Ever Smaller

by Albert Bleunard

  There, seated around a table, while drinking cups of tea, we were able to talk at our ease without being an object of curiosity to our neighbors.

  There is no need to repeat here the details of our conversation with Monsieur Williamson. Suffice it to say that he really was the donor of the magic pictures. Interrogated as to the actual provenance of the pictures, he told us that he had obtained them directly from a fakir who still lived in the environs of Madras, named Narayanha.

  “Do you think,” asked M. Varlet, “that this fakir would be willing to tell us his secret—in return, of course for a considerable payment?”

  “No,” the officer replied, without hesitation. “I can tell you that definitely, for I’ve done the experiment. Fakirs don’t sell their secrets at any price; they care little for money and are ardent in their faith. People have tried everything to corrupt them, but have always failed. When one interrogates them, they are content to reply, invariably, that they are only doing the bidding of the spirits.”

  Fakirs, Williamson told us, are simply sorcerers who transmit strange secrets from generation to generation. They do not wish to reveal those secrets to anyone, because that would lose them their influence over the people, who worship them as demigods.

  “Then we shall have to give up on discovering the secret of the magic canvas,” said M. Varlet.

  “I think so,” the officer replied “In any case, you can still try. Perhaps you’ll succeed, where I failed. For myself, I can only tell you one thing from which you might profit, if the opportunity presents itself. I’ve heard it said that in order to fabricate his magic canvases, Narayanha makes use of a certain green liquid.”

  “Do you know its composition?” I asked.

  “No,” said Monsieur Williamson, “I’ve never had it in my hands—I’ve never even seen it. It’s simply a rumor.”

  Monsieur Williamson gave us the exact address of the fakir Narayanha, who lived near Madras.

  “Before we part, gentlemen,” he said to us, “promise me that you’ll keep me up to date with your research. You know that the subject interests me a great deal.”

  We promised, and we took our leave of him, after having thanked him.

  Two days later, a ship carried us to Madras, on the coast of Coromandel. We had to endure a violent storm a few days before arriving in the port. The sea in the vicinity of Madras is often inhospitable. The port itself is unsafe, and ships caught there by the cyclones that are frequent ion that coast of India are unfortunate.

  Madras is a large city, which extends along the sea shore. That’s all I can tell you about it, for, as soon as we had disembarked, we ran to the railway station, we were in such a hurry to see our fakir.

  The latter lived in Tiroutani, a few leagues west of Madras, on the line that links that southern Indian metropolis to Bombay.

  On the way, we had obtained some information about Tiroutani. We had been told that it was an important center of worship, that there was a temple there consecrated to Vishnu, built on the summit of an exceedingly high peak, and that the temple was visited by at least 100,000 pilgrims every year.

  As soon as we arrived, we set off in quest of the fakir Narayanha. The first people to whom we addressed ourselves—people of European origin—replied that they had never heard of the man.

  “We need to ask the natives,” my companion told me, after a few fruitless attempts. “The fakirs must only be known to the underclass.”

  At that moment, a Hindu, dressed very lightly, according to local custom, passed nearby. We asked him, in English, whether he knew a fakir named Narayanha. Fortunately, the individual knew a little of the language of hi nation’s conquerors. In a jargon difficult to comprehend, he told us that the fakir lived at the foot of the mountain on which the temple stood.

  We therefore set out for the mountain, which rose up proudly in front of us. Having arrived at the base, we perceived a few miserable wooden huts covered in coconut-palm leaves. We went into the first one we came to.

  Great God! What poverty, what filth! The hut contained nothing but a bald, emaciated old man, clad only in a few shreds of cloth. When we came in he rose to his feet, with difficulty, almost irritated by the sight of Europeans invading his dwelling.

  At the mention of Narayanha’s name, he came out of the hut and pointed with his finger at another hovel, the poorest of all, situated 100 paces from his own. We covered that distance swiftly and went in.

  The fakir, sitting on a mat with his legs crossed in the Oriental manner, plunged in a torpor that must have been religious ecstasy, did not seem to notice our presence. Our entrance did not provoke the slightest movement. His eyes, staring like a somnambulist’s, did not even perceive us.

  “Narayanha!” I said, in a loud voice.

  On hearing his name, the fakir seemed to wake up, and replied in English, in a dull voice: “What do you want with me?”

  “Narayanha,” I said, “we know that you’re a powerful fakir, who knows how to summon spirits…”

  “No,” he interjected. “The spirits come when they wish; fakirs cannot command them.”

  “We know,” I continued, “that you gave Captain Williamson some magic pictures…”

  “I don’t know Captain Williamson,” the fakir interjected again.

  “However,” said M. Varlet, speaking in his turn, with a sort of concentrated irritation, “you gave the magic pictures to someone.”

  “I have never given anything to anyone,” the fakir replied, still in the same slow, dull voice.

  I was beginning to get impatient too. I could see anger rising to M. Varlet’s face.

  “We’ll never get anything by this means,” I said to my companion, rapidly, in French. “The animal doesn’t want to say anything, that’s obvious. We need to employ trickery.”

  “What shall we do?”

  At that moment, my eyes, having adapted to the semi-darkness of the hut, perceived a bottle full of a green-tinted liquid on a wooden shelf.

  “Let’s get out,” I said to my companion. “I need to talk to you in private immediately.”

  We went out of the fakir’s hut momentarily.

  “What is it?” asked M. Varlet, with an astonished expression.

  “The green liquor!” I exclaimed—but in a voice sufficiently muffled for the fakir to be unable to hear. “The green liquor! I’ve seen it—it’s there, on a shelf.”

  “Very well,” said M. Varlet. “We have to buy it from him.”

  “Futile,” I replied. “He’d never sell it. We have to take it from him.”

  “But that would be stealing!”

  “Too bad—it’s the only means of extracting the man’s secret. Otherwise, you won’t get anything out of the brute.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “We have to get him away, under some pretext or other,” I replied. “During his absence, one of us will come back and grab the bottle.”

  This rapid conversation had only taken a few seconds. We went back into the fakir’s dwelling. The latter had not made any movement during our absence. I made sure, with a rapid glance, that he green liquor was still in the same place.

  “Narayanha,” I said, “will you take us to the temple of Vishnu? On the way, we’ll talk about what brought us to you.”

  The fakir got up and went out of the hut, simply saying: “Follow me.”

  With a rapid gesture, I reached out, seized the bottle, and put it in my pocket, where it was perfectly concealed. The fakir was already out of the hut, and had seen nothing.

  In spite of his extreme thinness, Narayanha rapidly climbed the path that led to the summit of the mountain. We had difficulty keeping up with him.

  He took us into the temple. It was very poor, in spite of the gifts that the pilgrims brought every year.

  I had told the fakir that we would acquaint him with the objective of our visit. I wanted to keep the promise and I invented some fable or other.

  “Narayanha,” I said to him, as we came o
ut of the temple, “Would you demonstrate your power over the spirits to us?”

  “I cannot,” he replied. “The spirits will not come today.”

  “What is it necessary to do to make them obliging?” I asked.

  “Nothing—they will not come.”

  The fakir was obviously ill-disposed toward us.

  “Let’s go back down, then,” I said.

  “I shall stay here and pray until nightfall,” he said. “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, Narayanha,” I said, giving him a gold coin.

  “That’s too much,” said the fakir, throwing the coin away.

  I picked up the gold that had been so disdainfully refused, and gave him a silver coin. He took it without saying thank you.

  An hour later, we left Tiroutani and the locomotive transported us at full speed toward Bombay.

  Now that we had achieved our objective, we wanted, before returning to France, to send a few weeks on the west coast of India.

  “It’s wrong, what we did back there,” M. Varlet told me, when we were comfortably installed in our compartment. “In sum, we didn’t have the right to rob the fakir.”

  “I recognize that,” I replied, “but it was the only means of getting his secret out of him. You saw the brutish state no which the man has fallen. We’d never have got anything out of him, even for a high price. I know as well as you do how immoral the maxim is that the end justifies the means, and that it ought to be condemned by honest men, but in our case, you must admit that we could not have done otherwise. After all, we haven’t stolen very much from the fakir. It will be easy for him to make more of his liquor.”

  “As long as it’s the right one,” said my companion. “How do we know that you’ve taken the liquor with which the fakir prepared his magic pictures?”

  “The same doubt has occurred to me,” I said. “So, as soon as we arrive in Bombay, I think it’s necessary to carry out experiments to assure as to the efficacy of the liquor. With a canvas that we’ll steep in the liquid, and our photographic apparatus, we’ll soon know what it is that we have.”

  “Are we going all the way to Bombay now?” asked M. Varlet.

  “No,” I aid. “I’ve bought tickets for Poona, a station situated a little before Bombay. You told me that you had a strong desire to visit the curious caves of Karla.”

  “That’s true—I’d forgotten that. My head’s still spinning after our visit to Narayanha.”

  After an entire night spent on the railway, we arrived at Poona station at about noon the following day. Immediately, furnished with a guide, we headed for the caves.

  During the journey, I thought I observed that we were being followed by a Hindu, who looked like a beggar. I didn’t think anything of it, because tourists are accompanied by people in quest of small amounts of money everywhere in the world. I didn’t even mention it to my companion.

  The caves of Karla have been transformed since remote antiquity into a subterranean sanctuary. It is the most remarkable in India, being the most extensive and the one most frequented by devotees—but the sanctuary of Karla is primarily visited for its architecture and its works of art. To get into it, we had to climb half way up the side of the hill beneath which the caves extend.

  The appearance of the grottoes is truly gripping. The vaults of the principal hall are supported by 15 octagonal columns, whose capital are surmounted by sculptures representing humans, elephants, horses and other animals in various postures. What strange artistry, and how little it resembles our European architecture! We could not weary of admiring the bas-reliefs and carved balconies that ornamented the immense hall.

  Our curiosity was attracted most of all, however by the three elephants carved in the rock itself, which seemed to be supporting the entire weight of the vault. M. Varlet had drawn away with the guide into another part of the hall, and I remained alone, with my back to a column, in order to study more closely the form and dimensions given by the architect to one of the elephants.

  I thought I was alone, and could not hear anything in the distance but the sound of the voices of my companion and the guide.

  Suddenly, a man emerged from behind the column on which I was leaning, whom I recognized at a glance as the Hindu who had followed us as far as the foot of the hill. At the same moment, I felt myself struck full in the chest by a violent thrust of a dagger.

  I uttered a scream, in response to which M. Varlet and the guide came running.

  “I’ve just been murdered!” I cried.

  The guide immediately launched himself in pursuit of the murderer, while M. Varlet stayed with me to render assistance.

  “Where are you wounded?” he asked me, anxiously.

  “The blow struck me full in the chest,” I said, “in the region of the heart.”

  I was trembling in every limb—not from pain, for I did not feel any, but from emotion.

  M. Varlet rapidly opened my clothing to uncover the wound, and examined the skin attentively.

  “There’s no trace of a wound!” he exclaimed. “God be praised! Your coat is ripped, though, directly in front of the heart. So what’s happened?”

  At that moment, the guide came back. He had run through the caves in every direction, but without result.

  Evidently, having struck the blow, believing me dead, the Hindu had immediately taken flight.

  “I understand!” M. Varlet exclaimed, continuing to examine my clothing while the guide informed us of his fruitless search. “I’ve discovered how you miraculously escaped death.”

  “What happened?” I asked, calmer now that I knew that I wasn’t wounded.

  “The dagger,” my companion said, “was deflected by the bottle containing the liquor, which, by a providential chance, you had placed in your coat pocket.

  Indeed, no more doubt was possible. I examined the rip in my clothing and acquired the certainty that, but for the bottle, I would have been fatally injured. The dagger had struck the glass, and the point, sliding over the hard and rounded surface, had followed a direction parallel to my body, tearing my jacket and waistcoat vertically. As for the bottle, I took it from my pocket intact.

  What could the motive for that attempted murder have been? Newly arrived in the country, knowing no one, I could have enemies there. After considering all the possible hypotheses, M. Varlet and I arrived at the conclusion that I had been the victim of a resemblance to someone on whom the Hindu had wanted to take vengeance.

  That same evening we caught a train that took us to Bombay. Having arrived in that city, I was finally tranquil—for, while we remained in Poona, I still feared a further assassination attempt.

  Our intention was to stay in Bombay for a few days before heading further northwards. As I’ve already said, we wanted to verify the photographic properties of the green liquor stolen from the fakir.

  The liquor was so precious to me that I had not wanted to be separated from it by putting it in my suitcase. The bottle being small enough, I was still carrying it in my jacket pocket. That circumstance, as has just been seen, saved my life.

  The entirety of our first day was devoted to visiting the city. Bombay is not built on the continent; in reality, it is an island, although now attached to the mainland by a large dyke. Originally, Bombay was situated at the extremity of a little archipelago, but as it had expanded, the arms of the sea had been filled in, linking the islands to the continent, hence the present appearance of the city and its surroundings.

  The city looks superb. Its edifices, without being as sumptuous as those of Calcutta, are similarly very rich. The European city interested us infinitely less than the Hindu city. The latter, with its singular wooden houses and its pagodas, whose roofs rose up above clumps of coconut palms, is extremely original. At every step, and at every street corner, there is a new perspective, some sight from which the eye only tears itself away with regret. The movement of the population, which is very various, the costumes of the different races that mingle there, and the customs of domes
tic life, all contributed to capturing our imagination.

  At dusk, we went back to the hotel, fatigued by our excursion through the various quarters of the city.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll rest,” my companion said. “It’s absolutely necessary to experiment with the green liquor.”

  “Tomorrow, without fail,” I replied.

  When I opened my suitcase to take out the items I needed, I was surprised to find it in disorder. I was, however, sure of having tidied it before leaving the hotel. I told M. Varlet about my discovery, and he made haste to open his own.

  “My suitcase has been searched too!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had opened it.

  To open our other suitcases was the work of a moment. All of them had been searched and were in the most complete disorder.

  “Our photographic apparatus has been stolen!” cried M. Varlet.

  “That’s not possible!” I cried, in my turn.

  “Look—the suitcase is completely empty!”

  Thus, there was no doubt about it; we had been the victims of theft. Without losing a minute, we went to inform the hotel manager of our discovery. He came to check our affirmations personally, and made enquiries of all the employees. No one had been seen entering our room. The key had remained on its hook all day, in the room occupied by the hotel manager.

  What should we do? Complain to the police? They would not take any trouble over so unimportant a theft. Leave the hotel? That was simpler, and we did so the same evening.

  I must confess, though, that I was beginning to think that we did not have the same security in the beautiful land of India that we have in our old France. The most annoying, and also the most obvious result of the theft was that it deprived us of the mean of experimenting with our liquor.

  “You see,” M. Varlet said, “that your theft from the fakir is bringing us bad luck. Your theft led to a second. It’s a punishment from on high.”

  “You’re forgetting, my dear friend,” I replied, “that I owe my life to the liquor. Thus, there is compensation, since my theft initially brought us good luck.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I think it’s very fortunate that I always keep the bottle on me, though,” I added. “Otherwise, it might have been stolen from one of the suitcases.”