“There’s your palace, on the threshold of which I saw you for the first time. It was one morning when, as usual, your blessed hands were doling out charity to the poor of Panbiole; all of them knew the generosity of your soul and all of them came in search of a little relief of their misery; dawn had scarcely broken than they lined up at the foot of the terrace, mute and silent for fear of troubling your repose; but your pity was anxious to abridge their waiting. Almost immediately, the door of the palace opened; as soon as you appeared, the unfortunates prostrated themselves as if before a divinity.
“Oh, you were so beautiful, my Féliah, that my knees, too, buckled at the sight of you. You advanced between the ranks of the poor to whom your white hand gave a silver coin, and all of them blessed you with tears in their eyes. You passed before me, and you deposited a silver coin in the palm of my hand. Oh, that silver coin! My lips wore it away so much with my kisses that it undulated before my breath like the leaf of a tree in the breeze.
“Every morning, for many a day, I came, dressed as a beggar and lost in their crowd, to receive your daily alms. Often, on contact with your hand, my hand became so tremulous that the silver coin escaped from my fingers. When you had passed by, the poor, mocking my clumsiness, helped me to find the coin, which I placed with the others over my heart, in a narrow bag.
“One day—do you remember?—you passed before me without your hand putting the customary alms in mine. Oh, I thought that my heart would break…my knees remained nailed to the ground…I saw you draw away…you climbed the white steps and my eyes closed in order not to see the large door separate you from me forever. My head was filled with strange noises, like those of a storm thundering in the distance, and the sudden hope awoke in my heart that a lightning-bolt might annihilate me in that square brushed by your feet.
“Then, my burning forehead felt lightened by a cool caress calming the furious beating of my arteries, and my eyes, incredulous at first, saw you before me. All the poor people had gone. We were alone, Féliah! I dared to raise your charitable hand to my lips. Oh, Féliah, your heart had understood that the silver coins were not the alms that were necessary to my life.
“You took me into your palace; your hands, with tenderness, decked me with festival garments, and the following morning, holding hands, we appeared on top of the terrace. The poor saw in me your fiancé. They addressed a fervent prayer to Heaven for the eternal happiness of our union. You gave them gold coins, and forced me to distribute the silver coins that you had found piously preserved in my bosom. ‘Souvenirs,’ you told me, ‘are the guardians of dead things, and our love alone has given birth to eternal life.’
“Every morning, the unfortunate received their alms from our hands, until the day when, in tears you told me that henceforth, you would go to the poor alone. You told me that danger was lying in wait for me outside and begged me not to cross the threshold of the palace again. What did you fear for me? Then, you no longer left me. One of your servants fulfilled your charitable duty and the poor, who thought that you were ill, sent us flowers. Do you remember the sadness with which those flowers filled you? Féliah, why was the sight of the poor, who loved you, forbidden to you? Why, Féliah, did your eyes weep over the flowers?”
At the last words pronounced by her lover, the young woman has become very pale, and, making a sudden effort, she holds herself tightly against him.
“Aiglor, my love, I don’t know...perhaps I was afraid that contact with those poor people might tarnish our joy…and then, I was jealous of eyes that saw you. Forgive me, Aiglor for my jealousy of the poor. Let’s go…oh, let’s go, quickly!”
Suddenly, she extends her arms. She has just perceived human forms climbing the slope.
“Men! Look! Oh, let’s flee!”
“They’re unfortunates, Féliah. Once, your charitable soul didn’t want to make the poor wait at the threshold of your palace; now, let your generosity cede to those desperate individuals the first place on the road of hope. Come, let them pass by; we’ll leave afterwards.”
As if fearful that the human beings who are advancing rapidly might recognize them, Féliah seizes Aiglor by the hand and draws him behind a thick clump of giant rose-bushes that rises up by the roadside near the grassy bank. Both of them are completely hidden by the roses of all colors expanding in an immense perfumed spray, from which a few petals have fallen to strew the edge of the road and the grass of the bank.
Half way up the hill a man and a woman appear, they are walking separately on the two sides of the road; they are talking, but only the voice of the man is distinctly audible at first from the place where Féliah has drawn her companion.
“Oh, how long it is since the day when we loved one another for the first time! Since then, many joys have blossomed, expanding our hearts for the desolation of immense sadnesses, and yet, forgetfulness cannot come of the summer evening when, treading the green path, my feet walked in the odorous intoxication expired by the breeze. It was like a perfume of flesh that fled before me. For fear of dissipating the floating caress with which my blood was inflamed, I dared not run, and my desire rose in bounding waves to my maddened temples! Finally, at a bend in the path I perceived a woman who was slowly drawing away, turning her head from time to time, from which loose blonde hair hung down all the way to the ground. As I approached, she smiled...”
The man and the woman have quit the two sides of the road; gradually, they have moved closer to one another; now, they have arrived beside the grassy bank. They stop, and the woman completes the suspended sentence.
“And that woman was me. Oh yes, I remember. The muffled sound of your footsteps on the moss filled me with an immense joy, the proud and sovereign joy of sensing that I was desired. Oh, your desire! I wanted it burning like the midday sun, thirsty from its journey toward refreshing night! Your desire! I wanted it exasperated by mystery and by delay, and I fled, leaving behind me the penetrating scents escaped from my hair and my shaken veils!”
Those two beings resemble one another strangely; their faces are covered with an unhealthy pallor and their entire individualities reveal cruel dolors recently suffered; their eyes, profoundly sunken, shine with a sharp gleam in the blue circles that surround them; they are staring, and shudder as if at the memory of something terrible whose return they dread. At the same time, with identical gestures, they place their hands on one another’s mouths to impede the words giving new life to the haunting of the frightful past—but almost immediately, they take their hands away, in which teeth have left imprints; with despairing expressions, they follow the slow effacement of the violet-tinted marks.
Their eyes meet again; their nostrils flare, and, matching breath to breath, in voices as hoarse as those of rutting beasts, they say what their oppressed breasts are impotent to hold back.
“Oh, your kiss, which crushed me in your arms!”
“Oh, your arms, which bound me to the hectic caress of your body!”
They are both speaking at the same time, and the shrill tone of woman’s voice dominates the deeper voice of the man.
“Oh, our hearts transported by the same emotion!”
“Our bodies reddened by our kisses!”
“Our flesh united, exhausted!”
Then their voices lower, and become more bitter.
“Our bodies writhed like green branches thrown on to a fire!”
“Our backs creaked like trunks broken by the tempest!”
“Our flesh quivered under the bites of our kisses, determined to make a single being out of our two beings…one blood out of our blood!”
They shove one another violently in order to escape, it seems, the carnal folly ready to reconquer them, and the man groans, dully: “Oh, how many times I fled into the paths to rediscover the sweet intoxication once inhaled! The hard stones lacerated my feet. Until I was out of breath, I pursued, as before, the white mysterious phantom!”
The woman continues in the same moaning voice: “And always, that white phanto
m…was me! Oh, I tried to run, but the sound of your footfalls put a leaden weight on my shoulders!”
And both of them, in common lamentation: “And always, we found one another, thirsty for one another, searching, in the fury of our embraces, forgetfulness of vain treasons. The languid bites became scarlet again. Our flesh howled at the crushing of old bruises!”
Their quivering lips can no longer articulate any sound; haggard, the man advances toward the woman, who throws her arms around his neck; they totter, as if gripped by vertigo; the woman, dragging her companion, whom she holds narrowly enlaced against her bosom, falls backwards on to the broad grassy bank.
They embrace with a long cry of dolorous rage, which is prolonged in a gasp in which their lives seem to be hiccupping their last strength...
Now they are lying side by side, on their backs, the woman with her breasts erect and her mouth open, the man with his arms in the form of a cross, his teeth clenched; multicolored petals, dropping from the tops of the rose-bushes, fall one by one, covering their bodies and their faces, and they seem to be two cadavers over which pious hands have scattered a dusting of rose-petals...
Convulsive tremors run along their bodies; gradually, they are reanimated; like people awakening from a profound sleep, in which all their consciousness has been obscured, they rub their eyes, mechanically casting aside the flowers, which slide down the grass of the bank; then they raise themselves up on their elbows and dart anxious glances around them. They recognize one another, and lower their heads silently.
Suddenly, at a sound of footsteps coming up from the direction of Panbiole, they stand up, and, perceiving two men clad in long white robes followed by an entire procession of human beings, they utter the same cry of terror: “The priests! The priests!” And they flee along the road that disappears eastwards, while the two men clad in white make bizarre signs toward them with their right hands.
Aiglor and Féliah, clinging tightly together in the cradle of verdure, have followed the scene that has just unfolded before them without saying a word; at the sudden flight of the two strange individuals, they both open their mouths, but the questions pressing upon their lips are arrested once again by the sight of the cortege that is advancing along the road, broadening opposite the grassy bank into a kind of ledge where the slope seems to rest momentarily before commencing its paid ascent immediately thereafter.
It is a very disparate troop; behind the two priests clad in long white robes with floating sleeves, following in the greatest disorder, come a band of young women and young men; there are also children, and, to distract themselves from the length of the journey, they are jostling one another. Whenever one of them bumps into one of the priests marching ahead of them, laughter bursts forth, quickly suppressed by the severe glance of the man in white.
Then, in a compact group, come mature men and women; the latter are enveloped by long black veils that cover their faces and hand down all the way to the ground; the men, bare-headed, are walking with their eyes fixed on the ground. These people, by their costume and their entire external appearance, seems to belong to all ranks of society; the majority are carrying precious caskets in their hands; some of those caskets, as if they have been carried away in haste, are poorly closed, letting out the ends of golden chains, which swing back and forth heavily.
Then, some distance away, but stimulated by the priest who closes the procession, trail several old men, leaning on their staffs, with whose length they try in vain to straighten their curbed backs.
The two priests, occupied in maintaining order in the ranks of the children, have just gone past the grassy bank; they stop, facing the puerile swarm, which their gaze suddenly reduced to silence and immobility.
The old men have caught up with the group that had a slight advance on them; now the whole troop is mingled. The priest marching at the rear comes to stand beside the first two, and all three of them, with their arms extended, address a prayer to the heavens, which is repeated, with the same gesture, by the entire audience.
Fixed on the breast of each priests, cutting through the whiteness of the robes, is a large square of red fabric embroidered with a silver disk radiant with gold; it is the symbol of the new religion, but only the priests and privileged adepts have the right to wear it.
From a black velvet pouch suspended from his belt, the oldest of the priests takes a square of red cloth similar to the one he bears on his breast; he holds it in his right hand and, showing it to the faithful, who immediately bow their heads devotedly, he begins to speak in a solemn voice.
“My brothers and sisters in the Unique and Almighty God, our feet are finally treading solid ground. We are like shipwreck victims lost in the torment on the angry sea; in our flesh, the hours of suffering and anguish have counted, one by one, their lancing pulsations. The frightful tempest has been unleashed, hollowing out the waves with unfathomable gulfs, animating them with gigantic waterspouts enlarged by inevitable tentacles. The lacerating summits of innumerable reefs have reared up against the whitening foam. But the terror of gulfs is vain! The enlacement of waterspouts is impotent! The spurs of rock are blunted! We have escaped all the traps, resisted all the assaults, and the frail raft of our hope has finally reached the shore!
“There, on the unshakable rock, indifferent to the waves that break at its feet with a great din, the castaways, still trembling at the dangers confronted, throw themselves to their knees to thank heaven for their salvation; above the abyss, eager to reconquer them, they beg God to deign to accept the humble offering of their riches, miraculously saved from the tempest! On the lost ship, at the first blasts of the storm, men and women have charged themselves with their most cherished possessions, and now, from fingers soiled by the foam, slide jeweled rings obscured by mud…the ears of women are stripped of long precious pendants stained green by viscous algae…innumerable jewels tarnished by the sea emerge from hiding places...”
The three priests examine, with anxious eyes, the men and women kneeling in front of them; the voice of the one who is speaking rises with increasing violence.
“Ah! Your fingers too are charged with rings! From your ears, I see heavy pendants hanging! Metal chains run over your shoulders! Yes, you have followed the order given in the name of the God of light whose glorious message I bring! Yes, you have adorned yourselves with that which life in Humania has devolved upon you in the puerile name of wealth! Ah, sad wealth, soiled with all kinds of mire, veiled with all manner of shadows!”
After having exchanged a furtive glance with his two fellows, his right arm raised, he launches a furious interrogation.
“And there, in those caskets, what else have you brought? Oh, doubtless obscure things prestigiously qualified as treasures!” And, his voice resonant with scorn: “Ah! Treasures, those vile metals? Treasures, those poor stones that the Almighty Sun, our sovereign God, deigns to dress with the bright adornment of his radiation? Go, quickly! Humiliate before the glare of the divine flamboyance that miserable wreckage of earthly pride!”
The caskets open, awakening the triumph of their riches; there are supple chains of gold, like sparkling snakes that flee between the fingers; large medallions quivering in blinding disks; diamonds that the sun traverses with fulgurant darts; rubies bleeding their redness over the azure of sapphires and the milkiness of opals...
The three priests follow the hands occupied in stirring the rippling stones within the caskets attentively; their irises, invaded by too much light, contract in order to see more distinctly, and as the inestimable treasures are revealed their visages gradually lose their troubled expression; the voice of the priest, gradually becoming less aggressive, ends up relaxing into words that are almost soft.
“In the infinity of his mercy, we have the temerity to hope, God will bestow upon you forgiveness for your attachment to these despicable possessions, as he will suffer your audacity in making the offering to him...”
The faithful remain motionless while the three priests confer
in low voices, The latter make a sign of acquiescence and the youngest among them, taking a few steps forward, leans over to rummage in the casket open before a man dressed in black, whose long white hair is silvering, on his nape, the golden links of a necklace, from which is suspended a diamond crescent that brushes, as it sways, the jewels heaped in the casket.
The priest’s fingers, plunged into the gems, cause flashes of light to spring forth. The hands finally take hold of a gold star with six points forged in a dark shiny metal reminiscent of jet. The priest holds it in his left hand while his right hand is placed on his breast, upon the little square of red cloth. He straightens up and, at the sight of the star with the black points, the other two priests also piously cover the silver disks radiant with gold, embroidered on the squares of red fabric that clash with the whiteness of their robes.
All the men and women have bowed their heads before the mysterious object that the priest is considering, while his disdainful words spill forth.
“Ah! Here it is, then—the criminal image of the error that so long enveloped Humania in the unfathomable depth of its obscurity! Here it is, then, the frightful symbol of the ancient belief, denying immortality! Oh, accursed star, your golden center irradiates black rays! Yes, it means that life is the prisoner of the darkness that surrounds it, does it not? It means that only the realities enslaved by the earth are alive, outside of which you proclaim the unique existence of nothingness? Ah, here it is, the deadly face that you employed, puerile old man, to inform your fellows of your unique love for the life that, down here, is annihilated in a few ephemeral years! What am I saying? A few years…but no…rather, a few minutes, a few seconds, miserable intervals of time so fleeting that in eternity, the most sensitive sand-glass would be unable to count them!”
The old man whose casket contained the star with the black points, without daring to raise his head, holds out his imploring hands toward the white-clad priest, who continues to rail at him, shrugging his shoulders.
The Petitpaon Era Page 2