Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series)

by Roussel, Raymond

  The smooth lid of the rectangular plate, which could be grasped by a ring in its center, directly faced the glare of dawn; the plate’s unprotected verso disgorged a mass of remarkably thin metal wires, like an overly straight head of hair, which served to connect each infinitesimal area of the surface to a kind of device furnished with an electrical energy source. The wires were gathered in a thick coil under an insulating sleeve, ending in a long ingot, which Louise, kneeling back at her post, plugged into a socket on the side of the battery case.

  Now the bag provided a rigid vertical tube, somewhat like a photographer’s headrest, which, firmly set on a heavy circular base, was flanked at its summit by an easily turned screw that adjusted an inner metal shaft to the desired height.

  Setting the device before the easel, Louise raised the adjustable shaft out of the tube and tightened the screw after scrupulously verifying the level reached by its uppermost tip, which was placed exactly opposite the still virgin canvas.

  On the stable, isolated tip, the young woman solidly embedded, like a ball in a cup, a certain large metal sphere bearing a kind of horizontal, pivoting, articulated arm whose extremity, aimed at the palette, held about ten brushes arranged like the spokes of a wheel laid flat on the ground.

  Soon the operator had connected a double wire between the sphere and the electrical case.

  Before launching the experiment, Louise, unstopping a small burette, poured a drop of oil on the bristles of each brush. Norbert set aside the cumbersome bag, almost empty now that the young woman had removed the metal sphere.

  During these preparations, daylight had gradually risen and the Behuliphruen was now resplendent with dazzling lights, forming a magical and multicolored tableau.

  Louise could not suppress a cry of wonder when she turned toward the splendid park that gave off such an enchanted glow. Deeming the moment unsurpassable and miraculously propitious to the success of her project, the young woman approached the tripod and gripped the ring on the lid covering the plate.

  All the spectators huddled around the easel, so as not to block the sun’s rays.

  Louise, on the verge of attempting her great experiment, was visibly moved. Her orchestral breathing quickened, giving greater frequency and vigor to the monotonous chords continually exhaled by the aiguillettes. With a sudden pull, she yanked off the lid, and then, slipping behind the easel stand, came to join us to keep watch over the movements of the apparatus.

  Deprived of the shutter that the young woman still held in her hand, the plate now lay exposed, showing a surface that was smooth, brown, and shiny. All eyes latched onto that mysterious substance, endowed by Louise with strange photomechanical properties. Suddenly a slight tremor shook the automatic arm facing the easel, a single, glossy, horizontal rod bent in the middle. The flexible angle of the elbow tended to open fully under the action of a powerful spring, which a single metal wire, running from the sphere and attached to the arm’s extremity, counteracted by regulating its spread; at the moment, the lengthening wire was letting the angle progressively widen.

  This first movement provoked a slight stir in the anxious, uncertain audience.

  The arm stretched slowly toward the palette, while the horizontal, rimless wheel created at its extremity by the star of brushes gradually rose to the top of a vertical axle, itself moved upward by a toothed gear directly linked to the sphere by an elastic transmission belt.

  The two combined movements guided the tip of one brush toward a plentiful supply of the color blue, amassed near the top of the palette. The bristles rapidly coated themselves, then, after a short descent, spread their purloined particles over an uncovered area of the wooden surface. Several iotas of white pigment, picked up the same way, were deposited on the spot recently daubed with blue, and the two colors, which some prolonged rubbing had left perfectly blended, yielded a very attenuated pale cerulean.

  Retracted slightly by the metal wire, the arm then pivoted gently and stopped by the upper left-hand corner of the canvas mounted on the easel. Immediately the brush, impregnated as it was with delicate hues, automatically traced on the edge of the future painting a narrow, vertical strip of sky.

  A murmur of admiration greeted this first sketch, and Louise, now sure of her success, breathed a huge sigh of satisfaction accompanied by a noisy fanfare from her aiguillettes.

  The wheel of brushes, once more at the palette, abruptly rotated on itself, moved by a second transmission belt that, made like the first of stretchable material, led inside the sphere. A sharp click was heard, produced by a ratchet that firmly set a new brush with clean bristles in the place of honor. Soon several additional unadulterated paints, blended on another area of the palette, composed a vivid yellowish tint, which, transposed onto the canvas, extended the vertical ribbon begun moments earlier.

  Turning toward the Behuliphruen, we could verify the absolute accuracy of this sudden juxtaposition of two tones, which formed a clearly defined line in the sky.

  The work continued with speed and precision. At this point, during each visit to the palette, several brushes effected by turns their different blends of colors; brought before the painting, they deployed again in the same order, each one applying to the canvas, sometimes in infinitesimal amounts, its particular new pigment. This process allowed for the subtlest gradations of hues, and little by little a section of landscape full of realistic splendor spread before our eyes.

  While watching over the machine, Louise supplied helpful explanations.

  The brown plate alone set everything in motion, through a system based on the principle of electromagnetism. Despite the absence of an actual lens, the polished surface, owing to its extreme sensitivity, received extremely powerful impressions of light, which, transmitted by the countless wires in back, activated an entire mechanism inside the sphere, which measured more than a yard in circumference.

  As we had witnessed with our own eyes, the two vertical arms ending the fork on the supporting tripod were made of the same brown material as the plate itself; thanks to their perfect fit, they and it formed a single, homogenous block and now contributed, in their particular area, to the continual progress of the photomechanical communication.

  Louise revealed that the sphere contained a second rectangular plate. Provided with another network of wires that transmitted to it the polychromatic impressions received by the first, this second plate was criss-crossed from edge to edge by a metal wheel that, through the electrical current it produced, could power a complex assortment of rods, pistons, and cylinders.

  The image spread progressively toward the right, always in vertical strips painted one after another from top to bottom. Each time the rimless wheel turned in front of the palette or the canvas, we heard the high-pitched squeal of the fastening clip holding a given brush in place for the length of its brief task. This monotonous sound reproduced, albeit much slower, the prolonged screech of fairground turnstiles.

  The entire surface of the palette was now sullied or blemished; the most heterogeneous blends lay side by side, constantly modified by some new addition of unadulterated paint. Despite the disconcerting riot of tones, no confusion ensued, each brush remaining devoted to a certain category of hues that conferred on it a given, loosely defined specialty.

  Soon the entire left half of the painting was complete.

  Louise watched joyfully over the operation of her machine, which so far had functioned without accident or error.

  This success did not falter for a moment during the completion of the landscape, whose second half was painted with marvelous sureness.

  A few seconds before the end of the experiment, Louis had again positioned herself behind the easel, then behind the tripod, in order to stand once more near the photosensitive plate. By then, all that remained was a narrow strip of white at the far right edge of the canvas, promptly filled.

  After these final brushstrokes, Louise vigorously clapped the obturating lid over the brown plate, and by this act alone immobili
zed the articulated arm. Freed from any further concern over the machine’s workings, the young woman could appreciate at leisure the painting that had been executed so curiously.

  The great trees of the Behuliphruen were faithfully reproduced with their magnificent limbs, whose leaves, of strange hue and shape, were covered with a host of intense reflections. On the ground, large flowers in blue, yellow, or crimson sparkled amid the mosses. Farther up, the sky peeked through the trunks and branches: at bottom, a first horizontal area in blood red faded to make way, a bit higher up, for an orange strip, which itself lightened and yielded to a vibrant yellow-gold; then came a pale, scarcely tinted blue, in which a final, tardy star shone to the right. The work, in its entirety, gave a singularly powerful impression of color and remained rigorously faithful to the model, as everyone could verify with a single glance at the park itself.

  Aided by her brother, Louise, loosening the clamp on the easel, replaced the canvas with a drawing pad of equal dimensions, formed by a thick accumulation of white sheets bound at the edges; then, removing the last brush used, she put in its place a carefully sharpened pencil.

  A few words revealed to us the ambitious young woman’s plan: wishing now to show us a simple drawing, necessarily more precise than the painting in the subtlety of its outlines, she had only to activate a certain switch placed at the top of the sphere to slightly modify the internal mechanism.

  In order to furnish a dense and animated subject, fifteen or twenty spectators, at Louise’s request, went to stand together a short distance away, in the plate’s visual field. Seeking to obtain a brisk, lively effect, they posed as pedestrians on a busy street; several, their postures evoking a rapid gait, lowered their foreheads with a look of deep preoccupation; others, more relaxed, conversed in strolling couples, while two friends crossing paths exchanged a familiar greeting.

  Urging her figures to hold absolutely still, like a photographer, Louise, posted near the plate, removed the lid with a sudden movement; then she again made her habitual detour to come oversee the pencil’s maneuvers from closer up.

  The mechanism, renewed as well as modified by the action of the switch pushed on the sphere, gently moved the articulated arm to the left. The pencil began running from top to bottom over the white paper, following the same vertical paths previously forged by the brushes.

  This time there was no detour toward the palette, no change of brush, and no mixing of pigments to complicate the task, which progressed rapidly. The same landscape appeared in the background, but its interest, now secondary, was eclipsed by the figures in the foreground. Their movements sketched from life, the well-defined habitus, the curiously amusing silhouettes, the strikingly lifelike faces—all had the desired expression, be it grave or joyful. One body, leaning slightly toward the ground, seemed endowed with great forward momentum; a beaming countenance expressed the pleasant surprise of a chance encounter.

  The pencil, though often pulling away from the surface, glided nimbly over the sheet, which was filled in a matter of minutes. Louise, who had returned to her post in time, replaced the shutter on the plate, then called to her actors, who, glad to stretch their limbs after their prolonged immobility, came running to admire the new opus.

  Despite the conflicting décor, the drawing gave the precise impression of a bustling city street. Everyone easily recognized himself amid the compact group, and the heartiest congratulations were showered on a moved and radiant Louise.

  Norbert took charge of disassembling all the utensils and putting them back in the bag.

  During this time, Sirdah notified Louise of the emperor’s complete satisfaction, the latter marveling at the perfect way the young woman had fulfilled all the conditions he had strictly imposed.

  Ten minutes later we had all returned to Ejur.

  Talou brought us to Trophy Square, where we saw Rao accompanied by a native warrior.

  Before everyone, the emperor pointed at Carmichael, accompanying his gesture with a few words of commentary.

  Immediately Rao went up to the young Marseillais, whom he led toward one of the sycamores near the red theater.

  The warrior was posted as a sentry to watch over the poor detainee, who, standing face to the tree trunk, began the three hours of punishment during which he was to rehearse continually the same “Battle of the Tez” that he had misremembered the day before.

  Taking the chair Juillard had used from the empty wings, I went to sit beneath the branches of the sycamore, offering to help Carmichael with his task. He immediately handed me a large sheet on which the barbarous pronunciation of the Ponukelean text was meticulously transcribed into French characters. Stimulated by the dread of another failure, he began reciting his bizarre lesson with full concentration, murmuring the song in a low voice, while I followed each line syllable by syllable, ready to point out the slightest error or prompt a forgotten word.

  The crowd, deserting Trophy Square, had slowly spread into Ejur, and, hardly distracted by my purely mechanical chore, I could not help reflecting in the great morning silence on the many adventures that had occupied my life for the past three months.

  X

  THE PREVIOUS MARCH 15TH, planning a certain long-term journey through the curious regions of South America, I had embarked in Marseille aboard the Lynceus, a huge, fast vessel setting sail for Buenos Aires.

  The first days of the crossing were lovely and calm. With the familiarity born of shared meals, I lost no time in getting acquainted with a certain number of passengers, of whom I give here a brief annotated list:

  1. The historian Juillard, a man of independent means who frequently took pleasure cruises, occasionally stopping to deliver scholarly lectures renowned for their witty and engaging lucidity.

  2. The aging Livonian Olga Chervonenkhov, formerly a prima ballerina in Saint Petersburg, now obese and mustached. For the past fifteen years, having retired from the theater in her prime, Olga, surrounded by an abundance of animals that she cared for lovingly, lived a quiet, secluded life on a small property she had bought in Livonia, not far from her native village. Her two favorite charges were the elk Sladki and the she-ass Milenkaya, who both came at her slightest call and often followed her into her private suite. Not long before, one of the ex-dancer’s cousins, residing since childhood in the Republic of Argentina, had died and left behind a small fortune amassed by way of his coffee plantations. Olga was sole heir; notified of her good luck by the deceased’s lawyer, she resolved to go look after her interests personally. She left without delay, entrusting her menagerie to her neighbor, a zealously devoted woman; but at the last minute, unable to bear the painful separation, Olga bought two openwork crates for the elk and donkey, who were carefully settled among the cargo. At every stopover, this tenderhearted traveler visited the two prisoners with a solicitude that, as time passed on board, only increased.

  3. Carmichael, a twenty-year-old native of Marseilles, already renowned for his prodigious falsetto that gave the perfect illusion of a woman’s voice. For the past two years, Carmichael had triumphed on cabaret stages throughout France, dressed in female attire and singing, with infinite suppleness and virtuosity, and in the appropriate tessitura, the most trying passages in the soprano repertoire. He had booked passage on the Lynceus after having accepted a splendid engagement in the new world.

  4. Balbet, French sharpshooting and fencing champion, the popular favorite in an international marksmanship contest to be held in Buenos Aires.

  5. La Billaudière-Maisonnial, maker of precision objects, looking to present at the same competition a mechanical foil capable of multiple transcendent feints.

  6. Luxo, a pyrotechnics entrepreneur, who owned a huge plant in Courbevoie where all the great fireworks of Paris were manufactured. Three months before embarking, Luxo had received a visit from the young Baron Ballesteros, an inordinately wealthy Argentine, who for several years had been leading in France a wildly dissolute life of unbridled ostentation. Now ready to return home and be marr
ied, Ballesteros wanted, on the occasion of his nuptials, to set off a fireworks display worthy of royalty in the vast park of his castle near Buenos Aires; in addition to the agreed price, Luxo would receive a handsome bonus if he came to oversee the operation himself. The entrepreneur accepted the commission, which he promised to deliver personally to its destination. Before taking his leave, the young baron, whose reputation for his looks, while justified, had gone to his head, formulated a certain thought that betrayed a rather extravagant frame of mind, though not lacking in surprise or originality. For the grand finale, he wanted rockets that, upon exploding, would spread over the skies different aspects of his own image, in place of the traditional but hopelessly ordinary caterpillars and multicolored stars. Luxo deemed the project feasible and the next day received a voluminous packet of photographs, which, perfectly suited as models, depicted his improvident client in the most varied guises. One month before the wedding was to be celebrated, Luxo had departed with his entire cargo, not forgetting the famous finale wrapped separately with special care.

  7. The great architect Chènevillot, summoned by the same Baron Ballesteros, who, wishing to effect some major renovations in his castle while he was on his honeymoon, had decided that only a French builder could do a satisfactory job. Chènevillot brought with him several of his best workmen to keep careful watch over the chores assigned to the local laborers.

  8. The hypnotist Darriand, wishing to introduce to the new world certain mysterious plants whose hallucinatory properties he’d been able to fathom, and whose scent could enflame a subject’s faculties to the point of making him take for reality what were merely projections of finely colored film.

  9. The chemist Bex, who for the past year had traveled through many lands with the sole, selfless aim of popularizing two marvelous scientific discoveries, the fruits of his ingenious and patient efforts.