“Oh, Prince Fan-Férédin,” added the great paladin, “What a pity it is that such a sweet moment is only a moment! But one has striven in vain thus far to find a means of prolonging it; all the astrologers in the world have given up on it, and what is saddest of all is that the moment is unique, and a second cannot be found that resembles it perfectly. So, in truth, a reasonable lover ought to leave it at that, and that would be very honest of him—but are there any reasonable lovers? They always lack something.
“After a first conversation, one wants to have a second, after the second, one wants a third, and in the meantime, the hours seem like years. Fortunate is the man who can obtain a portrait. But in default of the portrait, one at least obtains what one can; even if it’s only a ribbon, or a scarf, one is the happiest man in the world; until then, one has only felt torments, languor, martyrdom, dread, suspicion, alarm, tears and despairs, and now one finally sees the joyous band arrive of transports, sweetness, calm, satisfaction, rivers of joy in which one swims as in open water, and inexpressible delights.
“Let no one take it into his head then to go and offer a lover the throne of Persia or the empire of Trebizond, on condition of abandoning the sovereign of his soul. He would not exchange his fate for the most brilliant fortune. He would prefer such sweet slavery to the most beautiful crown in the world.”
XI. On great proofs, and a singular resemblance
that will make the reader suspect the denouement
of this story.
“I cannot admire enough,” I said to Prince Zazaraph, “the talent that you have for bringing things together and abridging them. What you have just told me in a few words, I have seen in twenty different romances, but it occupies entire volumes there.”
“It isn’t that I have a talent for abridging,” he replied, “but that the majority of romances are all made on the same model, and that their authors have a talent for stretching out events and stories so much that they make a volume out what would only furnish four pages to a writer who does not understand as they do the art of diffuse prolixity. Take note, however, that I have only spoken to you as yet of preliminary formalities, and that before arriving at the conclusion of the marriage, a long road still remains to travel. For, just as, in a labyrinth, one knows very well where one came in, but one does not know where one will get it, those who embark on the stormy sea of amour know full well where they started, but they do not know where, how or when they will arrive in port.
“Two young people love one another like two turtle-doves. They seem made for one another. They will die if they are separated: a barbaric destiny! It’s necessary…but no, it isn’t destiny that it’s necessary to hold to account, it is the laws of Romancia, established for all time by the founders of the nation: severe laws, which forbid, under penalty of perpetual banishment, proceeding with the conjugal union of two young people who adore one another before they have passed through the great profs prescribed by the ordinance.”
“Undoubtedly,” I said then to the Dondindandian prince, “I have seen in romances what you call great proofs, but I’d be very glad to know them more distinctly, to learn from you on what that law is founded, and whether it is indispensable.”
“If you have read the adventures of the pious Aeneas,” he said, “you must have remarked that, but for the hatred that Juno bore him, his entire story would have concluded in the first book, for he would have arrived safely in Italy, would have married the Latin princess, and that would have been the Aeneid finished. But his historian had cleverly imagined giving him Juno for an enemy; that implacable goddess raised a thousand hindrances in his journey, which were a long sequence of extraordinary events, and provided material for a great story.
“It is on that model that our annalists established the law of great proofs. For want of the Neptune, Ulysses and Juno of the Aeneid, they found enemy fays and enchanters, whose powerful hatreds and continual persecutions provided scope for heroes to signal their courage by a thousand unusual exploits, and as neither valor nor human strength could resist such terrible proofs, they were careful also to give them the protection of some good fay or some powerful genius, as Ulysses and Aeneas had the protection, one of Minerva and the other of Destiny. From that it is easy to judge that in Romancia, the law in question must be indispensable, and in fact it is, to such an extent that the sons of kings and the greatest princes are those it spares the least.”
“What is it necessary to think, then,” I retorted, “of the majority of modern heroes, for whom one does not see either divinities or genii acting, either as friends or enemies?”
“They are bourgeois heroes,” he said, “who have neither the nobility nor the elevation that is inseparable from the idea of a Romancian hero. But they are nonetheless subject, like the others, to the law of proofs. A lover, for example, believes he is within reach of the moment that will render him happy, the parents on both sides consenting to the marriage. Not at all. A richer and more powerful suitor appears, who brings parents to bear on his side. What is to be done? It is necessary either to fight or to abduct the beauty. If he fights, he will surely kill his man, but what will become of him? That is raw material for adventures for several years. If he abducts his beauty, it’s necessary for him to consign her to some relative capable if hiding her, and that he hide himself as well in order to escape searches. All that takes time, but here comes the tragic.
“One evening, the beauty is getting some fresh air on the sea shore with a relative; an Algerian tartan arrives, which she mistakes for a local vessel; there is an abrupt landing; the two Christian beauties are seized and taken to be sold to their dey. What a proof for a lover! He does not know to what country the dear object of his thought has been transported, nor what treatment she has been subjected to. What a situation! It will be even worse if, while the corsair sets sail for Africa, it is attacked and captured by a Christian vessel, whose commandant is the rival of the unfortunate lover. That is enough to make one die a thousand times of rage and dolor, but fortunately, Romanians have extremely durable lives.
“Let us suppose that the charming Isabelle arrives in Algiers; she is presented to the dey, who falls in love with her, to the extent of forgetting all the other beauties in his seraglio. She tries hard to resist his passion, and puts up the finest defense in the world; the dey, annoyed by her tears and wearied by her resistance, finally decides to use all his power. The appointed day arrives, and he does as he says...”
“Oh, Prince!” I cried, then. “How terrible that proof is! I tremble at it.”
“No, no,” he replied, “reassure yourself; in Romancia, a remedy is found for everything. The lover has conducted his research so well that he has discovered the place where his dear friend is a captive, and he does not fail to arrive at the point in question on the eve of the fatal day. Disguised as a gardener’s boy, he gets into the garden of the seraglio. He finds a means of making a signal and slips a note. Isabelle, transported by joy, prepares to take advantage of the night in order to escape with him. A silken ladder, curtains attached to the window, a rope with a basket, what do I know? On these occasions one finds a thousand expedients, which never fail to succeed.
“Oh what a fine racket the dey makes the following day in the seraglio! How many eunuchs’ heads fall under the furious Achmet’s scimitar! But the two lovers, letting him exhale all his fury at his leisure, will have found a little boat waiting for them in the port, and they are already far away. In any case, don’t think that those adventures are very singular, for, if you have dipped into the Romancian annals, you will have found that there is nothing more commonplace.
“Would you like another specimen?” he added. “The amorous cavalier has a secret rendezvous with his beauty in the garden at night, but in all honor, in a somber clump of bushes, where the moonlight will be dangerous. The little door to the garden has been left ajar. Now, the brother or the father of the princess, wanting by chance to enter by the little door and finding it open, suspects
something. The rest is easily divinable: great fuss, attack, defense, torches are bought; the cavalier only fights as he retreats, but what can he do? It is a necessity; and it is a capital rule that the father or brother of the woman he adores will impale himself on the sword of the unfortunate cavalier. Judge how many years it will take to settle such an adventure.
“It is necessary in the meantime to go and serve in Flanders or in Hungary. Another inconvenience, for in Flanders he is thought to have been killed in a battle, and the desolate Leonore, after having torn out all her hair for six months, finally makes some decision fatal to her lover. In Hungary he is taken prisoner and sent as a slave to Turkey in order to work in a garden there or to clean the apartments...”
“I confess to you, Prince,” I said to the great paladin, “that of all the profs, that last one is the one I like the best, for I’ve noticed that of all the men who leave Romancia in order to be slaves in Turkey or Algiers, there is not one who does not make his fortune.”
“That is true,” he replied, “but note also that before departing there is not one who does not take the precaution of learning to dance well, of having a beautiful voice, playing instruments perfectly and being amiable and handsome. That is all of his success. The slave is shown to the favorite sultana in order to cheer her up; the slave is such an admirable man and all sultanas have such tender hearts that in less than no time there is an intrigue ready made and a poor sultan disrespected. The condition would please them sufficiently if it could last, but there is no means; the laws of Romancia are extremely severe on that matter; it is necessary that the sultan, warned or not, enters the seraglio and threatens to kill everyone. What a hubbub!
“It is, however, only noise. He has been heard coming. The sultana, fearing for her life, finds the means to flee with the charming Bezibezu—that’s the name of the slave—and they are already far away. In four days the beautiful Moroccan arrives in Marseille or Barcelona and presents herself for baptism the next day. The only thing that displeases me about that adventure is that the laws dictate that the casket of gems that the beautiful Mooress has brought with her has to be thrown into the sea, which reduces her to beggary.”
“Those proofs,” I said in my turn, “appear to me to be not very agreeable, but I’ve seen others that are even more so. What would you say, for example, about a poor lover who, on the eve of marrying the woman he loves, sees the princess abducted by unknown individuals and transported to an unknown location, without him being able to learn the slightest news of her after a thousand researches? You’ll confess to me that that’s one of the situations most favorable to tragic sentiments and fine despairs.”
“Oh, dear Prince,” cried Prince Zazaraph, “of what memories are you reminding me? I have endured that cruel proof, and you can ask all the echoes of our forests how much it has cost me in dolorous regrets, pathetic sobs and touching alases. Yes, I would have killed myself a thousand times if the precaution had not been taken, as is usual on such occasions, of taking away my sword, dagger, pistols and other mortal instruments. It was to avoid the deadly effects of such despair that, after the last abduction of my process, I was condemned to a long sleep, because it was not thought that I could sustain without dying a second proof of that nature.”
“You would at least have been able,” I said to him, “in such sad circumstances, to equip yourself with a portrait of your princess, or a few petty items of furniture that she had employed. That is an infinite resource, for I knew a cavalier called the Marquis de Rosemont,32 who, having found a means even to have a few of the defunct Doña Diana’s chemises, stockings and skirts , spent a lot of time putting them on his body, contemplating them and kissing them one after another with an inexpressible tenderness.”
“It’s true,” the prince replied, “that I also found consolation in contemplating and kissing the portrait of the adorable Anemone a thousand times a day.”
At the same time, the prince took out the portrait and showed it to me. Gods, what was my astonishment!
Friend reader, I have not prepared you at all for this incident, but it is true that at the time, I was not expecting it myself, so your surprise will be no greater than mine. I believed that I recognized the portrait of my sister, the infanta Fan Férédine. It is true that she appeared to be extraordinarily embellished, but in sum, they were her features and her entire physiognomy, with the consequence that I would not have hesitated for a moment to believe that it was her, it I had not seen the impossibility clearly.
I was absolutely sure that on departing for Romancia I lad left my sister the infanta at the court of Fan Férédia with my mother, Queen Fan-Férédine. In any case, my sister had never been called Princess Anemone. Thus, I thought I ought to regard that resemblance quite simply as an effect of chance. I could not help, however, telling the great paladin about the thought that had come to my mind at the sight of the portrait.
“That’s admirable,” he replied, “for at that very moment, observing you more closely myself, I thought I perceived in you striking features of resemblance with the brother of my princess; so, if she resembles your sister, I can assure you that you resemble her brother very closely, except that you are better looking, and have a nobler and more amiable air.”
“Oh, given that,” I said to him, “I’m tempted to believe that there is enchantment in this, or some hidden mystery, for I also find, on looking at you closely, that you resemble so closely a young man of my acquaintance who is in love with my sister that I could easily have mistaken you for him if you were not incomparably more handsome, better built physically and a great paladin as well, whereas he is a simple cavalier. But,” I said, interrupting the conversation, “it seems to me that I perceive a kind of city or grand habitation two or three leagues away.”
“Yes,” he said, “that’s where we’re going to stay. You’ll see curious things there.”
XII. On the workers, trades and manufactures
of Romancia.
We arrived, therefore, at the entrance to a long and magnificent avenue planted with orange trees pomegranates and myrtles, mingled with charming flowering bushes. There we descended from our grasshoppers, which took their leave of us, and we advanced, following the avenue all the way to the habitation.
“The place we’re about to enter,” Prince Zazaraph told me, “isn’t a city, properly speaking, since there are only workers and shops here, but you’ll doubtless find satisfaction in exploring its various quarters, and it’s an object worthy of the curiosity of newcomers.”
“Oh!” I said. “Of what species are they, these workers?”
“You’re going to see for yourself,” he replied, “but I want to give you a general idea beforehand. As all those who inhabit Romancia always find themselves provided with all that is necessary for their subsistence, without them even taking the trouble to think about it, you ought to deduce that the workers of the land don’t amuse themselves making cloth, canvas, furniture, bread or flour. Their occupation is much milder, and there are different kinds of them: threaders, blowers, embroiderers, menders, illuminators, makers of magic lanterns, exhibitors of curiosities and a few others.”
“You’re naming métiers there,” I said, “of which I can’t quite see the usage in this land.”
“I’ll explain them to you,” he retorted. “What we call threaders here are workers who were once quite common. Such people assemble twenty or thirty trivia from various places, which they have the skill of aggregating and stitching together, and that’s their work done.
“Blowers, by contrast, only take one of those petty trivia, but they have the art of inflating it, stretching it by blowing into it, rather like children with soap bubbles, with the result that they make something large out of material that is almost nothing in itself. As you can imagine, those things aren’t very solid, but they amuse idle minds nevertheless. Women and children, especially, love to see those little bubbles floating in the air. But it’s true that they only have a momentary sp
lendor, and one doesn’t remember them the next day.
“The work of embroiderers is another kind. They import a few rare and curious morsels from some foreign land, which they ornament with an embroidery of flowing design, which leaves almost nothing of the backcloth visible.
“Menders are less ingenious. Their entire art consists of giving an appearance of newness to things that are already old and worn; it is, however, that species of workers that is in greatest number today.
“True painters are very rare here, but in recompense we have admirable illuminators who are employed in illuminating with the most brilliant colors the portraits, figures or scenes of the imagination. It is necessary not to ask the people for accurate portraits or depictions of the real; that is not their métier; but no one understands like them the art of charging a scene with red and white, rather like German dolls, and the only thing for which one can reproach them is that all their portraits are alike.
“Lanterners, or makers of magic lanterns, are also workers held in highly esteem. They are so called because the products they make resemble kinds of magic lanterns in which one sees the most incredible things in the world: towers of bronze, columns of diamond, rivers of fire, chariots hitched to birds or fish, and monstrous giants.
Funestine and Other Adventures in Romancia Page 16