Caresco, Superman

by André Couvreur

  “I am, in sum, the artisan of your present resolution. If fortune aided us to survive the cataclysm, by placing our ship precisely at the summit of a waterspout that carried it over the island’s redoubtable circle of submarine protection; if, after two days of drifting, hazard, which is a great benefactor, brought us, dying of cold and hunger and as naked as Verities, within sight of this hospitable steamer, whose obliging passengers picked us up, warmed us up, dressed us and nourished us; if, finally, chance dictated that a saintly clergyman declared himself to be fanatically disposed to exercise his profession in your honor, for twenty shillings; you will, on the other hand concede that without me, Miss Mary, you would at this moment be part of the Superman’s anatomical collection, and that you, Marcel, would be continuing your employment, as in the past, with the sensualities of the fecund mothers and repopulating the island of Eucrasia. I therefore pride myself on the important role I have played in your destinies sufficiently to ask you to submit, for a moment, to the exposure of my scruples.”

  The two young people, holding hands, gravely approved this preamble. The glance that they cast over their own accoutrement and the philosopher’s—risible heliotrope costumes extracted opportunistically from the wardrobes of passengers, did not lessen their compunction at all.

  Choumaque continued: “My children, I am struggling in a strange casuistry. Certainly, with regard to myself, my seat has been taken for a long time, since the day when I became the creator and sole adept of the doctrine of equilibria—don’t try to understand, honorable clergyman; your commerce closes you off entirely to my theories—but you, my dears, do you know that you’re giving a diabolical twist to my philosophy? I’ll tell you why. I’ll skip over as delicately as possible the memory of the six extraordinary weeks that we’ve just spent.”

  With his habitual customary gesture, he hitched up the belt of his borrowed trousers, which, if they imprisoned his calves rather parsimoniously, were, by contrast, generous at the level of his renovated waist. Then he went on.

  “When, on the thirty-first of December 1950, last year, urged by various motives, we arrived in the unknown land, it was easy for me to distinguish the secret attraction that became, for my pupil, the result of your first meeting. Anyway, could it have been otherwise? You both possess the divine gifts of seduction, you were two opposed electricities from which a spark spring—and the spark did not take long to shine, for Miss Mary, in her turn, and after many hesitations, became smitten with Marcel. However, that sympathy did not seem to me to augur well, since the Redlander was only to make a short sojourn on the island, while the Frenchman was formally fixed there. And, indeed, that uncertainty increased further, and caused the two of you—initially, at least—cruel sadnesses as soon as you had recognized, like me, the impossibility of satisfying your love.

  “Oh, my friends, to what magnetism were people subjected on that island, in order that within a fortnight, your passion—very sincere at the start, I’m convinced—was already eroded, in order that you should become so lightly amenable, one to the perverse influence of the courtesan and the other to the demands of the fecund mothers? Don’t blush, don’t be confused; my knowledge of the human soul permits me to affirm that you could not have done otherwise. So, you resolved yourselves, without too much despair, to your separation; and it’s me who united you again. That’s why, before you engage yourselves forever, I want to tell you my scruples.

  “A little while ago, the wireless telegraph informed us that the cataclysm organized by Caresco, with a view to the disappearance of his people, was incomplete in its effects. Although we saw the Mount of Venus crumble into the sea, we now know that the convulsion of the ground was limited to engulfing that region alone, and allowing the rest to subsist. There is, therefore, within four days of navigation, a land that you know, where you have the right of election, and which, under the government of the Superman’s two disciples, Zadochbach and Hymen, subsists with all of its organization of facile, joyful, magical—if not happy—life.

  “Nourishment there is obtained by means of exquisite capsules of complete aliment, which give the satisfaction of the most succulent repasts without ever provoking indigestion. One is clothed magnificently there, without cost. It is never cold, since a radiantly warm sun shines there incessantly. The most sumptuous dwellings protect sleep there; the most delightful landscapes welcome the idleness that it the rule there. Everyone there is rich, and all needs are satisfied, thanks to an organization of machines and marvelous fluids. The most absolute security has annihilated the fear of war. Effort is unknown there; the uncertainties of metaphysics have no purchase on indolent minds. Love itself—yes, love—which brings so many dolors, heroisms and cowardices in its wake elsewhere, is offered there to the point of satiation, with all its refinements and—let’s not say too much in front of the clergyman!—all its vices; and everyone can, when weary, extract new inspiration from the aphrodisiac reserves. Ugliness does not exist there; beauty is the rule; and I am the most convincing specimen of what renovative science can achieve with a worn-out body. The creation and birth of individuals are organized there in the fashion closest to perfection, in such a way that atavistic flaws do not develop, and mothers do not even feel the pain of childbirth. One can live for two hundred years in that Eden, without seeing the advent of old age, without sensing the torturing approach of death.

  “To sum up, honest clergyman who is listening to me, the genius of Caresco has built an earthly paradise there, a marvelous Elysium, with its houris, its décor and its sensualities, as I imagine that, without admitting it, you conceive Paradise, a worthy recompense for your life of integrity and your prudent fidelity to a unique companion, who is—I’ve seen her, and you will agree yourself—dried-up, shrewish and only responds to your sentiment of esthetics with an overly red nose and excessively long teeth.

  “Well, my children, reflect on the land of misfortune to which your marriage will return you. That old world is narrow, cluttered and dolorous. Calm enjoyment is not possible there; one is too bustled and jostled. One eats indigestible foodstuffs acquired with difficulty. One freezes in winter, and roasts in summer. The right to sleep in unspacious dwellings is only obtained when the brain and limbs are weary of toil. One scarcely has time to contemplate nature, which is, in any case, generally ingrate. Garments are expensive, and wear out quickly. The most fortunate sense the rumbling of the envy of the poor, and when individuals are not tearing one another apart, it is peoples who are massacring one another. The most diverse philosophies torment the mind without ever contenting it. The good are forced to become ferocious to protect the bad. One sees celebrities and honors acquired at a monetary price, litterateurs become famous by spending a hundred thousand francs, and merchants of transparent cards receiving the most envied decorations. And love…oh, let’s talk about love! For every pair of young lovers who, like you, are disposed to make their hearths radiant, how many household disunited by interest, by hatred, by revolt; how many ridiculous cuckolds, how many girls seduced and abandoned by ferocious Don Juans; how many children raised at hazard, clad in nothing but their misery and their flaws?

  “That is the world, my children, that you are about to re-enter. I know, on the other hand, that the meal long desired is eaten with the heartiest appetite; that an overcoat is donned with more pleasure when the weather is colder; that a room seems more cheerful when it welcomes you after a day of fatigue; that the bare countryside is embalmed with a delicious air when one rarely breathes it; that the unfortunate squeeze a hundred sou coin in their hand with more joy that the rich obtain from their sacks of gold; that after the horror of war there are the consolations of peace; that metaphysics provides comforting illusions; that ill-acquired celebrity makes one smile; that the good rejoice in not being bad, and the bad in doing harm to the good; and that in love, finally, the cuckolds always end up believing in the fidelity of their spouses, the deceived by contenting themselves elsewhere, seduced girls by knowing the bitter j
oys of vengeance, and mothers by hugging their child to their breast with all the more intoxication because their loins have been ripped apart…and those compensations summarize my theory, and permit me to affirm that happiness is made of dolor...

  “But you, my friends, you who can avoid those struggles and miseries, you who can return tomorrow to countries where they do not exist, are you going to subject yourselves to the pressure of an old fool of a philosopher, who is perhaps blinded by his theory of equilibria? Are you going to persist in your intention to return to the Land of Effort, when the Land of Enjoyment is still so close, within four days of navigation? Answer me.”

  Marcel let go of Miss Mary’s hand, and, fixing his eyes on the distant horizon, as if seeking inspiration for his words therein, he spoke.

  “When I arrived on the island, I fell in love with Miss Mary. My only memory of happiness stops at the moment when I saw her smile at me. The rest—the mildness of the climate, the facilities of existence, the sumptuous palaces, the fêtes, the sensualities, the favors of the fecund mothers and the frissons of sterile amours—although they numbed my personality and contented my indolence, never offered me real joy. I was subjected to an inexplicable traction, a kind of hypnotic entrapment that never allowed me to blossom. I only truly recovered joy, Choumaque, at the moment when I was able to hope once again to share it with my bride, even at the price of the harshest sacrifices. I want to return with her to the Lands of Effort.”

  “That’s the most beautiful triumph of my theory of equilibria!” said Choumaque. “And you, Miss Mary—answer!”

  The young woman took a solemn step toward the clergyman. She placed her hand on the Bible. Although she was clad in a peignoir that was two tight, in an unspeakable hue, she was radiant with all her vivid beauty, and collected Marcel’s adoration even so.

  “For myself,” she said, “I must agree that I look back on the weeks that have just gone by with a stupefied gaze. How could it happen that I became so miserably forgetful of the veritable objective of my voyage, that I no longer thought about Marcel’s charms, to allow myself to be enveloped by Carabella’s? I don’t know, and I’m confounded by shame. But, returned to the clarity of my soul, I swear before the priest that the most captivating realizations of pleasure never caused me a joy as sincere as those of hoping to save my fatherland and being loved by Marcel. I am therefore returning to my initial ambitions: to this bold mariner, whose children I want to have; to my country, which, although now delivered from the coalition and the possessor of its autonomy, offers ruins to be rebuilt, miseries to be alleviated. Choumaque, you are a benefactor! Take me back, in my husband’s arms, to the Land of Effort. I shall suffer there again, but my happiness will compensate me fully for my pains!”

  “I am, decidedly, a great philosopher,” said Choumaque, “and the harmonious combination of stoicism and my doctrine will make that Redlander a happy woman. However, my friends, let us address to the Superman one last grateful thought, for it is to his practices, contrary to nature, that you, Miss Mary, owe the ability to cherish my pupil. You were too much a virgin; you are becoming less so; try no longer to be one at all this evening. Now, clergyman, do your work, quickly. Happiness flies, it’s necessary to seize it on the wing. Unite these young people!”

  “But what about you, my poor Choumaque,” asked Miss Mary, emotionally. “What will become of you?”

  “The man who has not got drunk on the cup of happiness is not consternated by any sudden reversal,” the philosopher dogmatized, wagging his finger. “Nevertheless, if, in your country, General Hardisson can procure me a professorial appointment...”

  “I promise you that, Choumaque!”

  That night, a little migratory bird, fatigued by a long journey through the air, came to rest on the deck of the ship, next to the window of a cabin from which the sound of kisses and promises was emerging. It listened to them, while the stars palpitated delightfully on the pure tranquility of waves that were scarcely stirring. Oh, what exquisite things it heard! But two words recurred incessantly in that conversation interrupted by embraces, in the midst of the sighs and delighted cries that the lovers uttered. Those two words were “joy” and “sadness.”

  Joy and sadness! Those were the same sentiments that the little bird experienced alternately in its primitive soul. It thought that although it was unhappy, at that moment, to be traveling alone in the immensity, it might soon be able, after a long struggle against the wind and the cold, to rejoice in having reached the liberating land, warm, calm and propitious for love. Then, having pecked a few fallen crumbs, with a new effort sustained by Hope, it resumed its flight in the blue-tinted firmament.

  Thus lives pass, with alternations of peace and action, shadow and brightness, misfortune and bounty, ugliness and beauty, torment and enjoyment, the ones made to give the others their value. Thus, Evil is necessary to Good.

  Afterword

  There is a good deal of evidence in the text of Caresco, surhomme that the author made up the story as he went along, although he probably always intended to follow the conventional story-arc leading to the escape of his three protagonists following the eruption of the volcano. Such episodes as the talking goose and the slave-slaughtering plague, which do not fit into any coherent overarching scheme, were probably the product of momentary whimsy, and it seems likely that the non-destruction of the island by the eruption was probably an afterthought.

  Afterthought or not, however, that merciful whim does raise the interesting question of what might happen to Eucrasia once deprived of its dictatorial Superman and aspirant God. Would there be a contest among the surviving subordinates to take over his position, whose violent competition would inevitably lead to the ruination of the island’s utopian credentials, even before the eventual successor began to introduce his own modifications to its program? Or would the mantle simply pass to Dr. Hymen, unopposed by the contentedly apathetic hedonists, who would maintain his predecessor’s social design with religious fanaticism?

  The question is difficult to answer without knowing more about Dr. Hymen, the one major character in the plot who has no vestige of a back-story, and who remains a very puzzling individual. It seems likely that he is, like Caresco, a surgical fetishist who obtains orgasmic satisfaction from wielding a scalpel rather than a penis—albeit one who is satisfied with excising hymens rather than uteri—and might, therefore be the ideal maniac to take over the maintenance of the social system. He would not, of course, be able to maintain Caresco’s more ambitious quests, but that is probably no bad thing, given the consistent failure of the Superman’s human monad project, and Hymen would surely be able to handle the simpler surgeries, even if he never mastered the use of the iconic carescoclast.

  The main problem with the island’s continued existence, however, is that—as Choumaque points out to Caresco—its lead in the matter of technological invention is bound to be eroded as its scientific discoveries are duplicated elsewhere. It cannot maintain its isolation forever, and once the envy of the ugly and the sex-starved is able take full effect on its beauty and lotus-eating satiation… well, the result is too horrible to contemplate. That would not prove, of course, that Choumaque’s criticisms of it are valid, and that his theory of equilibria really does provide an adequate proof of the necessity of evil.

  The basic argument of the theory of equilibria has something to recommend it, in that it really is the case that the occasional experience of unhappiness gives us a better appreciation of the value of happiness, and that if we were entirely insulated from all evils it might not make much sense to refer to the resultant invariance as “happiness.” Friedrich Nietzsche’s response to Choumaque would, of course, be that insulation from evil is merely a first step on the way to a positive reconceptualizaton of good; Nietzsche would have agreed with Choumaque that the vast majority of contemporary humans, freed from the spur of evils, would simply vegetate and stagnate rather than aspiring to become overmen, but he would have disagreed with him s
trongly that the answer to that problem was carefully to maintain, and stoically to tolerate, the empire of the evils.

  Nietzsche, apparently being more familiar than Choumaque with the work of another philosopher very much in vogue with the French writers of the Symbolist and Decadent movement, Arthur Schopenhauer—cited in the text by Caresco, but not by Choumaque—would have had no difficulty in pointing out that the flaw in Choumaque’s theory of equilibria is not in the notion that happiness is only meaningful in compensation for unhappiness but in the unproven and frankly ridiculous notion that the two are bound in the long run to enter into equivalence. As Schopenhauer points out, anyone idiot enough to believe that the account books of pleasure and pain must ultimately balance only has to ask whether the momentary pleasure of the owl in devouring a mouse—one of hundreds the bird will have to consume in order to live—can possibly be held to be equivalent in value to the pain of the mouse, whose existence is cancelled at a brutal stroke…and then to multiply that non-equation infinitely.

  The simple fact is that happiness and unhappiness, pleasure and pain, life and death and good and evil do not balance out in the world; in every case, the scales are tipped very heavily in favor of the latter—and inventing a posthumous paradise as a balancing fudge factor is lazy and cowardly as well as blatantly false accounting. As Schopenhauer argues forcefully in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (1818; rev. 1844; tr. as The World as Will and Idea), no rational calculation of the probability of reward and suffering can make the gamble of life seem worthwhile, and what sustains it in spite of that reality is the blind “will to survive,” whose only motive force is the perpetuation of the species, and which is utterly uncaring about the quality of life. His disciple Eduard von Hartmann suggested in Philosophie des Unbewussfen (1869; tr. as The Philosophy of the Unconscious) that the only logical response to that rational realization is for everyone to commit suicide, but failed to do so himself. Despite being nicknamed “the great pessimist,” Schopenhauer was not so negative; he thought that the answer was to make a stern psychological effort to substitute the conscious force of an enlightened Idea for the dark urges of the Will and to manufacture a heroic reason for living in terms of artistic creativity—i.e., in Nietszchean terminology, to become an übermensch.