Funestine and Other Adventures in Romancia

by Brian Stableford

  “Things degenerated much further subsequently, for the vilest individuals were received in Romancia: adventurers, valets, professional vagabonds, women of low life. Only a few zealous romancers made efforts to reestablished the glory and the marvelous sublimity of times past; from there came the heroes and princes of Faerie, those of the Thousand-and-One Nights, Chinese Tales and many similar ones; but one saw in their history marvels mingled with so many puerile, common and vulgar things that no one knew how to classify them.

  “Eventually, in order to avoid confusion, the decision was made to divide Romancia into High and Low. The former is the abode of princes and celebrated heroes; the later has been abandoned to subjects of the second order: travelers, adventurers, men and women of mediocre virtue. It is even necessary to confess, to the shame of the human race, that High Romancia has been almost deserted for a long time, as you have been able to perceive in what you have seen, while Low Romancia is more and more populated every day. Thus, the fays and the genii, seeing themselves abandoned and almost unemployed, have mostly made the decision to go away, some into imaginary spaces, others into the land of dreams. That is why you no longer see Romancia ornamented, as it once was, with an infinity of crystal castles, silver towers, fortresses of bronze and enchanted palaces.”

  “How sorry I am, I said, interrupting him, “not to be able to witness such a beautiful spectacle!”

  “It would be very easy for me,” he said, “to enable you to see two castles of that kind not far from here, if you and I were sufficiently weary of our liberty to consent to lose it. A league from here, to the right, there is one inhabited by the fay Camalouca.20 Nothing is as brilliant and magnificent as the apartments, galleries and halls that compose that palace, but nothing is as dangerous as approaching it.

  “For three hundred paces all around it the fay has formed a kind of invisible vortex, which whirls away all though who have the misfortune or the fatal curiosity to enter it. Borne away to the courtyard of the castle, they are instantly engulfed in great crystal vases full of water, and the moment they enter into one, the fay blows a huge bubble of air at their back, which attaches itself to them and, by virtue of its lightness, holds them suspended in the water, where they only spin, rise and fall incessantly. They can be seen through the crystal, and that assemblage of various figures makes a bizarre assortment, by which the wicked fay is amused; for one sees ladies and lords pell-mell with pontiffs and priestesses, animals of very sort, grotesque monsters and a thousand different forms that are continually blurred and mingled. It is on that model that those long tubes of water full of little enamel figurines are made in Europe.

  “The other palace, which is to the left, is the abode of the fay Curiaca; she is the most dangerous individual in all Romancia. As she has many charms, nothing is easier for her than captivating the hearts of all those who see her, and she takes a malign pleasure in it. Then she takes them for a walk in her gardens, on the edge of a fountain or a canal, and there, when they least expects it, she metamorphoses them into birds, which she constrains by an effect of her magic power to keep their long beaks in the water continuously, leaving them in that ridiculous attitude for entire years. That is all the fruit that one obtains from the cares one has rendered her, and that is also the origin of the proverb of keeping someone’s beak in the water.21

  My readers have too much good taste not to sense that these stories are extremely agreeable and there is, in consequence, no need to tell them that they gave me a great deal of pleasure; I hope that they will find as much in reading the next chapter.

  VII. On a thousand curious things

  and the malady of yawning.

  We saw a rider mounted on a kind of black griffin coming toward us on the road we were on. His seemed sad, pensive and distracted, but as soon as he had perceived us he turned his mount and, taking a side road, he soon disappeared from our view.

  “Who is that misanthrope?” I asked Prince Zazaraph. “I didn’t know there were any of that species in Romancia.”

  “There are, however, several of them,” he replied, “as witness poor Cardenio,22 who frightening the shepherds so much in the mountains of Sierra Morena. That one is named Sonotraspio. How I pity him! Warned about the dangers of an amorous passion, he lived as an indifferent philosopher, even laughing about the weakness of lovers. But Amour was keeping an arrow for him that his philosophy could not ward off. He finally fell in love, and he fell in love with Tigrine, whose heart was engaged to another and so made him understand that he had nothing for which to hope.

  “He understood that so well, in fact, that in order to strangle an unfortunate amour at birth, he wanted to take the only course that remained to him, which was to go away from the object that had captivated him. ‘But no,’ Tigrine said to him, ‘your cares give me pleasure, your services are useful to me; if you love me, I demand that you do not flee me.’ To an order to absolute she added a few slight favors, which completed robbing the unfortunate lover of any hope of liberty. It was not possible for him to see Tigrine without loving her; it was not permitted to him to avoid her; but he had nothing for which to hope: what a situation!

  “He resolved himself to it, however, with a courage that gave as much evidence of the firmness of his soul as the excess of his passion. He flattered himself that he could at least extract occasionally from the hands of the cruel woman the few slight favors that she had already accorded him. He succeeded in that, in fact, even beyond his hopes, and, limiting all his desires and all his happiness to that, he dragged his chain with a sort of satisfaction, but that slight and apparent happiness did not last long.

  “While Sonotraspio, always modest and respectful, strove to persuade himself that he was fortunate enough, an unjust caprice persuaded Tigrine that he was too fortunate. ‘It’s over,’ she said to him. ‘Don’t hope for any more from me; your passion importunes me, your cares have become indifferent to me. Go away; I consent to that, and even advise you to do it.’

  “Gods, what was Sonotraspio’s astonishment! A sudden thunderclap causes less consternation to timid women surprised by a storm in vast open country. He doubted it for some time; he thought he had misheard, but his doubt did not last long. Tigrine explained it, and did so with all imaginable harshness. Then, penetrated by dolor and with despair panted in his eyes, he said: ‘You’re permitting me to flee you, then? It’s high time, cruel woman, after...’ His sobs did not permit him to finish, and Tigrine even drew away in order not to hear him.

  “Neither tears, nor the most tender prayers could bend her, or even persuade her to grant the unhappy fellow, for one last time, some mark of kindness. On the contrary, she only seemed more arrogant and disdainful. In the end, the unfortunate Sonotraspio, overwhelmed by chagrin and dolor, abandoned everything that hope can inspire in an unjustly maltreated lover. In vain he strove to recall the sage lessons of philosophy. Continually occupied with his woe, one sees him, in order to distract himself, sometimes seeking solitude and sometimes dissipation, running like an insensate all over Romancia. He detests the day when he saw Tigrine for the first time; he strives to forget her; he would like to hate her; but nothing succeeds for him; the wound is too profound, and there is reason to fear that it will never heal.”

  “In truth,” I said to Prince Zazaraph, “poor Sonotraspio moves me to pity; I would like Tigrine either never to have granted him anything, or not to have refused him a few slight favors one last time; it would not need many similar examples to discredit Romancia.”

  “You’re right,” he said, “for one would be tempted to regard all the inhabitants as mad; but that is an effect of the injustice and ignorance of men, for it is true that, only consulting reason and the maxims of wisdom, it is necessary to tax as folly and pitiable aberration the entire series of fine sentiments and reciprocal procedures of two lovers. But if, on the one hand, one refers to our annalists, whose authority is all the greater because several of them are of respectable character, and on the other, one judge
s by the sublime fashion in which they are able to embellish the passions that seem least sensate in themselves, one would have a much more advantageous idea of the heroes of Romancia.”

  Here I interrupted the great paladin. “What do I see?” I said to him. “After the tragic, is it not the comic that is presenting itself to us? What, I pray you, are those bands of cockchafers, locusts or huge ants that I see traversing the forest like an army on the march? What kind of insects are they?”

  “Insects!” replied Prince Zazaraph, laughing. “Please, treat more honestly a species that is nothing less than human. Have you never heard mention of Lilliputians?23 There they are. Those poor little runts of human nature have established themselves in Romancia and seemed initially to be thriving here, but the air of the country is doubtless contrary to them; they have never been able to multiply here, and, desperate at seeing their race becoming extinct, they have finally made the decision to go and settle elsewhere. Be careful, in passing by, not to trample any underfoot, for that’s the only danger one runs in encountering them.

  “It’s not the same with the Brobdingnagians, however. Those monstrous giants, by a bizarre coincidence, settled in Romancia at the same time as the Liliputians, and like them, they have been obliged to seek another dwelling. The entire country could not suffice for their subsistence, but woe betide anyone who found themselves in their passage. The ravages are indescribable that those frightful colossi made all along their route, crushing castles underfoot as we crush a clod of earth and breaking all the trees in forests as elephants break ears of wheat as they cross fields. No one really knows the reasons that led both species to establish themselves in Romancia, having no other merit to distinguish them than a laughable smallness or a horrific gigantic size, so people see them leave without trying to retain them, and all that can be said about it is that it wasn’t worth making such a long voyage to learn what everyone already knew, that there is no point of absolute grandeur in the word, and that tall or short stature makes no difference to human nature .”

  “In that regard,” I said to Prince Zazaraph, “haven’t I heard it said that the animals can talk in this realm?”

  “Nothing is more true,” he told me. “It used to be quite common in the times of Aesop, Phaedrus and a Frenchman named La Fontaine, who had the secret of making them talk, as well as and better than human beings. But it seems that, losing their taste for that usage, they have, so to speak, lost the power of speech, especially since another Frenchman named L. M***24 has taken it into his head to make them speak an unnatural and forced language that it is sometimes difficult to understand; he allows a few loquacious individuals to be found among them, however, who talk as much and more than one could wish, and very recently, a mole has rendered itself ridiculous by its extravagant babble, although some have claimed that it was only copying another.”25

  While Prince Zazaraph was conversing with me thus, a desire gripped me to yawn so prodigiously that it was necessary, in spite of my efforts, to yield to the natural impulse.

  “Aha!” he said, laughing. “You’ve already caught the local malady, that’s lucky. Please don’t constrain yourself; no one here will hold it against you; in Romancia it’s an inevitable affliction for anyone who spends any time here, like sea-sickness for those making a first voyage over that element.”

  As Prince Zazaraph finished speaking, he started yawning immeasurably himself, which did not prevent me laughing in my turn.

  “I can see, I said, “that the malady is indeed quite common in Romancia, but I don’t understand how one can be subject to it in a land filled with so many marvels.”

  “That’s also what embarrasses physicists in trying to explain the phenomenon, all the more so as it’s observed that it’s precisely in the places where there are the most marvels heaped on top of one another—in the Peruvian province,26 for example—that people yawn the most. Physicians, for their part, still cannot find any remedy for the ailment than a change of air. It’s necessary, however, that I enable you to see beforehand one of our amorous woods, for that’s almost the only singular thing that remains to be seen in this region.”

  VIII. Amorous woods.

  As we were already out of the forest, we directed our steps toward a charming wood in the plain; it was one of the amorous woods that the prince had just mentioned, and many similar ones have been planted in all parts of Romancia for the convenience of lovers, just as one sees them at intervals in a well-maintained terrain to serve as a refuge and retreat for game. Such woods are almost all planted with odorous myrtles, orange trees, pomegranates and young palm trees, which interlace their branches amorously to form agreeable arbors; they are admirably well pierced with various paths, which form stars, goose-feet and labyrinths, and various compartments are contrived in the clumps of bushes, the ground of which is covered with lush grass strewn with violets and other wild flowers. The palisades are rose-bushes, jasmines, honeysuckle or other flowering shrubs, and each one has its fountain, its spring or its little waterfall.

  It is unnecessary to ask whether, in these delightful groves, zephyrs refresh lovers with the gentle breath of their sighs, or whether the birds make the boscage resound with their amorous songs. Everything is alive, everything respires, everything is animate and everything makes love in these amorous woods. How could it be otherwise, when one sees amours perching in the trees like parrots, incessantly occupied in launching a thousand flaming arrows, which set the very air ablaze? Oh, how tender, lively and passionate the conversations there are! How many sighs are uttered there, how many desires formed, how many pleasures savored!

  “Don’t believe, however,” Prince Zazaraph said, “that people stroll at random in the various quarters of the wood. Every clump of bushes has its particular purpose, in such a way that one can distinguish the grove of happy lovers from that of the discontented, the grove of jealous suspicions from that of quarrels, that of reconciliations from various similar ones.

  “There was a time when the inhabitants, uninformed of the laws and ancient customs, also wanted to establish groves of enjoyment in amorous woods, but such a dangerous innovation was zealously opposed, and it was proven by the testimony of the Romancian annals that there was nothing more contrary to the interests of Romancia, because enjoyment extinguishes desire and passion, which are the sinews of good government here.”

  “But what are those people doing that I see over there,” I asked, “some standing and others sitting under that large elm tree?”

  “They are people waiting for their companions in order to go into the wood,” he replied. “That elm has been planted expressly to serve as a meeting-place. Those who arrive first wait there for the others, and as there are always a few who wait in vain that was the origin of the saying: ‘wait for me under the elm.’

  “In any case,” he added, “we can approach the groves if you wish in order to see what is happening there and hear what people are saying.”

  “What!” I said “Things are done here with such scant secrecy?”

  “Of course,” he said. “How else could the authors that pose the Romancian annals know in such detail all the most private conversations of two lovers, down to the last syllable?”

  “You’re right,” I said, “and you’ve explained there something that I’ve never understood. But even so, I don’t understand how writers—those of Cyrus or Cléopatre for instance—can write such long sequences of discourse without losing a single word.”

  “That’s because you don’t know how it’s done,” Prince Zazaraph replied. “But let’s go into this grove, which is that of declarations; you can judge the others by this one alone, and you’ll understand that mystery. Do you see those four large writing-pads attracted to the entrance to the grove? They’re four different models of declarations of amour, containing the requests and the responses, and if there are only four of them it’s because no one has yet been able to invent a fifth—for, to say it in passing, our annals are usually quite well-writte
n, but they rarely have the imagination known as invention, which enables them to find something that no one has said before them; that’s why they all copy one another.

  “Now, to get back to the writing-pads, all the lovers who enter this grove in order to declare their amour to one another, never fail to take one of the four models, which they recite immediately. The annalist only has to observe which of the four models is being employed and he knows the whole of the conversation at a stroke. It’s the same with the other groves, including that of sighs, the number of which is regulated, in order that the annalist doesn’t make a ridiculous blunder contrary to the verity of the story, by making a princess sigh four times who only ought to have sighed three.”

  “If that’s the case,” I said, “there’s no need to listen to what all the couples are saying whom I can see distributed in the wood.”

  “That’s true,” he replied, “for if you only take the trouble to read the notices that are suspended, in small numbers, at the entrance to each grove, you’ll know everything that has ever been said there in the last thousand years; and it’s necessary to say that if that doesn’t make a eulogy to the intelligence of the Romancian annalists, it’s at least very convenient for them and for us, for the history of Romancia is considerably abridged by that means.”

  In spite of that, the desire gripped me to listen for a moment to what was being said in the nearby groves. I went into one with Prince Zazaraph, but I noticed that, indeed, everything that was being said was nothing but repetition of what I had already read in romances, and the yawns possessed me again with so much force that I thought they would never end.