TRANSLATORS INTRODUCTION
Carlos Olivera was born in 1858, died in 1910, and was an Argentine author. Beyond this, I can find virtually no biographical information. Both Rachel Haywood Ferreira's "The Emergence of Latin American Science Fiction" and Román Setton's "Los inicios del policial argentino y sus márgenes: Carlos Olivera (1858-1910) y Carlos Monsalve (1859-1940)" discuss only Olivera's works, and not his personal life.
The short story compilation "En la brecha" ("In the Breach") was published in 1886, which contains "Los muertos a hora fija (Revelaciones de un médico)" ("Dead at a Fixed Hour (Revelations of a Doctor)"), which Ferreira acribes an authorship date of 1883 to. Ferreira and Setton both discuss this work at length. Two other science-fiction adjacent stories, also appearing in "En la brecha", are discussed at length by Setton, "Fantasmas" ("Phantasms") and "El hombre de la levita gris" ("The Man in the Gray Coat"). As far as I know, none of his stories have previously been translated into English.
- Chrononauts translation office, March 2nd, 2021
DEAD AT A FIXED HOUR (REVELATIONS OF A DOCTOR)
- "Tell me, dear Doctor, do you think that a patient can know in advance the fixed hour at which they are going to die?"
- "In some cases... yes."
- "But how? How do you think know? ..."
- "That is to say... I don't think they can know, but I had the experience of a very extraordinary case, in which a patient died exactly at the time that he had announced the day before..."
- "That can't happen outside of fantasy! How the devil could a patient know? ... No man, no! these things are indisputable."
- "There are many things, my friend, that are indisputable! You are still young, and have more faith in science than I have myself, someone who's much older, and has been your teacher...
"There are multitudes of phenomenon in medicine, for which we still don't have a shadow of an explanation. The case I'm talking about is the following:
"Our clinical professor, the famous Dr. Mazziotti, was visiting with us one time at the Hospital for Incurables in Naples, and he stopped at the bed of a patient with stage three pulmonary tuberculosis, and while he explained to us the progression of the sickness and the maddening uselessness of the remedies, he said in a low voice:
"- 'I think you'll barely last fifteen days.'
"The sick man raised his head, smiled sadly, and murmured:
"- 'Oh.... no!'
"This movement, which broke the patient's apathetic persistence, had aroused everyone's attention to a high degree: most particularly that of our professor, who was struck by the tone of absolute confidence in the refusal.
"- 'Did you say no?' he asked. 'Did you hear what I said then? ...'
"- 'Yes, sir... and I assure you that you are wrong ... I won't last fifteen days; I'm going to die tomorrow at 12.'
"The cold tone, implacably convinced of this statement, had I do not know what supernatural element, from beyond the grave, as a romantic poet would say, that overwhelmed us.
"- 'Tomorrow at 12?...' murmured the professor, smiling and giving us a sign of intelligence. 'And how do you know that?'
"- 'Oh! .. I feel it here', he replied. And he touched his forehead.
"We ended up smiling at each other; but in his turn the professor had become serious. In short, to conclude I can tell you that, despite everything that was done to prolong the life of the subject with the most active stimulants, he died precisely and exactly at 12 o'clock."
*
* *
- "But you can't believe that this clairvoyance is possible," I told him again. "I can't suppose that in you; there are things that are in contradiction with everything we know."
- "Friend", he replied, "all I can tell you is that I don't know anything ... we are still greatly ignorant; But let me ask you in turn: why ask this question of yours? Do you have a patient like this?"
- "Yes", I told him, "it is precisely about an individual who, according to what seems to me, should still live for some time; And he has said that he will die later at eleven o'clock! ..."
- "And you, what do you say?"
- "That this can't be."
- "What's the patient got?"
- "Liver disease, final stage; And even though autophagy is severe, I think he can pull through a little longer still, taking into account his general condition."
- "Interstitial hepatitis!"
- "No more, no less."
- "Let's make a bet that he dies at 11?"
- "I accept... what are the stakes?"
- "Whatever you like... ten boxes of cigars?"
- "Let's go for the cigars; but I warn you that I am going to do the possible and the impossible to make him live..."
- "Do whatever absurd thing you want ... Are we going to see him?"
- "Let's go."
And we left immediately, nervous, excited, intrigued by this extraordinary case. We found my patient... But permit me to tell his little story.
He was a man of about 38 to 40 years old, tall, skinny, a little yellow in the face. Five months before he had come to see me in my study, and after greeting me, he said:
- "Sir, before continuing, I would like you to assure me of one thing ... you do not know me, you cannot have compassion or ill will. You do not know if I have a family that will mourn for me or not ... in light of all this, whose knowledge generally prevents doctors from telling the complete truth to the sick, I believe that you could ..."
- "Tell it to you?"
- "Exactly."
- "Very well, sir; but let's see from what you're suffering."
I examined him, asked him about minuscule circumstances and details, and gave him my opinion in this fashion: an incurable disease, whose fatal termination, in his state, would not be very far off.
The poor man began to cry bitterly. That truth, for which he had so longed, once realized, terrified him and left him disconsolate.
- "It means, then," he murmured, "that I am going to die soon, that there is no remedy! .... that medicine is impotent!"
- "But, sir," I told him, "I expected more from your courage, seeing the resolution with which you demanded the truth ... I haven't told you that you are going to die tomorrow, or the day after; you're going to die, but what the hell! we all have to die sometime;" and to console him, I added: "you can still shoot for many more years, do not grieve."
Little by little he consoled himself. The treatment I imposed on him was only symptomatic, because as I said, it was a hopeless case. So I prescribed him some digestives, and a proper regimen. The autophagism - a terrible word that really expresses the idea of eating oneself - was gradually diminishing.
But when he announced the fixed hour of his death, he still had a lot to eat! ....
*
* *
We arrived with the doctor at four in the afternoon at the home of the patient. He occupied an apartment in the Hotel Frascati, where his family assiduously took care of him.
- "How's it going?" I asked him, making every trace of care disappear from my face.
- "It's on it's way, sir," he replied, "I feel that I am fading little by little ..."
- "But what is fading? ... are your follies, my friend .... discard those ideas; if you yourself are starting to become intimidated! Where did you get this prediction from? - Did you read it in a book, which contained some story in this style ..."
- "No, sir...."
- "I have come to accompany you so that you can get rid of your fright ... You are scared," I told him, smiling.
- "Oh, it's not fright," he said, very seriously; I felt that was enough.
My old teacher took his pulse.
- "Okay," he said, "his pulse is eighty." He took out a thermometer and applied it under an armpit; the result was 37°. His breathing was almost normal: 17 per minute.
He looked puzzled; yet this tantalizing phrase slipped into my ear;
- "I'd still give him a month to live; nevertheless, based on what he says, I have no problem doubling the bet."
- "I'll double it," I answered.
- "Well, I'm going to leave, eh ?; I have a lot to do, do your best not to lose your cigars."
- "Be careful."
And in effect I was left alone with the patient. I had brought various devices and drugs, in order to prepare the remedies myself. I have always had a fear of apothecaries; the doctor prescribes quinine sulfate and they send him cotton or papier mache. In every properly civilized country, apothecaries should be suppressed. They are a real calamity.
At 6:30 I began to notice a depression in my patient's pulse. Then I administered to him a glass of good mulled wine and some injections of milk with port wine, and egg yolk. The pulse rose again, and my man appeared more animated; at 7:15, however, his forces had decreased until they reached a level lower than that of the first time. He seemed to realize exactly what was happening.
- "I'm leaving, sir....." he said, "it's useless no matter how much you do."
Useless! Oh! I still had many means, and was determined to fight to the last. I was prepared by my studies to not believe in the smallest supernatural thing, and a reason for this extraordinary event had escaped me, a struggle was waged within me that irritated me directly because of my impotence against that true obstinacy of dying at a fixed hour.
Having applied Marey's sphygmograph to it, that ingenious apparatus designed to paint the movement of blood on the surface of blackened cardboard, I obtained much smaller curves than at first;.. my man began to inspire fear in me.
I immediately turned to the aniseed ammonium liqueur. With this, I said while preparing it, we will see if the rebellious nervous system of faith resolves not to enter the night of eternal darkness...
After making him drink it, I began my observations on the radial artery, a kind of tube, in which the column of life rose and fell.
It was like a thermometer, which made the artificial heat of the medicine go up or down.
The pulse rose, it became fuller, more intense, more beautiful, and at the same time the face of the patient lit up .... It was a lamp reviving itself.
But oh! after half an hour, it went down again; but how far it went down! It went down in leaps, as if that life that had just animated him had been nothing more than an accumulation of what little he had left. It seemed that there had been no such increase in life, but simple excess of expenditures, and that all my efforts to prolong it beyond the fatal term, which he himself had assigned, only managed to make him waste in a half an hour what would have made him last two or three.
I no longer thought about the bet, what did I care about it? Now it was about self-respect, pride, the crazy ambition to fight hand-to-hand with the Eternal Unknown and to defeat it! ....
As I reflected, time was running out, and the implacable invisible enemy was snatching its prey from me.
In vain I asked of biological chemistry an explanation for the terrible asynergy which unbalanced his body.
I looked at my watch for the hundredth time. It was nine o'clock at night. I had expressly stopped the pendulum of the clock that was in the room, so that the patient could not realize the exact time. I wiped the sweat off my forehead. With animation, I spoke to the patient and his family, while preparing a new element of life. I smiled; I demonstrated a sureness and a confidence that was far from painting my fears.
He seemed to understand it, and had divined everything, with an implacable and heartbreaking serenity.
- "What time is it?" he asked.
- "Ten o'clock," I answered.
- "How, is it already ten o'clock?" he said strangely. And he fixed his eyes on me as if to tell me that I was lying ...
- "I still feel too strong," he added, "for it to be already ten o'clock..."
I pretended not to hear. I dissolved about three milligrams of strychnine sulfate in one gram of distilled water, and gave him a hypodermic injection.
- "Now we are going to see this nervous system jump," I said; "now we will see if the physiological action of this exciting and famous reflex is worth anything."
The effect was truly tremendous. At eight minutes the column of life rose again; the lamp again radiated splendorous rays.
Under my fingers I felt the pulsation of the most energetic radial, and all the symptoms of an active existence in that almost inert organism were renewed.
- "Well!," I asked him, "do you feel better?"
- "Yes....." he answered, "but whatever happens after this improvement is going to be much worse than before."
- "You're still obstinate!" I replied. "So, do you persist that you are going to die at 11? - What a whim! It's already a quarter to eleven, and I don't think ..."
- "Your watch must be wrong," he answered, with a terrible certainty.
As he had said, so it was. The effect of the strychnine lasted three-quarters of an hour. But what an immediate depression! The pulse gave 45 beats per minute.
I gave him another hypodermic injection, but this time, I turned to sulfuric ether. A new rise and a new depression.
But at the end of its effect, I didn't find any more than 40 beats.
It was ten-thirty. He was leaving, that obstinate one was leaving! Sweat ran from my forehead in thick drops; discouragement had almost completely won me over.
- "Now, yes ... eleven o'clock is approaching ..." the patient murmured with a barely sensitive voice.
I resolved to try a new medium; helped by his wife, we put him on his side, and I began to apply electricity to his spine.
He was reanimated still; new blood seemed to circulate through that flabby and passive body, and for about twenty minutes, I could see the increasing insensitivity with which the galvanic discharges were received.
When I saw that they were totally useless, I turned him back so as not to tire him; the terrible Hippocratic face was already visible in him.
It was agony! It was ten minutes to eleven.
Now, without any hope, I still gave him oxygen inhalations, which had been prepared in a sack of natural rubber, giving him artificial respiration as well, so that instead of ambient air, his lungs were forced to receive that powerful oxidizer 15 times per minute.
It was useless. Life faded little by little, the pulsations were becoming slower, more irregular, more imperceptible, his glassy eyes fixed in a strange way on me, and then they closed forever. It was five minutes past eleven on the dot.
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