On the Brink of the World's End

by Brian Stableford

  VI. My Arrival in the Capital of the Realm

  and the Encounter we had there

  We finally arrived in the famous capital. At that sight, I experienced a secret emotion; I thought I was entering my Paris, the good city of Paris. Alas, my dear nephew and my poor niece, I was very far from finding you there; you were very far from being able to embrace your poor uncle! That memory caused me to shed a torrent of tears.

  While I was weeping in that fashion we perceived a brilliant carriage coming toward us at high speed. Everyone was getting out of its way precipitately; the crowd of pedestrians seemed to be escaping the danger of its rapid course miraculously, and were quite happy only to find themselves covered in mud. In spite of our promptitude and our cries, the elegant carriage pitilessly overturned my traveling companion’s humble and frail vehicle, as well as the baggage it contained, and we were bruised and wounded in various places by the repercussions.

  While we were still stunned by our accident, and the murderous carriage drew away as if nothing had happened, eight or ten vigorous arms, which seemed to have been waiting at the street corner for an opportunity to exercise themselves, came to our aid and repair the disorder of our vehicle in a trice. By their activity and disinterest, one might have thought that they were avenging an outrage they had suffered.

  One man, as remarkable by the simplicity of his clothing as the vivacity of his manners, approached and offered us his house and the assistance required by our injuries. We accepted that service with all the more gratitude because it was necessary. A witness to the event, he knew the master of the vehicle and was indignant to see unfortunate strangers run over by arrogant opulence.

  I asked him whether the individual having himself transported with so much diligence was not an Envoy of the Court changed with important dispatches, or perhaps a rich benefactor taking assistance to unfortunates.

  “No,” he replied, “the man who maltreated you has no business and no concerns other than avoiding tedium. Half priest and half secular, he is not charged with any duty by either estate. He is only held to the priesthood by the riches he draws therefrom, and to society by the pleasures that it procures him. He is an egotist by estate.”

  “It’s necessary, however,” I said, “that these hybrid individuals are endowed with some distinguished merit, or that they have rendered important services to the fatherland, in order to be so well gratified.”

  “That is not a reason,” he told me. “True merit does not think of gratifications; one sometimes perceives it but it never displays itself. The honest man who renders a service to his fatherland or his compatriots finds his recompense in his heart; but similar dignities, whose advent is arbitrary, are always the price of intrigue and the vilest cabals.”

  “It’s quite astonishing,” I went on, “that such great benefits are destined to maintain ambition, futility and vice.”

  “Unphilosophical founders,” the man relies, “have piously sacrificed their fortunes in the praiseworthy intention of honoring Religion and offering relief to the poor; their generosity has had an opposite effect, the usual effect of wealth. These kinds of Minister of Religion have dishonored it by their licentious life and effeminate luxury, and have made money destined to relieve the poor serve their libertinage.”

  I judged, according to what the Sage told me, that the priests in question bore a close resemblance to those abbés with a simple tonsure who have acquired such a great reputation in France in ladies’ alcoves and dressing-rooms.

  That benevolent Sage invited us to stay in his home until we were fully recovered; we could not refuse such a kind offer. During that time, I never ceased questioning him about the mores of his homeland, and although he was not an excellent Physicist, as I soon perceived, his responses were so sensible and announced such an accurate observer, that I accorded him all my confidence.

  Oë amused us sometimes with his humorous stories, and confessed in good faith that he had known many Philosophers, and had followed the métier himself, but that no Philosopher of reputation had ever resembled the Philosopher who remained in obscurity; that those who make a profession of the former only do good when they are sure of publicity, whereas those who profess the latter, do good at every opportunity—a rare Philosopher, he said, in whom he had never believed!

  VII. How Oë Left Us

  “It was an enema,” I said to my host one day, “that procured me the pleasure of hearing you—yes, an enema of inflammable air, which caused me to cross the immense space that separates the Earth from the Moon. The gratitude that I owe you, as well as Oë, makes it a duty for me to tell you the marvelous story of my voyage.”

  Then I told them how I had argued with a Physicist who did not want to believe in universal attraction; how that dispute had caused me a violent colic, and how I had been administered the fatal remedy of inflammable air that had caused me to pass through the widow, fly through the air and finally arrive on the Moon, where I had fallen on to a mattress that Oë had thrown into the street.

  Then I talked to them about the miracles that inflammable air operated: how it elevated Physicists and their fortunes; how it changed paper into gold and gold into smoke, and a thousand other things as astonishing. Oë would have joked about it abundantly if he had thought that he would generate laughter, but he contented himself with smiling.

  Our wise host was not one of those familiar scholars whose reputation gives them the right to limit human understanding, and who reprove, as despots, all the innovations that they have not been able to imagine. Nor did he have the credulity of the vulgar, but doubted like a Sage.

  I assured him that if he cared to assist me, an experiment would banish his doubts entirely. He agreed to do so, and I constructed an aerostatic Balloon, which flew away and was lost in the air.

  At the sight of that marvel, I read in my host’s face the delight, the pure joy, that success engenders, whereas Oë, while admiring it, appeared agitated and reflective. Shortly thereafter he became somber and pensive, and ended up leaving us abruptly, without our knowing the cause of that impolite action or the place of his retreat.

  While the rumor of my experiment spread by word of mouth and became the news of the day, I found myself sufficiently recovered from my injuries to travel around the city and take advantage of the observations that my sage had been kind enough to make to me regarding the mores of his homeland.

  VIII. The Lottery and the Poor

  What, then, etc…?

  ……………………...

  ……………………...

  But it’s time for the spectacle; let’s go in.

  IX. Spectacles

  In spite of the grandeur of the hall, it could not contain the number of people who presented themselves.

  “That,” said my Sage, “is because a new Tragedy is being performed today. One is assured that it is very black, very atrocious—in sum, that it is superb. At one time, gaiety and the frolicsome, or the tender and the sublime, attracted spectators. At one time, dramatic authors, after having come to know the human heart and the mechanisms of grand passions, submitted the impetus of their genus to rules prescribed by reason. Today, it’s no longer the same; it is cries of despair, heart-rending remorse and atrocities that charm.

  “Melpomene and Thalia are no longer anything but old prostitutes who, knowing the impotence of their charms, have the complaisance to lend themselves to all their lovers’ caprices. Some, with a severe and sententious tone, have made a theater into a pulpit; others, combining rascality with bad taste, have made it a revolting slaughterhouse. The latter make excessive depictions of the ravages of the passions, which leave in excited brains the impression of a somber melancholy, or the seed of frenzies dangerous to society. One is no longer made to laugh in the theater, or to shed tears of commiseration, but one is frightened there—and like children, we love the tales that frighten us.”

  Meanwhile, the play commenced.

  After entries and exists of which only the aut
hor knew the cause, the Hero appears. Covered in glory by defeating the enemies of his king, he has returned to the Court to receive the honors due to his courage.

  Unfortunately, that Great Man, that Hero—that Sage even—has all the weakness of mind of a badly brought-up girl. He has visions; he believes in dreams and sorceries, and you can see that he is also afraid of ghosts.

  His wife, who does not have visions, and is strong-minded by comparison with him, has a rather strange caprice; she is gripped by the desire to become queen. For that, however, it will be necessary to put her husband on the throne, and to succeed in that, it will be necessary to have the king—whom she believes to have no heirs—murdered.

  She therefore proposes to her husband that he commit that atrocity. She renews her solicitations through two interminable acts. The latter, after having opposed superb maxims, tells her, as his final word: “If ever the king were attacked by his enemies, he would not fail to summon me to his aid, and I would run to defend him.”

  That happens at a given time. Assassins introduce themselves by night into the king’s bedroom; the unfortunate prince calls to the Hero for help, and the latter runs to defend him. In spite of that initial impulse of his heart, however, in spite of his promise and in spite of the circumstances, his sage maxims and the laws of hospitality, that Hero, that Great Man, suddenly changes his sentiment. Instead of helping his master against the assassins, it is him who delivers the dagger to his breast and takes his life in a cowardly manner—and all of that in order not to displease a woman who is only his wife.

  That unexpected and treacherous rascality is followed, as is reasonable, by violent remorse. For a novice criminal, that trial blow is a little too much, so our Hero expresses his remorse in a voice so uncontrolled that an old man listening at the door at the time hears the confession of the crime from the criminal’s own mouth. He goes away, and goes to dispose the king’s son, who had thus far been unknown, to avenge the murder of his father.

  Meanwhile, the Hero, still agitated by remorse, tries to take the throne in order to receive the oath of his new servants, but—who would have believed it?—he is suddenly stopped by a ghost. Seized by fear, weakened by further remorse, he seems demented. His wife reproaches him for his pusillanimity and says to the people, to excuse her husband, that the human species is unfortunately subject to such fancies.

  Finally, he is king. He learns that the old man who was listening at the door has raised a party of his subjects against him; he has him put in irons and then summons him to the theater. The prisoner reproaches him for his crime; the new king advances to stab the wise old man again, but the latter is cunning enough to undo his buttons very quickly and show him his belt, which is stained with blood.

  Our Hero does not fail to recognize the color of the royal blood that he has shed. His remorse and his visions are reborn, and he throws himself at the feet of the old man. It is then that he takes it into his head—a trifle belatedly—to go against his wife. He renounces the crown, shows his people the veritable sovereign and ends up, as usual, by stabbing himself fatally.

  Although I had neglected the theaters of Paris for some time, because they proved nothing in Physics, I nevertheless remembered having once seen the masterpieces of Corneille and Racine there. I attributed the great difference that existed between what I had just seen and the tragedies of those famous authors to the differences necessarily to be found between the mores of two nations as distant from one another as France is from that land of the Moon, and dared not voice my sentiment, My comrade, however, whom I asked for his, uttered a profound sigh and made no reply.

  “Have you other spectacles?” I asked then.

  “Yes,” he replied, “but sorrow and bad taste have introduced themselves insensibly thereto. There is one that is famous for the pleasure of the eyes and eyes, in which intelligence plays no part; it is the most constantly followed. Another theater was once consecrated absolutely to laughter and pastorals, but it is very proud of having obtained some time ago the right to be tearful and lugubrious. There are a few others, less celebrated and less ancient, the last refuges in which Momus makes his bells heard; it is gaiety with grace, wisdom under the mantle of folly: infant theaters where old age comes to forget its antiquity, and men preoccupied by their affairs.”

  X. The Sciences and Arts of the Moon

  One morning, as we were disposed to continue the course of our observations, we arrived in a street renowned as the abode of merchants of pictures, books, wallpaper, geography and almanacs. Those kinds of profiteers were so degraded that it was sufficient to name the street that had seen them born to satirize it.

  My guide needed a calendar, and we went into a shop, but I stopped dead.

  “This is the study of a scholar; you’re mistaken,” I said to him. “Read that inscription: Engineer-Geographer. Is it possible that an engineer-geographer is reduced to selling almanacs?”

  “Rather ask,” my Sage replied, “how it is possible for a merchant of almanacs to entitle himself an engineer-geographer.”

  We made a few purchases, after which my comrade asked the merchant a few questions. He replied to us by showing us piles of illuminated maps, and we left.

  As we went along, my Sage did not allow anything to escape me. He pointed out temples, spectacle halls and private houses. There was the same kind of architecture everywhere. Magistrates, High Priests, Financiers and Acrobats had temples erected in order to live in them. Everyone wanted to be his own God, and everyone received in his sanctuary, on a daily basis, a vile troop of worshipers. It had often happened that architects, who did not intend mockery to be the price of their work, devoid of respect for apotheosis, had the furniture of a God sold, because he had wanted to be one a little more than the others.

  We went into a celebrated cabinet of curiosities. It contained masterpieces of all kinds. That rare collection cost immense sums. I admired it, like everyone else, with the good faith of a Physicist who is not an initiate in the Arts.

  “One very interesting item is missing from this cabinet,” said my comrade. “It’s the inscription of these words: The vanity of one man retains here the wellbeing of a hundred families.

  “In fact,” he continued, “a hundred families could live happily with the price of this sumptuous and useless old junk. The owner, who soon wearied of admiring it, has taken possession of the wellbeing of so many individuals for the unique satisfaction of hearing someone say: ‘You have a precious original there, a superb paining.’ Oh, the superb painting that the wellbeing of a hundred families...”

  Eventually, we arrived at an assembly of litterateurs, scientists, artists, etc. etc.

  “This gathering of men of talent,” I said, “is a very praiseworthy institution; by correcting one another, and communicating with one another, taste is purified and people cooperate mutually in the progress of human knowledge.”

  “It’s not exactly like that,” my Sage told me. “The least literomaniac, for a modest sum, can buy the privilege of being a member of this Academy of sorts, with the right to demand the applause of his colleagues once a week, and that of four hundred complaisant listeners once a month. It’s a tribunal of indulgence, in which the self-esteem that has erected it condemns the jaws and ears of its judges to torture.”

  “Tell me about scientific societies,” I said. “Are there many of them in this country?”

  “Too few to reduce the arrogance of their members, and too many to honor talent. The Academic throne is for some the tomb of their genius and for others the proof of the genius they do not have. The latter reason in this manner: the members of the Society ought to have a distinguished merit; I am a member, therefore I have a distinguished merit. It isn’t talent that these Messieurs demand in their new member, but he is obliged to prove that he has never written or voiced any maxims contrary to those received in the august Society; it is necessary that he finds the means of pleasing the preponderant members, of cajoling them, of being very attentive to
them. Like a man flirting with a coquette, he has to smile at their puns, like their friends, detest their antagonists; in sum, wipe his nose, spit, cough and applaud like them.”

  “Are you a member of any Academies?” I asked my Sage.

  “No,” he replied. “But I’d rather people ask me why I’m not than have them ask me why I am...”

  We were interrupted by the sound of a bell, which announced the opening of the session. The first reader spoke for a long time about apportionment, commodities, net product, taxes, etc. Another reader appeared, triumphant at having demonstrated that a + b = x – y. People were succumbing to the weight of ennui when a distinguished scientist came forward. Everyone’s attention reawakened. He spoke about a science unknown to the majority of his listeners, a mysterious science, renewed for some time, of an ancient people. He spoke a great deal about “pure fire,” the “humid radical,” number, the “universal tree,” “pure and intermediary agents,” the “intellectual center,” the “amalgamated essence” etc. I could not resist the learned and overwhelming dissertation, and fell asleep to the sound of “the reaction of beings and secondary powers.”13

  I was still asleep when the sound of several instruments woke me up with a start. Fearing that the audience might go away discontented, and to banish from their brains the soporific vapors that Science had introduced, someone had had the good idea of concluding the session with pleasant music. It is what is known as sending people away with a pleasant taste in the mouth.

  “With regard to music,” I asked my Sage, “what is its condition in this land of the Moon?”

  “A man who made music himself,” he told me, “sustained some time ago that there is none. Two famous musicians came after him; they gave rise to sects and occasioned long quarrels. Those discords between people who make a profession of harmony offer evidence against the perfection of their Art...”