Caresco, Superman

by André Couvreur

  “You’re now in the tube,” explained the shrill voice. “In two minutes, you’ll be in our home. You’ll begin by getting rid of your dirt.”

  CHAPTER IV

  When the omnial light emitted by four opaque globes had suddenly illuminated the place where they were, the travelers perceived that they were not alone. Two sleeping near-naked bodies lay on a large divan draped with red velvet, which extended along the whole back wall of the cabin, the paneling of which was gilded and encrusted with capricious black arabesques. One might have thought it a living tableau set up to astonish.

  One of the bodies, a female, was lying with her legs folded and her hand posed on the arch of her lower back, parting her mauve silk peplum, in such a way that one could see all the splendor of the torso, with the thrusting breasts, and the abdomen, traversed longitudinally, from the navel to the odorous tuft, by a red stripe heightened by make-up.

  Coiffed with a double gathering of brown hair diminishing the forehead, the mat warmth of her muscular face was particularly remarkable, the lips freshly blood-colored, as if the kisses of the sun had been caught therein and sprung forth again over the moist teeth, the velvety cheeks and the transparent orifices of the nostrils, agitated by a tremor that did not quit them during sleep.

  All of her ardent musculature was moistened by a slight sweat, which embalmed the cabin with a troubling combination of perfumes by itself. Choumaque had never respired such a floral expansion, simultaneously natural and artificial.

  The other body, a boy of about fifteen, draped in a yellow fabric embroidered with gold, was similar to the young flyers that had welcome the airplane a short while before, but was distinguished by the presence of a line, similarly heightened with rouge, escaping from the incomplete sexual organs, which the immodesty of the parted legs permitted the spectators to see.

  The attitude of the two sleepers, the position of their gestures surprised by fatigue, left no doubt about the recent exchange of tenderness.

  “They’re definitely unaware of shame in this country!” sad Choumaque, shocked.

  He was about to take off his frock-coat in order to veil that new offensive immorality when the indigenes woke up simultaneously. They embraced one another first, and then, speaking at the same time, repeating the ritual refrain, greeted them with the formula with which the travelers had already been welcomed: “May the Superman favor you with an operation, Miss and Messieurs!”

  They were not astonished to receive no response.

  The young woman sat up, and threw back the heavy adornment of her hair with a long shake of her head. She pulled the peplum over her shoulders, not because decency invited the gesture, but because she felt the breeze freshening slightly.

  Then, pointing with her finger at the pink line on her abdomen, which was now assuming the importance of a distinctive sign, she said: “I’m the courtesan Carabella. Little Mirror-of-Smiles and I were at the fête, but we had to come away in order to come here and welcome you. We’re both attached to your persons. The airplane being late, we caressed. You’re neophytes, and are doubtless unfamiliar with our caresses? In time, you’ll cultivate them.

  “For the moment, it will suffice for you to know that we’re very tired, and that we’ll have a great deal of difficulty beginning your initiation today. If you knew how much subtle experience Mirror-of-Smiles has! For eight years he’s been a giton,9 as indicated by the red line placed between his legs and the hem of his tunic, and he’s acquired a great deal of skill. I love the child, and take as much advantage of him as my leisure permits. But haven’t we left yet? What is the captain waiting for before launching us? Come on captain, have you forgotten that we’re here? Do I have to get up to press the departure button?”

  She had raised herself up lazily, and her beautiful body undulated. Her feet, shod in mauve sandals, did not make any noise on the polychromatic carpet. She went to lean over the only door, causing her buttocks to protrude, the silken covering of which was iridescent in the omnial light.

  She repeated her question without overmuch impatience, languidly—and it seemed that her desire was immediately executed, for the voyagers saw a partition fall, hermetically sealing the orifice of the cabin. At the same time, they heard the whistling noise of air pressure and felt a slight vertigo, previously experienced when utilizing the elevators of the old world. They were evidently traveling along a tunnel whose walls were in contact with the shell of their cage.

  Choumaque felt a slight nausea.

  “The journey only lasts a minute,” said the courtesan, laughing at the philosopher’s expression as his complexion harmonized with the green of his frock-coat. “There! It’s done; we’ve reached our destination.” As she went out first she added: “We’ve just covered thirty kilometers, and we’ve arrived at the Caravanserai. We’ll be going in by way of the Palace of the Head.”

  The Palace of the Head! The strangers did not understand that at all, dazed as they were by the unexpectedness and rapidity of their journey. They contented themselves with allowing themselves to be guided. They emerged from the tunnel into which they had stepped two minutes earlier via a gentle slope. Mirror-of-Smiles had taken Marcel’s hand, imitating Carabella who had taken Miss Mary’s. Choumaque brought up the rear.

  After a hundred paces along a path of fine and, bordered by immense verdant plane-trees, they stopped before a bizarre construction resembling in the shades of its colors and its architectural design, an immense human face, smiling and jovial. The open mouth, which displayed sparkling ivory columns ten meters long, reminiscent of teeth, constituted the entrance. They reached it by means of two blue-tinted marble stairways traced in the folds of the smile.

  Once through the doorway they found themselves in an immense room, a kind of grotto adapted to the form of the human buccal cavity. The red carpet bristling with stucco papillae represented the tongue. A semicircular gallery, shining like gingival mucus, ran around the location along the dental peristyle. Jets of perfumed water filtering from the exterior walls, were reminiscent of salivary irrigation. The back was constituted by two concave pillars supporting the palatine vault on one side and melting on the other into an enormous red stalactite, which was the uvula.

  No lighting apparatus was visible there; the columns, all luminous, radiated a discreet light. No living being animated the silence of the monument, in which the three travelers, following their guides, felt anxious, wondering whether the enormous mouth might be going to close and swallow them. Nevertheless, Choumaque did not lose his critical faculties.

  This is odious, he thought. I’ve venerated Egyptian architecture and its capitals giving the impression of lotus buds. The impeccable harmonies of the centuries of Pericles and Phidias carried me away. The Roman plagiarists, although a trifle heavy-handed, had their value. I’ve admired the Gothic of the Renaissance, respected the neo-Greek style of the last empire, and even, eclectic as I am, found a certain fancy for this century’s art nouveau—but this unexpected conception of architecture, bringing to monumental beauty everything that is frightful and base in our organism, bewilders me. Being unable to protest, I’ll content myself with silently lamenting this nasty originality. When I see this Superman Caresco, I’ll tell him that he lacks taste.

  These ideas soon evolved, however, for after having passed through that room they found themselves in the open air before a magnificent garden, or rather a park, with patches of woodland, mossy slopes, paths plunging into mysterious shade and lakes framed with rocks, on which the green leaves of nenuphar lilies lay peacefully dormant. To be sure, the simplicity of nature was embellished with a certain excessively pretty artifice, and the graciously-designed flower-beds still recalled certain unnamable details of human structure, but it was soothing to see veritable soil and real flowers.

  To the right and the left, far enough away that their gracious caprice could only be glimpsed, charming dwellings ornamented with festoons, perforated balconies, gilded towers and pointed roofs made of shiny na
scent metal formed two equally straight parallel lines framing the wild but contrived beauty of the park. There was a mixture of all styles, all lines and all dimensions, deliberately opposed to one another in order that the eye should not be wearied by uniformity.

  The background of the scene was constituted by an enormous block of juxtaposed rocks, which one might have thought, from a distance, to represent the lascivious tenderness of a couple. The two horizontal statues were profiled against the setting sun, and a red eruption was glorifying their union at that moment. The spectacle was so unexpected that the travelers uttered a cry of surprise, and suspended their march to admire it.

  “We’ve reached the Caravanserai,” said Carabella. “These palaces, now deserted, were inhabited by the first workmen and artists who built the island. You’ll live in them during the duration of the first stage.”

  “Stage? What stage?” asked Choumaque.

  “The captain didn’t tell you, then, that for some time you’ll be subject to a novitiate and that you’ll be progressively initiated into the benefits of your new life? The Superman, before whom you’ll appear in the near future, will decide, in accordance with your aptitudes, for what employment you’ll be reserved. You, Monsieur Marcel, will doubtless be headed for the Palace of Reproduction. Your tall stature, the elegance of your person and the perfection of your form, which I divine to be attractive beneath your frightful garments, will certainly destine you for generative functions. As for you, Miss Mary, it’s truly a pity that you’ll only be passing through. Your beauty, too imposing to earn you the honored status of courtesan, like mine, would probably designate you to fulfill the no less pleasant office of fecund mother. The Superman seeks out impeccable molds, and you’d furnish him with one. In his wisdom, he’ll decide.

  “And me?” Choumaque asked.

  “You?” Carabella replied, laughing. “As for you, my poor Monsieur, I don’t understand your presence in Eucrasia. Go lean over the purity of that lake, which will reflect your person, or better still, contemplate yourself in Mirror-of-Smiles’ eyes, which will tell you the truth, and you’ll learn that your anatomy is ridiculous and lamentable. I know full well that, two days from now, the master’s science will have modified you: that hair will exist where you have none; that teeth will replace the gaps in your mouth; that your bright complexion will be pale; that your regenerated hair will no longer have that bushiness that would frighten ferocious animals; that your dirty jacket of indefinable color and your trousers will be replaced by a more becoming costume restraining the untoward amplitude of your belly—but still, those transformations will only render you a mediocre object of desire in the midst of the beauties that surround us. No, I can’t explain why you’ve been invited to Eucrasia. But the wisdom of the Superman doubtless has something in mind for you.”

  After that declaration, Choumaque thought, it will be difficult for me to be further mistaken on my account. When in Paris, once a month, I extracted from my wages as a professor the ten francs necessary to be loved by a pretty woman, at least she had the decency to pour me a cup of illusion with her caresses. But here, truly, this courtesan is exceedingly cruel with her verities. It’s true that I haven’t given her ten francs, nor the equivalent in compliments.

  He ceased these reflections on observing that Carabella’s strange prognostications were weighing upon his friends. With his eyes he scanned the admirable décor of flowers, verdure, water and rocks, and the elegantly-aligned villas, and said, approvingly: “So this is where we’re going to live. The place isn’t unpleasant, although the group in the background might be cruel for the contemplation of a virgin, and for the wisdom of a Stoic as ugly as me. I notice, in fact, that the dwellings seem to be empty. We’ll be able to choose two that are adjacent, unless Miss Hardisson consents to lodge under the same roof as us.”

  “Certainly not!” protested Carabella. “That’s absolutely forbidden by the rules. Neophytes cannot live in close proximity. Great God, what would become of strict creation if they were allowed to live side by side, delivered to their instincts? No, Monsieur Choumaque; the men live on the right hand side of the park, the women on the left. They can only meet at determined times, where surveillance is possible. At night, especially, they must remain separated...

  “But it’s time that we were going our separate ways, Mirror-of-Smiles will take charge of conducting Monsieur Choumaque and Monsieur Girard—with whom he is already, I observe joyfully, on the best of terms. As for me, I’ll take care of the lovely Miss Mary. Are you coming, divine one?”

  She dragged her away so rapidly that Marcel scarcely had time to address one last glance of farewell to her, which contained the affirmation of a tender fidelity that only his attitude had yet promised.

  As for the two men, they followed the boy, who led them obliquely, with the elegant sway of his young body, toward the right hand side of the woods and lawns. They went along charming pathways in which the beauty of the panoramas, as if modified at pleasure, was transformed at every moment, according to whether they turned one way or the other. And yet, they did not walk for more than ten minutes, after which they found themselves in front of a habitation they had scarcely noticed, veiled as it was by the magnificence of giant trees.

  It was a veritable monument, the exterior very varied. Only one emblem recalled fidelity to the principles of the land: red flag sewn with golden vibrions and ovules planted at the summit. The rest was quite fantastic in its architecture, an imbroglio of styles, the columns of Greek art mingling with Roman façades and Gothic arched windows; the multiple pointed roofs of the Renaissance face to face with the domes of Arab kasbahs; and, at the corners, the overhanging sections of Chinese pagodas supported by green marble caryatids.

  “The Caravanserai of neophyte males,” announced Mirror-of-Smiles.

  Already, Choumaque and Marcel felt a kind of fatigue at so many implausibilities. Bewildered, they allowed the boy to guide them. In addition, that immense solitude; that absence of human activity around them; that silence, so cruel to their habits; and that contradiction of so much richness without anyone to profit from it, all impressed them in a melancholy fashion. In vain Choumaque repeated to himself that prosperity does not inflate the heart of a sage; his sadness came from another cause.

  As soon as they had penetrated into a kind of atrium with vaults sustained by flamboyant sandstone torsades, shining with gilded metal reflections, Mirror-of-Smiles placed his foot on a pedal and the entire atrium, lifted up by a colossal force, began a rapid ascent, passing theory circular landings, all similar, with porticoes painted with allegories that lit up momentarily, giving access to profound and obscure galleries. It was a juxtaposed city that filed past in that fashion, in a vertiginous movement, and in a religious silence untroubled even by the siding of the enormous mechanism lifting them toward the sky.

  Having reached the thirtieth floor, the platform came to a gentle halt and they stepped on to a delightfully faded mosaic parquet, which looked as if it had been freshly washed. They felt very close to the firmament, by virtue of the purity and the fluidity of the respirable air. After few more steps, two large doors opened automatically in front of them.

  “Here are your apartments Messieurs. You’re a hundred and fifty meters from the ground. You’ll easily be able to contemplate the view when you’ve freshened up and before resting from your voyage. Come in...” He smiled with his pretty carmined lips.

  Choumaque and Marcel went into the first of the two rooms and were surprised to find themselves in a rectangular space quite simple in appearance, with shiny walls and roses at the rounded corners, and a parquet encrusted with stones that they recognized as fragments of agate, jade and green amber. The furniture was uncomplicated: only one bed, without curtains but profound, soft and inviting; a few chairs, elongated and soft, to permit the entire relaxation of the limbs; and finally, dark onyx tables with feet sculpted in lascivious decorations, with a ratchet that could raise or lower the top at will, tiltin
g the plane or returning it to the horizontal.

  Near the bed, a grotto, framed with natural plants, gave birth to a pink marble basin full of warm and perfumed water, probably the bath. A few droplets of water were still dripping from stalactites, indicating that showering was as easy as submersion. On one side wall, however, there was a panel, which captured their attention with the inscription UTILITIES. A hundred small pigeon-holes were arranged therein, each with a label of various designation. Choumaque read a few: heat, cold, sleep, meal, coiffure, mouth, theater, sensuality...

  The little guide was pleased to observe their astonishment. He explained, as if he were reciting a script: “You have, Messieurs, within arm’s reach, the satisfactions of all the necessities of life. Are you too warm? Press the button corresponding to the designation cold and the air will refresh you. Are you hungry? Obtain your nourishment by the same procedure. Would you like, before going out, to tidy yourself up, to brush your clothes, clean your teeth, comb your hair? Press the contacts again, and arms will emerge from the wall that will accomplish those functions. Service by means of slaves does not exist here; machines replace domestic servants.

  “But sensuality…I don’t see…?” Choumaque queried.

  “Ah!” said the child laughing loudly. “Try it and you’ll see.” He smiled equivocally, and took Marcel’s hand again, who felt embarrassed by it.

  “That’s all right,” said Choumaque, without noticing his insistence. “I can see that all the commodities of life are assembled within a surface of two square meters, and I’m glad of it, for the fact of having myself served by others has always been painful to my sensibility. It gives me an impression of the unjust division of terrestrial benefits, and when the woman who did my housekeeping in the Rue Monge in the Latin quarter—when that good old woman, lame and prognathous, recompensed monthly by three hundred-sou pieces, brought me my milky coffee in the morning, I remembered the beautiful book De Beneficiis by the great Seneca, and I felt a desire to beg the maidservant’s pardon. Nevertheless, I liked her company. She had interesting theories regarding love, resulting from her former status as a courtesan fallen into poverty....”