In 1965

by Albert Robida

  Monsieur Kapalouia has already taken me to visit his farms, often during trips to the country with his entire family. Those instructive excursions delight me; I study centauran agriculture and collects documents on the customs and mores and the arts and métiers of the centaurs; but they’re also very tiring for me. I only have two short legs—remember that the messieurs the centaurs are much more liberally endowed by nature. They possess four legs; they trot, they gallop, they swallow up kilometer after kilometer without thinking about it, while I can scarcely keep up with the little ones when they only go at walking pace. As soon as they start to trot, I’m outdistanced.

  That still applies even when the journey is short. There’s a farm five or six kilometers away to which we often go, but when it’s a matter of covering four or five leagues and as many on the return journey, that seems very hard to me.

  In spite of their advanced state of civilization, the centaurs are ignorant of all our means of locomotion: railways, automobiles, diligences and omnibuses. That’s understandable. They have no need of all that, with their equine legs they can disdain steam-engines. The charm and poetry of their countryside aren’t spoiled by those infernal vehicles running through clouds of dust or plumes of smoke, spreading the odor of coal and oil everywhere.

  Through the cultivated plains or grassy meadows there are good tranquil roads on which no roaring, bellowing or honking vehicles roll; families can trot here at their ease and allow little centaurins of young age run and skip without any fear. No other vehicles exist except carriages drawn by hand, for excessively heavy loads, or sedan-chairs of a sort for aged or infirm centaurs.

  Those worthy centaurs! It is quite amusing to see them, during the rainy season—which lasts for three or four weeks—going out under immense umbrellas and trying to shield their hindquarters, and little centaurins with hoods galloping and splashing through the puddles.

  In the sunshine, our family excursions are very cheerful, the centaurins galloping around with joyful hearts. They play countless tricks on me, trotting and jostling around me. Sometimes Mademoiselle Little Stork and Monsieur Light Pastry each take one of my arms and lift me up during a gallop through the fields, making me jump over bushes and ditches. I laugh at first, and then get annoyed.

  “Let me go, you young rascals—you’ll dislocate my arms, damn it!”

  “Forward!” they cry “Be good, you’ll jump with us, Monsieur Zephyrin, you’ll jump!”

  “Please stop! I’m going to lose my shoes in the brushwood…I need to hang to my shoes! Are you going to make me another pair when I no longer have them? You don’t need shoes…cobblers are unknown in your country; when your horseshoes are worn you go to a farrier. And besides which, you’re taking my breath away, double damn it!”

  “Dub…doubled...” the little centaurin Rat-whiskers tries to repeat.

  “Get iron shoes yourself, Monsieur Zephyrin,” said Mademoiselle Little Stork, “It’s much more convenient. Try it—I’ll take you to our farrier, who’s very skillful…

  I’m exhausted by that steeplechase with my little centaurins.

  “Me worn out,” I say to my friend Kapalouia, in the centauran language, spoken slightly pidgin-fashion. “You, not so fast!”

  I daren’t propose that he take me on his back, as he did during my rescue; his dignity as an important centaur, a notable bourgeois, forbids him absolutely from carrying any kind of parcel.

  “Poor Zephyrin!” said Kapalouia. “What if you were to ride an ox?”

  I’ve forgotten to tell you that there are cattle, or buffaloes, of a sort in their pastures, animals bred for milk, for meat or for laboring the fields.

  “Oxen too slow,” I say. “Oh, if only you had a donkey...”

  “Donkey?”

  Kapalouia looks at me interrogatively. I don’t understand the language well enough to launch into a description, but I make “hee haw, hee haw” noises.

  Kapalouia repeats: “Hee haw,” but without it signifying anything to his mind; our good, worthy and likeable donkey is unknown among the centaurs. What a pity!

  VII. Captain Zephyrin refuses a little operation,

  although it would allow him to avoid many humiliations

  What also annoys me is that my friend Kapalouia often looks at me with an air of profound commiseration, as if to say “Poor Zephyrin!”—which eventually becomes humiliating. He circles around me, examines me, and shakes his head sadly.

  Evidently, he considers me to be a poor cripple because I don’t have the equine hindquarters and four legs of centaurs.

  Without a doubt, that’s regrettable. Until disembarking here, I had never thought of complaining about it, but I’m obliged to agree that the centaurs, those human quadrupeds, can lay claim to a real superiority over the simple two-legged humans that we are.

  What facility that conformation gives them from the point of view of communications! What enormous advantages over poor bipeds, obliged to employ all sorts of means in order not to trail painfully an interminably on their two poor little feet, to torture the mind in order to find a heap of inventions designed to remedy the unfortunate motor weakness of legs.

  Whereas the centaurs laugh at distances, and make mock of the cabs and omnibuses into which we pile as soon as we have three kilometers to travel! For them, three kilometers is three minutes of tranquil healthy exercise. They have never had any need to invent the locomotive, the bicycle, the automobile and their airplane!

  Decidedly, on reflection, I recognize that my friend the centaur Kapalouia is right; we are an inferior race. The superman is the centaur.

  That humiliates me and puts me in a bad mood. The day after one of our little excursions, Kapalouia comes into my bedroom as I’m resting , fatigued by the kilometers traveled, even though my friends walked with a careful slowness, stopping continually to wait for me.

  “My dear Zephyrin,” the benevolent centaur says to me, “come downstairs with me for a minute; I have something to show you.”

  I follow him, painfully, for I’m still aching. Kapalouia is quicker than me in getting to the ground floor; in spite of their equine conformation, the centaurs descend their staircases, which are broad and not very steep, very well. The children gallop up and down the all day long, from the top of the house to the bottom.

  “What is it that you want to show me?” I ask.

  “Well,” says the worthy Kapalouia, “I’ve noticed that you’re chagrined by not being like us—don’t deny it, it’s not worth the trouble. As I like you a lot, that troubles me as much as you. Well, let’s console ourselves, perhaps there’s a means of arranging things...”

  “How’s that?” I say, nonplussed.

  “Yes, yes, I can understand it perfectly; if I were in your situation I’d bemoan not being made like everyone else and I’d also be very humiliated. People look at you and feel sorry for you; that general commiseration can’t be agreeable to your pride, I understand that. Everywhere you go people say: Poor fellow! Look how he’s built! Don’t talk to me about it, it breaks my heart! Poor devil, with his two little legs! Funny conformation, all the same! He’s nailed to the ground, so to speak, by that infirmity! And how ugly they are, those two excuses for legs...”

  “Yes, yes, me have heard all that often...”

  “And you’re not content! Well, I don’t want you to suffer any more from those disadvantages, my fear friend; we’re going to arrange all that by means of a little operation.”

  “What?” I say, surprised and a little frightened.

  “Yes, it’s fundamentally quite simple. What is it necessary to do? Get rid of those two short legs, which render you such scant services, and replace them with…”

  “Oh, no! I’m fond of me two legs. I don’t want to have them cut off!”

  “Child! You don’t know the skill of our surgeons! The art of surgery has made so much progress in our epoch! We have farrier-surgeons who sometimes have to risk very difficult operations after accidents, which work out admira
bly. Here, do you remember the old beggar we encountered last week?”

  I do indeed remember a mendicant centaur on a road, whose singular appearance had struck me. He was advancing with his satchel on his back, his hindquarters under a ragged mantle, with an old scarecrow hat on his head, his forelegs hammering the ground with bizarre clip-clop. One looking at him more closely I perceived that his forelegs were crudely carved out of wood.

  “Yes,” I say, “me saw him.”

  “Well, that unfortunate, for want of resources, had wooden legs made for him by a village carpenter, but better ones can be found; we have people here who work artistically, and if you want, I wouldn’t even hesitate, for you, to bring a surgeon from the capital. Once rid of those paltry and almost useless legs, we’ll unite you with well-carved hindquarters, four ingeniously articulated legs that will walk I guarantee it! It will be a fine operation, and you’ll no longer be a cripple, an object of pity for everyone...”

  “Absolutely not! Definitely not! I don’t want to; I like my own legs! Quite possibly, they’re inferior in quality, but I’ve had them for such a long time! I’m used to them...”

  “You’re making a mistake—think of the advantages you’re disdaining...”

  “Me not disdaining, me recognize the advantages, but me afraid...”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “The operation.”

  “Trivial! It’ll be over so quickly, and you’ll be so content afterwards. Come on, say yes...”

  “No, no! Me thank you, but beg you not to insist. I want to go back to my homeland with my own legs, as I left...”

  “Go back to your homeland? But how? I’d like to believe that your homeland exists, since you affirm it and you’ve already tried to describe it to me...but it astonishes me all the same; our scholars have never heard mention of it. The universe consists of our homeland, completely surrounded by the sea with a few little inhabited islands scattered here and here, but there’s nothing else on the entire surface of the globe. I have to tell you that we don’t much like navigation; we have boats on the sea, but small, light fishing-boats, whereas you talk about big ships in your homeland. Anyway, I’ll admit that you’re not exaggerating... So be it, your homeland exists, there are other individuals of your race, populations of poor two-legged cripples like you; I’ll even consent to that, since you wish it…but even supposing that you could go back there...”

  “But I have every intention of doing so,” I say.

  “Ingrate! Are you not well off here, with us, among us, the centauran people, who have reached the summit of civilization? Anyway, so be it, supposing that you could return to your homeland, wouldn’t you be very glad to return with an immense superiority over your brethren, to disembark among them proudly, with the hindquarters and four legs of a centaur? And, who knows, perhaps bringing them the idea of an immense progress? Think about it! Come on, yield to the temptation, let me summon the surgeon…only a consultation; he’ll explain the matter better than me. It won’t commit you to anything—a simple consultation!”

  “Me thank you very much, but all the same, me content with my two legs. You, friend Kapalouia, not bring your farrier; me not want it.”

  “You’re causing me pain, but I don’t want to annoy you. Madame my wife had thought of having it done while you were asleep. One morning you’d have had the joyful surprise of finding yourself rid of your poor little legs…oh, how glad you would have been! It was a good idea, it would have avoided the annoyance of preparations…but I didn’t think I ought to adopt that course; your legs are your own, and I would have had scruples about disposing of them without your consent, even with the certainty of acting for your own good.”

  “Thank you, my dear Kapalouia,” I said, pressing his hands affectionately.

  “And then again, I must say that your refusal only astonishes me a little; I half-expected it. You don’t know the skill of our surgeons, and you have the weakness of being fond of your useless little legs; you’re afraid of not being able to make appropriate use of the artificial legs that would be fabricated for you…so I expected...”

  “I’ll have to resign myself, then.”

  “Not at all! There’s another means; there’s something else we can try, at least to save appearances and avoid perpetual humiliations...”

  “Me not understand what you mean.”

  “You’ll understand soon! You’ll see... Here, this is what I wanted to show you.”

  The good centaur opened the door of the room in which Madame Kapalouia’s portable chair was kept.

  “Come on! What do you say now?”

  “What’s that? A wooden horse?”

  Alongside the portable chair he showed me a kind of painted wooden horse, quite well carved, but incomplete—which is to say deprived of a head and neck.

  “You have horses on your island, then?” I exclaimed. “You told me before that you didn’t...”

  “And you wanted to make me believed that there exists in your homeland a species of animals resembling us somewhat in the lower half of the body…you must be exaggerating the resemblance. I repeat to you that we don’t have that here, and I’ll add that what you say is rather wounding for us...”

  “Why?”

  “We’d resemble animals, for, according to you, those horses are simple animals domesticated by you. I believe that’s a little invention of your imagination…for you gallop madly into fantasy when you tell stories about your homeland, admit it! Anyway, you get confused in your stories; you’ve also talked to us about steam engines, which are only simple clouds...how do you expect me to believe you? Admit, then, that your horses and are pure allegories, fictions of poets who have extracted from ancient traditions a vague idea of the centaur, and, aspiring to the true beauty, superiority and perfection that’s forbidden to you…but let’s get back to my proposal. You see this machine...”

  “Yes, that...”

  “Stop there! It’s not a horse, it’s half of the body of a wooden centaur, a toy that was given to my daughter Rakif to amuse her, a big doll that she dressed and undressed and rolled around the garden.”

  “Oh, very well…”

  “I’ve removed the upper part; nothing any longer remains but the hindquarters and he legs.”

  “That’s what made me mistake the object for a…”

  “Yes, yes…and I propose to attach it to you at the waist as a complement.”

  “I’d have six legs.”

  “That’s true. I’m also going to take off the forelegs. So, we attach to your waist these wooden hindquarters—they’re very light, and there are little castors on the feet. We drape that decently, and you’ll have the appearance of a true centaur, or very nearly—not very tall, undoubtedly, not very favored by nature, but, in sum, a centaur. With that, people won’t look at you in the street like a curious animal, they won’t pay too much attention to your imperfections, and the street-urchins will no longer follow you and trot around you...”

  I wanted to raise objections. Dragging that machine behind me would be a rather cumbersome disguise, and heavy, in spite of the castors. What a hindrance! But I sense that an overly abrupt refused might hurt the feelings of my good friend Kapalouia, who, after all, is only seeking to make himself agreeable to me with his idea of a operation or his wooden centaur.

  Oh, it’s time to leave this country! It’s necessary to try to advance as much as possible the execution of my project of flight, not alone, but abducting at least two well-chosen specimens of the centauran species—which is to say, the two scientists, my enemies.

  However, a reflection that I made inclined me to accept Kapalouia’s proposal, for form’s sake. That was that, in his generosity, in his ardor to do me good, he might end up acceding to the idea of his wife, the excellent Madame Azuli, and summon the farrier-surgeon while I was asleep.

  “It’s agreed,” I say, “except that, in order to accustom myself to dragging it behind me, I’ll practice for some time in the garden.”
<
br />   “Good, you’re becoming reasonable.”

  VIII. The Scientists Bibouf and Galibou.

  Further humiliations for the quadrumane Zephyrin

  You can imagine that I don’t want to live entirely as a parasite in the home of my friend Kapalouia. Lodged, nourished, cared for, taken on excursions, clad and glorified by artificial hindquarters, I am literally overwhelmed with benefits.

  Kapalouia has had garments tailored for me, in order to spare my poor castaway’s wardrobe. An old gray-haired tailor has copied my jacket and trousers as well as he could. Footwear posed a greater difficulty; he ended up addressing himself to a bookbinder who fabricated leather slipcases of a sort for me, which I lost at every step, and I had to be a cobbler myself in order to reshape them into something more closely resembling shoes.

  As I desire in my turn to render some services to those worthy centaurs, for whom I feel an ardent amity, I have started giving French and English lessons to the children, which cannot fail to be very useful to them one day when, thanks to me, communications have been established between the human and centauran societies, when I have reattached Centaur Island to the rest of the world.

  In any case, those lessons have a role to play in my plan, my famous departure plan, for as well as teaching French to the little Kapalouias, I’m also teaching it to my two enemies, Messieurs Bibouf—“Sunstroke” in our language—and Galibou, or “Red Parrot,” the two scientists who only want to see me as a slightly improved monkey.

  Very shrewdly, I have thus found a means of entering into a continuous relationship with them; gradually, I am insinuating myself into their confidence and bringing them to the desired point. That is making progress; you’ll soon see how rapidly.

  For their part, they’re delighted. Those French lessons provide them with an ideal means of studying my intelligence, my instincts, my tastes and my habits. We are, therefore, living on excellent terms. I’m making sufficiently rapid progress in the centauran language; I’m striving to get as much information as possible out of my two enemies regarding the race, many curious and picturesque notes about its life and mores, for the relation of my voyage.