Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions

by Brian Stableford

  “The master had a disciple, who left us the story that I’m about to tell you, and also the formula by means of which we make gold.

  “One evening, old Archinatos is poring over his furnace, surveying his crucibles. He is troubled. His hands are trembling. He is murmuring anxious phrases and stirring the ardent embers. Red liquid is boiling in retorts, and the alembic is making a terrible noise.

  “The terrified pupil looks at the quivering Archinatos. He has never seen such emotion. He senses that the old man, reaching the conclusion of his labors, is attempting a final and decisive gamble tonight.

  “With long forceps, Archinatos the Great grasps two bronze receptacles on the fire. Drop by drop, he pours their fuming liquid into an iron vase, which then rings like a bell, reddens and swells, its coiled tubes agitating and whistling. The priest, upright, his arms folded, considers the experiment. The noise ceases, and everything resumes its habitual form and color.

  “Archinatos, fainting, lifts the lid. He looks. He waits. Finally, he plunges his hand into the cooled apparatus and pulls out the residue that he finds there: a few green crystals with red reflections. He contemplates them dubiously. Their weight, light at first, seems to be increasing by the second. Soon, his hand can no longer support them, and falls alongside his body. But the hot stones remain encrusted there. He can no longer move his fingers, and the paralysis rises all the way to the shoulder. Approaching the light of the furnace, he sees and understands: his entire arm has been transmuted into gold.

  “He falls. The disciple runs forward.

  “‘Don’t come near me!’ cries the master. ‘I’m going to die. Soon after, cut off this hand and enclose what it is holding in a steel container. It’s the only metal refractory to my discovery.’

  “The disciple, beside himself, contemplates the old man. A superhuman joy illuminates the wrinkled face of Archinatos. ‘My son,’ he says, ‘may you find such a beautiful death, later. I’ve discovered today what I’ve been seeking for sixty years. I possess the secret for which my master and his ancient precursors pursued for five centuries. Fortunate is the man who, like me, attains the distant goal that he has proposed for himself and dies immediately, heaped with a divine satisfaction. Adieu, my son.’ He falls silent, and at the same instant, renders his soul to the gods.

  “Thus died Archinatos the Great.”

  Moved by that story, I took my leave of the priest, who wanted, in quitting me, to kiss the hem of my robe three times.

  At nightfall, I remembered that Helena was waiting for me, and went to join her at her house. The dear child was putting the last touches to a novel that she had just written in three days, with the aid of her secretary: a very fine work, too! But the false virtue of our country would assuredly have found it too licentious.

  “I shall not relate the welcome that she gave me, nor our pastimes until morning. That which only interests me I shall pass over in silence. The labors of which I could speak, in any case, are not susceptible of veritable novelty, and are carried out in very nearly the same forms in all the countries of the world, as Strabo proves in the ninth volume of his Geography.33

  XII. The Festival of the god Demos

  The following morning, quite early, I resumed my exploration of Thalantide. The aspect of the city had changed. Only people in their Sunday clothes were to be seen. The shops were shut; the streets were overflowing with drunkards.

  Remembering that the day was consecrated to the god Demos, I decided to witness his celebration and went to the temple.

  A considerable crowd had gathered all around it. It was a monument of bad taste but rich and immense. The high columns sustaining a roof resembled the Ionic columns of ancient Greece, but they were swollen like barrels and sculpted in marble veined with red and white. One might have mistaken it for a colossal pork-butcher’s shop. The capitals, bases and moldings were all gilded. Allegorical figures were accumulated in the frontons symbolizing, I believe, the popular virtues, without exception. Distributed everywhere one saw statues of benefactors of the people, in numbers so great that I envied the nation, heir to so many benefits.

  I climbed the steps and went into the sanctuary. It was full of a silent audience. Incense and candles were burning everywhere. The priests were putting the final touches to the preparations for the solemnity.

  In the background I perceived the formidable idol. The god, seated on a sculpted throne, was twenty meters in height. He was fashioned in bronze and clad in scarlet veils. The head, very small in proportion to the enormity of the body, was crowned with branches. His prodigious limbs, swollen by tormented muscles, supported terrible large extremities. One of the hands of Demos held a hammer and the other a symbolic two-edged sword. His enamel eyes shone in the gloom, reflecting the illuminations of the altar.

  Whenever a servant, while decorating it, brushed the statue lightly, it resonated for a long time, like those Oriental bronzes that the wind causes to vibrate. Then the faithful prostrated themselves, affirming that the god was speaking, and each of them attributed a meaning to his mysterious words. For that day, the divinity was to designate a viceroy personally, and many men had come to beg him to select them.

  A stand had been erected facing Demos. On the highest level, in a pulpit sparkling with gems, my friend the High Priest was enthroned. He was wearing his two-stage miter, the miter he wore on important days. Motionless and draped in his embroidered mantle, he resembled a simulacrum of the god, seated facing the other and presiding over his worship. On the inferior steps, the members of the clergy were huddled in hierarchical order.

  Suddenly, trumpets sounded, the members of the congregation fell to their knees and Katodipsa stood up, leaning on his crosier.

  “Very dear brethren,” he said, in a grave tone, “We are united before our master, the very good, very strong and very just Lord. He is our common father. Nothing of him is sweeter that the fraternity in which we live, and which assembles us at his feet. Our quarrels irritate and afflict him, as the father of a family is irritated and afflicted by hostility that rises between his grandchildren.”

  At that moment, the priest who was swinging the censer let go of it, by mistake. Demos received it full in the face; he did not blink, but he rendered a horrible sound a dozen times louder than the great bell of Notre Dame de Paris. The fearful faithful did not know how to interpret the event, and believed that the divinity was very annoyed. The poor fool of an ecclesiastic stood there stupidly, still holding the remnant of the cord of the perfume-burner in his maladroit hands.

  “A miracle!” cried Katodipsa. “A miracle a thousand times miraculous! Understand that parable! Heaven inspires me at this moment, my brethren, and I understand all that it wants to say. The incense is the nation inflamed with amour for its god. It will break everything, the chains, bonds and obstacles by which its enemies would like to retain it; it will break them, I tell you, and hurl itself into the lap of the invincible and all-loving power. That signifies both that our prayers have been heard and that the delectable odor of our piety is so agreeable to the sublime Demos that he is drawing it to him, in order better to respire, to scent, to possess the incense of our common devotion.

  “Sing, my brethren, sing the praises of Demos. Your holy orisons will rise up to him. He is the inexhaustible source of all wealth. Adore him, and he will heap you with the greatest goods of the earth. Flattering words are his preferred nourishment. Do not be miserly with them and you will receive solid benefits in exchange.

  “And you, O Demos Esomantos, enlighten us now as of old. Remember that on this day every years you designate a new governor for the region of Thalantide. Speak, and we will bow down. You see us all, Lord, awaiting young divine word.”

  The High Priest fell silent. Then commenced the accomplishment of the strangest rite of the ceremony. Subaltern priests moved around the temple giving each adult male a little square of papyrus. Each received it on his knees, with so much demonstration of respect that I thought at first that
it was a host of the Catholic species. I realized my mistake on seeing that the majority were writing their name on it. I did as everyone else was doing and wrote mine.

  The citizens arranged themselves in two files and the long procession advanced toward that statue. As they passed before it, the people gave their leaf to a priest. That one transmitted it to others installed on the steps of a large ladder stood up against the statue. The most highly perched collected the pieces in a basket and then threw them through an opening into the empty head of the motionless divinity. The procession went on for a long time. Eventually, everyone having accomplished his office, a lid was put on the head of Demos, and the crowd remained expectant in silent trepidation.

  Katodipsa rose to his feet for the second time. He descended the steps of the platform slowly, set down his crosier and knelt down, lowering his forehead to the ground. The entire audience prostrated itself at the same time.

  The man placed on the highest step of the ladder seized the bronze head of the simulacrum in his hands. It was certainly articulated, since the operator was able to shake it rudely three times and make it oscillate in all directions.

  The assembly was breathless. One might have thought that its members were a thousand gamblers, trembling and full of hope, at the decisive moment when the sparkling wheel of the lottery rotates. All of them, pale, with open mouths and clenched fists, were staring at the idol with shining eyes.

  The officiator introduced his fingers into the divine throat. He pulled out a white square, which he folded as he turned round. He sealed it and handed it to the priest on the second rung. That one passed it to the man on the third, and so on, all the way to the bottom.

  Having finally received it, the High Priest stood up again and returned majestically to his throne. He broke the seal, and said in a loud voice: “The god has chosen Agurthes!”

  Then, all the men uttered a long despairing cry, as if they had received a mortal and painful wound. One might have thought that a single voice was raising that frightful clamor toward the vaults, the frightful voice of a monster whose throat had be cut, the plaintive voice of vanquished ambitions frustrated of their hopes.

  I saw an old man clad in a scarlet toga advance toward the altar. More than a hundred people threw themselves at his feet, crying:

  “Agurthes, I am your slave!”

  “Agurthes, give me you orders, whatever they might be!”

  “My wife is beautiful, O Agurthes!”

  And he could not rid himself of all those people, who seized him by the robe or stopped him by prostrating themselves before him. He succeeded nevertheless in arriving before the statue, and cried: “O Demos, your servant Agurthes thanks you! You have chosen me to conduct your people for another year. I will always direct them in the right path, be sure of it. No wrong or injury will be done to them during my government. May the birds of the sky come to eat my eyes if I do not keep my word.”

  “This Agurthes,” a neighbor who realized that I was uninformed told me, “has been administering us or forty years. He possesses the favor of Demos. He’s a good lord, but too expensive. He maintains in the city, at our expense, a hundred and ninety-seven courtesans of the greatest beauty and high reputation. I won’t mention those of lesser importance, all young and pretty, of whom he possesses a marvelous collection. So he’s a great inventor of new taxes. He works all night to spend them, and by day, with his head in his hands, he thinks of ways to draw into his municipal coffers the drachmas in our wallets. Believe that he does it successfully. We pay taxes on our slippers, or dogs, our carriages and our wives.”

  “This election of a governor,” I said, “differs from the fashion of appointing the Senate. Why, in the former case, is it the god who chooses, and in the latter the citizens?”

  “Good peasant,” said the man, “it comes to the same thing. In any case, don’t ask me to explain the constitution. First of all, it’s dangerous, and then, neither I nor anyone else has ever been able to understand it.”

  “Very well,” I said. “But with regard to Agurthes, I believe I know the name. Isn’t he a great general, an illustrious captain in the last war?”

  “You’re joking,” said the citizen. “When the Mainomenes attacked us, that great general was in command of the army and the fleet of Thalantide. One morning, he took to the sea with sixty triremes of war full of good mariners and veteran soldiers, fooled by a hundred and thirty galleys less strong but new and fast. He encountered the Mainomenes manning thirty-five ships from the times of the Kephalides. The enemy turned away and tried to flee. The pursuit commenced. Agurthes did it so well that he ran his ships aground on the great sandbanks off Colocuathe. The enemy stopped and peppered out ships with fire-arrows. Our admiral, gripped by colic, jumped into the sea, climbed on to a galley less exposed than the rest and fled under full sail, followed as best they could by the vessels still afloat. The majority of our big ships were burned to the waterline and their crews almost all perished during and after the action, for the Mainomenes massacred the prisoners.

  “Agurthes, returned to port, raged and wailed that the gods had done him a bad turn. ‘No matter,’ he said, ‘my fleet is lost but I still have my army.’ He shut himself in the city with all his troops—to wit, a hundred and twenty thousand men, as many foot-soldiers as cavalry. He forbade them, on pain of death, to cross the walls.

  “Fifty thousand barbarians disembarked and besieged us. An enterprise so presumptuous ought to have cost them dear, but our chief prudently refused to engage them in battle, saying that it would be an irreparable misfortune to lose it. ‘The sage tactic,’ he pronounced, ‘is to wait. The enemy will become weary.’ But we had no food. All the animals in the city were eaten, including the rats in the sewers and the shrew-mice in the burrows. When Agurthes found his own table devoid of meat, he capitulated, on condition that no harm was done to him and that his property would be respected.”

  Katodipsa stood up thereafter and commenced his speech in my favor, First of all he related the miraculous dream by means of which the gods had enlightened him. He added a host of details and terrifying presages. He made the most flattering portrait of me.

  “Give,” he said, as he concluded, “give with full hands, my brethren, to the envoy of the celestial powers. Your offering will be returned to you a hundredfold. Your affairs will prosper throughout your life. After your death, you will participate in divine enjoyments.”

  And collectors went through the crowd, and people put their hands in their pockets. One threw a drachma, another a handful of silver coins. Observed by my neighbors, I generously contributed the remainder of my money.

  The religious festival was over. The temple emptied out. I took advantage of that to explore it at leisure. I did not see anything remarkable there except for the images of the three principal monsters once cast down by the terrible Demos. One was named Basileia and wore a closed crown. The second was named Treskheia and displayed a bloody wound in the breast. The third, Paradosis, although riddled with wounds, appeared to be still breathing.

  An initiate came to tell me in a low voice: “Those demons aren’t dead; I think we’ll see them again someday.” He told me that the paintings represented Royalty, Religion and Tradition.

  Outside, the city presented the most singular aspect. Country folk had invaded Thalantide. Drunken musicians were playing barbaric tunes. Men and women were dancing in the intersections, while little children threw fireworks at their feet. The tavern-keepers had installed tables and benches in front of their establishments, with the results that in many of the streets the pedestrians had to turn around or sit down and drink with everyone else.

  One that occasion, the local people abandoned all modesty. Many hands wandered under skirts without anyone getting annoyed; and toward evening, I perceived couples, of whom nothing could be seen but the backs, lying on the ground in the most crowded places.

  XIII. The Necessity of Departure

  On the evening of the same day when D
emos was fêted I was in the house of the beautiful Helena again, engaged in my amours. I had no suspicion that I would soon be quitting her; but for a long time, a malign divinity had been taking pleasure in breaking my sweetest bonds by means of ridiculous accidents.

  In one another’s arms, on thick cushions covered with painted silk, we were enjoying ourselves with those delicate marvels that nature gives to gods and humans in order to enable them to kill time, to perpetuate their race and to amuse themselves between meals. Prudes cannot abide anyone talking about the marvels in question. They are an object of horror to them. The ancients, however, divinized them; and no worship was ever rendered more wholeheartedly, nor more sincerely served. But hypocritical old men, who claim to govern our century, prefer to frankness a niggardly appearance of virtue.

  At the precise moment when voluptuous pleasure was extracting ineffable groans from us, the bedroom door opened and Katodipsa appeared. Helena immediately fainted, with a consummate science, but I remained, stark naked, white, immobile and annihilated.

  “Please don’t disturb yourselves,” said the High Priest, sitting down. “Continue; I’ll be patient.”

  “Alas,” I cried, “I’m a wretch. Now I’ve betrayed my benefactor.”

  “Not at all, my son, not at all. May it please Heaven that no worse treason is ever done to me. These adventures are familiar to me, and I’m not one of those poor fellows who place their honor in that exposed location where you are presently sowing such a fine crop of horns for me. You could have testified in another manner the gratitude that you promised me, but, in truth, I can’t hold it against you. Am I not the cause of this? What do you think I thought when Helena tormented me like a remedy in order to obtain your mercy. Do you take me for a fool? The dear child desired you. I don’t regret having saved you. My age doesn’t permit me to give her sufficiently frequent proof of my affection. I’m an old charger fatigued by a thousand expeditions, and henceforth, a languid trot at long intervals is all that I can manage. I am, therefore, obliged to tolerate her occasional amusements. I think the dose is sufficient now; my sweet Helena must be sated for a while, so you can leave.”