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

{from} THE {New York} SUN, SUNDAY, MARCH 25, 1877.

THE MAN WITHOUT A BODY

{by Edward Page Mitchell}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

{THE END}