Chapter 6 CHAPTER 6 THE FIRST PHASE OF THE GREAT eugenics research

"One here, one there." Mr. Davis stood in front of the principal's office of Goebbels School, looking at the neat and beautiful garden in front of the house, and said to himself. It was a midsummer day six months later, and he was the father of a very healthy, extremely bright-looking child.A conviction that the most bizarre changes in human history were taking place entered his life and became a part of it. He came to the Goebbels School, nominally to give lectures on "Splendid Rome," but his real purpose was to observe the children gathered here, and to be prepared to discuss any intellectual (or even physical) supernormalities that might come to his attention. The kid talks to the principal, asks the principal about the future of super-type kids, and never about Martians, or cosmic rays, or anything like that.

These are the suggestions of Dr. Herdman Stein.The eminent doctor really hoped to collect data that would satisfy Keppel's and his own curiosity, while he managed to convince himself that it was the best treatment for Davis's mental anxiety, and his strange ideas Thoughts will be quelled by being proven to be fantasies.There was something virtuous about it, since Davis was not the patient paying for his treatment.This can only be regarded as mutual help between people. Davis is now looking for children of exceptional intelligence.He has got everything he can get from the superintendent of prisons, the board of education, schools of all kinds, even army commanders, institutions for the handicapped, mental asylums.He was writing a report, distilling the essentials out of his own findings.Many never-before-known facts emerged during this investigation.There is an astonishing increase in the proportion of children who are gifted in calculations and in music; their bodies are visibly stronger;

Dr. Herdman Stein thinks that Davis probably, like many other investigators, was willing to discover what he was looking for.But he did not estimate the practical effect of such an occupation of the normal activities of a writer.Like most men of high profession, he believed that the work of a writer was not limited by time and space. Usually, time was spent chasing royalties and publishing, and delivering irrelevant lectures to unnecessary audiences, but Joseph ·Davis has been committed to the grand conception of writing, telling the sublime and illusory history to the public.He called the plan his "life mission."The mission now looks like a Catholic church under construction, with new heresies affecting more and more members while itself short on funds.Sometimes, he couldn't write a line for six or seven days.

At the same time, it became increasingly clear to Davis that this idea, which at first seemed to him also a fantasy, was real and plausible.A new group of people is being added to human life, "one here, one there." It's hard not to talk about it.It's hard to feign a politely worthless, pointless survey like a pedagogical research paper for an American university.He was at social gatherings, theaters and restaurants; among the crowds, looking at people's unsuspecting faces, always thinking: If only they knew all this. If only they knew what the Martians were doing to them!

At first, he was extremely disgusted by the Martian interference on the earth.His affection for human beings is not just an instinctive respect for the race.He had an extraordinary mental habit of making himself the defender of the immutable, sacred, normal life of man—except for the occasional divine punishment of some fleeting heresy—who, through childhood, school, love, The story of life, work, parenthood, glory, until old age and death is a simple, ancient and beautiful story.This is a story based on the world, full of honest and pious peasant consciousness, very spiritual.Life, generation after generation, is fixed by the cycle of sowing and harvesting, cold and heat, hunger and thirst, reasonable desire and moderate satisfaction.History is woven of these things, and interspersed with the strong and enduring fabric are great historical figures who perform an opera as joyous as a glorious missal.History tells stories of their conquests, victories, glory and heroism, as well as heart-warming tragedies and sacrifices.They are far greater than ordinary people—like the emperors and gods on the reliefs of Wang Shu—and according to historical tradition, ordinary people prostrate at their feet.It has been so, and it will be so, until at last the Almighty Lord orders the curtain to fall, and beckons the actors to step forward from the places from which they have each retreated, to receive their proper rewards.

This is a picture of the world and its promise.He had been struggling to make sense of the world, and when the wondrous and unsettling thought of Martians invading Earth came to his mind, the gigantic oil painting he had worked so hard to paint suddenly cracked open, changing light and shadow. , height and depth, become utterly unreal. Now—there seemed to be some kind of crack in his logical deduction—he felt that the Martians must oppose the good things he was defending.One may ask, why should the Martians oppose them?What need did they have to be spoilers of such a rich and noble fabric?But he has, like all of us, the weakness of impatience which leads us naturally to the conclusion that anyone who is not with us, who disagrees with us, is against us.And at unfamiliar ways of life, we resent like a dog catching a glimpse of another strange dog.He was furious at the thought of the Martians, and he thought that the purpose of the Martians entering our wonderful earth must be to destroy everything here.

His motive, therefore, was clear from the very beginning, to detect, to reveal, to resist this insidious attack on our human life, which enjoys the happiness which we are unwilling to give up.In his eyes, the Martians are the darkest of all threats to life on Earth.It goes without saying that whatever they are, they must be inhuman.That goes without saying.For him, as for most of us, inhumanity meant mortal cruelty; nothing else was possible.However, this is another world where many people are keen to put their emotions into cats, dogs, monkeys, horses, cows and other such non-human creatures, to help them in countless difficulties, and to offer them the most touching tenderness .

It seemed to him beyond doubt that the purpose of these well-targeted cosmic rays was to greatly enhance the intelligence of Martianized humans.Only this conclusion.For some deep reason, he couldn't bear the idea that there would be another group of people on earth who were smarter than himself, unless they were immoral, ugly, and repulsive.They have to be ugly, both in motive and behavior.At least there should be such compensation.The thought of their hideous closeness, and their intelligence, led him to wonder, after a few weeks, whether the two could be separated. The image of the Martian he first described was a huge hideous skin sac, curled up like an octopus, with tentacles, soaked in venom, and secreting disgusting juice.Its smell, he thought, must be terrible.And their indirect descendants, who would populate the earth, must, he imagined, be not only ruthless and intelligent, but also ugly.It must have a head like a carrot, oily and slippery, short-sighted eyes, a scary little face, ugly long hands, a bloated and deformed body...

Yet some vague concern for wife and children fought desperately against this imagining. At this moment, his brain felt strangely divided.Two parallel streams of thoughts flowed in my mind, but did not meet. His wife was instantly connected to his thoughts, then separated again.For example, if Dr. Herdman Stein had asked him on the spot: "Do you think your wife was one of those people who were touched by the magic of cosmic rays at birth?" His investigation had nothing to do with his wife, but it was impossible for him to answer the question quite calmly; there would be a tinge of defensive indignation in his voice.He would not ask himself this question, there is an obstacle here.

He was resisting the very obvious urge to connect some of the strange feelings he had long had about his wife with the Martians, and thus get some explanation for his thoughts and concerns.In fact, these two points are connected and continuous.But out of the need of self-protection, he can't understand that the reason why he has long been psychologically prepared to accept the invasion of Martians is directly related to his long-standing feelings for his wife.They are two sets of ideas from different planets. But the two planets, the Martian's less busy one, were getting closer and closer to each other in his mind.Colliding with each other in a calculable amount of time, coalescing into one eddy, a very chaotic eddy.Then he will face the reality that he has already told the doctor: "Our children may not be our own."

Thinking of this, he could no longer restrain his fear of abnormal children, precocious, giant head, terrifying tentacles-like hands... If it was a monster, what should he do? It occurred to him to do something terribly terrible. This nightmarish thought haunted him and caused him great pain until the birth of the child.The birth of a child filled him with uncontrollable fear.He took great pains to hide this fear without losing his composure. To his amazement, the baby boy was born in less than an hour, and even Dr. Hedman Stein was amazed.No violent fights, no horrific disasters, no C-sections. "Is he—is he all right?" he asked incredulously. "Very healthy," replied Dr. Herdman Steining, almost ecstatically, who had been infected by the nervousness of being a father before that. "No deformities? No abnormalities?" "Honestly, Mr. Davies, you don't deserve a child like that! You don't deserve it. You'll see when they clean him up. I've seldom been so excited, I've seen too much." He really looked like a perfect little being.Joseph Davies felt an instinctive, violent tenderness as the child was lowered into his arms.Like countless fathers, he was overwhelmed by the wonderful fact that this little creature had perfect fingers and nails on tiny hands. Why had he been afraid before? "I want to meet her," he said. "Not yet. Wait a minute, though she's all right." Then, Dr. Herdman Stetin said something a little ominous: "There is no Madonna in the world where a baby is born more than her." The child is cuter." The expression of Mr. Joseph Davis suddenly became thoughtful. He silently handed back the incomparably precious package to the nurse on the side. He wanted to go out and not see Mary for a while. But he still used great efforts to overcome this impulse and stayed in the study downstairs.After a while he was taken to see Mary.He saw her tired but ruddy, proud, with the child lying close beside her.A long-suppressed feeling between them rushed out, and he called her darling, and kneeling beside her, wept. "Dear Jo!" she said, reaching out and stroking his hair gently. "Strange Joe!" Since then, his perception of the Martians has begun to change.In short, the two understandings quietly and naturally converged in his mind.He was quite sure that his wife and children belonged to the new human race that had appeared on Earth. Since then, his research has also shifted from the initial focus on deformed children in nursing homes, child prodigies in adoption homes, and mysterious and weird gynecology, to research on middle schools, universities, and talented people.From the hunting of monsters to the investigation of extraordinary talents, it explores and analyzes people who are called geniuses in various fields of human activities.Facing Dürer's paintings, he thought hard and read Leonardo's notes carefully.He took a new interest in symbolic art, and noticed inexplicable decorations from ancient times and places.Could these incredible phenomena, like cries in the dark, the subtle attitudes and responses of these Martians be the harbingers of a transformation in the customs and traditions of our world? He had dreams about Martians more and more frequently.He never told anyone about it, let alone Dr. Herdman Steining.The content of these dreams was remarkably consistent, or at least had a sense of consistency.The Martian in the dream is no longer a grotesque caricature monster with a pitiful face, but it is still not human in appearance.They have steady, dark eyes set wide apart, and mouths that are determined and calm.Their broad brows and rounded heads reminded him of the smooth, intelligent heads of seals and cats, and he couldn't tell if they had vague hands or arms or tentacles.He always saw them as through a lens, as if looking at them through the lens of a gigantic optical instrument.Ripples passed, becoming less clear; here and there, beams of what he believed to be cosmic rays passed through, causing mysterious explosions that radiated light in all directions and disappeared quickly.He felt that the dream had transported him to a world where people's notions of form, process, space and time were no longer valid.In the dream, he didn't seem to go to Mars through space, but a curtain in front of him became transparent. Once or twice, during the day, he tried to draw pictures he had seen in his dreams, but the Martian size always prevented him from doing so.He couldn't draw it well once, and he felt that it was difficult for even a skilled artist to draw the plane and volume of those creatures. Moreover, not only did he find it difficult to determine the physical appearance of Martians, but those he began to define as "Martians" were also difficult to determine the physical characteristics of.All they have in common is "difference," and that difference has something that is irrelevant to the general response.They live scattered and think in their own way.He wasn't quite sure they were indifferent to popular sentiment; he might have hoped they were, and it was a compromise for him to think so. On this visit to the Goebbels school, he adopted what was becoming his habit, subtle and a little mad, a little masochistic.The books he has written so far have called out the sublime common humanity in people's hearts, but now he is rejecting the common humanity with the same passion.He is looking for unresponsive thoughts. His lectures on "Glory to Rome" were always popular among the pupils of the ordinary schools.In his lecture, he told the stories of great patriots in Rome tradition, from Horatius who defended the Tiber Bridge to Caesar who completed the great cause of the Republic, from Octavian who founded the empire to Justinian who promulgated Roman laws.This succession of sculptural figures, all clean-cheeked and robed, emerged as they walked across the vast arena and Corinthian capitals, bestowing the blessing of the goddess of peace on the whole world.The War of Targaryen, though slightly anti-Semitic, seemed trivial to him, and he presented it as an inevitable conflict between noble Northern soldiers and vengeful, ruthless, but brilliantly shrewd Southern businessmen. of Judou.He disregarded the hatred, suspicion, greed, pain and bloody and cruel facts that characterized the destruction of Mediterranean civilization in the war, and only showed the glorious and splendid side of the mainstream of Roman history.His eyes rest on the children as he tells these familiar stories.There were only a few inattentive children who appeared inattentive, but school discipline was good and they did not affect others.Most of the children showed a strong reaction. They listened fascinated, with imaginative excitement in their eyes, and solemn and serious expressions on their faces.In the imagination they became generals who conquered the barbarians and magistrates who quelled racial conflicts. A thrill of answering the trumpets stirred in their hearts, a reaction to the cry of "Onward, Christian warriors." No stranger to any of this, Davis is looking for skeptics and dissenters. A little guy sitting near the corner made him think at first that he was Martianized.The little guy has disheveled hair, has a sly and funny white face, rests his cheeks with his hands from beginning to end, and listens very intently with a questioning expression.Listening to the story without being moved, true Martian quality. "This is the kid I'm looking for," Davis thought.Then he went to find out about him. "A queer boy," said the principal, "a queer little chap. Impeccably behaved, but sometimes a disappointment. Disinterested in anything, as if he doubted everything. His family, however, were very good." , his uncle is the superintendent of education here. He sometimes asks questions that other children can't think of. That day he asked, what is spirit?" "Oh," Davis said after a moment's thought, "what is spirit?" "Shall I tell you about all the children?" "How did you answer him? I'm writing a section about saints, and I'm finding it difficult to talk about this question." The principal of Goebbels did not answer immediately, but said with a little dissatisfaction: "Generally, children can understand the meaning of this word without saying it. There is nothing strange about it. Spirit-matter, two natural opposites. One is up and the other is down. .is so clear that it needs no explanation at all." "Unless a little rascal, like that kid, asked the question straight up." "He doesn't accept reason. He says why should we take something out of reality and call it spirit, as if it were the exact opposite?" "That's what he said! So--perceptive." "Too perceptive for a boy his age. Not good for health." "The mind isn't something to extract, though, is it?" "That's what I told him. But he said: 'Life seems to me one, sir, and I can't think of anything else. I'm sorry, sir, I've tried.'" "He said—he couldn't think of anything else. It was so funny. How would you explain it to him?" "In his particular case, I explain by practical examples." "Is he satisfied?" "Not at all. He criticized my examples. Quite thoroughly, I must admit. He wished I could give him a clear definition. But, you know, Mr. Davies, the most basic things in life are indefinable." Yes. He made it clearer to me than before. All things fundamental, divinity, eternity—believe in what?—seems like there is a divine above which the divine cannot be clearly defined. It seems to me It is. It is futile to argue about it. It robs us of our dignity, theirs. . . reduces us to sophists, nitpickers. Intuitively we know what we mean and what other people mean .Better like this." "Then you tell him, if you don't understand the meaning of the spirit, don't think about it but wait." "And prayer," said Headmaster Goebbels, "that's the general idea of ​​what I'm saying, not completely precise. You must be very careful not to say it too absolutely. Later, I asked him to recite the "Corinthians" in the "New Testament" ' - not as an answer, but as illuminating - and I hope it works for him." "You don't know if it works?" "I don't know. It's an elusive thing, Mr. Davies. A boy who wants to argue can't be too indulgent. There's a limit to everything." "I suppose," said Davies, looking carefully for the right words, "that there is more to this boy's condition than capriciousness. Is it some instinct of theirs, since they are different from others, that they may not see something— Something very imperfect and unclear which we have made and approved of from habit..." "I don't agree with such an idea," the principal interrupted him. "If I still have to test the students' basic values, I can't preside over the work of this good school and let me recruit them every year. Students attack life and responsibility." "But what if soon you find that there's not one such child but a dozen—or maybe two dozen?" The Headmaster looked at his guest. "I hope not, Mr. Davies," he said, "I hope not. You are giving me material for nightmares—not ideas—no!" "It's here, it's there," Davis said, standing on the steps of the principal's office. "This kid must be one of them. They don't see life the way we do. They can't think about it the way we do." .They make us wonder if our lives are not what we always thought they were.”