THE NEW ADAM (10)
By:
September 25, 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.
THE NEW ADAM: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10.
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].
Michel de Javerne shudders. He feels as though a drop of icy water were running down his spine. And, from the folding seat where he’s sitting, he bends toward Fléchère, stretches out his hands, and clings to those of his friend.
And Fléchère sees suspicion creeping onto his distraught features.
— Do you think… do you think? Michel stammers.
Fléchère tries to turn away, to not understand. A heavy silence stretches on. And then Michel protests in a low voice:
— Such a crime… freedom at that price! No… it’s impossible! It’s impossible…
His voice fades. All that can be heard, through the noise of the engine, is Jacqueline’s anxious breathing.
— So, Michel de Javerne suddenly declared, if he truly…. committed this act… Silenrieux is mad… He certainly must be mad…
He fell silent. He had just glimpsed two tears on Fléchère’s ravaged face.
— What, is it you, Vézelise? said Doctor Fléchère, as his former assistant, after a discreet knock, entered the laboratory.
— Yes, Master, replied the young man deferentially.
He stood before the old man and smiled, trying not to show his sorrow at finding him so changed.
— Master… I’ve just come back from England… I’ve been working hard. And now, if you have a place for me in your laboratory…
— I’ll always have a place for you… murmured Fléchère.
He showed no surprise at seeing Vézelise again. The most unexpected events could now follow one another without surprising him. His thoughts seemed to be suspended on a single point, always the same.
— You know he’s gone? Fléchère said softly.
Vézelise replied:
— Yes, Master…
Fléchère continued, his eyes averted:
— Since the catastrophe at Douceville, I haven’t heard from him… nothing… He’s disappeared…
And he added in a very low voice:
— I presume he’s in Germany…
Vézelise remained silent. Fléchère raised his anguished face and looked at the young man.
— Every time I open a newspaper, I tremble… he murmured.
He fell silent again. His gaze seemed to be watching for something deep within the unknown. The days and weeks unfolded this waiting that exhausted him. The waiting for a new catastrophe… What else could he expect, he who had created Silenrieux?
He looked up again, and found Vézelise before him, whom he had forgotten, that calm face, that good, sincere gaze fixed on him. And he felt his old confidence revive itself
“It does me good to see you again, Vézelise,” he said.
Fléchère’s brow suddenly tightened. He saw the operating room again, Hervé’s insensible body, the jar that René held out to him, and the pallor of Vézelise who apologized for leaving: “Excuse me, Master… I can’t… I can’t stay here… He gave a sigh that was almost a moan.
— You alone saw clearly… he murmured.
The young man put on a lab coat and resumed his old position, just as though he had left it the day before; active and silent, he absorbed himself in his work.
Each morning, when Fléchère opened the laboratory door, his gaze searched for Vézelise’s silhouette, and he felt a relief he could not define. It was as if something of the long nightmare had abated.
Fléchère did not mention Silenrieux. He said nothing of the months that had passed. He felt that his disciple guessed the torments he had experienced. And without explaining the reasons for his certainty, Fléchère felt a comfort knowing that this thought was watching alongside his own.
Sometimes, the doctor would ask upon entering:
— Have you read the newspapers today, Vézelise? Foreign policy?
And, at a nod from Vézelise, he stopped questioning.
The young man’s calm reassured him.
One morning, Fléchère was more explicit:
— Don’t you notice that the nationalists over there are becoming aggressive! Have you seen that they’re talking about imminent revenge? I seem to hear something like the clash of weapons being prepared…
— Master… Master! What’s the point of tormenting yourself like this?
— Ah! moaned Fléchère, Silenrieux is over there!
Silenrieux, escaped from the lunatic asylum, liable in France to face criminal court… carrying to the other side of the Rhine the secret that confers omnipotence [toute-puissance]…
Fléchère lost himself in this thought. He saw again, on the road to Saint-Blaise, the herd of goats slaughtering rank by rank… Suddenly, the image of a horizon-blue regiment replaced that of the white goats. It marched quickly, singing, right up to the moment that the first rank was wiped out, then the second, then the third… and the grass became blue, as though it reflected the sky. Fléchère’s reverie stopped there, not daring to go any further. And he gasped with an anguish that kept him awake during long nights on his burning pillow.
His assistants and lab technicians were surprised to discover that he seemed uninterested in his new laboratory; he watched its progress with indifference. And when, in front of him, they gave themselves over to their enthusiastic projects, discussed the experiments that would become possible, and anticipated the time saved, their Master seemed not to hear them.
The day came when, with the arrangements completed, the key was handed to Fléchère. He walked from room to room, followed by the group of assistants, keeping Vézelise at his side. The large bay windows let in a brilliant daylight, which played on the glass of the cabinets. And the vacant rooms followed one another with their running water installations, their autoclaves with gleaming copper, their long tables… their culture chambers… their dissection chambers…. All this space around you that you could fill with your work! The young people whooped it out. And Bayel, giddily, cried out:
—Boss, you owe us a little opening party!
But he stepped back, frozen by Fléchère’s dull gaze.
— A party? the doctor repeated, as if he didn’t understand. We’re moving tomorrow… that’s all.
They moved. And no one dared to mention inaugurating the new Institute again.
In the changed setting, the waiting began again. Vézelise knew well the anxiety Fléchère felt in the spacious, clean rooms, where he walked with automatic steps, his eyes fixed on the gleaming tiles.
— A suivre. —
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.