A Scientist Rises - Desmond Winter Hall

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
A scientist rises by Desmond winter Hall. On that summer day,
the sky over New York was unflecked by clouds, and
the air hung motionless, the waves of heat undisturbed. The
city was a vast oven, where even the sounds of
the coiling traffic in its streets seemed heavy and weary

(00:20):
under the press of heat that poured down from above.
In Washington Square, the urchins of the neighborhood splashed in
the fountain, and the usual midday assortment of mothers, tramps
and out of works lounged listlessly on the hot park
benches as a bowl. The square was filled by the
torrid sun, and the trees and grass drooped like the

(00:42):
people on its walks. In the surrounding city, men worked
in sweltering offices, and the streets rumbled with the never
ceasing tide of business. But Washington Square rested. And then
a man walked out of one of the houses lining
the square, and all this was changed. He came with
a calm, steady stride down the steps of a house

(01:04):
on the north side, and those who happened to see
him gazed with surprised interest, for he was giant in size.
He measured at least eleven feet in height, and his
body was well formed and in perfect proportion. He crossed
the street and stepped over the railing into the nearest
patch of grass, and there stood with arms folded and

(01:25):
legs a little apart. The expression on his face was
preoccupied and strangely apart. Nor did it change when, almost
immediately from the park bench nearest him, a woman's excited
voice cried, look, look, oh, look. The people around her

(01:46):
craned their necks and stared, and from them grew a
startled murmur. Others from far away came to see who
had cried out, and remained to gaze fascinated at the
man on the grass. Quickly the murmur spread acros across
the square, and from its every part, men and women
and children streamed towards the center of interest, and then

(02:08):
when they saw, backed away slowly and fearfully, with staring
eyes from where the lone figure stood. There was about
that figure something uncanny and terrible. There in the hot
mid day hush, something was happening to it which men
would say could not happen, And men seeing it backed

(02:30):
away in alarm. Quickly they dispersed. Soon there were only white,
frightened faces peering from behind buildings and trees before their
very eyes. The giant was growing. When he had first emerged,
he had been around eleven feet tall, and now within
three minutes he had risen close to sixteen feet. His

(02:55):
great body maintained its perfect proportions. It was that of
an elderly man, clad simply in a gray business suit.
The face was kind, its clear chiseled features indicating fine
spiritual strength. On the white forehead, beneath the sparse gray
hair were deep sunken lines which spoke of years of
concentrated work. No thought of malevolence could come from that head,

(03:20):
with its gentle blue eyes that showed the piece within.
But fear struck ever stronger into those who watched him,
and in one place a woman fainted. For the great
body continued to grow and grow ever faster, until it
was twenty feet high than swiftly twenty five, and the feet,

(03:40):
still separated, were as long as the body of a
normal boy. Clothes and body grew effortlessly, the latter apparently
without pain, as if the terrifying process were wholly natural.
The cars coming into Washington Square had stopped as their
driver cited what was rising there, and by now the

(04:01):
bordering streets were tangled with traffic. A distant crowd of
milling people heightened the turmoil. The northern edge was deserted,
but in a large semicircle was spread a fear struck,
panicky mob. A single policeman, his face white and his
eyes wide, tried to straighten out the tangle of vehicles,

(04:22):
but it was infinitely beyond him, and he sent in
a riot call. And as the giant with the kind,
dignified face loomed silently higher than the trees in the square,
and ever higher, a dozen blue coated figures appeared and
saw and new fear too, and hung back, awestricken, at
a loss what to do, for by now the rapidly

(04:44):
mounting body had risen to the height of forty feet.
An excited voice raised itself above the general hubbub Why
I know him, I know him. It's Edgar Wesley, doctor
Edgar Wesley. A police sergeant turned to the man who
had spoken, and it he knows you, then go closer

(05:08):
to him and ask him what it means. But the
man looked fearfully at the giant and hung back even
as they talked, his gigantic body had grown as high
as the four storied buildings lining the square, and his
feet were becoming too large for the place where they
had first been put. And now a faint smile could

(05:29):
be seen on the giant's face, an enigmatic smile with
something ironic and bitter in it. Then shout to him
from here, pressed the sergeant nervously. We've got to find
out something. This is crazy, impossible, my god, higher yet
and faster, summoning his courage, the other man cupped his

(05:53):
hands about his mouth and shouted, doctor Wesley, can you
speak and tell us? Can we help you stop it?
The ring of people looked up breathless at the towering figure,
and a wave of fear passed over them, and several
hysterical shrieks rose up as very slowly, the huge head

(06:15):
shook from side to side, but the smile on its
lips became stronger and kinder, and the bitterness seemed to
leave it. There was fear at that motion of the
enormous head, but a roar of panic sounded from the
watchers when with marked caution, the growing giant moved one
foot from the grass into the street. Behind, and the

(06:37):
other into the nearby base of Fifth Avenue just above
the arch. Fearing harm, they were gripped by terror, and
they fought back, while the trembling policeman tried vainly to
control them. But the panic soon ended when they saw
that the leviathan's arms remained crossed and his smile kinder.
Yet by now he dwarfed the houses, his body looming

(07:00):
a hundred and fifty feet into the sky. At this moment,
a woman back of the semicircle slumped to her knees
and prayed hysterically. Someone's coming out of his house, shouted
one of the closest onlookers. The door of the house
from which the giant had first appeared had opened, and

(07:22):
the figure of a middle aged, normal sized man emerged.
For a second, he crouched on the steps, gaping up
at the monstrous shape in the sky, and then he
scurried down and made at a desperate run for the
nearest group of policemen. He gripped the sergeant and cried frantically,
that's doctor Wesley. Why don't you do something? Why don't

(07:45):
Who are you? The officer asked, with some return of
an authoritative manner. I've worked for him, I'm his janitor.
But can't you do anything? Look at him? Look? The
crowd pressed closer. What do you know about this? Went
on the sergeant. The man gulped and stared around wildly.

(08:07):
He's been working on something many years. I don't know
what for he kept at a close secret. All I
knew is that an hour ago I was in my
room upstairs when I heard some disturbance in his laboratory
on the ground floor. I came down and knocked on
the door, and he answered from inside and said that
everything was all right. You didn't go in. No. I

(08:30):
went back up, and everything was quiet for a long time.
Then I heard a lot of noise down below, a smashing,
as if things were being broken. But I thought he
was just destroying something he didn't need, and I didn't investigate.
He hated to be disturbed. And then a little later
I heard them shouting out here in the square, and

(08:50):
I looked out and saw I saw him just as
I knew him, but a giant. Look at his face, why,
ye as the face of a god. He's as if
he were looking down on us and pitying us. For
a moment, all were silent as they gazed, transfixed at

(09:13):
the vast form that towered two hundred feet above them.
Almost as awe inspiring as the astounding growth was the fine, dignified,
calmness of the face. The sergeant broke in the explanation
of this must be in his laboratory. We've got to
have a look. You lead us there. The other man nodded,

(09:34):
but just then the giant moved again, and they waited
and watched with the utmost caution. The titanic shape changed
position gradually. One great foot over thirty feet in length,
soared up from the street and lowered farther away. And
then the other distant foot changed its position, and the

(09:54):
Leviathan came gently to rest against the tallest building bordering
the square. Once more, folded his arms and stood quiet.
The enormous body appeared to waver slightly as a breath
of wind washed against it. Obviously, it was not gaining
weight as it grew. Almost now, it appeared to float
in the air swiftly. It grew another twenty five feet,

(10:19):
and the gray expanse of its clothes shimmered strangely as
a ripple ran over its colossal bulk. A change of
feeling came gradually over the watching multitude. The face of
the giant was indeed that of a god. In the
noble irony, tinged serenity of his calm features. It was
as if a further world had opened, and one of

(10:40):
divinity had stepped down, a further world of kindness and
fellow love, where were none of the discords that bring
conflicts and slaughterings to the weary people of earth. Spiritual
peace radiated from the enormous face under the silvery hair,
peace with an undertone of sadness, as if the giant
knew of the sorrows of the swarm of dwarfs beneath him,

(11:02):
and pitied them. From all the roofs and towers of
the city. For miles and miles around, men saw the
mammoth shape and the kindly smile grow more and more
tenuous against the clear blue sky. The figure remained quietly
in the same position, his feet filling two empty streets,
and under the spell of his smile, all fears seemed

(11:24):
to leave the nearer watchers, and they became more quiet
and controlled. The group of policemen and the janitor made
a dash for the house from which the giant had come.
They ascended the steps, went in, and found the door
of the laboratory locked. They broke the door down. The
sergeant looked in anyone in here. He cried. Nothing disturbed

(11:48):
the silence, and he entered, the others following. A long, wide,
dimly lit room met their eyes, and in its middle
the remains of a great mass of apparatus that had
dominated it. The apparatus was now completely destroyed. Its dozen
rows of tubes were shattered, Its intricate coils of wire

(12:09):
and machinery hopelessly smashed. Fragments lay scattered all over the floor.
No longer was there the least shape of meaning to
anything in the room. There remained merely a litter of
glass and stone and scrap metal. Conspicuous on the floor
was a large hammer. The sergeant walked over to pick

(12:29):
it up, but instead paused and stared at what lay
beyond it. A body, he said, A sprawled out dead
man lay on the floor, his dark face twisted up,
his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling, his temple crushed
as with a hammer. Clutched tight in one stiff hand

(12:50):
was an automatic. On his chest was a sheet of paper.
The captain reached down and grasped the paper. He read
what was written on it, and then he read it
to the others. There was a fool who dreamed the
high dream of the pure scientist, and who lived only
to ferret out the secrets of nature and harness them

(13:11):
for his fellow men. He studied and worked and thought,
and in time came to concentrate on the manipulation of
the atom, especially the possibility of contracting and expanding it,
a thing of greatest potential value. For nine years he
worked along this line, hoping to succeed and give new power,

(13:31):
new happiness, a new horizon to mankind. Hermetically sealed in
his laboratory, self exiled from human contacts, he labored hard.
There came a day when the device into which the
fool had poured his life stood completed and a success.
And on that very day an agent for a certain

(13:52):
government entered his laboratory to steal the device. And in
that moment the fool realized what he had done, that
from the apparatus he had invented, not happiness and new
freedom would come to his fellow men, but instead slaughter
and carnage and drunken power increased a hundredfold. He realized

(14:13):
suddenly that men had not yet learned to use fruitfully
the precious powerful things given to them, but as yet
could only play with them like greedy children, and kill
as they played. Already, his invention had brought death, and
he realized, even on this day of his triumph, that
it and its secret must be destroyed, and with them

(14:36):
he who had fashioned so blindly. For the scientist was old.
His whole life was the invention, and with its going
there would be nothing more. And so he used the
device's great powers on his own body, and then, with
those powers working on him, he destroyed the device and

(14:56):
all the papers that held its secrets. Was the fool
also mad, perhaps, but I do not think so. In
his lonely laboratory, with this Marauder had come the wisdom
that men must wait, that the time is not yet
for such power, as he was about to offer a
gesture his strange death, which you who read this have seen, yes,

(15:20):
but a useful one, for with it he and his
invention and its hurtful secrets go from you, and a
fitting one, for he dies through his achievement, through his
very life. But in a better sense. He will not die,
for the power of his achievement will dissolve his very
body among you. Infinitely, you will breathe him in your air,

(15:42):
and in you he will live, incarnate, until that later
time when another will give you the knowledge he now destroys,
and he will see it used as he wished it
used e w The sergeant's voice ceased, and wordlessly, the
men in the Laboratory life looked at each other. No
comment was needed. They went out. They watched from the

(16:06):
steps of Edgar Wesley's house. At first sight of the
figure in the sky, a new awe struck them. For
now the shape of the giant towered a full five
hundred feet into the sun, and it seemed almost a mirage,
for definite outline was gone from it. It shimmered and
wavered against the bright blue like a mist, and the

(16:28):
blue shone through it, for it was quite transparent. And
yet still, they imagined, they could discern the slight, ironic
smile on the face, and the peaceful, understanding light in
the serene eyes, and their hearts swelled at the knowledge
of the spirit, of the courage, of the fine, far
seeing mind, of that outflung Titanic martyr to the happiness

(16:50):
of men. The end came quickly. The great misty body rose,
it floated over the city like a wraith, and then
it swiftly, desper even esteem, dissolves in the air. They
felt a silence over the thousands of watching people in
the square, a hush broken at last by a deep,
low murmur of awe wonderment, as the final misty fragments

(17:14):
of the vast sky held figure wavered and melted, imperceptibly melted,
and were gone from sight in the air that was
breathed by the men whom Edgar Wesley loved. End of
a Scientist rises by Desmond winter Hall,