Chalet in the Sky

by Albert Robida

  V. The Caucasian Archipelago, Pleasure Resort.

  At sunset, the excursionists returned to the Aero-Beauséjour, enchanted by their trip. They were warm, their expansive expressions testifying to their satisfaction.

  “What if we were to stay here?” said Moderan. “As a tranquil and delightful place to stay, the Caucasian Archipelago seems to me to be the dream location. What do you say, Uncle?”

  “Yes, but…there is a but: the sojourn tax. It’s a little dear, that tax, for a prolonged stay. As I’ve said, as a pleasure resort, the Archipelago is marvelously successful; one can’t find a better one. The enterprise has brought together all the natural attractions and added artistic, sporting and other attractions—but all those fine things are costly! Then again, I still have many ideas in my program for the agreeable employment of our ten years, no shortage of projects. We’ll talk about all that later. We’re here for a nice little interval, of course—time to sate ourselves on blue sky and tranquility.”

  “Have you seen the pilot, Monsieur?” Melanie asked her master in a low voice.

  “No, why?”

  “Look at him, Monsieur, look at him! Fortunately, we’re no more than 700 or 800 meters up in the air. Personally, I lunched wisely on an ordinary pill of concentrated fresh water; he washed his pill of I don’t know what beefsteakade down with at least four pills of Burgundy and Bordeaux, taken from the store cupboard, which I’d forgotten to lock. Then he went all red and started to sing—and now he’s snoring on the balcony.”

  “Ah! Pilots, of wheeled vehicles or aircraft, are almost all like that. They gladly take pills in superalimentary quantity and wash them down with well-chosen strong synthetic droplets…but don’t alarm yourself, Melanie, there’s no inconvenience today, and tomorrow…”

  “Tomorrow?” asked Moderan, who had overheard. “What about tomorrow?”

  “You know very well that he had to leave us after bringing us to the Caucasian Archipelago. The Panama-Dakar-Paris dirigible touches down here tomorrow, and he’ll take it…but I’ll say a few words to your father, who gave him to us as an entirely reliable pilot; he needs to be warned. It’s possible that this lapse of sobriety is quite exceptional, but one never knows…. Unfortunately, it appears that people fall prey to temptation—it’s so easy and so comfortable! And repeated abuse of these wines in pill form leads to alcoholism. Physicians have told me that the Académie de Médecine is worried about it. Three or four pills of Bordeaux and Burgundy! Damn it! And I thought his only fault was his pipe!”

  “What about excursions, then?” asked Andoche, anxiously. “Who’s going to pilot the Aero-Beauséjour.”

  “You, me or Moderan—or Melanie, if need be.”

  “Uh-oh!”

  “First of all, you’ve taken a few lessons from Barlotin; secondly, I know how to do it—I have my little mini-airplane for personal excursions. Then again, you know that, so that we might be free in our movements, and, in case of need, dispense with a pilot, I’ve had our Villa Beauséjour fitted with a radioloxodromogoniometer, which steers automatically near the Earth’s surface, and by excess of precaution, a radioetherogoniometer for interplanetary space. With all that, we’re ready for anything.”

  “Hear hear!” said Andoche.

  “Uh-oh!” repeated Moderan.

  “Once the heading is selected, it’s just a matter of letting it run. You’ve seen Barlotin, in his cockpit, asleep at his instruments. He only had to cast an eye over the route-recorder from time to time. It’s child’s play.”

  “Of course!” said Andoche.

  “The route ahead is cleared by the waves we transmit, which cause any apparatus that might get in our way to change course, just as the waves transmitted by another apparatus in our path would gently alter our course. On the next excursion, tomorrow, I’ll take charge of the steering; I’ll complete your education. Besides, you’re used to autoplanes—it’ll be simple and easy.”

  “Especially as the sky is almost empty at 500 meters,” said Andoche, “Which isn’t the case in the vicinity of Paris, where traffic jams at every height are an incessant nuisance.”

  “And with our safety apparatus, I’ll bet you that I can drive the Aero-Beauséjour without the slightest difficulty, while reciting a chapter of my History of Civilizations, or even improvising rhyming verse…”

  “No, no, Uncle—no difficulties!” exclaimed Moderan. “I won’t raise any more objections. No rhyming, no rhyming—there’s no need.”

  “Understood—I won’t bring the lyre on our excursions. Now, we’re going to work for a while. Come on, to your desk. Before getting to work on my History of Lunatic Civilizations, I want to see whether the Universal Cinephono University is working properly.”

  The Cine-University apparatus, a large light box about 80 centimeters wide by a meter tall, was fixed to the wall above a table-desk. There was nothing monumental about it, but it contained a summary of all the human sciences: general history, ancient and modern; specific histories; geography, sciences, properly speaking, including the most recent; languages; literary history, the first year of law; mathematics, etc.—the entire syllabus of the three baccalaureates in letters, sciences and arts, more than 300 carefully-selected lectures, plus 1500 homework exercises, essays and translations. The fully-qualified apparatus displayed in its prospectus the approbations and eulogies of all the faculties and universities of the six continents; one could rest easy—it was simple and easy to operate, never broke down, and, in case of an accident, any clockmaker could get it back in working order.

  On pulling a handle, the cupboard opened, displaying four sets of little drawers, one on top of another, each bearing a dial. It only remained to choose the drawer of the human knowledge required and to turn the needle on the dial, then press the telephone button—and the masters spoke!

  “A College in one’s own home,” said Monsieur Cabrol, “even while traveling, distantly displaced, deep in the woods or the mountains—it’s so convenient! Sit down boys, and work! Take notes, write, do the homework or the advised essays conscientiously.”

  “We’ll get stuck into it, Uncle—what a fine walk we had this morning!”

  “We’ll have others, tomorrow…come on, a little bit of work today, eh? Don’t neglect the assignments. And to think that we haven’t yet been able to devise a machine for correcting assignments that works properly. It’s so necessary! What a fortune the scientist who invents one would make! Truly, it makes one doubt the genius of our inventors. Come on, I’m going to work for a while too. Then, well-rested, we’ll go to pay the sojourn tax.”

  In the well-lit and cheerful room in which the light and blue of the sky penetrated and sparkled everywhere, where the pleasant odors of the waves and seaweeds swaying under the rocks came to vivify their breasts, they worked joyfully.

  Andoche and Moderan put themselves into it without enthusiasm at first, their minds wandering over the rocks bathed by the waves, into the picturesque creeks or caves opening under the pines, over the spangled sand where families of crabs and gigantic lobsters were roaming amid the wrack and the long, decorative, tangled sheets of blue, green and yellow algae.

  Soon, explanatory diagrams appeared on a great central disk, and the phono spoke. Abandoning the beach, the foamy waves and the clouds racing through the blue, Andoche and Moderan took notes dutifully.

  In the next room, with the door closed so as not to hear the phono, Monsieur Cabrol, sprawled in a wicker armchair, reviewed the first pages of his book, thoughtfully. He took notes too. Nothing is better for intellectual labor than exercise in the open air, excursions over uneven ground, which shakes up the intellect and caused ideas to spring forth. It seems that the legs pull the strings of the slumbering meninges.

  “Come on, lads,” he said, arriving after an hour of solid work, “time to eat now, and then to take a walk. Ah, we’ll settle up with the Administration and pay the sojourn tax.”

  The professor’s voice in the phono fell silent, and the
youngsters leapt up joyfully. A pill swallowed by way of a meal, and they left the aerovilla to visit the charming village, half-terrestrial and half-aerial, in which elegant buildings in every style lined up on the shore almost at the tide-line, where, set on the rocks, surrounding gardens exceedingly shady gardens, clumps of palms or sprays of large bright flowers were swaying. Behind almost all of the terrestrial houses, aeros were sheltering in garages formed simply of a roof shape like a flowery parasol. And always, between each pair of houses, there was the blue sea, the sparkling sand, groups of cabins and stalls, with bathers floating in the water or curled up in the Sun in dressing-gowns of every color.

  Phanor bounded ahead; although he had not been working, he had been sleeping in the Sun, having swallowed his pill like a civilized dog, and wanted nothing but to stretch his legs, barking at the little creatures encountered on the sand, and at the waves that came to surround him and sprinkle him with foam.

  A placard saying Office on the door of a pavilion in the Chinese style reminded Monsieur Cabrol about the sojourn tax. He went in momentarily and paid the tax for four people. It was expensive, but it was necessary to remunerate the capital expended and pay for the work of maintaining the Archipelago, the various attractions, general expenses, dividends, etc, etc.

  Monsieur Cabrol explained it to the youngsters.

  “Then again,” he said, “there’s the politicians.”

  “Are there politicians?”

  “Undoubtedly! The Caucasian Archipelago, pleasure resort, is an independent State; it is self-governing, so it has politicians, an administrative council and diplomats.”

  “Diplomats who don’t have a great deal to do,” said Moderan.

  “Perhaps…in the beginning, things didn’t work automatically. As soon as the construction-work was finished, England generously offered to take the Archipelago under its protection. The administration declined the protectorate, which gave rise to long and difficult negotiations. Albion said: ‘This new archipelago, constructed with your own materials, belongs to you, that’s understood—but I feel that I’m the natural mother of all islands, and I open my arms to you…you don’t want that? So be it! But these islands, which you’ve brought into my shipping-routes, inconvenience the passage of those ships somewhat. The ground on which you’ve constructed your Archipelago isn’t yours, you realize. Well, to regularize the situation, you’re going to pay me for the location in the form of a port of call for my ships and an airport for my dirigibles.’ And the negotiations are still going on…”

  “Look!” said Andoche. “What’s that?”

  To the west, at the edge of a circle framed by high cliffs, at the base of which snaked an uneven little path, a new coastline had just appeared, which unfolded like the other coast, with the same inlets and the same rocks. Pleasure villages in their verdant tresses were perceptible in the distance, but, closer to the obscured point, the terrain broadened out to form a plateau ten meters above the sand.

  On this plateau, a slender tower with a iron framework rise up 30 or 40 meters, circled by large airstrips ten meters square, above long iron hangars lined up among the pallets of the offices and the personnel. On the ground, a large dirigible had just moored; travelers and luggage were moving on to the first airstrip. A few little mini-planes were circling the dirigible, doubtless carrying other travelers or friends come to greet the passengers, the dirigible remaining in the port for three-quarters of an hour before continuing on its way.

  “It’s the airstrip of the Panama-Dakar-Paris and Paris-Australia-Mexico lines—and the Madrid-Paris, etc.”

  “Then that’s the airship that will pick up our pilot for its return journey. He must already be aboard…”

  “He’s never in a hurry—he’ll arrive at the last minute.”

  “Good, god! It’s a good spot here—we’ll have a very good view of the departure. That won’t be long delayed—the elevators are operating. Here, Phanor! Would you care to refrain from deafening us with your displays of enthusiasm? Or I’ll send you back to Paris!”

  At the tip of the airstrip, a flame had just gone up. The dirigible emitted a strident whistle-blast. A loudspeaker on board howled interjections in various languages, even Latin, toward all points of the horizon. The airship shuddered, and seemed to sway.

  “Look out—it’s taking off!” said Monsieur Cabrol, stopping up his ears.

  A new explosion of howling, and the elevators came down again. Half a minute of howling, and everything suddenly fell silent. The dirigible rose up, jet-fashion, as if breathed in by the sky; having arrived at 500 or 600 meters, it turned its prow eastwards, and plunged toward the horizon.

  “We’ll have another sunset in fireworks,” said Monsieur Cabrol, cutting through a wood of coconut-date-palms. “Let’s get back to the villa. Here, Phanor!”

  “A nice place to stay—I’ve already spotted I don’t know how many places to roll on the sand, or in the grass, when the sand’s too hot.”

  “Uncle, can the Phono University be unscrewed? I’d love to bring it to a nice little corner under the trees, or into one of those caves on the shore, to do my homework in the midst of nature.”

  “We’ll see about that…”

  As they arrived at the villa, Phanor bounded on ahead.

  “What’s up with him?” said Moderan, also breaking into a run.

  With his nose in the air, in front of the Beauséjour, Phanor was barking plaintively.

  “Ah!” said Moderan. “It’s for Babylas, who’s on the roof.”

  Up above, the cat Babylas also had his nose in the air. He miaowed, launched himself up the slippery slope, and tried to grasp the stem of the weathervane, fell back, and miaowed more plaintively, shivering and tensing as cats do when on the lookout for little birds.

  The fine weathervane was a bird cut out in aluminum, which oscillated at the slightest breath of air, and poor Babylas was completely fooled by it. Oh, that one could not get used to alimentary pills, and could think of nothing but crunching the bird that was insolently stirring on its iron perch, seemingly mocking him.

  At Phanor’s barking, the pilot’s head appeared on the cockpit balcony. Monsieur Cabrol climbed the ladder and went back into the villa. “What? You haven’t taken the dirigible?” he said

  “My word, no,” Barlotin replied. “I didn’t feel well. I’ll take the one tomorrow.”

  “You are a little red-faced, in fact. It’s a bit warm here. Is it the climate that doesn’t suit you?”

  “It must be something of that sort.”

  “I’ll go look in our little pharmacy and give you as pill to relieve the congestion.”

  Melanie had a coughing fit, which terminated in broad silent laughter.

  Monsieur Cabrol went into his room and gestured to Melanie. “What is it?”

  “Don’t worry, Monsieur,” Melanie said, ending up with a smile. “I know all about Monsieur Barlotin’s congestion; he has his own little private pharmacy and looks after himself. His appetite’s not bad: he lunched on three or four pills, beefsteak with apples, bacon omelet, veal escalope and I don’t know what else, which he washed down with Bordeaux grand ordinaire, followed by a coffee pill and a liqueur coffee…the kind one reads about in old books.”

  “Ah! You’ve set my mind at rest, Melanie.”

  VI. The Stadium of Violent and Other Sports.

  The pleasant existence of rest and pure air continued for the inhabitants of the Aero-Beauséjour. Truly, the pleasure Archipelago had not stolen its reputation. There one led the existence of the ultra-perfected Earthly Paradise, provided with all the natural attractions borrowed from the Nature of the three or four best-provided continents, and further attractions of every sort added to the pleasantness of the countryside; it really was the Archipelago of the Prospectus.

  The aerovilla was no longer parked on the beach where it had landed. After having explored the entirety of that section of coast in the course of long walks, it had moved to another part of the Arc
hipelago, the Central Isle, the archipelagian capital, from which one could radiate outwards to all the rest.

  Oh, it was not difficult to find things to occupy one’s time. The first day, after a short walk in the town, which was nothing but an immense park, with a scattering of palaces and splendid villas, perched in every possible fashion on an extremely uneven terrain, they went to visit the sports grounds.

  Everyone was very sporty there; it was necessary to struggle against the temptation to idle in hammocks suspended from the branches of the baobabs, and to take somnolent siestas to which the mildness of the climate was so conducive.

  That first day, after lunch, in front of the principal government building, which the architects of the enterprise had given the appearance of a Tartar Aul,25 hooked on to a rocky spur, as forbidding as those which studded the old far-away Caucasus, Monsieur Cabrol and his nephews, accompanied by the housekeeper Melanie, and followed reluctantly by Phanor, came to a halt before a huge advertisement for the Sports Ground, a long wall decorated with images depicting all the kinds of sports practiced by the Archipelagians.

  They were all there: bridge, roulette, dancing, boxing, wrestling, various kinds of fencing, skating, sledding—luge and bobsleigh—etc. etc. It was rather surprising to encounter the latter sports in that tropical climate, mildly tempered by the breath of the ocean; accustomed to scientific miracles, however, Andoche and Moderan accepted the affirmations of the advertisement without protest. It was necessary to go see it immediately.

  Every three minutes, a train composed of mini-aircraft cabins suspended from a long cable left for the sports ground. It was an old procedure of the Middle Ages, revived to avoid aerial crowding in the area and the inevitable accidents.

  Andoche and Moderan were already seated in a cabin. “Quickly, Uncle—I want to try the luge!”

  “Quickly, quickly!”