"MOREL'S INVENTION" "Don't be afraid." "Please, listen to me." "You won't tell that you've seen me, will you?" "I beg of your generosity." "I am a wanted man." "But I can explain everything, believe me." "I see that you don't consider me worthy." "But I mean you no harm." "I can explain, if you would only listen to me." "And if you don't tell on me to your friends." "Please, say something." "Insult me, tell me that I horrify you." "Run and report me, if you want, but for the love of God  please say something." "And would you believe me if I could take you back to a few hours before that night?" "I can't believe you anymore." "Never again." "The influence of the future on the past." "Are you kidding?" " Believe me, Faustine..." " No!" "I know what you're looking for." "A shame." "A real shame that you don't want to believe me." "And that we can't..." "understand one another." " A shame." "Why?" " Because... we won't be here for long, just three days." "And after that it will be of no importance." "Go on!" "Are you trying to scare me?" "Don't be so pessimistic." "No, I didn't mean to scare you." "What I said didn't come out right, please forgive me." "I didn't mean to alarm you." "And anyway, we won't be here talking about it for all eternity." "Morel, you know that I find you very mysterious?" "There's no mystery." "Don't take what I told you seriously." "You know, sometimes a man wants to make himself more interesting to a woman." " Don't get angry, there's no need." " No, Morel." "There's something you're not telling me." "But sooner or later, you'll have to tell me." "Yes, I'll get it out of you eventually." "No, this isn't the hour for ghosts." "Come on, back inside." " Not today, no..." "I didn't go and see." " I hope you're not too upset." "Tomorrow it will be there again." " I've lost all of your faith." " All of it!" " You used to believe in me." " Now that just isn't possible." "And would you believe me if I could take you back to a few hours before that night at the Ritz?" "I can't believe you anymore." "Never again." "The influence of the future on the past." "Are you kidding?" " Believe me, Faustine..." " No!" "I know what you're looking for." "A shame." "A real shame that you don't want to believe me." "And that we can't..." "understand one another." " A shame." "Why?" " Because... we won't be here for long, just three days." "And after that it will be of no importance." "Go on!" "Are you trying to scare me?" "Don't be so pessimistic." "No, I didn't mean to scare you." "What I said didn't come out right, please forgive me." "I didn't mean to alarm you." "And anyway, we won't be here talking about it for all eternity." "Morel, you know that I find you very mysterious?" "There's no mystery." "Don't take what I told you seriously." "You know, sometimes a man wants to make himself more interesting to a woman." " Don't get angry, there's no need." " No, Morel." "There's something you're not telling me." "But sooner or later, you'll have to tell me." "Yes, I'll get it out of you eventually." "Could you tell me why he chose such a secluded place?" "He knows why." "I'm not saying he doesn't." "But what made Morel think of such a thing?" "He will have his reasons." "What are you waiting for?" "Lunch is finished." "Will you hurry up?" "Incredible!" "Have you read the last piece he wrote on the Green Atlantic?" "Let's not forget that in our inability to see  the movements of the conjurer, we are put under the spell of magic." "How many times we ourselves have questioned the destiny of mankind  arousing all those old questions:" ""Where are we going?" "Why are we here?"" "... like music never heard on a disc, until we realise that we are not in charge?" " Oh, no." " Don't start." "Not tonight, please." "Is there nothing else you can talk about?" "Why not?" "It interests me a great deal." " Morel, continue, please." " No, no, they're right." "We'll discuss it another time, at a more opportune moment." "Oh, good." "Let's talk about the construction of the tennis court instead." "I can't understand why you would want to build a tennis court on the island." "We're a tight group, and the best players would do nothing but win over and over again." "No, tennis is played for pleasure." "It's a ceremony, not a competition." "It's also a good way of learning how to lose with dignity." " It teaches you how to lose." " It also reveals character, does it not?" "Yes, especially in mixed doubles." "And it also keeps you in shape." "It's a cure for a sedentary life." "Sounds like the guilt of someone who has eaten too much." "You should think about these things before sitting at the table, my darling." "Yes, but it's nothing a good diet won't fix." "Isn't that right, Morel?" "A diet?" "No, they're nothing but an illusion." "The deception of the body by the soul." "And the body pays for the deception, ignoring the benefits of the diet." "You don't have to be impatient." "Okay." "Hey, look." "Nice move, Faustine!" "How was your journey?" "Everything in order, Captain?" "Very well." "A calm sea, favourable wind." "Did you find everything?" "Were you able to bring everything we asked for?" " Yes, everything, of course." " Excuse us." "We'll be right back." " Hello." " How are you?" " It's late, we still have to get ready." " Just a moment." "END OF FIRST PART" "SECOND PART" "I have to tell you something." "I didn't say anything before because of the others." "But I have to speak to you and a few other people." " I'm listening." " No, not here." "Tonight." "When everyone else has gone to sleep, you will stay here." " That late?" " All the better." "The later, the better." "But we must be discrete." "I don't want the women to know." "Hysteria only provokes more hysteria." "Goodbye." "If I told you that all your emotions and words are recorded..." "It wouldn't matter to me." "Faustine, I must speak with you urgently." " Now?" "Why?" " You have to listen to me." " Alright, let's go to the museum." " No!" "Not in there." "It's better out here." " I'm cold, let's go back inside." " I make the most of this opportunity." "Away from the museum and the prying eyes of our friends." " It can't be that urgent..." " I must warn you  and I know that I can because you're different from the other women." "And you never lose your head." "Alright, but I refuse to stay out here and conspire." " I feel ridiculous." " Alright, as you wish." "Tonight, when everyone has gone  do me a favour and stay." "I can't do this without everyone present." "I won't start until we're all here." " Who is missing?" " Jane Gray." "That's hardly surprising!" "We must go and find her." "Who would be able to drag her all the way here, anyway?" "She must be present." "Perhaps she's sleeping." "I won't begin until she is sitting in front of me." " I'll go and get her." " I'll come with you." "There's another empty seat." "When he has to be here, he never turns up." "We will have to search all over the house." "I saw him come in here not long ago." " We looked everywhere for him." " That's not enough." "You have to bring him here!" "Heinz is asleep, no one can wake him." "Very well, then." "We shall begin." "It's his loss." "Heinz is too lazy, he will remain asleep." "If we have to go and drag him here, we'll never get started." "I have to read to you a statement." "Nothing serious, but so as to avoid any inaccuracies  I've decided to read it out." "Listen to me, please." "You will have to forgive me for this scene." "At first tiresome, then terrible." "We will forget it." "This, as well as the best week we've seen, will in the end be the most important." "I thought about not telling you anything." "I could have saved you a lot of anxiety." "I could have kept it from you until the last moment so as not to risk a rebellion." "But since you are all my friends, you have the right to know." "My abuse of power  involves the photographing of you without your permission." "Naturally, this doesn't mean a just any old photograph." "It is my latest invention." "All of us will live forever in that photograph." "Imagine a stage, upon which our life has been played out over the last 7 days." "We are acting even in this very moment." "All of our actions remain recorded." " This is immoral..." " I hope this is a joke..." "It's intolerable." "I could have told you, when you arrived:" ""We will live for all eternity."" "But perhaps we would have ruined everything in attempting to maintain a constant happiness." "I thought: "No matter the kind of week we spend together..."" ""... it would be nice if we didn't feel the need to occupy ourselves."" "Isn't that the case?" "I was right, I have given you a pleasant eternity." "The works of man are never perfect." "And neither is mine." "I am missing some of my and our friends." "Claude, Marlene, Leclerc..." "and of course poor Charlie  but I have him here with me." "If any of you wish to see good old Charlie again, it can be arranged." "He was one of my very first successes." "Have you every wondered what it would be like to live out  your deepest fantasies?" "To imagine a happy life with a woman who you have no hope of making your own?" "There, this is the genesis of my invention." "I had planned before coming here that it would be just me and her." "But that possibility was ruled out after I confessed my feelings to her." "I could have perhaps abducted her, but then we would have argued eternally." "And this is by no means an exaggeration." "But the time has come to explain my invention to you." "I will try to put it in simple terms, understandable by all." "You of course know that the the telegraph or telephone  has abolished loneliness when it comes to the sense of sound." "And that television or cinema has done the same for the sense of sight." "This is where my invention comes in." "I should mention here that I am very grateful to the French industries of Cuny  and to the Swiss of Swachter for all their help, while at the same time  I experienced nothing but mistrust from my own scientist colleagues." "I researched instruments that would pick up waves and vibrations never recorded before." "I would obtain, with relative ease, the olfactory sensations." "More difficult were the terms and tactiles." "I would perfect the recording of these images and sounds  improving the old voice recording and image recording systems." "With any person, for example our lovely friend Madeleine  we may now smell the jasmine perfume applied to her breast." "Or hold her smooth hair in our hands." "But if we open up our receivers completely  we may have Madeleine herself in front of us." "Reproduced." "Identical." "They are recorded images  but no one would mistake her for anything less than a living person." "But the machine doesn't just capture." "It records and projects, as well." "Anywhere in free space." "During the day, or at night." "To begin with I had intended to capture only certain scenes of our life here  and to present them as mementos, like an album of pleasant moments." "I would never have imagined, as I began to realise after the first experiments  that these reproduced people were almost conscious of themselves." "They were not dead images or reproduced as inert objects  and no one was able to distinguish them from real people." "I found myself standing in front of people that had been reconstructed  though that would vanish if the projector was disengaged." "They would merely act out the moments experienced while the scene was played  and once finished would repeat them, like cells on a reel of film  that, after arriving at the end, would start over from the very beginning." "Now, if we concede that the conscience distinguishes everything, from the  objects to the people that surround us  can we not do the same with these recreations transmitted by my equipment?" "Once all the senses are united, surely the soul must follow." "If Madeleine was in our presence, by sight, by sound  by taste, by smell, by touch  well, then that is the real Madeleine, Madeleine in her entirety." "Would it be such a stretch to develop a similar system to reproduce life?" "Just think!" "I do not claim to create life  just to record and project it." "All of us must have, at some point, considered a similar conception." "Have we not spoke before of how some images appear to possess a soul?" "My invention as good as confirms it." "Naturally, at the beginning I encountered many problems." "The first subjects of my experiments were employees of the Swachter company." "I did not inform them." "I opened the machine and recorded them while they worked." "May we see those first images?" "If that's what you really want, then why not?" "Though I must warn you." "Some images are quite monstrous." "Excellent, then go ahead and show us." "A bit of amusement never hurt anyone!" "I demand to see them, and I know about those unexplainable deaths at Swachter." "I am please with you It appears we have found a believer." "Imbecile, did you not hear me?" "You took Charlie as well." "That's when Morel was at Swachter, that their employees began dying." "I saw their photographs in some news articles." "I will recognise them." "See?" "You offended him." "You'll have to go and apologise." "I can't believe you would even think of saying such things." " Don't you understand?" " You made him nervous!" " I don't see why you had to insult him!" " Why can't you understand?" "He recorded Charlie with that machine of his and Charlie is dead!" "He recorded Swachter employees  and they had all those mysterious deaths." " Now he's saying that he has recorded us." " And we're not dead." "He recorded himself, too!" "Why can't any of you understand that this is nothing but a joke." "I've never seen him angry before." "Morel hasn't behaved properly, he should have informed us." " I'll go and find him." " No, you stay here." "I'll go." "To apologise to him, and beg him to continue." "He doesn't want to come back." "I couldn't convince him." "He left his papers on the table." "We could finish reading them." "You would only offend him further." "Isn't this what he wanted?" "That we know everything." " And anyway, he's already told us." " Read it, Alec." "Therefore, I decided to proceed with the best-looking plan." "We discovered this island under circumstances that everyone knows." "I gave them just three conditions." "The normal regularity of the lunar tide and the abundance of such activity  which would ensure a constant supply of power, with only the occasional interruption." "The natural difficulty of landing and a plentiful amount of light  that would allow for the capturing of perfect images." "I invested my fortune into the purchase of the island  and construction of the museum." "I hired the boat the brought us here  and that today returns to pick us up." "I took my measurements because Captain McGregor and his men  would never return again." "I called the mansion a museum  because I've always wanted to build immense registers or museums of images  public or familiar." "So this island would become our own private paradise  perfectly protected." "Even if we leave tomorrow, we will remain here for eternity  repeating the moments of this week, one after the other." "... and without the ability to ever leave this conscience we have created." "The projection replays nothing but that which has been recorded  and the future will maintain this projection forever." "That's it, it's finished." "The date follows:" "The Island of Caponero, July 1929." " Faustine?" " Yes?" "Are you ashamed that you followed me here?" "To the island, I mean." "The company is pleasant, but... that wind!" "Try to understand me." "Tell me, Morel, what do you really want?" " If I told you everything I wanted..." " I would feel insulted?" "Is this what you think?" "Though who knows, perhaps not." "The days pass." "Can we at least begin speaking less formally after today?" "Of course." "I have to learn to break the habit." "I must go now." "Goodnight." "I don't suspect you any more." "You don't love Morel, I know." "But I love your image." "If I returned to the world to reveal this secret  they would see my story as the ramblings of a crazy man." "The same Morel would probably stop me  if he's still alive." "If he is, he must be at least 50 years older." "When I used to worry about police persecution  the images of this island would move like chess pieces  following a strategic plan to capture me." "I have to convince myself that there's no need for escape." "The images scare me  but they protect me." "I will never leave here." "The journey is unrepeatable  the boat is ruined  and I can't make another." "No ships cross the horizon  apart from our one  that of course doesn't exist." "The walls  are projections!" "To knock them down I'll have to shut down the engines." "What if Morel recorded the engines, too?" "What if these are just projections?" "The ghosts of real engines." "You will have to forgive me for this scene." "At first tiresome, then terrible." "We will forget it." "If Madeleine was in our presence, by sight, by sound  by taste, by smell, by touch  well, then that is the real Madeleine, Madeleine in her entirety." "Would it be such a stretch to develop a similar system to reproduce life?" "Just think!" "I do not claim to create life  just to record and project it." "All of us must have, at some point, considered a similar conception." "Have we not spoke before of how some images appear to possess a soul?" "My invention as good as confirms it." "Naturally, at the beginning I encountered many problems." "The first subjects of my experiments were employees of the Swachter company." "I did not inform them." "I opened the machine and recorded them while they worked." "Why can't you understand?" "He recorded Charlie with that machine of his and Charlie is dead!" "He recorded Swachter employees  and they had all those mysterious deaths." "Now he's saying that he has recorded us." "Come inside, Morel!" "It was nothing, please." "We apologise." "Stevere is an imbecile." "And the others, a pack of cowards." "But you have to understand." "What you said, it's disturbing." "For me it was the same, but I didn't have time to think of the dangers." "Then why this idea?" "A nice portrait, don't you think?" "Perhaps my first idea would have been better." "Just myself, alone with Faustine." "Faustine?" "Now I see." "No, you don't see." "It might have been more pleasant, but it would also have been false." "We would have just been acting." "Me, the part of the suitor  and her the flattered woman who resists only out of pride." "Instead I wanted a complete image of us all." "Not a sentimental duel." "But who would ever see it?" "Who would ever need it?" "Ourselves, I would hope." "I thought perhaps it would take us back to our happiest years." "Of course, I have taken advantage of you." "I have manipulated your conscience." "But was it not worth it?" "We were so sure and hopeful, so full of reason and happiness." "We thought that the happiness of these years would last forever." "Instead it's all about to end." "Away from here it's already very different." "The immortality that I gave you was the only way to prolong these carefree days." "Come, come and explain it to the others." "No, there's nothing more to explain." "Faustine, finally!" "I've waited for the tide to change for three days." "I thought perhaps that the moon's course had changed." "I have activated the recording mechanism." "Now I will be by your side for eternity, in this never-ending week." "I might even somehow force my way into the heaven that is your conscience." "Faustine, finally!" "I've waited for the tide to change for three days." "I thought perhaps that the moon's course had changed." "I have activated the recording mechanism." "Now I will be by your side for eternity, in this never-ending week." "I might even somehow force my way into the heaven that is your conscience." "A diet?" "No, they're nothing but an illusion." "The deception of the body by the soul." "And the body pays for the deception, ignoring the benefits of the diet." "How was your journey?" "Everything in order, Captain?" "Very well." "A calm sea, favourable wind." "Did you find everything?" "Were you able to bring everything we asked for?" "Yes, everything, of course." "I thought perhaps it would take us back to our happiest years." "Of course, I have taken advantage of you." "I have manipulated your conscience." "But was it not worth it?" "We were so sure and hopeful, so full of reason and happiness." "We thought that the happiness of these years would last forever." "Instead it's all about to end." "Away from here it's already very different." "The immortality that I gave you was the only way to prolong these carefree days." "The date follows:" "The Island of Caponero, July 1929."