Villas, chalets and kiosks hidden behind hedges of laurel, lilac and virgin vines were visible in all directions.
The Champs-Élysées had become a veritable paradise.
Five
I was sitting on a bench.
A stranger stopped in front of me, who said to me: “Young man, you’ve come from far away, very far away; you seem surprised by all this magnificence of nature.”
“Indeed,” I replied.
“I have been charged with serving as your guide. Take my arm, and I will bring you up to date with matters that might interest you.”
“But who gave you to suppose…?”
“You shall know that in due course, Mardochée,” he told me, smiling. And exclaimed: “Oh, young man, the centuries have moved on since the year of grace 1873”—and he smiled ironically as he pronounced those words—“for it is now the twenty-second of May 2873, and you have slept for a thousand years in drinking the holy liquor.”
“That’s true,” I said, without reflection.
“Yes, Mardochée,” he went on, gravely, “ten centuries have gone by, and in those ten centuries, everything has changed—everything!”
And he drew me away, walking rapidly. Then he cried, enthusiastically: “Holy and great Kabbalah, it is to you that all this felicity is due!” And he traced feverishly, with his cane, in the white sand of the pathway, an alpha, the first letter of the sacred alphabet, which darted blue flames and vanished into the air.
Six
“But where shall I begin, and, moreover, import chronological order into my story?” he said, suddenly. “Mardochée, I have been sent to inform you as to the march of those ten centuries; lend me an attentive ear, and through the events, recognize the face of the Eternal who presides over all the actions of humankind.
“I shall initiate you into all the progress accomplished in those ten centuries, and you shall see how everything down here holds together and is connected.
“One of the greatest inventions that transformed the globe was certainly that of human wings.”
“Human wings!” I exclaimed.
“Oh, don’t be astonished, my dear child, for you will learn of things far more marvelous in due course.
“It was, I believe on the ninth of September 1954 that the celebrated Dumont Dartois revealed his first wings.
“Like all elite minds, Dartois had only had, in the course of his existence, one single dream, one single hope and one single goal.
“He wanted to steer balloons.
“He sank a considerable fortune into fruitless attempts.
“Day and night, he dreamed and forged aerial vessels, balloons with fins, flying houses, aerostats with propellers. He had renounced amour, friendship, everything; he lived alone with his books of geometry and his mathematical instruments.
“A hundred times he thought he had succeeded, but, a new Icarus, he fell back to earth, broken, for want of the lever, the breath, that gives life to the machine, and which every inventor seeks.
“Often, he wanted to kill himself, but what retained him to existence was is eternal hope, and his work.
“During his last experiments, he took refuge in the country on the solitary banks of the Marne, at Petit-Bry; and here in the company of his forge and his alembics, he passed in the locale for a veritable alchemist, for he had veiled the search for his terrible unknown.
Seven
“One evening, he received an anonymous letter in which someone said to him: ‘Dumont, tomorrow at dawn go to the temple in the Rue Notre-Dame de Nazareth, and see.’
“Dreamers, scientists and poets are great believers.
“The next day, he went to the temple, at the early hour when the ten primary faithful were reciting the daily prayer for the dead, and after the audition of the Kaddish, a mendicant curbed by old age approached him. Dumont gave him a large offering.
“‘Thank you, Master,’ said the mendicant. ‘For your alms, hear this: I know the language of the birds. The other day, an indiscreet swallow said to me: How ignorant humans are! They believe that we can fly. Birds do not fly; they swim in the air.’
“Dumont shook the old man’s hand and said to him: ‘Who are you, illustrious envoy of Adonai?’
“‘My name is Rabbi Akiva ben Gombel. I have followed your ambitious work for a long time; but do you believe that it would be a good thing if humans could traverse the skies, as they cleave the ocean, where they once discovered a new world?’
“‘I believe that the greater humans are, the more they will recognize their pettiness before the works of Providence,’
“‘Alas,’ said the old rabbi, ‘humans are very ingrate; however, the hour has sounded, you work shall see the light of day, but always remember the Eternal, for the one who invokes his name will never be forgotten, and the work of his hand will succeed.’
“And the old man disappeared.
Eight
“Dumont returned in haste to his dwelling, and resumed work furiously. He sensed something divine within him, driving him to his endeavor.
“The needle that he held seemed to him to be animated and guided him through the cloth that had been so rude before. For an hour he worked; his arms were exhausted—but the wings were made.
“He only had a little gutta-percha and a few centimeters of cardboard, but the work seemed alive; throughout the labor, the sacred breath was recognizable. Dumont waited feverishly for the arrival of night. I have said that he had retired to a solitary street, the Rue de la Marne, in Petit-Bry.
“At ten o’clock, he opened his window, and, with an anxious and tremulous heart, he put on the wings.
“Scarcely had he fitted them to his shoulders than he felt himself rising up and launched into the immensity. He only pronounced one name: Miriam; and he flew, like a giant bird, through the air.
Nine
“It required a few minutes to tame the work of his hands, but he had soon mastered it, and he spend the whole night soaring through the atmosphere, sometimes rising up like an arrow to infinite heights with frightful rapidity, sometimes describing curves, traversing vast forests, surprising frightened birds in their nests, whose song fell silent at his approach. The miracle had happened! Henceforth, humans had wings! The inventor went home—but he was no longer the same man; he was transformed, and the gleam of success gave his gaze a splendid radiance.
“The next day, he went to the Marais, to one of the small manufacturers with which Paris is overflowing.
“Paris always contains within its walls a host of outsiders, in the arts, in commerce and in industry.
“The most curious are the outsiders of industry: the Parisian manufacturers of articles.
“Who knows what miracles of genius and patience are given birth every day between the Porte Saint-Denis and the Porte Saint-Martin, what curious poverties and what incredible fortunes can be discovered among these Bohemians of industry.
“More than one has gone without food in order to procure, in the Sentier quarter, the piece of muslin with which he is going to create myriads of artificial flowers that will inform astonished generations as to whether the weather is propitious to go to Saint-Cloud, or whether Saint-Medard is worthy of faith.
“More than one has deposited his last mattress with a complaisant pawnbroker to buy a few sheets of gilded paper with which, thanks to a bizarre procedure, our artist will throw a new article into the arena, which, for a week—no more and no less—will cause a resounding sensation, will be in all hands, will depart for all lands, and after having inundated the world, will disappear from consumption and will be extinguished as if it had never existed.
“It was to one of those skillful workers that Dartois went.
“‘Here is a model,’ he said. ‘I need a thousand of them by this evening.’
“‘Wow! Fins!’ said the artiste. ‘Are you going to populate aquaria with rubber fish. It’s an idea. I can do that.’
“‘I want a thousand objects similar to this speci
men; I’ll pay what’s necessary, and there’ll probably be a larger order in three days...’
“Pardon me, Monseigneur,” said the smiling artist, “can you clarify the order?”
“‘Here’s a thousand francs,’ said Dartois, handing him a banknote.
“‘That’s too much,’ replied the artiste, bowing, ‘but I never turn down money, so I’ll make you two thousand of your swimmers, and if you desire, they’ll say Papa and Mama.’
“Our inventor could not help smiling, and he left.
Ten
“The next day, Dartois, accompanied by a workman, went to the Thiers barracks, which were situated in the Place du Château-d’Eau.
“A colossal statue had been erected in that square to the Liberator of the territory.
“With the years, the glory of the illustrious citizen had increased further and public gratitude had given him a splendid monument. The statue was in white marble. The great man was standing, with one hand resting on the lion of Belfort.55
“An immense genius with deployed wings was crowning the Statesman with golden laurels. The railings that surrounded the monument were literally covered with immortelles.
“Dartois went past the statue and into the barracks.
“Introduced to the colonel, whose office was situated on the first floor, Dartois tried to explain his discovery to him briefly.
“The other initially took him for a madman. Confronted by his hesitation, Dartois put on his wings and, the window being open, launched forth into the courtyard, which he circled for a few minutes, to the amazement of the colonel, the officers and the soldiers who ran to all the windows to see the flying man.
“Dartois, having rejoined the colonel, told him that he had brought a thousand more sets of wings with him, with which he wanted to pay homage to his regiment.
“The colonel, radiant, had the call to the flag sounded. In an instant, all the men were assembled in the courtyard.
“Dartois fitted each man with his wings personally, informing them in a loud voice, as if he were a drill instructor, of his new theory.
“When he thought the instruction complete, the regiment having been divided in platoons, sections and companies, a new command was heard for the first time: ‘Forward flight!’
“And the entire regiment, rifled shouldered and kitbags on the back, sappers, drummers, band and canteen workers to the fore, took off into the air.
Eleven
“The band was playing the eternal and heroic Marseillaise.
“In two files, the regiment went to take up a position on the boulevard facing the barracks.
“The crowd, the Parisian crowd—which is to say, an enormous, bewildered, unconscious crowd growing by the second; a variegated, crazy and shrill crowd—surrounded the soldiers, touching their wings.
“The word spread that those military men had emerged from their barracks like a flock of wild birds, and the crowd was breathless and feverish in the expectation of something great.
“People were already shouting: ‘Hurrah for the line!’ and they had not seen anything yet.
“Suddenly, a drum-roll caused all noise to die down in the vast square, and to the precipitate sound of the charge, the regiment, with Dartois and the colonel at the head, rose into the air, to cries a thousand times repeated of ‘Long live Republic!’ and ‘Long live Progress!’
“The spectacle, moreover, was magnificent.
“In a few seconds, the military men traversed the boulevard to go and alight in front of the Chambre des Députés, at the end of the Pont de la Concorde.
Twelve
“But the crowd had followed, and even preceded, the soldiers.
“The people of Paris, impressionable to excess, could not see the phenomenon of winged men without an extraordinary emotion.
“People went from door to door, proclaiming the new miracle.
“The shops closed all over the city. Only the cafes and the taverns stayed open, crowded with curiosity-seekers.
“The députés and the ministers were in the Place de la Concorde.
“The President of the Republic himself, hastily alerted, arrived to compliment Dartois, and, with an accolade, pinned the medal on him that he had so nobly earned.
“Carried in triumph by the people, Dartois was escorted back to his little house in Petit-Bry.
“That day, the Marne, furrowed by boats, was reminiscent of the grand canal in Venice.
“Paris, decked with flags, illuminated as if for a fête, was intoxicated and enchanted.
“As there is always a spot on the sun, however, in the midst of the concert of felicitations that the press and the telegraph were expanding through the world, a petty so-called orthodox newspaper leaked a bittersweet article in which it predicted some great misfortune for the nation because of that new progress provoked by Lucifer.
“Dartois was offered a million for his invention. Like all great men, Dartois was scornful of money, and refused, but he obtained from the government an undertaking that a hundred thousand sets of wings per month would be put within range of the public.
“That discovery brought large number of people to Paris from all over the globe, running to acquire wings. But Dartois had no rest, until the day when he could accomplish his great idea: that of undertaking a voyage to the Moon.”
“To the Moon!” I could not help exclaiming. “That’s impossible!”
“Nothing is impossible with the aid of God, Mardochée, but let’s not anticipate events. At any rate, Dartois died six months after his invention. Everyone has his task down here; he had done enough for humankind; it was someone else who had the honor of making the first journey to the Moon.”
I looked at my cicerone with an interrogative expression.
“I can see in your gaze that you want to make an experiment with human wings; nothing is simpler, for I always carry several pairs with me.
“Since the inventor Dartois they have made immense progress; as you will see, they are, above all, not cumbersome.
He undid the buttons of his shirt-cuffs, which opened up in the form of a fan. He pinned those improvised wings to my shoulders. From a little gold-mesh purse he took out an exactly similar pair, and pinned them to himself. After a slight effort, I felt myself rising gently into the air.
“Where do you want to go, Mardochée?” he asked me.
“To Iffendorf, in Alsace,” I replied.
He looked at the little compass mounted in his ring and replied: “That’s fine.”
As we were at an altitude of about twelve hundred meters, I felt a sharp pain in my temples and ears, as if my blood, violently compressed, were about to break through the arteries to escape.
I said to my guide: “I’m doomed.”
Smiling, however, he made me breathe from a little bottle, which immediately restored me completely.
“It’s the liquor of life, and when they breathe it the devotees of the Kabbalah say the following prayer: ‘Baruch atah Adonai merayai amaisim.’ Be praised, Eternal, who revives the dead!”
Scarcely ten minutes had gone by when we arrived, with no other difficulty than that slight indisposition, quickly calmed.
Thirteen
I had difficult recognizing my poor birthplace. It was entirely transformed; it was a true city—but for the child, the cradle always has certain ineffaceable signs, and I could not help shedding a few tears in front of the place where the modest school had once stood in which I learned to read.
It was certainly unrecognizable, but I found profoundly incrusted, on a stone bench that time had cracked and covered with moss, the debris of a multiplication table that I had made myself when I as teaching my fellow pupils calculus.
I headed thereafter for the little cemetery, where I had a great deal of difficulty finding the graves of my family. I saw my own crypt and that of my children, and after having paused for a while before the tombs of my relatives I said to my guide: “Once there were three separate cemeteries: that of the C
atholics, that of the Protestants and that of the Jews. Today...”
“I know,” he said, smiling. “Once, there were three religions in Iffendorf, and there were thirty thousand of them on Earth.”
“Well?”
“Today, there is only one,” he said, gravely. “Yes, Mardochée, men are all brothers now, and not only the people of our planet, but those of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and billions of stars. Races and colors differ, but the human heart is the same everywhere. The great fusion is accomplished, there is no longer more than one religion in the universe; the reign of Unity, so often announced and predicted, has arrived.”
And in the tone of an ancient prophet, he cried: “Shema Yisrael Adonai eloheinu, Adonai Ehad!”56
Listen, Israel, the Eternal is our God, the Eternal is One.
Fourteen
“But then,” I said, as if impelled by a secret instinct, “there is no more than one sole language, one sole people, one sole flag, and it was merely a deceptive illusion when I saw written in our beautiful French on the walls of my old city: Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Unité!
“Yes, dear child, you saw correctly,” he said, embracing me effusively. “It is glorious France, it is your holy fatherland, that has been chosen to be at the head of nations, because she has always been the most noble and the most magnanimous, because she has always shed without regret, and with joy, the purest of her blood for the great cause of humanity. She has marched at the forefront of progress, at the head; she has placed her liberal flag everywhere—everywhere; here, look!”
He suddenly took me by the arm; we launched into the air, and he showed me, one by one, Vienna, Constantinople, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Stockholm, The Hague, Berlin, Rome, Madrid, Lisbon and London; and in all the capitals, on all the palaces, on all the domes and monuments, I saw, delightedly, the glorious tricolor flag fluttering.
“What a triumph!” I exclaimed.
The Aerial Valley Page 24