The Biographer's Tale by A. S. Byatt

objects, and that clouds were composed of mist, of waterbubbles. The two men sneered at the savant’s ignorance, and assured him that the clouds were solid, leaving solid and slimy traces of their passage on the mountains. These, CL replied, were vegetable, known as
nostoc
. The two men continued to mock.
    N EVERTHELESS , the scientist himself cherished unfounded beliefs, which we may call credulous, or mythical, or magical. These cross his scientific course in strange and beautiful ways, inspiring his curiosity, opening new roads, conducing also to new errors. Here was a man who not only adopted the prevailing scientific view of the time, that Man was an animal, but included the creature in his
Systema naturae
first under anthropomorphs, and later, when it was objected that anthropomorphs simply meant “man-like,” under a new category,
primates
, which included monkeys and apes, and also the sloth, and the bat.
Primates
were a subsection of
Mammalia
(hence his interest in the dugs of the dead horse and its fellows);
Mammalia
included whales, which his great friend and fellow-taxonomer, Artedi, had included in his
Ichthyologia
. CL was not inclined to the view that Man alone had a soul, and that other living things were simply machines,
bruta, bestiae
. He wrote in his
Diaetia Naturalis
, “One should not vent one’s wrath on animals. Theology decrees that man has a soul and that the animals are mere
automata mechanica
, but I believe they would better advise that animals have a soul, and the difference is in its nobility …” We feel, he said, greater compassion for a dog than an insect, and more still for an ape. Indeed, he applied the adjective
sapiens
, first of all, not to
Homo sapiens
but to a species of monkey,
Simia sapiens
, which was said to be able to learn to play backgammon excellently well, and to keep watchmen posted on the lookout for tigers, so that the rest of the group could sleep safely. He kept monkeys and mourned the death of his own tamed friend, the raccoon Sjupp, in 1747; he subsequently dissected Sjupp, paying particular attention to his sexual organs.
    During his lifetime the boundaries between
Homo sapiens
and his fellow anthropomorphs were drawn and redrawn. At varying stages the
Systema naturae
contained creatures such as the tailed man,
Homo caudatus
, the pygmy, and the satyr, which is also the orang-outan and
Homo sylvestris
, which walks bolt upright in the forest, has hands for feet, has arboreal claws, and is full of lust, so that women of our species dare not walk alone in its vicinity. It also has good table manners, and sleeps at night on a pillow under a quilt “like a respectable old lady.” CL sometimes referred to
Homo sapiens
as
Homo diurnus
, and gives a detailed description of his strange double and opposite,
Homo troglodytes
or
Homo nocturnus
, “the child of darkness which turns day into night and night into day and appears to be our closest relative.”
    The troglodytes are short (the height of a nine-year-old boy) and white as snow, since they are active only at night; they have white fuzzy hair, round eyes with orange pupils and irises and a transparent micturating membrane, like those of bears and owls. They live in caves and holes, and are quite blind by day, stumbling, if they are dug out, as though their eyes have been put out. They have a language, guttural and impenetrable, but never learn more than “yes” or “no” in the speech of
Homo sapiens
or
diurnus
. At night they seewell, and make thieving raids; populations of men, where they see them, exterminate them as vermin and refer to them as
blafards
, cockroaches. CL as always, was interested for classificatory reasons in their genitalia (they were said to have a fold of skin which fell forwards over the sexual organs of the female, as in the Hottentot). He begged for details, particularly of the
nymphae
(labia) and clitoris of a ten-year-old female