“I passed the whole strength of sixty cups through it to show you its action. Ordinarily, with one or two carbon cells, and refining the current by triple induction, the temperature is barely blood-warm.”
“Pardon an interruption,” said Ronald. “You spoke of liquid carbon; does it exist?”
“Yes; here is some in this phial. See it—how pure, how transparent! how it loves and hoards the light!” The old man held the phial up as he spoke, and turned it round and round. “See how it flashes! No wonder, for it is the diamond, liquid and uncrystallized. Think how these fools of men have called diamonds precious above all gems through these many weary years, and showered them on their kings, or tossed them to their mistresses’ feet, never dreaming that the silly stone they lauded was inert, crystallized life!”
“Can’t you crystallize diamonds yourself?” asked Wyde, “and make Freiberg a Golconda and yourself a Crœsus?”
“It could be done, after the lapse of thousands of years,” replied Herr Lebensfunke. “Place undiluted liquid carbon in that inner globe, keep the coil at a white heat, and if Adam had started the process, his heir-at-law would have a koh-i-noor to-day, and a nice lawsuit for its possession.”
Ronald Wyde bent toward the globe once more and examined the throbbing mass closely, whistling softly meanwhile.
“If you can create this cellular life, why not develop it still higher into an organism?”
“Because I can only create life—not soul. Years ago I was a freethinker, now my discoveries have made me a deist; for I found that my cells, living as they were, and possessing undoubted parietal circulation, were not germs; and though they might cluster into a bulk like this, as bubbles do to form froth, to evolve an animal or plant from them was far beyond me; that needs what we call soul. But, in searching blindly for this higher power, I grasped a greater discovery than any I had hoped for—the power to isolate life from its bodily organism.”
“You have to keep the bottle carefully corked, I should imagine,” laughed Ronald.
“Not quite,” said Herr Lebensfunke, joining in the laugh. “Life is not glue. My grand discovery is the life-magnet.”