The Petitpaon Era

by Henri Austruy

  “Oh, now your hands reach out for the forgiveness of your crimes?”

  A dull and tremulous voice emerges from the man’s breast; several times it repeats the same words of pitiful appeal: “Forgive me, Master! Master, forgive me!”

  “Forgive you? For sure, you were one of the faithful servants of that execrable cult of life! Human spectacles prostituted your eyes, which God had given you to contemplate his glory! From your mouth, which should have opened solely to praise the Master, emerged coarse songs celebrating the deceptive splendor of terrestrial joys! You hands, made to remain joined in holy prayer, you dishonored by accomplishing mortal toil! Oh, wretched madman! Poor stray on the frightful road to damnation! Finally, faith has conquered you! The blindfold that hid the truth from you has finally fallen from your eyes; from the accursed starless night you have come to us, charge with repentance!

  “This offering, sinner, the glorious Master will receive; like the wind that purifies the azure of the clouds that burden it, his hand will efface your sins and your crimes! Let your forehead, washed clean of its soiling, look up toward the heaven that divine grace will permit you to enter.”

  The old man abruptly raised his head; in that movement, the chain supporting the diamond crescent caught on one of the corners of the casket; a link broke, and the golden thread, sliding under the gray curls spreading over the shoulders, fell to the ground.

  At that sight the priest stopped, as if nonplussed; the star with the black points escaped from his fingers and went to join the golden necklace on the ground. His lips murmured rapid words, a prayer—doubtless immediately granted, for, extending his arm toward his two companions, who interrupted the conversation in which they were completely absorbed, he cried, in a prophetic one: “A benediction upon up, my brothers! The ardor of your faith has touched the Lord Almighty! He has condescended to signal his august presence in our midst by the most striking of miracles; his hand, invisible to the weak eyes of mortals, has extended through the clouds to one of our brothers, whose soul, once the most obscure, has illuminated today with the radiant clarity of faith!

  “Rejoice, old man! In accordance with the spirit of humility and on a laudable thought of contrition, you have come to God, your shoulders charged with the shameful sign marking the criminal sacerdocy once filled by you with such a frightful zeal that your eternity would be accomplished in the most frightful tortures if God, whom you once had the madness to hold in contempt, had not wanted to give you a living proof of the infinity of his clemency!

  “Rejoice, old man! God has touched your body, vowed to eternal flames! His hand, the creator of worlds, has made the abominable chain that sealed your soul to the rack of eternal expiation fall from your shoulders!

  “Rejoice, brother! Now your person is sacred, for God has approached it! Now, your mouth is florid with innocence, like that of all small children. Now, your hands are pure, equal to those of the servants of God!

  “Rejoice, brother! In my ear, just now, his ineffable voice made itself heard, ordering me to place on your heart the sacred symbol whose intimate essence you have penetrated. Is that not so? You know that that silver disk is nothing other than life, sad and temporary life, the dolorous career in which the creature whom the weight of sin has precipitated into the darkness crawls inexorably.

  “In the first hours of the fall, night weighed over the universe unremittingly, and cries of distress rose from the depths of the black gulf toward the Almighty, whose pity open to the wretches justly struck by his wrath; he leaned over them, and suddenly, the damned saw their prison illuminated by an immense light; some recognized in those floods of light the very person of the God they had betrayed, and, repentance entering into their souls, they begged the Master to let them approach the hearth once again where the original flame burned whose reflections had come to animate them; and gently, along luminous rays, one by one, they rose into the ether, sustained by invisible wings.

  “The celestial apparition did not strike the multitude, however, and the majority of the reproved, attributing to their own strength the advent of that beneficent light, hurled further imprecations toward the one who had expelled them. In vain, the Being of supreme bounty, tearing himself away from the adoration of his faithful, came every day to show his dear rebels the road to grace—who, still convinced that they had half-vanquished the darkness, struggled, with the hope of conquering total light!

  “Oh, miserable mortals, the centuries have passed, filled with your sufferings, also consecrated, alas, to the exaltation of your pride, and when, despairing of ever seeing your eyes reopen to celestial light, God assumed lamentable human form in order to enable your ears to hear the eternal word, your sacrilegious hands were raised against him!”

  His eyes lost, the old man seemed to be listening to a distant song; the priest’s last words snatched him abruptly from his bliss, and as before, his throat sobbed the same supplication: “Forgive me, Master! Master, forgive me!”

  From the black velvet pouch suspended from his belt the priest had taken a square of red cloth similar to the one that marked his own breast. He put it to his lips, and then, holding it in his right hand, he approached it to the old man’s face.

  “Look, Brother, at the sovereign sign whose virtue effaces the memory of even the most frightful crimes. Your crime was the crime of all other men, and your fate is linked to the culpable fate of your forefathers. Your eyes, too laden with shadow, would have refused to recognize God in the simple living man who once appeared in Humania clad in a white linen robe; he preached the principle of all things, and the sun itself is merely one of his attributes; he came to return mortals to the road of light, which their footsteps had fled, and in Panbiole, laughter and gibes welcome the divine messenger who, in order to compel the faith of the most incredulous, consented to give a striking proof of his supernatural power.

  “One day when the people were gathered in the main square, to listen to him in the manner of a spectacle, he raised his right hand above his head, and immediately, in spite of the ardent sun, a bright star appeared in the depths of the sky, attentive to follow his movements. At the sight of the prodigy, the laughter suddenly stopped, and after a brief moment of stupor, a slow growl of anger rose up from the crowd, followed by ferocious howls clamoring for the death of the impostor; the most intrepid ran upon him, and, because he only opposed calm words to the furious, showing them the star scintillating above his head, he was thrown amid cries and threats into a the depths of a dark dungeon.

  “The judges of Panbiole brought him out of it and, recognizing him as a magician dangerous for the security of Humania, condemned him to suffer the execution reserved for the worst criminals. Since the remotest times there had existed in Panbiole a well dug by unknown hands, so deep that the fall of stones dropped into it was not followed by any echo. Into that abyss, where malefactors whose crimes demanded the most ignominious of punishments were precipitated, the divine Master was to perish. As his death was a sacrifice made to the light of day, the oldest of the judges of Panbiole, clad in the functions of executor, waited to shove the chained body into the gulf until the precise moment when the sun, marked at its center by the star born of a reproved power, reached the highest point of the shy, directly above the infernal void.

  “The executioner’s action was carried out amid the unleashing of a vengeful joy, but the frightful moment, when the victim tottered on the edge of the gaping precipice, was extinguished in the darkness that suddenly surged forth; mouths paralyzed by horror, could no longer articulate any sound, and eyes widened by fright were obstinately fixed upon the pale golden star that remained in the depths of the sky from which the sun had vanished.

  “Oh, if only remorse had entered your hearts! If only faith had brushed your souls! But no! It was by the impotence of your rage that your features were contracted! It was the infinity of your hatred that blemished your faces, and when, tremulously, the voice of the sovereign judge rose up to accuse the man who was about
to be executed for a further crime of disrespect for Humania, an immense call for terrible vengeance, triumphing over anguish, escaped from all throats.

  “In a supreme effort of his horrible power, the execrated magician had just dragged after him the day star, the glorious witness of the victory snatched from the darkness, half of which had given way to light.

  “The Council of Panbiole met before the gulf into which the rays of the motionless star plunged, shimmering, and in spite of a minority opinion estimating any such attempt futile, it was decided that someone would descend into the well in order to take possession of the talisman creative of such extraordinary prodigies.

  “The heralds, raising torches arranged in a circle around the Council of Panbiole, proclaimed the decree and ordered the man to come forward who would offer himself for the accomplishment of the gigantic task.

  “Everyone recoiled, and it was necessary to go into the prison in search of a condemned man who was awaiting the expiation of the murder of his own father. The wretch, who howled that darkness was an inviolable safeguard for him and that they did not have the right to execute him at night, was brought forth with his wrists bound. With great difficulty, the judges finally made him understand that he could save his life by rendering Humania a service so great that not only would his crime be effaced but that he would also become the master of all the gold to be found in the richest quarter of Panbiole.

  “The unexpected salvation and the fabulous offer did not calm the terror of the wretch, whose haggard eyes stared fearfully into the gaping mouth of the somber precipice, and when the judge had explained to him what Panbiole expected of him, his head fell inertly on to his breast. Without making a movement, as if death, for him almost immediate, had stiffened his body, he learned that soon, sustained by ropes, he would be allowed to slide down to the bottom of the well. There he would find the cadaver, still warm, of a man who had just been thrown into it; he was to attach it to the end of the cable, which would bring both of them back up to the surface, where the promised reward would be ready.

  “The judge asked the man whether he had understood; he raised his head imperceptibly and let it fall again in a sign of assent.

  “Then the judge, taking off his cape, wound it around beneath the man’s armpits, in order that his flesh would not be too badly bruised by the rope, and instructed him to tug the rope three times when his feet touched the ground; he was to give three similar tugs as a signal for the ascent. After having touched his trembling lips to the golden star with the dark rays, the symbol of existence in Panbiole, the judge handed him over to the servants of the Council, who carefully looped beneath his arms a chain chosen from the heap of cables of every sort that had been brought out.

  “That chain, made of a light metal whose resistance was proof against any strain, was the sacred witness of the grandeur of Panbiole; every year, on the same day, it was deployed in great pomp around the city, of which it had to surround all the houses, and when the construction were extended into neighboring terrains, links prepared in advance permitted the chain to be lengthened to embrace the city’s new domain. For fear of not finding a number great enough to express it, no one had ever dared to calculate the length of that chain; they limited themselves to saying, in low voices, how many more rings would suffice to surround the entirety of Humania.

  “The frightful descent began; for hours the shining cable sank into the hole; the men moistened their fuming hands, armed by the rapid slide. Several times, consumed torches fell from the hands of the herald. Suddenly, the inexhaustible chain ran out, and the astonishment was such that the judge, with great difficulty, only just had time to seize the last link as it was about to disappear into the gulf. The rigging of ships, the bronze chains of war machines and those that served to keep ferocious beasts prisoner were connected end to end, and nothing remained but an enormous package of slender cord fabricated for the daughter of the king, who amused herself by having herself raised up into the clouds by huge captive seabirds.

  “They hesitated, because they feared that the frail cord might break under the excessively heavy weight, but one of the judges observed that it was ridiculous to entertain so many reservations, since it was merely a matter of the life of a criminal condemned to death. It was knotted to the last link of an enormous chain maintained by three men on the edge of the well, a hawser that tended to vibrate with shrill sounds like the highest notes of a harp. In incalculable length was then unrolled, and the packet was almost exhausted when the servants of the Council finally perceived the agreed three tugs.

  “An indescribable emotion took hold of the audience at the thought that, for the first time since the birth of Humania, one of their fellows had reached the bottom of the mysterious well, and that his hands were about to touch the blooded remains of the magician whose horrible crime had been so justly punished. Minutes as heavy as centuries went by before, once again, the cord was agitated by the signal awaited by the haulers before commencing their task.

  As the different fragments of ropes and chains reappeared, the judges calculated what the abyss still retained. The brilliant girdle of Panbiole finally emerged from the darkness and the judges, in the light of inclined torches, leaned over in order to attempt to be the first to penetrate the mystery. Slowly rotating at the end of the chain, which thinned out in the opaque atmosphere, something inert rose up, covered in the black cassock of parricides. The sovereign judge, stiffening his muscles, by means of a violent effort exerted on the chain, brought the lamentable human form level with the mouth of the well, and, seizing it with both arms, laid it on the black marble rim. The man did not move and the judge, in order to interrogate his heartbeat, applied his right hand to the left side of the chest.

  “Suddenly, an oblique ray of sunlight lit up on the edge of the horizon, and came to brush the fingers of the judge, who nervously took off the garment of infamy in order to lay bare the breast in which life was perhaps not entirely extinct. The sun, rapidly rising several degrees into the vault of the heavens, inundated the man’s breast, discovering a small red patch marked at its center with a silver disk radiating slender golden darts.

  “A slight frisson passed through the inanimate body; the eyes opened very wide to the light, and the hands agitated, seeming to want to approach the breast. Then the judge, taking possession of the square of cloth, raised it up before the eyes of the man, who put his hands together while his lips were animated by an imperceptible tremor. The judge leaned over to hear the words that were scarcely proffered, and were an account of the terrible adventure revealed by the man lying on the black marble rim of the well: ‘A dazzling light, like that of the sun, reigned in those depths, striped by a floor whiter than the paving stones of a church...’

  “The sovereign judge listened breathlessly to that whisper, which, vacillating on the pale lips, gradually died away, to be reborn after a long moment, for the evocation of the infernal secret. ‘No bones lay at the bottom of the well, and on the white flagstones, illuminated by a blinding glare, not the slightest trace of blood...’

  “And slowly, slowly, without effort, as if his body had become imponderable, the man raised himself up on his elbow. His lips, approaching the judge’s hands, kissed the mysterious square of red cloth, and at the same moment, the creature sitting on the black marble rim vanished in the sunlight suspended from the summit of the vault of the heavens, and some people saw a human form glide and disappear into the bewildering blindness of space...

  “The redemptive sign of the sin whose atrocity weighed upon Humania, God left in the ignorant dazzle of the well of shame, from which hands red with the most culpable blood extracted, it in order to render it to your adoration, criminal old man, who has become my brother.

  “Look at it, my brother: the certain symbol of your salvation. The sparkling golden darts departing from the pale silver circle proclaim the praiseworthy desire to go beyond the life enclosed in that red square, reddened, it seems, by the floods of human blood
shed for the conservation of an accursed existence!

  “There, formal and vivid, is the promise of grace descending from divine pity for repentant hearts. So long as the sun is radiant over the world, the radiant ladder whose summit attains paradise will be raised toward the sky; but so narrow are its rungs that there is only room for one body at a time, and one soul at a time. Solitary, in expiation of a common crime, creatures must march, along the road that leads to eternal happiness!

  “Old man, on your breast, wherein divine love beats, I will place this sign, thanks to which you will be able, when our steps have followed the entire route, to climb the vertiginous summit of the temple, where the hand of God will take you, to sit you down at his side on his glorious throne of infinite splendor…as the first, you will climb toward the light from where, down below, you will see your brother kneeling, waiting for the road to bliss to open for them too!”

  Quiet tears surged from the old man’s eyes. They ran slowly down his transfigured face. He seized the hands of the priest who had just attached the mark of forgiveness to his breast; he covered them with kissed while a murmur of prayer rose from the ranks of the faithful, still immobile, heads bowed.

  The other two priests have followed with approving eyes what their fellow has done. The latter frees his hands from the effusions of the old man to go past the men and women whose hands were entirely empty, rapidly and without stopping. Having arrived beside an adolescent who is silently weeping large tears, which are trickling into a little filigree basket, he perceives feminine adornments heaped up: rings, ear-rings, necklaces and belts set with large precious stones.

  “What is your despair, child? Why darken with your tears the gleam of the jewels of which your basket is full?”

  “My fiancée loved them, Master.”

  “Ah! Your fiancée loved them, as you loved your fiancée. The straying of the eyes! The straying of the senses! In the reflections of those topazes, sapphires and rubies, the features of that woman still reside. Those necklaces seem to you to be still warm from the perfumed contact of her throat, breathless with the promise of kisses. Those belts she had to undo, did she not, for the work of the flesh that caused your being to leap? Ah, damnation! Where is your fiancée?”