The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

So it was that the Famous Five were “assigned to the System,” in Dunkelblau’s phrase, in September 1905 at his school in Linz. Completely immobilized by machinery from the neck down, the children were catheterized for waste disposal and fitted with feeding tubes that periodically pumped meals (a slurry of oats, root vegetables, and some meat products) directly into their stomachs. The inside of the Meistergarten device also contained a number of specialty appendages, which were not displayed to the children, capable of administering to their hidden bodies comforting pats and caresses as well as pinches and slaps.

The Meistergarten was then closed and the neck-rings sealed, so that all that could be seen of the subjects were their heads, all facing in toward the center of the circular Meistergarten, which was set in an otherwise empty, mirrored hall specially prepared by Dunkelblau at the St. Agnes Blannbekin school. Observers watched the experiment from behind the one-way mirrors lining the large room. From that moment on, the subjects had no other direct human contact. The machinery of the Meistergarten itself was serviced during the subjects’ sleeping period by silent custodial workers and mechanics dressed in black robes and hoods. If the children seemed restless on service nights, a mixture of nitrous oxide and chloroform was pumped into the System Hall so that they would not be unduly bothered by the presence of the dark figures.

From the moment of their introduction into the Meistergarten until their release, the subjects interacted only with the bronze head at the center of the machine, nicknamed Minerva. In an effort not to confuse the subjects with old associations, Dunkelblau decided against an overly sympathetic “female presence” for his invention: at the last moment, he cancelled a contract with well-known stage actress Lottelore Eisenbaum, who would have contributed Minerva’s voice, and took on the role himself, speaking to the students in a strained, falsetto, “female” voice with as little emotional inflection as possible, attempting to create what he called “a true Machine Mother Sound.” One of his research assistants said that twenty years later she still “woke up wailing and weeping” after dreaming of the Minerva voice.

The children were roused from sleep each morning by the sound of Minerva’s wake-up call, a loud, ratcheting shriek based on Dunkelblau’s idea that, of all noises, the most perfect focus of attention could be created by the sound of an industrial accident coupled with an expression of human terror. After the previous night’s meal had been pumped out of their system and a new meal pumped in, the students began a long and rigorous day of history, mathematics, natural sciences, Greek and Latin, and some unusual coursework of Dunkelblau’s own devising, including Lesion Studies, Practical Engorgement, and Social Attack Theory. They were taught by the rote method, instructed by “Minerva” (in reality, Dunkelblau, of course, watching from the far side of a one-way mirror and speaking into a tube) and immediately corrected for each error on a rising scale of reprisal that began at “Lightly Bruising Pinch with Flashing Eyes” and peaked at “Flare, Shriek, and Scourge” (at which point, the subject usually had to be sedated for at least twenty-four hours to allow recovery and what Dunkelblau termed “deeper learning”).

Correct answers received praise from “Minerva” and sometimes also the singing of a verse of “Hejo, Spann den Wagen an,” one of Dunkelblau’s favorite songs from his childhood:

Hey ho! Hitch up the cart,

For the wind brings rain over the land.

Fetch the golden sheaves,

Fetch the golden sheaves . . .

The student who answered Minerva correctly was also rewarded by the activation of certain bladders within the machinery that, when inflated, gave a pleasurable sensation.

Problems

The first real controversy about Dunkelblau’s experiment came in December 1905, when the parents of Trudl K. asked that their daughter be released from the System for the Christmas holidays and were refused. They were denied a similar request at Easter as well. In her unhappy missive to the doctor, Frau K. wrote, “Our daughter’s letters appear to be written by someone other than our daughter. The last three have all said exactly the same thing, ‘Do not come visit—it will interrupt the important work we are doing here, work that will forever confound the servile devotees of that ape Fröbel and his “Child-Garden”!’ We find it hard to believe,” Mrs. K continued, “that our daughter cares greatly about Friedrich Fröbel, who died almost a half century before she was born, and we have also heard disquieting rumors from neighbors of the St. Agnes school that children can be heard throughout the day and night, moaning, weeping, and even barking like distressed dogs. . . .”