The Petitpaon Era

by Henri Austruy

  The night passed, and then the following day, followed by another night, and then another day, and so on, until the calendar marked day three—which meant that three times twenty-four hours had still to elapse before the thirtieth of April.

  A panic broke out, which threw outside the town a crazed host of men and women carrying their children. That stampede, in which the strong trampled the weak in the attempt to gain a few places, raced headlong into the blaze. The upright bodies sizzled momentarily and fell, blackened and unrecognizable.

  In the meantime, in Miellune, prudent and sage individuals demanded an energetic intervention by the governor.

  An attempt was made to construct a balloon. It rose up a hundred meters and fell back. A stupid circle surrounded the nacelle, the wicker of which allowed a few shreds of the mangled body of the pilot to leak through its mesh.

  Supplicant appeals implored Percepointe not to abandon Miellune.

  A madman ran through the streets stopping the clocks, which he accused of causing time to move on.

  The final distribution of food was solemnly made. The Bishop had insisted on sanctifying it with a benediction susceptible of summoning divine attention to the absolute necessity of a miraculous renewal of the exhausted supplies.

  The prodigal consumed their ration immediately in ostentatious haste; the miserly carried theirs home without bringing it to their mouths; children cried out to their mothers, who wept at the thought of the morrow, when the poor little ones would reach out in vain.

  The physicians had organized meetings in order to popularize scientific means of combating starvation. It was necessary to avoid any unnecessary expenditure of energy in order to lower vital consumption to a minimum. They cited the example of marmots, whose total abstention from nourishment could last several months, thanks to a complete immobility in a dark and tightly enclosed space.

  Entire families made themselves cozy in their bedrooms in order to attempt to hibernate.

  As the physicians affirmed that an organism can live on its reserves until the loss of half its body weight, the fat excited a sentiment of envy mingled with admiration.

  Philémon Sphéroboul, whose adipose development had attained proportions unknown among the most fortunate of his fellow citizens, became the object of a respect pushed to idolatry; everyone knew that he would be the last survivor. His person became an object of pilgrimage; people came to contemplate him installed in the depths of an armchair, his two hands placed over his abdomen in a pious gesture, as if to testify his affectionate gratitude to it.

  At first Sphéroboul had seemed touched by these marks of consideration, vengeance for the jokes and gibes formerly addressed to his overly advantageous form. Soon, however, he began to dread becoming an object of public jealousy stretched to the point of changing into violent hatred. He lowered the blinds behind his windows in order to render himself invisible, and no longer left his house.

  Three days passed; to save them from the further tortures of hunger, mothers strangled their children before committing suicide. Victims of hanging were swinging from the gibbets of street-lights; wells filled up to the brim with the bodies of those who had a preference for asphyxia. All methods of suicide were employed, from poison to jumping from monuments.

  On the fourth day, a considerable crowd gathered outside Sphéroboul’s house. The latter, imagining that the return of his future son-in-law was the reason for the demonstration, got up and appeared on the sidewalk.

  Arms, vigorous in spite of the enforced diet to which their owners had been subjected, took possession of him. Seized by a convulsive trembling, he stammered supplications: “Don’t hurt me! It’s not my fault that I’m fat! Don’t eat me, I beg you! Don’t eat me!”

  Arms hoisted him up on to shoulders. Utterly terrified by the thought of being transformed into victuals, he begged for mercy, without hearing anything. In the meantime, it was explained to his wife, already bewailing the grief of her widowhood, that in a few minutes, she would be saluted with the name of Empress, the unanimous will of Miellune being to proclaim Philémon Sphéroboul, marked by God with all the signs of preeminence, Emperor.

  The crowd carried the improvised emperor all the way to the palace, where the governor received him with multiple marks of the most humble administrative deference, under the menacing gaze of the leader of the public procession.

  Philémon Sphéroboul, still too overwhelmed to make use of his tongue, paraded a long fugitive gaze around him. When his heartbeat had slowed down somewhat, he was able to articulate a few words in a muffled voice pierced with an intense satisfaction.

  “I’m not going to be eaten, then?”

  “To eat its master, its Emperor, would constitute a crime of which even a tribe of cannibals would not render itself guilty,” the governor replied, curving his back at an exceedingly acute angle. With manifestations of infinite respect, he begged His Majesty to deign to follow him.

  Sphéroboul, completely reassured as to the outcome of the adventure, followed in his footsteps, traversing a series of solemnly decorated rooms.

  They arrived via a narrow corridor at a wall, which opened under the pressure of a small instrument that the governor handed to Sphéroboul, terrified to enter the darkness of the subterranean tunnel gaping before him.

  With a gesture of the most fervent loyalism, the servant, still completely devoted to the master of the moment, yielded to him the secret of the State reserves, which he alone knew.

  There were varied provisions there for several years. By the light of a small lamp, the governed presented them to Sphéroboul. The later contemplated them for a long time with the affection of someone rediscovering beings very dear to him. His hand caressed devotionally the tawny hams and the marmoreal slabs of lard sparkling with grains of salt. His gaze pierced earthenware terrines and tins concealing succulent conserves. He could scent the perfume of truffles dormant in the bosom of foie gras so clearly that his salivary glands swelled up in order to blossom generously over the precious imagined alimentary bolus.

  Still ignorant of the elementary rules of protocol, and entirely subservient to his emotion, which suddenly caused his role to seem endowed with perfect authenticity, he hugged the governor to him, trying to kiss his cheeks, but his excessive abdominal preeminence prevented him from realizing that osculatory manifestation.

  He apologized for that in a flood of speech into which the governor was scarcely able to insert a few comments at respectful intervals.

  “You Majesty might well have the prudence to have his table set up here. I beg him to accord me the signal favor of serving him.

  Philémon Sphéroboul protested and, remembering that he was a good husband and father, said: “No, no! You’ll sit down with us! My wife and my daughter...”

  “Long live the Empress and the Princess!” The governor bowed deeply.

  “…Will take care of the cuisine; that’s their job!” Sphéroboul declared, simply, and then proposed: “Shall we have a bite to eat?”

  “May Your Majesty’s desire be granted!” said the governor, uncovering a little table with a single place-setting.

  “Sit with me—I demanded it!” ordered Sphéroboul, whose eyes were shining with imminent gastronomic satisfaction.

  “Out of obedience,” the governor acquiesced, unhooking a ham, which joined packets of biscuits and several bottles of old wine in front of the Emperor.

  Fasting is an infallible aperitif. The one endured by Sphéroboul had developed an already-powerful appetite to improbable proportions. The imperial guest ate frenziedly, with all the elasticity of his violently distended jaws, imparting a few admiring words at intervals, when his mouth was not absolutely full.

  “Astonishing!... Superior!.... Exquisite!... Divine ham!... Glory!... Pickles!... Unique biscuits! Perfect!... Wine?... Nectar!... Velvet!... Eternal poem!... Eat!... Eat!... Veritable joy!... Life is nothing without eating and drinking!... I owe you happiness!... Thank you!... Thank you!”

&nb
sp; “Your Majesty is too kind,” the governor protested, amazed by that ingestive verve.

  “Thank you!... Thank you!” burbled Sphéroboul, whose congested face took on the appearance of a stop sign. He demanded pâtés, more ham, absorbed the contents of several tins, complained of the excessively reduced format of the biscuits, and, after emptying another bottle, stopped, panting, with just enough breath left to confess that he felt better, in a tone of the utmost sincerity.

  “Would Your Majesty deign to think about his coronation?” asked the governor.

  “No,” admitted Philémon Sphéroboul, with no false shame. “I’m entirely devoted to my digestion.”

  “May it be kind to You Majesty!” the governor wished.

  “It will be!” exhaled Sphéroboul, closing his eyes. With his two hands placed on is abdomen in an expression of infinite gratitude in his own regard, he went to sleep, invaded by the wellbeing that only boas among the animals and fervent gastronomes among humans are able to savor fully.

  The governor could only respect his master’s torpor. A shrewd courtier, he thought about the awakening, and with a thousand precautions he placed a cup full of odorous liquid on a table. The imperial nostrils quivered. The eyelids rose imperceptibly. Devotedly, hands picked up the cup, brought it to the lips, and Sphéroboul, tilting back his head, drained it with the piety of a priest emptying the sacred chalice.

  The governor took advantage of that to utter a deferential “Sire,” which attracted a muffled reply.

  “What? What? My name is Sphéroboul, Philémon Sphéroboul…I’m a merchant, a rich merchant...”

  The governor had to call upon all the force of his eloquence to make his interlocutors grasp the status of Emperor to which the will of the people had raised him.

  “What an excellent idea!” Sphéroboul approved, incontinently naming as prime minister the man he knew as such a magnificent Amphitryon. And his intoxication, emerging from the period of somnolence, agitated grandiloquent gestures, accompanied by speeches of an entirely unprecedented imperialism.

  “My people will rejoice in my happiness. They will echo all my joys. Those who complain will be judged as criminals, because I don’t want anyone to be miserable. Let’s drink to the health of the people!”

  And, matching action to words, he poured himself a generous draught, which he swallowed with a sonorous cluck of pleasure. The prime minister thought it a good opportunity to talk about the coronation. Sphéroboul ordered an immediate celebration. In a few picturesque phrases he settled the features that seemed most important to his hallucinated brain.

  “I don’t need ceremonial garb. My pearl-gray trousers are brand new. My white waistcoat is fashionable and my frock-coat unstained. My octagonal top hat will be a revelation for all of Miellune! The Bishop will do the rest. Follow me, my dear Prime Minister.”

  The laws of equilibrium are indulgent to corpulent drunkards. His center of gravity remaining faithful in spite of a few wobbles, Philémon Sphéroboul went back along the narrow corridor and through the entire series of solemnly decorated rooms. When he arrived in the main hall, where he recognized his wife and daughter sitting in two armchairs, behind which the functionaries and most important people of the town were standing, he waved his hat, shouting with all the force of his lungs: “Vive Miellune!”

  A formidable acclamation: “Vive Philémon!” replied to him.

  “Let the people in!” he ordered.

  The ushers opened the doors. The crowd rushed into the room, where only a small free space remained around the stage supporting the red armchair destined for the emperor.

  The latter demanded assistance to climb the steps. Short of breath, hiccupping, he spoke, expectorating his optimistic and tenacious will.

  “My people will rejoice in my happiness. They will echo all my joys. Those who complain will be judged as criminals, because I don’t want anyone to be miserable...”

  “Sire, I beg you, don’t let my poor children die of hunger!” sobbed a woman, dragging herself on her knees to the foot of the stage.

  “Your children won’t die!” Sphéroboul affirmed, without the slightest hesitation.

  A triple salvo of applause burst forth, resounding with: “Long live Philémon I!”

  Excited, Sphéroboul continued: “You won’t die either! We aren’t going to die! No one will die! Down with death! Long live life!”

  Infected by the Bacchic delirium, the transported crowd repeated: “Down with death! Long live life! Long live the Emperor!”

  The Bishop presented a vast crown to the latter. Sphéroboul took it, and, with an august gesture, put it over his hat. He demanded a cane, which he began to twirl with the grace of a drum-major’s apprentice.

  “I want, as a gift of my joyous advent, to marry my daughter this very day.”

  “You’re forgetting, Philémon, that Monsieur Folantin Percepointe hasn’t yet returned,” put in Madame Sphéroboul, while Jenny made gesture of protest.

  “I hope that he doesn’t come back!” declared the Emperor, in whom thoughts induced by the wine incited forgiveness of weaknesses of the heart. “The Princess will marry for love!” Turning to an officer whose sleeves were braided with stripes, he said: “I’ll give the hussar who made my daughter’s heart beat the title and rank of Duke of Miellune. Go fetch him, and after having dressed him in an appropriate uniform, bring him here. The Bishop will bless the union right away. I have spoken!”

  The Sphéroboul ladies embraced tearfully—tears of dread on the part of the mother, anxiously wondering how this improbable escapade was going to end, and tears of joy on the part of the young woman, blushing at the idea of becoming a Duchess as well as a wife.

  The ceremony only lasted a few minutes. The hussar rolled his frightened eyes and begged for mercy. The extravagant scene seemed to him to the one specified for capital punishments by the Military Code, the daily reading of which had horrified the nights of his imprisonment.

  Philémon I continued the exercise of absolute power by ordering his minister to show the young couple the way to the private apartments. With the Empress on his arm, he closed the march, in the midst of frenetic applause.

  Every day, the Emperor came to offer the people the comforting spectacle of a continuous inebriation. He went through the streets on his son-in-law’s arm, without pomp and without a crown, coiffed in his immutable octagonal hat.

  He called out to his subjects in a familiar fashion, anxious about their health, asking them whether there was anything they lacked.

  “I want my happiness to be yours! I won’t tolerate the slightest of those shameful maladies called hunger and thirst among you! I’m counting on you not to be afflicted by them!”

  And they all replied that they were neither hungry nor thirsty, and that their happiness was perfect.

  The imperial will was manifest with regard to the volcanoes. Philemon I enjoined them to consider themselves simply as natural and uncrossable frontiers, thanks to which Miellune formed a world within the world. The volcanoes no longer allowed a groan to escape; their flames, during the day, resembled an opaline mist copper-tinted by the sun; by night, Miellune slept beneath a vault with a dark summit, which brightened as it spread out to stream to earth in a luminous flood.

  Time passed. The privation of nourishment not only did not cause any death, but did not occasion the slightest suffering. The most elementary laws of nature seemed to have drowned in Sphéroboul’s gastronomic excesses. An indescribable bliss had penetrated minds and bodies. The voluptuousness of life, calm and profound, succeeded the anguish of death, the vertigo of which has led so many desperate people to commit suicide.

  The Director of Social Conservation was disturbed by that abnormal state of affairs, which science could not explain. He had established a voluminous report in which thousands of strictly monitored cases of absolute dieting not followed by the most minimal loss of weight were recorded.

  That work had been handed to the Emperor by his minister
’s own hands, during dessert at a copious dinner. Its reading had provoked such fits of hilarity in Philémon I that his digestion was effectuated in the midst of various troubles.

  “Would I have the right to fatten myself if my subjects were victims of the slightest thinning?” he had exclaimed to the Bishop, who had come to ask for imperial approval of the mandate prepared in order to announce solemnly that the terrestrial paradise had been rediscovered with all its attributes. “Indeed, Bishop, not only have I revoked the injunction made to man to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, but also...”

  “God...” the worthy ecclesiastic had attempted to insert.

  “I have dried up that inconvenient sweat and have determined that bread will no longer have any utility,” the autocrat continued. “My volcanoes are sufficient to all needs. Go mandate that to your faithful!” And with a baroque gesture, he had sent the prelate away.

  It really was as Sphéroboul had said; all the needs of life were satisfied of their own accord. Miellune was living in the primordial state of the world when Eve had not yet transgressed the divine commandment.

  The Bishop, in a spirit of excessive prudence, went by night to pour a corrosive liquid at the feet of a few apple trees that seemed ready to flower in the palace gardens. The poor trees withered. Thus, a Miellunese woman afflicted by the evil of curiosity would not have found any forbidden fruit to bite, and paradise would not run the risk of being lost for a second time.

  For it really was paradise.

  In the vicinity of the fires that surrounded it, Miellune enjoyed a climate so mild that clothes had become perfectly unnecessary. Philémon I rendered their suppression official and obligatory, walking around completely naked with his wife, his daughter and his son-in-law, all without the slightest veil. He had even decided to abandon his octagonal top hat because it reminded him of one of the abolished sumptuary needs. Only a crown, the insignia of his rank, ornamented his head.

  The struggle for existence, having become pointless, arrested all its manifestations. All the people plunged into the contemplation of their own happiness; they applied themselves to savoring it without letting the slightest fraction escape.