Atomic Theory

The Sergeant was sucking quietly at his stumps and carried a black shadow on his brow as if it were a hat.

As he walked he turned in my direction after a time.

‘The County Council has a lot to answer for,’ he said.

I did not understand his meaning, but I said that I agreed with him.

‘There is one puzzle,’ I remarked, ‘that is hurting the back of my head and causing me a lot of curiosity. It is about the bicycle. I have never heard of detective-work as good as that being done before. Not only did you find the lost bicycle but you found all the clues as well. I find it is a great strain for me to believe what I see, and I am becoming afraid occasionally to look at some things in case they would have to be believed. What is the secret of your constabulary virtuosity?'

He laughed at my earnest inquiries and shook his head with great indulgence at my simplicity.

‘It was an easy thing,’ he said.

‘How easy?'

‘Even without the clues I could have succeeded in ultimately finding the bicycle.'

‘It seems a very difficult sort of easiness,’ I answered.

‘Did you know where the bicycle was?'

‘I did.'

‘How?'

‘Because I put it there.'

‘You stole the bicycle yourself?'

‘Certainly.'

‘And the pump and the other clues?'

‘I put them where they were finally discovered also.'

‘And why?'

He did not answer in words for a moment but kept on walking strongly beside me looking as far ahead as possible.

‘The County Council is the culprit,’ he said at last.

I said nothing, knowing that he would blame the County Council at greater length if I waited till he had the blame thought out properly. It was not long till he turned in my direction to talk to me again. His face was grave.

‘Did you ever discover or hear tell of the Atomic Theory?’ he inquired.

‘No,' I answered.

He leaned his mouth confidentially over to my ear

‘Would it surprise you to be told,' he said darkly, ‘that the Atomic Theory is at work in this parish?'

‘It would indeed.'

‘It is doing untold destruction,' he continued, ‘the half of the people are suffering from it, it is worse than the smallpox.'

I thought it better to say something.

‘Would it be advisable,' I said, ‘that it should be taken in hand by the Dispensary Doctor or by the National Teachers or do you think it is a matter for the head of the family?'

‘The lock, stock and barrel of it all,' said the Sergeant, ‘is the County Council.'

He walked on looking worried and preoccupied as if what he was examining in his head was unpleasant in a very intricate way.

‘The Atomic Theory,' I sallied, ‘is a thing that is not clear to me at all.'

‘Michael Gilhaney,' said the Sergeant, ‘is an example of a man that is nearly banjaxed from the principle of the Atomic Theory. Would it astonish you to hear that he is nearly half a bicycle?'

‘It would surprise me unconditionally,' I said.

‘Michael Gilhaney,' said the Sergeant, ‘is nearly sixty years of age by plain computation and if he is itself, he has spent no less than thirty-five years riding his bicycle over the rocky roadsteads and up and down the hills and into the deep ditches when the road goes astray in the strain of the winter. He is always going to a particular destination or other on his bicycle at every hour of the day or coming back from there at every other hour. If it wasn't that his bicycle was stolen every Monday he would be sure to be more than half-way now.'

‘Half-way to where?'

‘Half-way to being a bicycle himself,' said the Sergeant.

‘Your talk,' I said, ‘is surely the handiwork of wisdom because not one word of it do I understand.'

‘Did you never study atomics when you were a lad?' asked the Sergeant, giving me a look of great inquiry and surprIse.

‘No,' I answered.

‘That is a very serious defalcation,' he said, ‘but all the same I will tell you the size of it. Everything is composed of small particles of itself and they are flying around in concentric circles and arcs and segments and innumerable other geometrical figures too numerous to mention collectively, never standing still or resting but spinning away and darting hither and thither and back again, all the time on the go. These diminutive gentlemen are called atoms. Do you follow me intelligently'

‘Yes.'

‘They are lively as twenty leprechauns doing a jig on top of a tombstone.'

A very pretty figure, Joe* murmured.

‘Now take a sheep,' the Sergeant said. ‘What is a sheep only millions of little bits of sheepness whirling around and doing intricate convolutions inside the sheep? What else is it but that?'

‘That would be bound to make the beast dizzy,' I observed, ‘especially if the whirling was going on inside the head as well.'

The Sergeant gave me a look which I am sure he himself would describe as one of non-possum and noli-me-tangere.

‘That remark is what may well be called buncombe,' he said sharply, ‘because the nerve-strings and the sheep's head itself are whirling into the same bargain and you can cancel out one whirl against the other and there you are - like simplifying a division sum when you have fives above and below the bar.'

‘To say the truth I did not think of that,' I said.

‘Atomics is a very intricate theorem and can be worked out with algebra but you would want to take it by degrees because you might spend the whole night proving a bit of it with rulers and cosines and similar other instruments and then at the wind-up not believe what you had proved at all. If that happened you would have to go back over it till you got a place where you could believe your own facts and figures as delineated from Hall and Knight's Algebra and then go on again from that particular place till you had the whole thing properly believed and not have bits of it half-believed or a doubt in your head hurting you like when you lose the stud of your shirt in bed.'

‘Very true,' I said.

‘Consecutively and consequentially,' he continued, ‘you can safely infer that you are made of atoms yourself and so is your fob pocket and the tail of your shirt and the instrument you use for taking the leavings out of the crook of your hollow tooth. Do you happen to know what takes place when you strike a bar of iron with a good coal hammer or with a blunt instrument?'

‘What?'

‘When the wallop falls, the atoms are bashed away down to the bottom of the bar and compressed and crowded there like eggs under a good clucker. After a while in the course of time they swim around and get back at last to where they were. But if you keep hitting the bar long enough and hard enough they do not get a chance to do this and what happens then?'

‘That is a hard question.'

‘Ask a blacksmith for the true answer and he will tell you that the bar will dissipate itself away by degrees if you persevere with the hard wallops. Some of the atoms of the bar will go into the hammer and the other half into the table or the stone or the particular article that is underneath the bottom of the bar.'

‘That is well-known,' I agreed.

‘The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.'

I let go a gasp of astonishment that made a sound in the air like a bad puncture.

‘And you would be flabbergasted at the number of bicycles that are half-human almost half-man, half-partaking of humanity.'

Apparently there is no limit, Joe remarked. Anything can be said in this place and it will be true and will have to be believed.

I would not mind being working this minute on a steamer in the middle of the sea, I said, coiling ropes and doing the hard manual work. I would like to be far away from here.

I looked carefully around me. Brown bogs and black bogs were arranged neatly on each side of the road with rectangular boxes carved out of them here and there, each with a filling of yellow-brown brown-yellow water. Far away near the sky tiny people were stooped at their turf work, cutting out precisely shaped sods with their patent spades and building them into a tall memorial twice the height of a horse and cart. Sounds came from them to the Sergeant and myself, delivered to our ears without charge by the west wind, sounds of laughing and whistling and bits of verses from the old bog songs. Nearer, a house stood attended by three trees and surrounded by the happiness of a coterie of fowls, all of them picking and rooting and disputating loudly in the unrelenting manufacture of their eggs. The house was quiet in itself and silent but a canopy of lazy smoke had been erected over the chimney to indicate that people were within engaged on tasks. Ahead of us went the road, running swiftly across the flat land and pausing slightly to climb slowly up a hill that was waiting for it in a place where there was tall grass, grey boulders and rank stunted trees. The whole overhead was occupied by the sky, serene, impenetrable, ineffable and incomparable, with a fine island of clouds anchored in the calm two yards to the right of Mr Jarvis's outhouse.

The scene was real and incontrovertible and at variance with the talk of the Sergeant, but I knew that the Sergeant was talking the truth and if it was a question of taking my choice, it was possible that I would have to forego the reality of all the simple things my eyes were looking at. I took a sideways view of him. He was striding on with signs of anger against the County Council on his coloured face.

‘Are you certain about the humanity of the bicycle?' I inquired of him. ‘Is the Atomic Theory as dangerous as you say?'

‘It is between twice and three times as dangerous as it might be,’ he replied gloomily. ‘Early in the morning I often think it is four times, and what is more, if you lived here for a few days and gave full play to your observation and inspection, you would know how certain the sureness of certainty is.'

‘Gilhaney did not look like a bicycle,' I said. ‘He had no back wheel on him and I did not think he had a front wheel either, although I did not give much attention to his front.'

The Sergeant looked at me with some commiseration.

‘You cannot expect him to grow handlebars out of his neck but I have seen him do more indescribable things than that. Did you ever notice the queer behaviour of bicycles in these parts?’

‘I am not long in this district.'

Thanks be, said Joe.

‘Then watch the bicycles if you think it is pleasant to be surprised continuously,' he said. ‘When a man lets things go so far that he is half or more than half a bicycle, you will not see so much because he spends a lot of his time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot at kerbstones. Of course there are other things connected with ladies and ladies' bicycles that I will mention to you separately some time. But the man-charged bicycle is a phenomenon of great charm and intensity and a very dangerous article.'

At this point a man with long coat-tails spread behind him approached quickly on a bicycle, coasting benignly down the road past us from the hill ahead. I watched him with the eye of six eagles, trying to find out which was carrying the other and whether it was really a man with a bicycle on his shoulders. I did not seem to see anything, however, that was memorable or remarkable.

The Sergeant was looking into his black notebook.

‘That was O'Feersa,' he said at last. ‘His figure is only twenty-three per cent.'

‘He is twenty-three per cent bicycle?'

'Yes.'

‘Does that mean that his bicycle is also twenty-three per cent O'Feersa?'

‘It does.'

‘How much is Gilhaney?'

‘Forty-eight.'

‘Then O'Feersa is much lower.'

‘That is due to the lucky fact that there are three similar brothers in the house and that they are too poor to have a separate bicycle apiece. Some people never know how fortunate they are when they are poorer than each other. Six years ago one of the three O'Feersas won a prize of ten pounds in John Bull. When I got the wind of this tiding, I knew I would have to take steps unless there was to be two new bicycles in the family, because you will understand that I can steal only a limited number of bicycles in the one week. I did not want to have three O'Feersas on my hands. Luckily I knew the postman very well. The postman! Great holy suffering indiarubber bowls of brown stirabout!' The recollection of the postman seemed to give the Sergeant a pretext for unlimited amusement and cause for intricate gesturing with his red hands.

‘The postman?' I said.

‘Seventy-one per cent,' he said quietly.

‘Great Scot!

‘A round of thirty-eight miles on the bicycle every single day for forty years, hail, rain or snowballs. There is very little hope of ever getting his number down below fifty again.'

‘You bribed him?'

‘Certainly. With two of the little straps you put around the hubs of bicycles to keep them spick.'

‘And what way do these people's bicycles behave?'

‘These people's bicycles?'

‘I mean these bicycles' people or whatever is the proper name for them - the ones that have two wheels under them and a handlebars.'

‘The behaviour of a bicycle that has a high content of humanity,' he said, ‘is very cunning and entirely remarkable. You never see them moving by themselves but you meet them in the least accountable places unexpectedly. Did you never see a bicycle leaning against the dresser of a warm kitchen when it is pouring outside?

‘I did.'

‘Not very far away from the fire?

'Yes.'

‘Near enough to the family to hear the conversation?'

‘Yes.'

‘Not a thousand miles from where they keep the eatables?,

‘I did not notice that. You do not mean to say that these bicycles eat food?'

‘They were never seen doing it, nobody ever caught them with a mouthful of steak. All I know is that the food disappears.'

'What!'

‘It is not the first time I have noticed crumbs at the front wheels of some of these gentlemen.'

‘All this is a great blow to me,' I said.

‘Nobody takes any notice,' replied the Sergeant. ‘Mick thinks that Pat brought it in and Pat thinks that Mick was instrumental. Very few of the people guess what is going on in this parish. There are other things I would rather not say too much about. A new lady teacher was here one time with a new bicycle. She was not very long here till Gilhaney went away into the lonely country on her female bicycle. Can you appreciate the immorality of that?'

‘I can.'

‘But worse happened. Whatever way Gilhaney's bicycle managed it, it left itself leaning at a place where the young teacher would rush out to go away somewhere on her bicycle in a hurry. Her bicycle was gone but here was Gilhaney's leaning there conveniently and trying to look very small and comfortable and attractive. Need I inform you what the result was or what happened?'

Indeed he need not, Joe said urgently. I have never heard of anything so shameless and abandoned. Of course the teacher was blameless, she did not take pleasure and did not know.

‘You need not,' I said.

‘Well, there you are. Gilhaney has a day out with the lady's bicycle and vice versa contrarily and it is quite clear that the lady in the case had a high number - thirty-five or forty, I would say, in spite of the newness of the bicycle. Many a grey hair it has put into my head, trying to regulate the people of this parish. If you let it go too far it would be the end of everything. You would have bicycles wanting votes and they would get seats on the County Council and make the roads far worse than they are for their own ulterior motivation. But against that and on the other hand, a good bicycle is a great companion, there is a great charm about it.'

‘How would you know a man has a lot of bicycle in his veins?'

‘If his number is over Fifty you can tell it unmistakable from his walk. He will walk smartly always and never sit down and he will lean against the wall with his elbow out and stay like that all night in his kitchen instead of going to bed. If he walks too slowly or stops in the middle of the road he will fall down in a heap and will have to be lifted and set in motion again by some extraneous party . This is the unfortunate state that the postman has cycled himself into, and I do not think he will ever cycle himself out of it.'

‘I do not think I will ever ride a bicycle,' I said.

‘A little of it is a good thing and makes you hardy and puts iron on to you. But walking too far too often too quickly is not safe at all. The continual cracking of your feet on the road makes a certain quantity of road come up into you. When a man dies they say he returns to clay but too much walking fills you up with clay far sooner (or buries bits of you along the road) and brings your death half-way to meet you. It is not easy to know what is the best way to move yourself from one place to another.’

After he had finished speaking I found myself walking nimbly and lightly on my toes in order to prolong my life. My head was packed tight with fears and miscellaneous apprehensions.

‘I never heard of these things before,' I said, ‘and never knew these happenings could happen. Is it a new development or was it always an ancient fundamental?'

The Sergeant's face clouded and he spat thoughtfully three yards ahead of him on the road.

‘I will tell you a secret,' he said very confidentially in a low voice. ‘My great-grandfather was eighty-three when he died. For a year before his death he was a horse! ,

‘A horse?'

‘A horse in everything but extraneous externalities. He would spend the day grazing in a field or eating hay in a stall. Usually he was lazy and quiet but now and again he would go for a smart gallop, clearing the hedges in great style. Did you ever see a man on two legs galloping?'

‘I did not.'

‘Well, I am given to understand that it is a great sight. He always said he won the Grand National when he was a lot younger and used to annoy his family with stories about the intricate jumps and the great height of them.'

‘I suppose your great-grandfather got himself into this condition by too much horse riding?'

‘That was the size of it. His old horse Dan was in the contrary way and gave so much trouble, coming into the house at night and interfering with young girls during the day and committing indictable offences that they had to shoot him. The police were unsympathetic, not comprehending things rightly in these days. They said they would have to arrest the horse and charge him and have him up at the next Petty Sessions unless he was done away with. So my family shot him but if you ask me it was my great-grandfather they shot and it is the horse that is buried up in CloncoonIa Churchyard.'

The Sergeant then became thoughtful at the recollection of his ancestors and had a reminiscent face for the next half-mile till we came to the barracks. Joe and I agreed privately that these revelations were the supreme surprise stored for us and awaiting our arrival in the barracks.

When we reached it the Sergeant led the way in with a sigh.

‘The lock, stock and barrel of it all,’ he said, ‘is the County Council.'



---- from The Third Policeman, by Flann O'Brien



* Joe is the narrator's soul, with whom the narrator can converse.