The iriselle stopped in front of the first egg and, bending as though to make it an exaggerated bow, she gently attacked the shell with the blade of her powerful tail, which she plunged forward well beyond her head. Meeting with resistance, she recommenced more sharply, yet without approaching her maximum force — performing startling contortions to make the curved knife edge slide with penetration over the strong shell which it was aiming to cut. These disjointed wobblings disturbed the mass of water, which tossed furiously about in all directions, enveloping the egg, then spreading itself over the table — without ever forsaking the gold plate, which it followed through the air each time the tail gathered momentum, leaving no trace of moisture behind. After a series of efforts which were, it must be added, skillfully calculated, the shell was finally broached and showed a slight crack.
The iriselle took a few steps, then attacked the second egg in the same manner, splitting its shell at the first onslaught. When the third egg had triumphantly survived similar, still judicious attempts, she tested the last one, which soon bore a thin cut due to the habitual device. In spite of being fantastically jerked about, the water had remained faithfully attached to the gold plate throughout the whole escapade.
Felicité placed the only egg remaining intact inside the cage where it was rejoined by the iriselle, who began to sit on it; meanwhile Luc went off to throw the other three, now valueless eggs into the river.
Canterel spoke to us of the astonishing bird which, behind the bars, still drew our curious gaze.
∗ ∗ ∗
At Marseilles, Luc sometimes used to help in the unloading of ships for a tiny wage, under the anxious eye of Felicité.
One day, helping to empty the flanks of a steamer from Oceania amid the puffing cranes, the child appeared at the end of the gangway, on his tenth trip across it, carrying on his shoulder a crate, the interior of which fascinated him.
As he was running to his grandmother to share his admiration and astonishment with her, a chink in the openwork let two eggs slip through, which fell without breaking and were picked up by Felicité.
Inside the crate, supplied with seed and water, Luc showed her two birds with brilliant plumage and adorned with unusual tails that formed canopies above them. Beneath their feet lay several finely cracked eggs; and besides the two collected by the fortune-teller, there were some other intact ones which formed a small, neat clutch upon which one of the captives went to sit, as though returning with haste and satisfaction to a recently interrupted duty.
Thinking what a contribution would be made to her seances by the exhibition of one or more birds like these two prisoners, Felicité had a hen incubate the eggs she had collected, whose strong, hard shells had survived the fall so well. A male and a female were born, destined by the old woman to an active reproduction. As soon as they were adult, the two fowls, identical to their parents, were successfully exhibited to the public in a spacious cage.
One morning Felicité saw the female, who had just shown herself a good layer, attack a clutch of seven eggs in a strange way, cutting four of their shells with a kind of natural knife its blade consisting of the anterior part of her tail. Three eggs that had held out against a series of attacks were incubated by the eccentric creature, and were not long in hatching out.
The sibyl determined to draw profit for her art from this strange performance which she had observed without guessing its purpose. Whenever eggs were laid she reserved the partial breaking of their shells for the public, who were invariably astounded, and when someone anxiously questioned her, she would attribute some prophetic significance beforehand to the number of eggs destined to remain whole.
Canterel sought the reason for an instinctive activity such as this, which had been performed before his astonished eyes on the evening of his first interview with Felicité. After patient observation he discovered that, instead of using their beaks, which were always fragile, the chicks broke the shell at the moment of hatching out with the bold anterior blade of their tails. Moreover, even in the adults the atrophied feebleness of the very short beak contrasted with the extreme vigor of the caudal device.
Once, in the professor’s presence, when one of the iriseaux had had to combat a dog, it had employed its overhanging knife as a weapon of defence and of attack, without using its mandibles. In their Oceanian forests, all the members of the eccentric species under discussion must have acted in this way against every enemy.
Canterel understood that the female prevented premature births by eliminating the relatively fragile shells that might have been broken by under developed chicks, who would have been doomed thereafter to a life of rachitic suffering. By having all the eggs of one clutch artificially incubated before the mother’s engaging abatement, he saw that the chicks which succeeded in escaping too early from their prison were indeed born to be thin and sickly all their lives, while others who arrived appreciably later seemed very strong and exuberant. The latter’s shells were firm and thick and would quite certainly have remained intact beneath the mother’s judiciously calculated blows — which, on the other hand, would inevitably have split the thin, delicate shells of the former.
What impressed Canterel more than anything else in his study of the iriseaux were the extravagant movements performed by the female in challenging her eggs. Convinced that nowhere else did nature exhibit such an inextricable combination of swayings and joltings, the professor determined to take advantage of this godsend to test thoroughly a certain disconcerting property possessed by the object of a recent discovery — the quest for which had been suggested to him by the following passage in Herodotus:
In the year 550 bc, when Cyrus was visiting Ecbatana in triumph after subduing Medea, he noticed in the palaces and temples a remarkable profusion of gold, in a multitude of different forms. Wishing to know the origin of so much precious metal, he learnt of the existence of a rich mine under Mount Aruastu, which was by then exhausted.
Since it was possible that the people had lied about the barrenness of the vein, out of hatred for the invader, Cyrus went off to the designated spot with a crowd of workmen — musing that, anyway, even admitting their good faith, a vein once so rich might still harbour some undiscovered reef.
Finding that in fact even the most secret tunnels of the mine had been stripped, he excavated some new galleries — and one day admired a certain heavy lump of gold brought up from a great depth by one of his gangs. However, subsequent searches in all directions proved fruitless and the monarch returned to Ecbatana with his single specimen.
In accordance with an ancient tradition, when Cyrus stormed a capital, he used to receive, in state, the humble submission of the great men of the kingdom, in the presence of the assembled populace, from the height of a throne improvised in the public square — then, at a single draught, he would empty a precious vessel filled with water from the most prominent fluvial artery in the land; by assimilating even these national waters to himself, the conqueror symbolically took possession of the subdued country.
Cyrus had been impatient to excavate the mine of Mount Aruastu because, if it were not worked out, it would be liable to be maliciously flooded or destroyed so as to put an end to any future workings. So he had left Ecbatana, postponing the usual ceremony until his return, when the water of the Choaspes, a large tributary of the Tigris, was to be used.
This time, instead of choosing just any bowl for his emblematic draught, he had a cup forged from the lump of gold brought back from the mine. The conqueror would thus be drinking the water of the Choaspes from a specific material that would reinforce the significance of his act, since he himself had recently extracted it from the soil of the subjected region.
On the appointed day, before a vast crowd, a throne draped in costly materials glittered in the sun in the very heart of Ecbatana. Cyrus took his place there beside a marble table upon which stood the golden cup previously filled with water from the Choaspe
s, while all the Medes came in turn to pay homage to their new master. When the procession was ended, Cyrus raised the cup to his lips, amid a great silence.
But though he leaned backward tipping it upside down above his head, the water, held back by some mysterious force, refused to pass his throat.
In confusion, he pushed the object away and heard a general exclamation of surprise: for instead of falling, the water hung beneath the cup, which the affrighted Cyrus hurled from him so that it reached the crowd, who passed it from hand to hand. The liquid had followed it in its fall and after sliding along the outside of the metal now dangled below its foot, unable to separate. The gold was exercising some mysterious and irresistible attraction on the mass of water.
After that the Medes were convinced that, by the gods’ decree, Cyrus, having been unable to drink the water of Choaspes, was not to possess their soil, and they were emboldened to plan a movement of revolt. It was only with great difficulty that the Persian soldiers ranged about the throne protected Cyrus from the assaults of the mob.
This event made a grievous impression on the conqueror, who next day departed for other lands, leaving behind in Medea a strong garrison capable of controlling the incipient rebellion.
And never, after that, did Cyrus succeed in subjugating the Medes completely for, in view of the incident of the cup, they confidently believed each day that their deliverance was at hand and worked secretly and unremittingly to shake off the Persian yoke.
Herodotus presents the occurrence as a legend. However, in Canterel’s opinion, there was no reason, from the scientific point of view, why gold geologically endowed with certain special chemical elements might not exert a considerable force of attraction on a liquid mass. So, considering the adventure plausible, the professor had nursed the idea — chancy, certainly, but justifiable — of mounting a search in the most secret recesses of the famous mine for a second water-bewitching ingot.
He had disclosed his plan one day to the archaeologist Derocquigny, who was just setting off to undertake a series of excavations not far from Mount Elvend, which is none other than the ancient Aruastu.
Derocquigny was fired with enthusiasm by the idea and, having reached the site, dug up the ground in the exact spot — clearly specified by Herodotus — from which Cyrus’s men had extracted the massive lump. After making active and prolonged borings, the archaeologist found a heavy nugget which powerfully attracted water, thus vindicating Canterel, to whom he promptly dispatched it.
On shaking the precious specimen violently, after removing it from a full basin, the professor saw the captured mass of water fly away in all directions and then return faithfully to the gold which had subdued it. As continual, irregular motions were needed to demonstrate this curious metal’s powers of attraction properly, Canterel tried jerking it about with his hand in the most rapid and capricious way. However, because of the conscious and voluntary nature of his gestures, the effect they achieved seemed to him inferior to the unpremeditated and random shaking which would have been produced by some creature ignorant of the end in view.
Now any person, even a simpleton or a lunatic, would have acted with some degree of understanding of the reason, and any machine whatever would necessarily have been invariable and precise in its operation, thus contradicting his requirements straight away. Only an animal, at once living and uncomprehending, would be able to give the required degree of unexpectedness to the performance.
Canterel received the nugget shortly after returning from Marseilles, when he was engaged in studying the iriseaux, and it seemed to him that the crazy tail motions of the female as she tested her eggs would give unhoped-for results by bringing the feelings of those who watched the somersaulting water to a pitch of anxiety.
He had the nugget transformed into a special plate, fixed underneath the natural canopy of an iriselle, which snapped up almost the entire contents of a vessel of water placed in its field of attraction, when it was time for the eggs to be selected. The strange tail, which was powerful enough to be unaffected by its double burden, attacked the shells, giving the water suspended beneath it the dismaying and fortuitous tumbling motion that the professor ardently desired.
Captivated by this swiftly moving spectacle, Canterel had reserved a faithful repetition of it for us today.
Unruffled in her cage, the iriselle sat so sedately upon her egg that the hanging water scarcely stirred below the golden plate.
∗ ∗ ∗
With both hands, Felicité grasped a bunch of nettles on the table, each stalk of which, like that of a mounted flower, was gripped by a coiled iron wire that joined it to a thin stick by which it was prolonged.
The old woman, undertaking to read our characters by means of these plants, which she claimed were magical, offered the free ends of the frail sticks to the poet Lelutour, one of the most fascinated members of our group. Holding them all together by their middles, she shuffled the sticks with exceptional dexterity among themselves.
Having taken the one of his choice, Lelutour, at Felicité’s behest, sharply struck the nettle fixed to the other end of it against the bare arm of Luc, who had just approached with his sleeve rolled up. The sibyl showed us that the red blotches that promptly appeared on his skin formed the following figure composed of small, uneven but legible capital letters:
HOCHE*
COWARD
Then, in a sententious and accusing tirade, she dubbed Lelutour a man of a paradoxical turn of wit. This apophthegm fell so opportunely that everyone burst out laughing, including Lelutour himself, who was aware of his failing. The poet was indeed a sprightly conversationalist who abhorred clichés and had a reputation for calmly asserting, with charm and unexpectedness, a host of amazing propositions.
The appearance of the letters on the skin was surrounded in mystery, for even at close range the nettles displayed no sign of abnormality.
At our entreaties, dictated by the pity we felt for Luc as he irritably scratched the sore place, Canterel made a sign to prevent Felicité, who was disposed to continue her investigations by offering the bunch to fresh clients; then he revealed to us the secret of the stinging cutaneous inscription. The sibyl would study her public during her earlier tricks and quickly distinguish the dominant characteristic of each onlooker from his attitude and his remarks. Having completed her observations, she would present the bunch of stinging plants, manipulating them so skillfully that a stick chosen by her and provided with a nettle bearing appropriate words in posse always reached the taker’s hand, like a forced card.
Leaving various areas free to form capital letters like those on typographic plates, Felicité had used a brush to coat the surface of each nettle beforehand with a mysterious colorless drug capable of removing from their leaves the venomous property due to a secretion of their hairs. Thanks to their having been carefully selected, the plants were all very flat and only offered a choice between two sides with which to deal the blow, each of them prepared in the same way. When Luc’s skin was beaten, it was exposed only to the irritant effect of the geometrical areas which the coating had spared and, after a brief delay, showed an incisive phrase in red apparently conceived in the brain of the harmless tormentor whose thoughts it disclosed. Many indications of qualities and shortcomings were thus represented in the bunch.
Now a paradoxical disposition could hardly be better symbolized than by besmirching the most sacrosanct military reputation in history with cowardice. In mentally nominating the prophetic nettle, Felicité had been guided by several disconcerting sallies delivered by Lelutour at the iriselle’s expense.
∗ ∗ ∗
Putting away the bunch, the sibyl took a pack of tarot cards from a tall, narrow box of old leather, whose lid was missing — and placed one of them flat, its back in contact with the table. Before long a tinkling music issued from the card, though there was no abnormal thickening to suggest the presence of any internal m
echanism. The tune, an incoherent adagio which seemed to be due to the capricious improvisation of living creatures, progressed indolently and was of an extremely bizarre nature, though free of any errors of harmony.
A second card which took its place beside the first produced a livelier air. Others laid one after another on the table all played their separate pieces with pure, metallic notes. Each was like an independent orchestra which, once laid down, sooner or later launched into its symphony, languid or lively, sad or joyful, whose almost hesitant unpredictability betrayed the personal touch of living beings.
The ear was never offended by any infringement of the rules of harmony, but only confused by the multiplicity of these various ensembles, which were too soft anyway for their simultaneity to constitute an unpleasant din.
The evident localization of the sounds forced one’s mind to admit that, contrary to all likelihood, there was a miraculously thin musical device imprisoned within each tarot card.
Felicité continued her performance by laying out, side by side and face uppermost, the Hermit and the Sun, the Moon and the Devil, the Juggler and the Judgment, and the Popess and the Wheel of Fortune. Canterel meanwhile opened a certain round metal box that he had taken from the table, not far from an ivory spatula. It was filled with a white powder which Canterel told us was a faithful reproduction of one of Paracelsus’s famous placets, preparations devised for the purpose of obtaining certain kinds of opotherapeutic remedies by secretion.
He used the spatula to take a small quantity of powder from the box, then to spread it over the forearm of the Negress Sileis in a thin layer that covered a considerable area of skin.
The professor then waited for his external medication to take effect, while Luc picked up a sheath of black serge containing a large, flat object which had until then stood upright on the ground against one of the table legs.
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