Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series)

by Roussel, Raymond

  Bedu directed our attention to the heddles, activated solely by the paddles, which were themselves powered by an electromagnet that transmitted energy from the chest to the ceiling; the wires were hidden in one of the two rear supports, and this method dispensed with the use of punch cards as on Jacquard looms. There was no limit to the variations that could be obtained by the alternate raising and lowering of certain groups of threads. In combination with the parti-colored army of shuttles, this infinity of successive figures in the spacing of the warp allowed for the creation of fabulous textiles on a par with master paintings.

  Manufactured in situ by an anomaly of this extraordinary machine, which was specially designed to perform for an attentive audience, the band of fabric grew rapidly, its details powerfully lit by the beacon. The tableau depicted a vast waterway, at the surface of which men, women, and children, eyes bulging in terror, clung desperately to bits of flotsam in a sea of wreckage; and so ingenious were the machine’s fabulous gears that the result could have with-stood comparison with the most artful watercolor. The fiercely expressive faces displayed admirable flesh tones, from the weathered brown of the old man and milky pallor of the young woman to the fresh pink of the child; the waves, running the gamut of blues, were covered in shimmering reflections, their degree of transparency varying with location.

  Moved by a driving belt that rose from an opening in the huge chest, to which it was clinched by two supports, the warp beam pulled the textile that was already wrapping around it. The other end of the warp offered stiff resistance because of a steel rod that, acting as a selvage for the silk threads, was fixed between two parallel barriers attached to the chest by a series of vertical bars. Bolted to the left barrier was the immovable compartment in which each shuttle made a brief halt.

  The textile motif gradually took shape, and we saw emerge a mountain toward which groups of humans and animals of all species swam for safety. A host of transparent, diagonal zigzags streaked the entire area and allowed us to grasp the subject, borrowed from the biblical description of the Flood. Calm and majestic at the surface of the waves, Noah’s Ark soon lifted its regular, massive silhouette, embellished with finely wrought figures circulating amid a copious menagerie.

  The shuttle-box drew our rapt attention by the marvelous steadiness of its alert, captivating gymnastics. One after another, the most varied hues were launched across the warp in the form of shoots, and all the threads together resembled some infinitely rich palette. Sometimes the shuttle-box made a wide movement so that two very distant shuttles could be used sequentially; at other times, several successive shoots belonging to the same area required only minimal shifts. The tip of the given shuttle always found its passage through the other threads, which, parting from nearby pigeonholes and stretched in a single direction, offered it a clear path with no possible obstacle.

  On the textile, the half-submerged mountain was now visible to its peak. Everywhere, against its flanks, the condemned wretches, prostrate on this last refuge that would soon be taken from them, implored the heavens with great gestures of distress. The diluvial rain flowed in cataracts over every part of the image, littered with wreckage and islets where the same scenes of despair and supplication were being played out.

  The sky progressively expanded toward the zenith, and huge clouds suddenly emerged, thanks to an amalgam of gray threads subtly assorted from the brightest to the murkiest shades. Thick curls of vapor unfurled majestically in the air, harboring inexhaustible reserves to endlessly replenish the horrific deluge.

  At that moment, Bedu halted the apparatus by pressing another switch on the chest. Immediately the paddles fell silent, no longer transmitting life to the various components that now lay stiff and inert.

  Turning the warp beam over, Bedu, with a finely honed blade, trimmed all the threads hanging loose from the soon detached cloth; then, with a needle previously threaded with silk, he made short work of gathering the upper portion with its border of streaming clouds. The fabric, wider than it was long, took the form of a simple, loose cloak.

  Bedu approached Sirdah and draped the marvelous garment over her shoulders, its length enveloping the delighted and grateful girl to her feet.

  The sculptor Fuxier had just approached the beacon, showing us in his open hand several lozenges of a uniform blue, which, as we knew, contained a host of potential images of his own devising. He took one and tossed it into the river, slightly downstream from the now inactive loom.

  Soon, on the surface lit by the acetylene glow, swirls clearly took shape, tracing in relief a well determined silhouette, which each of us could recognize as Perseus holding the head of Medusa.

  The lozenge alone, in melting, had briefly provoked this premeditated, artistic disturbance.

  The apparition lasted for a few seconds, then the water, gradually growing calmer, regained its mirrorlike unity.

  Skillfully thrown by Fuxier, a second lozenge sank into the current. The concentric circles engendered by its fall had barely dissipated when a new image emerged in fine, ample swirls. This time, dancers in mantillas, standing on a heavily laden table, performed amid the plates and tankards a rousing step punctuated by their castanets, to the cheers of the revelers. The liquid drawing was so detailed that in places one could make out the shadows of crumbs on the tablecloth.

  When this convivial scene vanished, Fuxier continued the experiment by sinking a third lozenge, whose effect was not long in coming. The water, suddenly rippling, evoked—upon a rather large canvas—a certain dreamer who, sitting beside a stream, was jotting in a notebook the fruit of some inspiration; behind him, resting against the boulders of the nascent waterfall, an old man with long beard, like the personification of a river, leaned toward the fellow as if to read over his shoulder.

  “The poet Giapalù allowing the old Var to rob him of the admirable verses his own genius had wrought,” explained Fuxier, who soon tossed yet another lozenge into the newly calm waters.

  The roiling settled to depict half a huge clock face with unusual markings. The word “NOON,” clearly traced in relief by the water, occupied the place normally reserved for 3 o’clock; then came, on a single quarter-circle near the bottom, every division from 1 to 11 o’clock; at the lowest point, in place of the figure “VI,” one could read “MIDNIGHT” spelled out in the diametrical axis; then, to the left, eleven more divisions ended with a second iteration of the word “NOON” replacing 9 o’clock. Acting as the clock’s single hand, a long scrap of cloth, looking like the flame of a pennant, was attached to the point that would have been the exact center of the complete clock face; supposedly pushed by the wind, the supple banderole stretched rightward, marking 5 P.M. with its thin, streaming point. The clock, sitting at the top of a solidly planted pedestal, decorated an open landscape through which several people strolled, and the entire liquid tableau was astoundingly precise and accurate.

  “The wind clock from the Land of Cockaigne,” Fuxier resumed, amplifying his statement with the following commentary:

  “In the blissful land in question, the perfectly regular wind took it upon itself to tell the time for the inhabitants. At high noon it blew violently from the west and gradually died down until midnight, a poetic moment when everything was utterly calm. Soon a light breeze from the east gradually rose and kept growing until the following noon, which marked its apogee. An abrupt shift then occurred, and once more the tempest rushed in from the west to resume its evolution of the day before. Remarkably adapted to these unvarying fluctuations, the clock here submitted in effigy for our appreciation fulfilled its functions far better than the ordinary sundial, its solely diurnal task further hampered no doubt by passing clouds.”

  The Land of Cockaigne had abandoned the watery surface, and the currents, smooth once again, swallowed a final lozenge immersed by Fuxier.

  The surface, wrinkling artfully, sketched out a half-naked man holding a bird on his finger.

  “The Prince of Conti and his jay,” said Fuxier, s
howing us his empty hand.

  When the undulations had flattened out one last time, the parade again took the path to Ejur, plunging into the pitch-blackness that the light from the beacon no longer dissipated, Rao having abruptly extinguished it.

  We had been walking for several minutes when suddenly, to our right, a bouquet of fireworks lit up the night sky, producing a host of detonations.

  A spray of rockets climbed into the air, and soon, reaching the peak of their ascent, the incandescent nuclei exploded with a loud bang to form many luminous portraits of the young Baron Ballesteros, in place of the habitual and banal showers of fire and stars. Each image, bursting from its envelope, emerged independently then floated in the darkness with a gentle sway.

  These remarkably executed drawings, sketched in fire, depicted the elegant bon vivant in the most varied poses, each one attributed a specific color.

  Here the rich Argentine, in sapphire blue from head to foot, appeared in evening dress, gloves in his hand and a flower in his lapel; there a ruby-colored likeness showed him in his officer’s uniform, ready to launch an attack; elsewhere a single bust of colossal dimensions, in frontal view and traced in lines of gold, appeared alongside a dazzling violet design in which the young noble, in top hat and buttoned frock coat, was captured in profile to mid-calf. Farther on, a diamond-colored rendering evoked the brilliant sportsman in tennis garb, gracefully brandishing, at an angle, his racket. Other irradiant portraits blossomed on all sides, but the pièce de résistance was, without question, a certain large tableau in emerald green, in which the hero of this phantasmagoria, an impeccable horseman mounted on a trotting steed, gallantly greeted a passing female rider.

  The cortege had stopped to ponder this attractive spectacle at its leisure.

  The portraits, falling slowly and projecting their powerful polychromatic illumination over a vast expanse, hung in the air for some time without sacrificing any of their brilliance. Then they faded out noiselessly, one by one, and gradually the shadows spread once more over the plain.

  Just as the last trace of fireworks vaporized in the night, the entrepreneur Luxo came to join us, proud of the superb effect produced by the pyrotechnical masterpiece he had personally engineered.

  Suddenly a distant rumbling could be heard, long and dull; apparently the detonations of the fireworks had provoked a storm brewing in the muggy atmosphere. Immediately the same thought occurred in everyone’s mind: “Jizme is about to die!”

  At a sign from Talou, the cortege started up again and, swiftly crossing the southern part of Ejur, emerged once more onto Trophy Square.

  The storm had already drawn near; bolts of lighting followed each other in quick succession, followed by increasingly loud bursts of thunder.

  Rao, who had gone on ahead, soon reappeared with his men, who were straining under the weight of a curious litter that they set down in the middle of the esplanade. By the flashes of lightning, we could examine the strange composition of this object, which looked at once comfortable and terrifying.

  A bed frame, raised off the ground by four wooden feet, supported a soft white mattress entirely covered in fine individuated designs, in shape and size not unlike the tailpieces that close the chapters of certain books. The most varied subjects were gathered in this collection of minuscule, independent, isolated images; landscapes, portraits, starstruck couples, groups dancing, ships in distress, and sunsets were treated with a naïve and conscientious art by no means lacking charm or interest. A cushion was slipped under one end of the mattress, raising it to support the sleeper’s head; behind the place nominally reserved for the occiput stood a lightning rod, its shining stem rising high above the long berth. A metal skullcap, connected by a wire to the base of the tall vertical needle, was apparently intended to encircle the forehead of some convict sentenced to perish on the lethal couch; at the other end, two metal shoes, placed side by side, communicated with the earth by means of another wire, the tip of which had just been sunken into the ground by Rao himself.

  Having reached its peak with the meteorological rapidity peculiar to equatorial regions, the storm now unfurled with extreme violence; a terrible wind shuttled fat black clouds, from which burst an incessant cataclysm.

  Rao had opened the prison to release Jizme, the graceful and beautiful young native, who, since the triple execution earlier on, had remained alone behind the dark bars.

  Offering no resistance, Jizme lay down on the white mattress, placing her own head in the iron skullcap and her feet in the stiff shoes.

  Prudently, Rao and his aides edged away from the dangerous contraption, which then stood completely isolated.

  Jizme grasped with both hands a parchment chart hanging by a thin cord from her neck and stared at it at length, taking advantage of the occasional flash of lightning to exhibit it to everyone with a defiantly joyous expression; a name in hieroglyphics, inscribed in the middle of the supple rectangle, was underscored at a distance, to the right, by a small triple drawing depicting three phases of the moon.

  Soon, Jizme let go the chart and shifted her look away from the front of the red theater, settling her gaze on Nair; the latter, still imprisoned on his pedestal, had abandoned his delicate labors since the appearance of the beautiful convict, whom he devoured with his eyes.

  By then the thunder was rumbling continually, and lighting flashed often enough to give the illusion of false daylight.

  Then, with a horrible roar, a blinding zigzag of fire jolted across the sky and struck the tip of the lightning rod. Jizme, whose arms had begun stretching toward Nair, was unable to complete her gesture; the electricity coursed through her body, and the white litter soon supported nothing more than a cadaver with staring eyes and inert limbs.

  During the brief silence the storm observed after the next deafening clap of thunder, heartrending sobs drew our attention to Nair, who shed tears of anguish while keeping his eyes fixed on the deceased.

  The porters removed the apparatus without disturbing Jizme’s corpse, and we waited in pained stupor while the elements gradually receded.

  The wind continued chasing the clouds southward and the thunder moved swiftly away, losing more of its force and duration with each passing minute. Little by little the sky cleared and the moon shone brightly over Ejur.

  VII

  TEN SLAVES APPEARED in the wan light, carrying a heavy burden that they set down in the very place where Jizme had just expired.

  The new object was composed mainly of a white wall, facing us, which was propped up by two long iron beams planted in the ground on one side.

  From the top of the wall jutted a large awning, its two forward corners six feet exactly above the ends of the beams.

  The porters left the area as the hypnotist Darriand slowly came forward, leading by the hand the Negro Seil-kor, a poor lunatic in his twenties who walked while uttering soft, incoherent words in perfect French.

  Darriand abandoned his patient momentarily to inspect the white wall, especially the awning, which seemed to absorb all his attention.

  During this time, Seil-kor, left to his own devices, calmly gesticulated, displaying in the moonlight an oddly carnival-like outfit comprising a pillbox cap, a mask, and a ruff, all three cut out of paper.

  The ruff was pieced together entirely from blue covers of the magazine La Nature, whose title stood out in various places; the surface of the mask was tightly veined with numerous and varied signatures printed in facsimile; and the word “Tremble” paraded in bold letters across the crest of the cap, visible during certain movements of the young man’s head, who in this get-up looked like a make-believe noble from the court of the last Valois.

  Too small for Seil-kor, the three objects seemed better suited to the measurements of a twelve-year-old boy.

  Darriand, reclaiming everyone’s attention with a few words, had just tilted the white wall back to show us the underside of the overhanging canopy: entirely covered in reddish plants, it looked like an inverted window box
.

  Restoring the object to its upright position, the hypnotist offered us several details about a certain experiment he intended to try.

  The plants we’d just seen, rare and precious specimens whose seeds he’d gathered during his travels in distant Oceania, possessed extremely potent hypnotic properties.

  A subject placed beneath the fragrant canopy was permeated by this unsettling fragrance, which immediately plunged him into a veritable hypnotic ecstasy; at that point, the patient, facing the wall, saw a host of colored images parade across the white surface thanks to a system of electric projection, which the temporary overstimulation of his senses made him take for reality. The sight of a hyperborean landscape, for instance, would immediately chill him to the bone, making his limbs shiver and his teeth chatter; conversely, a scene simulating a white-hot hearth provoked abundant perspiration and could ultimately cause serious burns to his skin. By showing Seil-kor a striking episode from his own past, Darriand hoped to revive the memory and sanity that the young Negro had recently lost to a head injury.

  His preamble finished, Darriand again took Seil-kor by the hand and led him beneath the awning, positioning his face to receive the reflections from the white wall. The poor imbecile was immediately overcome by violent spasms; his breathing sped up and his fingertips ran over the ruff, cap, and mask, seeming to find at the unexpected contact of these three objects some private and painful memory.

  All at once an electric lamp, set at midpoint on the lower lip running along the awning’s wide border and powered by a concealed battery, lit the wall with a large bright square due to the combined action of a lens and a reflector. The actual light source remained hidden, but we could clearly see the beam as it projected downward, widening until it met the screen, its path partly blocked by Seil-kor’s head.