Science, religion and tradition are
seemingly reconciled in this story, in
which the narrator is afforded a glimpse
of the future not in a dream, but by
technological means. The ‘Professor’ is a
gifted autodidact in true sci-fi tradition,
but he’s not a fully fledged Mad Scientist,
probably due to his religious beliefs; the
narrator and the reader, on the other
hand, must decide for themselves if the
Professor’s response to the unsettling
nature of time is satisfactory. This story
was originally published in Irish as
‘Aisling’; this translation is by the editor.
ON THE TOP OF THE HILL lives my friend the Professor. We all call him ‘The Professor’, but it wasn’t in any university in the world that he got his learning; I say he drank it straight from the Well of Knowledge itself. It’s a lonely, bleak spot that he lives in, but he is thus able to keep himself far away from gossips and chatterboxes, and the general sordidness of life. If you go up that hill, you better have a good reason for doing so. I myself climb Carrauntoohil to talk with the Professor – or, more accurately, to listen to him.
‘You’ve come at just the right moment,’ he said to me when I called in to see him that afternoon. ‘I have something new to show you.’ He led me into the room where he did all his work.
‘I’ve seen that device that’s been around for a while – the one that allows you to see and hear a person at a huge distance? When you compare that device to the far-viewer, you’ll see that the old appliance has an advantage over the new thing – that is, that with the old thing you can watch anything you want. For a long while now, I’ve been trying to fix that deficiency, so that it will be possible to aim the new device at any point on Earth; it was hard work, but I’ve finally done it. You will be the first person, after myself, to try it out.’
There was a remote village on the edge of the sea. The music of the waves could be heard clearly in the little house, and sometimes sand would blow in through the door. The children were listening, their eyes wide, to the talk that was going on at the fireside between their mother, their father, and the man from the big town.
‘It’s true for you,’ the father said, ‘staying here is a huge effort for us, and nothing to show for it but loneliness and hardship, when we could be living in the city. We’ll go to Dublin as soon as I’ve gathered the money for it. We’re bound to find contentment there.’
An upper room in a big house in the city. An exhausted woman with eight family members in the room with her, all aggrieved by the heat and the lack of space; the noise and clamour of the street coming in through the window.
The man came in, took off his jacket, and sat as far away from the fire as he could. ‘I have great news, Kate,’ he said. ‘I’m going to be Head of the Workforce from next Monday.’
‘Thanks be to God!’ she said. ‘We’ll be able to get out of this accursed street, and move to someplace outside the city with peace and quiet and fresh air! Nobody could expect to be healthy, living in a place like this.’
I recognised from the design of the houses, and from the number of vehicles that were coming and going, that I was in one of the suburbs of the city now. The couple were sitting in the garden and conversing; the woman was elegantly dressed, and the man had the air of one who has risen through life through his own efforts, relying on none but himself.
‘I’ve been considering the situation for a while now,’ he said, ‘and I’m certain that I’m right. This country is too small for me. If I was over in England, there would be no limits to the business I could do. We’ll leave for London as soon as possible.’
He was a young man, but I understood from the behaviour of those around him that he was the owner of this large house. It would be more accurate to call it a ‘castle’, albeit a false one. The electric lights were all on, and there was truly a need for them, as the entire house was surrounded by a thick, sallow fog. That same fog was always outside the house, turning day into an ugly, man-made night. The young man grabbed a telephone; he seemed irritable.
‘Is this the bank? Get the manager for me, please … Are you there? Listen to me, I am not going to stay in this country for one more day. I should wait until the inheritance comes to me in a year’s time, but I’m sick of business and streets and rain and fog. I’m flying to Italy tonight, and after that, any country that takes my fancy. No, I have no desire to return to England. I’m leaving the company to you.’
I had never seen such a beautiful place. There were thousands of flowers, of every kind; vineyards and orange trees weighed down with their fruit; powerful sunshine beaming down over everything. It was difficult to say which was bluer, the sky above or the sea below. It must have been some part of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
I heard a car approaching. The staff of the Chateau emerged to welcome the person who had arrived: a worn, weather-beaten man, in whose features some sort of dissatisfaction could be clearly read. I understood from the conversation that surrounded him that he had been travelling for quite some time, and that this was his habit.
The rich man ascended to the library – a beautiful bright room with a view of the sea. He sat at the desk and turned to the letters that were there for him to read, but he did so without any enthusiasm. When he had read half a dozen, he jumped to his feet suddenly and threw the lot of them away from him in anger and disdain.
‘I’m sick of it all!’ he said aloud. ‘No matter where I go, word of my money precedes me. I have no appetite for anything – I might as well be Midas. It’s clear I’ll never know peace or satisfaction as long as I have this wealth.
‘But I’d be rid of them, the toadying liars! I could throw away every penny I have, and turn my face towards the place where my ancestors lived before me. It’s in a remote village on the edge of the sea that I’ll find rest and tranquillity.’
I stopped there out of sheer astonishment. ‘Good God, it’s a circle! Where’s the peace in that?’ My voice was rising.
‘In the centre of the circle,’ the Professor answered.
‘But what is the centre of the circle?’
He took me by the elbow and led me to the window. It was a bright, moonlit night, and all the stars were glittering brightly above our heads.
‘Each one of those stars has its own path,’ he said, ‘and each one of those paths is a circle, of a kind. What is the centre of all those circles? It’s the centre of your circle, too.’
I didn’t give him any answer, because I knew that he would provide it himself.