The Aerial Valley

by Brian Stableford

  The person distinguished by Monsieur Renou had a beautiful face imprinted with a hint of melancholy analogous to her lover’s character, but, raised in the habitude of our labors and our pleasures, the superior intelligence with which Providence had endowed her only rendered more appropriate to serve as a model. The two lovers became close, declared themselves, and were satisfied by their mutual confidence.

  Their union seemed to be consecrated under favorable auspices, for, in the early days, the husband, inseparable from his wife, appeared to have renounced his solitary tastes, and reentered the bosom of the society from which he had banished himself. When the charm of the senses had partly dissipated, however, character resumed its empire; his wife, who adored him, followed him into his solitude, and, either by amity or the attraction of novelty, always very powerful in women, a few others joined her.

  Monsieur Renou’s natural penchant for a retired life had been fortified since his earliest childhood by a passion for study and rural life. When circumstances had introduced him into society he had immediately lost his taste for it, on seeing that the science of his books bore no fruit there, and often only attracted new lessons instead of eulogies. The misfortune of his birth completed the souring of his sprit. No longer wishing to live with humans, he thought that he might at least obtain their homage by pouring his fortune into the bosom of society. He found a large number of ingrates and an even greater number of discontents; hence his profound misanthropy. The world, according to him, was only made up of madmen, imbeciles and the wicked.

  In quitting the earth, he had imagined that he was about to enter the celestial abode, but if he saw in us humans better than those from whom he had separated himself, he perceived nevertheless that we were not angels. From then on his head was completely lost, but, as he had a beautiful soul and a good deal of intelligence, he attempted to justify his system and his conduct, and, unfortunately, he had some success in that among women and young men.

  The governor and the Council, alarmed by the number of his proselytes, put to work all means of persuasion to bring Monsieur Renou back to reason. Above all, they represented to him the conditions to which he had agreed in order to live in their society, which he was essentially betraying in seeking to trouble its union and its peace, but he replied that he had never been able to alienate his liberty, that he consented to allow everyone the faculty of living as they wished, but that, in what only concerned his own person, he desired similarly to be able to act as seemed good to him.

  People obtained from him the bad example of antisocial conduct, and the offer was made, in order to give more scope to the independence of which he was so jealous, to lower him to the earth that he had quit, and even to leave him his wife for a companion, provided that she consented freely to go with him. He replied that he had not yet decided, and that when he did, he would find a means of leaving the Valley without anyone’s aid. After those final words he withdrew abruptly.

  It had already become commonplace that in his fits of melancholy he would disappear for an entire day, but in the evening he would return to his cabin. This time he did not come back. His wife, desolate, wandered around all night, calling to him in vain. The next day, the governor, taking pity on her pain, set forth with several of our brothers to search for him. Finally, after long investigations, one of them perceived a piece of paper suspended from a branch of a tree on the rampart overlooking Spain. This is what the paper contained:

  The dissolution of my body to organize its substance in a new form is a law of nature, the conserver of movement and life. I am advancing that metamorphosis by a few moments, because my existence is a burden to me. But I ought not to leave my remains in this celestial abode; that would be too poor a recognition of the bounty of the angels who have received me here. Let them return to the accursed earth from which I came, to give birth to another being. If there is any justice, I will have sufficiently acquitted its portion of misfortunes; and there will only be, after my stormy life, serene days to savor.

  After that fatal writing, we had no doubt that the poor fellow had thrown himself from the height of the rock. That conjecture turned to certainty when, on looking down, we perceived a cadaver at the bottom of the precipice. A few shepherds surrounded it; we called to them and threw them some money, indicating to them by signs that they should take the sad remains away and give them a sepulcher.

  Monsieur Renou’s letter revealed a frightful secret; it evidently proved that its author was of the sect of materialists, who think that the senses of humans contain all their existence, and that nothing remains of them after the dissolution of their physical envelope.

  How can a man who does not believe in the existence of the soul, nor, in consequence, in that of God, nevertheless be good, compassionate, charitable and loving? How with the most decided system of egotism, was he nevertheless not only the best friend of humans, but also the most zealous protector of animals? That contradiction can only be explained by supposing both an exquisite sentiment and a false reasoning, a great sensibility and a bad logic, an excellent heart and a mind gone astray. Monsieur Renou had one by nature; the other was the result of his misfortunes.

  It would have been the end of our institution of such a doctrine had propagated among us. We seek to elevate human beings, to spiritualize even those actions that seem to be the most dependent on matter; and the other system tends, on the contrary, to reduce them to the rank of brutes, to annihilate even the idea, so incomprehensible and spiritual, of God himself.

  However, it is so easy to degrade the firmest human being when one flatters his passions and his natural idleness, that it is not without reason that we feared the progress of that murderous doctrine. In fact, we perceived that a few young people were already reasoning instead of acting, smiling at our religious practices and amusing themselves instead of working.

  At first, the Council tried exhortations and the path of persuasion; they had no success. When it was certain that speech was futile, we had recourse to action. “You want to separate yourselves from our society,” we said; “you do not think or act as we do; you apparently believe yourselves to be wiser than your fathers; that is what the future will determine. In the meantime, as soon as you do not support our burdens, you ought not to share our benefits. In consequence, we declare from this moment that you are excluded from our community. Here is your portion of land and livestock; extract from them the product you judge to be appropriate, and live henceforth in your own fashion and as you intend.”

  Sociability is a prerogative of the human mind. Animals, concentrated solely in their own interest, cannot know the virtue that consists in the sacrifice of one’s own personal advantage to that of another, because their existence is entirely material, and there is nothing in them capable of transporting itself outside themselves and identifying with another being, of seeing and sensing with other organs than their own.

  Our innovators, therefore, in conformity with their doctrine, isolated themselves completely in their narrow sphere. Without laws, without religion, without any common principle, they were soon divided. They had separated themselves from us cheerfully; they came back sad and confused; in tears, they asked us to forget their errors and receive them once again into our society, the most difficult burdens of which they would oblige themselves to support in expiation of their sins. We extended our arms to them, as brothers who had momentarily gone astray.

  XVIII

  Those dangerous innovations were not the only ones produced by Monsieur Renou’s residence in our midst. We had not had any suspicion of that stranger, because our souls were pure and the long felicity that we had enjoyed had appeared to us to be unalterable. He had been penetrated with admiration for our mores, but although he had been keenly animated by the desire to do good, his mere conversation was capable of producing evil. People listened with avid curiosity to his accounts of the novelties of his homeland; the attention that was paid to those stories inflamed his imagination. The simplest things seem
ed to us to be admirable marvels; he became passionate in recounting them, and, doubtless without intending to do so, inspired the design nevertheless of adopting them. It is thus that a single drop of colored liquid poured into a large jug of water immediately communicates its color to it.

  One of the establishments of his homeland that obtained the particular suffrage of Monsieur Renou’s listeners was the division of wealth. The community established among us, the sharing that aligned all the inhabitants of the Valley irritated, from that moment on, those who felt endowed with some superiority of strength, talent or industry. If they had had their distinct property, they would have been able to enjoy their natural advantages. The community of wealth put the strong under the empire of the weak, the industrious under that of the idle, the man of talent in the dependency of the inept. Was that not a revolt against the law of nature? Was it not better to follow her inclination and allow a man distinguished by some superiority the disposition and employment of the particular favors that had been accorded to him? The society would find its profit therein, as the individual would find his satisfaction.

  A few sages replied that the society of the Valley, having no neighbors, and, in consequence, no rivals or enemies, had no need of talents to give it glamour, strength or glory; that those talents, born in the bosom of physical inequality, and favored and developed by political inequality, lacking subjects of exercise outside, would sow trouble and discord within; that they would destroy the equilibrium produced by the perfect equality of individuals, wealth and power; that they would give birth on the one hand to opulence, pride and despotism, and on the other to poverty, humiliation and servitude.

  Those representations were full of reason, but reason being no longer heeded, passion awoke all interests; the very people who, by virtue of their physical or mental weakness, would have been the first victims of change, solicited it with the ardor of blind ignorance.

  That conflict of opinions became further inflamed with every passing day, threatening the gravest consequences. The sole means of putting an end to it was to leave to the society itself the judgment of the quarrels that rose up in its bosom, to that effect to count all the votes, and to allow the greater number to triumph.

  That opinion was in favor of division. There was then a question of how the division ought to be made, and after some discussion it was decided that the division, of land as well as animals and other effects, would be made per head. It was agreed at the same time that the return to the former order of things would take place as soon as it was requested, and that it would similarly be by virtue of a majority vote.

  It is thus that, in all times and all lands, political revolutions, changes of government and administration, or even simply of ministry, have always presented in prospect a great attraction in the eyes of the people. Ancient history is inexhaustible on proofs of that verity. The imagination loves to stray into the vague obscurity that covers the future. If one has experienced some displeasure in the present situation, it is because the order of nature has been disturbed; it can be reestablished, one hopes, and one is convinced. However, the change so strongly desired has scarcely arrived than one begins to regret, bitterly, the estate from which one has emerged.

  The satisfaction of the inhabitants of the Valley was, at first, similarly unanimous. It seemed to them that they were entering for the first time into liberty. The robust, vigilant or industrious individuals were finally able to profit from the development of their particular faculties, and the idle, the feeble and the inept to enjoy the comforts of repose. Of those two species of people, two distinct classes were formed, one of which multiplied its means of existence beyond its needs, the other, more numerous, unable to produce enough to provide for the simple necessities of life.

  Both of them demanded the creation of a symbol of exchange; it was indispensable, especially for the latter class, that of paupers, who could only procure the subsistence that they needed by alienating their property. Gradually, therefore, the bulk of property passed into the hands of the laborious and the industrious. Then there was a very pronounced physical inequality, which soon gave birth to a mental inequality. The rich people, having an assured existence with an abundance of free time, employed that time in cultivating the minds of their children. Those who were reduced to the necessity of working in order to survive, could not enjoy that advantage. Thus, the superiority of fortune was supplemented by that of intelligence. That double power gave birth, on the one hand, to pride and despotism, and on the other to baseness, abjection and servitude.

  That would have been the end of the colony had it been more extensive and richer, or if it had been located on the earth neighboring other states with which it had been able to open communications and establish commerce, but in that virgin land, virtue was still energetic and personal interest had not been able to stifle it. The enriched owners had not been hardened; they often blushed at the augmentation of their fortunes. Natural justice rose up against circumstantial ambition. In brief, their enjoyment was troubled, as if they had had the sword of Damocles suspended above their heads.

  Artfully, the governor seized the moment. Thanks to his insinuations, the numerous class of the poor requested and obtained the convocation of a general assembly. Several of them appeared there in the most wretched state, and they all demanded loudly the revocation of the division of wealth and the reestablishment of the old community of property. There were a host of excellent reasons in favor of that opinion, but they were presented in a repulsive manner. Misery is less well able to express its needs the more sharply they are felt. Nevertheless, the most persuasive eloquence would not have obtained more success, if it had only had purely human motives to support it. So the governor, who had foreseen the evil and was frightened by its progress, hastened to put a stop to it by the only means capable of triumphing.

  “My friends,” he cried, “remember that you promised, before God, to consent to the reestablishment of the community of wealth as soon as it was requested by the majority. I take that same God as the witness of your promise, and of the general demand that has been made, and I order you in his name to keep it.”

  Those few words, produced in a solemn tone, produced the desired effect, so imposing is the majesty of the Supreme Being, present in our lives at every instant!

  However, although property reentered into community, the people remained in the particular order that their distinguished means had assigned to them. They had given too evident proofs of their superiority for them to have the false modesty of not believing themselves to be a veritably superior class. That sentiment was not pride but an accurate consciousness of their value.

  In all the great states of the earth, that difference between the mental faculties would have created, as among the Romans, an order of Patricians who, imagining themselves to be privileged by nature would have arrogated all powers and honors to themselves; but the inhabitants of the Valley, who had more rights to that distinction, endowed with a spirit of rectitude and order unknown elsewhere, considered the advantages that nature had accorded them as a musician appreciates the high notes that contribute to the harmony of a concert. Thus the different kinds of mind contribute equally here to form social harmony, without it seeming reasonable to attach more nobility to some than to others.

  However, whatever care has been taken to efface the line of demarcation between the two classes, the classes themselves will probably exist for a long time. The first will always be superior, since it can subsist without the help of the other, while the latter, essentially dependent, cannot do without the first. Thus, it is from that first class that the members of the governor’s Council are taken.40

  XIX

  Meanwhile, the widow of the unfortunate Renou was inconsolable. Her profound dolor had rendered even dearer the savage tastes and melancholy character of her husband. She had accompanied him in his solitary wanderings, and when he was dead, she resolved to take up residence near the tree where he had deposited his final thou
ght, which we had named the tree of despair. She requested that favor from the governor as if her life depended on it.

  When she had obtained it, she went to establish herself at that extremity of the Valley, accompanied by her sister, who had never quit her. Her two brothers, who loved her tenderly, and who were not yet married, brought her the things necessary to her existence every day.

  Madame Renou had only been living in the vicinity of the tree of despair for a short time when she brought into the world a testament to her husband’s love. As was customary, a tree was immediately planted in the refuge of eternal peace, which was named the tree of hope.

  When the child reached the age of seven, the Council demanded him, in order to give him the education common to all the inhabitants of the Valley and to form him for the kind of life most appropriate to his own happiness and that of his brethren, but the mother was struck by such chagrin on learning that they wanted to separate her from her son that they dreaded taking her to the final excess of despair, and they consented to leave the child with her, if she promised to raise him in conformity with the rules of the community.

  Is there any rule, though, that can prevail over the love of a mother for her son? After him, the object that was dearest to her was the memory of her husband. The profound solitude in which she lived concentrated all her sentiments in those two affections. They were the only principles of her conduct, and her promise, although made with a sincere intention of keeping it, vanished as soon as she found it in opposition to the tastes of the son or the theories of the father.

  One can judge from the character and habits of the latter what kind of mind he had. As bizarre in his literary opinions as in his conduct, he was on that subject the most confirmed anglomaniac. Young, Milton, Addison and Pope were his favorite authors; he had brought along with their works those of a few English contemporaries. A few interesting passages improvised in his conversations with his wife had similarly inflamed the woman’s mind in favor of that foreign literature. Her son was born with intelligence and a great deal of the English sensibility that we call melancholy. Those dispositions, which were only fortified as he grew older, caused him to acquire an aversion for the rustic labor of the Valley.