pdf-to-markdown/examples/The-Man-Without-A-Body.md

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{from} THE {New York} SUN, SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 1877.
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## THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY

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{by Edward Page Mitchell}
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On a shelf in the old Arsenal museum, in the
Central Park, in the midst of stuffed
hummingbirds, ermines, silver foxes, and
bright- colored parakeets, there is a ghastly row
of human heads. I pass by the mummied
Peruvian, the Maori chief, and the Flathead
Indian to speak of a Caucasian head which has
had a fascinating interest to me ever since it was
added to the grim collection a little more than a
year ago.
I was struck with the Head when I first saw it.
The pensive intelligence of the features won
me. The face is remarkable, although the nose
is gone, and the nasal fossæ are somewhat the
worse for wear. The eyes are likewise wanting,
but the empty orbs have an expression of their
own. The parchmenty skin is so shriveled that
the teeth show to their roots in the jaws. The
mouth has been much affected by the ravages
of decay, but what mouth there is displays
character. It seems to say: "Barring certain
deficiencies in my anatomy, you behold a man
of parts!" The features of the Head are of the
Teutonic cast, and the skull is the skull of a
philosopher. What particularly attracted my
attention, however, was the vague resemblance
which this dilapidated countenance bore to
some face which had at some time been familiar
to me **—** some face which lingered in my
memory, but which I could not place.
After all, I was not greatly surprised, when I
had known the Head for nearly a year, to see it
acknowledge our acquaintance and express its
appreciation of friendly interest on my part by
deliberately winking at me as I stood before its
glass case.
This was on a Trustees' day, and I was the
only visitor in the hall. The faithful attendant
had gone to enjoy a can of beer with his friend,
the superintendent of the monkeys.
The Head winked a second time, and even
more cordially than before. I gazed upon its
efforts with the critical delight of an anatomist.
I saw the masseter muscle flex beneath the
leathery skin. I saw the play of the buccinators,
and the beautiful lateral movement of the
internal pterygoid. I knew the Head was trying
to speak to me. I noted the convulsive
twitchings of the risorius and the zygomatie

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major, and knew that it was endeavoring to
smile.
"Here," I thought, "is either a case of vitality
long after decapitation, or, an instance of reflex
action where there is no diastaltic or excitor-
motory system. In either case the phenomenon
is unprecedented, and should be carefully
observed. Besides, the Head is evidently well
disposed toward me." I found a key on my
bunch which opened the glass door.
"Thanks," said the Head. "A breath of fresh
air is quite a treat."
"How do you feel?" I asked politely. "How
does it seem without a body?"
The Head shook itself sadly and sighed. "I
would give," it said, speaking through its
ruined nose, and for obvious reasons using
chest tones sparingly, "I would give both ears
for a single leg. My ambition is principally
ambulatory, and yet I cannot walk. I cannot
even hop or waddle. I would fain travel, roam,
promenade, circulate in the busy paths of men,
but I am chained to this accursed shelf. I am no
better off than these barbarian heads — I, a man
of science! I am compelled to sit here on my
neck and see sandpipers and storks all around
me, with legs and to spare. Look at that infernal
little Oedieneninus Longpipes over there. Look
at that miserable Gray-headed Porphyrio. They
have no brains, no ambition, no yearnings. Yet
they have legs, legs, legs in profusion." He cast
an envious glance across the alcove at the
tantalizing limbs of the birds in question, and
added gloomily, "There isn't even enough of
me to make a hero for one of Wilkie Collins's
novels."
I did not exactly know how to console him in
so delicate a manner, but ventured to hint that
perhaps his condition had its compensations in
immunity from corns and the gout.
"And as to arms," he went on, "there's
another misfortune for you! I am unable to
brush away the flies that get in here — Lord
knows how — in the summertime. I cannot
reach over and cuff that confounded Chinook
mummy that sits there grinning at me like a
jack-in-the-box. I cannot scratch my head or
even blow my nose [his nose!] decently when I
get cold in this thundering draught. As to eating
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and drinking, I don't care. My soul is wrapped
up in Science. Science is my bride, my divinity.
I worship her footsteps in the past, and hail the
prophecy of her future progress. I **—** "
I had heard these sentiments before. In a flash
I had accounted for the familiar look which had
haunted me ever since I first saw the Head.
"Pardon me," I said, "you are the celebrated
Prof. Dummkopf?"
"That is, or was, my name," he replied, with
dignity.
"And you formerly lived in Boston, where you
carried on scientific experiments of startling
originality. It was you who first discovered how
to photograph smell, how to bottle music, how
to freeze the aurora borealis. It was you who first
applied spectrum analysis to Mind."
"These were some of my minor
achievements," said the Head, sadly nodding
itself **—** " small when compared with my final
invention, the grand discovery which was at the
same time my greatest triumph and my ruin. I
lost my Body in an experiment."
"How was that?" I asked. "I had not heard."
"No," said the Head. "Living alone and
friendless, my disappearance was hardly
noticed. I will tell you **—** "
There was a sound upon the stairway.
"Hush!" cried the Head. "Here comes
somebody. We must not be discovered. You
must dissemble."
I hastily closed the door of the glass case,
locked it just in time to evade the vigilance of
the returning keeper, and dissembled by
pretending to examine, with great interest, Anas
Acuta, or Pin-tailed Duck.
On the next Trustees' day I revisited the
Museum and gave the keeper of the Head a
dollar on the pretense of purchasing
information in regard to the curiosities in his
charge. He made the circuit of the hall with me,
talking volubly all the while.
"That there," he said, as we stood before the
Head, "is a relict of morality presented to the
Museum fifteen months ago. The head of a
notorious murderer gilteened at Paris in the last
century, sir."
I fancied that I saw a slight twitching about
the corners of Prof. Dummkopf **’** s mouth and an
almost imperceptible depression of what was
once his left eyelid, but he kept his face
remarkably well under the circumstances. I

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dismissed my guide with many thanks for his
intelligent services, and, as I had anticipated, he
departed forthwith to invest his easily earned
dollar in beer, leaving me to pursue my
conversation with the Head.
"Think of putting a wooden-headed idiot like
that," said the Professor, after I had opened his
glass prison, "in charge of a portion, however
small, of a man of science — of the inventor of
the Telepomp! Paris! Murderer! Last century,
indeed!" and the Head shook with laughter
until I feared that it would tumble off the shelf.
"You spoke of your invention, the
Telepomp," I suggested.
"Ah, yes," said the Head, simultaneously
recovering its gravity and its center of gravity;
"I promised to tell you how I happen to be a
Man without a Body. You see that some three
or four years ago I discovered the principle of
the transmission of sound by electricity. My
Telephone, as I called it, would have been an
invention of great practical utility if I had been
spared to introduce it to the public. But, alas-"
"Excuse the interruption," I said, "but I must
inform you that somebody else has recently
accomplished the same thing. The Telephone
is a realized fact."
"Have they gone any further?" he eagerly
asked. "Have they discovered the great secret
of the transmission of atoms? In other words,
have they accomplished the Telepomp?"
"I have heard nothing of the kind," I hastened
to assure him, "but what do you mean?"
"Listen," he said. "In the course of my
experiments with the Telephone I became
convinced that the same principle was capable
of indefinite expansion. Matter is made up of
molecules, and molecules, in their turn, are
made up of atoms. The atom, you know, is the
unit of being. The molecules differ according to
the number and the arrangement of their
constituent atoms. Chemical changes are
effected by the dissolution of the atoms in the
molecules and their rearrangements into
molecules of another kind. This dissolution
may be accomplished by chemical affinity or by
a sufficiently strong electric current. Do you
follow me?"
"Perfectly."
"Well, then, following out this line of thought,
I conceived a great idea. There was no reason
why matter could not be telegraphed, or, to be
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etymologically accurate, 'telepomped.' It was
only necessary to effect at one end of the line the
disintegration of the molecules into atoms, and
to convey the vibrations of the chemical
dissolution by electricity to the other pole,
where a corresponding reconstruction could be
effected from other atoms. As all atoms are
alike, their arrangement into molecules of the
same order, and the arrangement of those
molecules into an organization similar to the
original organization, would be practically a
reproduction of the original. It would be a
materialization **—** not in the sense of the
Spiritualists' cant, but in all the truth and logic
of stern science. Do you still follow me?"
"It is a little misty," I said, "but I think I get
the point. You would telegraph the Idea of the
matter, to use the word Idea in Plato's sense."
"Precisely. A candle flame is the same candle
flame although the burning gas is continually
changing. A wave on the surface of water is the
same wave, although the water composing it is
shifting as it moves. A man is the same man
although there is not an atom in his body which
was there five years before. It is the Form, the
Shape, the Idea, that is essential. The vibrations
that give individuality to matter may be
transmitted to a distance by wire just as readily
as the vibrations that give individuality to
sound. So I constructed an instrument by which
I could pull down matter, so to speak, at the
anode and build it up again on the same plan at
the cathode. This was my Telepomp."
"But in practice **—** how did the Telepomp
work?"
"To perfection! In my rooms on Joy street, in
Boston, I had about five miles of wire. I had no
difficulty in sending simple compounds, such
as quartz, starch, and water, from one room to
another over this five-mile coil. I shall never
forget the joy with which I disintegrated a three-
cent postage stamp in one room and found it
immediately reproduced at the receiving
instrument in another. This success with
inorganic matter emboldened me to attempt the
same thing with a living organism. I caught a
cat **—** a black and yellow cat **—** and I submitted
him to a terrible current from my two-hundred-
cup battery. The cat disappeared in a twinkling.
I hastened to the next room and, to my immense
satisfaction, found Thomas there, alive and

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purring, although somewhat astonished. It
worked like a charm."
"This is certainly very remarkable."
"Isn't it? After my experiment with the cat, a
gigantic idea took possession of me. If I could
send a feline being, why not send a human
being? If I could transmit a cat five miles by
wire in a flash of electricity, why not transmit a
man to London by Atlantic cable and with equal
despatch? I resolved to strengthen my already
powerful battery and try the experiment. Like a
thorough votary of science, I resolved to try the
experiment on myself.
"I do not like to dwell upon this chapter of my
experience," continued the Head, winking at a
tear which had trickled down on to his cheek
and which I silently wiped away for him with my
own pocket handkerchief. "Suffice it that
I trebled the cups in my battery, stretched my
wire over housetops to my lodgings in Phillips
street, made everything ready, and with a
solemn calmness born of my confidence in the
theory, placed myself in the receiving
instrument of the Telepomp at my Joy street
office. I was as sure that when I made the
connection with the battery I would find myself
in my rooms in Phillips street as I was sure of
my existence. Then I touched the key that let on
the electricity. Alas!"
For some moments my friend was unable to
speak. At last, with an effort, he resumed his
narrative.
"I began to disintegrate at my feet and slowly
disappeared under my own eyes. My legs
melted away, and then my trunk and arms. That
something was wrong, I knew from the
exceeding slowness of my dissolution, but I was
helpless. Then my head went and I lost all
consciousness. According to my theory, my
head, having been the last to disappear, should
have been the first to materialize at the other
end of the wire. The theory was confirmed in
fact. I recovered consciousness. I opened my
eyes in my Phillips street apartments. My chin
was materializing, and with great satisfaction I
saw my neck slowly taking shape. Suddenly,
and about at the third cervical vertebra, the
process stopped. In a flash I knew the reason. I
had forgotten to replenish the cups of my
battery with fresh sulphuric acid, and there was
not electricity enough to materialize the rest of
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me. I was a Head, but my body was, Lord
knows where!"
I did not attempt to offer consolation. Words
would have been mockery in the presence of
Prof. Dummkopf's grief.
"What matters it about the rest?" he sadly
continued. "The house in Phillips Street was
full of medical students. I suppose that some of
them found my Head, and knowing nothing of
me or of the Telepomp, appropriated it for
purposes of anatomical study. I suppose that
they attempted to preserve it by means of some
arsenical preparation. How badly the work was
done is shown by my defective nose. I suppose
that I drifted from medical student to medical
student, and from anatomical cabinet to
anatomical cabinet until some would-be
humorist presented me to this collection as a
French murderer of the last century. For some
months I knew nothing, and when I recovered
consciousness I found myself here.
"Such," added the Head, with a dry, harsh
laugh, "is the irony of Fate!"
"Is there nothing I can do for you?" I asked,
after a pause.
"Thank you," the Head replied; "I am
tolerably cheerful and resigned. I have lost
pretty much all interest in experimental
Science. I sit here day after day and watch the
objects of zoological, ichthyological,
ethnological, and conchological interest with
which this admirable museum abounds. I don't
know of anything you can do for me.
"Stay," he added, as his gaze fell once more
upon the exasperating legs of the Oedieneninus
Longpipes opposite him. "If there is anything I
do feel the need of, it is out-door exercise.
Couldn't you manage in some way to take me
out for a walk?"
I confess that I was somewhat staggered by
this request, but promised to do what I could.
After some deliberation, I formed a plan, which
was carried out in the following manner:
I returned to the Museum that afternoon just
before the closing hour, and hid myself behind
the mammoth sea cow, or Manatus
Americanus. The attendant, after a cursory
glance through the hall, locked up the building
and departed. Then I came boldly forth and
removed my friend from his shelf. With a piece
of stout twine, I lashed his one or two vertebrae
to the headless vertebrae of a skeleton Moa.

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This gigantic and extinct bird of New Zealand
is heavy legged, full breasted, tall as a man, and
has huge, sprawling feet. My friend, thus
provided with legs and arms, manifested
extraordinary glee. He walked about, stamped
his big feet, swung his wings, and occasionally
broke forth into an hilarious shuffle. I was
obliged to remind him that he must support the
dignity of the venerable bird whose skeleton he
had borrowed. I despoiled the African lion of his
glass eyes, and inserted them in the empty
orbits of the Head. I gave Prof. Dummkopf a
Fiji war lance for a walking stick, covered him
with a Sioux blanket, and then we issued forth
from the old Arsenal into the fresh night air and
the moonlight, and wandered arm in arm along
the shores of the quiet lake and through the
mazy paths of the Ramble.
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## {THE END}