Chapter 15 Chapter Fourteen: Dr. Moreau's Interpretations

"Okay, Prendik, now I'll explain," said Dr. Moreau immediately after we had finished our meal. "I must admit that you are the most imperious and arrogant guest I have ever entertained. I warn you that this is the last time I will do what you want, and the next time you go around threatening to commit suicide, I will not do it again." I don’t care about it, even if I am criticized or encounter some personal troubles, I don’t care about it.” He was sitting in my recliner, and the cigar held between his white fingers, which looked very dexterous, was already half-smoked.The swinging light shone on his white hair.He looked out through the small window, gazing at the late night starlight.I sat as far away from him as possible, with a table between them, and the two pistols were at hand.Montgomery was not present.In such a small room, I would not like to be with both of them at the same time.

“Do you admit that the vivisected man—as you called it—was, after all, nothing but the mountain leopard?” Morrow said.He had allowed me to witness the horrors of the chamber so that I could be sure that the vivictors were not human. "That's a mountain leopard," I said, "still alive, but cut up and mutilated like this. I hope I'll never see live flesh again. After all the scumbags?" "Never mind that," Morrow said. "Forgive me, at least, for the early, youthful terrors. Montgomery was once like you. You admit it was a mountain leopard. Well, let me now continue my studies of physiology I'll tell you, please keep quiet." Immediately, he began to explain his research work to me in a tone of extreme boredom and excitement.He is very straightforward and convincing.In his voice, there is a little sarcasm from time to time.Immediately I blushed with shame for our joint duties.None of the guys I saw were people, and never were.They were animals—anthropomorphic animals—all the work of vivisection.

"You forget what a good vivisectioner can do," Moreau said. "For my part, I'm baffled as to why I haven't done what I've done here in the past. There have been some small, difficult attempts -- amputations, tongue amputations, surgical excisions. You know, of course, that the visual eye can be corrected or cured by surgical treatment. So, as far as surgical resection is concerned, you can get all kinds of secondary secondary changes, pigmentation disorders, sexual changes. , and changes in adipose tissue secretions. Of course, you must have heard of these things?"

"Of course," I said, "but these nasty fellows of yours—" "Don't worry," he said, waving his hand at me. "I'm just getting started. Those are just examples of shallow, mundane alterations. Surgery can do much better than that. There's remodeling, and there's smashing." Destruction and Change. You may have heard of the general surgery resorted to in cases of damaged noses: a piece of skin is cut from the forehead, grafted to the nose, and it comes back to life in the new place. This is a transplant in which a part of one animal's own body is transplanted into a new part of itself. Organs and other parts just obtained from another animal can also be transplanted - transplanted teeth are an example In order to facilitate the smooth healing of wounds, skin and bone grafts can be performed. A surgeon can take a piece of skin from another animal and transplant it into the wound, or he can take a piece of skin from a recently killed victim. Broken bones, grafted into the wound. You may have heard that the hound's 'stalk' grows intact on the bull's neck. The rhinoceros rat of Zouaf, Algeria, is also imagined as a monster, as if the common mouse It is a monster created by transplanting a part of its tail to the nose of a rhinoceros rat and letting it live there."

"Monster made!" I said. "Then you're trying to tell me—" "Yes. These fellows you see are animals molded into new shapes. I have devoted my whole life to this, to the study of the plasticity of biological shapes. I have been studying it for many years, gradually gaining some knowledge, I can see that you look freaked out, but there's nothing new in what I'm telling you. It's all contained in the appearance of practical anatomy performed years ago, except that no one has been so bold as to touch one. That's all. I can change not only the appearance of animals. The physiological and chemical periodic transformation ratios of these creations can be artificially and permanently altered. Among them, vaccination immunity and other effects on living things Or inoculation of inanimate matter, of course examples with which you are very familiar.

"Blood transfusion is a similar operation on which I have begun my work. These are very familiar examples. Less familiar, but probably much more extensive, are those performed by medieval physicians , they could make dwarves, limping beggars, and monsters for show. These skills still have some traces in the low-level techniques of some young quacks, or in the bodies of some contortionists. Victor Hugo described this in The Man Who Laughs. Maybe what I mean is becoming clearer now. You start to understand that transplanting tissue from one part of an animal to another adjacent Or is it possible to transplant into another animal to change its chemistry and growth pattern, to change the joint articulation of its limbs, and indeed to change its most essential structure?

"But this particular branch of knowledge has never been systematically explored by modern investigators, and I am the first explorer in this field! Some similar cases, in surgery and most of the similar evidences that your mind can conjure up, as they exist, have come to light by accident—tyrants, criminals, breeders of horses and dogs , with all sorts of untrained bums who work for their own money. I was the first to work on the subject, and had surgical antiseptic means, and really People who understand the scientific knowledge of growth laws. "However, one might think that this must have been practiced in secret earlier, by grotesques like Siamese twins joined together, and under the vaulted cupola of the Inquisition. Their main purpose, Skillful torture, no doubt, but at least some of the Inquisition judges must have had a little scientific curiosity—"

[① Here refers to the Roman Catholic Inquisition in the fifteenth or sixteenth century. 】 "But," I said, "these things—these animals can talk!" He said it was so, and went on to point out that vivisection could do more than merely deform and pervert the body.Pigs can still be educated and disciplined.Intellectual organization is less fixed, that is to say, more malleable, than bodily structure.In our ever-growing science of hypnotism we find it possible to replace old innate natures and instincts, to transplant or replace old fixed ideas, by new suggestions of the mesmerist.Much of what we call spiritual education is indeed such an artificial change and perversion or perversion of nature and instinct; a combative character can be trained into a character of courageous self-sacrifice, and repressed sexuality can be trained into a religion. Feelings.He said that the biggest difference between humans and monkeys lies in the difference in larynx, because monkeys cannot form the subtle sound symbols that maintain thinking.for his views on this.I could not agree, but he rather rudely refused to notice my disagreement.That's how it happened, he repeated, and went on to describe his research work.

But I asked him why he used human figures as models.I thought then, and still think so, that his choice was malicious. He confessed that he chose the human form as a model by accident. "I could have fashioned a llama into a sheep, or a sheep into a llama. I suspect that there must be something in the human form that requires an elaborate transformation of the mind and intellect, which differs from that in the animal form. Much more powerful and powerful than could be asked for. But, I didn't limit myself to just making people. Once or twice—" He was silent for about a minute.

"Oh, what a time! How time flies! I have wasted another whole day saving your life this time, and now I have wasted another hour explaining myself!" "But," I said, "I still don't understand. What's the reason why you take it for granted that all this suffering is caused? It seems to me that the only thing that can justify vivisection is some of its applications." -" "Exactly," he said, "but you see, I'm a very different person. We hold different opinions, and you're a materialist," "I'm not a materialist," I said with growing intensity.

"It's just my opinion—my opinion. For it is this question of suffering that divides us. As long as suffering is disgusting to you, as long as your pain is uncomfortable, as long as Pain adds to your idea of ​​evil, and I tell you, as long as you are an animal, you should think a little vaguely of what animals feel. This pain—” I impatiently said to this sophistry Shrugged. "Ah! But it is a mere trifle. A mind that is really open to scientific teaching must see that it is a mere trifle. Except on this tiny planet, this speck of cosmic dust, it is very May be invisible until it takes a long, long time to reach the nearest planet - as far as I can tell, there is probably no other place to do such a thing that is considered painful. Apart from the law, We are groping our way forward.—Ah, even on this earth, even among creatures, what is there to suffer?" 【① It is inferred to be dust formed by tiny fragments of celestial bodies. 】 As he spoke, he took a pocket knife from his pocket, opened the smaller pocket knife, and moved the chair so that I could see his thigh.Then he chose the position carefully, plunged the knife into his leg, and pulled it out again. "Of course, you've seen this before. There's nothing wrong with a prick with this. But what does it show? There's no need for pain tolerance in the muscles, nor is it there; there's hardly any need for tolerance in the skin." pain, and only here and there in the thigh are the pain points that can feel pain. Pain is nothing more than our instinctive medical staff, warning or stimulating us. All living flesh does not feel pain, all Nerves, and even all sensory nerves. In the sensation of the optic nerve, there is no trace of pain—real pain. If your optic nerve is injured, you will only see flashes, just as when the auditory nerve is diseased, It’s just like buzzing in the ears. Plants don’t feel pain either; low-level animals—such as sea scooters and crayfish—may not feel pain either. So for humans, the more they become Smarter, the more intelligently they look after their own welfare, and the less need to spare them from dangerous stimuli. I haven't heard of a useless thing that will not be weeded out by evolution sooner or later .Have you heard? Pain is unnecessary. "I am a serious man, Prendick, as every sane man must be. I think it is also possible that I have seen some of the handiwork of the Maker of this world more than you have—for all my life I have In your own way you are exploring the laws of the Creator, and you, I understand, have been collecting butterflies. I tell you that joy and pain have nothing to do with heaven and hell. Pleasure and pain - bah! When Muhammad What is the ecstasy of your theologian when the goddess of heaven is in the dark? Prendik, the joys and pains that men and women value are the traces of the beasts in them, and they are transformed. Traces of beasts. Pain! Pain and joy—they are for us, as long as we wriggle in the dust?? 【① Goddess of Paradise: One of the black-eyed maidens in Muhammad's Paradise, who can keep her youth and beauty forever, and her virginal virginity can be regenerated with joy. 】 "You see, I just keep doing research the way this science leads me. It's the only way I admit to doing research. I ask a question, imagine some way to get to the answer, and then I ask a question. A new question. Is this possible, or is that possible? For a researcher, it is difficult for you to imagine what this means, and it is also difficult for you to imagine what kind of intellectual passion a researcher is growing day by day. You are very Difficult to conceive of this strange, banal pleasure and penchant for knowledge. This thing before you is no longer an animal, no longer a creature of your own kind, but a problem. The pain of sympathy— All I can know about it is this thing, and I remember suffering for it at one time some years ago. I hope--this is my only hope--to find out in a living form The limit of plasticity." "But," I said, "this thing is really disgusting—" "To this day, I have not bothered to consider the ethics of the matter. The study of nature, at least, makes you as ruthless as nature. I continue to study, minding nothing but what I seek and the subject matter has seeped into the huts over there. We, me, Montgomery, and six natives of Hawaii and the South Sea Islands have been here for nearly eleven years. I remember when the island The green, the silence, the empty sea around us, it seems like only yesterday. It's as if this place has been waiting for me. "We transported the stored things to the island and built houses. The natives built some huts near the valley. I continued my research work here with the things I brought with me. At first it happened Some unpleasant things. I started by vivisecting a sheep and killed it after a day and a half because the scalpel mishandled it. I switched to another sheep and ended up creating a painful and horrible thing covered in Wrapped in a bandage to allow the wound to heal. When the operation was done it looked human to me, but when I approached it again I wasn't happy with it, it reminded me of my It was, and it was unimaginably terrible, and all it had was the intelligence of a sheep. The more I looked at it, the more clumsy it became, until at last I relieved the pain of the monster. None of these animals had the guts , are all things haunted by fear, driven by pain, without any fighting spirit to face pain-they are not suitable for shaping human form. "Later, I changed another gorilla I brought with me. On it, I performed the operation with great care and overcame one difficulty after another. Finally, I shaped my first human. For a week, day and night, I devoted all my energy to shaping it. For it, the main thing is to train its brain, to increase a lot, and to change a lot. When I finished shaping him, I I think he can be regarded as a fairly satisfactory sample of a similar black race. He was wrapped in bandages and bound, lying motionless in front of me. When he was sure that his life would not be a problem, I just left him and went into the house, and I noticed that Montgomery reacted exactly as you did. As the chimpanzee was growing into a human, Montgomery heard some of his cries, just like those high-pitched ones that disturbed you so much. Like shouting. I didn't completely trust Montgomery at first. "Besides, the natives sensed something in it. They were scared out of their wits when they saw me. I got Montgomery to forgive me--somehow, but to prevent the natives from getting away, I It was a hell of a lot of work with him. In the end, they got away, and we lost the clipper. I spent a lot of time teaching the brute—three or four on him all together. months. I taught him elementary English, endowed him with counting thinking, and even taught the thing to read the alphabet. But he is very dull in this respect, although I have met more dull idiots than him. From the spirit Mentally speaking, he started off like a clean slate with no memories of his past. When his wounds were mostly healed, he wasn't in so much pain anymore. And froze, and was able to talk a little more simply. I took him over there, and introduced him to the natives as an interesting stowaway in a boat. "They were very afraid of him at first, I don't know why—it irritated me very much, because I was quite proud of him,—but his demeanor seemed so gentle, and he was so pitiful, that after a while In time, they also regarded him as a friend, and took up the task of his education. He was quick to learn, imitative, and adaptable. He built himself a hut, as far as I can see. Well, better than the huts of the natives. One of the male natives, sort of a missionary, set out to teach the thing to read, or at least to read letters, and taught him Some rudimentary notions of morality, but it seems that not all of this stubborn guy's habits are desirable. "I took a few days off from research work and was preparing to write a report on the whole research work to wake up the British physiology community. Then I encountered such a situation and found this guy squatting on a tree, facing Two natives who were teasing him, babbled about something. I frightened him, told him that such behavior was inhuman, that it aroused shame in him, and I came back here, determined to make this To do the work better before the research work was brought back to England. I have been working very well, but I don't know why, and I have picked up those vices again without knowing it, and the stubborn slang of animals has gradually returned. I gained the upper hand, and gradually recovered. But I still intend to do a better job. I want to conquer this problem. This mountain leopard—— "That's how it happened. Now the native boys are all dead. One fell off the motorboat and drowned, and one got a wounded heel and somehow got infected with some kind of plant sap. , died too. The other three escaped in the speedboat, and I guessed, and hoped, drowned. Another got killed. Well—I've replaced them. Montgomery thought for a while at first Do the kind of thing you set out to do, but then—" "What happened to the last one?" I asked sharply, without hesitation--"the native who was killed?" "Here's the thing, after I made a few humanoid guys, I made a thing—" He hesitated. "How is it?" I said. "It was killed." "I don't understand," I said. "Are you going to say—" "He killed the savage--that's all. He killed a few other fellows he got hold of. We chased him for two days. He just got away by chance--I never It's not that it got away, it hasn't been bred yet. It was purely an experiment. It was a horrible-faced, limbless thing that wriggled around the ground like a snake. It was very strong, and Always in the throes of being easily irritated, it can waddle like a dolphin and walk fast. It lurks in the woods for days, hurting everything it encounters, until when we hunt it, it comes back. Twist to the northern part of the island. We cut two ways to hunt it. Montgomery must go with me. The native had a rifle, and when we found his body, a gun The pipe was twisted into an S shape, and the body was nearly eaten away. Montgomery shot the fellow. After that, I stuck to the ideals of humanity—only engaged in the research of making smaller human figures." He fell silent.I sat there in silence too, watching his face. "In this way, for a total of twenty years--counting my nine years in England--I have been working on this research continuously. In everything I do, there is something I get frustrated, it makes me feel unsatisfied, it motivates me to work harder. Sometimes I get better, sometimes I get lower, but I always fall short of what I fantasize about. Now I can pretty much do whatever I want, I've been able to make some human figures with ease, so that these figures can be soft and graceful, or clumsy and strong. But in the hands and claws, I often have some troubles-it is too much to form these things. It is painful, so I dare not let it go. In this delicate and delicate transplant and reshaping operation, it must also transform its mind at the same time. This is where my difficulty lies. And the intelligence of these humanoids is often surprisingly low , with inexplicable boring purposes and unexpected flaws. The most unsatisfactory of them all is that there is something that is simply beyond my reach, somewhere in the emotional center - and I can't be sure Where in the world are these feelings: dehumanizing longing pleas, instinctive urges, erotic demands, sudden outbursts of strangely concealed reserves of energy, and rage that fills the whole nature of the created creature , hatred or fear. "When you set out to look at them, these guys look terribly odd and creepy. But to me, especially since I've just made them, they all look indisputably like Humans. It's only gradually less convincing when I look at them later. Animal habits first, and then something else sneaks up and they stare at me, but I'll still Victory. Every time I encounter such a situation, I put a guy alive in the cauterization tank. I said, this time I will burn all the animal habits, I will create a creature similar to me My own rational animal. In the end, what is the result of ten years? I am afraid that thousands of such people have been produced." he mused gloomily. "But I'm approaching this strong fortress. This mountain leopard of mine—" After a while of silence. "They're back to their old ways. As soon as I don't manage them, the brutes start slinking back into their old ways again, and start showing their instincts again—" There was another long silence. "So you're the one who drove all the guys you made into those caves?" I said. "They went by themselves. When I began to feel the bestiality in them again, I drove them all out, and now they hang about there. They are all very afraid of the house and me. In There's a certain perversion and perversion of human nature there. Montgomery is well aware of that, because he meddles in their affairs. He trains one or two of them to serve us. He's ashamed of that, But I'm sure he's kind of fond of some of them. That's his business, not mine. It's just that they annoy me because of a feeling of failure. I'm not interested in them at all. I Guess they were making some mockery of the rational life by following the code that the native missionary instructed--poor beasts! There's something they call law, and sing about 'everything's is your' hymn. They built themselves caves, gathered berries, picked plants - even married. But I can see through all of them, down to the depths of their souls, can see clearly, that Nothing but the souls of beasts, dead beasts—angry, and animal desires to live and to satisfy them. Still, they were very strange, Complicated, like everything else that lives. There is in them a desperate upward struggle, part vanity, part superfluous sexual passion, part tedious curiosity. It can only make me Amused. I put some hope in that mountain leopard, on her head and mind I've worked hard "Now," after a long silence—during which we were all silently pursuing our own trains of thought—he stood up again and said, "What do you think? Are you afraid me?" I looked at him, and all I saw was a man with quiet eyes, a white face, and white hair.His calm demeanor, his invariable calm demeanor, and his magnanimous figure formed a manner almost beautiful, and he might have been considered adequate even among a hundred other pleasant, easy-going old gentlemen. .But then I trembled again, and in answer to his second question I handed him the pistol with both hands. "You keep it," he said, stretching his arms and yawning.He stood up, stared at me intently for a moment, and smiled. "You've had two thrilling, informative days," he said. "I'd better advise you to sleep for a while. I'm very happy that everything is clear. Good night." He pondered over me for a while, and then walked out through the inner door.I immediately locked the outer door. I sat down again and sat there blankly for a long time.I was so tired, emotionally, mentally, physically, that my mind couldn't escape and move beyond the conversation he had left me. The dark window stared straight at me like an eye.Finally, with some difficulty, I turned out the lights and climbed into the hammock.Soon I fell asleep.