Journey to the Isles of Atlantis and Other Fanciful Excursions

by Brian Stableford

  “Let’s go down,” I said, “let’s go down. I want to live in this city, in order that I might comprehend what it cries to the universe.”

  Part Two

  I. A Walk in the City

  Entering into Atlantopolis and exploring it at hazard, several spectacles astonished me to begin with. That of the streets astonished me above all. What is most remarkable in cities is not what one perceives immediately, and I confess that the perfection of the monuments made less impression on me than the strangeness of the crowd. That crowd is formed of people in haste who jostle one another, incapable of slowing their pace, and who stop rather than go gently. When they stop thus, they remain motionless for some time, open-mouthed, contemplating minor accidents or unimportant objects.

  Two contrary currents of carriages of all forms race along the avenues, which it seems chimerical to want to cross. The pedestrian population accumulates on the sidewalks. When a gap appears between two vehicles, the pedestrians advance; horses rear up, people are knocked down, others are constrained to retreat, but some succeed in reaching the middle of the causeway, where they form a troop. Those have still to confront a second row of carriages, and thus find themselves prisoners between the two files. Soon taking advantage of a new interval, they attempt the crossing again.

  You would have difficulty finding people in the city who do not bear the scars of injuries received in similar circumstances. However, the citizens have acquired a marvelous skill and suppleness in such exercises. You see them running, crawling, walking backwards, and sliding under the breasts of horses, but there is no security for them.

  Their destiny is no better if they hire carriages. The velocity of the latter is so precipitate, and surpasses natural possibility to such an extent, that they are often seen colliding, overturning, or even, as if crazed, deviating from their legitimate route, smashing into shops, going over the parapets of bridges, or hurling themselves headlong into trees, heaps of paving-stones and objects of great resistance of every species.

  A rapid movement animates everyone and everything. People run, animals gallop, and one cannot consider that confusion without a kind of bewilderment. The traveler thinks he is seeing a people combated by cavaliers, or a chariot race in an excessively crowded location.

  At intervals, in the middle of streets, I saw individuals clad in dirty uniforms. At first I took them for men condemned to death who were being punished for their crimes by obliging them to be crushed to death. Nothing of the sort; they are low-ranking officers charged with supervising the traffic. They do not have the mission of moderating its speed or repressing misdemeanors. They only make sure that every vehicle carries a certain plaque of engraved iron, which is delivered by the Treasury and is a kind of tax receipt.

  The window displays of shops merit an eternal contemplation. Objects of every sort are presented there tastefully and favorably illuminated. Everything that there is of the most delicate in every industry, displayed in an appropriate décor, gives everyone a hunger to acquire it. Here, in lace and embroidery, are delightful products of the provinces; there, glasses and vases of thin colored crystal, decomposing the light, are tinted with all the hues of the rainbow. Carpets are piled one atop another in calculated disorder, in which their tones are juxtaposed harmoniously. Woolen and silk fabrics, sculpted jewels and gems, bronze statues, the most beautiful inventions of luxury, are all found along the streets in astonishing boutiques that one might mistake for museums.

  Several merchants, under signs in foreign languages, offered the public objects of barbaric taste. One tailor, whose sign bore a name from overseas, made a profession of selling people garments that were much too large. That inept fashion succeeded, however and one saw many elegant individuals in the city decked out in tunics in the form of sacks.

  My greatest joy was looking at the women. Nowhere else in earth is it possible to see so many beautiful women. Atlantopolidiennes have a particular and sometimes paradoxical style of dress. That style modifies their appearance to the point that one thinks at first that their anatomy differs from the ordinary anatomy of their sex, but if one sees them naked, one perceives that they have the same forms as their sisters of other nations.

  They walk with very small steps, as if their legs were incapable of extended movements, and there too it is necessary not to trust the appearance. They stand on tiptoe, very straight, raising their head, advancing their bosom and dissimulating the abdomen. In consequence, the rump, enclosed in clinging fabrics, makes a forceful projection in rear, and inspires concupiscence. Their hair, when I arrived, was, for the most part of the same gilded shade. I discovered later that the shade changed every year and that, by virtue of an astonishing marvel of art or nature, the color of the skin varied as well. Thus, when the hair turns red and resembles fire, the face becomes as white as chalk, so that the entire head, seen face on, is reminiscent of a freshly plastered all crowned with new bricks. The mutations are no less astonishing when the women become brunette or blonde. For the citizens, it is a precious distraction to observe those phenomena. But does one not see similar changes elsewhere? The ermine exchanges its coat the color of earth for a coat the color of snow, and several other animals are known for transformations of the same genre.

  One might think sometimes that a painter had retouched the faces of those ladies, underlining their eyes with a brown streak, designing the curve of the eyebrows, exaggerating the redness of the lips and hiding the imperfections of the epidermis with a varnish.

  When I arrived, I spent a long time examining women’s hats. They were then as large as bucklers and entirely covered with flowers, butterflies, impaled animals, tissues and feathers. They fixed all that on their heads by means of long needles whose head was ornamented and whose tip menaced passers-by. Later, a change occurred; hats were no broader than necessary, but augmented in height, in sum taking the form of bonnets; but those bonnets descended so low that only the chins of elegant women could still be seen, and some of them were constrained, in order to be able to steer, to have eye-holes pierced in them.

  When I arrived they were dresses made with little fabric, very tight at the base; their gait was embarrassed by them, and they only advanced at a child-like pace. That gait appeared to me to be contrary to several natural laws.

  Constantin was kind enough to enlighten me in that regard.

  “It is because,” he said, “by virtue of an inconceivable relaxation of mores, violence against women has become frequent these days. You can well imagine that the narrowness of those skirts can, on occasion, collaborate in saving modesty.”

  “Oh,” I said, “is there any need for that? Do you know the story of the false virgin who told her mother that a boy had ravaged her by force? The mother didn’t say a word and carried on sewing. A moment later she asked her daughter to thread a needle for her ‘because,’ she said, ‘I can hardly see.’ The child could not do it, and cried: ‘Maman, how do you expect me to succeed; you use the needle incessantly.’ ‘Well, little wretch,’ said the angry old woman, let that be a lesson to you!’”

  “Oho!” said Constantin. “Do you doubt the virtue of our women? Learn to see nothing in their manners but a laudable desire for beauty, a determination to please for which it is necessary to thank them; and know above all, Monsieur fabulist, that they are the most honest women on earth. They are virtuous, which is nothing, but they are virtuous without being ridiculous, which is divine. Our capital owes them its most vivid splendor. The least of them appears a princess. Many queens, coming here on solemn visits, have appeared by comparison with them to be provincial ladies dressed for the theater. And a number of kings, lords and foreign pontiffs passing through Atlantopolis have been glad to choose a wife here, in which they are acting sagely, for our daughters are less loquacious and quarrelsome than others. But that doesn’t take very much.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, “and cuckolds must be rare here?”

  “I don’t make that claim,” said my guide. “The
number of cuckolds is infinite, but the majority are thus with their full consent. One cannot reckon as a crime on the part of ladies an action tolerated or commanded by their husbands, in contemplation of the poverty of their household.

  II. In which the author takes lodgings and visits several principal monuments

  The employment of the first day was the search for an abode. I found one that suited me in a quiet quarter near the river. The house was old, agreeable and pleased me. It also pleased Constantin, who liked the town houses of Atlantopolis, so nobly built two hundred years before.

  From my apartment I had a view, in one direction, over the quays planted with trees, and especially the west of the city, all the way to the surrounding hills. To the east, my windows opened over a rather deserted back street. I did not perceive anything singular in that direction, or any horizon, but the solitude of the passage was not without utility for me, in the excursions I undertook subsequently.

  I had the necessary furniture brought, and I spent a great deal of money, but I had so much and it had cost me little that it was a joy to disburse it. For one thing, I did not perceive that it was running out; and for another, spending it did not remind me of any labor accomplished in order to acquire it.

  When I had the furniture necessary for every man of property—which is to say, a bed, a table and several bottle-racks, I considered myself installed. The desire gripped me to resume my walks and, in particular, to see the monuments whose distant aspect had charmed me in the preceding days.

  “It will require many days to visit them all,” Constantin told me. “Each of them offers a great deal to look at and think about. A few will be sufficient for today.”

  First he took me to a temple, the principal sanctuary of the old religion, a religion persecuted and turned to mockery. The plan of the edifice is rectangular. The façade presents two high towers of several stages, pierced with narrow openings and flanked by coupled columns. Arcades connect the towers. All of it is sculpted with the figures of humans and animals. The complication is extreme and the organization grandiose. At first, one can only make out the general lines, in which the vertical are dominant, extending very high and strongly expressing the idea of infinity. Those verticals seen from below, seem bound to join up in the clouds, like the ridges of a narrow pyramid of which one can see the base, while its summit is in the heavens.

  In the interior, a forest of pillars bears vaults so high that one can scarcely distinguish them. To the right and the left, arched galleries reign along the walls.

  “This temple,” Constantin told me, “will soon be demolished. People remain in accord with regard to its beauty, but they claim that it serves no purpose. The true motive is that it recalls the centuries of error, the centuries when people did not think as they do now. The monument causes chagrin to the powerful men of today because it is a doctrine of stone built to inform men of the contrary of what our governors preach. Who will defend it? The people prefer stupid novelties to the masterpieces of old. They are influenced by the foreign, brutalized by politicians, and in any case, even if they wanted to prevent the scandal, they couldn’t. For the beautiful, in our democratic state, is nothing to the people except a label.

  “For myself,” Constantin continued, “there’s nothing I admire as much. Contemplate this mass of stone carefully. Wouldn’t one think that it is praying? It is thinking, thinking the thought that its pious architect imprisoned within it. It is thinking about ancient days, the noble sanctuary, set on the edge of the river the color of steel, before this square where its dormant parvis is buried, with its old enclosure, and the three temples built by the Argides. I cannot get used to the idea that it will die, and that its old bones will be dispersed in all directions. On that day, a great soul will leave us; and our grandchildren, going past this place, will no longer hear the sound of bells but that of factories. Instead of towers, columns of smoke will rise up. I fear that Fatality will then stimulate in our Oriental plains some people marked to destroy ours; or people who deny their traditions are unworthy to live.”

  And Constantin wept.

  Then we saw a marvelously grandiose palace, which dated back four centuries. Its architecture recalled ancient Greek architecture, differing from it in the extent and the height of its buildings, and a host of details; but the inspiration was the same. It was the former dwelling of kings. Presently, feeble-minded sons of families, incapable of earning a living are maintained there. Well-lodged and well-nourished, they thus have a place in society. They are said to be in charge of caring for works of art belonging to the State. We went in to see the paintings contained therein, but we were thrown out because the place can only be visited for one hour a week.

  From there I was taken to an equally beautiful edifice. King Helios the Victorious had had it constructed to house soldiers crippled in battles or rendered infirm after long service. But I was told that those veterans had been shamefully expelled from their refuge and that a troop of pen-pushers had replaced them, so the admirable monument was full of bureaucrats, unpleasant people sullen of face and ferocious in character.

  In the courtyards, surrounded by sculpted porticoes, trophies recalled military glories. The galleries were full of arms and standards captured from enemies in battles, but the parquets were all stained with ink and the wind was agitating scribbled pieces of paper in the gardens instead of dead leaves.

  A temple covered by a cupola sheltered a colossal tomb. Constantin bared his head as he went in. I did likewise, impressed by the majesty of the place and the gravity of my guide. The latter knelt down and said to me in a low voice: “Here reposes the Emperor Phoberos, the last of the demigods.”

  III. The Choice of a Historian

  We visited the principal edifices in that fashion. There were large ones and modest ones, but all of them, venerable witnesses, recalled an epoch of the history of the city. Revolutions had marked their traces on the degraded walls. Here and there I was shown paving stones once red with blood, where illustrious men had fallen for their cause.

  I saw the sepulchers of sovereigns, empty for the most part. In days of trouble the populace broke their stones and the royal ashes were thrown to the winds. I also saw the temples, the triumphant monuments erected in memory of victories, the palaces where the dynasties had lived. However, I wearied of admiring so many things, the beauty of which could often surpass explanation, but only awoke in my heart the emotion of memory.

  I expressed to Constantin my desire to know the annals of the nation. He replied that he was not capable of reciting them to me in their entirety, but he had several historians among his friends, acquaintances of his years of study. I asked him to take me to one, and he set out in quest.

  Shortly afterwards, as I was leaving the table, a dirty, bearded man with a hint of madness in his eyes appeared. He assured me that he was a doctor and professor of the historical sciences and that he wanted to render me service if I paid him well. I explained my desire; he replied, learnedly: “I hope that you’re a partisan of the new method?”

  “Monsieur,” I said to him, “I know neither the new nor the old, and I don’t care about that. Simply tell me your history, beginning at the beginning.”

  “I’m your man,” he replies, “but wait for me for a moment.”

  He takes his hat and leaves, in such haste that he pays no attention to the offer I make him of refreshment. After a long hour, I am deafened by an unaccustomed racket coming from the street. I get up and lean out of the window, and perceive an accumulation of carriages on the quay, caused by an overloaded cart awkwardly skewed across the causeway. The passers-by are aiding the coachman, pushing the wheels and pulling the horses by the bridle. The rig advances slightly, and stops at my door. The carter gets down from his seat. I look at him in astonishment; it is my historian.

  He comes into my house. Now he is in my room, out of breath.

  “Sire,” he said to me, “we can begin.”

  He hands me a volume. I leaf throu
gh it uncomprehendingly. It’s a list, a list twelve hundred pages long.

  “That,” the doctor explains, “is history such as it is conceived. It is all in this book, in its entirety. You have there the complete enumeration of all the memoirs of all times, copies of authentic decrees, accounts of food production and finances under every reign, the correspondence of kings, princes, ecclesiastics, millers, butchers and blacksmiths. The catalogue is in your hands. The numbers in the catalogue correspond to the documents that it is necessary to study, one by one. I have brought in my cart those which relate to the commencement of the first part—for we divide our history into a hundred and forty-three epochs, each subdivided into sixty periods, which amount to seven hundred and eighty-nine divisions, which, in their turn...”

  “Enough!” I said. “Enough! Do I look like a fool? Are you drunk? Go away, historian of misfortune, go away with your cart, your catalogue, your epochs, your periods and your divisions. I shall not be your pupil.”

  The man thought I was mad, all the more easily because he was himself. He withdrew, calling me incorrigible. I summoned Constantin and told him my story.

  “I was sure of it,” he said. “These people are all the same, and I consider them enraged. That one wants to crush you with the weight of a hundred thousand volumes. You’ll see a whole barrel-full of them. This one, a skeptical philosopher, will tell you right away that history is a chimera, that other individuals of whom it speaks doubtless never existed and that the events it relates are even more dubious. Some flatterer of the present government will sustain falsely that history commences with the last revolution, the others being nothing but mustard. We have twenty-five historical sects, all enemies of one another. They are only in accord in declaring the nullity of all the others. I don’t share their opinion, and if you believe me, you’ll send me to the bookshop to look for the Annals of Eudoxus. It’s an excellent book, although it dates back half a century.34 There’s a prejudice in the long story that is sometimes annoying, but a breath of life animates that history. Reading it, you believe you’re living in the midst of the events and people it depicts. That’s a rare merit in works of that sort.