by Emile Calvet
“Historians who have studied that strange land must have run into contradictions at every step. General life presents itself there, in fact, in totally different aspects as one descends the social scale. At the top are students of the Romantic school, bizarrely dressed but ardent in their convictions with regard to art, literature and politics. At the bottom are their pale successors who have gradually moved down to the rungs that confine the most bourgeois prosaicism.
“In spite of everything, the highest regions are almost recruited from the heterogeneous milieu, which offers the singular spectacle of a group of convicts, drowned in the midst of a more numerous legion of fantasists, capable of losing their way twenty times over if, by chance, they ever wanted to go to the Faculty.
“Latin society generally cuts its capers in a famous establishment in which choreography, deserting academic principles, has no other guides than the imagination or psychological state of its disciples. Thus, the sight of a ballroom fly on the boil initially produces the fantastic impressions of a nightmare.
“One might, on that subject, wonder what the pleasures of the mass of Parisians were. If we set aside the examination of the rather restricted category of citizens then designated by the name of the privileged class, who believed themselves to be obliged to make a tour every day of a pond pompously called a lake, and to remain nailed down every night around a green baize table, many others were gladly engulfed in narrow, uncomfortable and overheated rooms in which an orchestral travesty served to season plays whose plots implored the greatest indulgence.
“Beneath that was the unceremonious genre of the music hall, which had a deadlier influence on the brains of our ancestors than all political and social complications.
“Now, what pleasures were in store for those naïve citizens’ days of rest? Did they allow themselves to be borne away like us to distant shores through the pure regions of the atmosphere? Alas, they only had before them two equally false tracks. One led to the racecourse, where an honorable corporation of mobile bankers known by the fallacious name of bookmakers emptied the purses of the public with the regularity and precision of a vacuum pump; the other led to suburban restaurants, whose frequentation was tantamount to suicide.
“The conclusion of this little chat, Mesdames et Messieurs, is imposing itself strongly. I have tried to recall a few salient and characteristic points of the life of our ancestors. If nobility of conception and philosophical amplitude have been lacking in my discourse, truth and impartiality, the safeguard of which I invoked in stepping up to this podium, have been scrupulously respected.
“Finally, if I have abused the sympathetic attention that has been testified to me, the memory of which I shall retain eternally, it is only necessary to condemn my sincere desire to establish an exact comparison between present and past time.”
The sonorous and sustained applause that greeted the orator’s peroration reassured him fully with regard to the effect produced by the originality of his language, the unexpectedness of his reflections and the infectious gaiety that he had spread.
He descended to the stage with assurance, and received the compliments of Herber and his friends with satisfaction. His two companions seemed equally satisfied with the unexpected result of an attempt whose consequences they had redoubted.
Meanwhile, the crowd was gradually trickling way through the vast bays of the edifice, and when Herber’s friends, gathered in the drawing room, had taken leave of the schoolmaster and his guests, the hall was empty.
Preceded by the schoolmaster, the strangers went down into the central courtyard and headed toward the main building.
As they went into the main courtyard they saw Madame Herber bidding farewell to a few lady friends who had been fortunate enough to witness the soirée from her box. The travelers headed toward the young woman in order to greet her, and were obliged to accept her congratulations for the interesting evening that they had procured for the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
“All Paris will be talking about it tomorrow,” she added, with a very evident sentiment of satisfaction.
“Undoubtedly, Messieurs,” Herber agreed, having noticed the astonishment that the last opinion had produced in his friends. “Your speeches were recorded by stenographers from the Siècle, the Continent, the Globe and the Nouveau-Monde. In consequence, they will appear tomorrow morning in the four most important newspapers in the capital.
“My word,” Antius declared. “We didn’t expect such an honor.”
“I will add that the majority of the other papers will at least include a summary, and that they’ll appear in extenso in the most important magazines,” said the schoolmaster.
After having shaken their host’s hand and thanked Madame Herber for the honor and encouragement that her presence at the soirée had lent them, the strangers headed for the main building.
“We’ve become celebrities,” said Gédéon.
“Yes,” Antius replied, “but let’s hope that our success stops there; we might not be sure of keeping our heads.”
“I agree,” said Terrier.
One o’clock was chiming when the travelers went into their apartment.
XXI. The Museum of Antiquities
The sun was already high over the horizon when Antius, suddenly woken up by a flood of light that invaded his room, gravely got out of bed and deposited his magnificent head-dress on the pillow.
Faithful to his habits, the doctor arranged the implements necessary to the care of his beard symmetrically—an operation to which he delivered himself incontinently.
Twenty minutes later, fresh and disposed, he emerged, tightening the blue silk girdle of his dressing gown in a cavalier fashion. He knocked on the physicist’s door. Terrier, who had just finished dressing, came to open it.
After exchanging a few words about the events of the previous day, the two scientists headed for Gédéon’s door and knocked.
The young man, who had, with sybaritic foresight, lowered his window-blinds completely the night before, woke up in profound darkness. “Who can be knocking sat this hour?” he said, ill-humoredly.
“Get up,” said Antius, in a firm voice.
“What fly’s stung you, coming to wake a placid citizen at two o’clock in the morning?”
“Are you mad?” asked the physicist. “It’s at least eight o’clock.”
“There’s one astronomer who has a mania for committing errors with regard to the march of the sun,” muttered Gédéon. “And to think that he’s one of the bigwigs at the Observatory!”
Antius, whose bad mood had already been expressed in energetic terms, rattled the door vigorously.
The young man ran to the blind and opened it vigorously. He closed his eyes against the radiant sunlight that struck him full in the face. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said.
The two scientists drew away. Antius went back into his own room, rapidly concluded his toilette and rejoined the physicist, who as waiting on the terrace. Ten minutes letter, Gédéon found them there.
“My friends,” said the doctor, “we’ll soon be introduced to one of the mot important people in the city, in whose establishment, according to the schoolmaster, we might find work. God grant that it be so, for we can’t continue to abuse the sumptuous hospitality of our host for much longer.”
“For myself,” observed Gédéon, “I’m not at all sure how I could be usefully employed.” Swiftly, he added: “In any case, I don’t think it will be permissible for me to apply for a job cleaning the city’s streets.”
“Why not?” said Antius, simply.
“There’s the reason,” said the young man, pointing toward the square.
The two scientists watched with astonishment as the immense square was gradually covered with a compact mist emitted by a large number of gushing fountains situated at ground level, obedient to an invisible hand.
“Before the morning meal, shall we visit the Museum of Antiquities?” said Gédéon.
“Good idea
,” said the professor.
“I agree,” said Antius.
The travelers went into the square. Five minutes later, they went into the main courtyard of the Museum.
To the great astonishment, they did not see any warden or hear any noise in the monument. An inscription placed above the entrance door enlightened them with regard to the absolute isolation in which they found themselves; Gédéon read it aloud: “These collections are placed under the safeguard of the citizens.”
The travelers climbed the steps of a monumental staircase that rose up in the middle of the edifice and went into a semicircular vestibule, in which two vast sculpted oak doors opened on the opposite sides. The one on the right bore the following words painted on its upper half in golden letters:
WEAPONS OF WAR, AGRICULTURE.
The one on the left said:
SCIENCE, INDUSTRY, EVERYDAY INSTRUMENTS.
“Let’s go into this one,” said Antius, heading for the former, whose batten he pushed.
The three men advanced in line into a large rectangular hall in which was disposed, in perfect order, the largest collection of murderous engines imaginable.
Every type, from the most ancient to the most recent, the most monstrous to the tiniest, the most primitive to the most advanced, was gathered there. From the ballista and catapult to 20th century continuous-fire machine-guns, from the twenty-five ton cannon to the beech-loading revolver, from the Malay kris, the Indian tomahawk, the Australian boomerang, and the poisoned arrow of the equatorial African to the hunting-rifle with an automatic compensator, all models were represented.
Each of them bore a frame of variable size containing the most extensive documentation of its origin and usage.
The visitors stopped in front of an enormous artillery piece, which had probably lain dormant there for centuries, inoffensively, mouth agape.
“What do the people of today think of this monstrous engine?” the professor wondered.
Gédéon picked up a caption attached to the sight and read the following text: “Instrument of long-range fire, founded on the principle of expansive gas. In his dictionary of Industrial Antiquities, a book full of errors and now devoid of authority, Bauer calls this war-machine ‘the upper portion of a drainage tube.’”
Without pausing, the travelers passed along a compact hedge of rifles, the series of which commenced with a gigantic arquebus of the 15th century.
Then they cast a distracted glance over several hundred swords of every sort, which, from the famous blades of Damascus to the vulgar cabbage-chopper, represented the principal genres of the great family of blank weapons. At the front, an immense display-screen of red velvet was constellated with daggers of every shape and size.
“Curse these imbeciles!” cried the doctor, angrily.
“What’s the matter?”
“Can’t you see that they’ve put the surgical scalpel in the middle of these homicidal weapons!”
“Oh well,” said Gédéon, turning round.
Antius shrugged his shoulders without saying another word.
As he turned round the young man nearly staved in an old rusty drum, which rolled over the parquet, making a terrible racket. “Damn,” he said, anxiously. “I didn’t see that rolling drum—no pun intended.” He raced after the instrument. “The commentaries are engraved on the drum-skin,” he added, as he picked it up. Here’s the opinion of the antiquaries: ‘Noisy apparatus that regulated the march of soldiers. Small scale models of the instrument were manufactured, which rendered a house uninhabitable. Bauer’s Dictionary: No precise opinion has been formed regarding this object. Some believe it to be special hygrometer that rendered different sounds according to the quantity of water dispersed in the atmosphere. Others affirm that it was a commonplace instrument of dialysis.’ Dialysis! What’s that novelty?”
“The mixture of liquids through a membrane isn’t a novelty,” said the physicist. “Even so, the opinion is singular.”
Gédéon replaced the drum and picked up a fireman’s helmet; there was a piece of parchment attached to its neck-chain and he read the following: Apparatus designed to protect the head of elite soldiers known as sapper-firemen. These strong, agile and courageous men had the mission of extinguishing fires. They maneuvered very primitive machines that threw a great quantity of water over the burning fire, with the result that, if the neighbors escaped the fire, they did not escape the flood. It is evident that these primitive instruments could not render the service of the advanced pumps of our era, which project masses of liquid carbon dioxide, the sudden evaporation of which reduces the disaster in a matter of minutes.”
The left hand section of the hall was occupied by naval engines of war, and the gaze could follow the parallel progression of conical heaps of cannonballs and the thickness of armor plating.
The travelers paused briefly in front of a monstrous torpedo. The caption said: Machine designed to blow up ships. That opinion was contested for a long time by a large number of archeologists, who did not want to admit that the ancients could have been so insane as to exaggerate the perils of the sea, against which their means of defense were already so limited.
The central part of the wall was pierced by an arched bay; the travelers went through. They found themselves in a room no less vast than the first, which was reserved for agriculture.
Alongside ancient instruments with which they were familiar, the most advanced of which relied on the employment of steam power, the two scientists noticed with interest a large number of new machines powered by electromotive force. The most powerful of these machines bore the title of “ground-clearing instruments,” and must have been used in distant exploitations.
At the back of the hall, a vast picture contained abundant detailed explanations of each machine. Special items established the prodigious agricultural development of the Orient, the two Americas and, most of all, Central Africa, since the invention of aerial navigation, which had thrown the idle hands of the old world into those immense territories.
XXII. Eccentric Antiquities
The three travelers retraced their steps and went back to the vestibule.
“Lets go in here,” said the physicist, heading for the door opposite, which gave access to the scientific and industrial museum. “I imagine that surprises will be in store for us there.”
His companions followed him and penetrated with him into an immense gallery, as vast as the one they had just traversed.
The left-hand wall was occupied in part by a formidable display of kitchenware, in which all systems of culinary apparatus, from the cauldron to the pressure-cooker, were represented. A series of turnspits, the largest of which would have accommodated a wild boar and the smallest a hummingbird, were symmetrically arranged on the wall-panels.
“How do they do their cooking, then, if these respectable instruments have been put on the index?” Gédéon asked the two scientists, who were examining with interest a switch-mechanism controlled by an electromagnet, probably designed to regulate a rotisserie.
“I don’t know,” said Antius, “but the art certainly hasn’t degenerated.”
“I agree.”
A considerable collection of shovels, tongs and bellows was simply labeled Old utensils.
They went past a collection of candlesticks, lamps and chandeliers of every shape and size, arranged in a frame bearing the label: Ancient lighting apparatus.
Under the rubric Primitive heating, the visitors recognized almost all models of stoves and fireplaces, which scarcely rendered a tenth of the heat received in the best conditions.
Gédéon picked up a rolling-pin, designated under the disrespectful name of Skittle, to which a note added: Game popular among our ancestors. Beside it was a modest candle-snuffer, conscientiously labeled: Usage unknown.
The presence of a scissor-action candle-snuffer intrigued the visitors, and the physicist, having picked it up, read aloud: “Many archeologists have sought to identify the purpose of this bizarre inst
rument in vain. Some have thought that the mysterious devices was designed to trap insects that laid waste to habitations, others that it served to compress objects of small volume; in his book, Bauer attributes the most extravagant functions to it.”
Their gaze was then attracted by an old hat, of which time had respected neither the form nor the fabric.
“Is that your topper, brought here the day before yesterday?” the young man asked the physicist.
“Mine was new, retorted the physicist, huffily, “And that one is exactly the same as the one caricaturists attribute to Robert Macaire.”
“Let’s see what it says,” said Gédéon, and read aloud the caption: “Apparatus with which the ancient coiffed the straw mannequins they set up in fields to frighten birds.” The reader burst out laughing. “Perfect!” he said, “I would be sorry, either, to know what the antiquaries say about that black coat hanging beside it.” And having seized the garment he turned it round. In the middle of the back he was able to read the singular statement: “Exceedingly unsightly vestment in obligatory usage at funeral ceremonies.”
Further on, an assortment of instruments of dentistry was labeled: Instruments of torture.
“In truth, they’re right about that,” said Terrier, gaily.
However, the designation of a group consisting of a dynamometer, a Nicholson aerometer, a vacuum pump, a prism, a Galilean telescope and a mercury eudiometer as Children’s toys troubled him deeply.
“Look—a clarinet!” exclaimed Gédéon. “There are no more blind people! It’s certainly the usage of that annoying instrument that once populated the Quinze-Vingts.32 This is what it says about it: Woodwind instrument introduced into dramatic music by the famous composer Gluck.”
Indicating a piano whose yellowed keys had been inoffensive for several centuries, the young man added: “Of course, I’m not sorry to see this homicidal instrument relegated to this place. It’s thus defined: Instrument once very widespread in Paris, to the detriment of the healthy part of the population. It succeeded the harpsichord, which had the advantage of being less noisy. It was Bartholomeo Cristafulli of Pauda, in 1711, who brought about the substitution, the need for which no one felt, and which resulted in a significant increase in cases of rabies. You said it!”