Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Earthquake observing was also a social opportunity, particularly for those
living in solitude. In the novels of Balzac and his contemporaries, boarding
houses were a nineteenth-century symbol of the atomization of modern so-
ciety. The injunction to collect testimony from other eyewitnesses offered a
welcome excuse to penetrate the social walls that separated neighbors from
each other. observers reported conversations that transpired as individu-
als sought confirmation of their own experiences. They found themselves
discussing their intimate moments alone in bed at night, even their dreams.
“It is only in chatting with other people that I realized that it was indeed an
earthquake.”
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In one case, a Madame Bel-Perrin in Colombier responded to one of
Schardt's requests for observations with a report that offered little in the way
of seismology per se, but was highly suggestive in other ways. Bel-Perrin's
letter is worth quoting in full. It offers a glimpse of the reverberations of the
Messina disaster in the imagination of an individual with no scientific train-
ing, but with a thirst for scientific understanding.
Colombier, le 20 février 1909
Monsieur le Dr. Schaudt
Veytaux
Monsieur,
Last night I dreamed very clearly of an earthquake strong enough to set in mo-
tion the objects hanging on the walls of the room where I was staying. In my
dream I immediately took note of all the particularities of the shock in order
to communicate them to you. unfortunately, it was only a dream, but it at
least has the advantage of reminding me of the letter that I promised you and
that I have long wanted to write you in order to excuse the slightly mischie-
vous card that I wrote you in response to yours. [The card] contained a secret
irritation at not having attended more precisely to the shocks that I certainly
felt on one or another of the indicated dates. I have not yet forgiven myself
this inattention. But between a dying father and a very ill sister, it was more or
less possible, in the bustle of the year's end, to allow oneself to be distracted
from the problems of science. Lowly and small-minded creatures that we are,
it makes us uncomfortable to detach ourselves from our surroundings and
to raise ourselves to those mysterious heights where one forgets everything
that is not a mystery upon scrutiny. But there you have it, this has made me
put my finger once again on my sordid ignorance, since, as I believe I have
already told you, it may be that my sensibility is simply altogether bestial; I
