The Land of Foam

by Ivan Yefremov

  “No, whenever I see anything beautiful I want to eat it,” laughed the Etruscan. “I’m only joking,” he added in serious tones. “You must remember that I’m twice as old as you and behind the bright face of the world I can see the other side that is dark and ugly. You have already forgotten Tha-Quem.” Cavius passed his finger over the red brand on Pandion’s back. “I never forget anything. I’m jealous of you, you will create beautiful things, but I can only wreak destruction in the struggle against the forces of darkness.” Cavius was silent for a few moments and then continued in a trembling voice: “You don’t often think of your own people back at home… It is many years since I saw my children; I don’t even know whether they are alive, whether my clan still exists. Who knows what may have happened there, in the midst of hostile tribes…”

  The sorrow that tinged the voice of the always reticent Etruscan filled Pandion with sympathy. But how could he comfort his friend? And then the Etruscan’s words struck home painfully: “You don’t often think of your own people back home…” If Cavius could say such things to him… Could it be true that Thessa, his grandfather, Agenor, all meant so little to him? If such were not the case, he would have become as morose as Cavius, he would not have absorbed the great variety of life, and how would he have learnt to understand beauty? Pandion’s thoughts were so full of contradiction that he could not understand himself. He jumped up and suggested to the Etruscan that they go to bathe. The latter agreed, and the two friends set out across the hills beyond which, at a distance of five thousand cubits from the village, lay the ocean.

  A few days before this Kidogo had gathered together the young men and youths of the tribe. The Negro told his people that his friends had no property of any kind except their spears and loin-cloths and that the Sons of the Wind would not take them aboard their ships without payment.

  “If every one of you helps them just a little,” said Kidogo, “the strangers will be able to return home. They helped me escape from captivity and return to you.”

  Encouraged by the general approval that followed, Kidogo suggested that they all go with him to the plateau where the gold deposits were and that those who could not go should contribute ivory, nuts, hides or a log of valuable wood.

  Next day Kidogo informed his friends that he was going away on a hunt, but refused to take them with him, recommending that they save their strength for the forthcoming journey.

  Kidogo’s travelling companions, therefore, knew nothing of the real object of his expedition. Although the problem of payment for the journey home worried them, they hoped that the mysterious Sons of the Wind would hire them as rowers. If the worst came to the worst, Pandion knew he would be able to offer the stones that came from the south, the old chief’s gift to him. Cavius, also without a word to Kidogo, gathered the Libyans together two days after his Negro friend had left and set out up the river in search of blackwood trees; he wanted to fell a few of them and float them downstream on rafts of light wood as the ebony and other blackwoods were too heavy to float in water.

  Pandion was still lame, and Cavius left him in the village despite his protests. This was the second time that his comrades had left Pandion alone, the first time had been when they went on the giraffe hunt. Pandion was infuriated, but Cavius, superciliously thrusting out his beard, said that on the first occasion he had not wasted time and could do the same again. The young Hellene was in such a rage that he could not speak, and he rushed away from his friend, feeling deeply insulted. Cavius ran after him, slapped him on the back and asked his forgiveness, but, nevertheless, insisted on Pandion remaining behind, to complete his recovery.

  After a long argument Pandion agreed; he regarded himself as a pitiful cripple and hurriedly hid himself in the house so as not to be present when his healthy comrades were leaving.

  Left alone Pandion felt a still stronger urge to test his ability — he thought of his success with the statue of the elephant trainer. He had seen so much death and destruction during the past few years that he did not want to have anything to do with such an unenduring medium as clay; he wanted to work with more durable material. No such material was at hand and even if he found it, he still had no tools with which to carve.

  Pandion often admired Yakhmos’ stone which, Kidogo insisted, had in the end brought them to the sea, for Kidogo naively believed in the magic properties of things.

  The clear transparency of the hard stone gave Pandion the idea of carving a cameo. The stone was harder than those normally used for such purposes in Hellas where they were polished with emery stone from the Island of Naxos, in the Aegean Sea. Suddenly he remembered that he had stones that were harder than anything else in the world, if the old chief of the Elephant People was to be believed.

  Pandion took out the smallest of the stones from the south and carefully drew its sharp edge along the edge of the bluish-green crystal — a white line appeared on the hard surface of the stone. He pressed harder and cut a deep furrow such as a chisel of black bronze would cut in soft marble. The unusual hardness of the transparent stones from the south was in all truth greater than anything then known to Pandion. He had magic tools in his hands that made his work easy.

  Pandion smashed the little stone and carefully collected all the sharp fragments; with the aid of hard pitch he fixed them into wooden handles. This gave him a dozen chisels of various thicknesses suitable both for rough carving and for the cutting of fine lines.

  What should he carve on that bluish-green crystal that Yakhmos had obtained from the ruins of a temple thousands of years old and which he had carried safely to the sea, the sea for which it had served as a symbol during the long years of stifling captivity on land? Pandion’s head was filled with vague ideas.

  He left the village and wandered about alone until he reached the sea. For a long time he sat on a rock, staring into the distance or watching the shallow water that ran across the sand at his feet. Evening came and the shortlived twilight robbed the sea of its sheen; the movement of the waves could no longer be seen. The black velvet of the night became more and more impenetrable, but at the same time big, bright stars lit up in the sky and the celestial beacons, rocked in the waves, brought life to the dead sea. Pandion threw back his head and traced the outlines of constellations unknown to him. The arc of the Milky Way spread across the sky like a silver bridge, just as it did over his own country, but here it was narrower. One end of it was split up by wide dark stripes and separate dark patches. To one side and below the Milky Way two nebulous star clouds gleamed with a bluish-white light. (* The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, big star clusters and nebulae in the Southern Hemisphere.) Close beside them he could see a huge impenetrable black patch, shaped like a pear, as though a gigantic piece of coal hid all the stars in that part of the sky. (** The Coalsack — a concentration of black, opaque matter in the sky of the Southern Hemisphere.)

  Pandion had never seen anything like it in the sky at home in the north and was astonished at the contrast between the black patch and the white star clouds. Suddenly the young Hellene sensed the very essence of Africa in that black and white contrast. In its direct and clear-cut crudity this was the combination which made up Africa, its whole aspect, as Pandion conceived it. The black and white stripes of the extraordinary horses..? the black skin of the natives, painted with white colour and accentuated by their white teeth and the whites of their eyes; articles made from black and pearl-white wood; the black and white columns of the tree-trunks in the forest; the brightness of the grasslands and the darkness of the forests; black cliffs with white streaks of quartz — all these and many other things passed before Pandion’s eyes.

  His homeland on the poor rocky shores of the Green Sea was quite different. There the stream of life was not a tempestuous flood; its black and white sides were not in such open conflict.

  Pandion stood up. The boundless ocean, on the other side of which was Oeniadae, cut him off from Africa, the country that lay hidden morosely behind the night shadow
s of the mountains and that in his heart he had already left. In front of him the reflections of the stars ran across the waves, and away there in the north the sea joined his native Oeniadae where Thessa was standing on the shore. For the sake of returning home, for the sake of Thessa, he had fought and struggled through blood and sand, through heat and darkness, against countless dangers from man and beast.

  Thessa, distant, loved and unapproachable, stood like those hazy stars above the sea, where the edge of the Great Bear just touched the horizon.

  It was then that the solution came to him: on the stone, the enduring symbol of the sea, he would create the image of Thessa standing on the shore.

  In a frenzy Pandion squeezed the chisel in his hand until the strong stick broke. For several days he had been working on Yakhmos’ stone with beating heart, stemming his impatience with difficulty, at times drawing a long line with confidence, at others cutting tiny marks with infinite care. The image was becoming clearer. Thessa’s head was a success — that proud turn of the head stood before him as clearly as it had done in the hour of farewell on the seashore at Cape Achelous. He had carved the head in the transparent depths of the stone, and now the frosted blue face stood out in sharp relief on the mirror-like surface of the stone. Locks of hair lay in easy free lines where a clear-cut arc marked the curve of the shoulder, but further — further Pandion suddenly found that he had lost his inspiration. The young artist, more confident in himself than he had ever been before, cut in bold sweeping lines the fine outlines of the girl’s body, and the beauty of the lines told of the success of his undertaking. Pandion cut away the surrounding surface of the stone to bring his carving into even sharper relief. It was then that he suddenly realized that it was not Thessa that he had drawn. In the lines of the hips, knees and breast the body of Iruma came to life, and there were certain features that undoubtedly owed their existence to his last impression of Nyora. Thessa’s figure was not the body of the Hellene girl — Pandion had created an abstract image. He had wanted something else, he had wanted to depict the living Thessa” that he loved. He tried hard to get rid of the impressions of recent years by a supreme effort of memory, but it proved impossible, the new was still too fresh.

  Pandion felt much worse when he realized that once again he had proved unable to breathe life into an image. While the figure was still in outline, there had been life in its lines. As soon as the artist tried to bring the flat figure into relief, however, it turned to stone, it became cold and inert. And so, after all, he had not fathomed the secrets of art. This image, too, would remain lifeless! He would not be able to put his ideas into effect!

  After he had broken the chisel in his agitation, Pandion took the stone and examined it at arm’s length. No, he could not create the image of Thessa, and the wonderful cameo would remain unfinished.

  The sun’s rays shone through the transparent stone, filling it with the golden tinge of his native seas. Pandion had carved the figure of the girl on the extreme right-hand edge of the biggest surface of the stone, leaving most of it still untouched. The girl with the face of Thessa, but who was not Thessa, stood at the edge of the stone as though she were standing at the edge of the sea. The enthusiasm that had inspired Pandion to work from dawn to dusk, waiting impatiently for the coming of each new day, had left him. Pandion put the stone away, gathered” his chisels and straightened his aching back. The grief of defeat was made lighter by the realization that he could still create a thing of beauty… but, alas, how poor it was in comparison with the living being! He had been so immersed in his work that he ceased awaiting the return of his comrades. A little boy who came running up to him took Pandion’s mind away from his dark thoughts.

  “The man with the thick beard has come and has sent for you to go to the river,” announced Cavius’ messenger, proud of the task entrusted to him.

  The fact that Cavius had stayed by the river and sent for him to go there worried Pandion. He hurried to the river-bank along a path that wound its way through thorn-scrub. From a distance he could see a group of his companions on the sandy river-bank, standing around a bunch of reeds on which lay a man’s body. He hopped clumsily along, trying not to step on his injured foot, and entered the circle of silent friends. He recognized the man lying on the reeds as Takel, a young Libyan who had taken part in the flight across the desert. The Hellene knelt down-and bent over the body of his comrade. Before Pandion’s eyes flashed a picture of the stiflingly hot gorge in the sandstone mountains where he plodded along half-dead from thirst. Takel was one of those followers of Akhini who had brought him water from the well. Only now that he knelt before Takel’s body did Pandion realize how near and dear to him was everyone who had taken part in the insurrection and the flight. He had grown used to them and could not imagine life without them. For weeks Pandion might not have anything to do with his companions when he knew that they were safe, each going about his own affairs; but this sudden loss crushed him. Still on his knees he turned inquiringly to Cavius.

  “Takel was bitten by a snake in the undergrowth,” said Cavius sadly, “while we were wandering in search of blackwood. We didn’t know any cure — “ he sighed deeply — “so we abandoned everything and sailed back down the river. When we carried him ashore, Takel was already dying. I sent for you to say good-bye to him… it was too late…” Cavius, his head bowed, clenched his fists, and did not finish what he was saying.

  Pandion stood up. Takel’s death seemed so senseless and unjust to him — not in a glorious battle, not in the struggle against wild beasts, but here, in a peaceful village where he had promise of a return home after great deeds of valour and courageous fortitude on the long journey. This death caused the young Hellene great pain; he felt the tears welling up in his eyes and to conceal them stared hard at the river. On either side of a sand-bank rose the green walls of dense thickets of reeds so that the mound of light-coloured sand seemed to stand in open green gates. At the fringe of the forest grew gnarled and twisted white trees with tiny leaves. From all the branches of these trees hung luxuriant garlands of bright red flowers (* Combretum purpureum) whose fluffy flat clusters looked like transverse bars of red threaded on thin stems, some of which hung down in garlands, while others pointed upwards to the sky. The flowers gave off a red reflection, and the white trees burned in the green gates like funeral torches at the gates of the nether world to which the spirit of the dead Takel was on its way. The dull leaden waters of the river, broken by banks of yellow sand, rolled slowly along. Hundreds of crocodiles lay on the sand-banks. On a sandy spit near where Pandion was standing, several of the huge reptiles had opened their jaws in their sleep, and in the sun they looked like black patches surrounded by the white spikes of their terrible teeth. The bodies of the crocodiles sprawled out on the sand as though they were flattened by their own weight. The long folds of the scaly skin of their bellies lapped over flat backs covered with rows of protuberances of a lighter colour than the black-green spaces between them. Paws, with their joints awkwardly turned outwards, stretched on either side in an ugly pose. Now and again one of the reptiles would flick its long ridged tail against another who, his sleep disturbed, would close his mouth with a snap that resounded loudly down the river.

  The wayfarers raised the body of the dead man and carried it in silence to the village under the alarmed glances of villagers who came running up. Pandion walked behind, away from Cavius. The Etruscan considered himself guilty of the death of the Libyan since the idea of hunting for ebony had been his. Cavius walked beside the sad procession, biting his lip and running his fingers through his thick beard.

  Pandion also felt qualms of conscience. He also felt himself guilty. What right had he to grow enthusiastic over the carving of the girl he loved, at a time when he should have busied himself with something in memory of the fighting friendship of people of different races who had passed through all trials together, had remained true in face of death, hunger and thirst, in the sorrowful days of their wearisome march.
“Why did this idea not occur to me before?” the young Hellene asked himself. Why had he forgotten the friendship that had grown up in the fight for freedom? Not for nothing had his work been a failure — the gods had punished him for his ingratitude… Let today’s sorrow teach him to see better…

  Like a herd of buffaloes, the low purple and grey clouds crawled heavily across the sky, bunching together in a solid mass. Dull rumbles of thunder filled the air. A tropical downpour was on its way, and people hurriedly took everything that had been lying about into their houses. Cavius and Pandion had only just time to take cover in their house when the huge bowl of the heavens tipped over, and the roar of the falling water drowned even the peals of thunder. As usual the rain soon stopped, the vegetation gave off an acrid smell in the fresh, humid air, and countless streams gurgled faintly as they made their way to the river and the sea. The wet trees rustled dully in the wind. The noise was grim and sad, nothing like the rapid rustle of leaves on a fine dry day. Cavius sat listening to the noises of the forest and said suddenly:

  “I can’t forgive myself Takel’s death. It was my fault; we went without an experienced guide, and we are strangers in this land where carelessness means death. The result is that we have no ebony and one of our best comrades lies dead under a heap of stones on the river-bank… A high price to pay for my foolishness… I can’t make up my mind to try again, and we have nothing to pay to the Sons of the Wind.”

  In silence Pandion took a handful of the sparkling stones out of his bag and laid them before the Etruscan. Cavius nodded his head in approval, but suddenly doubt showed on his face.

  “If they don’t know the value of these stones, the Sons of the Wind may refuse to take them. Who has heard of such stones in our countries? Who will buy them as valuables? Although…” Cavius paused to think.