by Jules Verne
“Not quite so much as you may think,” said the superintendent. “We are the possessors of instruments which have enabled us to listen to you when you were at Boston or Philadelphia; and if you please, you can applaud yourself with your own hands.”
At this period the inventions of the illustrious Edison had attained their final degree of perfection. The phonograph was no longer the mere musical-box which it resembled so closely to begin with. Thanks to its admirable inventor, the ephemeral talent of singers or instrumentalists had been preserved for the admiration of future races with as much precision as the works of statuaries and painters. An echo, if you will, but an echo faithful as a photograph reproduction, the shades and delicacies of singing or playing in all their unalterable purity.
Calistus Munbar said this so warmly that his hearers were impressed. He spoke of Saint-Saëns, Reyer, Ambroise Thomas, Gounod, Massenet, Verdi, of the imperishable masterpieces of Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Halévy, Rossini, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, like one who knew them thoroughly, who appreciated them, who, to make them better known, had devoted his already long life as an impresario, and it was pleasant to listen to him. At the same time he did not seem to have been attacked by the Wagnerian epidemic which, at this period, was subsiding.
When he stopped to take breath, Pinchinat, profiting by the calm, remarked, —
“All that is very well, but your Milliard City, I see, has only heard music in a box, melodic preserves sent to it like tinned sardines or salt beef.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Alto.”
“I will pardon you, but I insist on this point, that your phonographs only preserve the past, and that you have probably never heard an artiste in Milliard City when he is playing.”
“You must pardon me once more.”
“Our friend, Pinchinat, will pardon you as much as you like, Mr. Munbar,” said Frascolin. “His pockets are full of pardons, but his remark is just. Still, if you could put yourselves in communication with the theatres of America or Europe—”
“And do you think that would be impossible, my dear Frascolin?” exclaimed the superintendent, stopping in his see-saw.
“What do you mean?”
“I say that it is only a question of price, and our city is rich enough to satisfy all its fancies, all its aspirations as regards lyric art, and it has done so.”
“And how?”
“By means of the theatrophones installed in the concert room of this casino. The company possesses a number of submarine cables immersed in the waters of the Pacific, one end of which is at Madeleine Bay, and the other held in suspension by powerful buoys. When our fellow-citizens wish to hear one of the singers of the Old or New World, we fix on to one of these cables, and send a telephonic order to our agents at Madeleine Bay. These agents put us in communication with America or with Europe. The cables are connected with such and such a theatre, such and such a concert-room, and our dilettanti seated in this casino really assist at these distant performances and applaud.”
“But the people over there cannot hear their applause!” exclaimed Yvernès.
“I beg your pardon, they do—by return wire!”
And then Calistus Munbar launched forth into transcendental considerations on music, considered not only as one of the manifestations of art, but as a therapeutic agent. According to the system of J. Harford, of Westminster Abbey, the good folks of Milliard City had experienced extraordinary results regarding this utilization of the lyric art. The system kept them in perfect health. Music exercising a reflex action on the nervous centres, the harmonic vibrations had the effect of dilating the arterial vessels, influencing the circulation and increasing or diminishing it as required. It provoked an acceleration of the heart’s pulsations and respiratory movements by reason of the tonality and intensity of the sounds, and aided the nutrition of the tissues. Consequently, musical energy stations were working at Milliard City, and transmitting sound waves to the houses by means of the telephones, etc., etc.
The quartette listened with open mouths. Never had they heard their art discussed from a medical point of view, and probably they were not particularly pleased. Nevertheless, Yvernès the whimsical, ready to adopt these theories, which are as old as King Saul, according to the practice of the celebrated harpist, David, excitedly exclaimed, —
“Yes, yes. It is clear enough. You must choose your tune according to the diagnosis. Take Wagner or Berlioz, for instance, for the anæmic.”
“And Mendelssohn and Mozart for the sanguine instead of bromide of strontium!” replied Calistus Munbar.
Sebastien Zorn here interposed, and hurled his discordant note into this high-flighted conversation.
“We have nothing to do with all this,” he said; “why have you brought us here?”
“Because stringed instruments have the most powerful effect.”
“Indeed, sir; and was it to soothe your neurotics that you interrupted our journey, and hindered our reaching San Diego, where we are engaged to give a concert tomorrow?”
“That was the reason, my excellent friends.”
“And all you saw in us was a kind of musical sawbones, or lyrical apothecaries?” asked Pinchinat.
“No, gentlemen,” answered Calistus Munbar rising, “I saw in you only artistes of great talent and great reputation. The cheers which greeted the Quartette Party on its American tour have reached our island. The Floating Island Company thought that the time had come to replace their phonographs and theatrophones by living artistes in flesh and blood, and give the inhabitants of Milliard City the inexpressible pleasure of a direct execution of the masterpieces of art. It wished to begin with chamber music before organizing operatic orchestras. It thought of you, the accredited representatives of that music. It gave me instructions to secure you at any price, to carry you off if need be. You are the first artistes that have had access to Floating Island, and I leave you to imagine the welcome that awaits you!”
Yvernès and Pinchinat were much affected by these enthusiastic periods of the superintendent. That it might be a hoax did not occur to them. Frascolin, a man of reflection, asked himself if he were to take this adventure seriously. After all, in such an extraordinary island would not things appear under an extraordinary aspect! As to Sebastien Zorn, he had resolved not to give in.
“No, sir,” he said, “men are not to be carried off without their consent! We will begin an action against you.”
“An action! When you ought to overwhelm me with thanks, ungrateful that you are!” replied the superintendent.
“And we will obtain damages, sir.”
“Damages! When I offer you a hundred times more than you could hope to get.”
“How much?” said the practical Frascolin.
Calistus Munbar took out his pocket-book and produced a sheet of paper bearing the arms of Floating Island. Presenting it to the four artistes, he said, —
“Your four signatures at the end of this agreement, and the matter is done.”
“Sign it before we have read it?” said the second violin. “That we will never do.”
“You will never have cause to regret it,” said Calistus Munbar, indulging in an outburst of hilarity that shook his whole body. “But let us proceed in proper form. It is an engagement which the company proposes to you, an engagement for twelve months from this date, for the execution of chamber music such as you have been giving in your programmes in America. In twelve months Floating Island will have returned to Madeleine Bay, where you will arrive in time—”
“For our concert at San Diego, I suppose?” exclaimed Sebastien Zorn, “San Diego, where we shall be greeted with hisses.’
“No, gentlemen, with cheers. Artistes such as you, the dilettanti are always too honoured and too happy to hear, even if a year behind time.”
How could they be angry with such a man?
Frascolin took the paper and read it attentively.
“What guarantee have we?”
“The guarantee of the Floating Islan
d Company under the signature of Mr. Cyrus Bikerstaff, our governor.”
“And the terms are these I see set forth in this agreement?”
“Exactly. One million francs—”
“For the four?” asked Pinchinat.
“For each,” said Calistus Munbar with a smile, “and yet that amount is not in accordance with your merit, which no one can reward at its proper value.”
It would, it must be admitted, have been difficult to have been more pleasant. And yet Sebastien Zorn protested. He would not accept at any price. He would go to San Diego, and it was not without difficulty that Frascolin succeeded in calming his indignation.
Yet there could not help being some mistrust regarding the superintendent’s proposition. An engagement for a year at the rate of a million francs apiece, could it be serious? Quite serious, as Frascolin discovered when he asked, —
“When is the money payable?”
“Quarterly,” replied the superintendent, “and here is the first payment, in advance.”
Of the roll of notes which bulged his pocket-book Calistus Munbar made four bundles of fifty thousand dollars, that is two hundred and fifty thousand francs, which he handed to Frascolin and his comrades.
That is the way to manage matters in American fashion.
Sebastien Zorn could not help being shaken. But his ill-humour never lost its rights, and he could not help remarking, —
“After all, at the prices that prevail in your island, if you pay twenty-five francs for a partridge, you probably pay a hundred francs for a pair of gloves, and five hundred francs for a pair of boots?”
“Oh, Monsieur Zorn,” exclaimed Calistus Munbar, “the company does not stand at such trifles, and it desires that the Quartette Party will have all their expenses paid for them during their sojourn on the island.”
To these generous offers what other response could there be but to sign the engagement?
This was what Frascolin, Pinchinat, and Yvernès did. Zorn muttered that it was all absurd. To embark on a Floating Island was ridiculous. They would see how it would end. At last he decided to sign.
And this formality accomplished, if Frascolin, Pinchinat, and Yvernès did not kiss Calistus Munbar’s hand, they at least shook it warmly. Four shakes of the hand at a million each!
And that is how the Quartette Party were launched on this extraordinary adventure, and it was under such circumstances that its members became the guests of Floating Island.
CHAPTER VII.
Floating Island glided gently over the waters of this Pacific Ocean, which justifies its name at this season of the year. Accustomed for twenty-four hours now to this tranquil motion, Sebastien Zorn and his comrades no longer noticed that they were being carried over the sea. So powerful were its hundreds of screws, driven by their ten million horse-power, that the thrill of the steel hull was barely perceptible. There was no sign of the oscillations of the waves, to which even the most powerful ironclads have to yield. In the houses there were no rolling tables or swing lamps. Why should there be? The houses of Paris, London, and New York were not more securely fixed on their foundations.
After a few weeks’ stay at Madeleine Bay, the assembly of notables of Floating Island, called together by the president of the administrative council of the company, had determined on the programme of their annual tour. The island would visit the chief archipelagoes of the Eastern Pacific, voyaging through that hygienic atmosphere, so rich in ozone, in condensed electrized oxygen, gifted with active peculiarities not possessed by oxygen in its ordinary state. As the apparatus was free to move anywhere, advantage was taken of this power to go either east or west, to the American or Asiatic shore, as might be desired. Floating Island went where it pleased, so as to experience the distractions of a varied voyage. And even if it were desired to abandon the Pacific for the Indian Ocean or the Atlantic, to round Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope, it could proceed in the direction wished for, and rest assured that neither currents nor tempests would prevent its attaining its object.
But there was no question of its visiting these distant seas, in which it would not find what the Pacific offers among its innumerable archipelagoes. That ocean was a theatre quite large enough for its many voyages. Floating Island could move about from one archipelago to another if it was not endowed with that special instinct of animals —that sixth sense of orientation which guides them where their wants call them—it was directed in safety according to a programme discussed at length and unanimously approved. Up to then there had never been any disagreement between the Starboardites and Larboardites. And the present intention was a westerly voyage to the Sandwich Islands. The distance of about twelve hundred leagues which separates this group from the place where the quartette came on board would take about a month to accomplish at moderate speed, and Floating Island could remain in the archipelago until it was found convenient to start again for another group in the southern hemisphere.
On the morrow of this memorable day the quartette left the Excelsior Hotel and took up their quarters in some rooms in the casino which were put at their disposal—a comfortable suite, richly furnished as may be supposed. First Avenue lay displayed in front of its windows. Sebastien Zorn, Frascolin, Pinchinat, Yvernès, had each his own room communicating with a sitting-room common to all. The central court of the establishment yielded them the shade of its trees in full foliage, and the freshness of its fountains. On one side of this court was the museum of Milliard City; on the other the concert-room where the Parisian artistes were so happily to replace the echoes of the phonographs and the transmissions of the theatrophones. Twice a day, three times a day, as many times a day as they wished, their table was laid in the restaurant, where the manager favoured them with no more of his remarkable efforts in addition.
This morning, when they had all met in the sitting-room before descending for breakfast, —
“Well!” said Pinchinat, “what do you say to what has happened to us?”
“A dream,” replied Yvernès, “a dream in which we are engaged at a million a year.”
“It is unmistakable reality,” replied Frascolin. “Search in your pockets, and you can pull out the first quarter of the said million.”
“It remains to see how it is going to end! Very badly, I imagine,” said Zorn, bent on discovering a folded rose-leaf in the bed on which he had been laid in spite of himself. “Besides, where is our luggage?”
In fact, the luggage was probably at San Diego, to which they could not go in search of it. Oh! Very rudimentary luggage; a few portmanteaus, linen, toilet utensils, a change of clothes, and also, it is true, the costume of the executants when they appeared before the public.
There was nothing to be uneasy about on this point. In forty-eight hours this rather faded wardrobe would be replaced by another presented to the four artistes without their having to pay fifteen hundred francs for a coat or five hundred francs for a pair of boots.
Besides, Calistus Munbar, enchanted at having so ably conducted this delicate affair, took care that the quartette had nothing to wish for. It was impossible to imagine a more inexhaustibly obliging superintendent. He occupied a suite of rooms in the casino of which he had the chief management, and the company had taken care that the fittings and appointments were worthy of his magnificence and munificence. We would rather not say how much they cost.
The casino included lecture-rooms and recreation-rooms, but baccarat, trente et quarante, roulette, poker, and all other games of chance were strictly prohibited. Here was the smoke room from which was delivered direct to the houses the tobacco smoke prepared by a company recently established. The smoke of the tobacco burnt in the furnaces of this central establishment was purified and cleared of nicotine and distributed by pipes with amber mouthpieces to each subscriber. The subscribers had only to apply their lips and a meter registered the daily expense.
In this casino, where the dilettanti came to listen to the music from afar, to which the concerts of the quart
ette were now to be added, there were also the public collections of Milliard City. To the lovers of paintings, the gallery, rich in ancient and modern pictures, offered a number of masterpieces bought at extravagant prices, canvases of the Italian, Dutch, German and French schools which would make envious the collections of Paris, London, Munich, Rome and Florence. It had examples of Raffaelle, Da Vinci, Giorgione, Correggio, Domenichino, Ribeira, Murillo, Ruysdael, Rembrandt, Rubens, Cuyp, Frans Hals, Hobbema, Van Dyck, Holbein, etc., and also among the moderns, Fragonard, Ingres, Delacroix, Scheffer, Cabat, Delaroche, Regnaut, Couture, Meissonier, Millet, Rousseaux, Jules Dupré, Brascassat, Mackart, Turner, Troyon, Corot, Daubigny, Baudry, Bonnat, Carolus Duran, Jules Lefebvre, Vollon, Breton, Binet, You, Cabanel, etc. In order to make these pictures last for ever, they were placed in glass cases, from which the air was exhausted. It is worth mentioning that the impressionists, the intensists, the futurists had not yet encumbered this gallery, but doubtless that would occur in time, and Floating Island would not escape an invasion of this decadent pest. The museum also possessed statues of real value, marbles of the great sculptors ancient and modern, placed in the courts of the casino. Thanks to this climate being without rain or fog, groups, statues and busts could resist the attacks of the weather without injury.
That these marvels were often visited, that the nabobs of Milliard City had a very pronounced taste for the productions of art, that the artistic sense was very strongly developed amongst them, it would be hazardous to pretend. But it was noteworthy that the Starboardists included more amateurs than the Larboardists. All were, however, agreed when it was proposed to buy any masterpiece, and when their astonishing offers invariably obtained them from all the Dukes of Aumale, and all the Chauchards of the old and new continents.
The most frequented rooms in the casino were the reading-rooms devoted to the newspapers, and the European and American reviews brought by the regular service of steamers to Floating Island from Madeleine Bay. After being turned over, read and re-read, these reviews were placed on the shelves of the library with many thousand other works, the classification of which required the presence of a librarian at a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars, who had probably less to do than any of the other functionaries of the island. This library also contained a number of phonographic books which gave no trouble to read; all you had to do was to press a button and you heard the voice of some excellent reader aloud. For instance, there was the Phèdre of Racine read by M. Legouvé. As to the local journals, they were edited, composed and printed in the workshops of the casino under the direction of two editors-in-chief. One was the Starboard Chronicle for the Starboard section; the other the New Herald for the Larboard Section. The news consisted of the different events on the island, the arrival of the steamers, marine intelligence, ships sighted, the price lists of interest to the commercial quarters, the daily position of the island, the decision of the council of notables, the orders of the governor, the decrees of the civil power; births, marriages, deaths—the last very seldom; besides, there were never any robberies or murders, the courts only dealing with civil matters, actions between private persons. Never were there any articles on centenarians, longevity being no longer the privilege of the few.