Oxygen and Aromasia

by Claës Lundin

translated by Bertil Falk

Chapter 23, part 1; part 2
Chapter 24
appear in this issue.

Chapter 23: The Wonderful Chest

part 3 of 3

At last, the whole group was happily back at Stångskär. The chest was brought to the nearest house, the inhabitants of which had just returned from the big herring meeting at Svartbråden. And in a quite friendly way they received the famous engineer from Greenskerry and his companions. They gathered around the wonderful chest, the form of which seemed so odd. It was a few meters long but only half a meter wide and had about the same height.

“To begin with we must find out what’s inside the chest,” Hemispherion explained, not without a certain intensity. It was as if he was somewhat angry at Oxygen, who said that he wanted to return back to the interior of the earth.

And the old man immediately set to work. He did not even give himself time to wait for the proper tools or for the helpful hands of the other people, but he soon found that the work was more difficult than he had imagined. The chest was made of an old metal, no longer used in the 24th century and it did was not easily breached.

“It’s perhaps the ancient copper the old books tell us so much about,” Oxygen said. He had fetched better tools and came to Hemispherion’s assistance.

After persevering efforts, they at least succeeded in opening the lid. Everyone’s eyes immediately dived into the chest.

What did they find?

Another chest, but of some other metal, of iron it seemed. On the lid of the inner chest was a small box of the same metal. That was easily opened. It contained three handwritten manuscripts.

“A notable find!” Hemispherion called out. “The manuscripts seem to have been partly written in some kind of strange 19th-century Swedish, then still partly in the Germanic written language.”

“It seems to be impossible to interpret,” Oxygen declared.

Ultimately, the decipherment was done, especially thanks to Hemispherion’s persistence and practice of reading old documents. The first paper was the kind of official document that in the past was called birth certificate, the nature of which gave Hemispherion quite valuable information.

The paper said that the head clerk (a machinist of a civil service department) Karl Johan Kvist, son of the shopkeeper and baker Gustav Adolf Kvist, was born in Hedvig Eleonora parish in Stockholm in April 1828. He was confirmed there in 1844 and “has passed knowledges in the scriptures with great distinction and can be communicated without hinder” and “is unengaged.”

The second paper in the small box contained the following article, reproduced word-for-word here:

Hôtel de la Tamise, 4 Rue d’Alger
July 1, 1878.

In order to forestall all misunderstanding that possibly could arise before I get an opportunity to orally attest the degree of truth as to the remarkable invention that Doctor Schulze-Müller from Berlin has made, and which very likely way will dramatically reshape the human condition, I consider it my duty to render the following account about the interesting operation, I for the promotion of science have submitted to:

I, Karl Johan Kvist, head clerk, living at no. 78. Shipper’s Street in Stockholm, unmarried house-owner and possessor, journeyed in the month of June the current year to the world fair in Paris, where I became acquainted with Doctor Schulze-Müller from Berlin, who was about to publish his invention about the mummifying and revival of organic bodies.

The aforementioned doctor told me that it had been known for a long time that there are organisms, which after having been dried up for years, could be brought back to life. He had now extended his experiments to higher organisms and arrived at the miraculous result that it was possible to render a complete preservation of these organisms.

Blood was pumped out and soon afterwards an antiseptic solution — invented by the doctor but known to me — would be injected. The solution would permeate the finest veins and capillary vessels and even the skin would be impregnated with the same solution.

The animal body prepared in this way would be preserved as long as wanted and could through the here enclosed recipe be revived so that the vital process is resumed and continues as if it never has been interrupted.

Since experiments on rabbits and other animals had convinced me of the reliability of Doctor Schulze-Müller’s interesting method, I urgently asked him to be kind enough to mummify me. It happened, according to the doctor, after a dinner together at Champeaux by The Exchange here in Paris, followed by visits to Café de la Régence, Café de Suède, Café Riche, Grand-Café and several German Brasseries.

Finally, he gave in and he had even been so benevolent that he offered to perform the operation immediately. I declined, because I first wanted to see the great illumination in the Boulogne forest and then visit Mabille, one of the few monuments I still had not seen.

Today, in the morning, the doctor turned up on my room here at the hotel and he wanted, as he said, immediately to do what I had asked him to do and set to operate.

Since I during the night suffered from a headache, I could not remember that I had made the above mentioned request the day before. But when Doctor Schulze-Müller reminded me of it, I did of course not want to refuse to believe his assurance, which I could not do, since I felt very sleepy. My state of health is today miserable. Especially, the headache is vile. I cannot think clearly.

But since I am supposed to have volunteered to be mummified and I think that it is to my advantage to get rid of the headache — the doctor has assured me that it will not be felt during the sleep or after the awakening — and furthermore I have a strong desire to jump across the bad times that are approaching with decreasing income, I have once more consented.

I have today sent my application for leave with the attached doctor’s certificate and will immediately write to messenger Persson, my agent, that he in an orderly manner collects the rentals in the city and the rent for the estate and deposits the money in Enskilda Banken.

Doctor Schulze-Müller, who will take up his residence in Stockholm and make a living out of his invention, has undertaken to bring me as a mummy to my hometown. There he will supervise that I be restored in an orderly manner so that I can resume my official career and collect my rents. But I have impressed on him that he must not revive me until the rents have risen that much that I can make a worthwhile living. This I hereby certify, as Doctor Schlzde-Müller attests, in full possession of all my senses and on an empty stomach.

Karl Johan Kvist
Head clerk, real estate owner and proprietor

“That’s a very strange paper,” opined Oxygen’s collaborators.

“I’ve certainly heard about mummifying,” Oxygen explained, “but the art seems to have been lost a long time ago.”

“Let’s see what the third paper contains,” said Hemispherion. “It’s worded in the old Germanic language from the days of Bismarck and Edvard von Hartmann, a very strange language.”

To begin with, the third paper communicated a careful instruction as to how to revive a mummified person according the schulze-müllerian procedure, how to use living blood, artificial inhalation, electrical treatment and much more, until the inanimated organism was once more set in motion.

In addition, the same paper contained another article by Doctor Schulze-Müller. There he explained that after the successful mummifying, he had put the mummified individual into a chest of iron and intended to enclose the iron chest into case of copper and then bring it all to Sweden, where he intended to settle down.

For the expenses and freight charges, he had received a contribution from the mummified head clerk Kvist. Klerk in return stipulated for his part a portion of the profit the doctor undoubtedly would reap from his invention. Or at least that the doctor would see to it that the Ducal Albertianian House Order was conferred on Klerk, while he on his part would try to make the doctor a Knight of the Order of Vasa, or — at least — have him made “literis & artibus.”

In order to save travelling expenses and mummy freight, the doctor explained that he would go via Havre and therefrom take a sailing-ship to Stockholm.

He was of the opinion — the paper ended — that he should enclose all this information. Thus, if the chest was stolen from him or in any other way went astray, one would find the owner or at least revive the mummified one and perhaps even carry the matter of the orders to a successful conclusion.

Hemispherion and Oxygen looked at each other and shook their heads with mistrusting expressions.

“Where is Kvist?” they both called out with one mouth.

With alacrity they attacked the lid and after a while of assiduous and very prudent work they succeeded in opening the inner chest.

Carefully wrapped in cotton was an older man in a 19th century dress. He looked completely sound, as if he just had fallen asleep, and yet he had been lying in that position for five hundred years and probably at the bottom the Baltic Sea most of the time.

Those standing around him looked somewhat amazed, but Oxygen bent down over the chest and examined the mummified one.

“Very well preserved!” he said with an expression of great admiration.

“Well, well, the old ones were not as stupid as we often believe,” Hemispherion put in. “Look! The bodily structure is unchanged. Every nerve, every little vessel is retained exactly as when this body was alive. The only thing missing is the organic movement. It’s a clockwork that stopped five hundred years ago and since then has not been wound up.

This man of honor wanted that his organism to be revived when the rental income once more began to go up, but he has overslept. Nowadays no one rents a place to live. Now everyone owns a share of a dwelling-house. Maybe we won’t do him a service if we wind up the clockwork.”

“We must nevertheless give it a try,” Oxygen declared. “This is an art that hardly was invented before it was lost. The German doctor probably was lost at the same time as this body, but he was not mummified and could never more use his invention or let anyone know of it.”

They began the work to revive the sleeping man. For a long while their efforts seemed to have no effect. The old German process was utilized with the outmost exactitude, but the mummified person did not show the slightest sign of life.

“It’s a waste of energy,” Oxygen’s co-workers said. “The night is past and we must return to the tunnel.”

“That’s right,” Oxygen declared. “I’ll soon come with you, but I won’t as yet abandon the old head clerk.”

The sun had already reached far on its daily wandering, when the tired Hemispherion, who had fallen asleep, was awoken by the cry:

“Garçon! Café!”

Hemispherion gave a start and saw the revived 19th century man, who sat erect in his chest and rubbed his eyes, all the while clamoring for “garçon” and “café.” Oxygen was standing by his side and tried to calm him down, but it seemed as if Oxygen did not understand what the revived man wanted.

“Coffee!” old Hemispherion exclaimed. He suddenly felt fully awaken and happy that his work had succeeded. “We can probably not get you that. Nowadays, coffee beans only exist in one or two botanical gardens.”

Then he explained to Oxygen that the mummified one wished a drink that in the past was enjoyed when you woke up.

“I think I’ve heard about that,” Oxygen said, “and I remember too, that they used to prepare that drink from any substance. Wait, and you’ll see that I can offer him coffee.”

In a hurry, Oxygen mixed whatever he could find into a drink that he speedily heated and offered the revived one.

“The taste is strange,” explained the former mummy, “but it’s nevertheless nice to get a cup of coffee.”

“What is he saying?” Oxygen asked and turned to Hemispherion. “I don’t understand him.”

“He speaks of course Old Swedish,” the consulted one informed. “I understand it not too badly.”

“But what’s this?” the head clerk called out after downing his coffee and looked about him. “What strange kind of bed is this? And look at these characters. I would think that I’m at Trocadero, in the Asiatic part... H’m... they don’t understand me... damn it that my French is so bad!”

“We’ll understand your Swedish,” Hemispherion explained, “as soon as we acclimatize to the sound of it. How do you feel now? Are you fully awake?”

“No, I can’t be,” the head clerk explained. “Oh, now I remember. Where’s the doctor, the German doctor? How did I get home from Mabille?”

“The German doctor is dead since five hundred years,” Hemispherion informed. “You’ve taken a little slumber during that period.”

“What a dream!... Yes, now I remember everything... Would I really... ha, impossible... But, anyhow strange. Would I have been sleeping for five hundred years?”

“Just about!”

“I’m no longer at Hôtel de la Tamise by Rue d’Alger? Has the fair ended?”

“You’re at Stångskär.”

“Stångskär? Where’s that?”

“In the Baltic Sea. You seem to have forgotten the surroundings of Stockholm. Do you remember Sandhamn?”

“Very well. I often visited Elias Sehlstedt.”

“Did you know him personally?” Oxygen put in. “After five hundred years we still rejoice at his songs.”’

The head clerk expressed his great satisfaction at the fact that the memory of his friend Sehlstedt still was live. And he took the opportunity to tell about his close friendship to several other prominent writers from the later part of the 19th century, but he was very surprised when he found that their works were as unknown as their names.

“Maybe I’m not fully awake?” the head clerk exclaimed. “I remember everything that happened yesterday. The fine dinner at Champeaux, in the garden under the glass-ceiling, then at the cafés, the life on the streets, the great popular festival, the Boulogne forest with the blinding lighting, the indescribable grand fireworks and... no, then I don’t remember anything else. That damned doctor!”

“Don’t speak ill of him,” Oxygen said. “It’s he who furnished you with the opportunity to see how we live five hundred years after the last world’s fair.”

“Damn if I understand anything of all this,” the head clerk lamented. “I guess that rentals are up again? But who has seen to my house on Shipper’s Street all this time?”

“Poor man,” Oxygen said to Hemispherion. “I feel sorry for him. He’ll never more find his house and his rental properties again.”

“I guess I’ll take care of him,” Hemispherion said. “To be sure, my sideline is to search out unhappy people and help them.”

“If you please,” he continued, turned to the man from the 19th century, “we’ll go to Stockholm.”

“Is there a steamboat from Stångskär to Stockholm?”

“There are no steamboats today. We travel by air.”

The former head clerk looked astounded. He did not know what to believe.

Oxygen wished him a happy future, bid farewell, and rushed back to his tunnel work.

Proceed to Chapter 24...