“Whereas creatures formed of clay do not surpass in beauty of form the degree of perfection attained by Antinous and Madame de Parabère, and the faculty of knowledge attained only by Democritus and myself, beings formed of fire enjoy a wisdom and an understanding whose range it is impossible for us to compass.
“Such, my son, is the nature of the glorious children of the suns, they are masters of the laws of the universe, as we of the rules of chess, and the course of the stars in heaven puzzles them no more than the movement on the chess-board of king, rook, and bishop, trouble us. These Genii create worlds in corners of space where they were not to be found before, and organise them to their liking. It affords them a momentary distraction from their chief business which is to mate, one with another, in ineffable love. Yesterday I turned my glass on the sign of Virgo and there I observed a distant vortex of light. No doubt, my son, but that it was the still unformed work of these beings of fire.
“Truth to tell the universe has no other origin. Far from being the result of a single will, it is the result of a sublime caprice of a great number of Genii who have found recreation each in his good time and in his own way. So may we explain the diversity, the magnificence and the imperfection. For the powers and the clairvoyance of these Genii, though immense, have limits. I should deceive you did I say that a man, were he philosopher and mage, could enter into familiar intercourse with them. No one of them has ever manifested himself to me and all that I tell you of them is known to me but by induction and hearsay. Therefore, although their existence is certain I should go too far were I to describe to you their ways and their character. We must know our own ignorance, my son, and I pride myself on advancing but fully observed facts. We will then leave these Genii, or rather these Demiurges to their distant glories and come to the illustrious beings who concern us more nearly. And it is at this point, my son, that you must lend your ear.
“Speaking to you a moment ago of the planets, if I gave way to a sentiment of disdain it was because I was merely considering the skin and surface of these little balls or tops and the animals which scramble dismally thereon. I should have used another tone if my mind had contemplated along with the planets, the air and vapour which envelops them. For air is an element which only cedes to fire in nobility, whence it follows that the dignity and illustriousness of planets is in the air which bathes them. These mists, these clinging vapours, these zephyrs, these waves of blue, these moving isles of purple and gold, which pass above our heads, are the home of a worshipful race. We call them Sylphs and Salamanders. They are creatures of infinite sweetness and beauty. It is possible, and it is fitting for us to form with them unions, whose delights cannot be dreamt of. Salamanders are of such a kind that beside them the prettiest person in town or at court is but a repulsive monkey. They yield themselves willing to philosophers. You have no doubt heard tell of the wondrous being by whom Monsieur Descartes was accompanied on his travels. Some said it was a natural daughter he took everywhere with him, others thought it was an automaton that he had made with inimitable art. In reality it was a Salamander that this able man had taken for his lady-love. He never left her. On one of his passages in the Dutch seas he took her on board shut in a box of precious wood lined with satin. The shape of this box and the precautions with which Monsieur Descartes handled it drew the attention of the captain, who, when Monsieur Descartes was asleep, lifted the lid and discovered the Salamander. This ignorant and coarse man thought that so marvellous a being must be the devil’s handiwork. For very fear, he threw her in the sea. But as you can well believe the beautiful creature was not drowned and it was easy for her to rejoin her good friend Monsieur Descartes. She remained faithful to him as long as he lived, and on his death left this earth never to return.
“I cite this example among many others to acquaint you with the love of philosopher and Salamander. This love is too sublime to be subjected to contracts, and you will agree that the ridiculous farrago and apparatus of our marriage would not be the right thing in such unions. Truly, it would be a pretty thing if a bewigged notary and a fat curé were to put their noses into it! These gentlemen are fit only to set the seal to the vulgar union of man and woman. The hymeneals of Salamander and sage are borne witness to in more august fashion. They are celebrated by the aërial peoples in aëry navies, which, borne on gentle zephyrs, glide on invisible waves to the sound of harps, their poops bedecked with roses. But do not run away with the notion that because they are not inscribed in a thumbed register in a dirty sacristy such troth is not enduring, or may be broken with facility. The Spirits are its sureties, who sport among the clouds, whence flashes the lightning and bursts the thunder. I make revelations which will be of use to you, my son, for I have already recognised by indications not to be mistaken that you are destined for the bed of a Salamander.”
“Alas! Monsieur,” I cried, “this destiny terrifies me, and my scruples on the subject are nearly as great as those of the Dutch captain who threw Monsieur Descartes’s pretty friend into the sea. I cannot help thinking as did he that these aërial ladies are demons! I should fear to lose my soul for them, for, in fine, Monsieur, such marriages are contrary to nature, and opposed to divine law.
Would that Monsieur Jérôme Coignard, my good master, could hear you! I am quite certain that he would uphold me with good arguments against the seductions of your Salamanders, and against your eloquence.”
“Abbé Coignard,” said Monsieur d’Astarac, “translates Greek admirably. Let him stick to his books. He is no philosopher. As for you, my son, you argue with the feebleness of ignorance, and the weakness of your arguments afflicts me.
These unions you say are contrary to nature. What do you know about it? And what means can you have of knowing about it? How is it possible to distinguish what is natural from what is not? Do we know enough of universal Isis to discern what is in accord with her and what runs counter to her? But let us put it better; nothing runs counter to her, and all is in accord, for nothing exists which does not enter into the play of her organism nor follow the innumerable poses of her body. Whence, I ask you, could enemies come who would offend her? Nothing acts against her or without her, and forces that seem to work against her are but manifestations of her own life.
“Only the ignorant can have sufficient assurance to say whether an action be natural or not. But let us for a moment enter into their point of view and their prejudice, and pretend to allow that it is possible to commit acts against nature. Will these acts on that account be bad, or must they be condemned? I am prepared to hear on this point the common opinion of moralists who represent virtue as a restraint on instincts, an effort against the inclination that we all have in us, a struggle in fact against the original man. By their own showing virtue is contrary to nature, and from this it proceeds that they cannot condemn an action, whatever it may be, for what it has in common with virtue.
“I have made this digression, my son, to the end that I might show you the pitiable frivolity of your arguments. I cannot insult you by believing that you have any remaining doubts on the innocence of the carnal intercourse that men may hold with Salamanders. Know henceforth, that far from being forbidden by the laws of religion, such marriages are ordained by that law to the exclusion of all others. I will now give you manifest proof.”
He stopped speaking, took his box from his pocket, and helped his nose to a pinch of snuff.
Night had fallen. The moon shed her liquid light on the river which shimmered beneath it, touched too with the glancing light of the lamps. Flights of gnats swarmed round us in airy spirals. Shrill insect voices rose amid the universal silence. Such sweetness fell from heaven that the starlight seemed to be suffused with milk.
Monsieur d’Astarac continued in this wise:
“The Bible, my son, and principally the books of Moses contain great and useful truths. This opinion seems absurd and unreasonable in consequence of the treatment that theologians have meted out to what they call the Scripture, which by thei
r commentaries, explanations, and meditations, they have made a manual of mistakes, a volume of absurdities, a storehouse of imbecilities, a collection of lies, a string of follies, a school of ignorance, a treasury of everything inept, and the lumber-room for all stupidity and wickedness. You must know that it was in its origin a temple of celestial light.
“I have been fortunate enough to re-establish it in pristine splendour. And truth compels me to state that Mosaïde has greatly helped me by his understanding of the language and alphabet of the Hebrews. But do not let us lose sight of our main subject. Learn, first of all, that the meaning of the Bible is figurative, and that the chief error of theologians has been to take literally what must be understood as symbolical. Bear that truth in mind throughout the rest of my discourse.
“When the Demiurge we call Jehovah, who also possesses many other names since we apply to him generally all the terms expressing quantity and quality, had, I do not say created the world, for that would be a foolish thing to say, but made straight a little corner of the universe to make a dwelling-place for Adam and Eve, there were to be found in space creatures of a subtle nature which Jehovah had not formed — would have been incapable of forming. They were the work of various other Demiurges more ancient than he and more cunning. His artifice did not yet go beyond that of a very able potter capable of moulding beings, such as we are, in clay, as you fashion pots. What I say of him is not to depreciate him, for such a work is still far beyond human power.
“But one cannot fail to notice the inferior quality of the work of the seven days. Jehovah worked, not in fire which alone gives birth to master-pieces of life, but in clay wherefrom he could produce but the handiwork of a clever ceramist. We are nothing, my son, but animated pottery. One cannot reproach Jehovah with having any illusions about his work. If he found it good at first and in the ardour of composition, he was not slow in recognising his error, and the Bible is full of the expression of his discontent, which often grew to ill-humour and sometimes even to anger. Never did artisan treat objects produced by his industry with more disgust and aversion. He thought of destroying them and indeed he drowned the greater part of them. The deluge, the memory of which has been proved a last deception for the unhappy Demiurge preserved by the Jews, the Greeks, and the Chinese, who, soon recognising the uselessness and ridiculousness of such violence, fell into discouragement and apathy, which has not ceased since the day of Noah but has progressed to the extreme degree of the present day. But I see I look too far ahead. It is the drawback of these vast subjects that one cannot confine oneself to them. Our mind abandoning itself in them acts like the children of the stars who pass at one bound from universe to universe.
“Let us return to the earthly paradise where the Demiurge had placed the two vessels shaped by his hand: Adam and Eve. They did not live alone there among the animals and plants. Spirits of air created by the Demiurges of the fire floated above them, and looked on them with curiosity mingled with sympathy and pity. It was just what Jehovah had foreseen. To his praise let it be said he had reckoned on the Genii of the fire, to whom we can henceforth give real names of Elves and Salamanders, to improve and complete his little figures of clay. He had said to himself in his prudence, ‘My Adam and Eve, opaque, and sealed in clay, lack air and light. I did not know how to give them wings. But by uniting themselves with Elves and Salamanders created by a Demiurge more powerful and subtle than I, they will give birth to children who will derive from the people of light, as well as from the race of clay, and will bear in their turn children more luminous than themselves, until at last their posterity shall nearly equal in beauty the sons and the daughters of air and fire.’
“Truly he had neglected nothing to draw the attention of the Sylphs and Salamanders to his Adam and Eve. He had modelled the woman to the shape of an amphora with a harmony of curved lines which sufficed to show him a prince of Geometers, and he succeeded in redeeming the coarseness of the material by the magnificence of the form. Adam he had moulded with a hand less light but firmer, shaping his body with such justness and according to such perfect proportions that, applied later by the Greeks to architecture, these lines and measurements made all the beauty of their temples.
“So you see, my son, Jehovah tried according to his powers to render his creatures worthy of the ethereal embrace he hoped for them. I lay no stress on the pains he took to make these unions fruitful. The economy of the sexes bears sufficient witness to his wisdom in this respect. And at first he could congratulate himself on his cunning and address. I have said that the Sylphs and Salamanders looked on Adam and Eve with that curiosity, that sympathy, and that tenderness which are the first ingredients of love. They drew near, and were taken in the cunning snares which Jehovah had set, and spread for them in and on the bellying bodies of the amphorae. The first man and the first woman enjoyed during centuries the delectable embraces of the Genii of the air, which preserved them in eternal youth.
“Such was their lot, such should be ours. Why did the parents of the human race, tired of these sublime delights, seek illicit pleasure the one with the other? But what would you have, my son? Moulded in clay, they loved the mud whence they came. Alas! they knew one another, even as they had known the Genii.
“This is what the Demiurge had expressly forbidden them. Dreading, and with reason, that they would produce children heavy, dull, and earthbound, as themselves, he had forbidden them, under strictest penalty, to approach one another. It is the meaning of those words of Eve’s:— ‘But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God hath said Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.’ For you can well understand, my son, the apple which tempted the luckless Eve was not the fruit of the apple-tree, and therein lies an allegory whose meaning I have explained to you. Although imperfect, and sometimes violent and capricious Jehovah was a Demiurge, and too intelligent to vex himself about an apple or a pomegranate. To uphold such extravagant imaginings one must be a bishop or a capuchin. And the proof that the apple was what I have said it was is that Eve was visited with the punishment suited to her fault.
“It was not said to her, ‘In sorrow shalt thou eat of it,’ but:— ‘In sorrow thou shalt bring forth.’
Now what connection, I ask you, can there be between an apple and the pains of child-birth? On the contrary, the punishment is exactly fitted if the fault were such as I have explained it.
“There, my son, is the true explanation of original sin. It teaches you your duty, which is to keep away from women. The fondness which draws you to them is fatal. All children born in this fashion are foolish and wretched.”
“But, Monsieur,” I cried, stupefied, “is another way then possible?”
“Happily,” said he, “a great many are born from the union of men with the Spirits of air. And such are clever and beautiful. Thus were born the giants spoken of by Hesiod and Moses. Thus was born Pythagoras, whom the Salamander, his mother, endowed with a golden thigh. Thus was born Alexander the Great, said to be the son of Olympias and a serpent. Scipio-Africanus, Aristomenes of Messenia, Julius Cæsar, Porphyry, the emperor Julian who re-established the worship of fire, abolished by Constantine the Apostate; Merlin the Wizard, born of a Sylph and a nun, daughter of Charlemagne; St. Thomas Aquinas, Paracelsus, and more recently Monsieur Van Helmont.”
I promised Monsieur d’Astarac, as this was the case, to lend myself to the advances of a Salamander, could one be found so obliging as to wish for me. He assured me I should not only find one, but twenty or thirty, among whom I should have but the difficulty of choosing. And less by desire to put it to the test than to please him, I asked the philosopher how it were possible to put oneself in communication with these aërial beings.
“Nothing is easier,” he replied. “It needs but a crystal ball, whose use I will explain to you. I keep by me a fairly large number of these balls, and I will give you all the necessary directions before long in my study. But that is enough for today.”
He
rose and moved to the boat, where the ferryman waited us, stretched on his back and snoring to the moon. Once we had touched the bank he was soon at a distance, and was quickly lost to sight in the darkness.
XIII
THIS long interview left me the confused feeling of a dream; I was more alive to the thought of Catherine. In spite of the sublimities that I had been hearing I longed to see her, and that although I had not supped. I was not so penetrated by the philosopher’s notions that I was in any way out of taste with this pretty girl. I was resolved to push my good fortune to a finish before falling to the possession of one of those handsome furies of the air, who allowed no earthly rivals. My dread was lest, at so late an hour of the night, Catherine should be tired of waiting for me. Making my way along the river and crossing the Pont Royal at full speed, I rushed down the Rue du Bac. A minute later I reached the Rue de Grenelle, where I heard cries mingled with the clash of swords. The noise came from the house Catherine had described to me. There, on the pavement, shadows and lanterns were flickering and voices arose:
“Help! Jesus! They murder me! Have at the monk.... Forrard on! To him... Jesus and Mary help! Look at the precious rascal! Have at him! To him, boys, to him! Let him have it!”
Windows opened in the surrounding houses and showed heads bonnetted with night-caps.
All this tumult and rout passed suddenly across me like a forest chase and I recognised brother Ange who was making off with such speed that he kicked himself with his sandalled feet as he ran, while three great strapping lackeys armed like the Swiss guard, pressing him close pricked his hide with the points of their halberts. Their master, a young gentleman, thick-set and red of face, ceased not to encourage them with voice and gesture as one sets on the hounds.
Complete Works of Anatole France Page 62