Bergeret had asserted that organic life was but decay eating into the surface of our diseased world. He had also added that he hoped for the greater glory of the heavens that life in the distant worlds produced itself normally, by means of the geometrical forms of crystallization. “Otherwise,” he had added, “I could derive no pleasure from the contemplation of the star-spangled sky.” Now, however, he was of a different opinion.
“You surprise me,” he said to M. Goubin. “There are several reasons for concluding that all those stars now sparkling overhead contain life and thought. Even on this earth of ours, life occasionally has its pleasant side, and thought is divine. I should much like to know something about yon sister star floating in thin ether in the face of the sun. She is our neighbour, and only separated from us by fourteen millions of leagues, which, astronomically speaking, is a very small distance indeed. I should like to know if the living beings upon the planet Mars are more beautiful than we humans are, and whether their intellect is vaster than our own.”
“That is a thing we shall never know,” replied M. Goubin, wiping his glasses.
“At any rate,” went on M. Bergeret, “astronomers have studied the shape of that red planet by means of powerful telescopes, and they all agree in saying that they are able to distinguish innumerable canals upon its surface. Now, the hypotheses taken as a whole, hypotheses that are closely interdependent and form a great cosmic system, lead us to believe that this near neighbour of ours is older than the earth, from which we may deduce that her inhabitants, with a longer experience behind them, are wiser than ourselves. The canals of which I was speaking give to the huge tracts of land they traverse the appearance of Lombardy. To be quite correct, we can see neither the water nor the banks, but only the vegetation that grows along them, and which, to the observer, appears as a thin scattered line, pale or dark according to the season of the year. It is especially to be remarked at the equator of the planet. We give the canals the earthly names of Ganges, Euripus, Phison, Nile, and Orcus. They appear to be irrigating canals, like those at which, it is said, Leonardo da Vinci worked with the skill of an excellent engineer. Their undeviating course, and the circular basins in which they terminate, are sufficient proof that they are both artificial and the result of mathematical calculation. Nature is mathematical, it is true, but not in the same manner.