Voyage to the Center of the Earth

by Jacques Collin de Plancy

  “Fifteen hundred years, approximately,” he replied.

  “And inflammable powder?”

  “Oh, since so long ago that we no longer know. It was discovered before civilization.”

  “Well,” I said to the Manseau, “bring the enlightenment of Europe here!”

  The time for the third meal had arrived, and we had to go, because the library was closing. As we left, Tristan asked the Sanorlian if those literary treasures were open every day.

  “Certainly,” he replied, “from the sixth hour until the twelfth.”

  “Undoubtedly you have vacations?” added Clairancy.

  “No,” he replied, indignantly. “What would the scholars working on a project say if they were obliged to interrupt it so that the librarians could rest? Every library has three titular guardians, served by several valets. Of the three chiefs, two are on duty while the third rests. By that means, we each have a third of the year for vacation.”

  Then we separated.

  We had sometimes perceived assemblies in public squares whose purpose we had not divined as yet, and we had been in no hurry to seek instruction, since we had plenty of time. In any case, the assemblies only took place once a day, and in such a big city, something of that sort appeared natural to us.

  That day, however, we approached the crowd with the desire to know what had bought them together. We saw, the in midst of a large circle formed by the curious, two men who were sadly leading two women from one side of the square to the other, whipping them lightly with a handful of switches, in truth above their skirts. Although the modesty of the women was not suffering at all from that punishment, and they were not suffering any pain, they were weeping so bitterly that the people, touched, shouted “Mercy!” The operation ceased then, and the guilty parties were swiftly taken home.

  We were curious to know what crime the two women had committed. Clairancy asked an old man standing nearby for an explanation.

  “You saw that tall woman, old and thin? Well, she mingled in the affairs of others, spreading gossip, and the judges of her sex condemned her to half an hour of whipping by her husband’s hand. The other, shorter and fatter, committed the fault of criticizing the politics of men, of proposing changes in the laws of our sex, etc., and as such things do not concern her, her fault is the same as that of her neighbor, so she suffered a similar punishment.”

  “That’s a wise custom, if it is one,” said the Manseau, as we went back to the lodgings, “but if similar punishments were inflicted at home on women who interfere with affairs that don’t concern them and criticize the conduct of others, half the husbands would be obliged to have whips, and one would see women doing penance at every street corner.”

  XXI. The amours of the Empress of Sanor and Clairancy. Marriages. Bizarre customs.

  The funeral of the island’s sovereign.

  We went almost every day to pay our respects to the Emperor and the Empress, who asked us every time to tell them something about our country. If the Sanorlians had been very surprised to learn that there was a world populated by mortals above their heads, and that God had created peoples even taller than them, they were no less astonished by our customs, our mores and our laws. The Emperor took the greatest pleasure in it, and so did the Empress. But the Princess honored France with her predilection, and we talked about it continually, as an extremely wise country, since the women were queens there, as in Sanor. As for the august monarch, he gave preference to Turkey; there is no need to elaborate on his reasons.

  On the fifth evening of our sojourn in the capital of Sanor, Clairancy, whom we had not seen since the morning, returned to our palace radiant with happiness. We hastened to ask him what the source of his joy was.

  “Amour,” he replied. “I dared to declare my passion to the amiable Empress. She welcomed me with the most gracious smile, while blushing slightly; in sum, she granted me the imperial favor; I kissed the august hand of the sovereign of Sanor. Long live this blessed isle! Personally, I shall stay here; whoever wishes to do so may return to the land of the little Alburians.”

  “That’s very good!” I replied. “Here’s the wisest of our troop losing his head! What about our promises?”

  “Our promises?” said Clairancy. “We’ll keep them later. Tristan has written to the governor of Silone to say that we’re spending a few months here. The letter has gone. For myself, I have a rendezvous tomorrow, during the hunt, at a certain isolated pavilion, to which the Empress’s favorite equerry will guide me. Our comrade Tristan will return soon; you’ll be even more astonished by what he will tell you than what I’ve just confided to you, under the seal of secrecy. In the meantime, here’s an imperial proclamation, which gives us all employments at court.”

  While he was speaking, Clairancy took from his pocket a large scroll of white paper, on which we read, in red letters, that the will of the magnificent Emperor gave Williams the employment of captain of the Empress’s guard, because of his fine height; that Edward, Tristan and Martinet would henceforth have the title of counselors of the Emperor; that Clairancy would exercise the functions of equerry, and me those of secretary, to Her Majesty.

  We had not done anything except utter loud exclamations regarding the honors that were falling on our heads when Tristan returned. As we were all together, he said: “Let’s have supper; I have many things to tell you.”

  As we sat down at table we begged him to satisfy our curiosity.

  “You know,” he said, “that divorce is permitted in this country, and that there’s nothing easier than quitting a woman with whom one can no longer live. That’s why I’m getting married...”

  “You’re getting married!” exclaimed the Manseau, amazed. “So you’re leaving us?”

  “Marriage won’t prevent us from seeing one another,” said Tristan, “and I urge you to do the same as me. The tallest women of this country are at least equal to smallest of ours, and since we’re comfortable on the island of Sanor we’d be stupid to go vagabonding in the land of little people of twenty-two inches, eating vegetables and dying of boredom every day. The Emperor will be content to see us established in his estates, because we’ll give him subjects of a fine race.”

  “But who are you going to marry?” asked Edward.

  “The daughter of the governor of the main port,” Tristan replied. “Her father proposed it to me himself. “I’ve seen the demoiselle; she’s almost as tall as the Empress, within two or three inches. She’s as beautiful as a star, rich and noble; the match couldn’t suit me better, and I’m not at all displeased.”

  “For myself,” the Manseau interjected, “I won’t marry before an infidel priest.”

  “One doesn’t sin before God,” Edward replied, “when one conforms to the laws of the country where one is obliged to live.”

  “So,” Tristan added, “I’m getting married the day after tomorrow, and I invite you all to my wedding feast, if there is one.”

  That marriage, Clairancy’s amours and Edward’s amorous projects were a vast subject of conversation or us throughout the meal. Even the Manseau, so scrupulous about marriage in an infidel land, as he put it, found it simpler to be a lover than a spouse and let us glimpse that he too was meditating a conquest, although his conscience forbade him from engaging himself...

  The next day, everyone went his own way. Tristan was to spend most of the day with his future spouse; Clairancy hastened to his rendezvous. Edward and the Manseau did not tell us where they were going. I remained alone with Williams. But while I was in my room writing my memoir of our voyage, I was far from suspecting the perfidious trick that was being played on me, and the grave consequences that Tristan’s imprudence might have.

  The latter dined with the governor of the port, who was already calling him his son, and hazard determined that he spent the period after dinner with the High Priest of the capital. As the latter was complimenting him on his imminent marriage, Tristan, who had had a little too much to drink, took it into his head to
tell the pontiff that I was in love with his daughter.

  After a gesture of astonishment, the priest replied that he was too flattered by the honor that I was doing him to be insensible to it, and that he would receive me into his family with pleasure.

  No further attention was paid to the subject, and that evening, when he saw me again, Tristan told me that the High Priest was expecting me at his home to talk to me about matters as interesting as they were agreeable. I hastened to go there, accompanied by Williams, not knowing what need a priest of Sanor might have of my presence.

  I found him in a magnificent drawing room, extended on a kind of pink sofa. His daughter was beside him, as elaborately ornamented as she was beautiful, and so covered in jewels that Williams was dazzled by them.

  The old priest stood up on seeing us. “Be welcome,” he said to me, “and may God and his spirits recompense you worthily for the honor you want to do me.”

  That commencement of conversation astonished me extremely, since I was only complying with the orders of the man who was speaking to me; so I commenced by stammering, and after a long misunderstanding, the priest ended up where he should have begun—which is to say that he asked me whether I was not in love with his daughter, as he had learned from the mouth of Tristan.

  I opened my eyes then—but how was I going to get myself out of the predicament? The young woman was very pleasant; nevertheless, she did not inspire any amour in me, and I did not know how to reply.

  Williams, who divined my embarrassment, got me out of it rather cleverly, to his own advantage. He had become suddenly smitten with the young woman who was being so unexpectedly offered to me, and I believe I remarked that he pleased her more than I did. His face was, in truth, fresher than mine. He therefore told the priest that Tristan had made a mistake, since his comrade Hormisdas—you will recall that that is my name—was married in his own land, and that doubtless someone had wanted to designate to him, Williams, who was burning with amour for the lovely demoiselle.

  The priest was willing to lend himself to that version. Williams remained with the young woman and I withdrew. I did not make great reproaches to Tristan, because I was fortunately out of trouble, but I begged him to be more discreet in future.

  Clairancy told me later that he had had a long conversation with the beautiful Empress, and that his amour was making rapid progress. We went to table, and the following day, we went to Tristan’s wedding-feast, for they have them in that country, as in most others. By an extraordinary favor, the High Priest presided personally over the marriage, the ceremonies of which were extremely long.

  After all the prayers, fumigations were carried out; the young spouses were surrounded by clouds of smoke; they were attached together by a long silken cord; then several inundation of milk were poured down on them from the temple vault, which rendered them pure, and terminated the singing.. We thought we were quits after two hours of impatience, when we saw Williams appear, magnificently clad, holding his new bride by the hand. They were married immediately, and with the same circumstances that had accompanied Tristan’s marriage.

  When it was all over we emerged from the temple; all the relatives, friends and guests of the two weddings were at the door, with enormous bunches of flowers. As soon as the spouses were outside, two black carpets were extended over the pavement, and a young priest ordered Williams and Tristan to lie down on the carpets, each with his wife. They were so stunned by everything that had already been done that they obeyed silently. Then all the witnesses dropped their bunches of flowers on the couples, covering them. The High Priest left them buried thus for nearly five minutes, after which he shouted: “Rise up, and be reborn!”

  They got to their feet, and the husbands and wives were made to drink a few drops of wine from the same cup, to inform them that marriage made a single person out of the man and the woman.

  It had been decided to combine the two wedding feasts. They were held at the house of the governor of the port, and everything went with the utmost merriment. When the time came for the husbands to go to bed, each of them was enclosed in a large room with his wife, and told they could only possess their young bride by skill and violence. The young women of Sanor were accustomed to become nimble in running, and on the first day of their wedding, they only granted their favors after having been won by flights, detours and refusals all the more aggravating because they had to be pursued around the nuptial chamber half-naked.

  The following day Tristan and Williams told us that they had had a good deal of difficulty, but that they had come out of it with honor, and as agreeably as possible. They urged us to imitate them, promising us, in marriage, a thousand pleasures that we were far from expecting. Their discourse made such an impression on Edward that he got married three days later to the daughter of the captain of the ship that had brought us to the island of Sanor.

  Meanwhile, Clairancy’s affairs were going marvelously. After having made perfect love for two long weeks to his Empress, he obtained her most cherished favors, and filled the role of husband next to the most beautiful woman on the island; he only became more cherished, and became so necessary to the Empress that the Emperor would have been bound to suspect something if he had been less entirely devoted to the pleasures of hunting.

  We all rejoiced in Clairancy’s good fortune, for he was no prouder because of it, and, far from forgetting us, enable us to obtain countless favors every day. His credit extended so far that he excited the envy of several courtiers, who resolved to bring him down.

  In meantime, the Manseau, who was not so loud in proclaiming his views, was paying assiduous court to the Empress’s first chambermaid. The scruples that prevented him from marrying leaving his conscience clear with regard to an amorous liaison, he begged every day to be a happy lover, but the chambermaid, without being embarrassed by the difference in religion, which is of scant importance in Sanor, swore that she would only accord her heart and the rest in exchange for the title of wife—with the consequence that Martinet did not know what to decide, all the more so as he was becoming increasingly besotted with every day that went by. Nevertheless, he protested so adroitly that he would marry if he were rendered happy; he repeated so many times that the only things that prevented him from contracting marriage were the smallness of the demoiselle and the dread of not suiting her; and he did it so well that, in sum, he obtained all that he desired after three or four weeks of constancy and sighs.

  So, my five companions were only thinking about their amours, while the Emperor’s senior equerry was greatly occupied with the ruination of Clairancy, and probably ours. The Princess was warned that the perfidious courtier had revealed to the monarch everything he suspected about her amours, and that her conduct was being watched. She glimpsed, fearfully, the death of her favorite, whom the Emperor alone had the right to judge, and she had already abandoned herself to the agonies of despair when an indigestion delivered her of her husband.

  He was mourned, because he had been good—but I confess, perhaps to our shame, that we were not overly sorry about his death, when Clairancy told us about the position in which he had put us by his commerce with the Princess.

  The funeral of the monarch was held outside the city. The Empress told us not to attend. That prohibition annoyed us. We learned that three young women had been immolated on the imperial cadaver, and that they had been buried with him, to serve their Emperor in the other world. That horrible ceremony would have caused us gave reflections if we have not been distracted by the funereal fêtes that were celebrated for six days in the capital immediately after the monarch’s sepulcher. We saw various animal combats, which were rather diverting, after which the Empress took the reins of the State.

  The magistrates nominated a governor who would reign over the men during the nine months of widowhood. At the end of that time of mourning, the sovereign of Sanor was obliged to remarry.

  Things soon calmed down again; the indiscreet equerry was sent away on an embassy, and we all for
got black ideas in the bosom of the happiness that surrounded us.

  That happiness was not of long duration, as you shall see.

  XXII. The tribunal of the two sexes.

  Mendicity repressed. A religious dispute.

  A few days later, we were told that a great criminal was to be judged. The Manseau and I immediately went to the Palace of Justice, where the judges, numbering twenty, were already assembled. We asked a citizen whether all those judges were in function.

  “No,” he replied. “There are only ever five judges for major cases and two for minor ones. But as the plaintiffs might seek to seduce those ministers of the laws, the magistrates name twenty every day in the first instance and ten in the second. Lots are then drawn, and those designated by hazard mount the tribunal.”

  While he was speaking, the names of the judges were thrown into a little urn; the five judges whose names came out first took their seats, and the other fifteen withdrew. The first of the five who were to judge presided, and had sixty old men bought in; their names were thrown into the same urn and fifteen drawn at hazard, to form what the Sanorlians call “the college of mute judges.”18

  Those various preparations lasted a good quarter of an hour.

  “Now,” said the citizen who had already spoken to us, “you’re going to hear the case. As the judges change every day, it’s obligatory to read the evidence, although they know it already. You ought to know that the affair in question has been under consideration for four days. It’s true that it’s important; it’s a matter of a calumny, and the punishment is so terrible that it can require long reflection before a verdict is reached. Nevertheless, it ought to finish today, for the people are beginning to complain about the slowness of the law.”

  “What!” said Clairancy. “You already find the case long when it has lasted four days?”

  “Certainly,” the Sanorlian replied. “Here, as elsewhere, the condemned pay the costs, and if a man comes before the tribunal, it isn’t just that his wife and children should be ruined without being culpable; otherwise, we’d be as unfortunate as our neighbors the Felinois, among whom trials have been known to last twenty days!”