The Chamber of Life Read online

  The Chamber of Life

  I didn't know what Melbourne meant, and I looked at him inquiringly.

  He explained: "I have in my home a model--or rather a completetest-apparatus. It was finished only a few days ago. I have beenpostponing my trial of it from day to day, afraid that it might be afailure--although, of course, it can't be. I have verified my workdozens of times, step by step.

  "If you care to see it, I should be glad to have you come with me. Nowthat I have reached the end of my search, I need someone to share mytriumph with me." I glanced at him eagerly, but hardly understandingthat his offer was serious.

  "But, Mr. Melbourne," I said, "why have you chosen me--a man you've onlymet this evening?" He smiled.

  "I am a lonely man, almost a recluse, Mr. Barrett," he answered. "I havemany friends in many countries--but no intimates. It is the penalty of aman's devotion to one single and absorbing task. And, too, I think youshare a little of my interest in this particular task."

  "I do, sir! It has fascinated me," I said.

  "Then come along. I shall soon be an old man, and I will need someone tocarry on this work as I should carry it on. Perhaps you will be thatman."

  A taxi was coming up the Drive at that moment. Melbourne hailed it, andheld the door for me to enter. Then he gave the driver an address whichI didn't hear, and climbed in after me.

  "This will be quicker," he said. "After all, I am more excited about itmyself than I should care to admit."

  As we turned and went on up the Drive, he told me more about hisinvention.

  "I call it the Chamber of Life," he said. "It's a fantastic name, but itdesignates precisely what my instrument is.

  "You see, it's like living another life to experience an hour or two inthe Chamber. You cannot possibly realize yet just what it's like. I havecreated a means of reproducing all the sensations that a man would havein actual living; all the sounds, the odors, the little feelings thatare half-realized in daily life--everything. The Chamber takespossession of you and lives for you. You forget your name, your veryexistence in this world, and you are taken bodily into a fictitiousland. It is like actually living the books you would read today, or themotion pictures and plays you would watch and hear.

  "It is as real as life, but it moves swiftly as a dream. You seem topass through certain things slowly and completely, in the _tempo_ oflife. Then, when the transitional moment comes, between the scenes, yoursensations pass with unbelievable rapidity. The Chamber has possessionof your mind. It tells you that you are doing such and such a thing, itgives you all the feeling of doing that thing, and you actually believeyou are doing it. And when it snatches you away from one day and takesyou into the next, it has only to make you feel that a day has passed,and it is as though you had lived through that day. You could live alifetime in this way, in the Chamber, without spending actually morethan a few hours."

  * * * * *

  The taxi turned a corner, leaving the Drive, and plunged into a maze ofside streets. I didn't notice particularly where we were going, becauseI was utterly absorbed in everything Melbourne said. The city, along theupper part of the Drive, is filled with streets that twist and turncrookedly, like New York's Greenwich Village. It has always puzzled meto know how the residents ever find their way home at night--especiallywhen they are returning from parties. I suppose they manage itsomehow--perhaps by signs cut in the trees, like primitive Indians.

  "Even after I had worked out the machine," Melbourne continued, "it wasa year's job to put together a record for a thorough trial. That was amatter of synchronization like your talking pictures, except thateverything had to be synchronized--taste touch as well as sound andvision. And thought-processes had to be included. I had this advantage,however--that I could record everything by a process of pureimagination, as I shall explain later, just as everything is receiveddirectly through the mind. And I worked out a way of going back andcutting out the extraneous impressions. Even so, it was all amazinglycomplicated.

  "I've gotten around the difficulties of this, my first record, byavoiding a story of ordinary life. Indeed, what I have made is hardly astory at all. You can readily see how hard it would have been to use themedley of noises in traffic, or the infinite variety of subtlecountry-sounds. Instead, I made a story of an ideal life as I havevisioned it--the future, if you like, or the life on another planet."

  At this moment we turned into a dark driveway and skirted a large lawnfor several hundred yards, up to Melbourne's home. It was a largehouse, dark at the moment, like the colonial houses you see inVirginia--the real ones, not the recent imitations that consist oflittle except the spotless white columns, which Jefferson adopted fromthe Greeks.

  * * * * *

  We went up some steps to a wide porch as the taxi drove away, andMelbourne unlocked the door. The hall inside was a hint of quiet, finefurnishings, with the note of simplicity that marks real taste.Melbourne himself took my hat, and put it away meticulously with his ownin a cloak-room at the end of the hall. Then he led me up the stairs,deeply carpeted, to his study. I glanced around the study with interest,but I saw nothing that could, conceivably, have been what he called theChamber of Life.

  "It's not here, Mr. Barrett," he said, noticing my eagerness with asmile, "we'll go to it in a moment. I thought you might care for ahighball first." From a closet he selected a bottle of Scotch, somesoda, and glasses. Before he poured the whisky, he removed a small boxfrom a cabinet, opened it, and extracted two small capsules. He droppedone of them into each glass.

  "This is a harmless drug," he explained. "It will paralyze some of thenerves of your body so that you won't feel the chair you'll be sittingin nor any extraneous sensation that might interfere with theimpressions you must get from the instrument. It's a sort of localanesthetic." He handed me my glass.

  We drank the highballs rather hastily, and rose. Melbourne went to adoor at one end of the room and opened it, switching on a light.Following him, I looked past the doorway into a small room somethinglike the conception I had of the control-room in a submarine. It was asmall chamber with metal walls. It had no windows, and only the one doorthrough which we entered.

  Around the walls were a series of cabinets with innumerable dials,switches, wires, and tiny radio tubes. It was like a glorified radio,but there were no loud speakers and no ear-phones. Two very deep andcomfortable chairs stood side by side in the center of the room.

  "The experience will be very simple," Melbourne said softly. "I'm notgoing into any detail about this instrument until we see how it works. Imay as well explain, though, that the room is absolutely sound-proof, sothat no trace of noises outside can enter it. Furthermore, I maintain itat an even body temperature. These precautions are to preventinterference with the sound impressions and the heat and cold stimuliof the instrument. That is the only reason we have to be confined herein this room, because it is especially adapted to the reception of theseimpressions.

  "The instrument, you see, like a radio, is operative at a distance. I amgoing to test you in a moment for your wavelength. When I have that, andset the instrument, you could receive the story, so far as I know,anywhere in the world. No receiving set is necessary, for it actsdirectly upon the brain. But you must have these ideal conditions forpure reception."

  * * * * *

  I seated myself in one of the chairs, yawning a little. Melbourne,working at the dials, noticed my yawn and observed approvingly.

  "That's good. The more deadened your body is to real sensations--thenearer it is to sleep--the better and more vivid will be yourimpressions." He pressed several buttons, and twisted a dial withsensitive fingers.

  "Now, concentrate for a moment on the word _Venus_," he directed. I didso, and shortly I heard a faint humming which rose within theinstrument. Then Melbourne turned a switch with a nod of satisfaction,and the humming ceased.

  "That gave me your wavelength," he explained. "I have set it
for my ownas well--I can broadcast at one time two or more different lengths. Ican broadcast more than one part in the drama, too. Whereas you, forinstance, will be the man waking up in a strange world in the record weare going to receive, I have connected my wavelength to receive theemotions and the sensations of the girl, Selda."

  He came forward to the other chair, and sat down.

  "Everything is in readiness now," he said. "When I press this button onthe arm of my chair, the lights will go out. A moment later we shall beunder the stimulus of the machine. I don't think anything can happen."He smiled. "If anything does, and you are conscious enough to know it,you can call my butler by means of an electrical device I have perfectedsimply by speaking his name, Peter, in an ordinary conversational voice.But I don't see how anything can go wrong."

  We reached for each other's hands, and shook them quietly.

  "Good luck," I said. "The outcome of this means almost as much to me asit does to you." With another smile, Melbourne answered:

  "Good luck to you, then, too."

  At that moment the lights went off, and we sat there a few moments intotal darkness....

  Remembering this scene, as I bathed that morning when I came out of thelake, I began to understand more clearly what had happened to me.Evidently, then, it _had_ been last night that I saw Melbourne, and thestrange other-life I had been recalling earlier had been the experiencein the Chamber of Life.

  But there was more yet. My mind raced back to the awakening on the hill,and to the landing in the city of Richmond. I remembered theconversation with Edvar in his apartment, the place where I had left offand gone back to my recollections of Melbourne.

  Now, as I stepped out of the tub and dried myself and dressed, Ireturned mentally to the curious, mythical adventure in the mythicalcity. It was still impossible for me to feel that it was unreal, it hadbeen so vivid, so clear.