The Castle of Dreams

The MIT Press

JOUVET

~

The Castle of Dream S

ction gy/fi holo psyc

D

“

Raja Parasuraman, author of The Attentive Brain

“

Dan Lloyd, author of Radiant Cool

Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142

n a vivid historical setting devoid of lab coats and high technology, Jouvet demonstrates that scientific discovery is the love child of relentless curiosity, a seed that can flower at any time, in any mind.”

MICHEL JOUVET TRANSLATED BY LAURENCE GAREY

~

t

Jacket art: The Château at Bouligneux from a photograph by Laurence Garey

http://mitpress.mit.edu

978-0-262-10127-1

MICHEL JOUVET TRANSLATED BY LAURENCE GAREY

his enlightening, entertaining, and intriguing novel begins as a story within a story — or a story within a trunk. A Frenchman—our narrator, presumably the author Michel Jouvet or a literary version of himself— buys an antique chest with brass fittings, labeled with the initials HLS and a partially worn-away date, “178–.” Happy to have such a handsome piece for his hallway, the narrator is surprised to find within it bundles of ancient papers tied with string. He has discovered the (continued on back flap)

MD DALIM #972616 07/10/08 CYAN MAG YEL BLK

I

~

Michel Jouvet, a pioneer in sleep research, is Emeritus Professor of Experimental Medicine at the University of Lyon, France. He is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and holds the Gold Medal of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). He is the author of The Paradox of Sleep: The Story of Dreaming (MIT Press). Laurence Garey has worked in brain research throughout his career, at Oxford, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and other institutions. He is the translator of The Paradox of Sleep and other books.

oes art mirror science? Or does art (and artists) anticipate future scientific progress? Michel Jouvet’s playful gem of a novel answers both ways. In doing so, he entices lay readers with the forays of the novel’s protagonist into the world of sleep and dreaming; at the same time, scientists will marvel at Jouvet’s fictional yet technically accurate account of these mysterious states of consciousness. Renowned sleep scientist Michel Jouvet unerringly finds his novelist’s voice in The Castle of Dreams. A splendid, entertaining book!”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

dream journals, experiments, and correspondence of eighteenth-century amateur scientist Hugues la Scève. With Jouvet, a recognized authority on sleep and dream research, as our guide, we follow la Scève’s quest to unlock the mystery of dreams. In his château and elsewhere, la Scève undertakes a series of complex and often comic experiments: he records his own dreams and speculates on their relation to waking life; he studies sleeping cats, rabbits, and other animals (and observes rapid eye movement almost two centuries before modern science discovers it); he records the sleep and dream experiences of a Swiss soldier and a pair of Siamese twins. And, because sleep and dreams are often in close proximity to the erotic, he considers the relation of dreaming and sexual activity, heroically undertaking firsthand research with various women (with the notable exception of his wife). La Scève’s fantastic experiments and discoveries have a solid scientific basis: Jouvet has transposed some of his own cutting-edge research to the context of the eighteenth century—when scientific knowledge was more limited, but the joy of scientific study was more widespread. La Scève’s experiments are a testament to the power of scientific observation. The tale that Jouvet discovered buried in the old chest could have been true.

The Castle of Dreams

The Cas tle of D reams

Michel Jouvet

Translated by Laurence Garey

The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England

Le château des songes © ODILE JACOB, 1992 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email special_sales @mitpress.mit.edu This book was set in Bembo by The MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jouvet, Michel. [Château des songes. English] The castle of dreams / Michel Jouvet ; translated by Laurence Garey ; foreword by Allan Hobson.   p.  cm. ISBN 978-0-262-10127-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)  1. Dreams—Fiction.  I. Garey, Laurence. II. Title. PQ2670.O9876C413  2008 843'.914­—­dc22 2008007044 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Translator’s Preface   vii About the Author   xi Foreword by Allan Hobson   xiii Prelude   1 1

The Beginning of the Journal of Dreams   5

2

The Time of Dreams   9

3

The Police File of Hugues la Scève   19

4

The Eyes of Dreams   27

5

The Ears of Dreams   43

6

The Ebb and Flow of Dreams   47

7

The Visit of Charles Bonnet to the Château of Bouligneux   53

8 Observations on Cats   65

v

Contents

9

The Love Life of a Rabbit   75

10

The Three Dreams of Hans Werner   81

11

The Birth of Dreams   91

12

The Toad Child   107

13

The Blood of Dreams   115

14 Women Are Not Rabbits   123 15

The Private Correspondence of Hugues la Scève  131

16

The Falconer of the Royal Botanical Garden   135

17 Hugues la Scève’s Letter to Charles Bonnet   145 18 Reply from Charles Bonnet   155 19

The Weight of Dreams   161

20 Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice   173 21

The Werewolf and the Dolphins   187

22

The Humors of Dreams   201

23

The Electricity of Dreams   223

24 Oniron and Orgasmon   233 25

Dreams and the Pituitary   247

26

The Spirit of Dreams   261

27

Die Zweckmässigkeit der Träume   281

28 Letter from Count de Lesseps to Béatrix   291 29

The Last Letter of Hugues la Scève to Béatrix   297

30 Iriomote Yamaneko   303

vi

Translator’s Preface

In 1999 MIT Press published my translation of Michel Jouvet’s Le Sommeil et le Rêve as The Paradox of Sleep: The Story of Dreaming. During the time that I was working on that text, I visited Michel Jouvet at his beautiful house in the Dombes region of France, near Lyon, and was delighted when he gave me a copy of his novel Le Château des Songes, written in 1992. I read his book with everincreasing enthusiasm and realized that it should be made available to a wider audience, not just to those who have mastered French well enough to appreciate its subtleties. Indeed, I decided not to wait until I found an editor before undertaking its translation. At the time I was Professor of Anatomy at Imperial College School of Medicine in London, and I had the habit of taking the bus to work very early in the morning, before the rush hour. So, much of the translation was done during those dark hours in a London bus! I was very happy when MIT Press agreed to publish The Castle

vii

Translator’s preface

of Dreams, the fiction, after the success of The Paradox of Sleep, the science. This is the sort of story that, once started, is hard to put down, so fascinating is the progression from chapter to chapter, from one enchanting story to the next. Each is a story in itself, but each adds to the final dénouement. To begin with, we meet Michel Jouvet who has just bought at a sale near his home an ancient chest, in which he discovers to his amazement a series of documents. They relate the story of Hugues la Scève, a rather libertine amateur naturalist living in the eighteenth century in his château at Bouligneux, in the same beautiful part of the French countryside. What Jouvet discovers is the fabulous (in the literal sense of the word) account of la Scève’s painstaking endeavors to understand the significance of sleeping and dreaming, using the means of, and subject to the limitations of, the eighteenth century. Although our hero may be fictitious, the places and some of the other characters really exist or existed, as do many of the events, such as Barthélemy de Lesseps’s voyage around the world in the “Boussole” in 1788. What is poignant to me is to have visited the region, and even the castle of dreams at Bouligneux. Indeed, when I look at the photographs I took of Jouvet in front of the castle, I wonder if it is really he, or maybe it is la Scève. La Scève undertook weird and often titillating experiments in sleeping and dreaming. The descriptions of these experiments, on ducks and rabbits and his pet cats, as well as on a loving couple and a Swiss soldier, are hilarious and complex, to say the least, but are all based on Jouvet’s lifetime experience of cutting-edge sleep research, transposed to the means and context of more than two

viii

Translator’s preface

centuries ago. They also reflect his deep knowledge of local color— the characters, the towns and villages, the customs, the history—as well of the history of medicine. It is fascinating, and a delight for both the profane reader and the neuroscientist expert. Everything is there, including contemporary intolerance, conservatism, and social and clerical critique. The final chapters, concerning the ill-fated voyage round the world, are dramatic and tear-jerking. Although a novel, this work is unique in that it is written by an acknowledged expert in the field of scientific research on sleep and dreaming. So, all the apparent fantasy has a solid scientific basis and is just plausible! It is a work of scientific discovery set in the context of the social and moral constraints of the eighteenth century, and it could just be real. The prelude, as I have said, sets the scene of the discovery of the chest. At the end, after we discover la Scève’s last letters to his beloved, Jouvet brings us back to contemporary Lyon and completes the story by revealing to us the lasting effect Hugues’s adventures had on his own modern research. I have respected all these scenarios but took the liberty, with the author’s permission, to incorporate the section of notes, which he added as a sort of postscript, into the storyline of the final chapter. Laurence Garey Perroy, August 2007

ix

About the Author

A proud native of the Franche-Comté of France, where he fought in the “maquis” during the Second World War, Michel Jouvet is a member of the French Academy of Sciences and holds the Gold Medal of the CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique). He is Emeritus Professor of Experimental Medicine at the University of Lyon and was Director of the Units for the Neurobiology of Vigilance and Molecular Oneirology. While working in Lyon in 1958, Jouvet made a fortuitous discovery that influenced his research, and his whole life. It led to his description in 1959 of paradoxical sleep, when an individual is neither asleep nor awake, but under the influence of a “new” third state of the brain. Since then he has devoted himself to research on sleep and dreaming in his laboratories in Lyon. Although now retired, he continues to work and to travel the world in pursuit of his goal of understanding how and why we dream. The team of

xi

About the Author

students and disciples that he has formed over the years continues his everyday work and is delving into new realms. In 2004, Jouvet published another novel, Le Voleur de Songes, in which he recounts his own adventures in modern Venice, where he is seeking refuge from the physical and mental trials and tribulations of everyday life, and where he enters a mysterious world that even he finds difficult to interpret and relate to reality or dream. Laurence Garey Perroy, August 2007

xii

Foreword

Michel Jouvet is a talented storyteller as well as a world-class scientist. As such, his fanciful book, The Castle of Dreams, is as much a pleasure to read as it is an insightful resumé of intriguing observations on sleep and dreams. In this book, Jouvet evinces his fertile imagination, his active adventurousness, his restless curiosity, his passionate originality, and his preference for synthetic over analytic intellectual style. The Castle of Dreams is a literary tour de force with a bite. By imagining Hugues la Scève as an eighteenth-century aristocrat trying to invent a science of dreams, Jouvet charmingly points out that many of the discoveries regarding sleep and dreams made in the second half of the twentieth century could have been made by direct observation at least two hundred years earlier! By presenting himself, through la Scève, as the observer of his own dreams, he champions the collection of first-person detail regarding self-

xiii

Foreword

observation as a rightful component of direct observation. These are radical assertions in an age where technology and mechanical measurements of third-person phenomena delimit the boundaries of science. The moral of the story is this: we need to be open-eyed and openminded to avoid the embarrassment of not having discovered rapid eye movement (REM) sleep before 1953. REM sleep, after all, is an outward behavior as well as the preferred brain substrate of dreaming. All life-bearing mammals have REM sleep, and it is directly, one might even say easily, observable. The eyes do move often beneath closed lids. And, even then, the eye movements can be seen because the cornea distorts the lids as they move. The eyelids move too. It is an easy matter to raise the eyelid of a sleeping cat with the eraser of a pencil and behold the oculogyric dance of REM directly. The same display was visible in a laboratory assistant of mine whose lids fell open when she napped recumbent on her back! Eyelid movement is the clearest behavioral sign of oculomotor activation in sleep. So why did it take scientists so long to recognize REM sleep for what it is? In The Castle of Dreams, Jouvet answers this question as he poses it. Jouvet gives his hero, la Scève, the wit to correlate such activation with dreaming. The question raised by Jouvet is all the more pressing since the eye movements of sleep are typically associated with a list of other visible motoric signs. The most obvious is the collapse of muscle tone that occurs in any animal that enters REM sleep from any state associated with postural tone. Cats who doze in the sphinx position lose that visible uprightness when REM dissolves muscle tension. Human infants also collapse when REM sleep interrupts their vigorous suckling of their nursing. Mothers who notice this

xiv

Foreword

may simply assume that their body is satiated, but that doesn’t explain the muscle atonia and the rapid eye movements. In the 1950s, Jouvet himself once concluded that the electrical brain activation of his obviously sleeping cats showed them to be awake. This was the surest sign of all that dreaming might be correlated with REM, but it was too early to make that interpretation. Why? If we could answer that question definitively now, we would be in a strong position to promote one of those paradigm shifts that are such critical turning points in science. When REM sleep supervenes over non-REM, there may be other easily observable signs: twitches, especially of fine digital muscles in the cat, running movements in the dog, emotion-laden facial expressions in human infants, and the telltale erections in men that appealed as much to Gallic ribaldry in the eighteenth century as they do today. Why wasn’t all this commotion seen as the orchestration of a major brain state? These questions are not directly answered by la Scève, the fictitious naturalist, who sees and knows all. They are the evidences of dreaming, and la Scève begins his story with an interest in dreaming. The rich subjective experience should have been enough in itself to convince us that the brain was activated in sleep. But it didn’t. Nor has its subsequent discovery focused attention on its unique place in the study of consciousness as a brain function. In la Scève’s hands, dreaming is another datum to be catalogued within the framework of biological timing mechanisms. Consciousness itself is the culprit. So limited is our power to observe in sleep that we lose our scientific powers to the very process we wish to understand. La Scève has lots of vigorous ways of getting around this problem. He is as imaginative in inventing experimental

xv

Foreword

tricks as he is interpreting the results. There is a playful, mischievous spirit lying behind every line of The Castle of Dreams. If you are too serious to get it, you will probably walk right by an equally important discovery that, as Jouvet knows, is likely to be as unexpected or inexplicable a fact as the one for which we are looking. A sense of humor is as useful in science as in other walks of life. A sense of humor, a sense of play, and a sense of irony are deeply imbued in Jouvet’s alter ego. Nature is all of a piece, says la Scève, and there are no compartments in the usual operating subjects or methods. He has as much fun in bed as he does in his study, in his correspondence with the great men of his day, or with his Oriental research assistant. Other authors have celebrated the playfulness of science, but Jouvet has emboldened this spirit in his amusing fantasy. Enjoy and reflect as you indulge your imagination. Are you giving free reign to your ideas? Are you having fun? And are you using your eyes and your brain to observe the unexpected phenomena of nature that lead to deeper truths? Even though la Scève knows that there is a physical substrate of dream experience, he doesn’t seem to appreciate its full significance for science. He seems at times to realize that it delivers a death knell for Cartesian dualism, and he refers to REM sleep as if it were dreaming, which of course it is not. Dreaming as a conscious experience is more highly correlated with REM than with the other phases of sleep with which it is more weakly associated, but dreaming, a subjective experience, is only privately observable. This confusion is unfortunate in two ways: (1) it weakens the psychophysiological argument regarding the brain basis of dreaming, and (2) it obscures the more general assertion that all states

xvi

Foreword

of mind are states of the brain. Thanks to scientists like Michel Jouvet and his naturalist hero Hugues la Scève, the mind-brain problem can now be approached empirically. For this program to succeed, we all need to apply the naturalist’s versatility of observation, including a more imaginative and systematic approach to selfobservation. The physical instantiation of all of consciousness, like the Holy Grail, is hidden somewhere in the castle of dreams that is in each of us. Allan Hobson

xvii

Prelude

I live a few kilometers from Lyon in a house on the slopes of the little valley of the Sereine, a stream that drains the pools1 of the Dombes into the Rhône. In October and November, even in dry weather, the Sereine can suddenly fill with muddy water from the pools. I love the Dombes and prefer driving up to wander across its sunlit plateau rather than down to the plain of the Rhône that is often shrouded in mist. One Sunday morning in October 1982, I went up to Villars-lesDombes to visit the autumn antiques fair. There I discovered, amid the clocks and rustic cupboards from Bresse, and old fishing tackle, an ancient chest, something for which I had been looking for a long time. It was big and covered with brass. It bore the initials 1.  These “pools” are the famous “étangs,” an outstanding feature of the Dombes. They are alternately f looded for fishing or drained for pasture, as we shall learn in detail later. 1

Prelude

HLS in iron letters and a half worn-away date, 178–. It was closed with a large lock, and no key. I liked its size and shape: it would fit the hall of my house beautifully! As is usual in this sort of business, I began by showing interest in a clock from Bresse with a broken movement, then pretended to catch sight of the chest. Where was it from? The dealer did not know. He had bought it two years previously in Trévoux with a lot of old things from a convent. He told me he had opened it, but that when he closed it again the lock had jammed. There was nothing of interest in it, just a few faded account books that he would have thrown away had he been able to open it again. Finally, after haggling over the price for the pleasure, I took the very heavy chest home. I tried in vain to open it with some old keys, then abandoned it until later. One day, during some of the constant repairs to my old house, a workman informed me that it would be simple for him to open the chest! He came back the next morning with a ring full of keys and locksmith’s tools of all sorts. He took more than an hour to open it. It was full of bundles of papers tied with string, covered in fine writing in pale ink, but still legible. The first bundle, covered in dust, was full of figures that seemed to concern some object made of oak and brass. The dimensions of each piece (in feet or toises2) and their price (in pounds or écus3) were set out over several sheets. I imagined that these documents must have belonged to some artisan or even an architect. Maybe they would be of interest to a historian. I put the sheets away after shaking the dust off their gray paper and was surprised to read: Measurements and Costs of 2.  about 2 meters 3.  The écu was worth 3 livres, or pounds.

2

Prelude

the Dream-Scale (1776). Dream-scale? Who would have been mad enough to weigh dreams? Unless the word had a different meaning in the eighteenth century. With my interest aroused, I sorted out the bundles of yellowed sheets as carefully as possible. This was made easy by the dates written in large letters on the first page, either in Roman or, later, Arabic script. I began to read the papers around midday, and when I stopped in the early hours of the next morning I had only read half. It was a whole forgotten era, delving into the natural history of dreams, that had remained locked in this chest for two centuries. Hugues la Scève, as I had discovered the author’s name to be, had amassed some five thousand accounts of his own dreams during twenty years punctuated by wars and voyages. In his journal, la Scève had tried to find rules to explain the sequence of his dreams. He had devoted himself to the study of sleep, and it was obvious that he had discovered, well in advance of modern neurophysiology, the objective signs of oneiric activity in man and animals, as well as the natural history of dreams. I learned that la Scève had then undertaken experiments on rabbits, seeking the cause of dreaming with the collaboration of chemists and physicians. Later, in a sealskin bag pushed down the side of the chest, I discovered a letter from Count de Lesseps dated November 1, 1788. This letter was with some other rather damaged sheets, probably la Scève’s last letter. Because there were no documents later than 1788, I realized that it was not la Scève himself who had locked away all these documents that I was bringing back to life, but someone else, apparently a certain Béatrix. I decided not to publish the hundreds of his recalled dreams, but to study them closely and publish later in a specialist journal. I also

3

Prelude

kept discretely hidden a number of letters regarding his romantic affairs, as well as some technical notes, such as estimates for the construction of the dream-scale, a wild-animal pen, a stove, retorts, and copper cradles for oniron and orgasmon. In addition, I had to disguise certain personal names cited by la Scève, for their descendants still live in the Dombes, in Lyon or in Paris. I edited virtually all these manuscripts and the letters that were with them in chronological order into thirty or so chapters.

4

1

The Beginning of the Journal of Dreams

January 10, 1765

Here are three dreams I had tonight. I am noting them in the early hours of the morning, surprised at the lucidity of my recall. Until now I have never paid attention to my dreams, which I almost always forget. Why are they so lifelike this morning? As if they bring me a message I cannot understand. Dream Number 1 

By the point of departure of the coaches, near the Place de Louis-le-Grand, I see a large glass enclosure full of water. It is more than ten feet high, thirty to forty feet long, and shines in the sun. Tiny fish swim around inside. A bigger fish, probably a pike, picks at the white belly of another, dead fish. Then it is eaten by an even larger fish. This, in turn, is immediately caught by a big serpent that comes through the glass toward me. I then see that it is not a serpent but an otter! Suddenly I find myself inside

5

chapter 1

the pond, and I ask the otter how long it can stay under water. It replies that if it wants to, it can dive almost for ever, but after four or five minutes it is happy to come to the surface to breathe. Dream Number 2 In

Flanders, a cavalry officer gives me lodging papers: the name of a village and a château are written in Flemish. I go to the village on horseback. On the walls are signs with the silhouette of a naked St. Elizabeth. I realize it must be a brothel. Then I meet two French officers who offer to share their meal with me. I refuse, since people must be waiting for me in the château. I enter, and go into a luxurious reception hall where people I do not know are at table. They are civilians, probably Flemish. They sit motionless without looking at me. I pass beside them, clicking my heels, but they do not lift a finger or give a glance—like waxworks. Then on the right side, in a small room, I notice a woman washing clothes. She turns toward me and beckons me to follow her. We climb a very large staircase to the floor above and enter a long corridor. Then she opens a door. There is a big, bare room lit by stained-glass windows. In the middle of the room is a large bath filled with water. The woman goes toward the bath and opens a door in its side, beckoning me to enter. I am surprised not to see the water gush out. The woman disappears and I am alone in the room.

Dream Number 3 Still during the Flanders campaign, there is a convoy of Prussian prisoners. Some are wounded and lying in carts pulled by men or horses. There are inscriptions on some of the carts, in German and in a language that I cannot read—perhaps Polish. Later I find myself at an inn, seated between a Russian and a Swedish officer. A German prisoner serves us soup. It is a sort of

6

The Beginning of the Journal of Dreams

borsch with unsliced vegetables floating in a warm broth. I find the soup good since I am very hungry. Then the Russian and Swedish officers get up and begin to sing loudly in an unintelligible language. I try to sing with them, but remain seated. Comments Apart from that of water, I can find no common theme in this night of dreams. The last two are certainly related to my Flanders campaign of 1757. Do these three dreams have some hidden significance? Is it possible to detect some law of how recalled dreams are related to each other? Nature rules over all things and must also rule the world of dreams, and it would be very presumptuous to attribute everything to chance without trying to reveal some laws. So from today I shall take care to write down my dreams every morning. I shall do it without hiding even the most intimate details. So as not to repeat the same dreams, I also decide not to read my notes again until I have collected at least fifteen hundred dreams. I shall just note, if I am sure of them, the circumstances of my waking life that could have provoked these dreams, which will enable me to measure the length of their silent passage in my mind. I shall also note, in detail, the scene of my dreams, if I can identify it surely, as well as the colors, if there are any. It also seems useful to note each morning the accidents and incidents of my daily life, and the passions, happy or sad, such as my sentimental life, sickness, and bereavements that might also feed my dreams.

7

2

The Time of Dreams

November 16, 1771

In a single night, frost has cut off the leaves of the mulberry that grows on the south side of the moat. The winter is so hard that I have to snuggle up to the big chimney in the tower, sheltered from the wind by the old wing of the château. The pool is frozen and the wind is blowing the frost and snow into small heaps against the reeds. The wading birds have left us early, for they sensed the wind coming from Siberia. There are only the flocks of cawing crows turning endlessly in the gray sky. I have had some oats put in the copses for the deer. I check the mangers every morning. I have to fill them, for they are empty, surrounded by cloven footprints in the thin layer of frost that whitens the tall yellow grass. A week ago, I wrote down my fifteen-hundredth dream in six years, and I have decided to use my spare time this winter to put them in order.

9

chapter 2

First of all, I tried to sort out the dreams I could date precisely, when the scene and the place of the dream related to a real event. After two days of work on a large parchment, I find myself with the following memories recalled each year: in 1765, 300 dreams recalled, of which 117 locatable and dated— that is, 39 percent in 1766, 196 dreams recalled, of which 70 locatable and dated— that is, 35 percent in 1767, 236 dreams recalled, of which 104 locatable and dated— that is, 44 percent in 1768, 225 dreams recalled, of which 98 locatable and dated— that is, 43 percent in 1769, 193 dreams recalled, of which 60 locatable and dated— that is, 31 percent in 1770, 214 dreams recalled, of which 63 locatable and dated— that is, 29 percent and in 1771, 136 dreams recalled, of which 38 locatable and dated—that is, 28 percent. I then spent two days studying the different classes of dated dreams. Those related to events the same day are commonest. I shall call them day residues. There are also those recalling an event the day before, two days before, and up to a month before. Three hundred and twelve dreams fit into these categories out of four hundred and eighty. The one hundred and sixty-eight others are related to older events (one year, ten years, twenty years). I shall study them later if I have time. I feel that my ability to recall my dreams is slowly diminishing. Is it due to age? I think my memory is less good. Or is it habit, or because I travel so much? Or even because on nights spent away

10

The Time of Dreams

from my familiar surroundings I have little time to note my dreams? Or could it be due to having fewer dreams during the night, for I have noticed that my sleep is not as deep as before? Nevertheless, I can study a considerable number of dreams according to their date and place, four hundred and eighty dreams out of fifteen hundred are easy to relate to waking events (32 percent). So, one dream in three is precise enough to enable me to relate it to stimulation of my mind during waking. In contrast, two-thirds of the time my recalled dreams do not remind me of any event, either because they are too imprecise and misty, or too common to be dated, or even because they are too fantastical. Time interval in days Percentage of recalled dreams 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

35 Day residue 18 Day before 10 — 5 — 3 — 3 — 2 — 4 — 16 One week before 0 — 2 —

Dreams concerning the day before comprise half as many as those concerning the same day. Those of the day before that, half again; three days before, half again, and so on. This beautiful exponential curve is suddenly interrupted by a peak of memories of a week previously. The number of these reaches half those of the same day, thus the same number as those of the previous day.

11

chapter 2

I can easily represent the first part of this curve by y = 100 + e–x. This means that there is an exponential decrease in the occurrence of an event in a dream. I suppose, although I have found no mention in the works of philosophers like Leibniz or Charles Bonnet, that there must be a similar relationship for waking memories. Thus dream recall obeys a mathematical law. It does not occur randomly. On the other hand, the peak at a week intrigues me. Could it be an unknown mathematical law? As my knowledge of mathematics is very limited, I ought to speak to Father Bertholon or Monsieur Leduc, astronomers and mathematicians in our Naturalists’ Circle. After establishing this first curve, I was encouraged to pursue my investigations, this time in relation to dream recall during my numerous journeys. I only studied journeys of at least a week. There were eight during the five years I describe below. List of My Journeys 1.  1765:  To Berlin. Meeting with Frederick of Prussia (three months) 2.  1766: Ship’s surgeon on the Résolue. Visit to the Caribbean (four months) 3.  1767:  To Stockholm and Uppsala (two months) 4.  1768:  To Pavia. Meeting with Lazzaro Spallanzani (one month) 5.  To London (one month) 6.  1769:  To Leiden and Madgeburg. Return through the Rhineland (two months) 7.  1770:  To Paris. Meeting with Diderot (one month) 8.  To Bern. Visit to von Haller (three weeks) I made the following observations relating to the departure, duration, and return from my journeys.

12

The Time of Dreams

I was first surprised to find that in the first six or seven days of a journey, almost all my dream recall took place in the Dombes countryside, in my château at Bouligneux or its immediate neighborhood, around the pool at La Fôret, or the one at the château. Even if my dreams evoked a memory of someone encountered during a journey, in Paris, in London, or on the Résolue, that person was in the Dombes, without that bizarre fact causing me to wake. After I had been on each journey for longer, I noted that the new scenery occurred more often in my dreams, such that after a fortnight the great majority of my dream recall was in the country I was visiting. On returning from my journeys, I first observed a slight increase in dream recall. Then I noticed that, although I was sleeping in my château, for the first week almost all my recalled dreams took place in the lands I had just left. Slowly these memories came to be situated in the Dombes again. Here is an example. Journey to Berlin in September 1765

Starting from Strasbourg, where I was staying for a few days, I traveled to Berlin. September 4  I did not dream the first night while breaking my journey at Landau. September 5  I had two dreams. The first concerned my dogs left in Bouligneux. I ask a German servant girl from the inn, whom I met in the yard of my château, to give the dogs some chicken bones. Afterward, I look everywhere for her, because I know that it is dangerous for them to eat chicken bones, because I once lost a dog with a perforated stomach.

13

chapter 2

In the second dream, I am astonished to see the name of an inhabitant of Bouligneux on the door of my room at the inn. September 6  Third night, in Darmstadt. Another dream about my dogs. Gothard has had his right front paw torn off in a wolf trap. I stroke him. The scene is definitely in the Dombes. September 7  Fourth night, in Frankfurt. Five dreams, two certainly in the Dombes. In my château I am visited by old army friends to whom I recount the journey I am about to undertake to Prussia. There is a large map of Europe in my office, and I put pins in it at the coach stops. Still in the tower of the château, I notice a water leak in the ceiling that grows bigger, like a waterfall. Then two ordinary dreams, without any clear connection. Finally, a dream related to my previous day. A German comes to see me discretely when the coach arrives. He wants to secretly sell me political pamphlets against the emperor of Austria. I refuse. September 8  Fifth evening. I stopped in a small village on the borders of Hesse and Thuringia. I met a Russian gentleman with his wife, Iura. She was a pretty woman, and we drank a lot of beer. I only had one dream that night. I am in the Jura mountains where I meet some local folk who recount the exploits of Captain Lacuzon during the war against the French and the Swedish about a hundred years ago. Upon waking I realized that the Jura must have been related to the pretty Russian’s name, Iura. September 9  Sixth evening. Arrival in Erfurt. No dreams recalled. September 10  Seventh evening. A coach stop south of Halle. No dream recall. September 11–14  From the eighth to the twelfth evening. Arrival in Halle and a stay in that beautiful city to visit the Leopoldina

14

The Time of Dreams

Academy. From this time on, almost all my dreams took place in Germany, and the Dombes only appeared thirteen times during my stay in Germany (14 percent of my dreams). I returned to the Dombes after two months in Prussia via Switzerland, and only took three days from Neuchâtel to Bouligneux. When I returned to the château, I had the following dreams. November 15  First night. No dream recall, probably because I was too tired. November 16  Second night. I am watching a parade of Frederick II’s guards. I do not know how to salute the emperor’s flag. I recall the music of drums but not of fifes. I meet a German naturalist who is at the court in Berlin. He suggests I write an article about my future work and gives me a German journal, of which I cannot read the title. November 17  Third night. A dream of passion, related to an encounter in an inn as I left Berlin. Two other ordinary dreams without place or time. November 18  Fourth night. A dream about a coach accident, probably in Germany, for I recall someone swearing in German. “Gottverdamm!” November 19  Fifth night, and three dreams. Two were still concerned with Germany or Prussia. In the first, I am standing close to a large pool with a fountain in the courtyard of a palace. I see someone coming in the distance, small, with a big hat, holding a packet in his right hand. I think it is Voltaire and I rush up to him, but it is Frederick II’s falconer holding on his right wrist a falcon with a leather hood. His look is stern and his eyes resemble those of his falcon. He looks at me so fixedly that I want to run away.

15

chapter 2

During the return journey, in Bavaria, I meet a surgeon from the king’s army. I recognize his uniform but not him. He asks me if I have been to number 63, Promenadegasse in Vienna, apparently an excellent brothel. I reply that I was in Berlin, not Vienna. The third dream begins with memories of the Dombes. I am seated on a coach, beside the driver, and notice the pools shining in the setting sun. I am surprised to see that there are only two of the four horses that normally pull us. From the sixth night on, the proportion of dreams related to my German journey decreased regularly in favor of dreams in my flat Dombes countryside. I think I can draw the following conclusions. During dreaming there are recall mechanisms that scrutinize as a priority events lived seven or eight days earlier, for half of recalled dreams relate to events a week before. Although I am not an expert in the laws of probability, it seems to me that this new discovery, based on my own dreams during journeys, confirms what I had concluded from my dreams outside journeys. So I can now postulate, for the first time, new rules concerning the time course of dreams. Rule Number 1 

Recalled dreams can only be situated precisely in time and space in one-third of all cases. Comments  This rule makes me doubt the well-known adage nihil est in intellectu somniorum quod non fuerit prior in sensu nisi ipse intellectus.4 Indeed, if in the other two-thirds of cases I can accept that 80 percent of dream recall is too common and ordinary to be dated,

4.  There is nothing in the sleeping mind that was not earlier in our senses or our intellect. 16

The Time of Dreams

there still remain 20 percent of fantastic dreams, which cannot be memories from my waking consciousness or experience. I shall come back to them one day. On the other hand, I cannot refute the adage nihil est in intellectu somniorum quod non fuerit prior in sensu, for certain events might have touched my senses without my realizing. Rule Number 2 

That there is an exponential decrease in the time interval between events lived during waking and the dreams they evoke. Comments  This second rule must reflect a law of Nature due to its mathematical beauty. It forces me to conclude that dream recall is not chaotic, but as natural a phenomenon as forgetting an event during waking. Thus, the brain is not a passive bystander in the dialog with the spirit or the soul. No, the brain itself rules dreaming, for the perfect soul is incapable of forgetting.

Rule Number 3 

That there is a privileged interval of seven or eight days between events and the memories they awake in our brain. It is possible that this interval repeats indefinitely, according to the sequence 7-14-21-28, etc. Comments  This phenomenon must reflect a continuous recall of dreams, continuing even during waking. So, each day, my brain must be full of dreams slowly germinating to blossom forth the seventh day. Can that germination act on my waking activity and thoughts without my being aware of it? If so, the activity of my mind would not simply depend on the stimuli around me, like the machine-animals of Descartes and Vaucanson. I should not be like de la Mettrie’s machine-man, for a hidden spring, my dreams of today and a week ago, would flow in the depths of my brain.

17

3

The Police File of Hugues la Scève

December 1, 1771

Yesterday my friend President de La Brosse showed me a file concerning me. He stole it from the drawers of the Royal Police, advising me to read it and destroy it. He told me jokingly that he did not want a “la Scève affair,” after the sad business of Calas, de La Barre, and Lally-Tollendal. He added, more seriously, that I should avoid all philosophical discussions in public, for there were spies everywhere, and that I should publish my philosophical notes under a false name, subtler than “Monsieur de Lascif” that I had used so far. Finally, he added, smiling, that the most secret affairs were always the best. My file was as follows. File concerning Hugues la Scève, Esq. CONFIDENTIAL

For the Officers of the Police of the Ministry of the Interior

19

chapter 3

  Hugues la Scève was born on January 14, 1733, in Besançon   Son of Jean-Marie la Scève, botanist, and Louise Monnier, without profession, of Morez, Franche-Comté   Studied at the Jesuit College of Besançon until 1750   Moved to Lyon in the care of his maternal uncle, André Monnier, inspector of cloth manufacture   Medical studies in Lyon. Degree in surgery 1756 In 1757 joined the army as assistant surgeon. Wounded in the arm in the battle of Rosbach, where he was in charge of a field ambulance unit, he was taken prisoner by the Prussians. Since his stay in Prussia he openly praises Frederick. It is uncertain whether he met Monsieur de Voltaire while in Prussia. He returned to Paris in 1759 and showed interest in natural history, attending courses in the Royal Botanical Garden. He was seen in the company of Diderot. It seems that he has authored one or two articles for the Encyclopedia, in particular, a long and highly documented article on Anatomy (Volume II), that he signed L. He already has a record because of his association with the campaign of the Philosophers and Encyclopedists against religion. He returned to Lyon in 1760 and participated actively in the Naturalists’ Circle, formed mostly of materialist philosophers. Thanks to his friendship since the war with Lieutenant General de Villars, he met Miss Catherine de Villars, aged twenty at the time, daughter of the Count de Villars and the Viscountess, née Thomassin. Their marriage took place at the church of St. Nizier on October 15, 1760. The dowry of Miss de Villars included the château of Bouligneux, as well as more than sixty acres5 of pools in flood and twenty acres of dry pools under cultivation at the time of the marriage. 5. “trois cents bichetées” 20

The Police File of Hugues la Scève

The marriage contract was established on the basis of community of property. The couple lived in the château of Bouligneux and Monsieur Hugues la Scève became obsessed with farming. He tried, without great success, to breed new species of fish in the pool. He invented a machine to cut reeds, but failed to obtain a patent. He finally tried to set up a bird sanctuary on one of the largest pools, but failed to obtain permission for an armed guard in the hunting season, so the birds he had introduced were decimated. At that time he imported two pairs of pelicans and circulated a pamphlet, signed Monsieur de Lascif, describing the behavior of the pelicans. He compared the pelican’s tearing open its own heart with its beak to the Sacred Heart of religion. This resulted in his pamphlet being seized, with a warning from the Archbishop of Lyon. During the next nine years, Monsieur la Scève made many journeys, the purpose of which was not always clear. He was seen in London just after the Treaty of Paris in 1763. He was seen in bad company in Soho. It seems that he met Hooke to learn how to use a microscope. In 1765, informers at coach stops in Thuringia and Saxony heard him discussing heatedly in favor of Choiseul and the condemnation of the Jesuits. He also circulated petitions in favor of Calas and Lally-Tollendal. He is said to have been received by Frederick at this same time and may have had business discussions with Voltaire. In 1766, he left his wife to embark on a warship. He visited the French Caribbean from where he brought back numerous collections of plants and animals. Following this voyage he tried to introduce sugarcane in the Dombes, which proved a dismal failure. After 1766, Monsieur la Scève had marital difficulties and undertook many voyages with numerous mistresses.

21

chapter 3

Also at this time, he was seen more and more often in the disreputable areas of Lyon around the church of St. Nazaire. He was apparently friendly with a lascivious girl from Martinique named Manuela, whom he visited regularly after meetings of the Naturalists’ Circle. There is no reason to believe, however, that he was exploiting this girl. Our informer, an innkeeper from Bouligneux, Monsieur A——, never saw suspicious comings and goings in the daytime. He was convinced, however, that he heard coaches arriving at the gate of the château at night, which he could not follow as they entered the courtyard. These suspicious visits took place when Madame la Scève was away from the château in Lyon, at least six months each year. Were they debauched revels or philosophical meetings? Perhaps both at the same time. If indeed they were philosophers’ meetings, they still interest our police. Monsieur la Scève was often heard in the Café du Jura during meetings of the Naturalists’ Circle expressing himself as follows, according to our informer in the café: “That he esteemed the theories of Monsieur de la Mettrie much more than those of people who measured the soul. That belief in the soul was inversely proportional to our knowledge of the brain. That study of dreams, about which he considered himself to be a great expert, had taught him that the theory of a perpetually awake soul was false. That if erotic dreams were sent by God, then one should reply to his divine message, but if they were sent by the Devil, then one should immediately be castrated! In consequence, if there were no castrated Popes, it was because they did not believe in the Devil! That each individual was different, for he had different dreams. So each individual had the right to have his own ideas about all things natural, and so no-one, neither pope nor king, could impose his ideas on others.” In conclusion, Monsieur la Scève appears to be a dangerous individual in his ideas and in the way he expounds them habitually. Since 1765, he seems to be one of the leaders of the Naturalists’ Society. Licentious and

22

The Police File of Hugues la Scève

debauched, he professes his atheism publicly and does not hesitate to attack our Holy Father the Pope and His Majesty King Louis XV. He seems to enjoy a rather great fortune, thanks to his wife, and seemingly cannot be silenced by office or money. However, his licentious lifestyle makes him so vulnerable that it should enable us to lay traps in order to dishonor him such that he will lose his authority in the society of atheist philosophers in Lyon. Lyon, July 10, 1771 I admire the solicitude of the police toward me, but this file contains so many errors that I intend to correct them here as a precaution. It is true that in 1757 I had contacts with Prussian military surgeons to learn their treatment of head wounds. It was then that I perfected the technique of trepanation. Do I have to make this constable understand that, over and above being a soldier, I am a surgeon? That I have cared for wounded Prussians, just as Prussians have cared for wounded French? It is true that I have always had a certain admiration for Frederick II. His great culture impressed me, as did his love of the arts, letters, and philosophy. I joined the Natural History Society of Berlin in 1765 after a paper on improving rural economy. This can easily be verified, but my spies did not know this, because they only spy on mediocrity. Was I the author of the article on anatomy because it was signed L? It is true that I advised L and participated in lengthy bibliographic research for the article, one of the most comprehensive of the Encyclopedia. It is fortunate that they do not accuse me of pornography, because this article contains the fine figures IV, V,

23

chapter 3

and VI of Huter representing the hymen of neonates and girls aged seven and fourteen! It is true that in 1761 I tried to raise chub in my pools. It transpired that they can only live in streams. I do not regret this, for the chub is too full of bones to be good to eat. My misadventures with my bird sanctuary were the fault of Monsieur A——, my official spy from Bouligneux. Instead of looking after his pitiful eating house, this individual pursued a vendetta against me under the pretext that ducks escaped by taking refuge on my pool. The story of the pair of pelicans was a sad affair. They were killed one evening by A—— and his hirelings. I had had them for six months. They had lost weight at the beginning but regained it later. I used to watch them from the château, resting on a small island in the pool. It certainly is hard to introduce anything new in this country! In my pamphlet, as the constable said, I spoke of the death of the pelicans, killed by superstition and ignorance. A few references to religion obviously resulted in my being reprimanded by the archbishop! It was not sugarcane that I tried to introduce, but bamboo, for I knew it could grow in fairly harsh climates. But the clay of the Dombes did not suit it. 1763, and my journey to London. Four months after the Treaty of Paris! Indeed, I did want to obtain a microscope with achromatic lenses that was made only in England. But I could not find one. I wonder which spy saw me in Soho, in which public house. It is true that at the time I was curious to observe the habits of Englishwomen. One never really knows a country, even that of one’s

24

The Police File of Hugues la Scève

worst enemy without frequenting its pleasure districts and without knowing its women. 1766. My marital affairs. I would never be able make this imbecile policeman understand the many causes of our breakup and separation. I do not even want to talk about them. We lived our lives separately for six months each year, quite free, but faithful. And the sound of coaches at night? Pure imagination on the part of this scoundrel A——. He did not know . . . He did not see . . . He thought . . . That is how so many honest men have ended in prison. I should like to know what informer wrote down my discussions at our Naturalists’ Circle in the Café du Jura on his shirtsleeves. Did I say it? Probably. And many other things. But in what sort of country do we live? Finally, the sting in the tail! That I cannot be bought! I am not kept by Manuela! That they will try to trap me! Thank you for the warning, dear constables. But you will soon have less opportunity to spy on me, for I am about to immerse myself in the study of my dreams. I shall bring no more pelicans or sugarcane to Bouligneux. I shall bring the fundamentals of the natural history of dreaming. Can you spy on my dreams? Has anyone yet been condemned for having erotic, licentious, or antiroyalist dreams?

25

4

The Eyes of Dreams

December 10, 1771

A lot of snow fell tonight. The icy pool is covered with it. I can see the tracks of flocks of deer and of my dogs. I had to help clear the least sloping roofs of the main buildings to avoid sudden avalanches, and also clear an access to the house, under the drawbridge that has not been raised for a long time. I decided to leave the snow in the main courtyard, for as it melts it will be able to get directly to the drains leading to the pool. Fortunately, the roof of the tower is steep and the snow on it will slip off when the first rays of the sun reach the courtyard. I sealed off the arches of the south gallery to prevent piles of snow from falling into the outhouses. I have continued to classify my dreams over the last ten days. I have tried various methods to collate them, compare them, count them, and classify them. In the end, the fastest and surest results were obtained as follows. I summarized each dream on a good-

27

chapter 4

quality card that I had bought before the winter. I cut the cards to fit vertically in the four drawers of my mahogany desks. I then painted the margins of these cards in different colors to classify them. On the left there is room for eight colors (white, black, red, purple, pink, green, yellow, and blue) that represent the time elapsed between waking events and related dreams. On the wider upper margin I mixed colors and cuts to obtain fourteen different combinations corresponding to the subjects of my dreams classified according to the different sensations they represented: vision (in color or not), hearing (sound or speech), taste, and skin sensation (pain). I also coded subjects related to the four elements: earth (death), air (vacuum or levitation), fire (sun), and water (rain or snow). I added other themes: blood (wounds, war surgery), animals, and finally anything to do with erotic dreams (the details of which I wrote in a secret language based on Greek). On the right margin of the card I used seven colors to classify my journeys, unusual encounters (hurricanes, cyclones, elephants, bearded ladies, monsters) that took place in my dreams, sexual adventures (with the initials of my partners and my sexual activities in secret writing), the dramatic events of my life (injuries, shipwreck, sickness, deaths), and finally drugs or sleeping potions that I sometimes took (laudanum, opium, and others). Consequently, by taking a hundred cards at a time, I can quickly determine if any given margin color is frequently associated with another. Sorting out these cards that afternoon, I noticed an obvious feature. All my dreams relied on the stimulation of the retina of my eyes, for all my recalled dreams were organized in space. I noted that twenty out of a hundred of my dreams were in color. I was surprised to see from my notes that I sometimes distinguished black

28

The Eyes of Dreams

and white as colors, as if my other dreams were without form or color, even black and white. Closing my eyes, I conjured up the image of a black cat and a white cat, and I realized that in my mind this was not a black and white image. So, visual dreams seemed to evoke two sorts of memory. One was without color (even black and white), while the other was in color, drawn from a brilliant pallet. The occurrence of colors in my colored dreams was in a descending order of red, white, black, yellow, blue, and green. I also noticed the frequency of dreams with sound, but their classification was so difficult that I had to spend several days working it out. Then, in descending order, I noted dreams with smell (of which 60 percent had a pleasant odor and the rest were nauseating), with taste or hunger, almost always associated with smell, and a few dreams with thirst. Dreams with painful sensations were happily very rare, probably because they woke me without leaving any trace. I thought a great deal about this scale of sensation during dreaming. Why did a dream need an extensive spatial scenario, like being in a theater where I was an actor or spectator? Some dreams were so precise that I noted whether the actors were on the right or the left. I closed my eyes again and pressed them with my fingers, trying to imagine the stage of the theater at Padua where Spallanzani had invited me, then the Coliseum in Rome. Each time, I felt tiny movements of my eyeballs, seemingly following the wanderings of my imagination. If my eyes were moving, I reasoned, my retina must be responsible for the images, but it seemed unthinkable that my retina should contain the memory of all my visual impressions. So I tried to imagine something that I had never seen or looked at before: a worm with wings, a ship flying in the sky!

29

chapter 4

Each time, my eyes moved. So it was not the retina sending images to my mind making my eyes, and therefore my retina, move on the basis of old memories. The image of the worm with wings was, indeed, confused with that of a dragon that I had seen in a book. Then I realized the difficulty I had in conjuring up an image with my eyes closed. I could not do it if I was distracted by the dogs barking, the fire crackling or the clock ticking. I again tried closing my eyes and imagining the tower of the Charité hospital in Lyon while trying to calculate in my head: 100 – 7 = 93 – 7 = 86 – 7 =  . . . I noticed that my eyes were moving together with the numbers and that I could not picture the image in my brain. I conclude that the effort of paying attention and the brain’s visual imagery must be linked. So, during sleep, dreams must provoke the mind to pay special attention to, not the present moment, as in waking, but the slow dissolution of memories. If there were such images, I thought, our dream attention must turn the eyes in the direction of the dream actors. Night had come, dark and moonless, and the fire had gone out. I rose and groped about for some candles. I bumped into my desk and a drawer filled with files fell out. I tried to pick it up. Night . . . darkness! What were the dreams of someone living perpetually in a dungeon without light or in a cave? Were they in color or shapeless? Happily, there are no prisoners living in such dungeons in our country, I reflected. I finally found the candles and poked a few embers in the fireplace to light them. As I saw the candle’s clear, yellow light flood my study, the idea struck me of perpetual night, of blindness! What do the blind dream of? It was too late by then to go out into the night, but the question tormented me a long while before I fell asleep. The next day the

30

The Eyes of Dreams

sun returned, but the north wind was blowing and the snow was freezing cold. My boots made the ice crack but did not sink in. I went toward the east of the village, on the road to Villars. I knew I would find Thévenet there. He was always called “Eel” for he had been a great expert at fishing. Thévenet had been in the artillery and had had his eyes scorched by the explosion of a six-pounder cannon in the battle of Ypres during the second Flanders campaign of 1744. He had come home, blind, to live with his old mother. He earned a meager living making cradles and baskets out of willows growing between the pools. He was very skilled at cutting them, bending them with steam and weaving them. I found him at home, crouching by a chair he was restuffing. As was our custom, we talked at length about the weather, the snow, the war, and the diabolical English! I congratulated him on his work, and pretended to be leaving. But Eel sensed I had a question for him. He waited, bending and weaving the rough straw. “By the way, Eel, I had an idea yesterday night. Do you dream when you sleep?” He did not move for a moment, then raised his white, dead eyes toward me. “Why do you ask me that?” “Because I study dreams, and I have never seen a book on the dreams of the blind.” “Surely I dream! Often!” “How?” “It’s the only time I see,” he replied. “What do you see?” “I see everything, and all the colors. I dreamed about eels not long ago. There were red ones, black ones, some as white as snow, and yellow ones. Not many brown ones like when I used to fish

31

chapter 4

for them. They came up to me, on my right, and got bigger and bigger. I tried to kill them, but they kept coming back. We could have made a hell of a stew with just one of those eels! At the end of the dream I tried to keep the pictures in my eyes to keep the colors, they were so beautiful. Not like now. Now it’s the night.” So Eel, blind for twenty-seven years, dreamed in color and, like me, counted black and white as colors. Because his retina had been destroyed by the burning powder, his mind must have had a reservoir of colors to color his dreams. “So, Eel, if you try to imagine colors or shapes, do you see them in your mind?” “I have no idea. I can’t see colors any more, but I can feel them in music.” He explained that he had learned to play the viol to earn a bit of money at weddings and parties. “A high note is like red or yellow, a low one is like brown or black.” I asked him to imagine a cradle and put my fingers gently on his eyes. At first I was astonished to feel his eyes flicking right and left all the time. When he imagined the cradle, I could feel his eyes moving up and down. I noticed him moving his right index finger in the same directions at the same time. So his mind was making him imagine an object and commanding the animal spirits of his finger and eye muscles, probably because the skill he had acquired in weaving reeds and willows into objects with his fingers had changed the route of his nerve fluids. I thanked Eel and ordered four big willow cages to catch game. He did not need any other instructions and knew what size and opening were needed for weasels, martens, stoats, or foxes.

32

The Eyes of Dreams

Coming back from Eel’s place, leaning into the bitterly cold wind, I was convinced that I had established conclusively that the retina plays absolutely no role in dream images, contrary to what many renowned philosophers and naturalists were still writing. Nihil est in somniorum intellectu quod non fuerit prior in sensu, I thought again as I entered my well-heated library. It was obvious that the colors in Eel’s dreams were not inborn, because he had seen and learned about colors up to the age of twenty-three when he was blinded by the explosion of his cannon. The memory of these colors could have persisted till now and his dream perception sometimes used them to color his dream scenery. So, I asked myself, were colors already painted on the tabula rasa6 of the brain at birth? I needed to talk to someone blind since birth. Perhaps at Châtillon or Trévoux? The Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul ran a hospice to look after poor children and adolescents suffering from all the misery that Nature had invented to remind us that we are animals like all the others. December 12, 1771

The thaw made me postpone my journey to Châtillon. The coaches from Lyon and Trévoux no longer pass through Bouligneux, and the snow mixed with the deep, sticky mud of the Dombes prevented me from taking my horse. It makes me think of the mud of Flanders that stopped us, under Marshal de Saxe, because we could not move our trailers and cannons without their becoming bogged down. December 20, 1771

The north wind and the frost returned yesterday and the roads are furrowed with deep, hard ruts. I left for Châtillon at daybreak on 6.  a clean slate

33

chapter 4

my horse, cutting straight northwest across the moderately uneven fields. The St. Vincent de Paul hospice is near the hospital. The sisters wear enormous white bonnets and white aprons over blue habits. Young or old, they all have the same gentle and patient look, as if they were looking through you. I asked to see Sister Superior. She was related to my wife by marriage. She received me with polite coldness in a freezing room, without telling me that she knew all about my diabolical interests. I had no need to waste time in useless words, as I had with Eel. “Sir, you have not come here to waste words with fairy tales about your wife’s health.” So I explained as humbly and simply as possible the reason for my visit. “May I very quickly and in the presence of your sisters ask a few questions of a young man of about fifteen or twenty, blind since birth, about his dreams?” “Sir, what do you want to do with your dreams and all this balderdash?” I had to be crafty, or this bonneted old Cerberus would send me home with her prayers for my wife! “Reverend Mother,” I said, “the demons of my spirit have been disturbed by the laws of Nature that I am observing. At the beginning I was led astray by some things I read and became convinced that the soul no longer ruled over our body. However, since I have been collecting memories of my dreams I can feel that the truth is penetrating me. It is our souls that speak to us in our dreams, and through them the revelations of Our Lord Jesus, God himself.” “Sir,” she replied, “this is indeed a strangely devious path to God! You must first of all purify your soul though confession. Your life of sin and debauchery has been impious to such a degree that you will probably have to go to Rome to invoke the Holy Father and make amends.” 34

The Eyes of Dreams

I could not care less about the Holy Father, the Jesuits, and the bull Unigenitus,7 like Jean de Werth. I lowered my eyes in a sign of deep penitence. “Reverend Mother, the blind see in dreaming; is that not a miracle of God?” “Doubtless,” she replied, on the defensive. “Reverend Mother, if people who are blind from birth dreamed of God or the angels, would that not be the proof . . . a proof,” I quickly corrected myself, “of the existence of the soul? Could you refuse a poor sinner to go and drink at the fountain of revelation?” Sister Superior was disturbed. On whom did she depend: the Jansenists or the anti-Jansenists? Better not bring up the question of predestination, or my maneuver might fail. “And what if these young blind people do not dream, Sir, would you conclude that they have no soul?” “Reverend Mother, the experience of seeing the angels or God is ineffable. I would conclude that the soul of these poor blind people is constantly aroused while they sleep, but that they cannot recall this infinite blessing when they wake. The infinite is like a void: no one can explain its essence,” I added. Sister Superior did not wish to tread the slippery slope of the vacuum and the infinite. She shrugged her shoulders. “Sir,” she said, “I shall give orders that you may question Maurice, who is sixteen years old. Two sisters will be present to be sure you do not pose any impertinent questions about angels. I would beseech you, Sir, not to disturb this adolescent for long, and not to question him on the impure nature of certain dreams that the devil sends. I bid you good evening, Sir.” I guessed that Sister Superior was warning me in very chaste terms that young Maurice masturbated. “Reverend Mother, how 7.  the only begotten 35

chapter 4

can I thank you? I am your very humble and obedient servant. I had thought that perhaps a small sum of money and a few toys might brighten the fate of the children for Christmas.” Sister Superior left without a glance. Accompanied by two old, rather gruff sisters, I entered a big room that served as both dormitory and refectory. The room was lit by high windows without curtains and miserably heated by a big stove of which the smoke could not quite disguise the odor of excrement. This early December afternoon, with the sun once again veiled by clouds, I had the sensation of being in the antechamber of hell. A score of children and adolescents of both sexes were present, dressed in the same thick, rough cloth as monks. Some were lying on their bed, others were seated around a long oak refectory table, apparently presided over by a sister. I was astonished by the sight of two beings running toward us. They were dwarfs. Their torso was of normal size, but their limbs were very short and they were no more than four feet tall. I had already seen similar people in Saxony, where they were called Niebelungen. They must have been derived from a race of some sort of pygmy, as if they were the predecessors of the race of mankind we know today. Nevertheless, their faces were bright and childlike, and their features were not those of animals. I thought of legendary, fairylike little people, cunning but almost always benevolent, and I gave them a packet of cakes. The sister called them and they ran toward her in a great noise of clogs. This noise triggered a shrill birdlike cry. I saw, to my right, a young girl with a head like a bird’s, her tiny forehead prolonged by an enormous pointed nose over a chinless mouth. She rose on her bed, then lifted her coarse dress over her head. She

36

The Eyes of Dreams

was naked and I contemplated her body, as magnificent as any girl I had ever seen. So white, so beautifully proportioned, she looked like Cranach’s Venuses that I had seen in the museums of Prague and Munich. But this so desirable body was surmounted by this so ugly and fantastic bird’s head that only Hieronymus Bosch could have invented it. I was surprised at the mix of desire and horror that invaded my mind at this scene. The sister got up and came over to us. She was still young and beautiful. How could she live surrounded by these monsters? She had that same clear look, infinitely good and patient, that I had already noticed in the nuns in Bohemia and Saxony who had cared for me after I was wounded. An attentive and serene look, as if everyday challenges could not affect her. Was it that she was accustomed to being close to these monsters? Was it her nature? Was she born with the seed of goodness to tolerate the misery of this world without a line on her face, without her eyes growing heavy with constant tears? Was it the discipline of her order, whose rigor I knew? Had she taken off her bonnet, done her hair, put on an elegant wig and clothes, this sister would have been a fine woman whom I would have desired, although I could not glimpse the curve of her bust or her hips beneath her long, broad, rough habit. She gently pushed away two ageless little monsters clinging to the big rosary that hung down her habit. They had slanted eyes, like Mongols, with thick yellow skin, and their enormous tongue stuck out of their dribbling mouth from which came unintelligible sounds. “They are so gentle and kind,” she said, caressing their heads. Then Sister Catherine, as she had been addressed by my two old witches, took me to the end of the table. Maurice, a youth

37

chapter 4

of fifteen or sixteen years, was stringing tiny glass beads to make necklaces, like those given to African natives, all by touch. His eyes were dead. “He was blind at birth,” explained Sister Catherine. His parents had taken him to the church in Trévoux, where the sisters found him. His face was open and frank. He had spots and a few hairs on his chin. “He is intelligent,” Sister Catherine told me. “What a shame he cannot read!” I sat down beside Maurice. The three sisters stood behind me, watching. I gave him a wooden horse with wheels and a box of cakes. He smiled broadly. The same smile as people who can see. He could not have learned that. I did not know how to begin the questions; I could feel the sisters’ stares in my back. “Do you sleep well, Maurice?” “Yes, Sir.” “Do you wake up when you are asleep?” “No, Sir.” He nibbled the cakes, quickly, holding the box on his knees. “Do you know what a dream is?” “A dream is when you think you are somewhere else!” “So, do you dream a lot in the daytime?” “Yes, almost all the time!” “What about?” He did not reply and felt for more cakes. “And when you sleep, do you have thoughts that you are somewhere else? Do you see things? Do you imagine things? Like animals?” “What do you mean, see things?” “Have you ever felt colors in the night?”

38

The Eyes of Dreams

“Colors? I don’t know what you mean?” “And music. Do you hear music when you are asleep?” “Sometimes.” “What music?” “I don’t know. Like an organ or wind, very loud or very soft.” “Like at Mass?” “Yes and no. It’s softer. It’s nice. It’s as soft as fur. It’s as soft as skin. Like skin from—” The old witches touched my back. The questions were over. I left Maurice. Of course he did not know what colors were. Even if they were imprinted in his brain, giving color to his dream music, how could he recognize them? How could I recognize changes in magnetism in my dreams if I do not know what they are? I rose to leave the room, where Sister Catherine had just lit a candle. I glimpsed two young boys, or girls, impossible to be sure in the gloom, making strange hand movements. Sometimes they groaned but no words escaped from their mouths. “They are deaf-mutes,” Sister Catherine told me. I am teaching them the language of Father de l’Epée. They understand signs now and can ‘talk’ together.” She made a few rapid hand signs, pointing at me with her finger, touching her head, her lips, her heart, and spreading the fingers of both hands. They ran to me holding out their hands and I gave them my last packet of cakes. I took my leave of the two old sisters, as courteously as possible, and asked them to give a purse with fifty louis to Sister Superior to help her continue her work of charity and devotion that I had seen and that had so moved me. They trotted away, leaving me alone with Sister Catherine. I did not know how to say farewell to her. She guessed my embarrassment.

39

chapter 4

“You know, Sir,” she said, “these little deaf‑mutes. When I do my night round with my lantern while they are sleeping, I really believe they are dreaming!” “Why do you think that, Sister?” “I have noticed both of them when they have their hands outside their covers; their fingers move, as if they were talking, and yet their eyes are closed and they are asleep, for the light of my lantern does not wake them.” I looked at Sister Catherine, who lowered her eyes. A message had passed between us for a fleeting instant. The revelation of a new mystery of Nature. I wanted to thank her, but she had disappeared. The moon had risen behind the clouds. There was no fog. I could return on horseback. South to the Trévoux road, then east toward the moon. My horse walked at a good pace. I thought how this long day had enriched my collection of dream recall. People born blind could dream with music (the metaphor of the fur and the skin was doubtless to hide this adolescent’s dreams of passion). Deaf-mutes could move their fingers as if speaking in sign language, and they could surely have dream images. As with Eel, the interest of the dream could probably redirect the nerve flux to the fingers. I reached Senans about eight in the evening and was surprised to see many torches glowing and moving in the streets. The king’s gendarmes had just arrested two deserters. They were taking them to Trévoux in the bitterly cold night with their arms tied behind their back, attached by the neck to their horses’ tails. “They’ll go to the gallows!” a gendarme told me. I knew that was not true. They would be sent by ferry to Marseille or Toulon to work in the arsenals and shipyards. We needed a strong navy to sink Pitt’s English fleet. 40

The Eyes of Dreams

I finally saw the bright ribbon of the Trévoux road in the moonlight. My horse knew this road back to Bouligneux. I was thinking about the girl with the bird’s head. How was such a thing possible? I did not believe that it could be the result of an unnatural union, like Leda and the swan! Was there a preexisting monstrous seed, or had there been an accident in her mother’s womb? I had read that medical lawyers only grant humanity to monsters that have a human head, for the seat of the soul is in the head. How had Nature put a bird’s head on such a white, beautiful and desirable body? Could the study of this bird-girl’s dreams help define the limit between monsters and humans? But how can you know if a being dreams if you cannot ask questions in the morning? How can you question such a being who cannot speak and has lost its mind? So far, my only means of detecting dreams was their recall. So I would have to begin to observe the sleeper, as Sister Catherine had taught me. I spotted the lights of the château shining on the ice. It must have been midnight. I forgot the moonlike body of the bird-girl, which I imagined crowned by the gentle face of Sister Catherine. As I led my horse into the stable I remembered Bacon’s lines: Homo, naturae minister et interpres, tantum facit et intelligit quantum de naturae ordine re vel mente observaverit; nec amplius scit, aut potest.8 December 21, 1771

Here is a dream I had this morning. I was at the abbey of St. Anthony, in the Dauphiné. The monks were holding a procession. 8. Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand just so much as he has observed of the order of Nature in fact or in thought: beyond this, he neither knows nor can do anything.

41

chapter 4

They were many people, especially the sick attracted by the feast of St. John. Some had bandages on their arms and fingers, others had crutches. The weather was dull, like just before snow. I remember the façade of the abbey very well, with the heads of the saints destroyed by the Huguenots. Crushed by the crowd, I had to enter the abbey. Strangely, it was lit by the sun through the stained glass. I heard superb singing from the choir. I was able to advance through the crowd of pilgrims and approach the choir. Then I saw her, the bird-girl from the hospice at Châtillon, singing, emitting shrill cries, but as melodious as any nightingale. She was dressed in a long white robe. She must have been very tall, or standing on a pedestal, for she dominated the choir. As I approached, I saw that it was composed of deaf-mute children in rough white robes. They were not singing, but signaling with their hands as if they were about to fly away . . . I was intrigued by this dream for it associated a very old memory (I must have gone to St. Anthony’s abbey more than ten years earlier) and the day residue of my journey to Châtillon. I was able to recognize the faces of the bird-child and the deaf-mutes, and the sounds they made, probably because they were bird songs, not words.

42

5

The Ears of Dreams

January 1772

I thought long and hard before writing down my dreams containing sound. They are fairly rare. Sorting my cards revealed only forty-five. I set about classifying them. I only recalled words, either intelligible or without sense, but clear enough that it was easy for me to write them down on waking. Such memories did not teach me anything in themselves. Only when I compared them with the visual scene that accompanied them was I able to allot them to two families. In the first, I noted that most dreams containing intelligible words concerned persons, or shapes, that I did not recognize, or did not know, or that I could not identify because their silhouette was blurred or faded. I only recognized a form or an idea: a woman, a priest, a gendarme, a horseman, but never a specific woman or priest or horseman.

43

chapter 5

Here are five examples. No. 410 In the Saxony countryside, in spite of the sun, I see the shadow of a giant, with no face, leaning over an adolescent and saying to him, “We must get rid of Circe.” No. 652 In Pall Mall, in London, in the bright sun, an unknown girl with a featureless face shows me the address of a hotel. At the same time, she says very loudly, “Oxtail Hotel, 141 Soho Square. It is four thousand pounds a night.” No. 1106 On a journey to Paris, I am waiting to meet Monsieur de la Condamine in his antechamber. An old man with a wig appears. His face is hidden as if by a mask. He leans toward me and asks me very politely and clearly if I had noticed an absence of dreams in hairy children. No. 1140 In some unknown place, an unknown woman with a featureless and indistinct face approaches me. She says very loudly and clearly, “Cats do not take off their hat.” No. 1490  This is a very recent dream. It intrigued me when I woke, for I thought it contained a message. In the drawing room of my château, I am in discussion with an unknown man. He has no wig, but very long, curled white hair falling over his face. So I only see a mass of white hair over a mouth over a big white beard. He leans toward me, takes my hand, and says, “Your germ only plays ball in the caverns of your mind.” The second family of these dreams is the reverse of the first. They are memories in which I recognize the person speaking to me perfectly from their facial features. These people open their mouth to speak to me, but I hear nothing; it is as if I were deaf, or else the words are completely incomprehensible, as if in a foreign language. Here are a few examples.

44

The Ears of Dreams

No. 946 In the Dombes, on the road to Villars, I meet a coach that stops. The coachman climbs down. He takes my arm and speaks in my ear. I cannot hear what he is saying. I turn toward him and ask him to speak up. He opens his mouth as if to hammer out the words. I only hear unintelligible sounds like “hayak, hayak, hayak.” No. 971 In Sweden. The beautifully colored scene reminds me of Stockholm at sunset. I am walking with Carl Linnaeus, strangely dressed as a woman, with a long dress and a wig. He stops and speaks to me. I cannot hear what he is saying but I dare not speak to him. Then he takes my arm, comes close, and speaks in my ear again. I only hear a succession of meaningless sounds. No. 1120  Probably a memory of my voyage to the Caribbean. I am on a boat. The sea is calm. I am on the gangway with Captain le Kerouac. He points to a longboat coming toward us. The captain then takes a loud-hailer and calls to the people in it. I cannot hear any sounds from the loud-hailer. No. 1217 In a drawing room. Madame de M——, a fine woman with a blond wig, rises. She offers me her arm and begins to sing with an operatic soprano voice. I only hear a high-pitched whistle getting louder and louder. Of forty-five dreams with sounds, I classified twenty in my first family, and eighteen in my second. Only seven were as during waking, with both the individual speaking and the message recognizable. I do not understand why two aspects of dream recall, the face and the word, can be so capricious. It cannot be that sound memories disappear faster because I understood the English words very clearly, whereas the dream took place more than two months after

45

chapter 5

I left London, well after the Treaty of Paris . . . What is more, certain day residues, such as the dream about the coach, were very soon after the event and yet the coachman’s words were incomprehensible. I am also astonished at how one forgets faces in dreams of the first family, whereas I recall details of the countryside or clothes very well. Must I conclude that remembering a face prevents us from remembering words in dreams? And yet if I close my eyes, I can easily recall Madame de M——’s face at the same time as her words and even her Italian accent. Clearly, dream consciousness differs from waking consciousness in the combination of the senses. These reflections lead me to formulate the following rules about the mechanism of dreaming and consciousness of sounds. Recall of words often excludes that of the face of the speaker and vice versa. Recall of a face is more fragile that that of a scene. Recall of words can be obliterated or amplified, and may take the form of very soft or very loud sounds. The association of the senses of seeing and hearing in dreams is different from that during waking. When our mind is awake we can pay attention briefly to recognizing a face, then quickly turn our attention to the recognition of words and vice versa. Consequently, we find it easy to pay attention to faces and words at the same time. But the mechanism of dreams does not permit this alternation, probably because some obstacle blocks animal spirits, and our dream attention remains fixed either on the face or the words.

46

6

The Ebb and Flow of Dreams

February 1772

I had the carpenter from Bouligneux make an oak case, six feet long, one foot wide, and just under a foot high. This long case is fixed on four supports so that, standing up, I can easily see all the colors on the edges on my cards. So I can see seven years of my dreams like seeing successive geological strata in a cliff face in the Jura. In this way, I noticed that the colors for the subjects of my dreams were not distributed randomly. On the contrary, they formed more or less thick layers that seemed to repeat once or twice per year. I noticed straightaway the green stripes that signified water. Their thickness was almost equal, and each stripe represented ten to fifteen successive dreams over about a month. Of course, white cards, meaning the total absence of dream recall, sometimes interrupted the green stripes. On the contrary, outside these green stripes were very few randomly scattered green cards each year.

47

chapter 6

This distribution of cards enabled me to easily distinguish different series that I called isomnesic, distributed as follows. For the four elements: The isomnesic series for water lasts on average ten days and recurs every September for the seven years, although in 1766 they were shifted to October on account of my voyage to the Caribbean. A short series of ten days occurs at the beginning of March. The isomnesic series for air (dreams of flying) only occur between April 15 and May 15 and last a month. The isomnesic series for earth and death only occur in three of the years. A month long, they are clearly related to sad bereavements I have suffered. I was surprised not to find real series related to fire or blood. The few red markers for fire were at random, never with two together. I had also marked dreams related to food and drink. I am not a particularly great eater and so was surprised to see so many, and so well spread throughout the year. The isomnesic series for the mouth, for hunger and thirst, were mainly between February 5 and 25 and between April 15 and May 15. Finally, I noted the great number of isomnesic series related to my dreams of passion. There were at least two series each year, separated from each other by an almost total absence of erotic dreams, only one or two per month. Adding the seven years together enabled me to construct an annual curve of my erotic dreams, showing three peaks. The first, the largest, was between April and June and represented a series of twenty days on average. The second peak was in September and only lasted fifteen days. I was surprised to discover short series of ten days between December 15 and January 15.

48

The Ebb and Flow of Dreams

The discovery of these isomnesic series made me very happy. I had never read of such phenomena described by any authors I had consulted. Artemidorus of Ephesus, who recorded the greatest number of recalled dreams, does not mention them. This discovery encouraged me to follow the strategy on which I had embarked to study the science of dreaming and resolve its mysteries. It was better to collect large numbers of dreams myself than to collect a single one from many subjects. My dream library, which had taken me seven years to constitute, revealed a new secret every month. By combining the rules that I had formulated through the systematic exploration of my colored cards, I would be able to draw the plans of the machinery of dreaming. It would become more famous, I imagined, than Descartes’ drawing of the seat of the soul in the pineal gland. I accorded myself some well-earned rest by walking my dogs around the pool. Nature was still numbed by winter. Traces of snow remained on the north sides of hedges. There was but little life in the reeds and on the pool. There were no farmers in the fields. The woodcutters had finished piling up the trunks of alder or poplar alongside the pathways. Suddenly my dogs began to chase a pair of does, barking wildly. One must have been pregnant and fled more clumsily toward the wood. I called back the dogs, and I thought about the end of winter and the rhythm of the seasons. The birds would soon return. The storks, the wild geese . . . How did they recognize the rhythm of the seasons? Was it possible that the ebb and flow of my dream series that I had discovered had some relation to animal instinct, or to the ebb and flow of the sun on the horizon? Winter had been so long and glacial after a poor harvest that this month of February marked the end of the stocks in the lofts. It

49

chapter 6

heralded hunger for man and beast alike. Was that why I had so many dreams about food in February? Were these dreams drawn up in advance due to the long succession of famines in February and March? Could such a trace be left in my germ? Has it been there for thousands of years? But this hunger did not reach my consciousness, so were there, then, unconscious, unimagined thoughts that could influence my brain without my being aware of them, except in dreams? So, I imagined an underground river in my brain, gushing forth like a spring during my dreams. My recent dream of the faceless man with the white beard came back to me: “The germ only plays ball in the caverns of the mind.” Who had spoken these words in my dream? I had never heard them before. No one had suggested them to me. Nor had I read them, or I would have been so surprised that I would have noted them down. Was I the speaker? Or was it another me dreaming in my place? Who dreamed me? Someone else, who was warning me that February was always the month of hunger? I was not hungry, but I was thirsty! I returned to the kitchen to get warm, and indulged in a bottle of Burgundy to celebrate my discoveries. How could I explain the ebb and flow of the isomnesic series? First of all, one thing seemed certain: the distribution of these series was not random. Why, for example, did I have hunger dreams in February and none in summer? Why no water dreams in winter, but especially in September? If outside events were responsible for these series, I had not noted any in my records. Above all, during these seven years I had voyaged so much in Europe and in the Caribbean that it seemed certain that these series of dreams, distributed so regularly each year, were not day residues. So, water,

50

The Ebb and Flow of Dreams

air, hunger, and sex formed an ever-changing backdrop in the theater of my dreams! Why did the series of water dreams happen most frequently in September? I love water, and it is probably because of the pool bordering the château that I came to live here. But why September? If this series corresponded to some hidden, internal source, it must have been so ancient that I had lost its origin. And why the air in April and May? Air in spring, water in autumn. I thought I may have read something about this alternation. Probably in relation to ancient, or perhaps Chinese, superstitions. In contrast to the other series, those about earth or death were almost all related to bereavement of close relations, or friends killed in war. They usually occurred about a week after the death. Death, I thought, comes at any time. So why would Nature need to proclaim it? After all, Nature’s function is just the contrary: to transmit life. Finally, the waves of sexual memories clearly corresponded to Nature’s rhythm, with an increase in spring, the time for love, when one hears the belling of stags in the forest. Love affairs can presumably influence these dreams, as I intended to verify. But my romantic affairs were so variable from year to year, from spring to winter, that I doubted if they would have influenced my erotic dreams very much. The increase in such dreams in spring was so marked that I wondered if the longer days might be responsible. It would have been interesting, I thought, to know the dream patterns of a Spaniard living in South America, where the seasons are reversed, to determine what was due to the length of day and what to some instinct imprinted thousands of years ago when the earth entered the sign of Gemini.

51

chapter 6

So I formulated the rules that I felt I had detected in my observations.   Dreams do not occur according to the events of the previous day, but tend to be grouped in isomnesic series during which the same theme recurs for several days, disguised as waking memories.   The themes of isomnesic series include water, hunger, air, and Venus. Fire and blood are absent.   Themes recur regularly according to the seasons, with a consistent order from year to year.   The theme of earth and death is not seasonal, but depends on personal bereavement. Comments  The demonstration that I made earlier of the relationship between dream recall and events the previous day seems to concern the secondary phenomena of the dream theater, all related to waking life–that is to say, the characters, the objects, the surroundings and the location. These dream objects are, then, random, even if an exponential law of losing them from memory links them to the reality of waking. On the other hand, one must admit that the isomnesic series that provide the backdrop, scenery, or themes for dreaming are related to primary phenomena. These primary phenomena (water, air, hunger, and love) do not depend on the varied circumstances of waking. They reflect the existence of an inner flux, perhaps itself dependent on cosmic events, such as the length of day or the sun’s position in the zodiac. The link between cosmic events and the brain is unknown. It could be a trace inscribed in our germ. This trace could control our actions, even if we are blind, insofar as dreams are capable of organizing connections between nerves without entering our consciousness.

52

7

The Visit of Charles Bonnet to the Château of Bouligneux

April 11, 1772

I have known Charles Bonnet’s work for a long time, and I esteem him an honest man and a great scientist. He is a renowned insectologist, and was the pupil and correspondent of Réaumur at the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1740. His publications, Insect Memory and Considerations on Organized Bodies, earned him membership to the most prestigious academies of science of Europe. But since the publication of his Palingenesis about ten years ago, I realized that this great man was cultivating relations in Paris in order to be elected foreign associate of the academy. He had obtained the support of the Duchess of Auville and the Count de la Bourdonnage, Attorney General of Brittany. However, my friend F—— told me that de Buffon had not appreciated the criticisms of his epigenetic system that Bonnet had published in his Considerations on Organized Bodies. He even assured me that de Buffon had not thanked Bonnet for

53

chapter 7

sending him a copy of his Palingenesis. Without de Buffon’s support, his aspirations remained aspirations. I had learned that, despite an eye ailment, Bonnet had just spent several weeks in Paris to try to pacify de Buffon and his opinion of him. Bonnet was about to return home to Genthod near Geneva in April. Although I had never met him, I wished to invite him and his wife to visit Bouligneux. My wife, I wrote, is a cousin by marriage of your wife, Jeanne-Marie, née de la Rive-Franconis, and would be honored by her visit. I added that I wished to discuss the nature of dreams with him, a subject he had broached in his Palingenesis, and that I wished to seek his advice on the best way to classify them. I explained that this visit would not lengthen his journey and that he and his wife could rest at our home before setting off again to Geneva. I later received a short letter from Bonnet fixing his arrival for Sunday, April 10, if the weather, the state of the roads, and the horses permitted it. I was impatient to meet this famous man. I had read his works on greenflies, hydras, natural history, and a few on brain function, initially fired with curiosity, but later mixed with boredom. I knew that this student of insects was the champion of the ovist theory and that he explained all the mechanisms of consciousness by movements of the soul. I resolved not to challenge his theories. On the other hand, I wished very much to present him with a manuscript on the rules of dreaming that I had just finished. I hoped he would advise me how best to submit my manuscript to the Academy of Sciences of Paris and that he would explain how I could find a sponsor in Paris, at the court or the academy, where I believed my work would allow me to be admitted as a correspondent. That April day was radiant in the midday sun. The roads were dry. So Bonnet and his party would arrive on time by road from

54

The Visit of Charles Bonnet to the Château of Bouligneux

Trévoux. I heard the sound of horses passing the door and went out, holding back my dogs. Alas! I saw Father Chiragnon, my wife’s confessor, stepping out of a gig. I did not know he had been invited, but I detected a trick on the part of my wife. The priest would be Bonnet’s supporter in the event, under the influence of the wine, of our clashing over philosophy, the Encyclopedists, the Jansenists, or ovules! He had a tremendous advantage over me, for he heard my wife’s confession and must have been familiar with my adventures. He would not, however, dare attack me openly, for he had a pretension as a naturalist ever since he described a few extra hairs on a spider’s leg! He hoped to see a new species baptized Chiragnon. His desire was to be elected to the Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Lyon, and he feared I might prevent him. So we greeted each other with great courtesy. The priest crossed the courtyard and went up to my wife’s rooms on the first floor. Bonnet arrived precisely at one o’clock. I helped his wife from the gig. She was a fine, tall woman, simple of appearance, of few words, and with a Swiss accent. She embraced my wife and preserved a silent smile throughout the visit, her regard on her famous husband. About fifty years old, Bonnet was a little hunched, and smaller than me. His high forehead dominated a long, aquiline nose, a rather fine mouth, and a small chin. His eyesight seemed very poor, as was his hearing. He never smiled, but pulled his lower lip over his upper in a strange grimace that conferred on him a very striking aspect of reflection. I led him to the edge of the terrace that overlooked the pool, but the reflected sun dazzled him, so he took my arm to return to the shade of the château. The meal, for five, had been prepared scrupulously by my wife and the cook. It began with a soup of partridge and raisins,

55

chapter 7

followed by another of two lambs’ heads in white wine. I had planned a good selection of wines. A white Etoile and a Mâcon for the fish, a Château Châlon, of which I was very proud, for the terrine, and a Burgundy for the roast. Sadly, Bonnet drank only water. We sat down at the table, and our guests made the sign of the cross while the priest said grace. My only gesture was to touch my collar, so as not to appear a heathen, which prompted a flicker of a smile from Madame Bonnet. I wondered if they knew of my opinions. As we set about the entrées, pigeon pie and pullets with stuffed eggs roasted on the spit and accompanied by a green sauce, I broke the oppressive silence. I said to Monsieur Bonnet how much I had appreciated his Contemplation of Nature. In short, I told him that he set an example for me and that I was proud to have him as my guest. “And you, Sir, the naturalist of the Dombes,” he replied, “what do you study?” I was not prepared for this question. Could I reply that I studied my dreams? “I study, or rather I am attempting, a rational classification of the memories I recall of my dreams. About seventeen hundred in seven years,” I replied with pride. The priest raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if beseeching divine mercy on my soul! “I dream very little,” the great man replied. “My wife, in contrast, dreams almost every night.” He had just lowered the subject of dreams to the level of fainting and other womanly weaknesses! I had to be on my guard. I counterattacked bravely. “Sir, if I understand correctly what you have written about dreams, you accept that the mechanism of

56

The Visit of Charles Bonnet to the Château of Bouligneux

consciousness in the brain is the same in sleeping as in waking. You also accept that the soul can be awake or asleep, but you do not explain, as least I do not believe so, the state of the soul during dreaming. Sir, may I ask on what observations you base your view that animals dream? Perhaps the most exciting thing in your book for me is that you write, ‘The soul may dream in the seed, but at the resurrection this state will be succeeded by eternal waking.’ ” Bonnet remained silent a moment. The priest seemed to be struggling with a chicken bone. My wife was watching me questioningly with, I think, a trace of amused tenderness. Madame Bonnet was petrified, awaiting her husband’s reply. “Whatever your way of thinking about God or the universe, one thing must be certain, Sir. Man is not a quadruped, and a quadruped is not a mushroom! Can I assume that you admit the divine essence of man as a basis for discussion?” “Indeed, I can admit it as a basis for discussion,” I said, “on the condition that you explain when a man begins.” “The fertilizing seed penetrates the human germ, Sir, and sparks a process that can only result in life. The soul begins with conception, and so does man!” “Where do you place the soul just after conception, when there is not yet a brain?” “Not yet a brain, but already tiny nerve fibers alive with animal spirits.” “So you accept, Sir, that this little jelly can think?” Little jelly! The scowl from the priest amused me. I thought he might declare that he baptized his wet dreams! Bonnet replied, calm as ever, “It is not a jelly! How could a jelly become an organism? Everything is preformed. The brain, the organs, the mind, and therefore the dreams, and the soul will reign over them.” 57

chapter 7

“And where is the soul lodged, Sir, at the end of the development of this germ?” “The seat of the soul, Sir, is a little machine, prodigious but of very simple form. It is a complete outline of the whole nervous system, a neurology in miniature. We can imagine this superb instrument as a clock controlled by our soul. There are springs to move our head, others for our limbs. What harmony there is in these innumerable components! The soul is the musician playing airs on this machine. Each fiber is a key, a hammer for a single sound. Whether the keys are tuned by the components or whether their movement is imposed by the force of the soul is immaterial. Ordinarily, objects make more durable and lifelike impressions on us than does the force of our soul. But in dreams the imagination acquires enough force to elevate its images to the level of reality.” “Admirable,” said the priest. “The supreme motor of God . . . What a beautiful image . . .” I was dismayed. How could such a great naturalist be a prisoner of such circular arguments? A keyboard and a musician . . . If the musician played too hard, he created a dream? “But animals, Sir, you have written that they dream. How do you know? How can you tell?” “Sir, have you read my book on the law of gradation and scale in living creatures?” “I read it, and read it again,” I lied. “Then you must have learned that the laws of development rely on a fundamental concept. Nature does not advance in random jumps, and this concept implies the axiom that there is no effect without good reason.” I wondered if he had cited Lucretius in his book.

58

The Visit of Charles Bonnet to the Château of Bouligneux

“I follow you perfectly, Sir, and I agree with this axiom that I have adopted for classifying my dreams. But animals——?” “Sir, if you consider man as a moral automaton, beasts are merely automatons. Man can be lost because he is a reasoning animal. An animal cannot be lost, because it is an animal. I believe that the movements that stir in an animal when it is penetrated by a sensation, at least in domestic animals such as our dogs, depend on the action of their soul on their limbs.” “So, Sir, it is because they have a soul that they dream?” “Yes, Sir, for the soul must remain awake during their sleep.” “The whole of their sleep, Sir?” “We dream while we are asleep. As soon as we sleep. But we only remember a tiny part of our dreams, Sir! What is the point of classifying such echoes of the dialogue of our soul with God? How do you know it is not simply your imagination in the drowsiness of the morning? These are not dreams that you are classifying, Sir, but their echo, their faded memory. Think, Sir, of the musician playing the keyboard all night on the superb machinery of your brain. What memories do you have of this concert at the end?” “Just as well,” added the priest, raising the stakes, “that this classification only concerns your dreams. Testis unus, testis nullus!”9 The counterattack was well managed. The great man pursed his lips and refused the Château Châlon again. It was time for the sweets: a poupelin in orange-flower water and a pistachio cream garnished with whole pistachios. “I entirely accept your objections. Let us admit that I am only studying and classifying imaginary memories! But do you accept that I am discovering rules related to my senses and memories of 9. One witness is no witness.

59

chapter 7

events that I have experienced? That these rules can be described by mathematical expressions? That these rules, therefore, enable me to distinguish my dream memories from my imagination?” “Sir, evidence is the characteristic of truth, criterium veri,” replied Bonnet. “Evidence is universal. It is not your personal property! How can other naturalists who are not interpreters of dreams share your imagination if they cannot verify your rules themselves?” The priest smiled maliciously. Bonnet’s spite was treacherous. Was he accusing me of inventing my dreams? Of lying? “At the beginning, Sir, all observations are personal. In publishing my rules, which I should like to dedicate to you, it is to encourage other observers of Nature, and not just interpreters of dreams, to try like me to create dream banks to verify, or refute, my rules! What I postulate, Sir, can be refuted. Even if there are differences between observers, or rather classifiers, of dream memories, I wager, Sir, that such differences will permit the explanation of the rules of dreaming that I have observed!” We retired to the salon to take a seat. Bonnet produced a snuffbox from his pocket, took some, then sneezed and wiped his nose noisily. “I have taken snuff since 1756,” he told me, “and have noticed that my sleep depends very closely on the amount that I take each day. How can snuff have this strange effect on me? Probably through its narcotic effect. It must weaken the sensitivity of the brain to a greater or lesser extent. But it is for you, Sir, not me, to explain the causes of this strange phenomenon, because you are an expert in dreams and therefore in sleep.” “It is certainly not to be excluded,” I replied, “that snuff has some narcotic effect, for the tobacco plant is closely related to henbane,

60

The Visit of Charles Bonnet to the Château of Bouligneux

but I humbly admit my ignorance as to explaining the basis of the virtues of plants.” “Quare opium facit dormire”10 was Bonnet’s response. “In this respect, Sir, I do not recall that the study of dreams has penetrated the schools of anatomy. I sometimes visit my friend Monsieur von Haller in Bern and correspond with him a good deal. He is interested in sleep. He informed me that there was no way for snuff to pass from the nostrils to the brain, as had been supposed. He believes it must affect nerves acutely, but he still does not understand how it changes their sensitivity. Monsieur von Haller has never observed dreams in animals on which he has experimented. And, according to all the scientists of Europe, he is the master of animal studies.” “But, Sir, Aristotle did not despise the study of dreams. He even rightly refutes belief in the premonitory value of dreams. He affirms that fetuses and animals dream!” “You cite Aristotle to me, Sir! Dreams in fetuses and animals! Of course, because the soul dreams from the seed, as I have written. Could the soul not control animal spirits, and so movements? Aristotle is said to have observed movements during sleeping. Have you seen such movements? Have you observed your own dogs or cats?” “I sometimes watch them sleeping.” “Watch them? Sometimes? Do you know what observe means? When I was twenty, Sir, when I still had excellent eyesight, I spent thirty-four days, hour after hour, observing the birth of greenfly! A more vigilant Argus than he of the fable! It was because of this 10. Why does opium make you sleep? (used by Molière in Le malade imaginaire).

61

chapter 7

observation, which was read by Réamur at the Academy of Sciences, that Fontenelle nominated me correspondent.” “And, Charles,” added his wife, “was that not the last time that the great man acted as secretary general of the academy?” Bonnet nodded. “Thirty-four days of observation, hour after hour,” I exclaimed. “What patience! Or what passion!” “Observe, Sir. Learn to observe. That is the only way to respond to your detractors. When Trembley cast doubt on my virgin greenfly giving birth, I bred generations of greenflies for two years. I had to destroy the hypothesis that a single mating could serve several generations. I dare to affirm that I have proved, once and for all, that mating is not necessary for reproduction in greenflies. May I remind you of my experiments on sectioning hydras and worms, and their regeneration? I used my eyes to observe, Sir, before launching myself into philosophy. Do not use your mind to classify your dreams before observing sleep in animals. Buy a magnifying glass, Sir, rather than using your pen to write down your dream memories. And if your magnifying glass reveals nothing, buy a microscope!” “But do you not think that my classification of dreams——?” He interrupted me and took my arm. “My dear friend,” he exclaimed, “are you mad? Do you know what you are undertaking? You will never see the end! Believe me, give up this project, that I would call bravado. You will never see the end.” Bonnet’s reply staggered me, and I remained silent, deafened by my own heartbeats . . . My guest was right. The realm of dreaming was for fortune-tellers, for sorcerers, and for interpreters of dreams,

62

The Visit of Charles Bonnet to the Château of Bouligneux

and I would have the greatest difficulty in making naturalists accept my dream rules. I had even less chance of convincing my detractors that I was not part of a world of charlatans. Suddenly the picture of Sister Catherine came back to me. She had known how to observe the little deaf-mutes during their sleep and notice the movements of their fingers. There had been snow then. It must have been around Christmas. I immediately resolved to observe children in their sleep. Why had I not done it already? I had wasted more than five months classifying my dreams. “Sir, I am grateful for your example and your criticism,” I replied to Bonnet, “and I resolve to observe the sleep of my cats and dogs better. However, would you grant me the honor of reading my manuscript?” I asked, showing him the copy that I had left very obviously on the salon table. “I should like your criticism of my comments—I do not dare call them rules —on dreaming, but I shall wait until I have observed my cats and dogs sleeping for a long time before sending them to you.” Bonnet sized up the big manuscript that I had had bound in parchment. “What a volume, and what a weight, Sir, for some dreams!” He remained silent for a moment, frowning. The priest smiled. I could have murdered him! Bonnet spoke again. “My secretary will read me your comments, Sir, and I promise to communicate my views to you. They will be frank and I shall not disguise my opinion, but I probably already know you well enough, dear Sir, to realize that you will not be vexed at my frankness.” Our guest rose and I helped him to the courtyard. Bonnet had been clever enough not to respond to my objections concerning

63

chapter 7

the place of the soul in the brain, and had deflected me to a domain in which he reigned supreme—that of observation. So, this now almost blind man had refused to fight on the field of ideas and had beaten me on the field of facts! He had proved that a virgin greenfly could reproduce, and he had every right to contrast the weight of this great discovery to my unverifiable rules. What could I reply? Would he in fact have my manuscript read to him? Afterward, we exchanged only banal comments. The priest tried to show Bonnet his drawing of a spider, but the lines were so thin and vague that our great naturalist could not make them out. The time was drawing near for departure, and the coach entered the courtyard. The days were long enough for Bonnet and his wife to reach the inn at Pont d’Ain, on the Geneva road. “Observe, Sir, observe at length. But I doubt if the dialogue of the soul with the mind will be visible to an observer, even the most attentive one.” Such were his parting words, as my wife embraced her friend from Geneva.

64

8

Observations on Cats

August 2, 1772

This morning I decided to keep a precise journal of the life of Lucifer, a large, three-year-old, all black cat, born at Bouligneux, who had become my daily companion, living in my study and sleeping on my desk. I decided to write down his slightest movements. Nothing he did would escape me. I would observe him every day, hour after hour, from eight in the morning to nine or ten at night. I would even observe him several times each hour, often with a magnifying glass to improve the quality of my observation and discover even the most secret of this little feline’s actions. My declared aim is too important to pay anything but extraordinary attention to this experiment. By careful study of one or two cats, I believe I shall become conversant with the habits of most of them, for one cannot detect

65

chapter 8

much difference between individual cats, as I learned last week from reading the memoirs of de Buffon. To encourage myself, I am writing down these promises today to sanction myself for my sloth if I do not keep them. August 3, 1772 Observation number 1 

I placed Lucifer in front of me on Volume I of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedia. He liked the scent of the binding and soon stretched out comfortably to groom himself scrupulously. First he licked his left shoulder, then his right, then his left thigh, lifting it as if he were playing the cello. He looked at me and winked his left eye–a gesture of friendship that I knew well and that I returned with a wink of my left eye. Finally, he licked his right thigh and yawned. He settled in a sphinxlike position to sleep, with his front paws folded under his chest. His eyelids grew heavy. He yawned again and half-closed them. His breathing grew slower and deeper. Little by little, he let his head drop on the book so that his chin rested on the binding. Then I observed some rapid flicks of his ears, as if he wanted to rid himself of a fly or a flea. His whiskers also moved and I glimpsed a few quick jerks from his toes. His breathing seemed to become irregular. He may have been troubled by a flea, but he did not respond to my usual call when I had some fish for him, “pss, pss, Lucifer, pss, pss.” Finally his head fell sideways. His eyes were half open, but I could not see his pupils. The end of his tail flicked quickly, and he drew himself up and raised his head. I saw his eyelids open. He looked at me, yawned, winked at me again, stretched, then rolled himself into a ball with his head wrapped in the warmth of his tail.

66

Observations on Cats

I thought of Charles Bonnet observing his hydras. How could I formulate any rules from what I had just observed? The description of a sleeping cat was superfluous and devoid of interest. I needed to know why Lucifer was sleeping. But cats sleep almost all the time. My observation of his ears twitching could be explained by fleas. But I was intrigued that he did not respond to my calling him just then. I woke Lucifer and subjected his ears to a minute inspection. As I had suspected, I noticed a few fleas running behind his ear, torn as it was by his many fights with other tomcats, to take refuge in the black fur of his neck. I scratched his right ear gently. He rolled onto his back and made a few mock scratching movements with his own right hind paw. Then he nibbled my fingers gently, jumped to the floor, and walked away with great dignity, his tail held high. The first quality of a naturalist is to know how to beat Nature at its own tricks. Cat fleas are black or brown, so I could observe them better on a white cat! So I decided to undertake my second observation of sleep on Colombine, a white, half-Angora cat that lived with us. She was a prolific mother and had already given us several litters of kittens, of all colors, the fruit of her spring and fall adventures with numerous toms living nearby. August 4, 1772 Observation number 2 I

went to find Colombine in the kitchen where she was already sleeping in her usual place. I tempted her into my study with half a freshly cut eel. She devoured it ravenously and then let me settle her on the Encyclopedia. She probably recognized Lucifer’s odor, for she smelled the cover for a long time, sometimes raising her head, closing her eyes, and breathing through

67

chapter 8

her wide-open mouth, as if wanting to keep this odor as long as possible. In the end, she settled down to sleep with the same ceremonial toilet as Lucifer, but even longer, paying particular attention to her belly, nibbling at it for a good while. She began to curl up, but quickly changed her mind to sleeping on her side, resting her head on her right front paw, for it was already warm in my study, warmed by the bright sun of an August morning. At the start, her sleep was accompanied by deep, slow breathing. Observing her became monotonous after thirty minutes. It was boring and I began to feel sleepy, but I thought of the hours Charles Bonnet had consecrated to his hydras! Would I notice when Colombine was about to wake or move in her sleep? How many hours of observation would I need to establish the laws of sleeping in the cat? And to detect a few, almost imperceptible signs of the exhaustion of the hypnotic humors marking the end of sleep? My attention was attracted by some rapid movements of the ears and whiskers, and I noticed in the half-open eyes that the inner lids seemed relaxed as if in the deepest sleep. Then I clearly saw the eyes moving, either single movements up and down so that I could see the whites, or in a series as if the cat was following an object moving very quickly in all directions, like a bird. Suddenly the lids opened and the pupils dilated widely, but so briefly that I hardly had time to see it. I tried moving my finger, and then the remains of the eel, in front of Colombine. She paid no attention. Her eyes moved again. I also noticed tiny movements of her toes and her tail, and sometimes she even stopped breathing, before starting again irregularly. After five minutes, without the slightest sound, the eye movements stopped, the eyelids relaxed, and Colombine raised her head, yawned, sat up, and started another grooming session.

68

Observations on Cats

As I had imagined, Colombine’s white coat was alive with fleas, running in all directions, probably explaining her nibbling at it during her toilet. Once again, the itching caused by the fleas had provoked ear movements during her sleep. It is obvious that a sleeping cat cannot chase fleas and will make unconscious movements. Nevertheless, I had to explain the eye movements. Were they a reflex set off by the ear movements as a result of the animal spirits being in disorder due to sleep? But why the sudden dilation of the pupils? If it was due to a fleabite, why was there no reaction to my exciting the cat visually? To pursue my observations further, I had to remove the cause of these reflex movements. I would therefore try to eradicate the fleas. Bonnet was lucky: greenflies and hydras do not have fleas, and the waterborne subject of his observation was simpler than a cat! As a new pupil in the school of Nature, I was happy to have already detected the cause of a phenomenon. Sublata causa, tollitur effectus  .  .  .11 I had to eliminate the fleas to suppress the storm of activity in tiny muscles during sleep. August 10, 1772 The flea hunt! A long time ago, I was an expert in fleas, lice, and other vermin. In Flanders in 1757 we used hot baths and black soap for all the sick and wounded, when there was hot water. I consulted Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedia, and Valmont de Bomare’s Natural History. The second was a mere plagiarism of the first. But it did provide a strange anecdote, about a hospital near Surat, in India, founded for fleas, bugs, and all sorts of vermin that

11.  The effect ceases when the cause is removed . . .

69

chapter 8

suck human blood! To feed them, volunteers must be found to satisfy their hunger. So they tempt paupers who sell themselves for a night to let their blood be sucked. They are attached to a bed in a ceremonial chamber where the insects are gathered. This care that Indians take of fleas, although extravagant and contrary to our notion of humanity, is explained by their belief in metempsychosis. The result, according to Father Prévost, is that although there are no lands in which man is happy, there are some in which animals are! As for getting rid of fleas, the Encyclopedia says nothing. De Bomare states, at the end, that one must spray people and houses with boiling water containing pure mercury! How can one write such nonsense when one is Demonstrator in Natural History of the Royal Government, Director of the Natural History Cabinet of His Royal Highness the Prince of Condé, and all the rest? That evening, looking in my wife’s library, I found, quite by chance, the Manual of Ladies of Charity, Published for the Use of Charitable Persons Who Give Service to the Poor of Town and Country, dedicated by Arnault de Nobleville to Mademoiselle Angélique Arnault, his sister (in charity). On page 353 I finally found what I wanted: Liniment against vermin and insects attacking the human body: Take one ounce of oil of lavender, half an ounce of oil of almond. Mix into a liniment.

Next morning I sent out for a pint of lavender oil and almond oil from the apothecary of the hospice at Châtillon, and the flea hunt began. No one was spared. I set the example myself! Then all the dogs and cats we found that day. Only my wife, who took refuge in her room for three days, escaped, saying she could not stand the odor of lavender. The château smelled so good with all the lavender oil that one would have imagined one was at Draguignan! The flies

70

Observations on Cats

and mosquitoes, normally so numerous and aggressive around our pool in summer, immediately disappeared from the rooms of the château. Careful inspection of the linimented fur of the dogs and cats forced me to admit that the fleas had disappeared, and I praised the art of de Nobleville (certainly an adopted name, I thought). August 6, 1772

The day after the war on the flies and fleas, I devoted myself to a third session of observation on Colombine. It was so warm in my sunlit study that I settled in the kitchen, always cool in summer and warm in winter because of the thick walls of Dombes stone, brick, and clay. Colombine was already sleeping on a table in the strange silence of a summer morning without flies. My two dogs, an enormous mastiff from Germany called Frederick, and a Saint Bernard called Gotthard, were stretched out asleep on the cool red tiles. So I was going to be able to observe Colombine in a flealess sleep and begin a comparative study on the dogs, forgetting Charles Bonnet’s advice, “Studying the same animal continuously for ten years is better than studying ten animals for a year, or a hundred and twenty for a month!” Colombine was sleeping like a sphinx. I did not have to wait long to see her head fall downward and her ears, eyes, whiskers, and paws begin to twitch. So, even with the fleas gone, the same phenomenon was occurring, absolutely identically. Pulex non causat in somniis oculorum motiones,12 I thought in consternation, incapable of any explanation. At that moment, the strange behavior of my dogs attracted my attention. Stretched out side by side, they looked as if they 12. A flea does not cause eye movements in sleep.

71

chapter 8

were running, their front paws and then their back ones moving rhythmically, so characteristically that I recognized Frederick’s fast, sleek pace, and Gotthard’s heavy, swinging gait. Their jowls were moving, and from Gotthard’s mouth came some barking sounds, but high-pitched like the cries of a pup. Coming close to them, I clearly saw their eyes moving in all directions, just like the cats. I called the dogs by their names, but there was no reaction apart from a short pause in the movements of their paws. Their irregular breathing was sometimes so deep that the expiration lifted their jowls. They both stopped their running almost simultaneously. I then saw their strong muscles move beneath their fur, and they raised their heads. They yawned in turn, then fell asleep again. Meanwhile, Colombine had woken and silently moved to one of her favorite places from where she could watch for mice and voles at the kitchen door. I had just witnessed the same phenomenon at almost the same time in a cat and two dogs. It could be explained neither by brief movements upon waking nor by reflexes to fleabites. I had to admit that sleep must harbor some mysterious domain, a terra incognita,13 in which I had just landed. Was it an insignificant little island? A simple periodic discharge of animal spirits, too long pent up by sleep, seen only in carnivores? Or was it an archipelago stretching at random over other species, but only in certain circumstances? Perhaps only in the warmth of summer. Or after a meal. Or was it a continent encompassing all species every time they sleep? If so, why had it not yet been described in the numerous portraits that naturalists have painted of animal behavior? 13.  unknown land

72

Observations on Cats

I determined I would summarize these observations for Charles Bonnet as soon as possible. His encyclopedic knowledge would guide me. Perhaps he would know of similar observations from his reading. This morning had been so rich and exciting that I had missed lunch in the orangerie. I went out to the Châtillon road in the brilliant sunshine. I had to walk to calm my excitement and the anxiety that gripped me. What other mysteries did the brain hold? I had the impression of being led on by a new machine, rather hostile because of its unknown mechanisms. What if the same phenomenon existed in man? If it existed during my own sleep, why did I not feel it? Was it possible that during the night I moved my own eyes and limbs aimlessly? Was it possible that I could be so blind and deaf to such excitation of my animal spirits that I remembered nothing of it? Who is holding the reins of my brain in that moment? Is there someone else in the ego that I believe I am? I rejected systematically an explanation that came back to me more and more forcefully. That of a spirit in which I did not believe, directing my body and dialoging with my brain at such times. A spirit in a cat? Impossible! Why not in a mouse, the carp in the pool, and even in fleas? Why not, indeed, in Bonnet’s hydras? No, it was only a new machine in the machine of the brain. But what mechanisms drove this new machine? What did it mean? What was its function? Although I did not have faith, I admitted the perfection of Nature and its laws. It seemed impossible to me that such a phenomenon could be totally aimless, even if there was no master plan. I walked at length on the deserted road, baking in the sun. My dogs had joined me and raced across the fields of rye. They returned

73

chapter 8

covered in mud from the reeds from which dozens of frogs escaped, plunging noisily into the pool. It was still too early for the egrets and the herons. Big carp were jumping, leaving iridescent circles in the water. I sat down on the sluice. I ought to have the reeds cut. They were choking everything. But my scything machine had been rusty and useless for a long time. Tomorrow I would go see Damien. It was too warm to write to Charles Bonnet this evening. It was also too warm to go down to Lyon to drink some Montagnieu wine at the Café du Jura and meet Manuela.

74

9

The Love Life of a Rabbit

August 7, 1772

This morning, on coming down to the courtyard, I met Damien. He is an old soldier of forty-five years, who forecasts changes in the weather by the clouds, the wind, and pain in an old wound. Sometimes he comes to take care of the garden. He advises me and helps me open the sluice when the pool needs emptying in November. He is said to be something of a sorcerer, and works as a bonesetter. He can read a little but does not show it. I do not think he can write. He received a gunshot wound in his thigh in Flanders in 1753, but the ugly wound had healed and he even obtained a modest pension from the governor of the Dombes. I told him about Lucifer, Colombine, and my dogs, and their strange sleeping dance. “But they were dreaming, your animals!” he replied. “All animals dream in their sleep.” He told me a story of his dogs barking in their sleep after a hunt. “The more I force

75

chapter 9

them to work, the dirtier they are, the longer I let them chase after pheasants and deer, the more they move their ears, their paws and their tail in the evening in front of the fire. And they growl, almost barking as if they were hunting. And they move their eyes and their mouths.” “How do you know they are not awake?” I asked him. “They’re not awake, that’s for sure. When I tap my plate with my knife they don’t come to me, even if they are starving! Even if I call them: Wryneck! Carcass! They don’t budge. But when their dream dance is over and I whistle, they jump up right away and come to me wagging their tails.” We sat on the stone bench by the door of the château, and I was just amazed. Dreaming? The animals? Why did I not think of it, when I had been recording my own dreams for seven years? I felt humiliated by Damien providing a solution for my mystery, but also annoyed. But how could such a nonmaterial phenomenon as a dream affect the muscles of the eyes? How could an idea in the brain influence our movements? I had always considered a dream to be the mere stimulation of our senses. What relationship could there be between the thousands of dreams I had collected and the movements of a cat’s ears? “I must go and get the hay for the rabbits,” said Damien. “Do your rabbits dream too?” “No idea. There’s nothing stupider than a rabbit eating hay! Especially the bucks. You don’t see a rabbit sleep much in the day. They’re eating all the time. The does, though, that’s different! If you put a doe to mate with a buck, you can be sure that ten minutes later she’ll be lying flat out, her ears down, and her head just as if she was asleep. The first time I saw that I thought my

76

The Love Life of a Rabbit

rabbit was going to die! Die because she had mated. One, two and it’s all over!” Damien’s knowledge of animals was inexhaustible, and I cursed myself for not listening more to him earlier. He must have been out poaching and fishing at dawn, for he was yawning incessantly. “And birds?” “No idea. Look at the herons on the pool. They stand on one leg and spend their time fishing. But at night, I don’t know if they sleep there or in their nest.” “And chickens?” “Sure, they sleep on their perch. I have heard that if a fox is hunting a chicken hiding on a branch of a tree, the fox will wait below all night. At four or five in the morning, before the sun comes up, the chicken on her branch ends up so soundly asleep that she falls off straight into the fox’s mouth!” “And fish?” “And fish, and mosquitoes, and earthworms, and glowworms, how should I know? They certainly sleep, and if they sleep they dream. I don’t know any beast that stays awake all the time, not even cows!” “And horses?” “I don’t need to tell you, a veteran of the King’s Ninth Cavalry, when a horse sleeps! Even when the cannons of those devils of Flemish and Prussians are going off!” Damien got up. “You don’t need to believe the story of the rabbit. Come round tonight. I’m going to mate a pair. You want to bet that in ten minutes she’ll be flat out asleep?” I bet him a pint of vintage eau-de-vie and he went limping off to get his sickle to cut some grass for the rabbits on the other side of the moat.

77

chapter 9

I went to find him again when the sun was already just touching the tops of the trees on the banks of the pool at La Forêt. Damien lived in a little house on the Châtillon road, and he bred rabbits in a wooden hut. He chose a large Fauve de Bourgogne buck, took it by the ears, and put it in a cage in which there was already a fine big doe. We lit the cage with a lamp to see better what was happening. I was surprised at the speed of the foreplay and the mating, all of which lasted but a few seconds! What mechanical simplicity! So different from the courting of a tomcat and the voluptuous dance of his mate in heat, something that always amazes me. I got out my chronometer. Immediately after mating, the doe sniffed a little and hopped around her cage as if exploring it. After ten minutes she was obviously sleepy, then five or six minutes later she looked groggy. Her head dropped slowly to the floor of the cage. Her ears fell backward, quite limp. Her eyes were half-closed and her pupils mere slits. Her breathing became slower, and I saw, to my great stupefaction, her eyes move rapidly in all directions, accompanied by brief tremors of her ears and jaw. She was not awake, for she moved neither her head nor her ears when I tapped on the cage. Three minutes after the beginning of this behavior, the rabbit raised her head, squatted with her front paws spread apart, and began to sniff and nibble her backside to clean away some feces, which she then ate! We extinguished the lamp as the sun set, flooding the big pool with pink and red. Damien was silent. I was so surprised at what I had just witnessed that I was dumbstruck. Was it possible that thousands of times each day Nature reenacted such scenes without their being reported in books of natural history, while peasants, hunters, and fishermen observe them, know them, and can even predict them?

78

The Love Life of a Rabbit

“You won your eau-de-vie, right enough, Damien,” I said. “Come and get it tonight. I shall give you two pints, one for you and one for the rabbit!” August 8, 1772

Damien collected his eau-de-vie yesterday evening. We drank a few glasses together in the kitchen. This eau-de-vie is really marc from the Jura, which yellows slowly as it ages in my casks. I had been thinking constantly about that rabbit. Perhaps it would be possible to perform some experiments on its brain to try to understand the mechanism of coitus and how it triggers sleep and perhaps dreams. It would be simple to obtain rabbits, for they are easy to breed, but Damien had told me that they sleep little during the day, and I had no desire to spend my nights studying them. The repeated glassfuls of marc had revived Damien. He had been sleepy earlier but was no longer. He admitted that he had been up early, putting snares in a neighbor’s fields by the light of the full moon. I thought that if I could prevent rabbits from sleeping at night they would be tired during the day, and that I should be able to observe, and perhaps even set off, the periods of ear drooping. But how do you stop rabbits sleeping at night? “That’s not in your books either,” replied Damien. “You can see you don’t keep rabbits or chickens. Haven’t you ever heard the whole farmyard wake up in the middle of the night and make a devil of a din? Rabbits running round their cages. Dogs barking like mad. What for? A full moon? The south wind? No! Just a night visit from their mortal enemies that they can smell a mile off: a fox, a marten, or a ferret. They might well screech and run around. A marten once let a dozen of my chickens and four rabbits

79

chapter 9

bleed to death! I tell you, they can sniff out a marten’s smell before they see it. I’ve seen baby rabbits die of fright when they smelled a dead marten, even when they’d never seen one! Unless their parents had told them stories of martens in the cradle. How do you explain that, eh? To be frightened of the smell of a marten, or a fox, without learning it. Where do you put that then? In their nose or in their head?” “No idea,” I replied, “and I think no one knows, especially those who have written most about it. But you have given me an idea, Damien. We could make a big, strong cage to put the rabbits in, in the middle of another cage or enclosure where we could set a ferret or a marten loose all night. So the rabbits would be too scared to sleep, and next morning we should only have to put them in another cage and let them sleep during the day. If you can get me some wild animals, Damien, I would set up the whole circus in my garden.” “I’ll get your wild animals. I know where to put my traps. Will you give me the skins afterward?” “The skins, some marc, and some silver, Damien, and what’s more, a parchment certifying you a naturalist, on my authority!” As Damien left, swaying a little and limping, the full moon was ringed by a giant halo. The closeness of the air made it feel like rain. That would be good for the pools, which had dried up during this torrid summer.

80

10

The Three Dreams of Hans Werner

October 10, 1772

It is not easy to observe a man, especially when he is asleep. Our sleep and our dreams are intimate. To sleep in the presence of another is to strip one’s whole being naked. I hesitated for a long while before choosing an individual to observe during sleep. My wife had refused to be chosen as the first subject of my experiment. “My dear,” she had said, “you wish to know of whom I dream? That could be dangerous! You want to observe me like a rabbit? That is impertinent!” So, I had to find a young, intelligent subject who would not object to sleeping in the light of candles and in front of me. The boys of the village are too difficult to convince, for they fear that I might try some evil trick on them. The construction of the rabbit cage and the enclosure for ferrets and other wild animals has set tongues wagging all over the Dombes from Villars to Châtillon!

81

chapter 10

I cannot observe a girl or a young woman from this region in her sleep either, for I must admit that my reputation is not very good! I know one or two girls in Lyon who would agree to play the game and spend a few nights with me for a little money, but I insist on keeping my distance as much as possible from the subject of my observation, without my senses interfering with my judgment. What is more, although my wife allows me a very great liberty in my animal studies, I do not believe that she would easily accept the idea of my shutting myself in my bedroom with a whore to study her dreams! In the end I decided to recruit my sleeper from the king’s army. I had to go to Lyon to collect the Hooke microscope that I had ordered on Charles Bonnet’s recommendation, and I seized the opportunity to visit a friend, Lieutenant General de la Rousse, surgeon general to the king’s army presently garrisoned at Part-Dieu with the Royal Cavalry Regiment of Auvergne. “I need a cavalryman, not stupid, not deaf, not a drunkard, a good sleeper, and who can hold his tongue! I offer him a good meal, a good bed, oats for his horse and ten louis.” “Even a Swiss?” he asked. “A Swiss would be fine: I would give him twelve louis!” He had his batman call Cavalryman Hans Werner. He was from Bern, a blond giant with blue eyes, dressed in an immaculate guardsman’s uniform. “Werner, tomorrow you go to Bouligneux to my friend’s house. You will sleep there and come back the next morning. I will give you sick leave. Open your mouth: you have a fungal ulcer of the gums. You will make a paste of powdered columbine leaves, sage and mint, nutmeg, myrrh and rock alum. You will heat it gently, mix it, and then rub it into your gums with a cloth.” He then

82

The Three Dreams of Hans Werner

winked at me and said, “Give him some marc and some tobacco: it will have the same effect. Agreed, Werner?” “Ja, Herr Hauptmann!”14 “Werner understands French a little, but only speaks German. Does it bother you if he sleeps in Prussian?” “In Prussian or in Swiss, but I should like to know what he is dreaming about.” “You surely have not forgotten your German since our Flanders campaign?” “We shall manage, thank you!” “Auf wiedersehen!” So the next day, at the end of the afternoon, my cavalryman arrived. He had changed his dress uniform for less gaudy battle dress, but his entry into the village on a superb chestnut horse, escorted by a swarm of children, did not pass unnoticed. As befits a Swiss German, Werner was as clean as the armor of a foot soldier. He tied his horse by the stable and insisted on rubbing it down himself and giving it its oats. I invited him to eat with me. He entered the house, snapped his heels, and saluted. He removed his helmet and placed it ceremoniously on the sideboard. He spoke little during the meal and refused the wine. I noticed that he cut his bread carefully with a large knife. He pointed out that his Swiss knife was very clean and that even the grooves and notches of both blades were sparkling. I tried to explain to him why he had come to sleep in my house. I am sure he understood me, but at the end of every sentence or question he winked, either knowingly or amusedly, which made me uneasy. He refused the marc. He must have been tired. It is, after all, six leagues from Part-Dieu to Bouligneux. 14. Yes, Captain!

83

chapter 10

“What do you need before going to bed, Cavalryman?” All his replies were in Swiss German, and I tried to interject as much as I could in my hesitant High German, as I recalled it from my army days. “A warm bath, Herr Kommandant!” I had not thought of that. He was, after all, Swiss! I had to have some big pans of water warmed, and find a wooden bath big enough and clean enough. In the end, it took about two hours before the bath was ready. I added some lavender oil to the water, and its strong perfume spread throughout the house, provoking a renewed indignant protest from my wife, who had remained in her room. “What! Share our meal with this unknown Swiss dragoon. You cannot be serious, my dear!” If ever I had a stupid idea during my experiments, it was putting lavender oil in this dragoon’s bath! Cavalryman Werner got out of his bath well perfumed and put on long drawers. He was a giant of a man, handsome, and with a scar on his chest. He followed me, barefoot, to my bedroom. I asked him to lie down and not be worried by all the candles I had lighted. The room was warm, and I wished to observe his whole body during his sleep. I had provided only one sheet. I sat in an armchair beside the bed with a big book for observations on a table before me together with my chronometer, a strong magnifying glass, my goose quill, some ink, and some sand to dry the ink. It was one in the morning. Hans Werner settled down, seemed to hesitate, looked toward me, took off his pants and turned his back to me. I noted in my book: One o’clock. HW settles to sleep. On his left side. But Werner did not sleep. He turned to face me. Certain

84

The Three Dreams of Hans Werner

movements of his tongue and a wink revealed his thoughts to me. Was it possible that my old surgeon friend had believed me so debauched that I needed to find a friend for the night? Or was this an old cavaliers’ joke? I tried to explain to Hans Werner the aim of this night: simply to see him sleep and, if he dreamed, to wake him and ask him to recall his dreams. He turned on his back again, reflected for a long while, yawned (a good sign, I thought!). “This is the first time it has been like this, Herr Kommandant!” he said. “If you sleep well I shall give you fourteen louis.” “But why this lavender oil?” he inquired. I did not wish to recount my war on the insects, so I explained, “Lavender oil gives you a good sleep and sweet dreams, Cavalryman. Gute Nacht!” “Gute Nacht, Herr Kommandant.” He fell asleep like a babe at one forty-five. He was breathing regularly (at eighteen breaths a minute, I noted), but I dared not feel his pulse. Then he began to snore, at first irregularly, then more and more loudly. Sometimes his breathing ceased, and I saw his diaphragm and his chest muscles contract rhythmically as if some obstacle were preventing the air reaching his lungs. Then the breathing started again with a noisy gurgling sound. I was frightened that he might swallow his tongue. Fortunately, he turned to my side and the snoring ceased. He was in the full light of my candles, made of whale spermaceti so they did not smoke. Around three o’clock, I noted a change in the rhythm of his breathing. First, there was a long pause not explicable by any snoring, then he began panting, as if about to wake. I looked at him more closely and dropped my magnifying glass in surprise.

85

chapter 10

He had his eyes half-open, and they were moving in all directions. Sometimes they stopped in one direction, as if he were looking at something. His pupils were so constricted that I could only see his blue irises. I waved my hand in front of his eyes, but he did not follow the shadow caused by the candlelight. His eyes again moved from right to left, or more rarely up and down. Once, I am sure that his left eye moved to the left and his right eye to the right! Such a disturbance of eye movements is so impossible that I almost did not bother to note it. His face made a few grimaces as if he could once again smell the lavender oil. I noted that his heart was beating irregularly in his chest and that his neck veins were standing out. I watched his fingers, which seemed sometimes animated by tiny grasping movements. Then, with stupefaction, I noticed that Werner had a complete erection, as fine as any man of twentyfive could ever wish for. I cursed myself for not having looked for this earlier, and so could not determine the time it had begun. In any case, it was time to wake him. “Cavalryman Werner, wake up!” I shook him. He opened his eyes in astonishment, looked around at the room and the candles, and pulled the sheet over himself. “What did you dream? Tell me about your dream.” “I can’t remember.” He yawned. “Oh yes! I was in Switzerland, on a farm. They were barrels, flowers—it smelled good—mountains covered with snow. There was a party—it is a long time ago. I remember the beer barrels rolling. I can’t remember any more.” “Were there any girls or young boys? Did you want to make love?” “What?” “For God’s sake! Did you want to make love in your dream?”

86

The Three Dreams of Hans Werner

“No! Only the beer barrels and the snow and the scent of flowers. I’m tired.” Werner fell asleep again, at three forty-five. When his breathing had become deep and regular, I lifted his sheet. His erection had gone. He began to snore again, but much less noisily. Then Werner turned over. In silence, I returned to my seat and my candles on the other side of the bed. Suddenly he turned back on his right side. I returned to my observation post. At four forty another interruption to his breathing, longer this time, announced the arrival of new dreams. I watched his erection begin: as quick as the last time, it took less than a minute to reach completion. I waited five minutes before waking him. He put his hand to his head and rubbed his eyes. “What time is it?” “Almost morning. What were you dreaming of?” “The war—my horse was killed—I fell—on my head—I can’t get my helmet off—the Germans are coming—I recognize some Swiss with them—there is a lot of blood—my poor horse . . .” “Were you afraid?” “I was frightened because I didn’t know where our men were— dead or prisoners—yes, I was!” “Was it day or night?” “Daytime, no doubt about that—the sun was to my left—quite high.” His penis was flaccid again. He pulled his sheet around his shoulders, for it was not so warm now. “Cavalryman, you can go back to sleep. Your horse is well and you are not wounded. You are a fine fellow!”

87

chapter 10

He fell asleep immediately, but less deeply, tossing and turning in his bed. Dawn was near. The sun would soon appear in its glory as the mist rose above the pool . . . The sound of birds and the familiar noises of the house woke me. I had fallen asleep for a few moments. It was almost day, and I snuffed out the candles. At six fifteen I realized from his irregular breathing that he was dreaming again. I quickly lifted the sheet again and saw the majestic and inevitable signs of him developing another erection. I had to wait almost twenty minutes until he turned on his side just as his erection began to disappear rapidly. “Cavalryman, it is morning! What were you dreaming about?” “I can’t tell you. It was good. A young boy in bed with me. Do you know what I mean?” “Was it really good? Did you sleep with him?” “Sure, yes! But not really sleep with him. Do you know what I mean?” “Where were you?” “In Lyon, rue Mercière!” “Do you remember his name? “Yes, I often see him. Nicholas.” “Don’t worry, Cavalryman! The secrets of dreams are sacred!” “I must get up. I must leave. It’s day. It’ll soon be warm.” Hans Werner left around eight o’clock. He put his helmet back on, put his fourteen louis in his pocket, clicked his heels, and saluted me. I saw him riding away along the road to Villars, bolt upright. He paused, probably because of the bend near the Fishers’ Inn, then raised his arm in adieu. Tears came to my eyes. I had entered the land of dreams, thanks to this Swiss German. But this land was a whole continent, feeding the giant waterways of dream-

88

The Three Dreams of Hans Werner

ing. How could I sail up these rivers to find their source? To find where they derived that mysterious energy that has haunted man since the dawn of humanity? I climbed back up to my room, stretched out on my bed, and not until the midday sun was shining did I wake—with an erection! I lay there motionless for a moment. The scent of Werner’s lavender was still there, warm and familiar. My latest dream came back to me in successive fragments. I am walking with difficulty by a riverside, by a river wider than the Rhône in flood, on a huge brain like some sort of jelly. As I walk the brain gets harder, until I am leaving my footprints in it. I think that this hardening of the brain is like the Indian fable of the churning of the sea. I must try to find the book where I read this legend. I had just realized that I had an erection, the sign of a dream. Of course, I had often noticed it when waking at night or in the morning, without paying attention to it. Quite by chance while reading that evening, I found this epigram by Martial (XI-46): Jam nisis per somnum non arrigis . . . (Mevius, your member no longer stiffens except in sleep . . .). I am fortunately not yet at that stage, I thought.

89

11

The Birth of Dreams

October 28, 1772

Colombine has had kittens. I knew she would. For a month now, with her fat belly, she has been hiding in secret refuges, knowing instinctively that she would have to find a safe place to give birth, hidden from the dogs. She chose the top of cupboards or dressers where I could only just make out her ears. Or, her favorite place, in piles of soft, clean sheets in wardrobes that she knew how to open, but not close! In the end, she must have slipped in through my half-open door last night, for this morning I noticed tiny cries from my library. Colombine was lying in a little dark space behind the eight volumes of Charles Bonnet’s works. She was purring and nursing five kittens of all colors. I put her on my desk in full daylight. I had often seen newborn kittens moving around clumsily in search of their mother’s milk. I

91

chapter 11

had seen it, but without trying to understand it. I had seen, but been blind. This time I had learned to observe: my mind was ready for the minutest details after my experience of adult animals. I decided to observe the biggest one in the middle of this mass of kittens. It was obviously a male, black, with little white patches on his paws and neck. I took him away from his mother. He crawled clumsily back to the warmth of his mother’s fur. He made little high-pitched squeaks, and his mother replied with those cooing mews that are in the nature of mother cats. The kitten managed to find a nipple, but it was already occupied by one of his littermates. He pushed it away with his head, trying frantically to reach for the nipple. Then he began suckling, kneading rhythmically with his front paws. His mother licked him. After five minutes the rhythmic, synchronous movements of his paws stopped, his head fell to one side, and he let go of the nipple. Then, with my magnifying glass, I saw fleeting movements of his ears, then his tongue and jaw, then his eyes beneath their still-closed lids. I had the impression that these movements were faster and less well-organized than when I had observed Colombine two months earlier. From time to time the tiny muscles of his body made sudden jerks, causing movements of his front paws, his hind paws, or his tail. Sometimes a contraction rippled from his head down his back. I also noticed that his breathing was more irregular than in adults. Breathing sometimes came from his diaphragm, sometimes his belly, and sometimes his chest. This whole event lasted more than ten minutes and ended when he stretched all his muscles, raised his head, and started suckling again. Over an hour, I saw more than four such episodes, lasting in all some thirty minutes. So, a few hours after birth, a tiny kitten could manifest all the outside signs of dreaming, just as I had seen in Colombine, and so like what I had seen in my Swiss soldier during his dreams. 92

The Birth of Dreams

What thoughts passed through this kitten’s mind during his dreams? Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit prior in sensu, wrote Locke, echoed by many other natural philosophers. So what sensations had this newborn kitten already experienced in the womb? He was blind, and I doubted that his ears would have heard much in his mother’s belly. So why were his dreams so long and dramatic? I went to fetch some milk for Colombine, and she drank it avidly. This must have been her tenth or eleventh litter. She must have had around sixty kittens already, but she seemed so content and proud of these that one would have thought that she was a young first-time mother. I sank back in my armchair and put my feet on the table, beside the cats. I could not think of an explanation. My dreams were almost all related to my past life, and I had even managed to discover some rules linking the memories I recalled after my dreams with the events of my conscious, waking life. The hands of the clock cannot be turned back, and I have only noted one or two dreams with premonitions of future events, most probably pure coincidences. That is why I do not believe in prophetic dreams, as Aristotle does. I did not, therefore, conceive that these newborn kittens’ dreams could inform them of future events. So, if they were neither uterine memories nor prophetic dreams, what was the significance of such a phenomenon, which was so dramatic and all-invading that it occupied half the life of a newborn kitten? This function of animal spirits must be very important to exist from birth and even, who knows, before birth. Descartes’ machineanimals, like Vaucanson’s automatons, were so perfectly executed that they could have been mistaken for living beings, and yet no one had the idea to build into them a machine to simulate dreams. 93

chapter 11

But Nature does not create functions with no purpose. If she has put dreams in our brains, and those of other animals, it means that they must serve a useful purpose. Indeed, dreaming can be dangerous, for our senses respond to sounds more slowly and sluggishly than during normal sleep. So a sleeper is less aware of danger when dreaming. I wondered if Colombine’s instinct had made her seek refuge in my library to protect both her sleep and her kittens’ dreams. Dreams are not learned, so are they instincts? Instincts? Replacing one mystery with another was not an explanation. My thoughts wandered without finding a solution or a mechanical or physical analogy to cling to. Perhaps Nature had to choose between two alternatives. Either she could create dreams in the brain for some great and mysterious reason, so running considerable risks, even of death during the unguarded moments when the brain’s vigilance is lowered by dreaming. Or she could allow the brain to remain vigilant during sleep, but not endow it with the mechanism of dreams. It seemed to me that the former solution had prevailed, for I knew of no mammals that did not dream. To be sure, I would have to explore the almost uncharted realms of dreaming throughout the animal kingdom. Would I find a mammal that did not dream? If so, it would possess the key to my quest, for I might discover Nature’s design by contrasting differences in its lifestyle or intelligence with those of others. I resolved soon to review all the animal species that I could observe here, in Lyon, or in the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris. Only after completing those observations would I undertake experiments directly on the brain. I stroked Colombine and went downstairs. The coach to Lyon was approaching. It was Thursday, and I had to go to Lyon to meet

94

The Birth of Dreams

my friends of the Naturalists’ Circle. I found my old acquaintances at the Café du Jura in the rue Tupin. Monsieur de la Rousse, the surgeon of the Royal Regiment of Auvergne, was there, leaning on his silver pommeled stick. “So, you enjoyed your Swiss soldier?” he asked with a wink. Should I show my anger? Challenge him to a duel? But I might need other soldiers, to deprive them of their dreams. “He was Swiss while he slept and Prussian while he dreamed,” I replied, putting a finger to my mouth. He smiled and tapped me on the shoulder in a friendly way. The other members of our society arrived. I recounted the story of my kittens, but every hypothesis they put forward seemed naïve or irrelevant. “If a newborn kitten dreams, then a fetus dreams, so your sperm dream! Monsieur Spallanzani was quite right when he saw the male seed moving under his microscope. They must have been dreaming!” said the first. “But eggs do not move!” retorted another, a fanatical ovist and supporter of Charles Bonnet. “So do you mean that all the seeds that have impregnated them since Adam and Eve must have dreamed?” “Your kittens are dreaming of being hungry. They move their tongues because they are dreaming of suckling!” stated another gravely. “So,” I replied, “why do they dream after suckling, with their stomachs full?” The Montagnieu wine was warming our spirits. “If the brain at birth is a tabula rasa, what gives it its instructions?” I thought half aloud. “The outside world or our dreams?”

95

chapter 11

“How can you think that a completely empty tabula rasa can contain dreams? They obviously come from the soul, or if you do not believe in one, from animal spirits,” decided my old friend F——, an erudite member of the Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Lyon. The conversation left the subject of dreams. Lieutenant General de la Rousse related the latest disasters of the war. He was soon to leave Lyon with his regiment to return to Alsace or the Rhineland. He took leave of us with great courtesy. I stayed with my friends a while longer to inquire about the animals I should be able to observe around Lyon in addition to deer, which I could study better in the woods of the Dombes. I would probably have to go to Paris to study animals gathered by de Buffon in the Royal Botanical Garden. “I am not acquainted with Count de Buffon,” confided Monsieur F——, “but I am on good terms with Daubenton and I can recommend you to him. In fact, he does all de Buffon’s work.” “What about marmots: do they dream during their hibernation? There are many marmots in the Duchy of Savoy, above Chambéry or Annecy. It would be easy to obtain some, for the peasants hunt them for their oil,” added the president of our circle finally. He too would write a recommendation to the president of the Academy of Savoy. With that, he adjourned the meeting and we went our ways into the night. It was one in the morning. Using a circuitous route, I went to find Manuela in her apartment in the rue Mercière. “I thought you’d never come this Thursday,” said Manuela as she opened her door after looking through the spy hole. “Do you know who just came? Monsieur de la Rousse! He wanted to stay

96

The Birth of Dreams

the night. I said I was expecting someone. He must’ve guessed it was you, and told me about your Swiss soldier. It was just a joke—he knows your tastes in lovers!” Manuela was a very pretty twenty-year-old half-caste from Martinique. She had made quick progress in the business of vice. Living a debauched life on the margins of society, she had enough protectors to be able to afford to buy a fine apartment. Her body was the most superb, the most slender, the most supple imaginable. Her skin was smooth and soft, and her nature gay and playful. Her apartment was warm, and we enjoyed some very happy hours together. Usually, good wine rouses me and lovemaking sends me to sleep—contrary to the well-known song. This time I felt fully awake. Lying on the bed, I reflected on the day’s events, and on the mystery of the birth of dreams. It is impossible that dreams are not related to the past, or the future. A newborn is the future, part of Nature’s plan, a stream with no past and an uncertain destiny. Why should dreams not draw plans for the future on the tabula rasa of the brain? Then I recalled my dream after the night spent observing the Swiss soldier. The footprints on the solidifying brain. I was searching for a word: ditch? trench? furrow? Dreams might mark out the furrows of development in the newborn. Thalweg! I had learned the expression from German officers in the Headquarters Division in Flanders. That was the word I was seeking. Dreams dug a thalweg in the soft brain of the newborn— like water digging a gulley down a mountainside—deep and narrow or broad and shallow. Every one of our actions, voluntary or not, was like a ball rolling down a mountain. Sometimes it would roll freely, swinging aimlessly across a plateau or a shallow

97

chapter 11

thalweg, wherever its momentum took it. Sometimes the ball would be forced into a deep thalweg, whatever direction and however fast it was going. In the same way, animal spirits aroused during dreams could influence the reactions of these same spirits during waking. Sometimes the influence would be gentle, leaving free rein to chance, and sometimes it would be inevitable. Dreamplay would design our individual destiny in advance on the tabula rasa of the brain: Tabula rasa cerebri in somniis inscribitur.15 Suddenly I sat up in the bed. Manuela was asleep, her legs folded and her right arm under her head. I looked at her and my desire was woken again. Had my own dreams dug me a thalweg such that I preferred tall, black girls? “Tabula rasa cerebri in somniis inscribitur,” I said aloud, gently stroking Manuela, who woke, stretching like a cat. I recounted the story of my kittens to Manuela. She did not seem surprised. She had often seen puppies suckling in Martinique and had noticed their movements when they had finished and gone all limp. “Kittens, puppies,” said Manuela to me as she dressed. “Why always all these animals? You’ve already looked at a Swiss soldier, so why don’t you go and look at babies in Lyon?” “But where, and when?” I asked. “At the Charité. If you want, I’ll come with you.” “But the main door will be closed now. I should be surprised if it was the same guard or the same night sister as when I was a surgeon in training. The new ones will not let me in.” “Just follow me,” Manuela insisted. “I know everybody at the Charité!” 15.  The clean slate of the brain is written upon in sleep.

98

The Birth of Dreams

We went down the rue Mercière and the rue Royale. As we walked, Manuela took my arm and told me the sad story of the children left out in front of the Hôtel-Dieu or the Charité. She explained that even the town of Trévoux in the Dombes sent its foundlings to the Hôtel-Dieu. The misery of the long Seven Years’ War had obliged many women to abandon their newborn babies, legitimate or illegitimate, at night in front of the hospitals of Lyon. We arrived at the Charité. The guard in his blue uniform with yellow copper buttons and his big hat opened the main entrance door when he saw Manuela’s smile. He looked at me curiously. Luckily, the night sister was not there. Two newborn babies had been left at nightfall and had already been handed over to foster mothers, who were paid between sixty and seven-two pounds a year, adding considerably to the costs of the Hôtel-Dieu or the Charité. Manuela introduced me to the sister, dressed in a habit of serge, a black apron, and a white headdress. She wore a silver cross hanging from a black silk cord over her shoulder. She was accompanied by a sister in charge of novices, a sister in charge of the girls in the hospice, and two midwives. The sisters knew Manuela well, as I could judge from the familiarity with which they spoke to her. Manuela had obviously been here before. But why? She had never told me about a child. Had she had a miscarriage? Poor Manuela. Or had she been in hospital? With the girls who paid, or those who could not pay? The two abandoned babies had been washed, swaddled, and baptized, and their documents had been signed. One of them was asleep in a cradle. The dim candlelight did not allow me to observe him in detail. Manuela went to look for a larger candlestick.

99

chapter 11

“Look at him carefully! He’s God’s creature. If he’s dreaming, then sweet dreams! Poor little angel!” she said as she left. The big bell in the hospital tower rang three times. Three o’clock in the morning. I relived the smell of the night in a hospital that I had known as a trainee surgeon twenty years earlier. That weak smell of oil of turpentine incense, urine, and feces. The same sounds, always painful, never joyous. The obstetrical service must have been close by, to the right, for I recognized the panting and cries of a woman in labor and the encouraging words of the midwives, “Push, push darling, push!” To the left I could hear the death rattle of a patient. Later, I learned that it was an old man with gangrene after an amputation. I was surrounded by the little sighs of newborn babies. Washed and fed, they were almost all asleep. What dreams would determine their lives in this war-torn land? I moved the candles closer to the cradle. The baby was a day or two old, judging from the still deformed lump on his head and his flattened face, and seemed to be asleep. He was breathing regularly, with his little fists clenched. He had dribbled a little milk on his clothes. He had been put on his side, and in the light of the candles I could see his brand new identity medal, number 391, and his face, without waking him. A long pause in his breathing alerted me that his dreams were beginning. His breathing started again irregularly, and I could see eye movements beneath his half-open lids. Sometimes his eyes seemed to stare in one direction, as if looking at my candles, but he did not react to movements of my hands. Then his eyes continued to move in all directions again. A couple of times his left eye looked to the left and his right eye to the right. Then the baby began to move his lips and suckle so strongly that I could hear the sucking noises. Suddenly, a real smile lit up his face. It was not

100

The Birth of Dreams

simply a fleeting jerk of his facial muscles, but a truly angelic smile! His fists were unclenched, and I noticed a few tiny movements of his fingers. The baby was swaddled so loosely that I was easily able to undo his clothes. I finally confirmed that it was a boy. Above his large scrotum his penis was erect, reaching the level of the bandage around his umbilical cord. I saw his thighs stiffen and his fists clench again. His breathing became regular again, the eye movements stopped, and his erection disappeared in less than a minute. Smiles and an erection, I thought. If your dreams are writing the story of your life now, you are going to be a fine fellow . . . if you manage to live that long! I left him to observe the next baby. My experience told me that it was already in the land of dreams. This baby wore a medal with the number 392 and must have been abandoned at the same time as the little boy. The eye movements were similar to his, but the facial expression was different. Instead of a smile, I noticed frowns and a pouted chin, as if the baby were about to cry. I stayed motionless for a few minutes, trying to note on my cuff the expressions that the dream spirits were conjuring up on this little face. I noted only once a suggestion of a smile, but ten times as many signs of crying or pain. Gently, I opened the clothes. It was a little girl. Poor little girl, I thought, what sort of tearful life are your dreams preparing for you as they furrow the soft wax of your brain? Manuela had returned and stood just behind my back. “Naughty little voyeur!” she said. “We must go now. Come and drink some lime tea at the pharmacy. So, do these little darlings dream?” “Yes, they do dream, and they can already get an erection, my dear . . .”

101

chapter 11

Then I suddenly thought: I had never noticed my dogs get an erection during their dreams. “Why do you think human babies can get an erection in their dreams, but not an adult dog?” I asked Manuela. “Because men always want to make love, but not dogs!” she replied with a laugh. “Men, yes, but babies?” “It’s in their nature. Are we going, then?” We drank some warm lime tea with the sister, the chief pharmacist, the midwives, and a trainee surgeon in a steel-gray uniform. I had the impression that my young surgical colleague, a tall, handsome fellow with blond hair, knew Manuela well. He must have been seeing her during the rare leisure time that the rules allowed him, between one and three o’clock. What else could he do in view of the fact that the hospital administration had decreed that matrimony was incompatible with being an assistant surgeon or even a senior surgeon? We went out into the courtyard after Manuela had kissed the pharmacy sister and glanced meaningly at the young surgeon, much to his embarrassment. I was not keen to pass in front of the guard and arouse his curiosity again. So I guided Manuela toward the door of the Hotel Provence that was used to bring in barrels of wine and was not guarded at night. I remembered how to open it by pressing a hidden lock on the wall to its left. “You see, Manuela, I know the secrets of the Charité too! That’s how I used to get out secretly at night. Pity I didn’t know you then!” We went home in the first light of dawn, passing the vegetablefilled carts of the growers coming to market along the banks of the

102

The Birth of Dreams

Rhône and the Saône. The long vigil had excited my senses. Was there any relationship between privation of sleep or of dreaming and erotic desire? When we had made love, Manuela put an end to my little games. “Naughty baby, time to sleep . . .” A few hours later I was awakened by the bright sun flooding into the room and warming the bed. It must have been about midday for it to have penetrated the very narrow rue Mercière. I could remember the dream that I must had just have had, judging from the state of my penis! I was at Bouligneux, in my study in the tower, but instead of the pool all I could see were mountains covered in snow. Furry animals were lined up like soldiers. They were marmots, standing on their hind limbs and whistling a military tune: They crossed the Rhine with de Turenne, . . . Lon, lon, lon, let them pass, They’ve had trouble enough.

I was whistling the tune as I dressed, while Manuela was still tucked up in bed. I hid ten écus in her bag, kissed her shoulder, and went out. I was happy in the October sun as I went to the Place de Louisle-Grand to catch my coach. First, I had a theory around which to plan my future observations. Second, I had proved that dreams were present by the beginning of life outside the womb. I still needed to know when dreams appeared in the scale of living things. So, I had to organize a journey to the Duchy of Savoy and to Paris. Should I already publish my observations? If so, where? At the Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Lyon? At the Berlin Naturalists’ Society? Why not the Academy of Sciences of Paris?

103

chapter 11

The coach stopped at the toll at Sathonay on the border of the Sovereignty of the Dombes. We changed teams. The first pools appeared. Many had just been emptied, ready for cultivation, and others were draining after the sluices had been opened. Right before Villars, the fishermen were just finishing work in Turlet pool. They must have started at dawn, in the fog. They installed a fine-meshed net perpendicular to the canal formed by the bottom of the pool, and two other groups of fishermen caught hold of ropes at each end of it. Two men, very near the edge, and armed with a hooked pole, kept the lower border of the net on the mud to stop fish from passing under it. We lost sight of them as they were lifting the net with forked poles at the mouth of the canal. The ribbon of water left behind by the fishing sparkled brilliantly in the sun. Herons advanced step-by-step through it. Curlews, with their finely striped brown plumage, plunged their long, curved beaks into the mud. There were plovers. Snipe, with their short legs and a few light stripes on their back, pointed their long beaks downward or flew away emitting a dull, drumming sound. However would I manage to study birds’ dreams, if they existed? The passenger opposite me had fallen asleep. It was the apothecary of Villars, a big, ruddy man with an enormous neck and a potbelly. His head had slipped onto the seatback and was bouncing with the jolts of the coach. He began snoring noisily, with his mouth open. Then he fell silent and his head drooped onto his chest, so suddenly that his spectacles fell on his knees. I leaned forward. His eyes were moving in all directions under his half-open lids, and I saw the swelling of an erection beneath his trousers. I tapped his shoulder to wake him. “What were you dreaming about, dear apothecary?”

104

The Birth of Dreams

He looked at me in astonishment. “I was on a boat that was being swept away by the current in a river, and I was approaching a waterfall . . . But how did you know I was dreaming?” “Sir, I am an expert in dreams and can interpret them. At your service!” The apothecary got out at Villars, and the coach was almost completely empty. I was able to put my feet on the seat opposite and reflect. The fat man’s head falling. . . just like the cat and the kittens. I had not seen that in my Swiss soldier, nor in the babies, because they were sleeping while lying down. So dreaming was accompanied by both excitation of animal spirits that unleashed eye movements and paralysis of the muscles of the back of the neck! There was a dichotomy between excitation of nerves from the brain to the eyes and paralysis of spinal nerves. But what was its basis? How could one explain paralysis that occurred simultaneous to excitation of other nerves? We arrived at Bouligneux. I found the bricks of my château reddened by the slanting rays of the setting sun. I looked at it for a long time, to print its image, its odors, and its sounds in my brain. When would the river of time throw up the image of this red château on the banks of my dreams?

105

12

The Toad Child

November 10, 1772

Yesterday morning I set out early for Châtillon. I like walking through fog that fills the bottom of the valleys. The path was hardly visible, and I guided my horse between the shadows of the poplars that seemed to move aside ahead of us. The pools, dried out and under cultivation, were only discernible by the swaying of the saberlike leaves of the reeds in the gentle breeze. On each side the pale sun broke through, and our shadows played on the banks and hedges. At last I arrived in Châtillon, just as the sun was dissipating the last veils of the fog. I stopped at the apothecary’s of the hospice to buy the various essences that I would use in my future experiments. There I was surprised to see the barber surgeon of the hospice, Monsieur Bothier. I knew him well for he often came to our hide with me to shoot ducks. He had a reputation in the Dombes for his skill in difficult births and in the use of the forceps.

107

chapter 12

“You are just in time!” he said to me. “Come and look; I have never seen anything like it. But I have read about it in Madame de la Chapelle’s obstetrics book. I have just delivered a monster . . .” He led me to a nearby room. The young mother, very pale, seemed to be asleep. Sitting next to her, her husband was holding her hand and weeping. I looked in the cot beside the bed and saw a sort of toadlike head protruding from the swaddling clothes that covered the rest of the body. The head had no cranial vault. In its place was a red tumor, soft, lumpy, and granulating. There was hardly any forehead above the eyebrows, the nose was flattened, the mouth wide open with the upper lip pulled so far up that one could see the gums. The eyes protruded from the orbits, like a toad’s. The lids were half-open, revealing the eyeballs turned outward. “It is an anencephalic,” whispered Bothier, “and it is still alive!” How was it possible for fate to have conducted a human physiological experiment like this? I asked Bothier if I could examine this monster in more detail. I put my hands gently on the father’s shoulder, and the sisters took the infant to a well-heated room where we could undress it. Looking me straight in the eyes, Sister Marie revealed to me that she had had this, God’s creature, baptized before it would go, soon, to join the angels in heaven. I replied that Nature could perform miracles, but that she sometimes made mistakes, and that you could not always win at dice! The child was a boy and weighed five pounds. His limbs were well developed and normal. His penis and testicles looked normal. My friend stated that after birth he had produced urine and meconium. I palpated his body and was immediately struck by its coldness. Even beside the big stove in the room, he did not seem to

108

The Toad Child

get warm, probably explaining the violet color of his skin. He was breathing slowly, eight or nine times a minute. I lifted his eyelids. The pupils were enormously dilated and did not constrict to the light of a candle. When I moved his foot or leg briskly, his thighs moved, indicating that he was not without reflexes. I tried to introduce a few drops of water in his mouth. He moved his lips and finished by swallowing. Bothier explained that his mother did not want to feed him. He doubted anyway that he could suckle. I did not share his opinion, for he seemed perfectly able to swallow. One could have replaced his mother’s milk with good cow’s or goat’s milk slightly diluted with barley water and a little sugar or honey. Bothier also explained that he would have to avoid the mother’s breasts becoming engorged. He had developed the habit of substituting newborn puppies of some large race after trimming their claws and binding their front paws with little strips of cloth to prevent the remains of the claws from injuring the mother’s breasts. I sat near this little monster that seemed condemned by the sister and Bothier to die of starvation. This experiment of Nature was providential: in the previous month, I had been able to observe newborn babies, and I was familiar with the pattern of their dreaming. Would I see the same signs in this anencephalic monster? I asked the permission of Bothier and the sister to remain at the cotside of the little boy and sent a message to the driver of the coach from Châtillon to Villars to warn my people at Bouligneux that I would not be home until at least nightfall or even the following morning. The little monster, whom I had covered with a warm blanket near the stove, seemed to be sleeping, but the closed eyelids and the regular breathing that were typical of sleep in the newborn,

109

chapter 12

could not really be taken as criteria, for they remained constant. I approached my face to his, with a feeling of attraction mixed with pity for this little being. During the first hour I saw no sign of movement of the eyes beneath the lids, nor any glimmer of a smile or a grimace. Just sometimes a pitiful cry and a few swallowing movements bore witness to some feeling. I was surprised by the arrival of the evening and darkness. Thick fog had blanketed Châtillon again, and there was no question of returning to Bouligneux. A sister brought me a large candlestick with ten candles, a bowl of hot soup, some bread, and some wine. She informed me that my obstetrician friend sent his apologies, but he was in the middle of a difficult forceps delivery and would join me later. I asked her to take care of my horse, and I took my place again at the cot-side of the little toad boy. His name was going to be Désiré, the sister told me! I managed to feel his pulse that was beating regularly at about a hundred and twenty a minute. I kept his hand, which was beginning to get cold, in mine to warm it. How could one explain the conception and development of this brainless infant? Pure chance, or the blind, misguided action of some formative spirit? And yet my fingers could feel the beating of a heart, just like a normal newborn baby. In the end, there in the semidarkness, I finished by forgetting that monstrous toadlike face and saw only a cold baby who was moving his lips more and more often. I continued my close study in the light of the candles for over an hour more, searching for the slightest signs of dreaming that I had learned to recognize in newborn babies. Sighs, smiles, eye movements. I only observed a monotonous sleep, regular breathing, and

110

The Toad Child

only occasional swallowing movements, presumably of saliva. Normally, I would have seen two or three periods of dreaming in the space of an hour. Suddenly, after a long sigh, the breathing stopped, then became irregular. I leaned even closer. The eyelids had halfopened, and I noted with stupefaction some slight sideways eye movements, the right eye to the right and the left to the left. Three times, then five. The beginnings of a grimace appeared. The pulse slowed and then suddenly sped up. Quickly, I removed the blanket. There was a half erection. I looked back at my little toad’s face. He was beginning to suck, regularly as if at the nipple, in spite of my having only observed a few swallowing movements for the previous two hours. I was absolutely amazed. I felt like fetching the sister for her to witness these movements, but I was so astonished that I remained seated. Was it a dream? How could a brainless monster dream? What I was observing overturned all that I had learned. All I had before me was the mechanism of an automaton in action. How, in this anencephalic monster, could it in any way resemble the activity of animal sprits in the brain of a normal newborn baby? Had I dreamed myself, for the breathing was becoming regular again, the eye movements were stopping, and the erection was disappearing? I had forgotten to note the duration of this phenomenon: perhaps only four or five minutes, perhaps more. I put a fresh, warm blanket on him. I would have to look out for the phenomenon to recur to fully convince myself that it had really happened . . . “You’re asleep, my dear friend? It is too warm and dark here! Come home with me. It is getting late!” I had fallen asleep. Only two candles remained alight. The baby was even bluer but was still breathing calmly.

111

chapter 12

“He will be dead tomorrow. Let’s go home. I shall light my lantern, follow me closely. With this awful fog, you could get lost and fall in the Chalaronne!” I squeezed Desiré’s hand one last time. What could he be thinking about? Was he suffering? “After all, I don’t think he dreams,” I said to Bothier. “Dream? This monster, or even a normal newborn? Why not a fetus? Or an egg? Let’s go home. You can sleep at my house.” He stumbled in the fog on the flagstones of the Place Saint-Vincent as he recounted his latest delivery, a breech, which had happily ended successfully. Next day, the air was warmer and the fog soon dispersed as a south wind brought heavy, gray clouds. The sister informed us of the death of the little boy at about five o’clock in the morning. I was leaving slowly to recover my horse when Bothier stopped me. “Would you like to find out about his brain? Why he could breath without a brain? I’ll help you. I too should like to know what there is beneath that tumor.” Our autopsy was quite easy. There was no skull vault, just a concave plate that marked the beginning of the occipital bone. There was no frontal bone, and no roof or floor to the orbit. The lumpy tumor was limited on its lower surface by a narrow neck. It was composed of little cavities containing a yellowish fluid. There was no sign of nervous tissue. The nervous system consisted simply of the spinal cord, the medulla, and the pons. We found the pituitary gland by lifting some tissue in the middle of the base of the skull. The cerebellum and its peduncles were missing, but the sixth pair of cranial nerves, supplying the eye muscles, was present, as were the lowermost pairs.

112

The Toad Child

I made as detailed as possible a sketch of the nervous system in order to compare it with the anatomical plates that I had in my library. “This is the first time I have seen this, and I hope the last! If you find other descriptions in your books, let me know when we next meet in the duck hide. Bon voyage!” Bothier was clearly moved. He returned to the hospice without turning back. When I arrived back at Bouligneux, I went up to my library. In the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences I found a number of reports that seemed to reverse everything that had been said until now on the function of the brain in animals and man. In 1703 Monsieur du Verney the younger recounted a story that I can summarize as follows: The widow Coart of the Petit Châtelet butchery sent one of her oxen to the abattoir. It was slaughtered, but when they tried to split its head the brain resisted the cleaver. The butcher had to use a hammer, and he and his workmates were surprised to find, instead of a brain, a sort of immense stone. They took it to du Verney who examined it and had it drawn and engraved by the younger Simonneau as the admirably fine plates 8, 9, and 10 on page 273. Du Verney’s detailed examination revealed that there were some areas of soft, spongy material in the medulla that must have contained a small amount of animal spirit, not only to allow the cranial nerves to perform their normal functions, but also to provide nutrition for other areas. Indeed, at the base of the skull he found apparently normal looking nerves, as well as a normal spinal cord. According to du Verney, who searched all the scientific literature on the subject, there existed but one other such case, described by a famous author.

113

chapter 12

Bartholin recorded it in the ninety-first report of the sixth book of his Anatomical Institutions. He recounts that in his lifetime, in Sweden, a butcher was killing an ox. As he split its skull with an axe, the brain was so resistant that the axe broke. It became evident that the brain was petrified. Bartholin adds that he did not see this brain but that Ambassador Steno Bielke of Sweden, from whom he had learned of this event, had assured him that he had seen it in the house of the Count of Oxenstiern where it was preserved. According to Bartholin, “Such a brain of stone, degraded of its nobility, should no longer be considered as belonging to the noble organs, because its functions were not necessary for life.” Bartholin, however, suspecting that in this brain there must be some open sinuses through which animal sprits could pass freely from arteries and nerves, found support for his idea from Bielke who confirmed that, indeed, in different parts of this petrified brain there were holes through which pieces of straw could pass. That evening, I reflected for a long time before writing the following conclusions. The medulla and pons are capable of supporting breathing, circulation and swallowing. In newborn humans, kittens, and rabbits, I had noted plentiful signs of dreaming, similar to those of adults, but much more frequent and with more muscular twitches. Yet newborn humans, or kittens, are not capable of understanding or reasoning or language. They are blind—although they can smile in their dreams. I had observed just one time, but I was almost sure that it is true, that grimaces, together with mouth movements, as if to suckle, eye movements, and an erection, can appear in an anencephalic monster during sleep—just as in a normal newborn baby. In consequence, it was possible that dreams were produced by animal spirits in the medulla or pons. 114

13

The Blood of Dreams

June 20, 1773

This morning I tried Hooke’s microscope, without much success. Although it had achromatic lenses, all I saw when examining a crushed linen fiber were giant iridescent lianas. I had the presentiment that I would need much patience before understanding how to use the instrument. At that moment I was called by someone in the courtyard. “Sir, Sir . . . There has been an accident at Monsieur Monthieu’s,” Maria told me. I found her with a young girl of fourteen or fifteen. “It’s Béatrix, Monthieu’s daughter. She’s run over to tell you that her father’s been kicked by a horse. He’s unconscious.” Monthieu was a neighbor. A former magistrate, he had retired to his country estate. I had some trouble with him the previous year because of a dike that he had built too high in front of the overflow

115

chapter 13

of his Chazelle pool, which had prevented me filling Salarieux pool, which belonged to me. His courtesy and the manner in which he had settled the affair, without recourse to the law, had raised him in my esteem. He had grazing rights in my pool at Balancet, and I had recently seen his horses in the water up to their belly eating the submerged grass. I collected my army surgical bag and followed Béatrix. Monthieu had been taken home and was lying on his bed. I quickly cleared the room of people, asked for some boiling water, and examined the wound. Monthieu had been kicked by the horse’s shoe on the left side of his skull. The scalp wound was still bleeding profusely, but that did not worry me much. By palpation I discovered that the frontal bone had been pushed in. There was a comminuted fracture of the skull, with bone splinters that might have pierced the dural membrane. I was informed that Monthieu had lost consciousness and fallen immediately. He had not regained his senses since the accident, two hours previously. I resumed my examination after washing the wound, and I noticed some blood in the left ear. The blow must have been so violent that the force had caused not only the bone depression but also a fracture of the temporal bone. The rapid breathing (more than thirty-five a minute), the bounding pulse, and the deviation of the eyes—all convinced me that the brain must be compressed. The symptoms, that were worsening, were due to interference with the animal spirits and the blood circulation. I had to intervene immediately and expose the whole extent of the fracture to ascertain the state of the dura. I asked for all the candles in the house to light me. I was surprised to see Béatrix stay at the bedside.

116

The Blood of Dreams

“The girl’s brave!” said a neighbor, a former military nursing orderly who had offered to help me, while Madame Monthieu busily set out my instruments on the table. Through the half-open door I noticed Father Dumas, the parish priest of Bouligneux. “Not just now, Father,” I told him. We shaved the hair and I insisted on washing the wound again with soap. I made a horseshoe shaped incision, leaving a flap of skin on the lower side, to expose the bone. The fracture was deeply depressed and I had to remove many splinters. Finally, I decided to remove a large part of the frontal bone by trepanation. These interventions caused only a few groans and some movement of the left arm. I carefully examined the dura, after removing a small blood clot between it and the skull. A few splinters had penetrated the dura and torn it, leaving a gap the size of a louis through which I could see the brain itself. The brain was edematous and red, but I could see the beating of the arteries of the cerebral cortex. So there was no hemorrhage below the dura, and if a deeper hemorrhage existed, it was not yet large enough to stop the blood flow. I quickly trimmed the flap of skin and replaced it. There was also a hole in the skin, caused by the horseshoe, opposite that in the dura, such that the brain remained exposed. Around the wound I placed some resolvent poultices made from four medicinal earths boiled in water and vinegar to which I added lily oil and styrax ointment. I also attempted to close the edges of the wound with an adhesive plaster made from ordinary strong glue and benzene tincture that had given me good results previously. To use it I had to moisten the plaster with a little water as one would a gummed beauty spot that one wished to stick on the skin.

117

chapter 13

When the dressing was finished, I noted that the breathing was less rapid and stertorous, the pulse less bounding, but there was still no sign of consciousness. I let some blood by lancing the saphenous vein at the level of the malleolus of the tibia, hoping to draw as much blood as possible to the leg and reduce the amount of cerebral edema. I left the room, ceding my place to the priest and his holy oils. Madame Monthieu and her daughter thanked me so warmly and with such courtesy and generosity that I was most touched. They did not ask me for my prognosis. “We must wait,” I said. “The first three days for the edema. Do not feed him. Give him nothing to drink. Turn his head to the side. Check his breathing and his temperature.” I knew there would be an infection, but I had sometimes seen the wounded survive after worse head injuries caused by musket shots. I visited my patient twice a day. His strong constitution had helped him survive the immediate postoperative period. From the third day on, he opened his eyes and showed signs of consciousness by lifting his left arm and leg, but his right side remained paralyzed. His left facial nerve was not paralyzed, as I feared it might be when I had seen the blood from his left ear. Sadly, my hopes dwindled on the sixth day. My patient was feverish and lost consciousness completely. I had to examine the wound again. As I feared, the adhesive dressing had not held the edges of the wound together. I could see the arteries of the cortex beating, which meant that the infection was not yet very deep. The rest of the wound was healing with little sign of infection. I decided to place only a light dressing on the wound and irrigate it with an ophthalmic poultice that I made by boiling and then concentrating euphrasy, plantain, fennel,

118

The Blood of Dreams

and greater celandine leaves, together with roses and cornflowers. I reasoned that the brain might react favorably to this anti-inflammatory that cured inflammations of the eyes. During the days that followed, the patient’s condition remained stationary. He stayed apparently asleep, with regular breathing, but did not open his eyes when I called him. Sometimes when I pinched his left arm, he merely emitted a feeble groan and breathed more quickly. I was encouraged that I could not see any herniation of the brain, but that I could still see the cortical vessels beating. Thus there was no cerebral abscess. I fed my patient with enemas of strong broth of vegetables and eggs, for I feared above all problems in swallowing and lung infection. The tenth day I found Béatrix alone at her father’s bedside. She informed me that she had noticed sometimes a swelling of the brain that lifted the dressing, but that this swelling did not last for long: ten to twenty minutes. I do not know what intrigued me most: the young girl’s power of observation, or the temporary swelling of the brain. “How many times have you seen the brain swelling?” “Since midday, at least three times,” she replied. She added that at the beginning of the swelling, her father’s breathing changed. Sometimes it stopped, and sometimes it was like panting. I understood immediately! I asked her to bring some candles and settled myself at the bedside after removing the dressing. Béatrix also brought me a big magnifying glass that belonged to her father. He was breathing calmly, his pulse was regular, although bounding a little. I watched the brain with extreme attention. It was pink, the

119

chapter 13

gyri a little swollen, and the arteries beat with the rhythm of the pulse. We waited in silence for nearly an hour. Béatrix moved around the room delicately, smiling timidly if she made the floorboards squeak. Suddenly, I felt the pulse change rhythm, with a few irregularities. Then the breathing stopped for at least half a minute. Then I remarked—I must admit, in astonishment—the brain getting redder and redder. I could see the capillaries dilated on the cortical surface, which swelled as if engorged with blood. I looked at the eyes. This severely injured man, in a coma for a week, and incapable of moving his eyes when exposed to a loud noise, was moving his eyes in every direction, just as the Swiss soldier had done when he was dreaming. I noted a few movements of the fingers of his left hand, and that his respiratory movements moved his diaphragm more than his ribs. I waited until Béatrix was on the other side of the room to lift the sheets. There was an obvious erection, although not to the extent of that of the soldier. I returned to my observation of the brain, now sufficiently swollen to lift the dressing. Béatrix was again behind me: she wanted to look through the magnifying glass. “Is it the blood of his soul?” she asked. “It is the blood of his dreams, Béatrix. Your father is dreaming. Perhaps of you. He is only conscious when he is dreaming.” His return to regular breathing announced the end of his dreams. I saw the capillary circulation shrinking quickly. The brain become pink again, and then yellowish pink. The gyri were less swollen and the cerebral erection (could one think of it in this way?) disappeared. I replaced the dressing after dampening it with the poultice.

120

The Blood of Dreams

When I was back in my study, I consulted my books. Everything suggested that the brain’s blood flow increased during dreaming. Was it because of a blocked venous return? Was it because the animal spirits of dreaming needed more blood for nutrition? My thoughts turned to Monthieu. Was he only conscious during his dreams? If so, his mind must have been a mere chain of dream islands separated by nothingness, all day and all night. Would he one day remember his dream life if he ever returned to waking consciousness? Returning to see the patient the next day I passed through the meadows. They were covered in flowers, daisies, and lupins. The air was buzzing with thousands of bees that were collecting pollen to take back to their hives. I suddenly thought of a story I had read of Captain Cook’s voyages in the Endeavour in 1766 in the South Seas. He recounted that the natives of the island of Otahity used honey to fight infection in wounds to the limbs, the abdomen, or the head, and for large burns. When I examined Monthieu’s wound again, I realized that my local therapy with the ophthalmic poultice had not had the desired effect. The infection had spread under the layers of the scalp around the wound as far as the bone, and even the dura was swollen. By contrast, the brain was still pulsating and there was no sign of a cerebral abscess. So I explained to Madame Monthieu and Béatrix that we would have to use Nature’s spirit and the fruit of the bees’ toil to dress the wound, and that it was our last hope. After cleaning the wound thoroughly, I applied the liquid honey, a limpid golden yellow, taken straight from the hives. I asked that this treatment be repeated three times a day and covered with a dry dressing.

121

chapter 13

The results exceeded all my hopes. In six days the wound was healing and the tissue infection had disappeared. My patient’s fever diminished, and on the eighth day he opened his eyes. His scalp wound healed and closed definitively the window through which we had observed his brain. Monthieu was soon convalescing, but he remained paralyzed on his right side and his words were unintelligible. So I was not able to know the content of his dreams while he was unconscious. I wondered if his dreams, too, were wordless, and if the damage to his left frontal cortex had robbed him of the use of language while he was awake and also of dream images while he slept. How could such a small wound in the brain destroy the use of language in spite of it being obvious that our patient understood perfectly well? He could point with his left hand to the bread when he was hungry, or to the beehives at the top of the meadows when we reminded him that he had been cured with honey. November 4, 1773

Monsieur Monthieu passed away just after All Saints’ Day. In the preceding week he had suffered several epileptic fits that were resistant to laudanum and alcohol. I mourned a good neighbor and a fine man. I had promised him, as he neared his end, that I would look after his daughter, Béatrix. She will come to my home at the beginning of 1774. I shall let her look after rearing the rabbits and their dream deprivation using the wild animals. She will have to keep a book with records of the rabbits that come, those that leave, the birth of their babies, the species of wild animals used, the length of their dream deprivation, the quarters of the moon, and daily readings of my mercury barometer and my thermometer.

122

14

Women Are Not Rabbits

September 1774

I have often reflected on the phenomenon Damien revealed to me that coitus in female rabbits provokes the relaxation of the neck and ear muscles, and eye movements as during human dreaming. I had noted that there were at least ten minutes between the very brief coitus in rabbits and the beginning of the drooping of the head and ears. I thought this delay might represent the time taken for the male sperm to migrate from the vagina and uterus to the brain. Four years earlier, Spallanzani had described at length the motility of the tiny spermatozoa that he saw with his microscope. I tried to picture the journey of these tiny organisms, imagining them magnified five thousand times, like tiny tadpoles. The distance between the vaginal orifice of the rabbit and the upper limit of the fallopian tubes was about thirteen lignes.16 If it took them thirteen minutes, 16. A ligne was about 2 mm. 123

chapter 14

it made one ligne per minute. That represented a speed of fifty toises per minute for the tadpoles of one ligne long, or one league per hour. That was half the speed of the king’s infantry in full battle order. But then I reasoned that for foot soldiers six feet high, this speed would represent three hundred leagues an hour, much more than the flight of the fastest bird. So I abandoned this analogy of size and time, and I argued that the spermatozoa had to both reach the top of the tubes to attain their goal of procreation (as Hunter had clearly shown) and enter the bloodstream from where they could reach the brain to unlock the events propitious to dreaming. This vision of sperm in the brain substance seemed at first a brilliant revelation. Was it these living particles that governed instinct in the rabbit’s brain? If so, it seemed to me that the same process should apply to the male. How did the cock’s crest grow if the sperm did not reach the brain? So I resolved to study this phenomenon in detail in Colombine. At the beginning of August, I observed my cat coming into heat, raising her tail while rubbing against the furniture, roaming around in the light of the full moon, and mewing incessantly, masking the croaking of the frogs. I shut her in our wild animal pen with Lucifer. I was familiar with their preliminary play, which was delayed somewhat this time while they sniffed obsessively the odors of the martens and the ferrets. After hearing the violent scream that marked coitus, I again observed Colombine engaged in a long period of crawling, belly dancing, somersaults, and vigorous licking. But I did not see the relaxing of her muscles and the sleep that I expected. I thought that Lucifer’s repeated ardor was preventing the appearance of the phenomenon I had seen in the rabbits, and I abandoned the study of my cats. I pardoned them

124

Women Are Not Rabbits

two months later when Colombine presented me with a litter of six fine kittens, whose coloring made me doubt that Lucifer was really their father! So next I decided to study this phenomenon in a woman. Why had I not thought of it earlier? I had not visited my wife for a long time. The warmth of a fine August evening, a candlelight dinner with a fine white Condrieu wine, a stroll along the poolside in the moonlight, a few sighs, a gentle squeeze of her hand, together with my admission of being a miserable but repentant unbeliever—all helped me renew our carnal relations, which were in abeyance but not severed. My advances were all the more ardent and sincere as I realized how much tenderness I felt for this woman, still young, pretty, proud, and sad. When at length we were reunited in the conjugal bed I had abandoned so long ago, I vowed to time on the bedside clock any signs that followed lovemaking, such as I had observed in the rabbits. Our union was stormier than a hurricane, explicable by our long separation. I noted the time on the clock by turning on my side. It was eleven fifteen . . . When I woke at eight the next morning I was at first surprised to recognize my wife asleep on my shoulder. Thus the sudden sleepiness that had overcome me had prevented me from making observations in the minutes following our lovemaking. I blamed this undesired sleep on the white wine. The kindness and the humility of my wife, half-smiling and half-intrigued, made me suddenly hate my project. It was unworthy of me, I decided, to treat my wife like an experiment and use love traps for scientific observation. A few days later I was again overtaken by this obsession that would not leave me. Was it possible that spermatozoa were responsible for our destiny?

125

chapter 14

The image of the rabbit entering her dream after coitus haunted me. Did the spermatozoa play a musical scale on a cerebral keyboard to trigger a dream? How was the link between coitus and dreaming forged? Was it a particularity belonging only to the rabbit? If so, the absence of the phenomenon’s universality would force me to consider it as a mere game of Nature. In the end, I realized what was behind all these thoughts. I would have to go down to Lyon and find Manuela or other girls. My lovemaking with them would leave me free to study what happened in the minutes following intercourse. I used the excuse of a meeting of the Naturalists’ Circle to take the coach to Lyon, and I arrived at Manuela’s apartment as the clocks of Lyon were striking five in the evening. The heat of the rue Mercière was still stifling and I found Manuela naked on her bed, still wet after washing, and cooling herself with a magnificent fan made of bird of paradise feathers. We shared our climax, I think, and I determined to note the onset of her sleep. She had recently received a present of a fine marble and gold clock, decorated with Hercules kneeling beneath the dial. I noted that our climax was over at four minutes past six. Manuela woke me at eight o’clock. “You always sleep, specially when it’s hot. You were snoring. I’ve been out to buy some fruit. Do you want a pear?” “Manuela,” I asked her in annoyance, “don’t you feel like sleeping when you have made love?” “Me? Never. It wakes me up. What would become of me if I slept every time. I’d look like a skeleton!” “So, do you dream?”

126

Women Are Not Rabbits

“Dream? Daydream, yes. I think of all sorts of things. What present you’ll give me. That, yes!” It was too hot in Manuela’s room to stay all night. Now it must be cool by the Rhône. I left Manuela. Twice now I had failed to observe in my partners the signs of falling asleep because I had fallen prisoner to sleep myself. I began to doubt my idea and recalled the verse of Lucretius: post coitum triste. Did only the man fall asleep after intercourse? Was it fatigue? Or pleasure? So my theory of hereditary imprinting was worthless! I watched the waters of the Rhône flow by the foot of the river wall. Swollen by the melting glaciers, it was almost black, and the moon was reflected above the bridge and the tower of the Guillotière. I said to myself that two failed attempts with women did not detract from my observation of the regular occurrence of this phenomenon in rabbits. I walked upstream, in front of the HôtelDieu, then turned left to the rue Gentil, and finally arrived in the rue Maudicte. Harlots of all ages waited along both sides, keeping an eye open for the patrols of watchmen accompanied by armed guards. Nothing had changed since my years as a barber surgeon twenty years earlier. I went upstairs with a very young and beautiful girl named Maryvonne. She was tall and blond, with bright eyes and fine legs beneath her white petticoat. Her attic looked out over a small, dark courtyard between the rue Maudicte and the rue de l’Aumône. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, sitting down on the bed on which I had stretched out. “I want to make love to you. Undress.” “That will be two ecus more.”

127

chapter 14

“Make it four ecus. I shall stay longer.” She undressed. The clock of the church of St. Nizier struck eleven o’clock. The room was very dark, lit only by a small candle on the floor. Its flame flickered in the wind coming from the window that was open to the courtyard. I heard the music of a viol. Maryvonne came beside me. She must have perfumed herself with oil of seven herbs. Her very soft skin smelled deliciously of thyme and coriander. I realized that I would have to count the minutes after our lovemaking by taking my pulse, for it was too dark to see the minutes on my watch. Maryvonne must have still been naïve in the business of lovemaking. She did not know how to pretend to be enjoying pleasure she did not feel. In the courtyard the sound of the viol became more strident and was now accompanied by a woman’s sad voice singing a song in a language that I did not understand. Just then I sensed in my partner the first signs of pleasure that we both enjoyed to its climax. Maryvonne remained motionless, her eyes turned toward the window. I began to count my pulse, reckoning a hundred per minute on account of the heat and my fatigue. One hundred . . . , two hundred . . . , three hundred . . . , or was it four hundred . . . “If you want to stay all night, it’s ten ecus. I must get back downstairs.” “What time is it?” “The clock at St. Nizier has just struck two in the morning,” replied Maryvonne. The candle was out and the room was only lit by the bluish glow of the moon. I could hear neither the viol nor the song. “I must have fallen asleep,” I said.

128

Women Are Not Rabbits

“You can talk! You were snoring. You’re all the same. You’ll give me a little present?” “That song, what was it?” “From Brittany, the Duchy of Brittany.” “You’re from there?” “Yes, my father is in the hulks in Brest.” “Maryvonne, you’re pretty, I like you. I am tired and don’t know where to go. Here are ten ecus. I am staying with you until the morning.” I left at dawn, around six o’clock, leaving Maryvonne to sleep in her poor attic. I went to the Place de Louis-le-Grand to take the first coach. It serves you right, I said to myself as I went. No one can be the subject and the object of a scientific experiment. Three failed experiments. So women are not like rabbits! What a brilliant discovery! If women do not dream after making love, why do men? In any case, why do I go to sleep every time? I do not remember dreaming, though. But that does not prove anything. I thought that I ought to have asked Manuela or Maryvonne if men who fell asleep after making love got a new erection that would be a sign of dreaming. But such a question would only have made them laugh and mock me! Not to be subject and object? Will the brain realize one day that it is a brain, I wondered as I climbed into the coach.

129

15

The Private Correspondence of Hugues la Scève

Copy of a letter from Hugues la Scève to Dr. Jean des Ursins, Montée du Gourguillon, Lyon, May 8, 1775: My dear and wise friend, I quite understand your silent, but questioning, look when I accompanied you to your coach to Villars yesterday evening with Béatrix. Questioning, or reproachful? Our friendship of twenty years, since our days as trainees at the Charité, demands of me a frankness that I would not allow myself with any other of my friends. It is true. Béatrix has become my mistress, when she could almost be my daughter! I suffer no remorse, except that of hiding our joy from others. When I accepted Béatrix at Bouligneux, two years ago, she had just turned fifteen. You know how I had cared for her father after his terrible accident. Then Béatrix was a young girl to whom I paid little attention. Little by little, her intelligence, her serenity, her attentiveness at her

131

chapter 15

father’s bedside, and the instinctive curiosity that she showed for every turn of Nature all struck me. It was Béatrix who first noticed the swelling of her father’s wounded brain as he dreamed. That was how I began to study the dural and cerebral circulation during dreams with my magnifying glass, before her father finally died of epilepsy. When Béatrix first came to Bouligneux, she looked after the rabbits. Then she began to keep real records, so well written that I discovered she had become an indispensable secretary, full of curiosity and precious beyond measure. And little by little Béatrix was transformed into a comely, greeneyed young lady. One evening last April she was standing in the setting sun coming through the window of my study in the tower. I could admire the superb curve of her breasts and her long thighs through a flimsy green dress that she had on for the first time. I felt that I would have to ask Béatrix to leave or my desire for her would become too strong for me to be able to work, or might drag me into what I considered at that time to be nothing less than incest. I explained to Béatrix that she ought now to leave to further her studies in Lyon where I knew a tutor who would take care of her. She placed her finger on my lips, smiled, and reminded me that I had taught her that the things of Nature must have an explanation in Nature, that it was spring, and that it was normal to fall in love, just like the birds, the cats and the rabbits . . . During our first night, I was surprised by the richness of her amorous behavior. How could such familiarity with the things of love be hidden in women, still waiting for their senses to awake? Where is the mechanism of such a machine concealed, ready to function in the harmony of love? It could

132

The Private Correspondence of Hugues la Scève

not be attributed to experience in lovemaking, for she was a virgin, but could it be a secret mechanism that already existed in our germ, innate in us? At the end of this first night, which I spent awake until dawn was marked by the first sounds of the ducks, I noticed that alongside me Béatrix was dreaming. Her irregular breathing, the quick movements of her eyes behind her half-open lids, some tiny movements of her hands, and a discrete swaying of her hips convinced me that she was in the land of dreams. I kissed her again, at the very moment she was dreaming. The warmth and dampness of her vagina revealed that the excitation of the genital nerves during dreaming was shared by both sexes. Making love during that dream opened a door to the most exquisite sexual pleasure, as well as to waking and orgasm. So, my dear Jean, you are the only one to share our secret, apart from our old maid who brought me up and who has been in our service for ten years. She passed me in the morning, carrying the bloodstained sheets. Her sly glance and her deep sigh showed no sign of surprise, just her great apprehension as to what adventures might await us. Yours From Dr. Jean des Ursins to Hugues la Scève, Esq., Château de Bouligneux, Villars, May 20, 1775: Your sex will ruin you, my dear dream man! Take care of this organ that has become both the object and the subject of your dream studies: an erectile object that signals the male’s entry into the land of dreams; a thermometer and hygrometer to measure oneiric excitation of animal spirits in vagina. Enjoy yourself. With affection. Yours

133

16

The Falconer of the Royal Botanical Garden

November 1775

There had been a hard frost during the night. A trickle of water was still running under the sluice, and only the birds ventured near the ice on the pool. Some night herons were lined up on each side of the overflow trying to dig in the thin ice with their long beaks. Those furthest away looked almost black in the mist. Their folded wings formed a hump so that they looked like sentries leaning on their muskets, like those that I had seen from afar in the snow during the Flanders war. Béatrix and I made the most of these first cold spells to classify the observations that we had made on various animal species concerning the occurrence of periods of eye movement during sleep. Certain colleagues whom I trusted had sent descriptions of other observations. I shall summarize this harvest, in which we can see the “progression” of dreaming in the animal kingdom.

135

chapter 16

Of course, we did not study animals with shells. Aristotle had already noted how difficult it was to recognize sleep in testaceans such as oysters, mussels, and snails. Our studies began with some fish (carp and tench) kept in a glass tank filled with water from the pool at twenty-five degrees. We observed the movements of their tail, gills, and eyes for hours. When the fish were immobile, we slowly moved a small stick toward their head so as to try to provoke a reaction of flight in order to decide if they were asleep. We examined every fish during the day or at night in the penumbra of our candles, for at least fifty hours. It soon became evident that a tench remained awake and alert in the darkness, whereas it was sleepy and immobile in the light. Even at night simply bringing the candles nearer was sufficient to calm it enough for us to be able to touch its head gently with our stick. We were never able to detect eye movements or changes in the rapidity of movement of the gills during periods of resting, which were probably sleep. We had identical results with two carp. Two frogs, and our tame toad named Arthur who lived in the courtyard, represented the amphibians. We kept them in an enclosure with glass windows in which we had constructed a small pond. The toad was mainly active at night. We were never able to detect any obvious eye movements or changes in breathing during the long periods of daytime somnolence. Then, two tortoises and a grass snake made up our collection of reptiles. Sleep (or rest) is easy to recognize in tortoises, for they let their head fall forward out of their shell. The snakes fell into a deep, monotonous sleep, with no signs of dreaming, after they had swallowed some mice that we brought them.

136

The Falconer of the Royal Botanical Garden

So, during more than seven hundred hours of careful observation, we were never able to note the slightest episode of agitation or movement to interrupt the calm of these cold-blooded and egglaying animals’ sleep. My friend Chevalier de C—— reported to us observations made on a small crocodile that he had brought back from Brazil. He explained that he kept this animal, which he fed with rats, in a warm, humid atmosphere like that of its native Amazonia. In more than two hundred hours of observation, he had never been able to detect episodes of eye movements during the long periods of rest that accompanied the digestion of the rats. We were at the front line as far as the study of birds was concerned. Most slept in the evening, all night, and sometimes in the morning, except the tawny owls. Mallards, swans, geese, pochards, night herons and gray herons, little egrets, moorhens, pheasants, rooks, magpies, crows, hens and chicks—all became almost domestic animals (especially the magpies and the hens) after we kept the cats and dogs away. What diverse forms of sleep they had! The hens went to their perches in their shed at sunset. The water birds turned their head backward under a wing, sometimes lying down and sometimes sleeping on one leg. It was very easy to recognize sleep, even if we were surprised to see the swans and geese sleeping with only one eye closed. Of course, close study of their eyes was not easy, for most birds have a third eyelid that moves almost all the time. Nevertheless, their sleep was so monotonous, and the brief periods of wakefulness during their rest so obvious, that I was soon convinced that birds did not exhibit periods of eye movements during their sleep. Béatrix did not share my opinion at all! She had studied newly hatched chicks carefully and noted brief

137

chapter 16

periods of less than a minute during which the chick let its beak fall until it touched the ground. She told me she was sure that she had seen eye movements at the same time. I agreed to examine another dozen chicks or baby quails newly hatched in an enclosure heated to twenty-seven degrees. It is true, I thought, that there are periods when the neck muscles relax, in the day as well as at night, but I had never been able to convince myself of the presence of eye movements. It seemed impossible for dreams to exist just after hatching, when there were no signs of it a few days later! Béatrix and I had long, and sometimes, I must admit, heated discussions. Fortunately, our friend CI——, who had the occasion to observe an African ostrich in the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris, wrote to us that he had not noticed signs of dreaming during its sleep. This observation reassured me of the certainty that dreaming did not yet belong to the domain of sleeping in birds. Béatrix was annoyed and sulked in silence for several days. To make peace, we went to Paris in the summer to visit the Royal Botanical Garden. There, by some bad fortune, we met a falconer who had just arrived from Ireland. This individual told us an extraordinary story. “In Ireland,” he told us, “we catch falcons or gerfalcons by using specially trained birds placed in cages on the ground. These birds can see a falcon in the air at incredible distances. They warn their trainers by special cries, as they wait hidden in a little tent covered with greenery. They immediately release a pigeon attached to a string. The falcon sees it and plunges down on it. It is taken alive in a net that they throw over it. Then they load these birds in a boat, feeding them beef and mutton. They perch them on frames made of wooden slats covered with turf and heavy cloth so that they can

138

The Falconer of the Royal Botanical Garden

perch on something soft and keep cool; otherwise, their legs would get too warm.” “How can you train these birds to hunt?” Béatrix asked him, her eyes sparkling. Was that on account of the story of the falcons, or the very handsome appearance of this tall blond falconer, with his blue eyes that he did not take off her, and whose whole circus was beginning to irritate me? “We do not,” he replied. “We have never managed to raise or to breed these species. We control the natural ferocity of these birds by force of cunning and privation. We only give them their food after they have performed a particular task. We tie them up, we strangle them, we even deprive them of light. Sometimes we starve them, and we even try to increase their need to eat by clearing their stomachs with little balls of tow that we force them to swallow and that increases their appetite. Above all, we prevent them from sleeping for several days and nights. They become tamer that way.” “Are you sure that this sleep deprivation is so important, and that it makes these wild birds tame?” asked Béatrix. “You see,” she said to me, “I suppose it suppresses their dreams too. That’s what I said. I am sure birds dream.” The falconer smiled at Béatrix. “I don’t know if they dream, but they certainly sleep a lot at night.” “My friend Béatrix claims that birds dream,” I replied, “but I am sure they do not!” “Doubtless,” replied the Irishman, “doubtless. However,” he added with a smile for Béatrix, “I once heard a falconer friend say he had seen a haggard falcon, one that had grown up in the wild before being caught, dreaming.”

139

chapter 16

This devilish Irishman was lying to please Béatrix. He seemed rather foppish to me, but I did not dare ask him by what signs his friend had recognized a falcon’s dreams. I tried to terminate our conversation. “We must study a falcon ourselves, but I doubt that it will be possible in the Dombes.” “You could train young falcons to hunt deer or boars,” replied our falcon tamer. “Perhaps you will succeed in that, Mademoiselle, by depriving them of their dreams. Myself, I know how to train these birds to hunt animals with fur. All you need to do is stuff the skin of a deer and put some food that you prepare specially for the falcon in its eye sockets. Then you drag the dead animal along so that it looks as if it is alive. The falcon attacks it and because it needs to eat it grips its skull ferociously and digs its beak into the eyes. When you take the bird hunting, it dives at the first beast it sees and perches on its head first of all and pecks its eyes out. That stops the animal and gives the hunter time to come and kill it without danger while it is more concerned with the falcon than the hunter.” “Please come to Bouligneux, dear falconer,” insisted Béatrix. “We have a cage there for depriving animals of sleep. We can find out if the birds dream more after being deprived of sleep.” “That is an excellent idea,” I lied. “We shall see you later, or I shall write to you, dear falconer.” I said this in the guise of a farewell, pulling Béatrix away. Returning to Bouligneux, I thought a lot about the story of these falcons. Why did sleep deprivation have such a major influence on this animal’s behavior? Could the sleep deprivation also be dream deprivation? Dreams that we could not see in birds? Béatrix was ebullient, and infuriated me with her remarks in the coach.

140

The Falconer of the Royal Botanical Garden

“How could we make a window to look at these birds’ brains,” I retorted, “to see if they change during their sleep?” We finally decided to admit that, if dreams existed in birds, they must be very rare or only appear in chicks, and that there was no point in mentioning it in the paper that we would send to Charles Bonnet. Nevertheless, Béatrix wanted to deprive some chickens of sleep: she had quite understood that I in no way wanted to see that falconer at Bouligneux. When we arrived at the château, which my wife had deserted, I made her abandon this idea by some very specious arguments, probably because some innermost feeling prevented me from letting Béatrix’s ideas triumph. That morning I asked Béatrix to help me summarize our findings to send them to Charles Bonnet. The results of our study of sleeping and dreaming in mammals is, I believe, quite remarkable. We saw ourselves as the most expert observers of dreaming in mammals. This is the table that we had compiled from our own observations: Species Number Duration Interval between of animals of dream periods of dreaming (in minutes) during sleep Cat (day and night) Dog (day) Rat (day) Guinea pig (day) Cow (day and night) Horse and pony Pig (day) Rabbit (day) Muskrat Swiss German (night)

6 3 1 1 2 3 2 6 1 1

6 7 2 2 6 7 7 4 5 15

141

40 45 15 ? 140–170 100–180 180 60 –– 110

chapter 16

We had received from our reliable correspondents the following contributions: Squirrel Vole Roe deer Boar Marmot (summer) Giraffe Antelope Orangutan Macaque

2 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1

3 3 7 7 6 10 3 10 10

–– –– 100 –– –– 180 –– 200 ––

This list is of great importance to me. It confirms that all mammals seem to demonstrate episodes of dreaming during sleep. Béatrix and I eliminated some other observations that seemed so strange that we thought that the observers were not respecting sufficiently the instructions we had given them, or that the animals were in abnormal conditions. These observations were as follows: Ferret Elephant Unicorn

2 1 1

15 30 40

30 180 ––

The results from two ferrets seemed to me to be much exaggerated, for this would make it the longest dreamer in the animal kingdom. More than man. Why should that be? The elephant was observed by an old friend, Countess de D——, in the Royal Botanical Garden. When I first knew her, twenty years earlier, her sight was already very poor! How could she have observed the association of what she called “trunk movements,”

142

The Falconer of the Royal Botanical Garden

and an erection? According to my colleagues at the Royal Botanical Garden, it was a female elephant! The observation on the unicorn came from Monsieur de C——, one of my “friends” from the Naturalists’ Circle. I should be very surprised if he had really studied an animal that de Buffon and Daubenton affirm never existed. Of course, according to de Buffon, there still remains a considerable number of species to observe, but we can already establish with near certainty the following conclusions, which I shall present to Charles Bonnet: 1.  The external signs of dreaming do not exist in egg-laying animals. 2. All the mammals we studied showed signs of dreaming. 3.  There seem to be differences between mammals. The larger the animal, the longer the periods of dreaming seem to be. If there is a relationship between an animal’s weight and the weight of its brain, as de Buffon suggests, that relationship might indicate that the brain is able to influence the duration of dreaming.

143

17

Hugues la Scève’s Letter to Charles Bonnet

Bouligneux, January 28, 1776 The documents that I enclose with this letter, my dear and illustrious Academician, are in two parts. The first is an attempt to found a science of dreaming on the basis of several thousand memories of my own dreams. When you visited Bouligneux in April 1772, I already suggested certain hypotheses concerning the relationship among dream recall, the events that had influenced my mind during waking, and the cosmic influence of the seasons. I quite understand, Sir, because you do not remember your own dreams, that your criticism of this part of my work can be brief. Your kind encouragement to me to study the sleep of animals has led me to temporarily abandon the classification of my dream recall, but not its collection, in order to consecrate myself entirely to the observation of sleep in animals and man. That study forms the second part of this manuscript. In order to facilitate your understanding of it, I permit myself to summarize below the results of these last three years of work.

145

chapter 17

I.  I believe that I have elucidated the periodicity of dreaming in mammals and in man. In agreement with Aristotle, Pliny, and Scipion Du Pleix, I have observed twitches in small muscles in all mammals (newborn and adult) during sleep. These twitches are accompanied by rapid eye movements and, sometimes, by relaxation of the neck muscles in rabbits and in men sleeping upright. The twitches last but a few minutes and reappear several times during sleep, such that I am obliged to consider them as periodic. This periodicity seems to have escaped the attention of Aristotle (and his successors who, I believe, did nothing more than copy him). If you doubt the veracity of these observations, I would exhort you, as acclaimed master of the observation of Nature, and if your eyesight is alas still impaired, to ask your secretary to describe to you the twitches and eye movements seen during the sleep of young kittens or puppies. II.  Here are the arguments, for your criticism, that permit me to attribute these episodes of movements during sleeping to dreams: I noted the appearance of periods of eye movements and of erections in a Swiss cavalryman whose sleep I studied for a whole night. Every time I woke him during such a period, he remembered a dream very clearly. In agreement with your theory of development, I must therefore suppose that dreams appear episodically both in animal species (such as the cat and dog), and in the newborn in whom the folds of the cerebral cortex are not yet fully formed. As I have never observed such twitches or eye movements during sleep in egg-laying animals (fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds), I infer on that basis that dreams do not exist in lower vertebrates, but that they are present from birth in all mammals. III.  I must now admit that the relationship of these episodes of dreaming with sleep is not unequivocal. In the great majority of my observations, I have noted that the first period of muscle movements came after a more or

146

Hugues la Scève’s Letter to Charles Bonnet

less long period of “calm” sleep. However, in the rabbit, because coitus is followed fifteen to twenty minutes later by the appearance of an episode of dreaming although the rabbit has not been to sleep, I have to admit that dreaming is not always of the realm of sleeping. Could it then be an independent state, with sleep often constituting a facilitating, but not obligatory, element? This “state” of dreaming must be more developed and act more on the metabolism of man than animals because it is always associated with an erection in man, whereas I have never seen any movement of the organ of reproduction in cats and dogs while sleeping. I think I can exclude any relationship between erotic sensations in the dream and erection as it happens during nonerotic dreams and, above all, because it happens in the newborn and in the unconscious patient after brain injury. Thus I do not share the view of our mutual friend Diderot, who recently sent me some pages of his Elements of Physiology: “A dream can go up or down. It can go up from the organ to the brain or down from the brain to the organ. If the genital organ is excited, the image of a women will be aroused in the brain. If this image is aroused in the brain, the organ of pleasure will be excited.” I would then have to accept that erotic behavior could only occur at the sexual organ without our senses playing a part. But there exist so many cases when erotic dreams cause the full excitation of the organ, with ejaculation, that this hypothesis is unlikely. Thus I have no explanation to offer you concerning the obligatory association of dreaming and erections in man. Dare I ask you, Sir, in your wisdom, to furnish me with some hypotheses? IV.  I am equally unable to guess as to the nature of the twitches of the small muscles or of eye movements during sleep. Both certainly depend on the same mechanism, for the dynamics of the eyeballs, which are extremely mobile, is such that they can move in response to a minimal excitation of animal spirits. Of course, I supposed at first that these movements might be

147

chapter 17

to follow the images or hallucinations of dreaming for, even when we close our eyes during waking, we can feel movements of the eyes behind our lids as we evoke images. But why do these movements exist during sleep in kittens, newborn babies, and in the injured person whose sad story I have summarized for you? The only explanation I dare suggest to you would be that a dream results from activation of a cerebral mechanism that controls eye movements, relaxation of the neck, and erections in man. Our brain, then, contains a mechanism that makes us dream, and our will has no control over it. V.  Now, dear Academician and Master of Psychology, I presume to broach the subject over which you reign supreme without contest. The question of possible relationships between the periodic phenomena of dreaming and the soul or spirit. I beg you not to see in my remarks any criticism of your theories. I know that you claim that the caterpillar has a soul, as do the plants. “The animals,” you write, “equally have an immaterial and indivisible soul.” Like Leibniz, I believe, you distinguish between “the imperishable soul of animals and the immortal soul of man.” You have also written in your Essay on Psychology that “the dreams of animals depend on the same mechanisms as those of man. But do animals distinguish between wakefulness and sleep? They do not think, they do not have the awareness of themselves that we call consciousness. If the soul,” you continue, “pre-existed in the germ, it was able to move in the germ, but the extreme weakness of these movements did not allow it to retain any memory of that primitive state” (Chapter XXIII, page 223). My observations are not in total disaccord with your hypothesis, at least in mammals. However, permit me, Sir, to quote from a recent letter, sent to me by Diderot, this refutation of Marat’s book that has just appeared (On Man, 1775). As you know, Marat adopts the theory of Descartes concerning the distinction between the soul and the body. However, he does not explain “how a corporal substance

148

Hugues la Scève’s Letter to Charles Bonnet

could act on a substance that is not the body,” and he contents himself with saying: “The sensible reader certainly will not expect me to elucidate this question.” Diderot may well have refuted him too humorously when he replied: “If I ever accept these two distinct substances, you will have nothing further to teach me, for you do not know what the one you call soul is, even less how they are united, and no more how they act reciprocally on each other.” Later, Diderot adds: “It is stupidity on the part of those who descend from the soul to the body. Nothing like that happens in man. Marat does not know what he is saying when he speaks of the action of the soul on the body.” Even if I do not accept these criticisms entirely, Sir, I do not reject them entirely. Diderot, whom I consider to be our mutual friend, relies on the writings of Bordeu and the discoveries of Father Needham, Buffon’s collaborator, to surmise that sensation was a universal property of Nature and thus to explain its unity. May I confess, very honorable Academician, that I find in The Dream of d’Alembert, which you doubtless consider a licentious fable, ideas that I find more apt to explain my observations and my hypothesis of an oneiric mechanism. VI.  I take the liberty, dear Academician, to suggest another theory. We owe it to Descartes that we are trapped in this distinction between spirit and matter. By affirming that animals are automatons, Descartes placed man on a pedestal where he escapes the laws of material Nature. May I take it, Sir, that you do not accept this distinction, for you attribute souls to hydras and plants. My only question, then, is as follows: if the soul is responsible for dreams, why have I not observed the phenomenon in egg-laying animals? So, Sir, I confess that I am confronted with the following contradictions—or dare I write aporia? Let us assume that the soul is responsible for dreams! Then either, as Descartes believes, man is the only thinking, conscious, dreaming being. If so why are there dreams in animals if they are mere automatons? Or, as you believe, plants and hydras have souls. If so, if

149

chapter 17

the soul is responsible for dreams, why can I not observe dreams in lower vertebrates? If, on the other hand, we assume that Descartes’ dualist theory is not correct, then, during the development of animal species, there would appear a new cerebral mechanism, absent from lower vertebrates but present in mammals—from the newborn to the adult. This mechanism would not be subject to our will and would be independent of our consciousness. VII.  According to this last hypothesis, I must therefore ask you, Sir, a few questions. After your illustrious predecessors, but with brilliant clarity, you affirm that consciousness necessitates the activity of the soul. May I suggest, with the temerity of someone ignorant of the mysteries of psychology, that your theory, however correct, might require some modifications? Could our mind, our consciousness of being conscious, be but a very brief, fleeting aspect of the functioning of the machine that is our brain? Why not suppose that another mechanism, which our mind cannot access, can influence our actions? A mechanism that functions periodically during our sleep, when consciousness is absent, and that could act on many pathways in our brain to steer them in directions which our mind does not control. This hypothesis, Sir, that seemed new and illuminating when it struck me one morning, is not, I must confess, as original as it first seemed after I had read again certain philosophical treatises in my library. Locke, whom you cite in your Essay on Psychology, indeed wrote that it is impossible to perceive without perceiving that you are perceiving. But I have found the following refutation by John Norris, a disciple of Malebranche, written almost a century ago. He claimed that we can have ideas of which we are not conscious, and that there are infinitely more ideas imprinted in our spirit than those we can examine and perceive. Ideas can be imprinted in us without our having a real perception of them. May I also cite Leibniz, whose brilliant successor you are? “Ordinary perception is the summation of innumer-

150

Hugues la Scève’s Letter to Charles Bonnet

able small perceptions and we cannot be conscious of all of them because they are below a quantitative threshold.” I have also found some support for my hypothesis among modern German philosophers. Has Lichtenberg not written: “We should say ‘it is thinking’ just as we say ‘it is raining.’ To say ‘cogito’ is already too much from the moment that we translate it as ‘I think.’ To assume or postulate the ‘I’ is a pragmatic exaction.” He then adds: “Dreams could perhaps be recall of states prior to the development of individual consciousness.” Finally, Sir, may I recommend that you ask someone to read to you the recent book by Platner that I have just received: “Consciousness is not essential to an idea. Following Leibniz, I call ideas accompanied by consciousness apperception. Whereas I call ideas unaccompanied by consciousness perception or obscure images.” So the life of the spirit becomes for this German philosopher “an uninterrupted and continuous series of ideas of two sorts, for apperception alternates with perception throughout life—waking and sleeping.” So “ideas accompanied by consciousness (Bewußtsein) would often be the psychological effects of ideas not accompanied by consciousness (Unbewußtsein).” May I then suggest that these latter ideas could often be created by the machinery of our dreams? If that hypothesis is correct, honored psychologist, the world of dreams that you scarcely ever visit, alas, could allow you to glimpse the deepest truths about yourself. So, the machinery of dreaming, locked in our cerebral substance and functioning periodically during sleep when our mind is absent, might provoke thoughts that do not directly reach our consciousness. Perhaps even our apperception depends on the intermittent nocturnal activity. So, if all machines are constructed for some ultimate purpose, what would be the aim of this machine secretly controlling our thoughts and acts during waking? In conclusion, may I suggest, Sir, that this machine could be the hidden motor

151

chapter 17

for certain instinctive actions that could sometimes put the survival of an animal in jeopardy, but at the same time safeguard the species? VIII.  Your advice, Sir, has indeed sharpened my capacity of observation and my wonder. During the course of my studies on sleep I have been surprised several times by the very different reactions of my four cats and my two dogs in response to cries of pain by one of their own. If one of my cats mews loudly in pain, the other cats, who normally live separate lives, immediately run to it to comfort it or lick it, and if one of my enormous dogs happens to be nearby, it is immediately attacked until it flees. In contrast the response of my dogs is totally different. My St. Bernard and my German mastiff are the greatest of friends and sleep together and lick one another’s wounds. One day, the mastiff had his front paw crushed by a cart in the courtyard of the château. He collapsed screaming with pain. Immediately, the St. Bernard seized him by the throat so ferociously that I had to fire a musket in the air to separate them. I suppose that the instinct of cats (who do not live in groups, except for lions) leads them to assist one of their species, even at the risk of a possible lethal fight against a stronger enemy. Such a response, to aid the species, seems singularly selfless to me, for flight would appear to be the most fitting response for the survival of the individual cat. In contrast, in dogs I have to accept that a cry of pain from one of their own must stimulate the animal spirits controlling their instincts. Perhaps the survival of the group is more important than that of the individual for, according to de Buffon, dogs are descended from wolves that live in societies. So could it be possible that the elimination of a wounded individual could contribute to the protection of the pack of dogs, which cannot afford to slow down in the hunt or be weakened? One must suppose, Sir, that the circuits of animal spirits controlling cats’ and dogs’ instincts must be singularly powerful to be able to release, immediately after a cry from one of their own species, behavior that normally never arises during waking. So,

152

Hugues la Scève’s Letter to Charles Bonnet

could this be, Sir, the, or one of the, ultimate causes of dreaming? To mobilize intermittently during sleep the circuits of the instincts? The furrows, the thalweg, dug in the cortical substance and in our sensations by dreams during sleep, might then preserve from oblivion instincts of the species that are almost never solicited during waking in domestic animals. Excuse me, Sir, for having retained your attention for so long in connection with my hypotheses on natural history, if not on the nature of dreams. I sincerely trust, worthy and illustrious neighbor from across the Jura, that you will find time to communicate to me the criticisms that you will certainly have on my manuscript. Finally, dear Sir and Academician, I beg you to accept my greatest esteem, and the loyalty with which I have the honor to be, Sir, Your very humble and obedient servant, Hugues la Scève

153

18

Reply from Charles Bonnet

Genthod, March 3, 1776 My secretary has read your manuscript to me, and sometimes reread certain pages several times, dear naturalist of the Dombes. Alas, the state of my eyesight no longer allows me the pleasure of reading. I congratulate you on having followed my advice. Your observations have both widened and confirmed a domain already explored by our eminent predecessors. Your manuscript contains some interesting descriptions and certain hypotheses that certainly seem new to me. However, permit me, Sir, to confess quite frankly that your interesting observations are not new, and that your original hypotheses are not pertinent. I shall not dwell very long on the classification of your dream recall, for your collection, your “dream bank,” remains the work of a single collector, and I doubt if it can form the basis of a new science. Moreover, are these dreams or hallucinations? Permit me, Sir, to summarize an observation I

155

chapter 18

published in my Analytical Essay on the Faculties of the Soul. My maternal grandfather, Charles Lullin, underwent an operation for cataract in both eyes at a very advanced age. His vision returned, but soon became clouded again. At that time, while fully awake and independent of any outside influences, this highly respectable man from time to time perceived before him figures of men, women, birds, carriages, and buildings. He saw these figures approach and recede, appear and disappear. On other occasions he saw the wall hangings covered with pictures of different scenes. As the apparitions of men and women did not speak and his ears perceived no sound at all, all this seems to have been situated in that part of the brain that responds to the organ of vision. So, Sir, where was the “oneiric machine” during these visions that occurred while he was fully awake? Do you believe that the removal of his lenses was sufficient to wind up this machine during wakefulness, as one winds up a clock? And if there is no oneiric machine, I can imagine without difficulty certain physical causes that could have quite seriously disturbed those bundles of sensory nerves that send signals to the soul to allow it to distinguish true from false. But let us abandon these hopeless disputes in order to tackle the chapter on your observations of twitches during sleep. Your descriptions are precise and confirm those of Aristotle, Pliny, and Scipion Du Pleix. I agree with you, Sir, that the two last merely copied the first. However, allow me to confront you with the following problems: You claim to be the first to have noted the periodic nature of dreams, but hunters have known for a long time that dogs do not bark continuously during sleep. If barking denotes dreams, then they are episodic! I am rather perturbed to note the precipitation with which you judge the state that follows coitus in rabbits, based on statements by a peasant in the Dombes. What is your proof, Sir, that this phenomenon is the same as dreaming in rabbits, especially since you have not seen it in either a cat

156

Reply from Charles Bonnet

or (if I can believe some of your highly impertinent allusions) in certain women? Finally, and most important, you commit a gross error (dare I dictate to my secretary the word fault?) in methodology in studying the dreams of this Swiss German, for you did not wake him outside periods associated, strangely I admit, with eye movements and the swelling of the genital organ. How, then, can you be sure that dreaming was not continuous during his sleep? So you commit an error in equating this periodic phenomenon seen in cats, dogs, and this Bernese soldier to dreaming, for you present me no proof that it is not continuous. Further, Sir, if the swelling of the sexual organ accompanied nonlascivious dreams on two occasions, how can you eliminate the hypothesis that this cavalryman’s dreams were always erotic, only to become banal when you woke him? These observations, Sir, do not merit that I suggest any explanation, as you asked me. You must admit, Sir, that at the end of this chapter, although one cannot totally refute your hypothesis, it is far from being proved in the rigorous manner in which I proved the ovist theory with my observations on virgin greenflies. You invoke, Sir, my theory of development to deduce a continuum between the episodes (I dare not dictate periods) of eye movements in your cats and dogs that do not involve any movement of the sex organ, and the phenomenon that swells the penis of a Bernese cavalryman! Furthermore, Sir, you witnessed a relaxation of the neck muscles during what you believed to be a dream in a rabbit and also in an obese individual who was sleeping while seated. What about sleepwalkers, Sir? They dream while walking with their head held high. Must I remind you of Bacon’s principles? To compare only what is comparable in all the totality of its parts. Further, when I have your observations on the newborn baby at the Charité read to me again, how can I avoid concluding that the irregularities in its breathing were responsible, ipso facto, for

157

chapter 18

its smile and the swelling of its penis? A phenomenon that Nature in her providence might have invented as an obstacle to urinary incontinence in babies! Now permit me to criticize your philosophical chapter concerning consciousness and what you qualify as a state of lack of consciousness. Before philosophizing, Monsieur Naturalist, or reading obscure German philosophers, you probably ought not to have hidden from me your atheism, of which you seem to have become the champion. Must I, alas, count you among the followers of de la Mettrie, that man-machine who tried to dishonor my friend von Haller before being smothered by his own machinelike gluttony? It is probably to avoid attacking me openly that you attribute that diatribe against Marat to Diderot. In his admittedly very mediocre book, Marat adopts certain of my hypotheses. I must confess, Sir, that I find these disguised criticisms rather unpleasant. Indeed, it seems to me that you have not at all understood the essentials of my work. I was the first to show the presence of a soul in the hydra, and even in plants, and I wrote that if the soul could preexist in the germ, it was also able to dream in the germ, but the extreme weakness of movement did not allow it to retain the memory of that primitive state. It is certainly also true of the hydra and egg-laying animals. Their still imperfect nervous system does not allow the soul to express itself in those movements that you observed in mammals, claiming them to be dreams, which I do not believe. What is more, Sir, I regret seeing you confused and lost in the labyrinth of instincts. If, as you affirm, the ultimate cause of dreams is to preserve and direct instincts of defense in cats or attack in dogs, then, Sir, you finally provide me with ammunition to demolish your deranged hypotheses. And insects, Monsieur Naturalist! You cannot teach the insectologist that I am that they have no instincts, since I suppose that you deny the existence of dreams in insects. Thus, a contrario, your last hypothesis entirely ruins the edifice that you have built

158

Reply from Charles Bonnet

around an “episodic material oneiric machine unique to mammals.” You claim it to be the hidden motor of instinct because there seems to exist an inverse relationship between the force of instinct in insects and the supposed absence of dreaming in this world that I know so well. If I propose that the hydra has a soul, I also admit that it exists in insects. It is the perpetually waking soul that is the source of their instincts. Finally, Monsieur Naturalist, why have you bothered to unearth such aberrations in the works of some German philosophers such as Lichtenberg and Platner (whose book I have not yet received)? That there exists a state of consciousness and a mindless state that can control the former. So why not imagine, Sir, an “unconscious,” although such a word does not appear in the vocabulary of the French language? “It is thinking, it is dreaming”: what barbarisms! The soul, Sir, is not an “It.” It is the “I.” Indivisible, unperishable, and immortal. I know, Sir, that these criticisms will not offend you. They do not affect the esteem that I have for you as a person. May I admit, Sir, that if I refute what your “It” whispers to you during the dreams that fill your nights, I beg your person, your “I,” to accept my most distinguished sentiments. I am, Sir, your obedient and devoted servant, Charles Bonnet

159

19

The Weight of Dreams

April 1776–October 1776

If my research on the nature of dreaming has taught me anything, it is to mistrust physicists! Their science is so advanced, and the results of their calculations so precise, that they manifest a pride that sometimes comes close to vanity. These scientists are capable of calculating the orbit of Venus and the date of its passage by the sun, and have nothing but contempt for naturalists. I have, however, heard that Monsieur de Réaumur had no such pretensions. It is true that he was one of the last honest men of this century and very knowledgeable both in physics and insectology. Regrettably, I never met him before his death. In our Naturalists’ Circle I made the acquaintance of Monsieur Leduc, a physicist and astronomer, and a member of the Academy of Lyon. He was obsessed with all that concerned dreaming, and each month asked me questions about the meaning of his dreams.

161

chapter 19

He often dreamed of irrational numbers or very complex spatial curves. I did not know how to classify such mathematical images, except as visions of fantasy. On such occasions he remarked, with some surprise, on my total absence of mathematical knowledge. “Dear colleague,” he said, “how can you classify thousands of memories of dreams without using any mathematical tools, except basic calculation?” I replied that I had no use for logarithms, even Napierian ones, as long as I could classify my dreams in a logical order. The quality of a dream could not be calculated. Leduc invited me to his home recently. He lived in the rue SaintJean in a very fine apartment with a magnificent view of the River Saône. His wife, from Alsace, assisted by a hoard of servants, spent a large part of her time dusting and cleaning the numerous physical instruments that he owned: alidades, sextants, theodolites, astronomical telescopes, astrolabes, armillary spheres, and thermometers and barometers of all sorts, whose brass gleamed like gold. Leduc had a passion for measuring everything with precision. He showed me graphs of pressure, temperature and rainfall from 1765 to 1776, as well as the level of the Saône measured for twelve years at the Pont du Change, and the number of pigeons that he could count in the archbishop’s garden from the window of his room between eight and nine o’clock. He had also calculated the frequency of passage of the gigs and carts on the riverbank from north to south and from south to north. I was in no way surprised to note an increase in North to South traffic in the morning and south to north in the evening. “Note the Sundays,” he told me, pointing out the weekly quiet periods.

162

The Weight of Dreams

I asked him if he had noticed any relationship between the different graphs. “Of course, dear colleague. There are laws for that. Everything in this world can be measured. Look at the rainy days: there are far fewer pigeons and gigs!” “I suppose that the barometer falls at the same time that the Saône rises?” He looked at me, without seeing the malice in my question. “Look at the graphs again. Even if I am not a naturalist, I keep a diary of my sleep and other intimate events in my life that I have recorded secretly.” He showed me several calendars on which he had marked in black his hours of sleep. Some cabalistic signs were scattered throughout, three to five times a month. I concluded that this physicist must not very often pursue his devotions to Venus! But I was surprised to note a certain periodicity in his sleeping pattern, lasting some three weeks. A week of long periods of sleep, from nine at night to eight in the morning, alternating gradually with a week of little sleep, from two to six hours a day. Leduc explained that during these periods of little sleep he worked more easily and quickly, whereas his mind remained sluggish during periods of long sleep. He had noticed, like me, this periodicity of some twenty-one days, but he had not yet discovered the cause. I tended to attribute it to some cause related to the humors of his organism. He replied that it must be more related to movements of the heavenly bodies. “But whatever the cause,” he said, “it is important to obtain more measurable information concerning sleep, and especially dreaming.”

163

chapter 19

I had recently spoken to him at the academy about my observation of the swelling of Monthieu’s brain during his dreams. He seemed so interested at the time that I guessed he had invited me to talk about it again. However, Leduc did not wish to broach the subject in front of his wife. Since the academy was only a few minutes from his home, we went there along the bank of the Saône. We sat down to await the beginning of the session. “Dear colleague,” said Leduc, “to resolve a question, all you need do is to ask it properly. You told me how you noted an increase in blood flow in the brain during dreams. This blood flow caused swelling of the brain through a hole in the skull. If we know the volume of the brain, it should be possible to calculate the volume of fluid in it. That is to say,” he said, seeing my circumspect look, “the difference between the weight of the living brain, or one taken just after death, and the weight of the dry or evaporated brain. That should give us the weight of blood and cerebral fluid. Of course, we could extrapolate from the brains of rabbits. If we assume that the brain protruded—” “Herniated,” I interrupted. “Alright, herniated, by one inch through this orifice three inches wide, it would mean that, in a closed cavity, there had been an increase in blood flow and consequently brain weight. I therefore wager that the increased blood flow must cause an increase in the weight of the head during dreaming. Now as the head forms an extremity of the body, if you follow me, dear colleague,” he said, noticing that I was smiling, “as the head forms an extremity, it must be possible, or even easy, to detect this increase in weight by placing a sleeper on a scale such that his center of gravity is at the fulcrum between the head and the feet. You would thus have con-

164

The Weight of Dreams

structed a dream-scale that, all things being equal, would allow you to know the intensity of a dream.” I replied that, indeed, scientists had already had the idea of weighing variations in the metabolism of the organism. Sanctorius, an Italian naturalist who lived more than a hundred years earlier, had spent several years of his life on a scale of his own invention! Each day he weighed what he ingested and what he excreted, and had been able to calculate the perspiration of his body. “However,” I added, “the blood flow of the brain is not the only part of the circulation to increase during dreaming.” I explained that erection must also be accompanied by a considerable increase in arterial blood, and even more so venous blood. That might compensate for the increase in weight of the brain on a scale. I did not have much experience in discussions with physicists. “Dear colleague and friend,” he replied with a little condescending smile, “if we suppose that the center of gravity of the body is slightly above the buttocks, as we shall determine—that is to say, a little higher than the organ of reproduction—any increase in the weight of that organ would have to be at least five times greater than that of the head to be significant, which is absurd. So, I consider that its influence would be negligible in our measurements, for its variation must be at least ten times less than the variation in the weight of the head. In any case, it would be easy for us to estimate this factor by exciting the reproductive organ during waking and balancing out the weights that we shall place on the dream-scale.” This was the first time he had mentioned the word “we” when speaking of this project. Where was he leading me? I responded that this was not an easy task. My experiments on dreaming had already left a rather bitter taste for some well-thinking

165

chapter 19

folk, without my adding a taste of voluptuousness that could earn me, at least, the disapproval of certain of my colleagues or, at most, a formal letter from the authorities. “What about women?” he asked. “Women, Sir, are not suitable subjects for this sort of experiment. They always end by gossiping and inventing all sorts of intimate details that would equally cause me to lose the little scientific credibility that I still have, and that I intend to preserve!” But my physicist was intent on building his dream-scale, and his imagination was running riot much faster than mine was inventing obstacles to the project. “And eunuchs? Have you thought of that? Sublata causa, tollitur effectus.17 No reproductive organ, so no counterbalance to their dreams?” “There are several sorts of eunuch, gentlemen, if I may be so bold!” The interruption came from our colleague, Théophile de Bordeu, physician at the University of Montpellier and regent of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris. He had become famous through his inaugural dissertation on Research on Glands, and he had been invited by our academy to give a lecture on his Research on the Pulse. “I once studied this question in detail, and I beg your pardon if I seem impertinent or indiscrete in overhearing your conversation. Eunuchs are castrated men, from whom all the external genital organs have been removed. Such an amputation is dangerous and painful. The Turks practice it on the blacks of Ethiopia whom they use as guardians of their harems. Otherwise, castration means that only the testicles have been removed at the age of six or seven. 17.  The effect ceases when the cause is removed.

166

The Weight of Dreams

What is left grows but little and remains as it was in infancy. Nevertheless, what is left remains excitable and all the external signs persist, sometimes more frequently than in other men.” “Negligible, quite negligible,” interrupted Leduc. “Let us say one hundredth of the increase in weight of their brain, if we adjust our scale correctly. But why do Italians create castrati?” “Because there is a relationship between the voice and the reproductive organs, a relationship that I have examined in my studies, that are, gentlemen, quite modest compared with yours.” “How, Sir, do you explain it?” I asked him. “Doubtless, Sir, you know the work of the illustrious Monsieur Ferrein on the mechanism of the voice? This famous anatomist attributes it to vibration of the edges of the glottis, which are like cords. The pitch of the voice, high or low, is supposedly proportional to the thickness of these cords, just as string instruments produce high or low notes depending on the size of their cords. “That is a fine description, Sir,” said Leduc. “But what about castrati?” “I suppose, gentlemen, that the seminal fluid that is manufactured in the testicles at puberty is not only utilized for fertilization outside the individual who furnishes it, but it can also be stored in internal reservoirs via absorbing vessels. Carried in the mass of the humors, it unites with the nutritious lymph to which it gives what I have called the essence of the humors. This fluid thus reinforces the strength of all parts of the metabolism. So men are stronger than women. This strength is also felt on the edges of the glottis, and they become thicker. The voice of castrati does not break at puberty. It remains high pitched, like a child’s. They remain weak like women, and have a more delicate temperament, and no beard.

167

chapter 19

This phenomenon led to the proverb vir pilosus aut fortis aut luxuriosus.18 Castrati are much appreciated in church choirs because of their female voice, for women are forbidden to sing in churches. I have heard, however, that any advantages conveyed by their voice are compensated by many disadvantages. These men, who sing so beautifully, are not warm-hearted or passionate. In theaters they are the dullest actors in the world and become disgustingly obese. Their pronunciation is very poor, and there are even some letters, like z, that they cannot pronounce at all. I heard that Pope Clement XIV had forbidden this despicable practice, but there are still many castrati working in troupes of traveling actors. It should not be very difficult to invite one to participate in your scientific work.” Our discussion was interrupted by the president announcing the beginning of the session and the lecture by Bordeu. I was pleased to have made the acquaintance of such a well-known scientist as Bordeu. When I went to Paris in 1770, Diderot had let me read, under oath of secrecy, his manuscript of The Dream of d’Alembert. He told me that he had chosen his great friend Bordeu to interview Mademoiselle de Lespinasse and d’Alembert. Thus he had avenged his friend by putting him in the place of his mortal enemy, Bouvart, d’Alembert’s physician. Unfortunately, the consequences of our discussion were destined to lead me unwittingly into a ridiculous adventure due to the calculating obsession of my erudite colleague, Leduc. He could not restrain himself and even managed to waylay me at the end of the session before I could greet Bordeu again and congratulate him. “Dear friend,” Leduc said to me very excitedly, “we are going to invent a new science. Weighing dreams. Let me draw you the plans 18. A hairy man is either strong or lustful.

168

The Weight of Dreams

of a very accurate scale and send you the estimate. We shall have it built at the Physics Workshop of the Observatory. You shall advise me on how to recognize the onset of dreams, and we shall keep a record book that we shall be able to publish.” I pointed out to him that we should first have to find some money to build this scale and that I did not have such a sum available. Leduc shrugged his shoulders. “Trust me, dear colleague. If this scale can weigh dreams, it will be an inexhaustible source of money. Who shall resist weighing his dreams and becoming a champion of dreaming?” I left him. I was worried, then listless, and then I forgot about my mathematician in order to return home to the Dombes. I knew only too well the difficulty of pursuing such experiments to imagine that Leduc might continue this project. Two months later, in June 1776, I received the detailed plan of the dream-scale from my colleague, together with an estimate. The price seemed astronomical. I did not reply to his letter. Imagine my surprise when in October 1776 I received the following paper from an anonymous correspondent. On it, printed in large characters, I read: Health through Dreams—Have Your Dreams Weighed by Professor Leduc Renowned Member of the Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Lyon Member and Correspondent of Many Foreign Academies.

Recent discoveries, still unpublished, by Academicians in Lyon show that dreams occur four or five times during sleep each night. Dreaming is accompanied by an increase in blood flow in the brain. Thanks to an amazing invention, Professor Leduc has constructed the first scale for weighing dreams during sleeping. Scientific observations have since proved that an increase in

169

chapter 19

weight of the brain during dreaming indicates good health, whereas no such increase signifies poor health, provoked by bad humors. Come and sleep for a night on the dream-scale of Professor Leduc at 5 rue Saint-Jean in Lyon. Thus you can discover the weight of your dreams and learn, if necessary, to recover your good health by practicing how to increase your brain’s blood flow in your dreams. The cost of this examination is only ten pounds for men and eight pounds for women. Should I follow up this pleasantry, or rather fraud? I had not patented the discovery of an increase in cerebral blood flow during dreaming, but Leduc must have already legally protected the idea of his scale. He was ridiculing me without mentioning my name. How could Leduc recognize the onset of dreams? I was sure that this dream-scale only weighed artifacts invented by Leduc. It must be easy to make variations appear during sleep simply by manipulating the adjustment of the center of gravity. Nevertheless, this affair taught me a lesson. I had to publish all my observations rapidly. I certainly trusted Charles Bonnet. He was an honest man, even if I had not forgiven his letter, and he had nothing to gain by disclosing my discoveries or plagiarizing them, for they actually cast some doubts on his own theories, although he denied it. However, if Leduc’s invention became known outside the city of Lyon, it would be easy for other naturalists to repeat a few experiments and publish them. I should be deprived of my priority, because of my isolation in the Dombes and my own natural reluctance to want to defend myself energetically. What is more, my fruitless research into the mechanisms of dreaming had forced me to delay, over and over again, the publication of what I hoped

170

The Weight of Dreams

would be a definitive manuscript entitled The Nature of Dreaming Revealed at Last. So I decided to gather together my documents with Béatrix’s help to write a long article that I would send to the Academy of Science of Berlin. My former relationship with Frederick II of Prussia would facilitate my submitting the manuscript there.

171

20

Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice

December 21, 1776

December by the fireside! Spring had been warm and sunny, and so we were expecting a cold winter. It was in fact colder than usual. Especially in my château that was impossible to heat. My wife, who hates the freezing fog that envelops the pool, had fled to her mother’s at Ainay in Lyon. There were only two really warm rooms: the kitchen, where a large peat fire burned day and night, and my study, in which there was a fireplace large enough to take big oak or acacia logs. The light of the flames lit up my library at dusk. This evening I was trying to summarize my observations on the natural history of dreams for the article I intended to send to the Berlin Academy. As usual, Béatrix stayed with me, squatting on the carpet in front of the fireplace. I had noticed that she had looked rather sad since the beginning of the evening, ensconced in reading von Haller’s physiology books. She remained motionless

173

chapter 20

for a while, then crawled over to me. I pretended not to notice her antics. She crept behind my chair, then pinched the Achilles’ tendon of my right ankle very hard. I jumped. “Béatrix, you’re hurting me. What is wrong?” “Dearest, I am just trying the experiments of Albrecht von Haller. You do not behave like the dogs and cats that he experimented on. You ought not to feel anything. The Achilles’ tendon has no sensation. I have just read the first volume of his experiments. Monsieur von Haller showed that tendons, like the dura, the periosteum and the pleura, have no sensation. Do you want me to read a few lines about the work of the German, Italian, English, and even French physiologists? You will soon see that your work on dreams is nothing compared to theirs. Let’s go to Bern in the spring and visit this master of physiology. You hardly ever take me anywhere with you. I am your student, after all, even if you do not trust my observations on birds! You will see how Monsieur von Haller is kind to his students. Do you want me to read what he writes on dreams?” She took the biggest volume, in which she had marked a page with paper: Imagination occurs whenever the same thoughts are aroused in the mind, due to a specific event somewhere in the brain, as would be produced if a sensory nerve underwent the same activity that created this specific event. This definition is confirmed by the example of fantasies, delirium, and dreams. During these, the mind receives thoughts related to specific events stored in the brain, which are the same as those produced in the first place by stimulation of the same sensory nerve by external objects. What is more, attention, rest, and the absence of other objects make one obtain a stronger impression in the mind from these specific events imprinted in the brain, than the effect on the mind of perception of external objects. For the will

174

Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice

is much more determined in dreaming than in waking, and certain muscles make efforts in dreams of which they would be incapable in waking.

“What do you think about that, Monsieur Naturalist?” asked Béatrix. “My dear student, I think two things. The first part of his text is merely the translation, in poor philosophical language, of the wellknown adage that goes back to Lucretius via Locke: nihil est iniuntellectu somniorum quod non fuerit prior in sensu. Also, because he speaks of specific events existing in the mind, I would add, like Leibniz: nisi ipse intellectus. On the other hand, I do not share von Haller’s opinion on the will. You know as well as I do that muscles do not make any effort during dreaming, and that they are more at rest than during the most complete rest.” “Why not write to Monsieur von Haller,” suggested Béatrix. “I want to go to Bern to see this gentleman and work with him. Listen to what else he writes on sleep: ‘Sleep is a natural consequence of waking and working. Indeed, during waking the blood changes its soft, soothing character to one of alkaline decay . . . That is why the body weakens and tires, but also too lengthy waking causes overheating, bitterness of the humors, and finally collapse.’ What do you think about that?” “My dear Béatrix, I entirely approve of what von Haller writes. He is recording a fact. Obviously, something changes in our humors during prolonged waking. Alkaline decay? Why not? There are so many doors that open onto sleep that they must all open onto some common hidden vestibule that alone contains the secret of sleep. Béatrix, why do you not fall asleep in November after a meal served with a Beaujolais Nouveau, but do fall asleep in summer after a mature Beaujolais? Why do you fall asleep reading a boring book

175

chapter 20

or listening to me pontificating endlessly on the causes of dreaming? Don’t shake your head; I have seen you! Why do you fall asleep if you have stayed up watching a rabbit for too long? Why do you even fall asleep in the morning in the coach? Why do you fall asleep in the afternoon sun when you are lying naked in the meadow in the summer? Why do you fall asleep after dinner at certain times of the month? Why do you fall asleep if you drink champagne? But why do you not fall asleep after making love? The causes of sleep are so numerous that they are beyond our imagination. Yet, like Aristotle, I believe that, even if there are many incidental causes, there is only one fundamental cause for sleep, and it must be so hidden in the depths of the humors of our brain, and perhaps our blood, that we cannot yet comprehend it. Nevertheless, everyone invents an explanation for their sleep. Man’s mind cannot understand the complex causes of sleep, but his desire to find those causes is inborn and an integral part of the human mind. So, without considering all the many complex conditions that seem to be a cause, man accepts the first apparently logical cause, and proclaims: that is the cause of sleep.” “My dear naturalist, I was falling asleep, but now I am wide awake,” replied Béatrix. “That is because it is getting cold. So go and put a large log on the fire, my dear pupil. You see, Béatrix,” I added, “the outer doors to sleep had opened onto the antechamber of your sleep, letting in all conceivable causes for sleeping. But was it the cold, or your senses, that kept the last door closed, the one from the antechamber? So, now you are no longer tired, but why?” “Because certain forces that kept the last door from this antechamber closed have chased away these hypnotic humors, into a pit,” she replied.

176

Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice

“It is not so simple. Try to remain awake for a very long time, even with stimulating drinks like coffee or tea. How long do you think you can keep the last door closed?” “Three days and two nights. I already tried. Do you remember?” she asked, referring to the beginning of our relationship when we, rather wildly, combined our observations of the rabbits’ dreams with our own pleasure. “Three days and two nights! But the outer doors of sleep onto the antechamber must have remained open to the flood of hypnotic humors, for when we could finally no longer remain awake we slept very long and deeply, like rabbits after three days in our wild animal pen. So we must suppose that hypnotic humors accumulate in the antechamber and that they do not drain into a pit. Nothing is lost. Each waking minute must be paid for by sleeping and dreaming.” I revived the fire with a big log. Béatrix sat in front of the hearth. “You have explained how we sleep, but not why.” “Why? The ultimate cause of sleep? I do not know. Our brain, or our body, is such that it cannot go without sleep. I could reply that it is like an instinct, something inborn, part of our brain mechanism. But that is not a naturalist’s reply. When we know how, perhaps we shall know why, but that is not certain.” “You see,” said Béatrix, “once again I am not tired. I shall not sleep until you teach me all the whys and wherefores of sleep.” “There is only one why!” “Then there are many little hows, which add up to an ultimate cause, which brings on sleep for this single why.” “No, the ultimate cause is why. We naturalists must leave the why to philosophers, for they study such things in books in their

177

chapter 20

library, placed just after books on physics. That is why we call their discipline metaphysics.” “To know why we sleep in like the existence of God,” Béatrix said, and stood up. “There is a cold wind under your door.” “Why are you cold?” “Because there is a cold wind.” “Why is the carpet not cold?” “Because it doesn’t know what cold is. A carpet is not on the list of organs that Monsieur von Haller describes as having sensation or being excitable.” “Béatrix, why do you feel the cold?” “Because my skin is sensitive to cold.” “Why is your skin sensitive to cold, but not to moonlight?” “Because if I were not sensitive to cold I could freeze to death!” “So why does your skin contain animal spirits that are stimulated by cold?” “Because all animals are sensitive to cold.” “Why?” “Because God meant it to be, damned naturalist! I am sleepy. Come on, let’s get back to our icebox!” Next day, when we rose, the fog had invaded our world. We could not even distinguish the pool by the château from the gray, fog-laden sky. There was no trace of the sun in the east. There was not a single birdsong, not even the sound of a carp jumping in the water. Béatrix remained silent. Once again, she had that sad look I had noticed before. “I shall continue to read Monsieur von Haller’s books. If the sun comes out before midday, will you promise to write to him and take me to Bern?” she asked.

178

Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice

“And what if the sun does not come out? There is no wind, and it is very cold.” “Then I shall go to Bern alone and work with this master of animal life. You tell me all the time that I am a student! So I must go and learn in other laboratories!” Béatrix’s bad mood intrigued me. I pretended to take her wager seriously and pointed out that it was not fair, for whether the sun came out or not she would leave me and go to Bern. It was nine-thirty and the fog was more or less just as thick and gray. So I playfully suggested a wager to Béatrix. If the sun appeared before midday, she could carry out her experiments on sleep deprivation in chickens and ducks and, maybe, persuade me that they just about show signs of dreaming. If the sun stayed completely hidden by the fog at midday, then I promised to write a letter to von Haller to ask him to accept Béatrix as an anatomy assistant. “What do you mean by the sun being completely hidden?” she replied with a strange smile. “It will be daylight, and you will be able to say that it is because of the sun!” I suddenly realized that Béatrix really wanted to leave me. It was not a game. I did not speak for a long time, tapping my swordstick on the floor. I loved Béatrix without ever admitting it to her, but I still jokingly treated her like a pupil. This little game had presumably become intolerable for her, especially since our disagreement about birds, for which she had never forgiven me. What was more, Béatrix was almost a prisoner in the château, for we rarely went out together in order not to risk another encounter like that with the falconer in Paris. I did not know if Béatrix knew about my relationship with Manuela, for until the previous year she had gone to her mother’s before my nighttime absences. But Madame

179

chapter 20

Monthieu had died eight months ago, leaving Béatrix, her only daughter, to inherit quite a large fortune, enough for her to be able to live independently. I was always postponing a decision that I had to make. Either I kept Béatrix with me for her youth and gaiety to brighten this old château this winter, or else we separated. In the summer we would have to make our relations less obvious if my wife came back to live here. Her desire to go to von Haller was understandable, but von Haller was already quite old, and ill. Béatrix would take a long time to complete her work. Finally, I resolved to let luck decide our destiny, and I suggested three wagers to Béatrix. I was almost certain to win them, for it was rare for the sun not to appear by midday. “Béatrix,” I said, “if at midday the sun is really out, you promise to stay with me and I promise to leave you free to study whatever you like in our birds.” “Really out? You mean you can see it with your eyes closed and feel its heat? I agree. And what if the sun does not come out?” “Then, Béatrix, we shall play dice to decide the fate of all four of us.” “Four? There are only two of us!” “No, there is what dreams you, and what dreams me, call it our id. And there is what you want and what I want, our ego. So I suggest the following bets. Let’s wait until midday. If there is no sun, you win a point, then we play dice. First of all, let’s play our id. If you win, you get another point and then we play our ego. If you win two or three points, you can go to Bern.” The clock struck ten. The fog was even thicker and there was no sign of wind. Béatrix opened the window that looked out over the pool. She breathed the damp air for a long moment. She was

180

Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice

born in the Dombes, and she guessed the weather with an instinct born of her ancestors from the Dombes. She could recognize the arrival of the sun from the little cries of the birds and from the first ripples in the water caused by the breeze. But this silence from the pool, with no jumping carp, together with other imperceptible signs, told her that the fog would still be there at midday. Béatrix closed the window again. “Dear professor, let’s write the rules on a piece of paper. It will be our pact. No sun means one point for me. If I win the wager of our id, another point for going to Bern. Even if you win the ego game, that will mean two to one, and I shall go. Agreed?” “Agreed,” I replied. We wrote down the stakes of our wager, and signed the bottom of our pact with the print of our right index finger made with damp ash. Béatrix looked at the clock and placed a chronometer on the table. It was as if she feared that I would stop the clock. “Béatrix, I can guess what your id is saying secretly to you,” I said to her. “So can I,” she replied. “Between my id and my ego, I should really like to know what it is to be free!” She pretended to start reading one of von Haller’s big books again. I realized that our choices were really between two options. Béatrix’s choice, her freedom, could be guided by her dreams, or by what was dreaming her, probably under the influence of the seeds of all her ancestors. Or else her freedom would come of a carefully considered decision. Was that possible? Was it not better to let chance choose for her between a path that I decided to call oneirotropic and another that was egotropic. Was Béatrix’s destiny ruled

181

chapter 20

by what Platner called Unbewußtsein, and what Charles Bonnet had translated as the unconscious. For my part, I knew through the memories of my own dreams, through certain gestures that I made without thinking, that both my id and my ego wished to keep Béatrix, and that was why I was trying to give myself the best chance of winning at dice. I had to admit that my ego had become too proud for me to beg her to stay with me. I had too often taught her that we were free, especially if we knew the cause of our actions, to constrain her. I really thought that our choice, dependent on the sun (a cosmic force) and the fog (a different, aquatic force, strange, impalpable, fleeting), would favor me. The clock struck eleven. The room seemed darker and darker. Béatrix showed me von Haller’s book. “You know,” she said, “von Haller uses an electric spark to stimulate tendons! Look at the letters he received from Fontana, Caldani, Cijura, and Verma. Haller receives letters from naturalists all over Europe, and you stay isolated in your château, looking for the ultimate cause of dreaming, without even taking notice of my observations!” It was about eleven-thirty. The fog had thickened even more. We let the fire burn out. I knew that Béatrix was going to win our first bet, and I began to arrange some books on my shelves. My confusion made me so clumsy that I knocked down a whole row. Béatrix, perhaps out of sympathy, helped me put the books back in place. “You know,” she said, “Bern is not so far away, and if I am not happy with the tendon cutters, I shall come back to you.” “If you go to von Haller, people will soon hear about it and it will set tongues wagging in Switzerland. Von Haller will write to

182

Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice

Charles Bonnet, who will advise him to keep you. That old blind ovist! He would be so happy to see me alone!” “You have never forgiven him for his letter! But what if you had written to him about birds dreaming?” “And grass snakes, and why not frogs and carp?” I was surprised to find myself shouting. “Listen, Béatrix, even if my id and my ego like you a lot, they prefer the truth. Do you think I would distort it to keep you?” I was red in the face with anger. Then the twelve strokes of midday rang out. Béatrix got up and opened the south window abruptly. The cold fog spilled into my study. “Look carefully, master. Can you see any sign of the sun to calm your temper?” “You have won the first round. I play fair. So now we must play dice.” Béatrix collected two dice from the table on which we sometimes played in the evening. “Who starts?” she asked. “We must play to decide.” “So who goes first?” Béatrix threw a three and a six, and I a three and a two. “Your throw, Béatrix.” This game, to decide our fates, was beginning to fascinate me, and I had calmed down. Béatrix shook the dice in her hands for some time. “It is my id that will decide.” A three and a six again. In turn, I let the dice roll from my hand. “Two and two. You win Béatrix. I lose.” “No, we must play to the end! We must play for our ego. You go first.” “If I throw a double six we start again!”

183

chapter 20

Béatrix shrugged her shoulders. “We are not changing the rules. It’s like with the birds!” I scored nine (four and five). Béatrix threw her dice. Six and three again. “Do you want to play again?” Next she scored seven (four and three), and finally I threw the dice for the last time, looking at her with a pitiful smile. Two and one. “I accept your victory,” I said to Béatrix. I know you want to go away, you and what dreams you. I shall write to von Haller that you will be going at the beginning of January.” Béatrix left me to return home. She soon came back upstairs shouting, “The sun is coming out!” before disappearing again. So in the dazzling brilliance of a magnificent December sun in the middle of a blue sky with no trace of any last wisps of fog, I wrote a long letter of recommendation to von Haller. I was astonished at the calm and relief that I felt, for fate had decided for me. Was this a sign of cowardice? I did not feel responsible for what was happening. So I tried to understand what could liberate my brain. The first condition, I thought, is that man should understand the nobility of his destiny, and what a burden it comprised. Béatrix returned at nightfall. Her newly found freedom had brought back her smile. She persuaded me to fetch some champagne to drink to her new life. She even wanted me to begin teaching her some German. Later, I watched Béatrix sleeping beside me. I thought that our game of dice had resolved a struggle that we had been obliged to endure. To learn about each other through a game of dice? I would have needed to know Béatrix’s dreams, which she hid from me, to know at what moment the underground river of her dreams had persuaded her to leave me or, rather, to enjoy for the first time a

184

Albrecht von Haller and the Game of Dice

degree of freedom. So could I have interfered with her dreams? Could I have suppressed them to have more influence over her? Would there exist one day a drug that would suppress dreams? Then there would probably no longer be any id, just the imprint of society on the tabula rasa of the brain. But whoever decided to interfere with the gray matter of others would preserve his own Unbewußtsein. And what if this unconscious contained evil instincts?

185

21

The Werewolf and the Dolphins

November 6, 1778

That November night in the Café du Jura in the rue Tupin where I went each week since Béatrix left, the discussion on the nature of dreams was bogged down with problems of the relationship between the soul and the brain. I seemed incapable of explaining to my friends in the Naturalists’ Circle that an experimental approach was now open for me, for I had the possibility of trying numerous drugs on rabbits. If laudanum, although increasing sleep, suppressed dreaming, as I had just discovered, then dreams did not belong to sleep. My ideas provoked no response, for the attention of my colleagues was attracted by the arrival of some members of the Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts. My friend F—— introduced me to Monsieur B——, a famous botanist. He must have been about forty. He was small, bald, and elegantly dressed in a brown frock coat on which I noticed the Cross of St. Louis. Our

187

chapter 21

conversation rapidly led us to discuss the relative virtues of coffee and tea. Monsieur B—— informed me that he believed the fortifying qualities of the two plants to be different. He feared the tannin in black tea, and demonstrated that a drop of lemon could lighten the color of a cup of tea. He believed that the acidity of the lemon combined with the coloring matter of the tea and dissolved it. Some members of the Academy of Sciences of Paris (he did not say which ones) had objected that rather than dissolving, it must be precipitating the color. He added that he had performed numerous filtration experiments and that he had never found any trace of even the finest precipitate. Then B—— took leave of me very courteously to go speak to a young pupil of Monsieur de Jussieu who wished to present a new species of fern to him. I lost sight of him in the smoke of the pipes, cigars, and candles that thickened the atmosphere. He soon came back, sat at my table, and asked me, very politely, if the seat, which he had just left, was free. I asked him if the English custom of putting milk in one’s tea might be explained in the same way. Was it possible that milk could equally absorb certain coloring matter in tea? He looked at me with a smile, but said nothing. I was surprised to see that he was no longer wearing the Cross of St. Louis on his frock coat. He shook his head. “You must be asking me a question that is intended for my brother, so I cannot answer you.” Seeing my astonishment, he added, “My name is Julien B——, the twin of Auguste B——. He is a botanist. I am also, but I live in Paris where I work in the Royal Botanical Garden. I am visiting my twin brother. No-one has ever been able to tell us apart since we were born, except our mother.”

188

The Werewolf and the Dolphins

Indeed, Julien B——, from Paris, resembled his brother so perfectly that when I saw them together a few minutes later, nothing distinguished them except the Parisian’s not having the Cross of St. Louis. They must have dressed the same for their own amusement. I had given a great deal of thought to the subject of identical twins, issued from the same germ. The B—— brothers had been raised together in their family and studied in the same Jesuit school. They had only separated at twenty-five years of age. So the similarities of their temperament could have been due to their being brought up and educated in the same milieu. It is sometimes similar in non–twin brothers, as in the illustrious musical or mathematical families of Bach or Bernouilli. I had known the B—— brothers for too short a time to dare to ask them about certain traits of their personality, their sleep, or their dreams. However, as it was getting late and many of our colleagues had already left, the B—— brothers informed me that their mother lived close to the rue Tupin, near the Place des Terreaux, and that they were on their way to her house. We left together. The fog that had enveloped Lyon that evening was so damp and cold that I was shivering. It was so dense that we could not distinguish the other side of the street. When we reached the corner of the rue Tupin, I bade farewell to the twins, for they had to turn right, whereas I had to turn left to go to Manuela’s place in the rue Mercière, where she was waiting for me. At that moment, Auguste B——, from Lyon, asked his twin brother, “Julien, do you remember that old house on the corner of the rue Tupin?” “Yes,” he replied, “there was once an old woman there, who looked like a witch, who frightened us when we were going to school.”

189

chapter 21

“I often dream about her,” continued our friend from Lyon. “So do I,” replied the Parisian. “My dreams are always the same. I dream she is closing the door . . .” “. . . she is closing the door on us and opening another at the end of the corridor to let out . . .” “. . . to let out thousands of cats . . .” “. . . thousands of black cats that attack us . . .” “That is strange,” said the Parisian. “We have never talked about that dream until today!” So, these twins could have exactly the same recollections of their dreams! I thanked them for this precious information that they had just delivered to me, for which I would never have dared to ask. We finally bade farewell again, and I watched them disappear rapidly into the fog and the darkness, each with their identical steps echoing on the pavement. I groped my way forward, keeping close to the walls, and arrived at a crossroad. Was it already the rue Mercière? I would have to turn left but could not see the corner of the street. I stretched my arm in front of me, trying to find my way. I heard the rattle of a gig going down the street behind me but could not even make out its lamp. Finally, judging from the increasingly dark shadows and the way my steps echoed, I realized that I was entering a narrower street. I decided to follow the walls on the left, feeling the hollow of each doorway with my left hand. I hoped that I would feel the knocker of Manuela’s door in the form of an angel’s head. As I groped in the frame of a doorway, I suddenly touched, at the level of my shoulder, something enormous, furry, hairy, and felt warm breath on my hand.

190

The Werewolf and the Dolphins

I was so surprised and terrified that I stepped back and reached for my dagger, which I always carry when visiting Lyon at night. It was not a dog, for it was too big. My fingers were still holding the fur, or hair, below which I could now feel a sort of open mouth, with a tongue and teeth, then cloth, like the collar of a coat. The thing began to groan. I tried to flee, but the thing held me by my coat. “Stop!” I cried. I was frightened. I considered lashing upward at the thing with my dagger, but where was I to strike in the darkness? The thing must have stretched up, for my left hand was no longer touching the forest of hair around its face, but was brushing against silky fur around what I took to be its neck. “Unless you speak I shall kill you! Who are you?” I shouted again. The thing replied in a deep voice. “I am the wolf-man. Don’t kill me, Sir. Have pity on me! I have just escaped from my cage.” “Stop this nonsense; you are a thief in disguise. Go away or I shall kill you.” “Do not kill me, Sir, I beg you. If we go to the light you will see who I am. I am hungry and cold. If they find me, they will shut me up again . . .” I stepped back a few paces and slipped quietly away. It was impossible to know if this creature would follow me in this fog. Fortunately I noticed Manuela’s three windows that she had lit up with all her candles. I quickly climbed the stairs and knocked on her door with the code that we had agreed. Manuela came to the door holding her big candlestick. She let out a horrible scream as she opened it. “There’s a werewolf behind you!”

191

chapter 21

She tried to close the door, but I stopped her by putting my foot in it and snatched her candlestick. The creature had followed me silently. It was indeed a wolf-man, as big as me, its face entirely covered with long, brown and black furlike hair, interrupted only by the deep cleft of his dark eyes and big mouth. Well-combed black hair fell around his shoulders and a huge black beard went down to a good-looking waistcoat. His fur also covered his nose and his wrists. I looked at him more attentively. He remained motionless, his head inclined forward. His eyes were not wild, but intelligent. His clothes were clean, although too light for the season. “I am a wolf-man and my name is Boris. I am Russian. They keep me in a big cage and take me around the fairs to show me with Siamese twins and other monsters! Tonight I have escaped. My father was a gentleman at the court of Queen Elizabeth. My mother was a descendant of the Ambras family in Austria a hundred years ago who had the same problem of too much hair. I am a human being, Sir, and I beg you to show me some pity for the suffering that I endure and give me some shelter.” He opened both hands wide. They were white and so well kept that they were the only proof of humanity that he could show. I was no longer frightened, and the werewolf had awakened my naturalist’s curiosity. Monstrosity, I thought, is not contrary to Nature, but contrary to what normally occurs in Nature. What could a lycanthrope’s dreams be like? I had to convince Manuela to let us enter. My entreaties, my supplications remained at first without success. “You can come in alone, without the werewolf,” she replied every time.

192

The Werewolf and the Dolphins

“Listen, Manuela, this gentleman is a Russian count in disguise. He can tell fortunes in the stars, he can read your hand and interpret your dreams. He can tell your future, how to win money in the lottery, and how to make more profit from it! He knows formulas to make women beautiful or ugly, and men more vigorous or impotent! He knew Cagliostro! Let us in, I beg you; he will turn his back to you.” “Alright! He can sit on the chair by the window, and stay just ten minutes, if you want to stay the night with me. And if you think I’ll want to after all this . . . I know what a werewolf is! I heard people talking about them today. There’s a man with monsters in a sideshow at St. Augustine’s Fair. There are also Siamese twins and dwarfs.” In the end we entered into the golden warmth of Manuela’s apartment. The wolf-man went and sat motionless on a chair facing the wall. I offered him a slice of pâté on a plate. He asked for a knife and fork, then a napkin. Manuela was sitting on her bed, looking very desirable in her white and gold dressing gown against her black skin. She remained silent. I had no desire to stay very long with this, even though he intrigued me greatly. “My story,” he told us after drinking a glass of wine, “is so sad that I shall not recount it in detail. My parents abandoned me when I was born, in Sebastopol where my father had a large property. I was adopted by some fishermen, who put me on show me to earn a few rubles. When I was an adolescent, I discovered that my monstrosity attracted certain women, especially the not-so-young ones!” “You’re not serious!” Manuela interrupted. “Even if you gave me a hundred ecus, I couldn’t!”

193

chapter 21

“If I told you all those who have! Countesses, archduchesses, and more besides . . . When I was twenty, the army did not want me. That is the only advantage that my monstrous nature has given me!” “What about the duchesses?” shouted Manuela. “The duchesses . . . I went to their rooms in the evening in secret and always left their bed before dawn. Often, at the end, they beat me like a dog or made me do unnatural acts.” “Blessed Russia!” declared Manuela. “Finally,” he continued, “one of them kept me like a favorite animal. She let me look after her garden and her dolphin pool. I had to train them. So for ten years I learned that business, and I think I can state that I became the greatest expert in the art of understanding and training dolphins.” “How can you train fish?” asked Manuela. “My dear,” I replied, “dolphins are not fish. They are mammals, like you, called cetaceans. Dolphins have a big brain, almost identical to a man’s. They must be as intelligent as we are, talking, sleeping and, I suppose, dreaming.” “They certainly are intelligent, perhaps more than us!” replied the wolf-man. “Dolphins only understand reward, not punishment. I soon learned not to hit them on their melon if they did not want to jump through a hoop over the water, for any chance of training them would have been lost forever. On the contrary, as soon as a dolphin began to show an interest in the hoop, I gave him two or three sardines and he did better and better, always for a reward. That is why dolphin trainers have such well-balanced children, gentle and intelligent. Because they raise them like dolphins. No crying or punishment, just rewards as soon as they begin to make any progress.”

194

The Werewolf and the Dolphins

“That’s not how I was brought up,” Manuela interrupted, stretching out on the bed and showing me her fine black thighs. “Clouts and shouts. No rewards. It didn’t make me stupid! Give him a glass of liqueur,” she said to me, “to reward him!” “You asked me if dolphins talk? Certainly not like men. When they lift their nose out of the water, they may cackle and tremble like a stork, almost like the sound of a rattle. I do think that they must be able to communicate among themselves in the sea for when an isolated dolphin is attacked by killer whales or narwhals, you see other dolphins come swimming from far away to try to save it. Several hundred may arrive and force the attacker to release its prey. One of the oldest dolphin trainers once told me that he had seen a wounded dolphin held on the surface of the sea by its peers. How can we learn their language? A Russian sailor, who had probably drunk too much vodka, told me one evening that some natives near Formosa had learned the dolphins’ language.” “So dolphins speak Chinese?” I asked him. “Neither Chinese nor Japanese! These people live on an archipelago between Formosa and Japan. It is a kingdom. The kingdom of Kilen, or is it Likou or Likan, I cannot remember the name.” “Why do Russians rear dolphins?” I asked. “Keeping dolphins is considered a luxury by some rich boyars in the Crimea. They rear them for their sumptuous feasts when they entertain each other, or when they receive their princes coming down from Moscow or St. Petersburg. The dolphins are well trained and can play with balls, jump through hoops, even when they are coated with burning tar. They can negotiate obstacle courses. Some male dolphins, adolescents aged seven or eight, play other games. I have seen young countesses bathing naked with them at night and

195

chapter 21

clasping them tightly. A dolphin’s penis is small when relaxed, but becomes fifteen inches long when he is excited.” Manuela began to hum a song about the Queen of Spain and a greasy pole . . . Then she beckoned me to join her on the bed. What were we to do with this lycanthrope? As soon as he went out, he would certainly be recaptured! His story was so tragic and sad that I considered it a betrayal to deliver him into the hands of this fair again. “How do dolphins sleep?” I asked him. “They never sleep! They breathe through the top of their head. If they stopped moving they would breathe in water and drown. I have observed them day and night with torches over long periods in their little pools. Their fins are always moving, and they swim constantly. They swim round and round all night. I can assure you that if sleep is the stopping of all signs of life and movement, then dolphins never sleep!” “So,” exclaimed Manuela, “if they don’t sleep, they don’t dream!” “I never thought about it,” replied the wolf-man. “What would be the point of a dolphin dreaming?” “What would be the point of dreams at all if such a mammal, as intelligent as us, can live without dreaming?” I replied. This revelation by the wolf-man about dolphins reopened the great mystery of the purpose of dreams, but I did not believe that what he said was possible. I asked him again, “What about newborn dolphins; have you seen any? How do they sleep?” “The female’s pregnancy is about eight months. She normally has just one baby at a time, rarely two. She suckles it in the water and stays with it all the time. So, as she swims around all night, I

196

The Werewolf and the Dolphins

believe that the newborn babies must follow her. I have often seen their blowhole, growing above their nose, alongside their mother’s. I do not think that they sleep either. They have to breathe, too!” “What about adult males: have you noticed an erection when they are swimming slowly at night?” “I’ve never seen that; why?” “Because if they are like us, an erection would be the best sign of their dreaming during sleep!” “You know,” the wolf-man said, “what I am telling you is probably only valid for Black Sea dolphins. There are so many other species of dolphin!” “What about seals?” asked Manuela. “There are no seals in the Crimea, but a boat brought us some from Kamchatka, after a long voyage. The seal, and especially the sea lion, can also easily be trained to play with a ball. We had two pairs for the big festival of St. Vladimir. I knew them well. They sleep a lot, even during the day, resting their heads on the ground and closing their eyes.” “Have you noticed little movements of their whiskers while they sleep?” “Me, no, but a Samoyed hunter that the Russians had brought with them on the boat to look after the seals explained to me that when he was hunting seals on the ice, he crawled downwind of them so they would not smell him. Then he would wait until the seals were asleep, completely flat on the ice and moving their whiskers. Then it was easier to creep up to them without waking them.” “That splendid Samoyed hunter has seen seals sleeping and dreaming. It is, however, strange that these two species, both living in the water, should have such different patterns of sleep.”

197

chapter 21

“But the dolphin lives permanently in the water. The seal only dives occasionally,” he replied. “But I think that both species can stay submerged about as long, without breathing,” I replied. “So it is not in relation to the metabolism of their breathing that we should search for the cause of the absence of dreaming or sleep!” “You’re boring me with your fish,” shouted Manuela. “I’m going to bed. Go back where you came from, you two! You, the dolphin who doesn’t sleep, and, you, the werewolf. You must be tired!” I had to solve the problem of how to shelter the wolf man. I asked him a last question. “Both the seal and the dolphin eat fish, but the seal lives mainly on the ice. The ice is covered with snow. Does the seal take snow or freshwater?” “I have certainly seen seals drink fresh water, but they can stay for months on the high seas, and sleep there. So they must drink saltwater.” “Of course, dolphins only take salt water with their fish. Obviously they never drink fresh water.” I do not know why I asked that question. Perhaps because of my old research on sodium and rabbits’ dreams? Perhaps because of a half-forgotten dream? . . . “The salt of the earth and dreams” . . . I must find this old dream in my notebooks. I think someone had said to me “the salt of the earth and the salt of dreams” . . . The wolf-man remained still, his head leaning forward. Manuela had fallen asleep on her side, with her legs folded, as usual. I had to find a solution. I could not send this man back to his cage. I also thought again and again about the Siamese twins. Would it be possible for me to study their sleep? I woke Manuela.

198

The Werewolf and the Dolphins

“Manuela, you have sometimes spoken to me about one of your friends who lives in the attic, and who works with the silk weavers at the Holy Name. She must soon be getting up, as it is already four o’clock. Do you think she would lend her room, or rather rent it, to this . . . this gentleman, until I find a coach? I know where I can hide him in the Dombes!” “Marguerite?” Manuela replied. “She’s alone tonight. Try if you like, but give her a lot of money, from me. But she mustn’t get into trouble because of you.” I climbed the black staircase to the garret. I was surprised to hear the song of a nightingale. Marguerite must have already risen, for the light of a candle glowed beneath her door. The song of the nightingale stopped after I knocked on the door. Marguerite came to open it. She was a tall, good-looking young woman, with bright blue-green eyes and long blond hair tied back with a ribbon. She was already dressed. I explained that I had to find shelter for a friend who had drunk too much and who could not go home in this fog. I would take him away with me during the morning, for I wanted to spend the rest of the night alone with Manuela. I offered her a few ducats from Manuela, and Marguerite seemed to believe me. She put on a big black cape over her dress. “Tell your friend that my bed is still warm. I shall not be back before about seven this evening. My days are long. Tell your friend to put everything away and not dirty anything. Good night!” She smiled at me knowingly and went down the staircase. I followed her down to collect the wolf-man. He had not moved. Manuela was watching him, half- curiously, half-frightened. “Sir,” I said to him, “I have found you shelter for tonight. I shall come to collect you around nine o’clock. We shall lend you a big

199

chapter 21

black cape to hide you while we find my coach. As soon as we are in the Dombes, you will be out of danger.” “I am most obliged to you, Sir. One day you will know how grateful I am.” He rose, still with his back turned. Manuela then said to him, “You can look at me, Sir!” He turned. His eyes were red and tearful in the middle of his wolf’s face. This trace of suffering made him human. “I wish you a good night. Sleep well,” said Manuela who must have felt, like me, great pity. “Come back quick, I’m tired!” she added. I accompanied the wolf-man to his room in the roof and asked him details of the Siamese twins. “Helen and Edith are thirty years old. They are intelligent and well educated. We were friends. They are attached at the buttocks.” We entered Marguerite’s room. “Do not open the door for any reason. I shall knock three times, then once. Good night!” I did not dare wake Manuela when I entered her room and lay down at her side. Twins with identical dreams, the fog, the lycanthrope, the Crimea, dolphins without sleep or dreams, the salt of the earth . . . Siamese twins! The association of all these events felt like the tissue of an absurd dream. Had I dreamed, or was it real? Dreams are always real while they last. Can you say more about your memories of the previous day? The warmth and the softness of Manuela’s skin against me convinced me that it must indeed be real, and I fell asleep!

200

22

The Humors of Dreams

November 8, 1778

I woke early after a few hours of sleep. Manuela was so kind and caressing that she made me forget for a few moments the many problems that I had to resolve that day: first, ensure the safety of the wolf-man, then study the Siamese twins, Helen, and . . . , I could not remember the other’s name. I knew that such mistakes of Nature are so rare that I would probably never again have the chance to meet any. Did they speak French or German? Would they agree to answer my questions about their dreams? Even better, would I be able to observe them during their sleep in order to discover if their periods of dreaming came at the same time? No physiologist, be it von Haller or John Hunter, would be able to produce and preserve two animals sharing the same blood circulation. I estimated that, if Nature worked such experiments, its aim was perhaps to enlighten the knowledge of a naturalist, and that I

201

chapter 22

should try everything possible to study these twins as soon as possible. The best would certainly be to bring them to Manuela’s to sleep. Of course, I had some good friends in Lyon, but their wives’ hostility toward me, on account of my diabolical enterprises that I did not conceal, had earned my exclusion, with which I learned to live without difficulty. Manuela very soon realized what I was scheming when I spoke to her about the Siamese twins as I dressed. “First of all, a werewolf last night, and then Siamese twins tonight! I’m not free tonight. Someone’s coming. What’ll happen to you with your madness for monsters and dreams? You don’t sleep any more, like a dolphin!” “Dear Manuela, only exceptions to a rule teach us about the rule. Would you really not like to meet these Siamese ladies?” “I tell you, I’ve already heard enough about them and the werewolf, the dwarfs, the giants, and all these monsters. They’re girls attached by their bottom. No! I don’t want them in my house, not tonight, not ever!” I gave her a gold chain that I had had made by the gold spinners of Trévoux. She smiled. “Try to arrange it with Marguerite if you like . . . I’ve already told her about you . . . But don’t come knocking at my door. There’ll be someone here!” I left her. Who was this someone? Perhaps one of my virtuous colleagues? Perhaps even Father Bertholon? The thick, cold fog continued to envelop Lyon. The day broke pale, white, and blurred. As I went toward the Place des Augustins, I was already calculating the different stages of my plans. Audaci natura juvat!19 19.  Nature helps the bold!

202

The Humors of Dreams

Once in the square, I had no trouble finding the wooden huts where the keeper of the monsters sideshow and his troupe lived. They were decorated with naïve paintings of the wolf-man, the Siamese twins in a fine velvet dress, a bearded lady, a man with tattoos over his whole body, two dwarfs, a sword swallower, and a giant. I immediately spotted the owner checking the folding doors. “Terrible cold fog, damn it!” I said to him. “Damn the wolf-man!” he replied, showing me a picture of the lycanthrope. “This damned hairy beast has escaped. It’s not the first time!” “Ah! And where has he gone?” “Oh, I’ve got my ideas about that,” he said. “He came several times with a rich lady with her face hidden behind a veil, from Ainay. You know what I mean!” He winked. “She must’ve fixed a meeting with him, but he’ll come back!” I introduced myself as a former military surgeon, naturalist, writer, and chronicler of monsters. These titles did not impress the owner. He must often have had visits from inquisitive people and scientists. “I can assure you that if I could study your Siamese twins while they sleep, I would pay them for their trouble and reimburse you too.” “There’s no way I’ll let Helen and Edith escape, I warn you. In any case, you can’t do anything with them. They’re virgins and they only have one . . .” He carried on tidying the benches and the trestles in front of the wooden sheds. Then I noticed that he was limping on his right leg. “Where did you get that wound?” I asked him.

203

chapter 22

“At Rosbach. A Prussian musket shot. That damned good-fornothing Soubise. He should’ve been shot, he should!” “Rosbach! I was there, too. I got a saber wound, here, in my arm.” I showed him my scar. “Before getting that, I had cut off arms and legs myself. Maybe I looked after you?” I guessed that Rosbach would act as a password. It had kept the survivors together better than old college reunions or a world tour on the same ship. The courage of the French troops in the face of Frederick’s Prussians would have given us victory had it not been for the stupidity, the cowardice, and the treachery of Marshal Soubise! The owner seemed to be thinking. “Let me keep the twins until one in the morning. There are a lot of people in the evenings when the cafés close. Then I’ll send them to you in our coach and pick them up in it tomorrow morning around eight o’clock. Give me fifteen pounds, and give them whatever you please. Give both sisters the same, above all! I warn you, you’ll probably be disappointed. If Helen goes to sleep, the other one can’t stop herself from going to sleep, too. Helen gives the orders. If Helen wants to get up, Edith has to follow. You know, you’re the first scientist to be interested in their sleep. When we were in Paris, a lot of those gentlemen from the academy visited me. Do you know Count de Buffon? He asked them lots of questions about their menstruation. Other scientists, anatomists, examined them from every point of view. I don’t think they have very happy memories of it!” “Do not worry, I shall be happy just to observe them. So, until midnight or one o’clock tonight, then. I trust you will find your wolf-man. Adieu, comrade in arms!” “Auf wiedersehen, Herr Professor!”

204

The Humors of Dreams

I quickly returned to the Saint-Antoine market opposite the Pont du Change. It was hardly nine o’clock. The fog seemed to be lifting. I hoped it would not return that evening. I easily found a gig to hire for the day as early as this. I soon arrived in front of Manuela’s door. As I expected, she had fallen asleep again, and I had to wait a long time before she opened the door. “Oh, it’s the dolphin! Not only don’t you sleep, but you stop others dreaming,” she said, half-angry, half-asleep. “Manuela, lend me your biggest cape, with a hood, to hide the wolf-man. I am leaving. Have a good evening, my dearest. If you see Marguerite before me, can you warn her?” “I’ve already told her about you several times. I think she would be interested in knowing you better,” she replied with a smile. I climbed the stairs. The wolf-man opened the door on my signal. He had made the bed and tidied the room. Obviously, I thought, he does not shave! Our hairy friend wrapped himself in the big black cape and pulled the hood over his face. I beckoned him from in front of the door when there was no one in the street and he sat beside me, his head lowered and his hands hidden. If we were not stopped by the municipal or royal gendarmes, all would go well. He looked like an old lady in mourning being driven to a cemetery, and he remained almost silent throughout the journey. Fortunately, at this time the gendarmes only searched the vehicles entering Lyon from CroixRousse. After that, I was well known enough to pass through the Dombes toll at Sathonay without trouble. As I had predicted, the sun was shining brightly on the plateau. We arrived at the Augustinian monastery at Cordieux around two o’clock. I had known

205

chapter 22

the abbot, Monsieur de Lassalle, since I came to live in the Dombes and had allowed him to farm, at least symbolically, several of my pools. I had often had occasion to discuss philosophy with the abbot when I went to consult the ancient treatises of Aristotle or Pliny in his library. I also explained my investigations on dreaming, and he always paid close attention. One day, he very courteously said to me that my quest for the nature of dreams was like the quest for the Holy Grail, and at the end I would discover the revelation! Father Lassalle seemed in no way surprised by the appearance of the wolf-man. “My son,” he said to him, “you are God’s creature. Our Lord has subjected you to tribulations during your life on Earth. You will be all the happier in your heavenly life in the midst of the saints.” The monastery was like a prison, where no one could enter, so our friend would be safe in a cell. He would be given work in the fields and be able to attend the various offices with the brothers. I was awaiting the inevitable question from the abbot who was also keen to hear the Russian’s reply. “Are you a baptized Catholic, my son?” “I was baptized in the Orthodox religion, Father Superior.” The priest rubbed his big white hands. “We have in our library, my son, the complete acts of the Council of Lyon in the year one thousand. You will find there all the elements you need to judge the filioque controversy that caused this sad schism. You can read them as you follow the catechism reserved for our brothers. That will occupy your mind, and I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit will descend upon you to enlighten you. Follow the brother doorkeeper, my son.”

206

The Humors of Dreams

I took leave of the lycanthrope. What must he be thinking? He repeated mysteriously to me as he had down the previous day: “One day, Sir, you will know how grateful I am.” Then I took my leave of the abbot and thanked him warmly. “Do not thank me. You have entrusted me with a pure soul. But, dear friend, you look tired. Do you take enough rest? Return to Lyon by the road to Sainte-Croix and Montluel. There will be fewer gendarmes.” “I shall sleep better tonight, Father, or tomorrow night. I have an appointment with the mystery of the Holy Duality. He smiled. I do not think he was offended by my impious jokes; he warmly waved goodbye. I left the monastery armed with a piece of bread and some of the excellent goat’s cheese that the brothers made. My two horses trotted quickly, and the descent to Sainte-Croix, Montluel, Miribel and Lyon was soon over. I reached the market of Saint-Antoine where I had to return the gig as the clock of the Charité was striking eight. Night had fallen long ago. When I arrived at the Place des Jacobins, my attention was attracted by a group of onlookers standing around a circle of light. There was a candle on the ground, and I saw an artist from a fair take a nail as thick as a large pen, about five inches long and with a rounded tip. With his left hand he placed it in one of his nostrils and, holding a hammer in his right hand, announced that he was going to drive the nail into his brain! Indeed, he drove it almost completely in with several small blows of the hammer. He did the same with another nail in the other nostril. After this, he hung a pail of water from a cord over the heads of the nails and carried it without any help. I found these two maneuvers so astonishing that I thought they must be

207

chapter 22

shrouded in some trickery or sleight-of-hand. On the other side of the square, the monsters’ sideshow was doing a good trade. There were two musicians with pipes and viols, dressed as jesters, on the stage. I heard the owner excuse the absence of the wolfman “because of an illness that was so rare that the greatest doctors and surgeons of Lyon were investigating whether the affection was human or canine”! The Siamese twins must have been in the little hut in the middle. They alone attracted as many onlookers as the dwarfs, the giant, the tattooed man, and the sword swallower. And the wolf-man, whom did he attract? I reflected again on his extraordinary story. He had not told me how he had left his dolphins, to end up in this fair. I would certainly see him again at the monastery at Cordieux. Where would he find a better refuge, I thought, as I climbed Manuela’s staircase. As I passed in front of her door, I heard some laughter. I felt my heart thumping. Was I becoming jealous? Marguerite opened her door for me. Her room was warm. In the bright light of some very large candles, it looked bigger. Marguerite was already in her nightclothes, with her blond hair down. Manuela had explained everything to her when she had returned home. “I shall go and fetch the Siamese twins around one o’clock. Would you like to go out to dinner?” I asked her. “No, thank you, I’m not hungry . . . Apparently you are like a dolphin, you never sleep?” It was so warm in her room that I took off my coat and my waistcoat. I was beginning to feel sleepy. Why had I decided to study these twins’ dreams tonight? “I may be a dolphin, Marguerite, but I am afraid I may fall asleep, it is so warm! How can we be sure to wake up at one o’clock?”

208

The Humors of Dreams

“Look at my clock.” She showed me a big clock from Bresse. A long pointer was attached perpendicularly to one of the weights. “I can adjust the weight to whatever height I want,” she said. “In four hours it will be one o’clock. The clock will strike, but I never hear it as I have grown accustomed to it. The pointer just touches this lever, which releases the spring of this black door of this little house. Behind the door is a nightingale asleep in a cage in the dark. When he sees the light of my candlestick, concentrated through this big magnifying glass, he sings as if he were seeing the sun rising. That’s how I always wake up, to the song of the nightingale!” I was astonished at the ingenuity. “Did you invent this yourself?” “You don’t think a woman is capable of that?” she asked with a smile. “You know, at the silk weavers’ there is much more complicated machinery than that, and much of it was invented by working women.” Marguerite set a big candle made of whale oil on the table, which would not smoke, she told me. Shadows danced in every direction, and her room seemed full of life in the golden light of the flame. “I’m tired, too,” she said, “lie down on my bed.” I lay down against the wall. Then I noticed the shadow of her naked body dancing in the light of the candles. “Kiss me, dolphin,” she said drawing me to her honey-colored body . . . “Now you can sleep,” she said afterward. “The nightingale will wake us!” I caressed Marguerite gently as she was falling asleep. Her belly was round and firm. “Are you pregnant?” I asked her. “Yes. He’s four and a half months. He’s already moving.”

209

chapter 22

I left my hand on her belly and watched her fall asleep. Without knowing, Marguerite was providing me with a new clue to dreams. I had already observed the dreams of the newborn at the Charité, as well those of kittens, but they were all separated from their mother. Was it possible that a fetus dreamed and moved in utero with the same rhythm as its mother dreamed? Marguerite must have been very tired, because I observed the first signs of her dreaming less than an hour after she had fallen asleep. When her breathing became irregular and her eyes began to move, I could feel very clearly the little kicks her fetus was giving her. I could easily see the clock and was able to count about ten or more small, violent kicks in a minute. I was so intrigued that my own desire to sleep immediately disappeared. Why did the fetus move when its mother dreamed? Was it awake, or was it dreaming, too? I knew that fetuses could move around briskly when their mother was awake, but this one had not moved during the first period of Marguerite’s sleep. After fifteen minutes, Marguerite’s breathing became slow and regular again. She turned toward me without waking. Her baby’s movements had ceased. I noted the time by the big clock: it was almost eleven o’clock. If the rhythm of her dreams followed the normal pattern, Marguerite would dream again around midnight or half past midnight. So I would have the possibility to observe another period before the nightingale began to sing. I left my right hand on her belly. My sense of touch was so acute that I felt the beating of Marguerite’s heart transmitted through her aorta. I reflected that the only communication between the animal spirits or the nervous flux of the mother while she was dreaming, and the animal spirits causing movement of the fetus, is through the blood. So, the mother’s dreams must liberate infinitely tiny

210

The Humors of Dreams

grains into her humors that must pass into the blood and cross the placenta, the organ that feeds the fetus. How could the brain act on the mother’s humors? Did it contain certain glands that were only stimulated by the animal spirits of dreams? Did there exist some humor that sent the fetus to sleep at the same time as its mother? I tried to imagine a fetus of eighteen weeks. It must already be almost fully formed, with eyes and fingers. I recalled the figures published by the great embryologist Wolff on the development of the human brain. The central gray matter and the brainstem were finished, but the folds on the surface of the brain were not yet deep or fully formed. If this fetus dreamed like the little kittens, or the babies at the Charité, through what mechanism had the tabula rasa of the brain been stimulated? Could one conceive of an unconscious dream simply stimulating the machinery of the muscles? Who was the mechanic driving this machinery? Was it the mother’s brain? This machine, I thought, could create connections between the nerve fibers; it could create furrows, the thalweg. Could the mother’s humors control the organization of this architecture? If so, the mother would be in some way the “ploughman” of these furrows traced by the animal spirits of the fetus. If it were true, the personality of the unborn infant would closely resemble that of its mother. Perhaps, I thought, babies who resembled their father were less dependent on these maternal humors. Suddenly I felt a little movement of the baby’s elbow or knee. It was followed by three more, very brief, jerks. At almost precisely the same moment, Marguerite stopped breathing for at least twenty seconds. I said to myself that these were the three blows on the stage that announced the mother’s dream drama. The blows continued, more intensely than during the first dream, and I noted that

211

chapter 22

Marguerite’s eyes were also moving intensely. I also noticed her fingers twitching. The clock struck one, and then there was a little click. The black door of the little house opened and, a few seconds later, the nightingale began to sing. Its song rang out so loud in the little room that Marguerite opened her eyes. She smiled at me. I made a sign to her not to move. The little movements of her baby went on and did not stop as they did after the first dream. I felt for nearly ten more minutes, after which the fetus became still again. I was intrigued but a little disappointed. Why, this time, had the sudden waking of the mother during a dream not caused the fetus to stop dreaming and moving? “Dear Marguerite, I think it will be a pretty little girl, just like you. She will have your character. You are giving her you personality when you dream!” “Do you think she knows what I am dreaming about?” “Not yet. What were you dreaming about when the nightingale began to sing?” “I can’t say. I can’t remember.” Marguerite got up and went to close the nightingale’s door; it stopped singing immediately. “And now I’ll make you some strong coffee. You’ve got to go down and meet the twins.” The cab had stopped in front of the door. The driver got down and opened the back door. It was too dark for me to see the twins. They climbed out with difficulty onto the footstep and entered the house with a swinging motion. I gave the driver a few pistoles and asked him to come back in the morning. He explained that he had orders to stay in front of the house all night to be sure that the twins were not taken away. My old comrade from Rosbach did

212

The Humors of Dreams

not trust me much! He must have been worried about the escape of the werewolf, I thought. I helped the twins climb the dark staircase. One of them controlled the movements of the other. That must have been Helen. She climbed one step, then twisted her body to allow Edith to step up, too. I heard them talking together in a language I did not recognize, probably Hungarian. We paused in front of Manuela’s door. There was no sign of a light, and all was silent. I went up to fetch Marguerite to help Edith, while I helped Helen, climb the stairs. We finally reached the beautifully warm room, and the twins sat on the bed, quite out of breath. Helen and Edith were brown-haired with black eyes; they were small and quite pretty. Their oval faces were smooth, and their look was sharp and intelligent. Each wore an identical smock with colored borders, like those one sees in Hungary or Russia. However, they shared the same long skirt, embroidered with floral motifs that covered where they were joined, causing a large hump. I explained to them the reason for my interest in them. I merely wished to observe them during their sleep in order to detect the periods of dreaming in each of them. I then gave them, beginning with Helen, a purse with ten ducats. I must have been more generous than the other scientists who had so often studied them for they thanked me most warmly. Helen told me their story. Edith approved with nods of her head while she ceaselessly inspected the details of the room. She seemed very intrigued by the nightingale’s black house. The sisters, Helen told me, were born thirty years ago in Hungary and had been shown in fairs since their childhood. They had visited the whole of Europe in this way. They could speak

213

chapter 22

French, Latin, Italian, German, and Hungarian. They could also understand English. Scientists who had examined them had decided that they were pygopagus: they were joined exteriorly in the regions of the buttocks and partially at the loins. Helen explained that they were virgins, and she told us in Latin that they had a single “utriculus ille in foeminis in quo foetus fit conceptus.”20 Recalling a ribald poem by Juvenal, I said to myself, “Adhuc ardens rigidae tentigine vulvae.”21 She also added in Italian that they only had uno buco, donde esce il purgamento del ventre.22 It was placed between Helen’s right thigh and Edith’s left. They had been told that their vertebral column was fused in a single sacrum ending in a single coccyx. They had separate hearts, which did not beat with the same rhythm. Helen recounted the examination to which Monsieur de Buffon had subjected them at the Academy of Sciences of Paris. He had shown Edith terrifying pictures to frighten her, while taking both their pulses. Then he had triumphantly summoned one of his colleagues, Monsieur des Essarts, to feel Helen’s pulse accelerating, the latter replied that nothing proved that Helen was not simply frightened herself independently. There had ensued a heated debate about emotions, common sensation, and humors. I asked them what sort of life they lived traveling from fair to fair. Helen replied that they had only ever known such sideshows, but that they had been able to set aside some savings and that they would soon retire to a convent in Bavaria. They had preferred jour20.  presumably meaning uterus, but she was probably referring to their vagina 21. Ardent still, she retired, fatigued, but not satisfied. 22.  one hole from which the belly is purged

214

The Humors of Dreams

neys in southern Europe for the spectators there were more generous and sympathized with their condition. They had bad memories of England where a Lord had taken them to his house to assist at scenes of debauchery. Their present master was surly but provided them with fine dresses. “What about the wolf-man?” I asked. “He has only been in our show for five years. He is very kind to us. We eat together in the evening. He is very sad and melancholic. I am afraid,” admitted Helen, “that he has drowned in the Rhône or the Saône. We haven’t seen him since he left.” They hated the giant, who was stupid, while the dwarfs amused them with their tricks. I understood that the sword swallower shared her bed with the owner. Slowly, I grew accustomed to these twins and the dress they shared. They looked very similar, but I could immediately have recognized Helen from Edith if they had been separated, in contrast to my not being able to tell the botanist from Lyon from his brother the day before. Perhaps the growth of some favorable germ had given Helen an advantage over Edith. Helen yawned discretely, putting her hand in front of her mouth. Edith did the same, but without hiding her yawn. Yawning is contagious, I thought; perhaps it is transmitted through the humors of the blood! We invited them to lie on the bed. If the light of the candles did not disturb them, I would be able to observe their respiration, which was my main concern. I had had the idea of asking Marguerite for two marbles (she kept a big bag of them for the neighborhood street urchins). I asked Helen and Edith, who were lying back to back, to keep a marble in

215

chapter 22

the hand that was hanging down, on each side of the bed. I placed a large porcelain plate on the floor beneath each hand. “You see, Marguerite, that is how Alexander was brought up. When he fell asleep he dropped a marble, which fell into a bronze shield. The noise woke him, and he resumed his studies. I do not think that the noise of a marble dropping on your plates will be enough to wake them, but I shall be able to detect the beginning of their sleep within a few seconds, for as they lose consciousness their hands will no longer be able to grasp an object.” Edith fell asleep first, and we clearly heard the sound of the marble in the plate. It was three in the morning. Marguerite warmed some more water on her stove. We would need a lot of coffee not to fall asleep. I was pleased that she was not working the next day. At five minutes past three, Helen dropped the second marble. Sunt geminae somni partae! 23 I thought. We sat down to watch them sleeping. I had brought a large piece of paper across which I had noted the hours and minutes, and I drew two wide vertical columns for Helen and Edith. I had placed my watch beside me, a very fine watch given to me by Madame de C——, with a movement signed by Nicolas Nicod in Paris in 1760. On the back was a fine painting on enamel representing Cleopatra, half-naked, being bitten by a viper. “Your breasts are as beautiful as Cleopatra’s!” I said to Marguerite. “Perhaps she was pregnant, too,” she replied. The twins’ breathing was similar, with a rhythm of eighteen or nineteen breaths a minute. Sometimes, for a few minutes, it seemed 23.  The twins have gone to sleep!

216

The Humors of Dreams

as if a single pair of lungs were blowing air out of their nostrils. Then, little by little, one rhythm became dominant and one sister breathed in as the other breathed out. At exactly four twenty-five Helen, who was facing us, stopped breathing for about ten seconds. I grasped my magnifying glass. Her dream began with a few eye movements. I moved closer to the head of the bed to observe Edith. She only began to dream at four-thirty. For fifteen minutes the two sisters dreamed together. I showed Marguerite how easy it was to recognize the eye movements, for the slanting light of the candles enlarged the shadows of the eyeballs. Edith’s dream was shorter and ended at four forty-five, whereas her twin sister continued to gasp as if her dream was unpleasant. It ended as the clock began to strike five. The night passed quickly, and I was happy to be sharing my observations with Marguerite. I would probably never again have the opportunity to observe the dreams of Siamese twins, and I tried to convince Marguerite how rich were the phenomena of sleep. “Look at the little drops of sweat they both have on their foreheads when their breathing is slowest and deepest. Their pulse is slower. Helen’s is sixty per minute, and Edith’s sixty-four. Their foreheads are warm, but when they begin to dream again the sweat will evaporate straight away. Look carefully at the shadow of their eyeballs. Look at Helen’s moving slowly downward, as if she were looking at her feet. That is a sign of deep sleep, but not of dreaming. Of course,” I added, “if we had been able to observe Siamese brothers, we would have been able to see if they had an erection at the same time.” “Unless they both shared the same sex, like these girls,” she said. “Would it be possible, do you think, for Siamese twins to make

217

chapter 22

love and get pleasure at the same time? Just think of such a thing! It’s horrible! And who would be the father if they had a child?” “Nature never does anything horrible, Marguerite. It opens our eyes. For the other problem, rely on the casuistry of the church and that of the law. The child would only have one father!” “People say that if a pregnant woman has a very strong longing for something, like strawberries for instance, her baby will have a strawberry birthmark on its skin. Do you believe that?” “I don’t know. It’s not impossible,” I thought. “If the mother communicates with her fetus during her dreams, and if her dreams relate to some strong desire.” “And my baby. If it’s a boy, do you think he . . . he has an erection when I dream and that he gets pleasure? My little boy! My naughty little boy!” “I think so, Marguerite. Newborn babies have erections, so why not a fetus? They do not understand pleasure, but perhaps they keep a secret memory of it, as an underground spring can water a field without our seeing it! They are safe enough in the warmth of their mother’s belly, and they get that pleasure every night while their brain is slowly developing. Perhaps that pleasure can direct certain nerve fibers as the brain’s gray matter is growing. You must know something about that from the silk weavers.” “You mean that the weft and the warp might be woven by pleasure, like a shuttle being handled by the mother? Without the pleasure leaving any more trace of its passage than does a shuttle in cloth? Except for those who understand the secrets of cloth! Do you think that one day we shall know how to undo the cloth to discover who wove it and on what loom?” “Perhaps,” I replied, “in a very long time . . .”

218

The Humors of Dreams

“Watch out, Edith’s dreaming again,” Marguerite warned me. It was five minutes past six. I watched closely and saw Helen breathing calmly. I was a little surprised to see her begin dreaming again at only six fifteen. Edith’s dream ended at six twenty when she tried to turn toward her sister. Helen’s ended at six thirty-five. So there was a longer and longer interval between the two sisters’ dreams. We drank another coffee, very warm and sweet. Marguerite guessed that I was rather disappointed by the timing of the dreams that I had just written on my paper. “Why do you want to compare the dreams of a mother and her fetus with those of the Siamese twins? They both have different brains that set the clock of their dreams as they see fit, but I control my little boy’s myself, or my little girl’s! It’s like my clock and the nightingale. If it were not for the clock’s weight, the door would not open and the nightingale would not sing!” Marguerite’s intelligence and her elegance had made me forget Manuela’s vivacious gaiety. This pretty girl intrigued me and attracted me differently than Manuela had. I did not dare ask her who was the father of her baby. “You are right, Marguerite. Your fetus is like a little nightingale. But why did he continue to move after you were woken up by the nightingale?” She thought about it as she drank her coffee. “You know,” she replied, “the system for the clock and the nightingale isn’t yet perfect. I have to get up to close the door of his house, or he would sing until daybreak. Imagine that I fit some clockwork to close the door of his house after five minutes, which would be very easy, then when the clock’s weight releases the door the nightingale

219

chapter 22

would sing for five minutes, whatever happened, even if the weight stopped. I woke at the beginning of my dream, but my brain had released my baby’s nightingale and he continued to dream because his clockwork was set in advance. He probably dreamed for as long as my dreams normally last.” I felt in a confused way what Marguerite’s remarkable intuition was trying to teach me. So it was not true that the mother’s humors control the loom where the weft of the young brain was being woven, as well as her own, because the loom continued to function after the end of the mother’s dream. Control was not the right word: perhaps direct, or instruct, or, even better, handle. It was probably necessary at the beginning of the dream for the mother’s blood to act on the activity of the fetus’s nerve fibers, perhaps not all of them, but more subtly those that were best suited to receive the humors. This selective activity in turn excited the fetus’s own dream machinery. If it were not provoked by the mother’s humors, I thought, a dream could not appear in the fetus. What would the consequences be? And how could we know? Certain maternal illnesses, or poor nutrition, or the abuse of laudanum, for example, might themselves influence the formation of the baby’s mind, because they suppress the mother’s dreams. “Marguerite, if you can control the beginning of your baby’s dreams, have you noticed if he, in turn, can influence your dreams?” “I don’t know if I dream more, but I certainly sleep much more. I often fall asleep at midday at the factory. Do you know why or how?” “Neither,” I replied. “You may perhaps sleep more because your baby is asleep all the time, except when he is dreaming or making

220

The Humors of Dreams

rare waking movements, and his blood is richer in sleep factors. It is possible that the development of a new organism, like a parasite, drains your blood of nutrition more quickly. Consequently Nature may have provided for more sleep as an economy. That is my how and why! You know, Marguerite, we do not yet know what sleep is. We do not even know if it is vital for life! Manuela has certainly told you about the dolphins.” A glimmer of day filtered through the skylight and the familiar sounds of the street merchants of the neighborhood reached us. We had to wake the twins. At that very moment, Edith began her last dream of the night. It was seven thirty-five. I showed Marguerite the intensity of the eye movements of dreams in the early morning, as if the animal spirits found an easier pathway after the earlier dreams. Helen began her last dream just as Edith was ending hers, at eight o’clock. It was also longer, ending only at eight thirty. I woke her gently and asked her quietly what she was dreaming about. “We were both bathing in a river. It was very pleasant. The water was warm. I could not feel my sister’s weight as she swam alongside me. I think the water was green.” She tried to turn toward me, and then Edith woke. She could not remember any dreams. We gave them coffee. I asked them if they sometimes dreamed of being separate. No, they always dreamed they were together. They could not imagine being separate, according to Helen. Except in nightmares! We helped them downstairs. Manuela was waiting for us in front of her door. “Good morning, Siamese ladies. Did you have pleasant dreams? And you, Marguerite? If your dolphin had a Siamese brother, we could share him!”

221

23

The Electricity of Dreams

May 10, 1779

I like spring in Lyon. I came back yesterday to try to cure the melancholy that I have felt since Béatrix left me. I browsed the books in the library of the academy in the Palace of Saint-Jean. I was hoping to find new articles on chemistry, but the recent results of Priestley or Lavoisier did not interest me much. How could the laws of the combination of gases contribute to understanding the structure of the brain? Around midday I climbed the hill above Saint-Jean and stayed there a while looking at the town spread out below. I reflected that Lyon had certain aspects of middle Europe, like Budapest or Prague, and certain aspects of southern Europe with its roman tiles. I could see the whole of the Alps and the Mont Blanc very clearly. That meant it would soon rain. On the way down, I took one of the old alleys to reach the Gourguillon, down which I went to reach the Saône.

223

chapter 23

At that moment I heard someone behind me humming: Pin Panicaille, king butterfly, Cutting his beard, cut his chin. One, two, three. A tree. Four, five, six. Two box sticks.

I turned round. There was my old friend Leclerc, former ensign of the cavalry of the Ninth Hussars. I had not seen him since the occupation of Saxony in 1757. At that time we had formed a philosophy circle mainly composed of officers from the Dombes, Bresse, and Lyon, with the exception of Leclerc who was a Parisian. As a sign of recognition, one of us had suggested this nursery rhyme that his daughter used to sing and that helped small children learn to count. Twenty years later we had still not forgotten it. Leclerc looked superb, with a powdered wig, a bottle green frock coat, an embroidered shirt, varnished boots, and a cane with an ivory pommel. I noticed that he put his cane in his left hand with difficulty when I shook his hand before embracing him. As I did, I heard a click like the winding mechanism of a big clock, and Leclerc showed me his right arm and his artificial hand. “It’s from Vaucanson’s workshop. I had my arm cut off by a saber at Kloster-Seven in 1757. By a gigantic devil of an English cavalryman! What a carnage that battle, but we thrashed the English! Fortunately the Saxons looked after me well. Afterward, they fitted me with this apparatus at the Invalides, because I had a good stump!” “What are you doing now?” “Dear friend, I am Father Bertholon’s assistant. And you?” “I am searching for the cause of dreaming . . . But what are you doing with a priest? It’s hardly like you!”

224

The Electricity of Dreams

“This priest could not care less about religion. He is a philosopher. A naturalist. He is this country’s most accomplished exponent of science and electricity. He employs me for his studies.” “Whatever can you be studying? Storms, lightning?” “I shall tell you the story. Aren’t you thirsty?” We entered a little restaurant in the Place Saint-Georges. I invited him to lunch. He recounted the following extremely intriguing story in great detail. “When they had fitted my artificial arm and hand,” said Leclerc, “I still felt terrible pains in my stump, pains in the hand I no longer had! It felt as if I were constantly gripping the handle of my saber. The surgeons at the Invalides tried every treatment, including opium and laudanum, but the pain returned soon after the stupor of the opium had gone. So I left the Invalides, and sought the electrical treatment of a certain Mauduyt, about whom another amputee had told me. So I went to this Mauduyt, in Saint-Honoré. His real name is de la Varenne. He made me sit on a wooden bench and bathed me with different positive or negative electricity. It was not a bath in a liquid, but a real bath of electric current emitted by a friction generator that his assistant turned. This treatment helped a little, but not completely. Mauduyt was encouraged by this partial success, and he tried two new methods on me. He began with sparks, touching my arm with a copper rod connected to the moist earth by a chain. Of course, he had to hold the rod with a leather glove in order to avoid a shock. As this new technique relieved me a little more, so that I began to sleep again without laudanum, Mauduyt asked me to return the following week. This time many people were there to observe the treatment: doctors who had come to learn the art of electric therapy, a certain Comus

225

chapter 23

whose real name was Ledru, a Doctor Marat, and a Swiss, from Neuchâtel I believe, who was rather unpleasant. There was also a whole crowd of famous doctors and academicians who were conducting an inquiry into electrical treatment. I have forgotten most of their names, although they were presented to me very courteously. I only recall Doctor Guillotin of the Academy of Medicine and Monsieur de Lavoisier of the Academy of Sciences.” “Well, well,” I interrupted, “you have some excellent connections! I think you would be better off befriending Lavoisier than Guillotin, whom I do not know.” “Or that scoundrel Marat, about whom I shall speak later. So once again I was installed on the wooden bench and Mauduyt touched me this time with a rod connected to a Leyden jar. I felt a terrible stab of pain and saw what looked like the black sky with thousands of candles before fainting. When I awoke, being sprinkled with vinegar water, I saw the heads of the venerable doctors leaning over my face. They seemed relieved to see me alive! My head ached, but since this awful electric shock, I have no longer suffered from my phantom hand.” “You were lucky not to have been electrocuted: they say you can kill an ox with the discharge of a big Leyden jar.” “A hussar is tougher than an ox! After my electric cure, Mauduyt often invited me to his home for he was proud to show me off and get me to recount my story. That is how I met many illustrious people: Father Nollet, ‘Papa’ Franklin—I was never able to discover if he was favorable or not toward electrical treatment, he was so diplomatic! There were also many young, and not so young, court ladies there for treatment of their sterility by electric baths.

226

The Electricity of Dreams

Between you and me, I suspect that some electric babies probably look rather like that damned stud Mauduyt.” “And probably like you, damned hussar!” “Once or twice perhaps . . . But Mauduyt was very jealous. In the end, it was there that I met Father Bertholon. He had also treated a few women using an electric current. Bertholon told me about a competition of the Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Lyon concerning the influence of atmospheric electricity on public health, and he engaged me as his assistant.” “And what do you do?” “I am studying the registers of births of the Lyon region from 1768 to this year, and trying to determine the weather during those twelve years.” “And then what?” “And then I don’t know yet! I give the results to Bertholon who will write a long paper for the Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Lyon.” “But you must already have some idea?” “Very vague, dear friend. I heard Father Bertholon presenting the first results at Mauduyt’s a month ago. According to him, there are more births, including bastards, in years when there are more north winds. As the north wind favors electricity, Bertholon thinks that electricity improves fertility! Better still, according to the priest, as the moon controls the weather, the moon would influence women’s monthly cycles in this way!” “Your priest seems to have forgotten Bacon’s principles of scientific investigation, if he had ever read them,” I replied. “What was the reaction of the audience to this theory?”

227

chapter 23

“Generally polite and favorable, except for Marat who launched a regular attack: that all that was just a web of speculation and inexactitude, and that atmospheric electricity had no effect on the functioning of animal metabolism, etc. Mauduyt had to interrupt the session. If one day I introduce you to my priest, don’t mention Marat to him!” “I am sure your priest would love to give Marat an electric bath with a hefty discharge from a Leyden jar!” I responded. We went out onto the quay of the Saône just as the sun was lighting up the houses on the left bank. The markets were closing. Horses were pulling almost empty carts, whereas the barges drifting in the slow current of the Saône were filled to the gunwales with goods. “We must meet again,” said Leclerc. If you are studying the mechanisms of dreaming, you ought to do it with modern methods, like electricity. Then you would be ahead of other naturalists. You are rather lost in your Dombes, and even in Lyon! Take advantage of my priest being here to learn all about electricity. He will be back in a fortnight. I shall tell him about you. Auf wiedersehen!” Leclerc took his leave. . . . Lost in the Dombes! In Lyon! Damned Parisian, that Leclerc. I thought. I then went toward the Place de Louis-le-Grand to take the coach to the Dombes. I must have been lost in thought about my conversation with Leclerc for I was almost knocked over by a gig that I did not hear coming. Fortunately, someone pulled me out of the way by the back of my coat. I turned to thank him. “Thank you so much, Sir. You saved my life, or at least a serious injury . . .”

228

The Electricity of Dreams

A man smiled at me and bowed. He looked Chinese. He was small, with dark, lively eyes, and he wore a mandarin’s hat and a long gown such as one sees in books on China. He replied in a curious mixture of Portuguese and French. “Não é nada. I am happy. As ruas de Lyon são perigosas.”24 We walked a short distance together, and I asked him a few questions. He replied with a smile. His name was Chen. He came from Macao where he had been brought up by Portuguese Jesuits. He had landed in Lisbon six months earlier and had just arrived in Lyon to negotiate business with some silk merchants. He liked it here, and he was trying to make the best of his talents. “So what can you do?” I asked him. “Almost everything,” he replied. He understood mathematics, a little chemistry and physics, how to rear bicho da seda (silkworms), a little astronomy and astrology, and a little medicine, for he had learned the secrets of acupuncture. He was also a skilled coppersmith. Finally, he knew how to prepare the most delicious Chinese food, especially snakes! I told him about my studies of dreaming. “Sonhos,”25 he replied. “I know how to interpret them.” “That is not what interests me,” I responded. “I am simply trying to learn about their mechanisms and functions by studying dreams in animals.” “So animals dream in Lyon?” “In Lyon, and certainly in China, too.” He did not seem to believe me! We sat in the sun opposite the coach station. I liked Chen. He seemed intelligent. He 24.  Not at all. The streets of Lyon are dangerous. 25.  dreams

229

chapter 23

was well turned out, cultivated, pleasant to talk to, and seemed accessible . . . How old was he? “Tenho quarenta anos,”26 he told me. Why not invite Chen to come to Bouligneux? My solitude there was a burden, for my wife lived almost entirely in Lyon with her mother. She had recently discovered a strange interest in botany, so she traveled more and more frequently to Paris to the Royal Botanical Garden to collect plants and, if I understood correctly, to participate in the work of Chevalier de Lamarck in the completion of botany’s greatest edifice, the French Flora. I had learned two months earlier from one of her friends, Madame de M——, that my wife had caught sight of Béatrix in Paris. This venomous Madame de M—— explained, with a sneer, that old de Buffon had become infatuated with Béatrix. I knew the famous naturalist’s reputation as a womanizer, and I tried to turn my mind away from the image of Béatrix in the arms of this seventy-year-old. Every two or three months I received a short letter, full of irony and tenderness, from Béatrix. She had not been very happy in von Haller’s laboratory, because he had fallen very ill and his pupils were constantly engaged in various intrigues to succeed him. After von Haller’s death in December 1777, Béatrix announced to me that she was going directly to Paris. In what other town could she choose to learn about natural history? She explained that she would find many birds in the Royal Botanical Garden and that there, at last, she would be able to study sleep in ostriches seriously. She also wished to devote her thesis to sleep in plants, since she had read an article by Mairan. Where else, indeed, could she have gone? Boerhaave was dead and I could not see her studying with John Hunter. 26. I am forty years old.

230

The Electricity of Dreams

Béatrix with the English! Her letters had become less frequent in the last two months. How long would she stay in Paris? Yes, I thought, why not invite Chen to come with me? I was wasting time classifying, collecting plants, and trying to discover some mathematical rules in the periodicity of my dreams, without advancing the work of writing my article for the Berlin Academy. The tales of electricity that Leclerc had told me came to mind. Electricity and dreams? Why not? Electricity might indeed stimulate animal spirits in one way or another. Chen was such a worker that he could become my assistant and help me build a physics laboratory in the château. Chen accepted my proposal immediately. We agreed to meet in the same place, in the Place de Louis-leGrand, a week later. So Chen joined me in Bouligneux on May 17, 1779.

231

24

Oniron and Orgasmon

July 15, 1780

Is one ever sure of what one finds? My vain search for the humors that were the life force of dreams had taught me to doubt. Perhaps, I thought, electricity was the hidden force of dreams. But I had to prove it. How would that be possible? What I had learned recently about Galvani’s discoveries made me wonder if the opposition of two types of electricity of different polarities—for example, a spark between two spheres—would allow me to obtain some evidence. What would be the most appropriate condition to oppose to dreams? It could not be sleep, for as it creates dreams its electricity must consequently be neutral or of the same polarity. So I had to choose a period of waking that would be analogous to dreaming in terms of its duration, but a contrast in terms of intensity. Recalling that an erection was a common sign of both dreams and sexual intercourse, I reflected that erotic pleasure, which lasted fifteen to

233

chapter 24

twenty minutes and ended abruptly, might be analogous to dreaming. I would have to try to connect the electricity of a dreamer with that collected from a couple making love. But adding these two electricities should cause them to react with each other more readily. Since I had this idea, my search for oniron, as I had decided to call the electricity of dreaming, and orgasmon, the electricity of lovemaking, preoccupied me constantly. I was helped discretely by some physicist colleagues who expected some new good publicity for science if the results were positive, for Leduc’s swindle with his dream-scale had thrown the physicists of the academy into some discredit. Since I had been living alone at Bouligneux, I had converted the first floor of the two wings of the château into laboratories. Entry was prohibited to everyone, except of course Chen and me. Batteries of Leyden jars and two friction generators occupied part of the east laboratory. We had not used them for a long time. The other laboratory, in the west wing, was set up to investigate the energy of dreams. In the west corner stood two large copper cradles, each big enough to contain one or two dreamers. Their construction had cost me much time and money. The cradles were attached to braided copper cables with silver connectors, and I had ensured that no parasitic currents existed between the hollow copper spheres that formed the ends of the copper cables and the earth. The two cradles were isolated from the ground, formed of brick tiles, by two layers of joists made of old oak timber that had been dried for more than five years. In winter, a big stove had warmed this room in order to eliminate all traces of humidity. The dream cradle, designed to collect the electrical force of the oniron,

234

Oniron and Orgasmon

stood on the south side, while the love cradle, designed to collect the current of the orgasmon, was on the north. But we had envisaged interchanging the cradles if our experiments were disturbed by the electrical field that flowed between the two poles of the Earth. I had also thought it advisable to darken the room completely in case the light of the moon was so bright as to obscure the sparks between the two spheres. The first experiment was planned for July 13. There was no moon that night, and the north wind and the dry weather forecast by the almanac were favorable for preserving the electricity of the air, according to Father Bertholon’s work. We had chosen as our sleeper and dreamer young Thévenet from Villars. He was a nephew of the apothecary, small and fat with a short neck like his uncle, and with a rather impudent manner. He had enlisted in the lancers, but a shooting accident with a musket had blinded him. I reasoned that his blindness, although not preventing him from dreaming, would stop him from seeing our other visiting couples, thus guaranteeing his discretion for us. In order to make him as sleepy and as much in need of dreaming as possible, I had decided to keep him occupied the night before the experiment with games for him to play, such as knucklebones. I also had dice and playing cards engraved in relief so that he could feel them with his fingers, for he had become an inveterate player of such games of chance. I had also forbidden him to take any alcohol during this forced waking, for I did not wish any vapors from his metabolism disturbing either his dreams or the oniron that he was supposed to emit. I had hesitated for a long time over my choice of the couple intended to furnish us the best orgasmon. We needed them to be

235

chapter 24

young, and already with intimate knowledge of each other. It was also essential that their intercourse not be hindered by the situation in which they found themselves, so that they could reach a climax within a period of about fifteen minutes at most after the first signs of dreaming in our sleeper. I addition, it was important that the woman’s climax not be a sham so as to ensure that she, too, could emit the energy of the orgasmon. So as to hamper their lovemaking as little as possible, I had had two very light copper belts made that would be fastened around their waists. These belts would be connected to the copper cable that ended in the sphere. Nevertheless, it was to collect the maximum electrical energy that I had the copper cradles constructed. The inner layer was made of a mesh that was so light and soft that I concluded, after trying it, that it would hinder neither the lovemaking of our couples nor the dreams of our sleeper, whatever their positions. The cradles would be hidden by a big purple drape in order to respect the inventiveness and the loveplay of our subjects. Chen had tried several times to persuade me to be the male subject for the production of orgasmon. “You would be better able to judge if your partner really emits ondas27 of orgasmon. Toda a nossa experiência descansa sobre as ondas du macho e da fêmea,”28 he said. I had refused for I had to observe the spark myself. I knew how easily one could be deceived by what one hoped to see or by hallucinations. My confidence in Chen was almost total, but I did not want to establish a new science on doubtful observations that I had not experienced myself. 27.  waves 28. All our experience depends on the waves of male and female.

236

Oniron and Orgasmon

For his part, Chen had declined the place in the cradle of orgasmon. He explained that the custom in China was to retain one’s semen during sexual intercourse, and that one could live for more than ten thousand years if in the same night one could bring ten virgins to orgasm without losing a single drop of one’s seminal fluid. He had not yet been able to realize such prowess! So we chose Count de S—— and his mistress. Count de S—— was an author with nothing published, having produced atheist and licentious pamphlets on anarchy, and was very interested in Nature. He attended the sessions of the Academy of Lyon fairly regularly, and we had invited him several times to our circle. He had a glib tongue and was between thirty and thirty-five. He had a whimsical character, and he often lost his temper as a result of the slightest vexation. He had contacted me to present me with a book of his dreams, and I had recognized some authentic features in his way of relating his dream recall during his voyages. For instance, he described two memories of dreams about hearing that were in agreement with my observations, but I had promised not to include them in my study without his permission. The young Count de S—— lived in a large townhouse in the rue de la Charité with his very wealthy uncle. We knew that he frequented his mistress, a young Italian whom he had brought back from Naples. She was only seventeen, but her Mediterranean origins had endowed her with the bosom of a woman of thirty. Certain of my colleagues even added, maliciously, that her waistline would soon develop due to her obvious taste for cakes and ice cream. This young woman, called Olivia, was a pleasure to look at. Her dark eyes were lively, and she had long black hair that she took a delight in swirling as she walked with the count.

237

chapter 24

I discussed my theory concerning the emission of electrical energy by the brain during dreaming with him. I explained why we should have more chance of success if we brought electricity of two different signs into contact. My theory also predicted that sexual pleasure should emit electricity of the opposite polarity. The intensity of the orgasmon should be doubled by the simultaneous achievement of two pleasures, and its discharge be reinforced when it met the oniron. The count objected, contending that if there was a discharge between the spheres it might also be transmitted to the dreamer and to the partners engaged in lovemaking. “I have often thought of that problem,” I told him, “but it seems impossible to me that the amount of electricity would be so great as to endanger the subjects.” I reminded him that for thousands of years men and women have dreamed or made love directly on the ground, even when it is damp, without feeling the slightest discharge. That is why I had to invent so sensitive a system to add together electrical currents of opposite polarity. “For the science of electricity, and for it alone, Sir,” said the count brusquely, “I am your man.” He made me promise to keep his name and that of his mistress secret and added that, if we should publish this experiment, he would be grateful if I gave the name O, for Olivia, to this energy of love. I promised him, made all the easier since O was also the initial of orgasmon. We would have to find another symbol for oniron. I thought that, if the experience succeeded, we could use the terms O+ and O- for each of the electrical forces, but that we would probably need several trials to determine the positive and negative elements.

238

Oniron and Orgasmon

I would have liked to have heard to my face if Olivia consented as he did, but he hid his mistress from me so well when I visited Lyon that it was impossible to find out. So, at the end of a fine afternoon on July 13, 1781, we saw the arrival of the Count de S—— and his pretty mistress in a fine gig whose interior was fitted with red leather decorated with the gilded arms of the count’s uncle. I conducted them round the château and the laboratory. Olivia stroked the copper trellis of the cradle of love and pouted her lips. “How do you expect me to sleep on these thorns?” she asked me. The count reproached her in a tone that I found disagreeable, reminding her brusquely that they were not there to sleep, and that if she desired he would occupy the bottom of the cradle and she could lie on him. While we awaited nightfall, I led them to the poolside. It was the time of day when the birds, of all sorts, were returning from their fishing. The rural scene did not seem to their liking, since they were more accustomed to the life of the salons. To make matters worse, Olivia twisted her dainty little foot in the reeds. She lost her shoe, which I had to fish out, full of mud. The count remained silent. From their demeanor, I judged that I ought to conclude the walk, or risk delaying the beginning of their lovemaking. We returned to the château as night was falling. The north wind, which had blown all day, was falling, and Venus was already shining brightly in the south. Just then I noticed a strange figure on the other side of the pool. I knew my pool too well to mistake it for a tree trunk, but this immobile form, which I had not noticed earlier, looked very much like one. It was brown and slender, like a tree, or a man, but there was no light patch that could have been a

239

chapter 24

face, and the silhouette that could have been a head was too broad to be human. I turned back several times to examine this motionless shadow that was slowly disappearing in the darkness, but I did not want to increase my guests’ anxiety, as I already felt they were worried. I invited them to share my meal that I had chosen specially to invigorate their ardor. Tartar caviar; bouquets of crayfish in a white wine broth spiced with Cayenne pepper, thyme, laurel, rosemary, lavender, and a lot of parsley; a guinea fowl garnished with nutmeg and cloves on a bed of cress; a very rare roast beef, well seasoned with pepper, surrounded by staghorn jelly; and a cinnamon cake to which I had added six drops of ambergris essence. Although it contained meat, the meal was accompanied by a single champagne, for my personal experience had taught me that red wines only excite one’s ardor very briefly before they stimulate soporific humors. I allowed this little candlelight supper to last rather a long time, and was finally made aware of the arrival of our dreamer, Monsieur Thévenet, by the sound of the gig driven by Chen. I had thought it better to put our man to bed behind his curtain before installing the count and Olivia in their cradle. At that very moment I realized that it would have been better to have chosen a deaf man since the blind man behind his curtain would still be able to hear the sounds of pleasure of the couple, whereas a deaf man would have neither seen nor heard anything. I explained one last time to the count and Olivia how essential their help was for the science of electricity, and that their intimacy would be respected as Chen and I would be some distance from the curtains in order to manipulate the spheres. I would

240

Oniron and Orgasmon

give them the signal to commence their intercourse when I noted our sleeper beginning a dream. I hoped that they would be able to reach a climax within fifteen minutes, which brought a slight smile to Olivia’s lips. Of course, the young man had been deprived of sleep and might show four or five, perhaps even six, periods of dreaming during the night, but naturally I could not hope . . . The count seemed more and more annoyed. He made me cut short my explanation. “Of course,” I had the impudence to add, “if you are ardent enough, you could take advantage of a second dream to begin again. Bis repetita placent!”29 The count went red in the face and replied angrily, “I am not a rabbit, Sir. Lovemaking is like sentiment: there is no place for the will!” Rabbits? Of course I had thought about that, but I considered it impossible to order rabbits to dream and mate. The count’s growing nervousness and Olivia’s yawns suddenly made me regret not using rabbits! My old naturalist’s instinct had taught me that it was better not to begin an experiment if one felt any apprehensions. I had just felt regret at not choosing a deaf subject or rabbits. What catastrophes did this experiment have in store for me? Chen’s calm smile reassured me as we entered the laboratory. He had put on his white silk coat and mandarin’s hat. He bowed very ceremoniously to Olivia, then to the count. I presented him as my assistant, a mandarin scientist from the Middle Empire. Seeing him increased the young couple’s nervousness. “Monsieur Thévenet is already lying behind the curtain. He was very tired and I have attached his cable,” Chen told me. “How are you, Thévenet,” I asked him. “Are you asleep?” 29.  Things repeated please!

241

chapter 24

“What if he replied yes?” asked Olivia with a smile. Thévenet did not reply. He must already have been sound asleep. We had to move quickly, for often after a sleepless night dreams can appear less than an hour after falling asleep. I explained to the count once again, who seemed exasperated, how to attach the two copper belts to his own and Olivia’s skin. I would signal the beginning of the dream by saying aloud “Oniros”; I simply asked him to say “Eros” just before his climax, while I should be very grateful to Olivia if she would announce the height of her pleasure by calling out “Aphrodite!” The count grumbled something and straddled the edge of the cradle while Olivia waited. Chen and I wished them good night and closed the curtains. Our carefully designed installation allowed us to draw back the sleeper’s curtain without disturbing the couple’s lovemaking. A big candlestick allowed us to detect signs of his dreaming. We sat down, each holding with leather gloves one of the balls connected to the copper cables. I was trying to concentrate, when from the direction of the love cradle came some pounding. “In God’s name,” swore the count, “get rid of these damned candles.” It was best not to reply. In any case we would have extinguished the candles at the beginning of a dream to see the spark between the two spheres. I blew out the candles. Now we would have to recognize the start of Thévenet’s dream from the sound of his breathing alone. I had sufficient experience to do it. For the moment our sleeper was snoring quite loudly and regularly. I hoped that his snoring would not reach the level of the horrible sounds like a flooded organ that some sleepers emit, or, I thought, the count’s legs would be cut from under him!

242

Oniron and Orgasmon

Suddenly the snoring ceased. A moment of apnea? I leaned over Thévenet’s cradle. He was not breathing. Only forty minutes after falling asleep, he was already beginning to dream. I was stupefied. “Oniros,” I called out. We immediately heard the sound of rocking and some quick, heavy breathing that lasted about half a minute. We brought the two spheres together. “Eros,” shouted the count, just as Thévenet’s snoring started again with a horrible gurgling sound! We heard a few more noises, then a tiny voice cried “Aphrodite,” then yawned! Thévenet’s stopping breathing was merely the apnea of a snorer. I would have identified it if I had been able to put my hand on his chest for, unlike at the start of a dream, respiratory movements continue, and even increase, to overcome the obstruction in the larynx. “So,” shouted the count, “did you see your God damned electricity?” Chen, with his usual sharp wit, calculated that the count’s coitus had been as short as a rabbit’s! I agreed with him, but who could blame him in this situation? “We almost saw it,” I replied. “Quite perfect on your side, but the sleeper did not dream much.” I relit the candles. Thévenet was still asleep. “That is your problem,” replied the count. “You should have chosen your dreamer better. We have fulfilled our contract with science, Olivia and I. Where can we sleep in this damned hole?” he added. We had not thought of that, but I could offer my bedroom to the count and Olivia until the morning.

243

chapter 24

“Dear friends,” I said, “another half an hour? Thévenet’s dream will soon come back. Even stronger. Could you not try once more? Then you can sleep, either in the love cradle or in my room.” What had I said? “Did you hear that? Did you hear him?” the count began to shout. “I should start again, and again, or not enough, or too fast, or not at the right time, or not at the same time . . . That old fool and his Chinaman can go and get. . . , and stuff their spheres up their . . .” What could we do? How could we calm down this raging madman who must have been humiliated by his rabbitlike performance! Chen had detected that the count was an unpredictable and violent man, and he advised me to take care. He discretely disappeared. Later I discovered that he had gone to fetch a weapon. “I beg you,” I said, “please be calm, Sir. Your senses are on the boil, probably because of the electrical current. I shall disconnect the spheres.” “You old lunatic, I got out of your belt long ago. So now you can tell everyone that I fuck like a rabbit!” I watched as the count suddenly jumped naked out of the love cradle, his eyes haggard and livid. “You lousy naturalist, you have dishonored me in front of Olivia and this Chinaman. You will see . . .” His staring eyes and a movement of his right arm that was obviously holding a heavy object left me in no doubt. He was going to hit me. He stepped back to take a swing, and I saw the metallic glint of a heavy candlestick. He looked as if he were accustomed to killing. Just as he was about to strike, Olivia, who was sitting upright in her cradle, screamed in terror: “Over there . . . there . . . it’s horrible!”

244

Oniron and Orgasmon

She rushed toward the count, deflecting his blow so forcibly that her arm was slightly injured. The curtains had been suddenly thrown open and the gigantic silhouette of the wolf-man appeared, dressed in the hooded brown habit of an Augustinian monk. Only his eyes shone. The rest was in darkness. The count let his weapon fall. I noticed that Olivia, whose torso was naked, had very pretty breasts, and that her arm was bleeding. Thévenet, awakened by all this noise, was sitting on his bed when Chen reappeared with a dagger in his hand. I asked him to bring some bandages. “Thank you, Brother Boris,” I said. “Muito obrigado,”30 repeated Chen. “I told you, Sir, that one day you would know how grateful I was.” I held out my hand to the count, who remained as if paralyzed. “I am to blame, Sir, for having drawn you into such experiments without having thought more about it. No man could have performed better than you in such circumstances. I beg you to accept my apologies as a naturalist and as your host.” In the end he shook my hand while Chen bandaged Olivia’s arm. “I put my trust in your discretion as a man of honor,” the count said to me. “Who is that . . . man?” We left the laboratory, leaving Thévenet alone. He had fallen asleep again and at last was beginning to dream! I told them briefly the story of the wolf-man before leaving them to go back to their gig. “Brother Boris,” I said, “how did you know I was in danger?” 30. Many thanks

245

chapter 24

“Sir, everything gets known. Especially by the Augustinians! When I heard about your experiment tonight, I decided to intervene to stop it, for this electricity is the work of the Devil. I did not want you to succeed because this force opens the doors to evil. Father Abbot let me go out. He too believes that you are in perdition, and will draw others in. I saw you from the pool and followed you to your laboratory in the darkness. I have come to save you twice. Once from an earthly death at the hands of the count, the second time from a spiritual death. I beg you never again to try to tempt these immense, even infinite, forces that unite God with the dreams of your soul, and the Devil with the forces of the flesh.” “I see, brother, that you have found some good reading with the Augustinians. If I abandon these experiments it will not be for fear of the Devil, it will be because they seem too difficult. One day, perhaps, someone else will repeat them.” “To prove what?” asked the wolf-brother. “Just to see, Brother Boris. Curiosity is firmly anchored in our brain. Otherwise we would not be here, you, me, the count, Olivia, not even the château’s rats.” Nor would Béatrix be in Paris, I thought.

246

25

Dreams and the Pituitary

August 1781

This last month I have read the physiology books of Boerhaave, John Hunter, and von Haller again. I believe that research into the causes of sleep and dreams constitutes a domain of physiology that is separate and does not resemble any other. Aristotle was certainly right when he wrote that Nature has an aim. Most phenomena studied by the different schools of physiology, like those of von Haller or Hunter, have obvious ultimate causes. The aim of the circulation is to bring blood and nutritive humors to the tissues. There remain no mysteries about the anatomy of the circulation since Harvey, and especially since Leeuwenhoek and Malpighi, described the capillary circulation. The only problem is to know what force makes the heart beat even in the absence of the nervous system. The sensitive flesh of the heart might be stimulated by the volume, the temperature, and the

247

chapter 25

weight of the blood, and this stimulation might force it to contract. Such was von Haller’s hypothesis. Whether right or wrong, it did not prevent circulatory physiologists from understanding its functions. Concerning nutrition, von Haller explained how a continuous dissipation of living matter was possible. Nature must obviously provide for such losses. The anatomy of nutrition, from digestion to chyle, and to lymph being secreted to bathe the cellular tissues, is also well known. The functions of breathing, as well as the mechanics of the muscles that inflate the lungs, hold no more secrets, except that it is important to know what spirits are contained in the air passing through the lungs. Undoubtedly the important element is not von Haller’s gaseous nitrogen but the one discovered by Priestley and Lavoisier. Of course, we only know a minute part of the organization of the animal spirits in the brain, but even if we do not understand its mechanisms, we do know its functions. What naturalist does not know the ultimate cause of the following operations of the brain? First, sensation caused by an object stimulating animal spirits that transport it to consciousness. Then, who would deny the utility of pain, for it warns us of an attack on our tissues, even if certain severe pain occurs uselessly after amputations? But that is the domain of pathological pain occurring in a mutilated organ, and not that of physiology. Who can question the purpose of the memory, even if its seat is unknown? Who would cast doubt on the function of the movements of muscles? Who would deny that the organs of generation contribute to the propagation of the species, either through the ovule, the spermatozoa, or a combination of the two?

248

Dreams and the Pituitary

Indeed, there only remain sleeping and dreaming for which we can find both an infinity of causes and an infinity of functions. The causes are too numerous and contradictory to permit the isolation of a single one that appears to be the immediate cause. Should we consider that all these opportunistic causes act on the immediate cause of sleep? Even if that were discovered, it would tell us nothing about the ultimate aim of sleep. If we say that the immediate cause of the circulation of the blood is the contraction of the ventricle of the heart, it does not help us discover that the blood nourishes all the tissues. If we say that the cause of breathing is the movement of the respiratory muscles, it does not help us discover that the aim of breathing is to mix a vital spirit from the air with the blood. It is therefore not because the immediate causes of sleeping and dreaming are unknown that the study of dreams constitutes a separate branch of physiology. It is because the function, or the ultimate causes, of sleeping and dreaming remain totally unknown. The functions that have been attributed to these two mysteries since Aristotle are so often contradictory, or naïve, that they do not withstand investigation. Need I say that I have none to propose? If I had to find an analogy to the science of dreaming, which is to say the study of a phenomenon that is clearly limited in time, without cause or function, it would be the study of certain organs, perfectly well known anatomically, but whose function remains obscure. This would certainly not include the pancreas, for its function is now known. According to von Haller, we know that the pancreatic juice, aqueous, insipid, and thin, acts to break down the bile and transform this viscous soap into a more fluid and mobile liquid. In contrast, the role assigned to the spleen by von Haller,

249

chapter 25

that of mixing the blood and preventing its coagulation, is less certain. Above all, the pituitary gland seems to me to be an organ that is well known in terms of its relationships with the blood and the brain ventricles, and yet of which the function remains totally obscure. How could such a gland, so well protected in the sella turcica of the skull and so well irrigated by the blood, not have an important function? Could there be some relationship between the mysterious functions of this gland and the enigma of sleeping or dreaming? Descartes had ventured to find a function for the pineal gland. His hypothesis was destroyed rather impertinently by the great anatomist Stenon. Why should the pituitary, a midline organ related to both animal spirits and the humors of metabolism, as Bordeu described, not command the machinery of dreaming? I reflected that this organ was capable of stimulating the brain and acting on the humors. This double action could explain why Marguerite’s dream was transmitted to her little fetus. So I would have to try to remove the pituitary from some rabbits to observe whether this altered or suppressed their dreaming. This would be an improvement over Descartes. It would still be necessary to determine if the ablation of this gland would cause the death of my rabbits. Remove the pituitary? No one had attempted that. I explained to Chen the extent and the difficulty of our experiments, as I ate a plate of Cantonese rice that he had prepared for me very skillfully. If we succeeded, the glory that we would obtain would mean for us renown at least equal to that of von Haller or Hunter, and would, I was sure, exceed that of Charles Bonnet. Next day, a clear August morning, I saw Chen enter the kitchen that was flooded with sunlight. He crossed directly to the three

250

Dreams and the Pituitary

rabbits Maria had just killed and prepared. They had been skinned and they were hanging by their legs high enough that neither the dogs nor the cats could reach them. Chen took a large knife, cut off the head of one rabbit, still without a word. I was intrigued, and followed him out of the château to the meadow that bordered the pool. He found a large ant heap and buried the rabbit’s head in it. “Tomorrow night,” he said, “that skull will be as clean as if this coelho31 had been dead for a hundred years.” Two days later, Chen examined the skull, turning it in all directions. “That is where we must go,” I told him, pointing out the sella turcica. “There is no question of going higher because of the fibrous membrane that covers it, nor behind. Perhaps from the side?” Then I remembered the performer in the fair that I had seen push nails into his skull through his nose. Perhaps through the nose? We tried to push a large shoemaker’s needle through the ethmoid bone. As long as we oriented it well from the beginning, it was possible to break the front wall of the sella turcica and enter it. It was not difficult to judge the depth to which we had to push the needle by noting landmarks on the dry skull, assuming that rabbits of the same weight and variety had identical skulls. In contrast, it was much more difficult to judge the angle at which the needle must enter both in relation to the midline of the skull and, even more important, in relation to the horizontal, for we could find no useful invariable landmarks on the skull. We tried to design a support resting on the nose and the upper teeth, but the incisors were of different lengths. It was enough for one to be a few lignes shorter for the angle of the needle to be displaced by a few seconds of arc. The lower border of the orbit 31.  rabbit

251

chapter 25

seemed to be a consistent bony landmark, and also the edge of the upper jaw. By the next day we had already constructed a model of brass and copper. Once again, I admired Chen’s precision and skill. He explained that he had once worked at a jeweler’s in Macao. So, our first model was like a sort of helmet in hardened brass from which branched three arcs. The front one served to fix to the skull with a mobile spur penetrating each side of the upper jaw at the level of the molars. It was continued lower down by a rigid plate that could be fixed by a screw on a large brass support. The second arc came down to the level of the eyes, and it too was supported by a spur on the lower border of the orbit. It was also continued by a plate that could be fixed to the support. This arc was the principal element of our apparatus. We fixed a half-quadrant to it to carry a stylet for guiding us. This quadrant could be moved by turning a screw, but we envisaged being able to change its angle by a system of worm screws, like those used on an astronomers’ sight. Finally, the last copper arc served to hold the rabbit’s neck and was also anchored to the support. “And now, my dear Chen, how shall we destroy the pituitary gland?” “With the elements,” he replied. “O ar, a prata e o fogo.32 We could make an aspiration máquina, like a bomba33 that would suck out the soft tissue of the glândula.” “Agreed, my dear Chen, but we should need a very strong vacuum to suck through my tiny needle, and we do not even have a long enough hollow needle. In addition we run the risk of 32.  air, silver, and fire 33.  pump

252

Dreams and the Pituitary

sucking out the base of the brain and the arteries of the circle of Willis.” “So, let us try a prata. Some silver nitrates can burn tissues. We would only have to introduce the nitrate salt into the narinas34 and push it with our stylet.” “That would make a lesion all along the track. We would not know if the salt had reached the sella turcica. And also the sliver nitrate might be diluted in the humors and flood the base of the brain. I disapprove of that technique, my dear Chen.” “So only o fogo remains. Let us introduce the stylet after heating it to destroy the tissues of the glândula.” “And burn everything on our way in! No! What we need is to only deliver the fire at the end of the stylet.” “We simply need to insulate the stylet, except at its end,” replied Chen. “For example, with a wooden sheath, or one in cerâmica.” “Too thick. The diameter of the stylet can hardly be more than half a ligne. I estimate that we must heat the tip to eighty degrees to destroy the gland. We must find an indirect method so that the fire only appears at the tip of the stylet.” Then we went out to look at the rabbits and we passed in front of the pen for the wild animals. We needed to improve it for some of the animals had managed to escape by climbing over the outside wall of the run. I had asked Eel to make me a big wicker roof to fix over the pen. We heard the noise of a cart, and Eel arrived with Damien. Our blind friend had worked well. I had only given him the diameter of the run, and I thought he would simply weave a flat roof of reeds. He had doubtless wanted to show me what he was capable of, for he had constructed a real wicker dome, half a 34.  nostrils

253

chapter 25

sphere that fitted the run perfectly. We fixed it with Damien and Chen. The wicker dome gleamed in the sun in the courtyard of the château. Its proportions were so harmonious that Chen cried out, “A nossa nova catedral dos sonhos!”35 Eel, who could not contemplate his work, was listening hard. I took him by the hand so that he could touch it one last time. “Thank you, Eel. You made me a superb wild animal cage, but I never thought that you would be able to construct such a perfect dome.” It’s a hemisphere,” he replied. “It’s easier to calculate the length of the reed twigs.” A hemisphere! Somewhere in my brain the circuits of the animal spirits of my memory turned over. Hemisphere—Magdeburg— Leyden—Leyden jar—electricity! I shouted to Chen, “We can pass electricity at the end of our stylet with a Leyden jar. It will be easier to insulate the stylet.” I invited everyone to inaugurate the new wild animal dome and opened my best bottles of Etoile wine. In the afternoon, Chen and I reexamined our projects. “I can easily find a Leyden jar at the academy in Lyon. We shall need an apparatus to charge it. It is easy to build. Some jars can deliver enough electricity to electrocute a battalion of guards holding hands. A spark should be enough to destroy the pituitary gland, especially since the surface area is small. We must connect the rabbit to earth with a copper chain attached to a muscle.” “And the isolação?” asked Chen. “It is not as with heat. It is enough to have a membrane that does not conduct electricity. I have read that even thin gloves are adequate to touch a electrical wire without feeling the discharge.” 35. Our new cathedral of dreams!

254

Dreams and the Pituitary

“Gloves for the stylet?” asked Chen. “Chen! For once French ingenuity wins over Chinese. Chen, just the little finger of a glove! Yet I think that you Chinese invented them?” He screwed up his eyes and looked at me. “Intestines of small sharks. Para ir ver as mulheres.36 It is so thin that sensation is not disturbed.” “In our case, my dear Chen, the sylet is not as big. What do you think of the intestines of small catfish? We must try. Go and find a net.” So, thanks to Chen’s skill, we tried to coat our stylet as tightly as possible. Chen sought perfection by turning a segment of intestine inside out over a straw to introduce it over the stylet, to which it adhered so closely and tightly that the diameter was not increased. We needed two more weeks to learn to use the Leyden jar. Chen charged it by turning the handle of the friction generator. One day when it was raining, I received a discharge in my hand. The electric shock was so powerful that I lost consciousness for several seconds and my fingers were burned superficially. Then we had to experiment with electricity on the fresh brains of rabbits. The results were disappointing for the electrical lesions were hardly visible. Then I had the idea of pouring the nutritious gel that surrounds the germ of a chicken’s egg in a glass. We plunged the stylet into it. The electrical current left a white point of coagulum that was easily visible and whose diameter we could measure. So we were able to draw a curve of the relationship between the intensity of the discharge, which was dependent on the duration of the charge from the friction machine, and the volume of the coagulum 36. Like when you go to see women.

255

chapter 25

of the egg white. While we did this we noticed that the position in the glass of the copper chain that led to earth did not influence the diameter of the points of coagulum. I was rather surprised, but my knowledge of electric currents was very limited. We then decided on the following experimental protocols:   It was pointless to sacrifice the rabbits immediately after the discharge to the pituitary gland, because the electrical lesion might not yet be visible   Ideally we should lesion five rabbits and observe their sleep for eight hours a day for seven days   Finally the rabbits would be sacrificed between the seventh and the tenth day, and we would pay the greatest attention to examining the base of the brain and the pituitary gland, for it was possible that damage to the substance of the brain would then be more evident because of fibrous tissue that would occupy the place of the lesion   During this period we should devise a better method to remove the brain in order to examine the gland easily without tearing the pituitary stalk, which had sadly been the case up to now because of the fibrous roof that covered the sella turcica. We began to operate on the rabbits the next day and had to surmount a large number of difficulties. In spite of a stupor induced by a laudanum enema, it was difficult to fix the head-holding apparatus, for opening the rabbit’s mouth caused the reflex closing of the jaws. In addition, our apparatus had been designed using the dimensions of a dry rabbit skull and no longer fitted the skull of a live rabbit. Finally, we realized that considerable errors in aiming could appear, for Chen and I always found differences of a few degrees.

256

Dreams and the Pituitary

So we had to refine each stage. I added some powdered datura to the laudanum to cause greater relaxation of the muscles of mastication. We improved our head-holder by lining it with leather in the regions where it was in contact with the rabbit’s skin. Better fixation of the aiming system and the use of a sight enabled us to estimate the azimuth of the stylet to within a few seconds of arc. Each of these refinements cost us a rabbit, which we dared not eat, for my dog Gotthard had stayed asleep for more than two days after devouring one of our rabbits that had been sacrificed at the end of an experiment. These trials, in addition to difficulties of all sorts, delayed our real experiments by more than three months after the first attempt. The first rabbit died a few minutes after the electric shock, in spite of the fact that the penetration of the stylet, with its glove of catfish intestine, seemed perfect. The second rabbit developed so great a nasal hemorrhage when we removed the stylet that I assumed we had coagulated a large artery in the circle of Willis. It died that evening. For the third rabbit, we did not observe a violent jerk at the moment of the discharge. Removing the stylet did not cause major bleeding, but we noticed that the copper chain inserted in the ground had accidentally been detached from the rabbit’s neck muscles. We kept this one, and it began to eat grass again two days later. A few occasional observations revealed that it did dream. We did not sacrifice it. At last, luck smiled on us for the final two rabbits. The penetration of the stylet in the right nostril, the electric shock, and the removal of the stylet were accomplished perfectly. We observed these two rabbits with all the care and attention that reflected the

257

chapter 25

difficulty of realizing the operations. They awoke the second day, and both began eating grass again. Their further progress was, however, different. The fourth rabbit seemed to be in excellent health. Chen and I were able to observe periods of sleep of normal duration. In contrast, the fifth rabbit was not in good condition. We were surprised to see it drinking very frequently, as if it had a constant thirst. It also seemed to pass urine frequently. We certainly noticed a few episodes of dreaming on the third day, but it became impossible on the fourth day for all eye movements ceased when the rabbit became limp. On the fifth, sixth, and seventh days we became certain that it was not dreaming at all. This was perhaps due to a diminution of its sleeping, for it was constantly agitated, searching for water or nibbling its hindquarters. So we sacrificed these two rabbits. We fixed their brains, still in the skull, in spirit of wine. How could we interpret these results? Were we sure of having destroyed the pituitary in the rabbits that had survived? How could we locate exactly the electrical lesions? We sectioned the skull sagittally with a very fine saw. It was not easy to obtain a perfect sagittal cut through the pituitary, and, even with a magnifying glass, it was difficult to detect a lesion. We should have used a microscope. But how could we cut the infundibulum and the pituitary into sections thin enough to be able to observe them with the instrument? We tried with a razor, which only resulted in tearing the lower part of the third ventricle in the brain of the fifth rabbit, the most important one, and it was then impossible for us to trace exactly the effects of the electric shock. I was disappointed. I was angry at myself for not having thought of this problem earlier, for I thought the lesion would be easily

258

Dreams and the Pituitary

visible, either to the naked eye or by using a magnifying glass. Reading the anatomy books again did not enlighten me. Chen, who had immersed himself in reading the Geneva ovist, as he liked to call him, read me the following passage from Charles Bonnet: “The likes of Malpighi, Swammerdam, Morgagni and Haller have only shown us the first, superficial level of plants and animals. This superficial level, however, demanded all the talents and all the wisdom of these great masters to be seen properly. What intelligence, what capacities, what techniques would therefore be necessary to attain the second level.” That blessed Genevese was right. Those anatomists only observed with their eyes or a magnifying glass. We needed microscopic anatomy! But how to do it? Chen continued reading. Looking at the bottom of the page, he explained, “One of the best observers of Nature, Mery, said in 1742 with as much spirit as truth: ‘We anatomists . . .’” “What did Mery say?” Chen continued with a smile, “are like the porters of Paris, who know all the streets, even the smallest and remotest ones, but do not know what happens in the houses.” Porter of the Dombes! “Chen, we are stopping these experiments. Cook your best Chinese meal for me, the spiciest there is. Tonight I am going to Lyon.”

259

26

The Spirit of Dreams

October 1782

I had met Béla Gabor in Heidelberg during my journey to Berlin in 1765. He was Hungarian and was traveling around Europe looking for different types of phosphorus. I still remember our long discussion in a Bierstube frequented by students. Gabor told me about the discovery by Hensing, who in 1719 had shown that the brain contained phosphorus. This Hungarian, who had been a student of Homberg, thought that cerebral phosphorus must be the motor of animal spirits. I explained to him that I was interested only in the brain through my work on dream recall. The beer stimulated our minds, and I encouraged Gabor to continue his research on phosphorus and gave him my address at Villars for him to communicate his results to me. Three months ago I received a letter from him that I reproduce below.

261

chapter 26

Sir, You have doubtless forgotten our conversation in a Bierstube in Heidelberg eighteen years ago, but I dare hope that you recall a Hungarian chemist who importuned you by his obsession: seeking the function of the presence of phosphorus in the brain. The mystery is now in the process of being resolved. Thanks to the secrets of my mentor, Homberg, I have indeed succeeded in perfecting a technique allowing the detection of phosphorus in small quantities of brain. During my present visit to Berlin, I had the occasion to hear of the magnificent results that you have obtained in your studies on the recall of dreams. I also heard from a mutual friend of Monsieur Charles Bonnet of Geneva and Monsieur von Haller of Bern that you have conducted experiments on rabbits to elucidate the mechanisms of dreaming. Your aims, Sir, are the most praiseworthy and the greatest possible for a naturalist. If our knowledge of the brain is still at a fetal stage, it is because chemists do not meet naturalists. Dare I say that a certain ostracism on the part of the observers of nature often relegates them to their retorts? I, Sir, am convinced that the distillation or the fermentation of brain conducted according to the state of our art could be useful to brain science, and even more so to the science of dreaming. I indeed believe, Sir, that I am one of the greatest experts in this art, having served Monsieur Homberg who has left no other students. As various business affairs oblige me to visit France and then Italy, I should like to discuss my projects with you again. May I, on this occasion, have the honor of visiting you? I am sure that my meeting with one of the greatest experts in the mysteries of the brain and dreaming would permit me to better direct the chemical experiments that I propose to undertake. I am, Sir, etc.

262

The Spirit of Dreams

I replied immediately to this man of science that his visit would be a pleasure for me, and that he would be very welcome in my château and could stay as long as he desired. I added that, although completely ignorant of the new science of chemistry, it seemed to me that it would be quite appropriate to try to find answers to the questions I was asking on the nature of the humors secreted by dreams. So it was that I saw Gabor arriving in the coach from Villars a month ago. The memory I had of him was of a man in the prime of life. I was surprised to meet a white-haired octogenarian, but his lively temperament and enthusiasm were those of a young man. Gabor, accompanied by a few modest bags, took up residence in the château. Without delay I explained to him what I might expect of chemistry. The transmission of dreams from a mother to her fetus could not be explained in terms of animal spirits. It must be that the mother’s brain was communicating with her fetus by humors. How could chemistry detect a dream factor in the blood? Further, did chemistry have the ability to detect a subtle factor present in dreaming rabbits, but absent in rabbits deprived of sleep, or in birds that do not dream? Finally, I had imagined that, if phosphorus were the motor of animal spirits, as Gabor supposed, this mysterious substance might be responsible for the phosphorescent images of dreams. “I cannot reply to the first question,” our chemist replied, “for it deals with man, and no one dare conduct experiments on man. I think that our science can answer the second question as to whether there exists a subtle factor responsible for the rabbit’s dreams, or emanating from them. We dispose of two methods that we owe to my mentor, Homberg. We must first isolate the volatile

263

chapter 26

spirits by distillation, which is easy. Next, by long repeated distillations, or perhaps by fermentation, we must isolate the factors that constitute the mixture and that are associated with phosphorus. So we shall obtain two fractions, the volatile spirits and the oil, that could contain the dream factor. Finally, we could isolate the cerebral phosphorus to see if it exists in your dreaming rabbits, but is absent in chickens.” I understood little of what he was explaining, but my enthusiasm was stronger than my doubts. We went with Chen to bring retorts and alembics from Lyon. I asked him to construct a distillation oven in one laboratory with bricks from the Dombes. In a month, Gabor had aroused in me such a desire to perform chemical experiments that I could already imagine the drops of dream spirit at the bottom of a retort! We began our experiments one fine morning in October when our chemistry laboratory was finished. We took the heads of four rabbits that had been deprived of dreaming for three days in the wild animal pen, four heads of dreaming rabbits from cages where they could sleep as much as they wished, and twenty chicken heads. After removing the skin and external flesh from each group, we opened the skull and removed the whole brain. We placed all of them in three large half-filled glass retorts. The retorts were placed on my oven and we fitted a large glass flask, carefully sealing all the joints with luting. Then we lit a small coal fire beneath the retorts to distill drop by drop the phlegmatic fraction of the brain, where we thought the dream factor might reside. Five hours later, we had to increase the fire to the third level. Thereupon white clouds were given off,

264

The Spirit of Dreams

filling the recipients, followed by black oil, and volatile salts that coated the walls. We let the fire go out, and when the retorts were cool we unsealed them and separated them. The recipients contained much phlegm, volatile salts, and black, bad-smelling oil. By shaking them, we dissolved the volatile salts that clung to the walls, and then we poured all the liquid into a funnel fitted with gray paper and placed on a glass vessel. The spirits filtered through. We collected the smelly black oil in a bottle. It was obvious that it could not contain the subtle factors of dreams but that it might perhaps contain sleep factors because sleep dulls animal spirits. We purified the liquid that contained the volatile salts once again by fitting a head and a recipient to the still and distilling about half of it. At the end of all these procedures, we obtained, in two well‑stoppered bottles, spirit of brain of dreaming rabbits, sleepdeprived rabbits, and chickens that do not dream. I would have preferred to stop the experiment at that stage, but Gabor persuaded me that the oil might also contain spirit of dreams. So the next day we continued our work on the disgusting black oil from the brain. There was fortunately a strong west wind, blowing gray clouds over the Dombes so that we could open all the doors and windows of the chemistry laboratory. We had to purify this oil by distilling it alone fifteen or twenty times, each time employing a new glass retort and recipient that had not yet been used. In spite of these repeated distillations and purifications, I found the atmosphere of the chemistry laboratory more and more suffocating and I feared that the pestilential vapors might end up reaching the floor above, where my wife lived. Chen had already left

265

chapter 26

us much earlier to take refuge in the kitchen, for this stench was upsetting him greatly. “This is nothing compared with the distillations that I undertook with Homberg all those years ago,” the old chemist told me. He sat beside a window and sniffed, his slitlike Hungarian eyes screwed up above his wrinkled face. “No, this is nothing! I do not think I ever told you Homberg’s story! . . . He was one of the greatest chemists I have ever known. Greater than Hensing, Lemery, or the jealous Baron! We have time now,” he said, looking at the retorts. “This purification will certainly take another two hours. If you wish, we could go downstairs and escape the smell. To pass the time, I can tell you the story of Homberg, my mentor. He was the most imaginative and ingenious person I ever knew. I have never met another chemist who has advanced our science as much. I owe him everything.” We went down to the kitchen where Chen was awaiting us. The old Hungarian sat down and began to tell me the strange story of Guillaume Homberg. “My master,” the old man recounted, “was born in 1652 in Batavia on the island of Java. Although his father had obtained for him at the age of four a place as ‘corporal’ in his company, the extreme heat of the Dutch East Indies prevented him from making progress in his studies. Fortunately, his father left the service of the East India Company and returned to Amsterdam. Guillaume studied law in Leipzig and graduated as a lawyer in Magdeburg around 1674. He did not like the profession of lawyer and his curiosity led him to collect plants during the day and observe the stars at night. But Magdeburg must remind you of something?” asked the old man, interrupting his story.

266

The Spirit of Dreams

“The hemispheres!” I replied. “The hemispheres! Otto von Guericke, who was burgomaster of Magdeburg at the time, invented them. You have heard the story of these two half-spheres that were pulled in opposite directions by eight horses. But they did not come apart because they contained a vacuum produced by the pneumatic pump invented by the burgomaster. Of course, the inquisitive young Homberg was attracted to him with the result that von Guericke taught him the secrets of his genius. But Guillaume had within him a passion for knowledge. First, he went to Italy, staying in Bologna, where he worked on the stone that bears the name of the town and that contains a sort of phosphorus, which I am soon to go to study myself. From Italy, Homberg traveled to England where he worked for some time with the famous Boyle whose laboratory was one of the most learned schools of physics. Then he went to Holland where he gained experience with the illustrious Graff. Finally he went to Wittemberg to take a degree of Doctor of Medicine.” The old Hungarian paused. He must have told this story many times. We went upstairs to change the retorts once again and undertake another purification. The atmosphere was just as foul, and the bottoms of the empty retorts were covered with a white crust that adhered to the glass so firmly that we could not remove it. We went back down, and Chen offered us some Ceylon tea. The old man continued his story. “Of course, Guillaume wished to go to Germany. As he had gained considerable knowledge of phosphorus in Bologna, he went to Berlin to meet Kunkel, who gave him his phosphorus. It was phosphorus from urine. If you agree, we shall recover some from the urine of your rabbits as soon as we finish purifying the black humor from their brains.”

267

chapter 26

I grimaced, but he pretended not to notice. I had no desire to distill my rabbits’ urine! The old man continued. “After many vicissitudes, Guillaume Homberg returned to Holland, then to France. There, Colbert, convinced that people of particular merit were good for the kingdom of France, made him such generous offers that he decided to stay. Once in Colbert’s debt, Guillaume had to abjure his Protestant faith, for which his father disinherited him. Then when Colbert died in 1683 he found a new home thanks to the friendship of Father Chalucet, Bishop of Toulon, who was very interested in chemistry.” I interrupted him. “It is time to change the retorts.” The atmosphere upstairs was a little less pestilential. We again changed the retorts. The black humor of the brain had become light brown. “Another three or four purifications,” the old man told me. “We should be finished by about midnight.” We went down again. I asked Maria to prepare a small meal of cold fish pâté, accompanied by some white wine, which we shared with Chen. The old Hungarian remained quiet but drank heartily. It occurred to me to have some Château-Châlon brought in. He smelled it, inhaled it through his large, old chemist’s nose, and tasted it. “Is it Tokai?” “Yes. The stock is Tokai, brought from Hungary two hundred years ago. It grows on the sunny fossil soils at Menetrux and Château-Châlon in the Franche-Comté sixty leagues north of here.” “It is clearly the germ of Tokai, its perfume, its robe. It has become rather different, but it is good.” “And what became of Homberg?”

268

The Spirit of Dreams

“In the end, he stayed in Paris. His experience in chemistry, in optics, and in physics soon earned him the respect of scientists. That was why Father Bignon, the director of the Academy of Sciences, admitted him to the academy in 1691, and gave him the laboratory of chemistry. It was the time when the academy had entered the worst of declines, and very often there were not enough academicians to fill the two hours of the sessions. As soon as he was admitted, he contributed much to upholding the society until his renewal in 1699. About 1702, he was presented to the Duke of Orleans, who was keen to penetrate the mysteries of chemistry and physics. The duke provided him with the finest, best equipped, the most sumptuous chemistry laboratory. He went to see Homberg almost every day to discuss philosophy.” Night had fallen, and with it the wind. We began to smell the emanations of the retorts in the park. I hoped the odors would drift down, rather than up. Suddenly we heard the sound of horses in the courtyard, the barking of the dogs, and the grinding of the wheels of our gig. Maria came to warn me that Madame had left, and Chen handed me a letter. Dear Friend, I have tolerated all your mad experiments, the animals, the fleas, your vulgar relationships, your nightly absences, and even the stench of lavender. This time, I can no longer stand this demoniacal pestilence. You are heading for perdition, and the château with you! I am returning to my mother definitively. I shall study botany by following the lessons of my good friend de Jussieu. Plants do not dream, fortunately! May God accord you a moment of lucidity before it is too late. Adieu

269

chapter 26

It was not the first time my wife had left me, and I was accustomed to her absences. Nevertheless, I was rather intrigued by the reference to de Jussieu, whom she must have met in Paris, but I thought that this new relationship would be a way for her to enrich her orangerie with rare species. I asked Maria to neutralize the stench of our oil of brain by again perfuming my wife’s apartments with lavender essence. Without paying any attention to this incident, the old chemist continued. “At this time, around 1716, I was fifteen, and I met Homberg. I had been recommended by my uncle, who knew an officer in the service of the duke of Orleans, and I was appointed assistant chemist to Homberg. He recounted how he knew a way to make a lot of money by converting common mercury into fine silver. Someone he had met, but did not wish to name, had asked him very insistently whether he knew how to distill from feces an odorless oil as clear as spring water. The stranger had sworn that such water could turn mercury into silver.” “Is that possible?” I asked. “I did not know, but Homberg believed so. We rented a house near Paris, in Choisy, and Homberg employed four young, strong, healthy men, whom he confined to the house with me for three months. I had to ensure that they ate nothing but the finest bread from Gonesse, and that they drank their fill of the best champagne. For me this was also the moment I began to taste French wine. Your health!” said the old man, emptying his glass of ChâteauChâlon. He continued, “I was astonished that the quantity of feces that a man produces at a time, about ten or twelve ounces, once desiccated in a bain-marie, is reduced to at most one ounce, or ten gros. I shall not describe in detail all our distillation, purification,

270

The Spirit of Dreams

filtration, and evaporation in an athanor. Each time we obtained a fetid oil that caught fire in the retort. In the end, Homberg had the idea of replacing the violence of the fire by a process of fermentation, in which the elements that compose the mixture separate from each other little by little. So we placed the nineteen ounces of powder that remained in the vessels in a bain-marie for six weeks. The dry residue had a pleasant, aromatic odor. We distilled this powder again. In the end we obtained nearly an ounce of white oil, which became as red as blood in the flask in which we had enclosed it. Of course, we tried adding the white or red oil to mercury, but the mercury never changed into silver! On the other hand, we noticed that these oils had a surprising tendency to burst into flame without any movement or outside heat. Homberg proposed placing them among the purest phosphoruses known then in a lecture he gave to the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1714. Hensing then adopted Homberg’s method, but only published his discovery of cerebral phosphorus in 1719 in a minor work published in Giessen in Hesse.” In the early hours of the morning, we found ourselves with three flasks of volatile salts and three small flasks of white oil. It was like Homberg’s in that it tended to burn spontaneously and it turned pink in the corked flasks. Béla Gabor was happy. “It is cerebral phosphorus! We have just discovered phosphorus in the brain of rabbits and chickens, whereas Hensing only isolated it in the brain of an ox!” I was disappointed! I would have preferred to find the phosphorus only in the brains of rabbits and not in chickens. So I had to abandon my hypothesis of phosphorescent dreams. I decided not to wait for the oil to turn red. Although Gabor had obtained the

271

chapter 26

result that he desired, I was impatient to try the volatile spirit and the oil on my rabbits. So we dissolved the volatile salts from the dreaming rabbits, from the rabbits deprived of sleep, and from the chickens, in rainwater. Then we injected the solution as an enema in three groups of four rabbits. Immediately afterward we did the same with the pinkish oil that we administered to twelve other rabbits. We only kept a quarter of a flask “to show the Lincean Academy of Rome,” as Gabor told me. When the twenty-four rabbits were back in their cages, I sat down with Chen to watch them carefully. The old chemist left us. He was tired, and my results did not interest him much. The science of chemistry, with its repeated solutions and fermentations, was not compatible with the reasoning of physiology. He judged the rabbits’ blood to be too cold to conduct the oils to the brain and could not imagine that living matter might digest such oils. The factor that they contained was like an essence, impalpable, like an end in itself. “How can an end become a means?” he had asked me. After resting a while he prepared his bags, for he was to leave me at the end of the day. Forgetting my fatigue, I soon realized from the state of the rabbits that the oils and the salts provoked different effects. The twelve rabbits that had received the oils soon stopped eating grass. They lay on their side and began to breathe faster and faster, while seeming at the same time to be in a deep sleep. For a few minutes I believed that we might perhaps have isolated the sleep factor. But little by little I had to admit to myself that this deep sleep was really a state of torpor. I watched as one after the other the rabbits died between ten o’clock and midday.

272

The Spirit of Dreams

It was obvious, I said to myself, that we had administered too great an amount of this white oil, for the rabbits that had received the oil of sleeping rabbits, those deprived of sleep, and the chickens had all died within the same time. So I had to conclude that the inflammable spirit, the cerebral phosphorus, was responsible for these deaths. So I was free to observe the twelve rabbits that had received the volatile salts. They appeared normal, and the alternation of periods of waking and slumber were identical in the three groups. I hoped to observe longer periods of dreaming in those that had received volatile spirits distilled from the brains of dreaming rabbits. It appeared to me to be the opposite, for I noticed one big rabbit, which had received spirits from rabbits from the wild animal pen, lying flat, with its ears drooping and showing signs of a long period of dreaming, with brisk eye movements for six minutes. When I finished my observations at four in the afternoon, I consulted my notebook with some annoyance: 1. Four rabbits—oil from dreaming rabbits: all dead between ten and midday Four rabbits—oil from penned rabbits: all dead between ten fifteen and eleven forty-five Four rabbits—oil of chicken brain: all dead between eleven thirty and twelve forty-five 2. Four rabbits—volatile spirit from dreaming rabbit brain: fortyeight minutes of dreaming observed Four rabbits—volatile spirit from penned rabbit brain: fifty-eight minutes of dreaming Four rabbits—volatile spirit from chicken brain: fifty-two minutes of dreaming

273

chapter 26

These results went against my hypothesis but could easily be explained by pure chance, I thought. So, at the end of this first, long chemical experiment, I could conclude that neither the white oil of brain nor the volatile spirits of dreaming rabbits could increase the amount of dreaming in rabbits. Should I continue such experiments? They had cost me dear and had made my apartments stink. Should I once again try to confirm that the increase in dreaming observed in rabbits that had received volatile spirits from the brains of rabbits from the wild animal pen were indeed correct? That result was so strange that it must be due to chance. I had to study the rabbits longer, before and after the enema. If our distillations had isolated the dream factor, this factor should have produced such clear results that I should have observed almost continuous periods of dreaming. I went back down to the courtyard accompanied by Chen who was carrying the cadavers of my twelve rabbits. The old man was smoking his pipe in the sun, with his bags at his side, for my gig was to come and collect him to take him to Trévoux where he would take his coach to Marseille. He tapped his pipe on his heel. “It’s the oil, isn’t it?” he said, pointing to the cadavers. “But why?” I asked. “The oil only contained what is in their brains. How can the brain kill the brain?” “And the distillation? This poison, the phosphorus, was probably enclosed in the fibers of the brain. Have you ever seen a brain catch fire spontaneously? We have extracted the factor controlling animal spirits, like a real fire. How do think the brain warms the blood? How do you imagine that the pituitary gland is placed in a real bain-marie if there is no warming factor like phosphorus? Your

274

The Spirit of Dreams

enema must have warmed the brain so much that it cooked! I told you so.” “The other rabbits are well. The volatile spirits— ” “The volatile spirits blew away with breathing,” said the old man, interrupting. “They combine with air. It is in their nature. They certainly never reached the brain.” “So what can we do?” I asked him, suspecting that the old chemist had obtained what he wanted and that he could not care less about dreams. “Nothing,” said the old man. “Dreams are immaterial. How do you think you can distill them?” Damned chemist! “I do not want to distill dreams, but the brain humors that make them appear. Why does a mother cause movements of her fetus when she dreams? Why does a rabbit that is deprived of sleep for a week dream twice as much as another one? Are you not afraid that your distillations and your fermentations might have destroyed the factor that might cause dreams?” “Then make a powder. Dry it and crush it without heating it.” “But how do you turn a brain into powder?” “Not the whole brain. There must be one part of the brain that is more important than another.” “Perhaps the pituitary,” added Chen, who had remained silent, for he mistrusted Gabor. “So, take out the pituitary glands and let them dry in the shade, above all not in the sun,” he told me. “Then crush them in a mortar. Maybe the dream factor is held inside. After all, one can use powdered stag horn with the same effect as distilled extract of stag head against spitting blood and to treat malignant tumors!”

275

chapter 26

I sat on the bench beside Gabor and began to think. Simply dried and powdered in a mortar! I realized that perhaps Gabor had made me construct this chemistry laboratory simply to find his own cerebral phosphorus! He was a sly old man, whom other naturalists must have shown the door. I resolved in the future to be more careful in my dealings with chemists! However, this adventure taught me one thing: a naturalist nowadays cannot have universal knowledge, I thought. That is reserved for philosophers, who hide their ignorance by writing obscure manuscripts. I ventured to believe that my knowledge of the science of dreaming was not equaled in Europe, and that my research into their causes, although still sterile, would one day open a door to investigations that would bear fruit. Yet, when I consulted the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, I had to admit my ignorance of the papers on mathematics, physics, and chemistry. So how could I develop my research? I knew of no universal genius, like Leibniz, who knew as much as I did about the physiology of the brain, even if he was a master mathematician. I had once discussed with the great mathematician Bernouilli the mechanics of the brain, and had been surprised by his ignorance about it. So I had to accept that knowledge was becoming fragmented among the different disciplines. I recognized that I had been duped by my chemist, after being duped by Leduc the physicist! In future, I thought, who would dupe whom? I had encountered in Paris, in the corridors of the Academy of Sciences, a young correspondent, a protégé of the Court, who had acquired a reputation for dissecting the Surinam eel. His knowledge of the organization of the electrical fibers of this fish had allowed him to elaborate a theory of the brain that had provided material for a large quarto volume. In his imagination, he

276

The Spirit of Dreams

had constructed a great edifice on this fish. No domain of cerebral physiology had escaped his imperial theorizing. In each chapter, he felt obliged to astonish the ignorant. The conclusion of his monument was that thought had its seat in the brain! I saw a great danger in this sort of work: that of deducing the function of the whole from an infinitesimal element of one part. The risk was making the cultivated but, in terms of the complexity of cerebral mechanisms, ignorant reader believe that the key to brain function is so simple that it can be hidden in the bones of an eel! If one could not reconstruct the brain in one’s imagination from knowledge of one of its tiny parts, how should one do it? It seemed obvious to me that an association of zoologists, physicians, naturalists, chemists, and even physicists with expertise in the new science of electricity would not be too much to tackle the mystery of dreaming. What form would such a collaboration take? Who would be the master architect? How would he who would have to direct the research ensure that the other disciplines would not engage in every possible way to advance their own research? I envied the discipline that reigned in German or Prussian universities. In those countries, it would doubtless be possible to assemble a combined force of scientists capable of tackling the fortress of the dream according to a precise plan. “Monsieur Gabor, why did you not try to do your research on your phosphorus in Germany? The laboratories of Wittenberg or Giessen are better organized than mine, and discipline reigns there.” The old chemist took my hand. “Sir, allow an old man like me to give you some advice. I am infinitely grateful that you spared neither your time nor your money for me. You have given me

277

chapter 26

my last joy in this world with this phosphorus, of which I have dreamed for fifty years. But, Sir, you cannot imagine the harm that discipline is doing to research in Germany. It is true that professors there direct large teams, who obey perinde ac cadaver.37 The power of Kunkel at the University of Wittenberg was that of an intellectual dictator. There was no truth outside his own doctrine! German discipline seems beneficial to you because a single master imposes his ideas to his disciples. But, dear Sir, if this strategist is wrong, because he has become obtuse or because he dislikes the ideas of one of his rivals, he will lead his troops to defeat. And how do you deal with chance, or fantasy, such as you have, Sir? Do you really believe that a new idea that germinates in the brain of a young student can develop if it is imprisoned in the straitjacket of research of which the plans have been drawn in advance by Herr Professor? After visiting many countries, many chemists, and many laboratories, the old man in me has come to three conclusions:   it is not necessarily the biggest laboratories that make the biggest discoveries   chance counts for more than organization   it is therefore impossible to organize in advance and to foresee the aims of all research. The gig had just pulled into the courtyard. This sly old Gabor, I thought, is trying to make me forget the adventure of the phosphorus, the oils, and the volatile spirits. Nevertheless, I felt sympathy toward the old chemist. “What will you do with your cerebral phosphorus?” I asked him. 37.  like a cadaver

278

The Spirit of Dreams

“With your permission, Sir, our phosphorus! I am going to return to Bologna, where one of my nephews will receive me. I shall end my life there, in the Italian sun. I intend to send the results of our work to the Lincean Academy of the Rome. I shall even go and show them how our oil of brain can catch fire. I should be infinitely grateful to you, Sir, if you would be an author of our paper.” “I regret that I cannot ask the same of you, dear friend. My failed experiments on the rabbits do not even merit a note. Perhaps I shall have more luck with the powder of pituitary!” “The powder of dreams! I wish you good fortune, Sir.” Gabor was moved. He got up at the same time as I did and grasped both my hands. I think he would have liked to embrace me. “Above all, dry it in the shade, never in the sun!” He climbed into the gig. One last time, I caught sight of his white hair and his hand raised to salute me. I shall never see him again, I thought as I waved my hand in adieu. Before disappearing, the gig slowed at the bend in the road to let past the coach that was arriving at the same time. It stopped in front of my door and the coachman handed me a packet. “It’s from Paris,” he said. “More books,” I thought, but its weight was very light. I went up to my study to open the packet. It contained an enormous ostrich egg, covered with a green bonnet. The egg was empty and there was a circular hole at its base. I pulled a little perfumed letter out of it. Bonnet was right. Ostrich eggs do dream . . . I shall soon be back and I kiss you. Béatrix

279

27

Die Zweckmässigkeit der Träume

September 1785

The party was over. It must have been two or three in the morning. I went out of the tower to the balcony that overlooked the pool. The air was still warm and the silence of the night was only disturbed by the carp jumping in the water. It was a fine, dark night. The moon was in its first quarter and was not quite at the level of the top of the reeds. Béatrix came to join me. I put my hand on her shoulder. I had drunk too much and stumbled a little in the dark of the night. In the end I gradually became accustomed to the darkness and looked at the immutable order of the stars in the sky through half-closed eyes. I thought of the conversation I had had with a young German, Nicholas, a pupil of Kant. “A naturalist must use the concept of Zweckmässigkeit as a leitmotiv in his empirical observations, without seeking the ultimate origin of the

281

chapter 27

organization of the things that he is studying, for that will forever remain beyond the purely mechanical concept of cause.” I tried to better understand the concept of Zweckmässigkeit, which seemed rather obscure, although I understood its sense. I tried to explain it to Béatrix. “It means, and indeed I have always thought so, that Nature has a purpose and that it never does anything aimlessly. In my opinion, the concept of teleological agents would serve as a good translation, in spite of there certainly being a better one. But, you see, it is impossible to translate faithfully the thoughts of a professor in a German university. Our languages have been separate for too long. His ancestors, his education, and his dreams are different from ours. He can put together words to express a concept that is difficult for me when I have to try to translate it using Latin roots that are too old to express it. You see, Béatrix, my mind tells me that the thalweg of my dreams is not Latin or French. My ancestors, lying with their faces to the earth, were from the Franche-Comté. I do not know why, but the German language is better adapted than the French to the furrows that my parents’ dreams and the thalweg of my own dreams have drawn in my brain. The Treaty of Nimegen and peace are still too recent to have erased the atrocities that the French and the Swedish inflicted in the Franche-Comté. I remember when I was little my grandmother saying, “If you are not good, I shall call the grays.” They were the Swedish mercenaries of Richelieu’s army who perpetrated so many massacres in the Franche-Comté!” “But you have your right foot in the principality of the Dombes, and your left in Bresse,” replied Béatrix. Indeed, Bouligneux was split in two by that border.

282

Die Zweckmässigkeit der Träume

“Béatrix, we are both, you as much as I, old subjects of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire through our dreams. We are, and we shall remain, exiles.” After a silence I said to her, “Listen, Béatrix. I believe that Professor Kant is right. That explains our failures with our research on the causes of dreams. We thought we could remove a rabbit’s pituitary and so localize the cause of dreams to a single region, but we did not find anything. We ought to have reflected on what Kant wrote: ‘The brain is a whole. One cannot isolate one part without reference to the whole. Further, its parts must combine in the unity of the brain, such that each is at the same time reciprocally the cause and the effect of the others.’” “The whole, and the part? So how do you expect to make any progress with your experiments? If I remove the weights of my clock, it will not work anymore. So, gravity is the cause of time,” she replied, playing with her necklace, a chain and an gold egg, as big as a quail’s, that I had given her on her return. “And if you remove the hands, how will you know the time? Béatrix, the brain is not a clock, nor a machine. On the one hand, we must accept that there exists a formative force, responsible for the organization of the brain, that we do not understand. On the other hand, we use mechanical methods, like sectioning the brain or destroying it, to try to divide it up or reduce its complexity, in our attempts to understand it. We behave like mechanics with a machine, a machine that has made itself. That is stupid!” “My dear naturalist,” replied Béatrix, “you have drunk too much champagne. It is making your mood very dark and is blunting your desire, I fear!”

283

chapter 27

Béatrix was right. I had certainly drunk a little too much, and I was discouraged, but I did not know why. What was the point of cutting up or sectioning these rabbits’ brains? What was the point of looking in their brain for traces of the chemicals of dreams? I sneered at the thought of the retorts in which I had boiled the brains of chickens and of dreaming and nondreaming rabbits! I thought of the time, the money and the energy that I had spent trying to calculate the weight of dreams or the electrical energy of dreams! The bitter memory of mixing orgasmon and oniron with Count de S—— suddenly struck me. What a laughable failure! But these failures revealed the way forward by closing others. “You see, Béatrix, the naturalist must be like a general conquering an unknown continent, like Cortés in Mexico or Pizarro in Peru. He must have a strategy: go to Mexico, or to Lima, and take gold. And a tactic: work with Nature to better understand it. So he must first send out scouts in all directions, like lancers. That is reconnaissance. Too bad for those who fall in ambushes, or get lost, or bogged down. Like us, when we tried to understand dreams with alchemy or electricity! You were lucky not to be here!” “I know all about it,” replied Béatrix. “You must have been mad!” “It was all just fruitless reconnaissance. But how can you find the right path if you have not tried all the others, even the most difficult, and the maddest? Do you credit Nature with wisdom?” “I believe that the laws of Nature are wise, but that these laws are not traced in our brains by dreams,” replied Béatrix. “Agreed, because there are no prophetic dreams. In any case, how could you understand a dream that suggested answers we

284

Die Zweckmässigkeit der Träume

might get in a hundred years, or two hundred years, in 1983? It would be as incomprehensible as Chinese!” “By then they will have solved the mystery of dreaming long ago,” replied Béatrix. “In 1983 people will be able to go the center of the Earth and will visit the moon in balloons. They will know how to interpret their dreams, and understand prophecies for 2083!” The light of the moon was now reflected in the pool. Would there still be a pool in 1983, and frogs, and the château? What wars, or invasions, or epidemics would have stormed through here? “Béatrix, once the reconnaissance has shown you where not to go, you must take the last remaining path with your whole army, horses, and artillery. Be cunning with Nature and attack it as its weakest point.” “Or deceive it by means of a woman,” replied Béatrix. “What was the name of Cortés’s Indian companion?” “That is it. You have to try to conquer that woman. I think her name was Malinche. She is the one who should deliver the keys of the city of dreams if all our reconnaissance fails. The cause of dreams is not in rabbits’ brains, nor in alchemy, nor in electricity. Neither is it in my own dream recall, nor yours, which you never reveal to me anyway!” “I do not want to tell them to you, or I would have to lie!” “We cannot even delve into our brain to understand, for the brain of dreams is different. When you dream, Béatrix, it is not you doing it, it is someone else. You are not dreaming; you are dreamed by that formative force that decides your actions in advance. It is wrong that events happen whatever you do. They happen because you do what leads to them. Leibniz wrote that long ago, my dear!”

285

chapter 27

“So, my dear naturalist, what are you going to do with this apparent freedom that your dreams leave you?” “I am going to follow the only path that is still open to me, for I have no other option. I shall travel the world in search of an intelligent species that does not dream! Its very nature will teach me how we can have a mind without dreaming. Perhaps this species is completely free because no dreams have ever decided its reactions and gestures in advance. It has no thalweg dug in advance to guide the activity of its animal spirits, or its life force as we say now.” “Poor madman! Poor dreamer of the Dombes! Where will you find such a species? With the mermaids or the unicorns? If such beasts exist, they must be like Vaucanson’s machines for they must always behave in the same way, without fantasy or unpredictability that, according to your theory, are the result of furrows made by dreams. These beasts must all look alike because their germ creates their brains once for all. Imagine that all these beasts, which you claim to understand, are all timid. They will all flee in the face of an enemy, none will attack it, and very quickly their enemies will find a way to draw them into a trap and destroy them all. Just the same if they are all courageous and attack stronger enemies!” “You are right, Béatrix. What is important in what dreams must write in advance in the brain is the difference between each individual of the same species. Some must be timid, others courageous, so that some will survive if some catastrophe happens. Dreams are the guardian of the psychological differences between individuals.” “Just suppose, dear naturalist, that your dreamless creatures are men. According to your theory, they would be completely subjected to the influence of their natural, and therefore social, surroundings. As dear Jean-Jacques, whom you hate so much, says,

286

Die Zweckmässigkeit der Träume

society could manipulate the characters and the minds of these men at leisure. Suppose again, my dearest mad and slightly drunk naturalist and philosopher, that this society is dominated by a tyrant who wishes to impose his own ideas! Then you would have a society of ants or bees, each blindly obeying the tyrant. Do you really believe that could be possible?” “I fear so, my dearest wise and sober philosopher! But fortunately men dream. They are not a society, just different individuals, who remain different as long as they dream. In spite of his police, his gendarmes, his spies, his lackeys, his army, his prisons, and his gallows, a tyrant could not impose his law for long on different individuals. Some people would be determined in advance by the action of their dreams to remain passive and obedient, and they would be the most faithful supporters of the tyrant. But there would still be others whose dreams would have imprinted paths to freedom or disobedience, or, if you like, a nature for open or secret resistance. These people will win in the end, for it is a law of Nature that no individual can impose his lifestyle, or his ideas, on a large number of other, different people, unless he fertilizes all the women and transmits his germ and his dreams to future generations!” “It is fortunate that the frogs are asleep and cannot hear you,” replied Béatrix. “It is true that Louis XVI is an enlightened despot, but do not go and tell all that to your Naturalists’ Circle on Thursday evenings. I still wonder where you go and spend the rest of the night.” “With the nemesis of nature according to Linnaeus, dear Béatrix! You are always right. I am tired. I hope my dreams will lead me to the land of a species that does not dream!”

287

chapter 27

“I think I have discovered what dreams you,” said Béatrix after a long silence. “You once gave me your dream memories to read. I have forgotten almost all of them, but I remember the first ones well, because you had me copy them in the early days. You know, the first three dreams that so intrigued you and that form the prologue of your dream library. You dreamed of a big glass tank and an animal—an otter, I think—that could stay underwater for a very long time. A mammal that could dive like a dolphin. Do you not think that it was a sign that you did not understand then, twenty years ago?” “Perhaps. I had forgotten that first dream. It is true that when the wolf-man told me about dolphins, something in me was ready for that message. Something I had never learned, and was therefore in my germ. Perhaps some of my ancestors were whale hunters. If so, destiny, my destiny, would depend on my unconscious, to use the new expression of that damned ovist from Geneva. Something is pushing me to go in search of dolphins. Probably the thalweg made by that first dream, and many others since, whose message I have not recognized on waking. My mind is telling me that I must visit those marine mammals because they do not dream, but that is perhaps just a lame excuse that I give for a destiny that is pushing me toward them.” “So,” said Béatrix, “it is just as when we played dice before I went to von Haller’s. You must choose between what you are—you, the person created by what you have learned—and what dreams you—that depends on your ancestors and does not reach your waking mind but that does determine you in your dreams.” “Yes, Béatrix, your intuition always goes faster than my reasoning. I believe that the richness of man’s brain, and his nobility,

288

Die Zweckmässigkeit der Träume

depends on the fact that he is the only animal capable of realizing his dependence on his destiny. That is nobility, but at the same time a very heavy burden, for we must realize that we have to choose between what our animal spirits dictate while we are awake, and what our ancestors are still printing in our brain while we dream.” “So you are becoming a Lutheran?” “No. I do not share Luther’s pessimism about man’s nature, nor his reliance on faith. I think that one day the explorers of dreams will understand how the force of dreams transforms our brain more than the society we live in, and that they will be able to use this to transform man, and perhaps society. But I have to accept that all my attempts to find the force of dreams have been sad failures.” “Are you really going in search of dolphins? How? On what ship? Where? Why not stay with me? We would be happy.” “Of course, I would be happy with you. My ego, but not the id that dreams me. That is what has to be satisfied. I have heard about an expedition led by La Pérouse, but it already left at the beginning of August on the Boussole and the Astrolabe. Fortunately I still have some friends in the navy who could help me find a position as naturalist on a frigate setting sail for the warm oceans. Chen confirmed what Brother Boris told me: the people of the kingdom of Likeu are experts in training dolphins and can communicate with them. Perhaps I could observe and study at length a newborn dolphin with them and finally be sure that it does not dream.” “Where is this kingdom of the dolphins?” “Somewhere to the northeast of Formosa. Far away, but once on a ship time hardly matters. I shall certainly often dream of you.” “When will you come back? I shall wait for you.”

289

chapter 27

“In two or three years. In 1789 or 1790. Do not wait for me, Béatrix. Before I go I shall leave you with all my notebooks on dreams, our observations, and the long article for the Academy of Berlin. Keep it safely. It is our article . . . we shall both be authors, and you can add your chapter on birds’ dreams. If you have no news from me, send it to Frederick II before the month of December 1790.”

290

28

Letter from Count de Lesseps to Béatrix

Paris, November 1, 1788 Madame, It is with great emotion that I am fulfilling a sacred duty in sending you with this mail a letter that my friend, Hugues la Scève, entrusted to me more than a year ago on disembarking from the Boussole to the east of Formosa. I had embarked as Russian interpreter on that frigate commanded by Monsieur de La Pérouse on August 1, 1785, in Brest. The expedition of the Boussole and the Astrolabe, commanded by Monsieur de Langle, first took us to Argentina, then we rounded Cape Horn to follow the coast of Chile to Easter Island, then due North to Frenchmen’s Bay before crossing the whole Pacific to Macao and finally to Cavite, three leagues southeast of Manila. During my numerous visits to that fine big city, while our rigging was being thoroughly inspected and our shrouds unrigged, I made the acquaintance of Hugues la Scève in March 1787. The friendship that we soon shared made my stay in Manila very pleasant. Hugues had just

291

chapter 28

arrived from Macao on the frigate Subtile, commanded by Monsieur la Croix de Castries. He was employed onboard as a naturalist. He brought us news from France that he had left on April 24, 1786. His voyage had taken him to the Cape, then Batavia, before calling at Macao. He explained that he had contacted friends of his collaborator Chen in that port. His aim was to obtain the address in Manila of some inhabitants of the kingdom of Likeu who were the greatest experts in the art of training dolphins and even communicating with them. He knew of La Pérouse’s project to sail to the Sea of Japan and explained that he would like to embark on the Boussole. So I recommended him to La Pérouse, who accepted all the more willingly because our assistant surgeon, Jean Guillou, had just fallen sick with dysentery. Hugues’s transfer was also helped by Providence, in that the chief surgeon of the Boussole, Claude Nicolas Rollin, was an old friend who welcomed him very warmly. So, at the end of March 1787, Hugues la Scève boarded the Boussole as assisant surgeon and naturalist, at the same time as Monsieur Gayet, an ensign loaned to us by the commander of the Subtile. Before embarking, Hugues told me that he had met a native of the kingdom of Likeu. He had recommended that he land in the southernmost islands of that large archipelago situated to the east of Formosa. We left Manila on April 10, 1787. La Pérouse first steered to the west of Formosa toward the Pescadores, sailing close to the coast of China. This route did not allow us to approach the Likeu Islands, and Hugues sank into the depths of depression. Fortunately, our soundings showed that the channel between the Pescadores and Formosa was very narrow, scarcely four leagues. It would therefore have been dangerous to tack during the night in the atrocious wind that had risen. So La Pérouse decided to sail to the east of Formosa. How can I describe the joy that lit up my friend, who seemed to have lost ten years of age. First we recognized the island of Botol Tabaco Xima,

292

Letter from Count de Lesseps to Béatrix

before glimpsing the island of Kumi, one of the southermost of the Likeu archipelago. Some natives in canoes approached us. La Pérouse decided to send a boat to reconnoiter this island. Hugues la Scève offered to go with it to study the flora and fauna. Before climbing aboard he embraced Rollin and me, giving me this letter for you, Madame. He revealed to us secretly that he wished to remain on this island to learn the language of the dolphins. His professional conscience was clear as the health of our surgeon Jean Guillou had improved considerably. I can still see him standing upright, saluting us with his swordstick as the boat with its four seamen took him off over the calm sea into the sunrise. The seamen returned at sunset. They reported that Monsieur la Scève had disappeared into a tangle of mangroves; in spite of their calls, he had not reappeared. As the current was carrying us north extremely quickly, La Pérouse did not think it justified to risk bringing the ship to and sending another boat the following morning. So we sailed toward the wider seas between Japan and China. After putting into several bays on the Tartary coast, we sailed through the Kuril Islands and finally arrived off the harbor of St. Peter and St. Paul in the bay of Avatcha in September 1787. La Pérouse entrusted me with the first copies of the story of his voyage that I was to carry back to France by a very long and difficult journey through Russia, where I could speak the language. I finally left La Pérouse on October 7, 1787. How can I describe my emotions at our parting! I embraced La Pérouse and de Langle, the captain of the Astrolabe. It was to be the last time I saw him, for I just learned on my return to Versailles from a dispatch sent from Botany Bay by La Pérouse of his tragic death at Maouna in the Navigators’ Islands. So we have lost him, this fine and loyal seaman, the friend, the companion of our commander, this man whom I loved and respected like a father. We have lost him, and my pen refuses to describe his wretched end. I ask Heaven, for the glory of France, to soon bring back to us Monsieur de La Pérouse and

293

chapter 28

his comrades. As I write this letter, Madame, I pray that favorable winds will bring their ships to our shores, and that they will also bring Hugues la Scève back to us. So I left St. Peter and St. Paul guided by Monsieur Kozlov-Ugrenin, the governor of Okhotsk, who accompanied me through a thousand dangers, the length of Kamchatka. I was attracted to his esteemed person thanks to his spiritual values. I shall spare you, Madame, an account of my adventures, but I owe you an explanation of an unfortunate accident in which I almost lost my life. I almost drowned, and sadly Hugues la Scève’s letter was soaked, for I carried it constantly at my breast, carefully wrapped in a sealskin purse. It was May 12, 1788, and I had just left the village called “Bear’s Head,” forty-five verst38 from Okhotsk. After half the journey, part of our team refused to continue, and we had to go down a river that seemed to offer the simplest route. We had scarcely gone a few paces when we suddenly heard a cracking sound beneath our sledges. A minute later I felt myself sinking slowly into the icy water. Fortunately, it was only four feet deep, and by dint of a considerable struggle my companions managed to pull me out, but I was soaked and freezing. We returned to Okhotsk where I warmed myself. Then it was that I realized that the sealskin was not as waterproof as I had thought. So I immediately dried Hugues’s letter in front of the large fire where I was warming myself, and could but regret that the water had rendered some pages illegible. I pray you, Madame, to excuse the bearer of this letter who, quite involuntarily, is responsible for its censure by the icy water. Other adventures, that I shall recount when I relate the story of this journey, awaited me. I was finally able to reach Moscow, then St. Petersburg, Riga, and Berlin. I arrived in Versailles on October 17, 1788, and had the honor to be presented to His Majesty the same day. 38.  The verst is an old Russian measure, about one kilometer.

294

Letter from Count de Lesseps to Béatrix

I hope that this letter will precede by little the return of Hugues la Scève, and I await impatiently the joy of our reunion and of holding him in my arms again. I would not wish to end, Madame, without renewing my assurance of my sentiments of the highest esteem and respect with which I have the honor to be your very humble and obedient servant. Count de Lesseps

295

29

The Last Letter of Hugues la Scève to Béatrix

I found no trace of the letters that Hugues la Scève must have sent to Béatrix during his calls at Cape Horn, Batavia, or Macao. The letter delivered by Count de Lesseps was still folded in the sealskin purse. It consisted of ten sheets of thick paper, turned brown with age. Pages 1 and 2, and 9 and 10, were completely washed out by the water. Pages 3 and 8 were very difficult to decipher, and I have placed brackets around the almost illegible words, the sense of which I could only guess. Pages 4, 5, 6, and 7 were easy to read, but their edges were damaged. Page 3

. . . Near Manila. The fortifications are in red stone and the garrison is composed of two battalions [1300] of active men. This regiment is

297

chapter 29

Mexican, and their courage, according to the Spanish, is [comparable] to that of European regiments. . . . After leaving Manila, in a brisk northeast breeze, I quickly fell asleep. [This is the dream] that I [had] that night: the red château of Bouligneux was lit by the sun setting on the port of Manila, next to the fort. You were on the château, so beautiful and desirable in your green dress that I awoke. Was it the [memory or image] of that red fort that reminded me of our château at Bouligneux that I left more than a year ago? . . . Page 4

. . . are probably lost for ever. My failure to find any explanation for these phenomena made me remain silent while we were heading toward Manila from Macao on the Subtile. Doubtless, my meeting with de Lesseps and my friend Rollin restored the enthusiasm I had lost. But the course that La Pérouse is steering, west of Formosa, toward the Pescadores, will be the final link in a long chain of failures. I shall probably never again have an opportunity to communicate with dolphins. The man from the kingdom of Likeu whom I met in Manila looked neither Chinese nor Japanese. He was very tall, with a head as round as a ball. His hair was piled up on the crown of his head around a gold pin. He showed me how he could call the dolphins by striking the surface of the water rapidly with the flat of his hand. I understood that the fishermen of the island of Likeu take to sea in canoes dug out from tree trunks. This man also informed me that the sea around the islands is dangerous at certain times of the morning and evening because of the very big, black, poisonous sea snakes. I shall stop this letter now, for the wind has got up and the rolling of the boat is preventing me writing . . .

298

The Last Letter of Hugues la Scève to Béatrix

Page 5

. . . a rough night of short tacks, with the crew shouting out the depths in fathoms: 48, 40, 12, 8. As the monsoon had not yet let up, and a squall was preventing us tacking any more, I sensed that we were changing course. The sea was so rough that each time we were running downwind we risked being engulfed by the waves . . . La Pérouse has indeed just changed heading, and we have run into yet another squall, as violent as the one during the night. It was preceded by torrential rain, such as one only sees in the tropics. The sky was as if lit by fire all night, and we rounded the southern tip of Formosa at daybreak. Now, we are completely becalmed. De Lesseps has met with La Pérouse, and has just informed me that we are heading to the east of Formosa. At last fortune is smiling on me! Even more so as Guillou is almost cured. He even feels capable of amputating a wounded limb, according to what he has just told me. So I must prepare my escape. I have discussed it with De Lesseps and Rollin and explained my project to them at length. I also told them of you and our love. We drank some ratafia and ate some oranges that we had loaded at Manila. Page 6

. . . then we saw fires on the island of Kumi, and some canoes left the shore to watch us. At first, the natives stay prudently out of range of a musket. We made welcoming signs and displayed some cloths, until two canoes approached us. Before they reached the frigate, they had placed their hands on their breasts and then lifted their arms in the air. They had the same round head that I had noticed in the man from the kingdom of Likeu in Manila. La Pérouse ordered that each be given a piece of Nankin pottery

299

chapter 29

and some medals. As they gained confidence, they invited us to go ashore, making us aware that we should want for nothing if we did. La Pérouse informed me that if the sea remained calm, he might send a boat the next day to reconnoiter the island of Kumi. I told him that it would be an excellent opportunity for me to collect plants, and to look for a very rare plant called Bruguiera gymnorhyza. Page 7

. . . very calm night. You still appear in my dreams: last night we were flying together. I was leading you by the left hand. Suddenly you let my hand go and flew up very high in the air. This dream was very different from all the others I have had so far (almost five thousand now). Until last night, in all my flying dreams I was certain of being awake, and surprised at how easy it was to fly. In last night’s dream, on the contrary, I was certain that I was dreaming and that I was an amazed spectator of our flight and your flying high in the air. A sudden large wave made me hold onto my bunk, and my dream disappeared. Why did I have a new sort of dream? I never dreamed of your departure to von Haller’s, of your absence and your visit to the Royal Botanical Garden in Paris, nor of all your adventures that I tried to forget. So could “Béatrix in the air” mean “Béatrix Haller”? Do you think that the play of the animal spirits during a dream could be a play on words? Page 8

. . . they promised to remain silent. They understand my project. Tomorrow I shall hide myself in the [mangrove] forest to look for the [  ]. When I leave, I shall entrust this letter to De Lesseps, who is to bring home La

300

The Last Letter of Hugues la Scève to Béatrix

Pérouse’s logbook when he reaches Kamchatka. I shall return home myself in a year, when I have learned the dolphins’ language. Perhaps with a new alphabet? Do you think that Charles Bonnet will finally take me seriously? . . . I have bet Rollin that I shall return to France before him, either through Manila or Macao, where I can easily find [a boat]. I know, but it must remain the secret of this letter, that La Pérouse’s expedition will turn south after the visit to [Kamchatka] to inspect the English in New Holland . . . . . . finally for the joy that you have given me. I do not know who is writing to you this last night aboard the Boussole, but I can tell you: he who is dreaming me, and myself, we both desire you more than anything. . . If not, I beg you to send our manuscript to Berlin. . .

301

30

Iriomote Yamaneko

Lyon, June 1984

I am not a historian, but the interest of these documents prompts me to comment on certain historical details. To honor the discoveries of Hugues la Scève in the eighteenth century, I have taken the liberty of commenting on the circumstances of similar “rediscoveries” that were only published in the second half of the twentieth century. To begin with, the beautiful girl with the birdlike head that Hugues met on the occasion of his visit to the hospice in Châtillon must have been a case of the syndrome described by Cornelia de Lange of Amsterdam, also called typus degenerativus amstelodamensis. These children are afflicted with a profound mental handicap. They, however, show signs of normal sleep and dreaming, as Olga Pêtre-Quadens and our team described in 1965.

303

chapter 30

Further to Hugues’s observations of Maurice during that same visit, we now know that people who are blind from birth do not experience visual images while dreaming, but their dreams are rich in images related to hearing, touch, taste, and smell, in that order. If blindness begins at or after a critical age of five to seven years, visual images can survive in dreams for a long time, from twenty to thirty years, after which visual dreams tend to disappear progressively. The study of eye movements during dreaming in the congenitally blind initially seemed to offer a key to resolving the enigma of the relation between eye movements and the dream scene. The first results seemed to indicate that, indeed, their visually barren dreams did not provoke movements of the eyes, but more suitable methods have since shown that the dreams of the blind from birth are indeed accompanied by eye movements. Sister Catherine had good eyes! Not until the twentieth century was it finally shown that there was a correlation between tiny movements of the fingers during sleeping in deaf-mutes who had learned sign language and their recall of dreaming. Hugues made an interesting suggestion, from the observation of his own dreams, that during waking we can both recognize a face and speech at the same time, but during dreaming something blocks that capacity so we either recognize faces or words, not both. From my own dream recall, I can confirm his experiences. A modern explanation of his hypothesis resides in the fact that the recognition of a face requires activity in the right occipital cerebral cortex, while speech recognition involves the left temporal cortex, at least in right-handed people. During waking there is a continuous exchange of information between the two cerebral hemispheres, through the corpus callosum. A dissociation of this

304

Iriomote Yamaneko

exchange during sleep could explain Hugues’s observations. We have known since 1965 that in the cat, during “paradoxical” sleep, that seems to correspond to the “rapid eye movement” sleep of dreaming in man, there is an inhibition of transfer of information between the hemispheres. If this same phenomenon exists in man, we might suppose a temporary condition of “split brain” during human dreaming. Hugues’s observations of muscle twitches during sleep in his cats was not new. Aristotle and Lucretius had already described them. In 1765 Fontana had also noted, in particular, eye movements during what he thought was deep sleep in his cats and dogs. However, we had to await the development of sophisticated recording methods in the second half of the twentieth century to discover that the eye movements in the cat were accompanied by fast electrical activity in the brain, similar to that during waking but different from that of normal sleep. William Dement called this “activated sleep” in 1958, and I noted a total relaxation of the neck muscles during these episodes and coined the expression “paradoxical sleep” in 1959. In the early 1960s we developed the concept that paradoxical sleep was a third state of brain activity in mammals, together with waking and sleeping. Damien’s knowledge of the postcoital behavior of his rabbits was rediscovered in the 1950s. My friends Charles Sawyer and Masazumi Kawakami in California were working on the interactions between the brain and the pituitary and, like all endocrinologists at that time, used rabbits. They saw precisely similar postcoital activity that was familiar to Damien. During the period of atonia, when the rabbit’s head fell to the ground and the ears drooped, the brain’s electrical activity was the same as during active waking.

305

chapter 30

They called this phenomenon “hyperarousal,” but it soon became evident that it was the same as paradoxical sleep in the cat. Over the years that followed, much work was devoted to understanding how the pituitary and its hormones could influence this behavior, and it became clear that not only the pituitary, but also the part of the brain that controls it, the hypothalamus, played an intimate role in sexual behavior and the “Biology of Passions,” as Jean-Didier Vincent called it. Hugues’s observations on the Swiss soldier predated those of William Dement and Nathanial Kleitman by some two hundred years. They showed that in man periods of eye movements during sleep lasted on average twenty minutes and occurred every ninety minutes or so. They were accompanied by the electrical activity of light sleep. Some ten years earlier, Paul Ohlmeyer noted that sleeping men had an erection approximately every ninety minutes, but he did not relate it to dreaming. In 1965 a friend of mine, Charles Fisher, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York, showed that paradoxical sleep was regularly associated with erection. It is now widely admitted that penile and clitoral erection accompanies dreaming, from the newborn to the centenarian. Its maximum is in the adolescent during erotic dreams, but it also occurs in dreams with no erotic content. Neurophysiology has not yet provided an explanation for this phenomenon, and physiologists have sought in vain for erections in rats, cats, and dogs. Hugues clearly made accurate observations on the sleeping behavior of his newborn kittens. We have now shown, using recordings of electrical activity in brain and muscle, that kittens begin life with signs of what may be an immature process, “active sleep,” and some seven to ten days after birth develop true paradoxical sleep.

306

Iriomote Yamaneko

The apothecary of Villars probably suffered from the Pickwickian syndrome, which is typically found in the obese and is characterized by periods when breathing ceases, or so-called sleep apnea. The resultant poor night’s sleep affects alertness the next day and can lead to sudden somnolence, during which paradoxical sleep can appear immediately, with loss of muscle tone. The physiological basis of the loss of tone during sleep in the cat and in man has only been understood since 1965. In the eighteenth century, the concept of “inhibition” did not yet exist, and Hugues was rightly amazed at the strange juxtaposition of loss of activity in the neck muscles and excitation of the eye muscles. The accident involving Monthieu gave Hugues the opportunity to study the human brain through his wound. A hundred years later Mosso, in Turin, made similar observations on an eleven-year-old boy, and wondered if the intermittent increases in cortical pulsation and blood flow could be due to dreaming. Modern brain imaging methods have confirmed an increased brain blood flow during dreaming. Béatrix was right about dreaming in birds. Paradoxical sleep is found in all birds. It is characteristically very short, ten to twenty seconds, but its features are similar to those of mammals in terms of eye movements, atonia, and cerebral electrical activity. We have even observed “dreaming” in eggs! To deprive a falcon of sleep surely deprives it of dreaming, so does that make it tamer? Overall, the phylogenetic tree of dreaming that Hugues and Béatrix devised is correct, apart from the birds. Hugues was wrong to mistrust the observation on the ferret, which in fact dreams for four hundred minutes each day. It is the absolute champion of

307

chapter 30

dreamers, beating the oppossum (300 minutes) and the cat (200 minutes), while man only dreams for one hundred minutes. In Hugues’s letter to Charles Bonnet, he mentions a letter he received from Diderot refuting Marat. I did not find this letter from Diderot in Hugues’s papers. Diderot took up this criticism of Marat again in his Elements of Physiology, which he wrote between 1765 and 1780. They were not published, however, until 1875 in Diderot’s complete works. He wrote The Dream of d’Alembert in September 1769. D’Alembert feared that he might be accused of holding the dangerous opinions that he had in his dream, and appealed emphatically to Diderot, who burned the manuscript, and perhaps also a copy that Grimm had already procured. Miraculously, after Diderot’s return from Russia in 1774, an intact copy of the 1769 manuscript reappeared. Hugues was a friend of Diderot and visited him in 1770 and learned of the manuscript, as he recounted when writing of his meeting with Bordeu in Lyon. It was published in 1782 in a confidential manuscript review of literary correspondence, reserved for the Princes of the Royal Courts of Europe. It is possible that Charles Bonnet, who was also a friend of Diderot, knew of this text. We have to wait until 1830 for the first official publication of The Dream of d’Alembert, rediscovered in the library of Catherine II in St. Petersburg. Hugues could well have invented the concept of the unconscious, or subconscious. He did not, for unknowingly he was a prisoner of Cartesian dualism. The word “unconscious” appears in English in 1751, and Platner contrasted the conscious and the unconscious in 1776. In France the concept was not used until around 1850, and mainly in the context of German terminology. It is therefore probable that Bonnet was the first to use the idea of

308

Iriomote Yamaneko

unconscious or even subconscious to translate “Unbewußtsein” in his reply to Hugues’s letter. It is interesting that in this reply, Bonnet mentions hallucinations in people with eye diseases. They are often referred to as the Bonnet syndrome, wrongly attributing them to self-observation by the naturalist from Geneva. In the same letter, he writes about sleepwalking. We now know that sleepwalking is not related to dreaming, as he had logically supposed. Only since 1965 have we been able to show that sleepwalking occurs in the stages of deep sleep, preceding dreaming, although no convincing physiological explanation of the phenomenon has yet emerged. Bonnet also wonders if Hugues is a follower of de la Mettrie. He was the author of Man a Machine in 1748, which he insidiously dedicated to von Haller, thus upsetting Bonnet. Wolf-men, afflicted with hypertrichosis of the face, were familiar in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The best-known was Pedro Gonzalez. He lived in Rome and was immortalized by the Florentine engraver Stefano della Bella. They were identified with the lycanthropes and werewolves. Some were descendants of the Ambras family living in Austria. Boris must have been from a branch of that family who had emigrated to Russia in the middle of the eighteenth century. As to whether dolphins sleep, the problem has been partially resolved thanks to the work of my friend Lev Mukhamatov in Moscow. The enigma is that the dolphin needs to be conscious to breathe, so how to reconcile sleep and breathing is Ondine’s curse. Evolution has resolved the dilemma very elegantly, for the dolphin can control its respiratory centers in the brainstem by using either its left or right cerebral hemisphere. So, the dolphin can let one

309

chapter 30

hemisphere sleep while the other stays awake. The periods of sleep can easily be detected by the appearance of slow brain waves. Every twenty to thirty minutes the right hemisphere sleeps, followed by the left. At the same time the dolphin closes the corresponding eye. So they always sleep with one eye open, and one half of the brain awake. But what about dreaming? Dreaming, or paradoxical sleep, is characterized by atonia and eye movements, which are hardly valid for the dolphin, which in any case does not move its eyes. But does this prove that they do not dream? Or can they dream with one side only? The possible absence of dreaming in an animal with such an advanced brain already worried Hugues. This enigma led us in 1984 to search for substances in the pituitary of the dolphin that might be devoid of dream-inducing qualities. We had observed that complete extracts of bovine pituitary could reestablish dreaming in rats and mice that could no longer dream after lesions of the hypothalamus. Mukhametov had suggested that the dolphin may not dream. So, is the absence of dreaming in dolphins explicable by the lack of an “oneirogenic” factor in the pituitary? If so, we should not be able to reestablish dreaming in our rats by injecting dolphin pituitary extract. If, however, we were able to bring dreams back to our rats with dolphin pituitary extract, we would have to conclude that in the dolphin the so-called executive nerve centers for dreaming could not be triggered, either because they did not exist or because the aquatic way of life prevented them from functioning. I needed a dozen dolphin pituitaries. It was not easy for physiologists to find dolphin pituitaries, and the only source available to us was the Japanese fishermen of Okinawa. Dolphins have been hunted in Okinawa for decades because they cause enormous damage to the coastal fishermen’s nets. They are

310

Iriomote Yamaneko

rounded up in nets and massacred with harpoons by the hundred as they leap and dive in the sea, stained red with blood. Their butchered bodies provide food for the Japanese. Their heads are thrown back into the water. We had been warned in a laconic telegram sent by a former researcher from my laboratory, Tetsuro Sakumoto, now a professor at the University of Okinawa: “The dolphins are coming.” So, one evening in May 1984, I arrived with my two Japanese friends, TS and KK, in Okinawa, just before the brief red sunset of the South Seas. The next day, thanks to Japanese efficiency, we were able to obtain fifteen dolphin pituitaries, removed as quickly as possible after death and preserved at minus twenty degrees in boxes containing dry ice. Since the collection of the pituitaries had been quicker than expected, we decided to go to Iriomote, the southernmost island of the Ryukyu archipelago, south of Okinawa. Iriomote was famous among biologists since the discovery of a new species of cat, the Iriomote mountain cat: Iriomote yamaneko. It is a big cat with six toes that spends its time in the water, like an otter, catching fish. Only about fifty remain on the island, where a group of Japanese ethologists watch over them. We visited this little island, ignored by tourists, traveling along a river of black water bordered by an impenetrable tangle of mangroves. Then we climbed to the volcanic summit of the island along a steep path, while a roundheaded guide pointed out the local species of butterflies, snakes, and lizards to us. We did not see any cats. As we came down the other side of the island at the end of the day beneath a scorching sun, we arrived at a Buddhist temple on the edge of a little clearing. It was our chance to drink some fresh water with a long-handled wooden

311

chapter 30

ladle. An old monk looked after the temple. I left a few coins in front of the altar of the year of the buffalo, the year of my birth, and we went to visit a small museum in the right wing of the temple. In this poorly lit museum, some wooden domestic utensils from the pre-Meiji era were displayed: looms, baskets, fishing tackle, and other items. A collection of sabers of all sizes occupied the back of the room. Straight or curved, their Japanese steel still shone blue in the pale light of the setting sun. The steel of other sabers of various shapes was blackened. They dated from before the Japanese colonization. Suddenly, amid the ideograms and Chinese characters, the Latin letters HLS appeared before my eyes. They were engraved on the pommel of what must have been a sword, or perhaps a swordstick, which was now reduced to the state of a sort of rough spike of black steel. The entwined letters HLS were identical to those I had seen on the chest I had bought in Villars. Where had this sword come from? My friends asked the monk, but he did not know. He had always seen this relic here. It must have been brought here when the temple was built, perhaps two hundred years ago. The island and its temple had survived the war behind the protection of the impenetrable barrier of mangroves. Night had fallen. As I returned by boat to the neighboring island of Ishigaki, I was watching the wake of the boat and the waves swallowing the reflection of the moon on the sea. Suddenly, I recalled the last letter of la Scève, and La Pérouse’s rerouting to the east of Formosa, and I understood why I had come to this island in the Ryukyu archipelago. These Ryukyu Islands, were they not indeed those of Likeu? If la Scève’s fate had been programmed by the genes of his subconscious, had not my desire to look for

312

Iriomote Yamaneko

dolphin pituitaries also been guided by my dreams, in some unfathomable way? How had la Scève’s swordstick come here? How long had he stayed in the region after sending his last letter to Béatrix? Was this island his last resting place? Was Iriomote the island of Kumi? When I got back to Lyon, I read again the “Voyage” by La Pérouse. The island of Kumi, where la Scève had disappeared, had the following coordinates: 120º 56' longitude east and 24º 33' latitude north, measured with a quadrant of a three-foot radius. From modern maps, the coordinates of Iriomote are 123º 50' east and 24º 20' north. But La Pérouse had noticed in Manila that imperfections in his “No19 chronometer” produced an error of 4' 32". It thus seems quite probable that the last port of call of la Scève’s journey was indeed Iriomote. We left Ishigaki the following morning at sunrise by Southwest Airlines flight 605 to return to Okinawa, then Tokyo, and finally Lyon. After taking off from Ishigaki, the plane turned over Iriomote. I saw for the last time the silhouette of this little island surrounded by its broken coral barrier, the clear blue of the lagoon, the waves on the reefs, and the impenetrable forest broken only by the black slash of the river. I whispered a last farewell to Hugues la Scève and stayed for a long while with my head leaning on the window, silent, and holding back my tears with difficulty. A few moments later my Japanese friends, with great discretion, showed me the bottles containing the dolphin pituitaries. Doso, la Scève San. You continue your research with us!

313