Diana loved moonlight, animals and children—she died in childbirth, along with our child.
Only twenty-two, my goddess of the woods—that’s what I called her—a country girl who could speak to animals, but more amazingly, control me.
I was devastated. Took a year off from my University of Toronto post-graduate work—so depressed, I planned my suicide.
I sat through long nights with a loaded revolver.
But it was on those long nights, the thought first came to me—I could use my research to bring her back. My tribute would be to make a simulacrum—a likeness of her in every way.
It was an obsession, but also a divine one—a Pygmalion quest to not only make the statue, but also give it life.
“You’re mad, George—take a look at yourself—all whacked up with grief and longing. You can’t bring her back.”
Karol Werner was my best friend and an accomplished mechanician. He was a genius in clockwork mechanisms and a student of human anatomy.
We often discussed building an automaton. It was our dream to work together on building an artificial human body.
My computer expertise complemented his biological and mechanical engineering genius. We agreed to collaborate.
I just needed to convince him to animate Diana.
“We’ve planned this for years—what’s troubling you now?”
“You know very well what’s troubling me—all of this—” He tossed aside my tomes on alchemy and my studies of human personality.
“You’re into mysticism.”
“Really?” I laughed bitterly. “Do you say that because I want to give our machine a soul?”
“That’s exactly why I object. You know what La Mettrie said: The soul is nothing but an empty word to which no idea corresponds.”
“Well then, you have nothing to fear, but a ghost inside a machine.”
“But it’s unwholesome, George.”
I sighed patiently and tried to reason with him.
“I know what you’re saying, Karol, but that was the very charge laid against Descartes—seeking to represent the body as a mechanically moving machine. Are you now trying to assume the role of Grand inquisitor and condemn me too?”
Karol softened. “No—nothing like that. I’m just concerned for you, my friend. I don’t want you to obsess to the point of melancholy trying to resurrect a life that’s been lived.”
I clapped him affectionately on the back. “Don’t worry Karol—I see this as a tribute to Diana—not a revivification of her corpse.”
He nodded and grasped my hand warmly. “Then, we’ll do what no one else has been able to do—we’ll make a living, moving, speaking human effigy with artificial intelligence.”
“Yes,” I smiled, “not a robot designed for menial tasks, but a representation of a human person—and she’ll have a personality and an autobiographical memory, just like ours.”
“It’ll be wondrous,” Karol enthused.
“It’ll be miraculous,” I agreed.
Four centuries earlier, Karol and I would have been burned at the stake for the work we were doing.
Making a moving representation of the human body would be considered a blasphemy—a profanity against both God and man.
In the past, to compare a man to a machine was sacrilegious—but now, in modern times, to endue a machine with personality—how would that be viewed?
I wanted to do something frighteningly unique—to create a mind clone of Diana.
Everything about her would be downloaded into my computer programs. I’d read her journals and diaries – her poems – talk to her closest friends.
I’d even enlist her parents to recall every event of her life, especially her personal responses to things.
I would dress the simulacrum in her clothes, using Diana’s make-up and perfumes, her jewelry—even recordings of her voice to capture the right tone and inflection
She would be the physical embodiment of everything Diana was.
Karol studied the work of an 18th century mechanician named Jacques de Vaucanson who made automata that could eat, breathe and have blood circulating through their arteries.
Karol also discovered a process to make a life-like transparent skin that blushed and sweated—and he made eyes that cried real tears.
On my part, I endowed Diana’s simulacrum with her health history, her allergies and her likes and dislikes.
When we were finished, we both gazed in astonishment at what we created.
“My God, George—it's Diana reborn.”
“But I haven’t even animated her yet.”
Karol began trembling all over.
“What’s wrong—are you unwell?”
Karol was pale and shaking.
“I’m terrified, George. I can't be here when she comes alive.”
I could scarcely believe my ears.
“But you said yourself she’d have no soul.”
He shook his head vigorously. “I did—but that was before I saw her living likeness. Oh George, what have we done?”
I gave him a brittle smile. “You, my friend, are the materialist—you deny the existence of spirit—and yet, look how you quake with fear.”
He used a chair to support himself and gripped it so tightly his knuckles turned white.
“Why are you so frightened?” I demanded.
“I quake to look upon her likeness.”
“What did Macbeth’s wife tell him? The sleeping and the dead are just pictures. It’s the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil.”
“Call me childish, if you wish, but I won’t stay and see her in my nightmares.”
“Don’t be foolish Karol—it’s our life’s work.”
“It’s a damnable work,” he called back as he exited the door.
I shook my head in disbelief.
Infirm of purpose, I snickered to myself.
I loaded the program, activated the computer and stepped back to watch.
She began to breathe. I watched her bosom rise and fall, her cheeks color and her eyelashes flutter.
The eyelids opened and we stood locked in each other’s gaze.
I had no idea how the program would work—if she would spontaneously respond, but I had factored in randomness to approximate human freedom.
And so I was incredibly shocked when she spoke.
“George?” she whispered. “Where am I?”
All thought of her being a machine vanished in that instant.
“You’re here, Darling, with me.”
She had that little-girl-lost look that always melted my heart. Impulsively, I rushed to her and took her in my arms.
Every organ of the body, they say, retains memory, but now, I knew that to be true.
My arms ached for her as only arms remembered—she fit right beneath my shoulder—as comfortably as my guitar.
My eyes filled with tears and my throat constricted. My whole body sobbed with mingled sorrow, joy and relief.
“It’s you,” I whispered. “It’s really you.”
“Of course, it is, Love—who else could it be?”
“Nobody,” I laughed deliriously, “nobody at all.”
We spent the night curled up by the fire reminiscing and cuddling close. The rain pattered against the windowpane and the fire sizzled in the grate.
We drank wine and I didn’t even think to question how Karol had engineered her digestive tract. I kissed her lips and found the same soft press of her skin.
By the end of the evening, I knew my Diana was back, and all thought of her being an automaton disappeared from my mind.
We spent the night, sheets twisted and wrapped in each other’s arms.
The next day, Karol worked up his courage and came to breakfast. Within an hour, he too fell under her spell and was joking and laughing with her the way he always did.
When he left, he hugged her, and then, instead of grabbing my hand, as was his custom, he enfolded me in a great bear hug.
“It’s so good to see the two of you happy,” he said, eyes shining with joy.
It’s been two years now.
Diana and I had to move away, of course—it would have been impossible to explain to her parents and friends.
I’m sure Karol and I could have won the Nobel Prize for Science, but we both decided the greater triumph was to enjoy the gift of her.
We pushed aside ambition and Karol began building a commercial automaton—a more generic version for the mass market—an English butler named Charles.
The world’s not ready for mind clones yet, but there’s always a need for good help.
We love each other, Diana and I—we’re soul mates in a way words could never express.
I was thinking about this just the other day, when she suddenly burst into the room, face glowing.
“Wonderful news, George! I’m pregnant.”
