To enhance the portion of the spectacle involving the river, Fluxier decided to create several blue lozenges, which, when tossed into the currents, would create a variety of distinct and fleeting images on the water’s surface.
Before setting to work, he consulted us collectively on the choice of subjects to treat and received a plethora of suggestions, from which he retained only the following:
1. Perseus brandishing the head of Medusa.
2. A Spanish feast accompanied by frenetic dancing.
3. The legend of the poet Giapalù, who, having come to seek inspiration at the picturesque site where the Var sprang from the ground, let his secrets be discovered by the old river, leaning forward in curiosity to read over his shoulder. The next day, the babbling currents recited his new verses from the source all the way to the river’s mouth; bearing the stamp of genius, they immediately spread throughout the land unattributed. The dumbfounded Giapalù tried in vain to establish his authorship but was treated as a fraud, and the poor poet died of grief without ever having known fame.
4. A peculiarity of the Land of Cockaigne concerning the regularity of the wind, which provided inhabitants with the exact time without having to wind up or maintain a clock.
5. A piquant tale involving the Prince of Conti, which he himself had discreetly related in his correspondence:
In the spring of 1695, François-Louis de Bourbon, the Prince of Conti, was the guest of an octogenarian, the Marquis of ***, whose château stood in the middle of a vast, shaded park.
The previous year, the marquis had married a young woman of whom he was keenly jealous, even though the love he showed her was purely paternal.
Every night, the Prince of Conti went to join the marquise, whose twenty years could not make do with such incessant solitude.
These visits required infinite precautions. To contrive a pretext for his sudden absence in case of discovery, the prince let loose in the park, before each rendezvous, a certain trained jay, which had long been used to accompanying him on all his travels. One night, having grown suspicious, the marquis went to knock on the door of his guest’s chamber; obtaining no reply, he entered the empty room and saw the missing man’s clothes lying on a chest.
The octogenarian went straight to his wife’s room and demanded she let him in immediately. The marquise silently opened and closed her window, allowing her lover to let himself drop gently to the ground. This maneuver having taken but a few seconds, the bolt of her door could be pulled back in time.
The jealous old man barged in without a word and vainly checked every corner of the room. After which, the possibility of escape through the window having occurred to him, he stalked out of the château and began hunting through the park.
Soon he discovered the half-dressed Conti, who said he was searching for his escaped jay.
The marquis decided to accompany his guest to see if he was telling the truth. After several steps, the prince cried, “There he is!”—pointing at the trained bird sitting on a branch, who at the first call came to perch on his finger.
The old man’s doubts were immediately allayed, and the marquise’s honor remained intact.
Armed with these five subjects, Fuxier applied to his block of blue material the meticulous process he’d already completed for the internal modeling of the red lozenges used in the Shakespearean scene.
XXIV
ONE MORNING, SEIL-KOR’S DEVOTION to the emperor nearly proved fatal. At around ten o’clock, the young man was carried to Trophy Square, covered in blood, and put in the care of Dr. Leflaive.
His injury had been caused by a sudden and unexpected event.
Just minutes earlier, the traitor Gaiz-duh had managed to escape. Seil-kor, witnessing this bold move, had run after the fugitive, whom he’d soon caught and seized by the left arm.
Gaiz-duh, whose right hand clasped a knife, had twisted around in fury and struck Seil-kor in the head; the slight delay caused by this brief struggle had given the guards time to secure the prisoner and bring back the wounded man.
Dr. Leflaive bandaged the wound and promised to save the patient’s life.
By the next day, he was out of mortal danger, but soon began showing signs of mental disturbance owing to a serious lesion in the brain. Indeed, Seil-kor had lost his memory and could not recognize anyone’s face.
Darriand, visiting the patient, saw a marvelous opportunity to effect a miracle using his hypnotic plants. Possessing several rolls of blank celluloid, he asked Bedu to paint on one of those long, supple, transparent strips a certain number of scenes taken from the period of Seil-kor’s life he recalled most vividly.
The idyll with Nina was the clear choice. Transported back to his time with his soulmate, whom he’d believe truly present before his eyes, the young Negro might experience a salutary emotion liable to restore his faculties in a single stroke.
Among the relics preserved by the poor lunatic, they found a large photograph of Nina in frontal view, which provided Bedu with precious details.
Having finished the preparation of his lozenges, Fuxier, yielding to our entreaties, gladly agreed to complete his series of experiments by ripening a cluster of grapes, each of which would contain a different subject.
We cast about for new inspirations. Free to set the size of the bunch as he wished, Fuxier fixed the number of grapes at ten and chose the following themes:
1. A glimpse of Celtic Gaul.
2. The famous vision of Count Valtguire, who in a dream saw a demon sawing at the body of his mortal enemy, Eudes, son of Robert the Strong. Encouraged by this sign, which seemed to promise him the support of Heaven by dooming his adversary to death and damnation, Valtguire, throwing caution to the winds, redoubled the intensity of the bloody battle he was waging against Eudes and his partisans. This rashness proved fatal and led to his capture followed by immediate beheading.
3. An evocation of ancient Rome in the time of its greatest splendor, symbolized by the games of the Circus.
4. Napoleon, victorious in Spain, but cursed by a populace seething with revolt.
5. A gospel of Saint Luke relating three miracles performed by Jesus on the children of the Guedaliels, whose humble hut, illuminated by the presence of the divine Master, was suddenly filled with joyous echoes after having witnessed the bitterest grief. Two days before the celestial visit, the oldest child, a boy of fifteen, pale and weak, had suddenly succumbed while plying his trade as a basket weaver. Stretched out on his pallet, he still held in his fingers the long wicker strand he’d been braiding at the fatal instant. Of the two sisters the deceased had cherished, the first had fallen mute from her distress at the sight of the corpse, while the youngest, a poor invalid, ugly and hunchbacked, was no consolation to her parents for their dual misfortune. Upon entering, Jesus stretched his hand toward the comely aphonic, who, the moment she was cured, sang a long, full-throated trill that seemed to announce the return of joy and hope. A second gesture of the all-powerful hand, this time directed toward the deathbed, restored life to the dead boy, who, taking up his interrupted task, bent and knotted in his practiced fingers the supple and docile wicker strand. At the same moment, a new miracle was revealed to the dazzled parents’ eyes: Jesus had just brushed his finger over the gentle invalid, now left beautiful and standing erect.
6. The Ballad of Hans the Robust, a legendary woodsman from the Black Forest, who despite his advanced age could carry more tree trunks and bundles on his shoulders than his six sons put together.
7. A passage from Emile, in which Jean-Jacques Rousseau lengthily describes the first stirrings of desire felt by his hero upon seeing a young stranger in a poppy-colored dress seated in her doorway.
8. A reproduction of Raphael’s painting St. Michael Vanquishing Satan.
Armed with these materials, Fuxier set to work, offering us the captivating sight of his weird and patient method.
Sitting before his vine-stock, he burrowed into the buds of the future cluster with the help of ex
tremely fine steel instruments—the very same ones he’d used to fashion the interior of his lozenges.
Sometimes he pulled from a minuscule box various coloring agents that would infuse the figures as they developed.
For hours he pursued his miraculous labors, focusing exclusively on the precise spot from which the grapes would emerge, deprived in advance of their seeds by this terrible trituration.
XXV
WHEN EVERYONE HAD DECLARED himself ready, Talou set the date of the coronation and chose in the Ponukelean calendar the day equivalent to June 25th. On the 24th, the ichthyologist Martignon, who had never ceased his excursions along the coastlines, returned highly agitated by a surprising discovery he’d just made after a deep dive.
He was gingerly carrying in both arms an aquarium entirely concealed by a light plaid blanket, and refused to show us its contents so as not to spoil the effect the next day.
This event caused a notable volatility in the Martignon during the last session of speculation.
On June 25th, at two o’clock in the afternoon, everyone made final preparations for the grand ceremony.
A cruet, standing in for the Holy Ampulla, was borrowed from one of the Lynceus’s salad services and placed on the altar for Talou, whom Juillard had shown how to anoint his forehead.
Next to the flask hung a wide sheet of parchment, a kind of bull, dictated by the emperor to Rao, that contained a solemn proclamation.
Balbet, planning an extraordinary test of marksmanship, drove a long stake trimmed by one of Chènevillot’s workmen into the ground, just to the right of the altar; behind it, standing in the desired axis, a sycamore trunk planed vertically to the architect’s specifications provided a backstop to halt the bullets, thus avoiding troublesome ricochets.
On the upper tip of the stake the celebrated marksman placed a soft-boiled egg, which the ship’s steward, on his instructions, had cooked so as to solidify the white while scrupulously preserving the runniness of the yolk.
The perfectly fresh egg had just been laid by one of the hens loaded onto the Lynceus in Marseille.
Olga Chervonenkhov, her hair and bust decorated with foliage gathered in the Behuliphruen, had decked herself out in a painstakingly improvised dancer’s costume. Hector Boucharessas had given her one of his spare leotards, which, patiently cut open and restitched, now imprisoned the legs and thighs of the imposing matron; several window curtains, chosen from the stock of the upholsterer Beaucreau, had furnished the tulle for her tutu, and the whole was completed by a deeply plunging sky-blue corsage, originally from a formal gown the Livonian had brought to wear at evening balls in the great theaters of Buenos Aires.
In earlier days, when performing The Nymph’s Dance, the then lithe and light Olga would come onstage riding a fawn, amid a deep and untamed forest décor. Wishing to recreate her famous entrance, the ex-ballerina planned to ride in on Sladki; a trial run the previous day had proven that the good-natured animal was strong enough to support its mistress’s enormous girth for a little while.
While awaiting showtime, the tame and faithful elk plodded calmly at the Livonian’s side.
That very morning Bedu had completed the painted filmstrip intended to reawaken Seil-kor’s slumbering memory. Wishing to obtain very clear projections, Darriand decided to try the experiment after nightfall, and to bring in the pillbox hat, mask, and ruff that Nina had once cut out of paper; contact with these three objects, religiously preserved by the precocious suitor, might greatly assist the sudden resurrection of his former faculties.
Thanks to her assiduous efforts, Louise Montalescot had found the solution to the problem she’d sought for so long. By spending the entire night in her laboratory, sufficiently lit by the moon that was now full and extremely bright, the young woman was certain of completing her device, which would be fully operational by daybreak. The poetic glow of dawn would lend itself perfectly to a first attempt at automatic reproduction, and Talou, filled with curiosity, gave his consent to Sirdah, who had been sent to request his permission for a morning experiment.
As for the magpie, it now played its part with infallible sureness, and the emperor had only to choose a time to put it to the test. The helot statue itself was to be moved by the bird over two train tracks that Norbert had just fashioned from a provision of calves’ lungs requisitioned from the ship’s steward.
As four o’clock neared, Mossem, Rul, Gaiz-duh, and Jizme were transferred to the prison that Chènevillot had built.
Rao, who held the key, went to recruit a handful of slaves to help him in his role as organizer, with which the emperor had earlier entrusted him.
Soon Talou appeared in full regalia.
Everyone was present for the performance, including the Ponukelean troops assigned to sing the “Jeroukka.”
Sensing that the solemn moment was nigh, Juillard addressed our group, already gathered at the south of the esplanade.
In awarding the decorations, the historian intended to rely solely on the impressions of the Negro public, whose naïve instincts struck him as more liable to provide a sincere, unbiased judgment.
As our applause could influence the native audience and, more to the point, interfere with the prize giver’s observational duties, we were asked to observe a strict silence after each exhibition.
This recommendation had the added advantage of curbing the self-interested enthusiasm that a given candidate for the great sash of the Delta might inspire in certain of his shareholders.
At the last moment, wishing to make a spectacular entrance, the emperor ordered Rao to organize a procession outside Trophy Square that would advance slowly in a predetermined order.
We all fell silent, and it is now known how the coronation ceremony and gala performances, which Louise Montalescot’s experiment completed after a peaceful night’s rest, were followed by the irritating detention that Carmichael was now serving in my company under the watchful eye of a native sentinel.
XXVI
FOR THREE LONG HOURS, the young Marseillais, dreading a second punishment, had been studiously practicing “The Battle of the Tez,” which he now murmured impeccably without my being able to catch a single mistake in the script onto which the sycamore’s branches cast their shade.
Talou suddenly appeared in the distance, striding toward us with Sirdah beside him.
The emperor had come in person to free the marvelous performer, whom he wished to subject to a second trial without further ado.
Delighted to be put to the test while his memory was fresh and his confidence high, Carmichael, still keeping to the soprano register, began singing his incomprehensible piece self-assuredly, articulating it right to the end this time without a hint of error.
Dazzled by this perfect execution, Talou headed back to the imperial hut, charging Sirdah to convey to the interested party his complete satisfaction.
Liberated by this welcome verdict, Carmichael grabbed from my hands the infernal text that was now a reminder of so much anxious and tedious labor, and gleefully ripped it to shreds.
Silently condoning his innocent gesture of revenge, I left Trophy Square with him to attend to various chores related to packing, which there was now no reason to put off.
Our departure took place that same day, at the beginning of the afternoon. The Montalescots joined our procession, which, led by a fully recovered Seil-kor, included all the castaways from the Lynceus.
Talou had put at our disposal a certain number of natives ordered to carry our provisions and the few bags that were left us.
A stretcher lifted by four Negroes was reserved for Olga Chervonenkhov, who was still suffering from her muscle cramp.
A ten-day walk brought us to Porto Novo; there, showered with well-deserved gratitude for his loyal services, Seil-kor bade us farewell so that he and his retinue could head back to Ejur.
The captain of a large vessel about to embark for Marseille agreed to repatriate us. We were indeed all eager to return to France, for after suc
h harrowing adventures it was out of the question to go straight to South America.
The crossing was uneventful, and on July 19th we took leave of each other on Quai de la Joliette, after a cordial exchange of handshakes from which only Tancrède Boucharessas had to refrain.
RAYMOND ROUSSEL was born in Paris in 1877. His writings, including the novels Impressions of Africa and Locus Solus, as well as volumes of poetry and drama, were largely ignored in his lifetime, but have since been championed by the likes of Raymond Queneau, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Georges Perec, Harry Mathews, and John Ashbery. Roussel died under mysterious circumstances in 1933, decades before his work began receiving the popular acceptance he craved.
MARK POLIZZOTTI is the author of Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton and monographs on Luis Buñuel and Bob Dylan. He has translated over three dozen books.
1. A small, flat guard that fits over and behind the button of a uniform, allowing one to polish the button without soiling the fabric around it. – Trans.
Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) Page 28
