The Superman was excited. “I want to see you in this costume, neophyte. Put it on immediately!”
“In front of you?”
“In front of me.”
She looked at him coldly. She found him seemingly abstracted; she distinguished something troubling and cruel in the laughter gurgling in his throat. She understood that there was no resisting him, and would have liked her character still have had the strength to do so. Assisted by Carabella, she took off her costume in order to put on the new one.
When she was adorned, more sumptuously than a queen in her sacred mantle, Caresco bounded toward her.
“Don’t move!”
She thought that he was about to grab her, so violent was the desire transparent in the crease on his forehead. He did nothing of the sort. The Superman contented himself with applying the two poles of his psychometer to the young woman’s forehead and interrogating the needles.
“Seventy-six!” he murmured. “Only seventy-six! She defends herself, that child! Have my prescriptions been neglected, then? Let’s see, neophyte, confess: yesterday, did Philoxénie not tame you? What do you have in your soul, to resist thus?”
His furious eyes overwhelmed her. He was astonished to see that she did not lower her head, and that audacity, acting upon his mind, made him calm down almost immediately.
“Let’s go! I’ll take you. You’re the mistress today, since I’m the master. Am I not all that I wish? I’m the Superman. If I wished, I could be the Other!”
Without further explanation, he put his arm around her waist, in front of two rows of prostrate lictors showing their symbolic crosses. Powerful harmonies burst forth again, and the artificial thunder exploded at the same time.
A magnificent airplane, entirely decorated with gems shining like as many suns was awaiting them on the third floor terrace. Behind it, hovering in mid-air with the slow movements of propellers, huge flyers that did not want to land, there was a pompous file of a hundred other craft, adopting the forms of the most various birds, ranging from the craziest fantasy to the most sincere reality: the potentate’s retinue. All around, thousand of private balloons, smaller and infinite in hue, were coming and going, spreading their wings, filled with people cheering the Superman, delighted by the windfall that was showing them the Master in broad daylight. They were soon so numerous that the ground was darkened by them.
After taking his place facing Miss Mary in the vast gilded nacelle, Caresco soon paid no further attention to the Redlander. He tormented his brown beard and tugged the points of his moustache. Succeeding in pulling out a hair therefrom, he studied it for a long time, placing it in front of the luminous background of the sky, and then swallowed it with a kind of gluttonous joy. After that, he worked and made notes. His hand ran hastily over a writing-desk disposed on his knees.
The young woman noticed the eccentricity of his writing, whose lines always sloped upwards, and whose hieroglyphs, under the uncoordination of thought and gesture, were overladen with implausible flourishes. She was frightened by his strange attitude and searched around her for a powerful protectress. She saw no one but servants, greeting the presumably-customary mime without astonishment and murmuring, with compunction: “The Superman is working! Glory to the Superman!” That reassured her, and she turned her gaze toward the immensity, which an admirable sun was causing to vibrate with joy.
Almost at the same moment, Zéphirin Choumaque, with a scroll of papers in his hand, was walking back and forth at an even pace on a lawn whose verdure, circumscribed at the rear by a crown of marvelous cedars extended forwards to the steps of an amphitheater naturally carved in red porphyry.
The philosopher was awaiting events, the most imminent of which—one that he envisaged with a certain anxiety—was soon to be lecturing on the topic of “Happy peoples have no history.” Thinking about his speech, he was worried. But was it only the contradiction of having to discuss a proposition totally opposed to his ideas that was importing a hint of dolor into his pensive blue gaze? Was it not because he was remembering the Superman’s frightful butcheries, Miss Mary’s unconscious actions, and the fact that all those symptoms revealed upheavals to come, that he was putting such scant urgency into throwing over his shoulder the gold-trimmed violet fabric of his Roman toga, which was trailing behind him, brushing the blades of grass?
Why deck myself up like this? he thought, grumpily. Is it really useful to dress like a Roman of the Decadence in order to sustain bad arguments? Could the Superman not have spared me this masquerade? Will my unexperimented movements not end up leading me to ridicule, and is this really the means of earning the copious couch of Madame Môme again?
Meanwhile, the amphitheater was filing up. A languorous wave of mauve-clad courtesans arrived, who sat down, sucking sugary confections. Small aircraft, light and gracious, were fluttering and landing, and were then parked under the cover of the woods by slaves. They were bringing the purple robes and curly beard of sterile husbands, the pale blue adornments and blonde faces of fecund mothers, the vigorous grace of adolescents in green doublets, sowers in orange tunics and robust virgins in pink peplums. A band of flying children soon landed and scattered.
All of them came and went, chatting and laughing, in an iridescence of rich fabrics, under the glory of a warm ten o’clock sunlight, of which light breezes provided by the temperature service and perfumed with violet further accentuated the softness. In the distance, the green stages of the mountains were outlined, infinitely calm and restful, to fuse in a trail of pearly with the blue jot of infinity.
By the next tube, yet another society arrived: Mirror-of-Smiles pirouetting around Dr. Hymen, whose side-whiskers he was tickling with a cane, which he also used to brush the nap of his hat the wrong way; Gilded-Gaze and his wife Veloutine; Marjah, who sat down next to Philoxénie, patiently sculpting a piece of wood; and then more people—mostly women, for the men preferred the tricks of a conjuror whose amusing science was filling another corner of the mountain.
Marcel, under the gaze of fecund women admiring his stature and his perfect legs clad in orange silk, was running his gaze over the steps, trying to find Miss Mary, and saddened by not being able to discover her there.
Marius and Madame Môme appeared, arm in arm. The renovator of the fresco, his beard divided into three points to amuse everyone, his painter’s costume tightly laced, knitted about his legs. A joyful murmur saluted his entrance, approving his longstanding liaison with the High Priestess.
A sack surmounted by a round, sealed head was brought; it was the Thought-reader, who was dropped like a packet behind Choumaque.
The half-man’s pedestal silently backed up against a tree-trunk.
Dr. Hymen took his place in the front row and went to sleep.
The goose from the Brain had also come, and was jabbering noisily.
Madame Môme gratified the orator with a kiss blown from the tips of her pink-painted fingernails.
The latter, understanding that his eloquence was awaited, hitched up his belt and began.
“Mesdames, Messieurs...”
But a disapproving “Oh!” greeted his first words. At the same time, Marius, by means of a pantomime of his long arms, signified to him that it was necessary to salute before raising one’s voice. Choumaque complied with good grace; he accomplished a perilous somersault, getting tangled up in his toga, which caused an outburst of jovial laughter and exclamations, with which the porphyry steps reverberated.
As soon as he was back on his feet, he resumed.
“Mesdames and Messieurs, I shall inflict punishments on those who do not respect the professor...” He was so confused that he thought he was once again in front of the dunces of the Pension Frontispice. As most members of the audience were unaware of the meaning of the word “punish,” they thought it was a witty quip, and shut up.
Then he sat down on a mound and began to sustain the proposition that “happy peoples have no history.”
With fine gestures emergi
ng from his violet sleeves, before the polychromatic and silent assembly whose eyes widened, surprised by such language, he made his speech. He had recovered possession of his ideas and praised the new life, the one in which the people blessed by Caresco had only to be born, to enjoy living, without decrepitude, under a sky favored by the science of the master. Truly, the inspiration for the speech was furnished by the spectacle itself, but the satisfied and flourishing attitude of all those young, beautiful people on the steps satiated with substance and amour, whose indolence allowed them to be lulled by his voice.
Could a more perfect felicity reign? Could one worry for even a moment about obscure ethics when, without disturbances, without essential struggles, all the desires of the senses and a restricted mentality were profusely contented; when it was sufficient for any citizen to desire a beautiful body for it to be instantly offered to his lust; a good meal, for him to find it within arm’s reach; good sleep, for him to draw tranquility from ever-open wells of fluids and to spend it beneath sumptuous shelters; hygienic garments—which were superfluous beneath that ideal sky—for him to see them laid out, as if by magic, at the foot of his bed in the morning? Dressing oneself, sleeping, eating and loving—the four primordial exigencies of existence—were delightfully easy to accomplish to one’s fill on the clement island.
Elsewhere, to realize needs, peoples cut one another’s throats, and citizens oppressed one another. Elsewhere, tears, blood and dolor flowed, and from their waves, rare parcels of happiness emerged. Weeping, bleeding, suffering: three words that the favored subjects of Eucrasia had the extraordinary good fortune not to know!
And Choumaque said all that, stunning himself with his words in order to persuade himself, for he had just perceived, almost behind him, but within his visual field, the leather sack surmounted by a round glabrous ball with only one orifice, the flaccid horror of the Thought-reader, the spy of his soul.
But the people believed his speech. Backed up against its tree, the captain’s pedestal resounded with the applause struck by the back-scratcher that the half-man’s single arm was waving. Courtesans clapped their hands without understanding very well. Mirror-of-Smiles, a pink and ender scamp, wrenched flowers from the bosom of a fecund mother in order to throw them to the orator, without yielding to the reproaches of Marjah, who was telling him to be quiet. Gilded-Gaze, Veloutine and Philoxénie approved vocally.
But Marcel was dreaming, and if Marius and Madame Môme applauded too, it was with less enthusiasm than everyone else, for, having known the other life, the one to which Choumaque had made allusion, they thought that their happiness was too regularly perfect. Meanwhile, Dr. Hymen’s hat had just fallen off on to the pendants on his abdomen. The concierge of eternity was profoundly asleep. A tiger came to lick him, gently.
The orator was about to continue when there was a great stir, and clamors rose up, all the standing bodies stamping their feet, in response to a celestial apparition.
“The Superman! The Superman!”
The potentate’s airplane circled magnificently and then landed. Caresco got down, holding Miss Mary, draped in her scintillating gems, by the hand. The slaves had had the time to trace a path of violet petals for them. Around them, women emptied their perfume-sacs. Overhead, flying boys threw flowers, more of which tumbled from the aerial cohort. Polychromatic bodies were prostrated as they passed by, getting up again thereafter and celebrate their enthusiasm in awkward movements, confining their delirium.
The sunlight gilded the cortege, making gems scintillate and metals flash. Radiating over the spectators, it set the amphitheater, now full to capacity, ablaze.
“Continue!” order Caresco, sitting down, almost kneeling, at Miss Mary’s feet, having not let go of her hand. On her part, neither reluctance nor repulsion was perceptible, although her gaze sought refuge in Marcel’s direction.
Then, a great dolor was hollowed out amid all that exultant joy. The young man, struck in the heart, contemplated the new couple with black rage. His trembling hands seemed to be searching for an instrument of vengeance. The inert, as if unconsciously possessed, state that he divined in Miss Mary; the sentiment of his impotence to separate the despot from his prey; the docility with which that prey submitted to the empire of the Superman, while appearing to demand a protection from elsewhere—his, he understood—all those various demonstrations against him and in his favor, disconcerted him.
He could not succeed in clarifying the psychology of that floating soul, which seemed torn between two suggestions, which seemed, at least, no longer to be opposing resistance to Caresco, and at the same time reaching out to the companion with whom she had arrived on the island. Those multiple impressions tortured the young man with such a sentiment of jealousy that, unconsciously, he twisted the arm of Gilded-Gaze, who was sitting next to him. The sterile husband considered him in amazement; he had never seen an intimate storm translated with such brutality.
Choumaque sensed his friend’s palpitating soul reaching out to him, and experienced a great compassion for him. Oh, how readily he would have given his own joys, the caresses of Madame Môme, and his philosophy, to soothe the hurt of his cherished pupil! Immediately, however, he thought: Evidently, he’s suffering—but how much better appreciated the return of his happiness will be, when I have returned his beloved to him, when their two intoxications fuse! Every strong room has its weak point, every wall its crack, And have we not intelligences in the room, and stones in the wall? Will Môme and Marius not help us, in this circumstance?
Divided by these ideas, contrary to the thesis that he was sustaining—which pursued him, involuntarily—when he resumed his speech, he soon altered the course of his argument. Certainly, happy people had no history, but those who had a history were even happier, for struggle, effort and energy were the conditions of true felicity, they alone set its value. To love, it was necessary to desire; to eat with a good appetite, to be hungry; and to suffer cold, to know the joy of being dressed.
To speak thus in front of the despot might have been an act of incredible audacity, which could have won the orator delicate operations with scant delay, taking him to the bloody table in order to be subjected to the resections of the human monad. Fortunately for Choumaque, no one was listening to him except for the Thought-reader, whose inertia at that moment affirmed that the philosopher really had unveiled the depths of his soul. But Caresco, holding hands with Miss Mary, was allowing his passion for victory to seethe; Dr. Hymen was asleep; Marius and Madame Môme were stimulating their imminent sensuality in hushed whispers; the half-man captain had deserted his tree to roll toward the airplanes; and the mischievous Mirror-of-Smiles was sticking dead leaves into the curly hair of Marjah, who was busy sculpting a piece of wood into phallus.
As for the rest of the amphitheater—Gilded-Gaze, Veloutine, Philoxénie, the sterile husbands, the fecund mothers, the languid courtesans and the impish gitons—they were chatting amiably, laughing singing, playing with fans, caressing tame animals, sucking pastilles, rolling knucklebones…with the result that, when Choumaque had finished, no one budged. Vexed, the philosopher was obliged to shout: “I’ve finished!” and even to accomplish a few pirouettes to signify the conclusion of his lecture.
Immediately, the people rose to their feet and cheered Caresco. The latter had stood up too, drawing the foreign woman to his bosom.
“I’m going to leave you, virgin, but let me tell you, before I go, how much charm your presence has added to this lesson. What odor, more intoxicating than all my alchemies, expands from your bosom; and what mirages, more profound than the extent of the skies, shine in the purity of your somber eyes! Oh, be the queen of this land, the first woman, with me, the first man! Will you not you abandon, therefore, the desire to go away, to return to your Red Land, to your great fool of a brother and your stupid peasants? Native soil, fatherland—what inept concepts! Here, you see, I am the god. Listen to those cheers! They will acclaim you too, whenever you wish.”
Troubled, she made no reply. But at the words Red Land, the evocation of the glorious past, a flash of anger, of shame and of revolt, the last spark of an almost-extinct ire, shot through her. And what drew her away from Caresco threw her toward Marcel. She darted such a tearful glance toward the young man that the potentate could not misinterpret it. He gasped.
What? It’s him? It’s for the Sower that I’ll have labored? It’s to lead this Virgin to Nature that I’ll have created my serum, and my Quintessence of Happiness, and my Enchanting Gas! Truly, it’s too ridiculous…extraordinarily ridiculous...
And he did indeed, laugh, ferociously. But soon, changing his expression, he shoved the young woman away, violently. With foam on his lips, he fled toward his airplane, knocking over the crowd, striking the backs of prostrated slaves, tearing the long beards of the men who adored him. The people, seized by astonishment, remained mute. The Superman had never been seen so out of control. Hostile gazes turned toward the foreign woman, and toward Marcel, who had just received her in his arms.
CHAPTER XVIII
When Caresco entered the cavern into which no one but him ever came, he felt extremely weary, as if the enormous mass of rock accumulated above the lair—the two thousand meters of the Mount of Venus—were weighing on his back. He shook his shoulders in order to shrug off that oppression.
For thirty years, since the day when, on discovering that chasm, he had been seduced by its grim extent and had fitted it out in order to undertake mysterious labors there, every time he crossed the threshold, the same crushing sensation took possession of him, and the same gesture of pride caused him to raise his head, in defiance of all the forces of nature that he had overcome, and which still wanted to dominate him.
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