At this point in his narrative Caccicacci paused, waiting for the inevitable question—And what happened to Picodiribibi? Caccicacci put on a mysterious baiting smile, raised his empty glass appealingly, coughed, cleared his throat, and, before resuming, inquired if he might have another sandwich.
Picodiribibi! Ah, now you ask me something! Have any of you ever read Occam—or the Private Papers of Albertus Magnus?
No one had, needless to say.
Every now and then, he continued, the question being wholly rhetorical, one hears of a sea monster appearing off the coast of Labrador or some other outlandish place. What would you say if tomorrow it were reported that a weird human monster had been glimpsed roaming through Sherwood Forest? You see, Picodiribibi was not the first of his line. Even in Egyptian times legends were in circulation attesting to the existence of androids such as Picodiribibi. In the great museums of Europe there are documents which describe in detail various androids or robots, as we now call them, which were made by the wizards of old. Nowhere, however, is there any record of the destruction of these man-made monsters. In fact, all the source material we have on the subject leads to the striking conclusion that these monsters always succeeded in escaping from the hands of their masters…
Here Caccicacci paused again and looked about inquiringly.
I am not saying it is so, he resumed, but there is respectable evidence to support the view that in some remote and inaccessible spot these Satanic creatures continue their unnatural existence. It is highly probable, in fact, that by this time they have established a veritable colony. Why not? They have no age, they are immune to disease—and they are ignorant of death. Like that sage who defied the great Alexander, they may indeed boast of being indestructible. Some scholars maintain that by now these lost and imperishable relics have probably created their own unique method of communication—more, that they have even learned to reproduce their own kind, mechanically, of course. They hold that if the human being evolved from the dumb brute why could these pre-fabricated creatures not do likewise—and in less time? Man is as mysterious in his way as is God. So is the creature world. And so is the inanimate world, if we but reflect on it. If these androids had the wisdom and the ingenuity to escape from their vigilant masters, from their horrible condition of servitude, might they not have the ability to protect themselves indefinitely, become sociable with their own kind, increase and multiply? Who can say with certitude that there does not exist somewhere on this globe a fabulous village—perhaps a resplendent city!—populated entirely by these soulless specimens, many of them older than the mightiest sequoia?
But I am forgetting about Picodiribibi … The day his master came to a violent end he disappeared. All over the land a hue and cry went up, but in vain. Not a trace of him was ever found. Now and then there were reports of mysterious deaths, of inexplicable accidents and disasters, all attributed to the missing Picodiribibi. Many scholars were persecuted, some put to the stake, because they were thought to have harbored the monster. It was even rumored that the Pope had ordered a ‘replica’ of Picodiribibi to be manufactured, and that he had made dark use of this spurious one. All rumor and conjecture, to be sure. Nevertheless, it is a fact that, hidden in the archives of the Vatican, are descriptions of other robots more or less contemporaneous; none of these, however, is credited with possessing anything approaching the functional range of Picodiribibi. Today, of course, we have all sorts of robots, one of them, as you know, drawing his first breath of life, so to speak, from the radiance of a distant star. Had it been possible to do this in the early Middle Ages, think, try to think, of the havoc which would have ensued. The inventor would have been accused of employing black magic. He would have been burned at the stake, would he not? But there may have been another result, another outcome, dazzling and sinister at the same time. Instead of machines, perhaps we would now be using these star-driven menials. Perhaps the work of the world would be done entirely by these expert work-hungry slaves…
Here Caccicacci stopped short, smiled as if bemused, then suddenly burst out with this: And who would arise to emancipate them? You laugh. But do we not regard the machine as our slave? And do we not suffer just as indubitably from this false relationship as did the wizards of old with their androids? Back of our deep-rooted desire to escape the drudgery of work lies the longing for Paradise. To the man of today Paradise means not only freedom from sin but freedom from work, for work has become odious and degrading. When man ate of the Tree of Knowledge he elected to find a shortcut to Godhood. He attempted to rob the Creator of the divine secret, which to him spelled power. What has been the result? Sin, disease, death. Eternal warfare, eternal unrest. The little we know we use for our own destruction. We know not how to escape the tyranny of the convenient monsters we have created. We delude ourselves into believing that, by means of them, we shall one day enjoy leisure and bliss, but all we accomplish, to be truthful, is to create more work for ourselves, more distress, more enmity, more sickness, more death. By our ingenious inventions and discoveries we are gradually altering the face of the earth—until it becomes unrecognizable in its ugliness. Until life itself becomes unbearable … That little beam of light from a remote star—I ask you, if that imperishable ray of light could thus affect a non-human being, why can it not do as much for us? With all the stars in the heavens lavishing their radiant powers on us, with the aid of the sun, the moon and all the planets, how is it that we continue to remain in darkness and frustration? Why do we wear out so quickly, when the elements of which we are composed are indestructible? What is it that wears out? Not that of which we are made, that is certain. We wither and fade away, we perish, because the desire to live is extinguished. And why does this most potent flame die out? For lack of faith. From the time we are born we are told that we are mortal. From the time we are able to understand words we are taught that we must kill in order to survive. In season and out we are reminded that, no matter how intelligently, reasonably or wisely we live, we shall become sick and die. We are inoculated with the idea of death almost from birth. Is it any wonder that we die?
Caccicacci drew a deep breath. There was something he was struggling to convey, something beyond words, one might say. It was evident that he was being carried away by his narrative. One felt that he was trying to convince himself of something. The impression I got was that he had told this story over and over—in order to arrive at a conclusion beyond the limits of his own comprehension. Perhaps he knew, deep down, that the tale had a significance which eluded him only because he lacked the courage to pursue it to the end. A man may be a story-teller, a fabulist, a down-i right liar, but embedded in all fiction and falsehood there is a core of truth. The inventor of Picodiribibi was a story-teller too, in his way. He had created a fable or legend mechanically instead of verbally. He had defrauded our senses as much as any story-teller. However…
Sometimes, said Caccicacci, solemnly now and with all the sincerity he was capable of mustering, I am convinced that there is no hope for mankind unless we make a complete break with the past. I mean, unless we begin to think differently and live differently. I know it sounds banal … it has been said thousands of times and nothing has happened. You see, I keep thinking of the great suns which surround us, of these vast solar bodies in the heavens of which no one knows anything, except that they exist. From one of them it is admitted that we draw our sustenance. Some include the moon as a vital factor in our earthly existence. Others speak of the beneficent or maleficent influence of the planets. But, if you stop to think, everything—and when I say everything I mean everything!—whether visible or invisible, known or unknown, is vital to our existence. We live amidst a network of magnetic forces which, in a variety of ways incalculable and indescribable, are ceaselessly operative. We created none
