Outside, I marched at random through the rows of tents. It was the month of Ramadan and the heat was extraordinary. I passed my hand over my face several times, as if to remove the mask of the man I resembled. I sensed a flaw in myself. I resembled someone else.
I suddenly bumped into a guard with a long beard who was walking around a tent, bearing a great curved sword on his shoulder as one carries a musket in France. He shoved me away without interrupting his march, and said “Kaberdar!”
Yes, it was necessary to look out for one’s soul, for which evil passions were lying in wait: the human soul, ever tempted to go backwards.
THE MONSTROUS HORSE
Almaner, Yacoub’s city, is fifty cosses from Ahmednagar, surrounded by sheer mountains. I would require two days on horseback and a guide in order to reach it. I asked Aboul Fazi for authorization, I found a guide, and I departed.
I had not been able to forbid myself, before setting forth, a puerile desire. Strolling in the bazaar with Omar Ali, I had seen a prodigious gold lamé cloth for making a turban, and I had bought it for fifty rupees. It was so heavy and well-woven that I was unable to wind it round me head without my friend’s collaboration. Beneath that turban I walked like an idol and I had difficulty making my head oscillate either to signify yes or no. Furthermore, once my guide was paid, I no longer had anything in my belt but than five gold pieces, all that remained of a sum rapidly handed over by Aboul Fazi when we left Agra.
“That’s only on account, for traveling expenses,” the powerful minister had told me.
There had been no more question of the full sum. I had noticed that powerful men who dispose of great wealth forget promise sums more easily than those who are poor. In India, as in all the lands of the earth, all the actions one accomplishes have a counterweight in local coin, and one has exactly the same difficulty as elsewhere in procuring that counterweight.
While riding behind the guide, a timorous Hindu, I remembered what I had learned on the subject of Yacoub. That man of vulgar appearance, whom I had seen ready to fight bodily with a tiger, the man whose hairy arms and legs I had noticed with disgust when I had been sleeping in the same tent, belonged to the most ancient nobility on earth!
He was the cousin of the venerable Queen Tchand Bibi and the uncle of Bahadur,32 the pretender to the throne of the Deccan. He belonged to the family of Farrukhis, who descended from the emperors of Byzantium, and also the ancient emperors of Persia, the same sovereigns that had combated Greece twenty centuries earlier, in illustrious wars. I would never have believed that such an ancient family could exist in the world; but it was said that a tableau engraved on marble and conserved in the city of Asir carried the design of that unprecedented genealogical tree, whose roots plunged into the very sources of humankind. It gave proofs of the crossings and descendances, and the people were able to admire it and assure themselves of the antiquity of the royal blood. What were the Kings of France compared with such a nobility? What were the Fodoases, of which I was the unworthy last branch?
Yacoub’s father had converted to Islam and had been held in suspicion by his relatives because of that. Yacoub himself, a former companion in war of Akbar, was seen badly by everyone because he gave his passions priority over everything that it was customary to respect: amity, religion and duty. Abruptly seized by a desire, he had invaded the house of the Portuguese monks and had taken possession by force of a young woman of great beauty, it was said, whom the Viceroy of Goa had sent to Mourad under the guidance of the Marquis de Barbosa, as a present of amity, doubtless in the hope of seeing him ascend his father’s throne. What had been given to Mourad became, after his death, the property of his father. Yacoub had therefore stolen from the Emperor, and he had fled with the fruit of his theft at the moment when those who believed themselves to be his friends, the partisans of Akbar, were besieged by the rebellious inhabitants of Ahmednagar. A singular man, that Yacoub, who was reputed to have once accomplished great deeds, to be a traitor, to be by turns unscrupulous and full of generosity: a violent man full of eccentricities, and incomprehensible.
I had learned that the Marquis de Barbosa and his retinue had come back without having been able to penetrate into Almaner, and that had given me an even keener desire to attempt an adventure whose goal I could not have defined precisely.
My guide only spoke a few words of Hindi and made long speeches in a dialect that I did not understand. He was so importunate that I was obliged to threaten him in order to make him shut up. Every forest inspired a particular terror in him. He announced to me before traversing one of them that we would undoubtedly be attacked by extremely cruel white owls. Another was full of snakes that fell from the trees like leaves: small, slender red snakes and whose bite was fatal. The first time I held the pistols that Omar Ali had prepared for me before departure in my hands, but there were no owls, black or white, and not the slightest trace of a snake.
Twice, I had to sleep in the cabins of Hindus, extraordinarily timid and good men, in spite of the savagery of their appearance. The village where I stopped on the evening of the second day was situated at the base of a sheer mountain at the summit of which there as a quadrilateral of lights. That was the ancient city of Almaner. With the aim of defense, Hindu cities are situated in the most inaccessible places.
I would have been able to reach Almaner that same evening, but it resulted from a few words that I exchanged through the intermediary of the guide that since Yacoub’s return the gates of the city were closed at sunset and arrows or gunshots were fired at travelers as soon as darkness fell.
I awoke soon after an icy night, spent on beaten earth. My guide had disappeared. The Hindus who had offered me hospitality offered me goat’s milk and gesticulated with guttural cries while surrounding me. The meaning of their mime and their exclamations was clear. They were advising me not to go up to Almaner. They showed me their little pagoda, half-destroyed, near a pool that was sacred to them. Yacoub the Muslim doubtless persecuted those simple folk who worshiped other gods than Allah. That made me think that he had put himself completely in revolt against the Emperor, who, under severe penalties, prescribed to his Omrahs to tolerate all religions, especially the ancient worship of Brahma.
I should, reasonably, have listened to them. But when a folly takes possession of the soul, it is very difficult not to obey that joyful tyrant. A very old man who must have been the village Brahmin extended his fleshless arms before me as if to prevent me from passing. I went around him; I thanked him in French, for it is always necessary to express oneself, even with the certainty of not being understood, the spirit being in he sounds, and I set forth up the zigzag mountain paths.
The city had high ramparts with towers, and when I drew close I saw several silhouettes of warriors who had the appearance of watchmen. One of them shouted to me from a distance something that I did not understand, and similarly, entirely naked peasants who were emerging from the village and riving two donkeys ahead of them, said something to me in passing whose meaning eluded me. They must have brought forage or bananas to the city, for their donkeys had empty baskets on their back. That gave me a familiar sensation of security, which comforted me, for since I had been climbing, the city, within its silent walls, and the enigma of its altitude, had had a sinister appearance.
But that sensation was not durable. Something abnormal must have been happening. The sound of trumpets, like signals, resonated behind the ramparts. The entrance gate opened between two square towers, and there were already beggars sitting there, as there are before all city gates. They got up as I arrived and started to flee, some outside the city and others inside. Was that because of me? I was pained by being an object of fear, and I shouted to a man eaten away by ulcers who only possessed one foot that there was no need to be afraid of me; but he continued running. A few camel-drivers with their camels also went past me very rapidly. They looked at me with a bewildered curiosity, and one of them shouted something to me, but I could not tell whether it as a
threat or a plea.
A man wearing a metallic garment with a large saber by his side was standing beside the door, gravely. I asked him what that signified. He contented himself with agitating his beard, and instead of replying he went into the tower.
Then I went through the gate and looked around. I was in a small square where everything was heaped up, as in cities that are too tightly-confined within the enclosure of their walls. There were a few shops, whose proprietors were making haste to close them. One of them abandoned an entire row of watermelons and made a sign to a child who was helping him and had picked up one of the largest to leave them and come inside as quickly as possible. On a terrace, a haggard woman who had a goiter leaned over, and, raising her arms, cried: “God protect us!”
That was nothing. But she added, while looking at me and looking at the heavens by turns: “God protect him!”
I turned round, and I then saw two men pushing the entrance gate of the city, which was reinforced with iron and bristling with nails. It closed, with a deafening noise.
Gripped by a vague anxiety, I made my horse take a few steps backwards, wanting to ask why the gate had been closed at such an early hour, but the two men had disappeared and I seemed to glimpse them shortly thereafter at the top of the rampart, beside the man, who was holding is beard and laughing, but laughing without hilarity and ferociously.
The square, in the morning sunlight, was now deserted. In order to be more able to decipher the enigma that I sensed around me and to try to interrogate one of the inhabitants, I dismounted and led my horse by the bridle.
I followed a street, and then another. Sometimes I gasped behind the walls a phrase expressing the terror of a danger that must be close at hand. Several times I heard the words: “Wild horse!” and also: “The monster!”
Was it my inoffensive mount of which there was question? Was I among ignorant and naïve people who had never seen a horse and who mistook mine for a monster? I passed my hand over its neck to show how little it was to be feared. But my own naivety became manifest. It could not be that; Yacoub was an accomplished horseman and he must often have ridden through the streets of Almaner with his two hundred warriors that his title of the Emperor’s Omrah obliged him to equip and maintain.
I distinguished above the houses several tower that appeared to me to be in the center of the city. One appeared to belong to a mosque, but another, which seemed to be clad in porcelain, had an oval window, and I believed that I could see in its frame the contour of a feminine silhouette with a white collar, a vestimentary ornament that is not normally worn by women in India. I took a descending street that appeared to me to head in that direction. I lost sight of the tower and when my eyes found it again, the human creature had disappeared and a metal grille had been pulled over the window.
As I stopped in the middle of a larger street, anger seized me, and I called out to the mute house around me: “Are all the inhabitants dead? Is there no one to reply to me?”
I shouted that, or something like it. The silence that followed seemed to me to be extraordinary. Then, suddenly, like a mysterious response to my words, there was a terrifying noise, never heard before, a sort of distant snigger that was reminiscent of both the cry of a tiger in the forest and the whinny that certain horses utter when their riders beat them At the same time I perceived that somewhere, on the paving-stones of a street, footfalls of an impressive nature were resonating.
I experienced an anxiety that was localized in my throat in the form of dryness and the desire for a cool drink, for what is unknown kills the most reliable courage.
At that moment I heard a noise to my right. A large door that must give access to a courtyard opened. In the gap I saw a little man with a cunning face who made me a sign to approach with his hand. He wore garments that merited being signaled and were evidence of a certain importance.
“Come in,” he said, “and hurry. Bring your horse through quickly. It exposes you to certain death.”
I did not have to be begged. I penetrated into a narrow courtyard.
“Tie it up there,” said the small man. “Do you think it might start to whinny? What if we were to put a cloak over its head? I’d like to block its ears.”
“Why do you want to block the ears of my horse?” I asked him, amazed.
He looked at me with a similar amazement.
“Perhaps you’ve just arrived in Almaner. I’ll explain.”
He made me a sign to follow him, and I went behind him into a small room that overlooked the street, and where he stuck his ear to the closed window.
He must have been a subtle man, because he divined my thirst and poured me a large cup of milk. He was extremely ugly. His hair, knotted over his back, was not very abundant. He gave an impression of timidity and inner peace.
“I recognize you,” he said. “You’re the Christian who was part of the Emperor’s retinue. He took you hunting with him.”
He expressed himself in a very pure Persian, with an affectation of speaking well.
“I too lived in Agra. I was one of Kwaji’s secretaries, but misfortune dictated that the lord of Almaner requested a great literate, one of the great literates of the Court, someone who could recite Hafiz and all the poets.”
The Tartar Kwaji was occupied with the administration of the Empire’s finances, and did indeed have the most knowledgeable men in India around him.33
“And note this: that descendant of emperors of Persia has no desire to hear verses recited. He only summoned me once, and everything that I was able to tell him filled him with ennui and, I think, anger.”
The literate went to stick his ear to the window again.
“I’m listening to see whether the monster is approaching. I don’t know whether you’ve been told the story, but there’s a monster that roams around Almaner on certain days.”
I waited impatiently for an explanation.
“For me, it’s a matter of the mystery of reincarnations. Certain men are linked with certain animal species. By virtue of what? It’s a great problem. My master Yacoub is linked to the equine species. He has an inexplicable love of horses. He, whose human lineage is lost in the night of time, the ultimate product of humankind, secretly regrets not being a horse! And he also regrets that the horse does not have the same cruelty as him, the man. I’m telling you all this in confidence, for I’m risking my life in telling you.”
“But I don’t see….”
“So what has he done? He has rendered a thoroughbred as cruel as him. He chose one of enormous size. He has nourished it exclusively on flesh. I wonder whether he has even thrown certain prisoners to it as fodder. He has made a monster more redoubtable than a tiger. And on certain days, as he, a Muslim, hates the Hindu inhabitants of Almaner, fearful, pious, inoffensive people ignorant of the prophet Mohamed, he launches his ferocious horse into the city.”
“And it was that horse whose footfalls I heard?”
“Yes. It breaks the backs of children with a single snap of its teeth. It also kills with its hooves. One only has the resource of barricading oneself in on being warned by the sound of trumpets that the monster is in quest of prey. The strength of the beast is unimaginable. The Brahmins have gone in vain to plead with their master. He has remained insensible. I believe that he does not enjoy all his reason. Then again, perhaps he can do nothing because a powerful demon now inhabits the body of his horse. It’s necessary to inform the Emperor, but who would believe such a horrible story? And think that if your horse begins to whinny, that will exasperate the monster. It will lay siege to my house, and break the door down with blows of its hooves.
I felt my blood circulating in my veins with ardor under the influence of indignation. “What would the Emperor think of a servant who told him the story of such a cruelty, without adding that he has immediately punished it?”
The literate put his hands together fearfully. I had drawn my sword. “At any rate,” he cried, “that weapon will be insufficient.”
I
was mortified to have been frightened by a horse. I opened the door to the street and ran outside, without paying any heed to the fearful cries of my host.
The city had the same aspect. I arrived in a square that had to be the center of Almaner. It was there that the tower stood that had appeared to me to be made of porcelain. There was a very ancient palace beside it, which must have been restored. Two great lions were crouching in front of a pagoda, but they were made of stone. Sparkling water was emerging from a fountain in the middle of the square. Grass was growing between the flagstones. It was a place full of peace and sad grandeur. Eagles were flying in the distance.
I suddenly had the sensation that behind closed windows, people were watching me. Perhaps they were laughing on seeing me walking beneath my immense turban, sword in hand, looking to the right and the left. They were laughing at my fear! Perhaps there was no danger. I put my sword back into its scabbard precipitately, and began walking like a stroller, curious about temple and new dwellings. I regretted not having a swagger-stick to twirl negligently.
It was when I had almost made a circuit of the square that I abruptly found myself in the presence of the creature that all called the monster. It was at the corner of a street, in the shadow of a wall. Its stature was so tall that I might have mistaken it for an elephant but for the evident absence of a mobile trunk. I was struck by the sheen of its black coat, the twitching of its ears and the formidable rows of teeth that its lips uncovered. Such teeth were well-suited to a monster of creation. It was looking t me as if it were laughing.
I took three paces backwards, having a great deal of difficulty in not fleeing, and I drew my sword from its scabbard without haste, for I had heard it said that savage animals charge when one makes a abrupt movement. But was I in the presence of a savage animal or a wily demon?
To my great surprise, the monster did not hurl itself upon me. It made a semblance of sniffing some grass, it cased laughing and it took a few steps over the square, drawing away from me.
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