THE NEW ADAM (8)
By:
September 10, 2025
The New Adam is a 1926 proto-sf novel by the Swiss author Hélène Dufour Pittard (writing as “Noëlle Roger”). The book concerns, one reads in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia, “a wholly logical and unpleasant Superman created by gland transplants.” HILOBROW is pleased to serialize Book IV from The New Adam in Josh Glenn’s translation, from the original serialized in the 23 February 1924 issue of the journal La Petite Illustration.
FRENCH PROTO-SF TRANSLATIONS BY JOSH GLENN: Raymond Roussel’s LOCUS SOLUS [excerpt] | Noëlle Roger’s THE NEW ADAM [excerpt] | Alfred Jarry’s THE SUPERMALE [excerpt] | Jean de La Hire’s THE MYSTERY OF THE XV [excerpt].
THE NEW ADAM: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10.
De Javerne hadn’t closed the study door. He was heard to reply:
— Hello! It’s me… Doctor de Javerne… Is that you, Masson?
A silence. Then, in a changed voice, Michel repeated:
— What… what? What are you saying? I don’t understand… What? Speak louder!”
— An accident, Fléchère murmured. Ah! I hope…
He didn’t finish his thought. His friend’s terrified voice continued:
— At what time?
The pause seemed interminable to Fléchère.
— Ah…” de Javerne continued. “Hello! How many dead, do you say?… injured…”
Another long pause. Fléchère and the two women stood up. They looked at each other anxiously.
— Hello! I’ll leave right away with some orderlies. Just enough time to give orders… Send men across the fields to try to catch them… Hello! Yes… in two hours, count on me in two hours, at the latest…
The sound of someone hanging up the receiver. A number dialed by de Javerne. His ragged breaths broke the silence. Then came the order:
— The car immediately. To Doctor Fléchère’s. Put me through to the clinic. Busy? Call me back.
Michel de Javerne reappeared in the dining room doorway. He was livid. His hands were shaking.
— My dear friend! Fléchère cried, stepping forward.
— A catastrophe… murmured de Javerne, leaning against the wall and running his hand over his forehead as if to chase away a vision of horror. He was slurring incoherent sentences.
— Douceville in flames… the rescue of the madmen… Some flee into the countryside… others refuse to leave their cells… The flames… The dead… the wounded… the panicked staff… overwhelmed… Someone called from the village to ask for help… bandages… a team of nurses…
Douceville in flames… The image of the large new buildings, the rooms furnished with such care, flashed before Fléchère’s terrified mind. And Silenrieux’s face continued to smile at him in the gloom where his green eyes shone.
Some sort of careless error? Jacqueline asked softly.
— There’s talk of an explosion… probably it was an accident involving the gas appliances, replied de Javerne.
The ringing of the telephone called him back. He was giving orders to the nurses at his clinic in Paris, organizing teams. His voice was becoming curt and clear again. He had regained his sang-froid.
Fléchère could no longer hear him. He saw Silenrieux standing in the doorway, calling out across the garden, his ambiguous smile as he listened to the response. And his mask so quickly restored, his prayer that he hadn’t renewed…
Was he already plotting some terrible plot, using the old, trusting friend who called him his son? Revenge? Oh! noz; not that! The irresistible need to rush to work? “Every day lost tears me apart…” “I must rebuild the world…” “What does the life of miserable madmen matter?” Fléchère gasped. No, no… not that… That again… He saw Hervé’s face again, suddenly so sad and almost tender… No, it’s impossible… An accident… the gas appliance… Why not?
Fléchère raised his pale face.
Michel de Javerne, returning to the room, met his gaze.
— Are you thinking of your Silenrieux? Don’t worry. He must have escaped. The malades on the ground floor… I have no fear for them. But the ones on the first floor… the second floor… locked in the padded cells…
Again, he made a gesture to banish the abominable memory.
— I’m going with you, de Javerne! Fléchère said suddenly. And you, Jacqueline, too… since we need nurses.
She hadn’t said anything yet. Her eyes, dilated, never left Fléchère’s and seemed to reflect their anguish. She stood up.
“Time to get the coats… Master…” she replied.
— You haven’t eaten anything? Marie begged. Have something to eat while you wait!
They shook their heads. Besides, the car was arriving. Marie felt Jacqueline’s kiss on her cheek and saw them disappear.
The car drove briskly into the night. De Javerne, beside the driver, was calculating the disaster of his career, taking stock of his responsibilities. All these oblivious [inconscientes] lives that were being handed over to him… He took turns accusing the director and the staff. Fléchère and Jacqueline, with a dull anguish, thought of Silenrieux. Their eyes looked out into the dark countryside. Jacqueline felt her Master shiver.
Despite the noise of the engine, they heard the sounds of bells spreading, scattered across the black expanse of fields.
— The alarm bells [le tocsin] are ringing in all the villages… murmured de Javerne.
The car reached the top of a hill. A cry escaped them. The entire horizon was ablaze. And, on this bloody tablecloth [nappe sanglante], a brighter light was inscribed, like the focus of this immense blaze.
— Ah! murmured de Javerne
And, controlling himself, he ordered:
— Faster… faster!
Already they felt suffocated by a whirlwind of heat that the wind threw in their faces.
Fléchère recognized the road, lined with poplars, the village where all the houses were lit, and the bell tower that never stopped uttering its breathless call.
— Perhaps the wounded have already been transported here! asked Jacqueline.
— Let’s go there first, said de Javerne.
The car crossed the village without even slowing down. Fléchère made out dark groups in front of a barn, brought out of the shadows by the intermittent rays of the lanterns.
The path between two hedges. Three more kilometers. And one comes across the slow procession of carts, where, in the glow of the headlights, one can discern piled-up bodies. Groans rose from these dark masses. Other carts, more heavily laden, passed in absolute silence. These travelers were covered in sheets.
— How many there are… repeated de Javerne, terrified. How many there are!
At the last climb, they could make out the porter’s lodge over the wall, now nothing more than a pile of smoking embers; the director’s house, behind it, was blazing like a torch. And, rising above the curtain of trees, the bubbling flames extended along the entire length of the terraces.
The car stopped. They got out and entered the enclosure of the walls, which were no longer defended by any gate. The furnace was so intense that the trees in the gardens suddenly lit up: a flash passed from base to top, and they were nothing more than a long, agitated flame. Motionless, terrified black silhouettes stood out. Others ran here and there. And they could recognize the gestures of firefighters, ladders being carried, jets of water aimed, all of which seemed like child’s play in the face of the devouring flames.
The resident Masson, who had rushed over, stood before his chief and wrung his hands, repeating stupidly:
— What a catastrophe… what a catastrophe!
Where is the director? asked de Javerne.
— They think he went up to open the cottages [cabanons]… And so…
The resident’s gesture completed his sentence.
And the incoherent story escaped his lips. Everything had gone up in flames at once. It was incomprehensible. Across the gardens, the pavilions could be seen bursting into flame simultaneously. The madmen [fous] had just gone to bed. The fire terrified them. They refused to leave their rooms. They had to be forced out. As soon as they were outside, they escaped, screaming horribly. Others clung to their beds, and several guards and orderlies, who were trying to save them, disappeared with them in the blaze. It was impossible to reach the cabins in the right wing, which was, from the first moment, enveloped in a curtain of fire. But it was a terrible thing to see, behind the barred windows, their convulsing faces. The firefighters had tried to use ladders. But the flames were leaping towards them. And, besides, they didn’t have any tools to cut the iron bars…
— Now it’s over, concluded the intern. We don’t hear any more screams…
The others raised their bewildered faces. No, there was nothing left alive in the gigantic brazier they were slowly circling.
— But listen! said de Javerne suddenly.
Voices pierced through the confused tumult. Shadows fled across the lawns with frantic gestures that were inscribed against the red background, then disappeared, melting into the night of the groves, from which they seemed to spring, still running; others rolled on the ground, fighting without interrupting their frantic cries.
— Ah! My God!… murmured the intern. The patients… they’ve gone mad!
— We must catch them! cried de Javerne. Catch them at all costs! What are the attendants thinking?
RADIUM AGE PROTO-SF: “Radium Age” is Josh Glenn’s name for the nascent sf genre’s c. 1900–1935 era, a period which saw the discovery of radioactivity, i.e., the revelation that matter itself is constantly in movement — a fitting metaphor for the first decades of the 20th century, during which old scientific, religious, political, and social certainties were shattered. More info here.
SERIALIZED BY HILOBOOKS: James Parker’s Cocky the Fox | Annalee Newitz’s “The Great Oxygen Race” | Matthew Battles’s “Imago” | & many more original and reissued novels and stories.