The Mirror of Present Events Read online

  “Forgive me,” I said to him. “I thought that a model legislator like you would not be overly concerned with the title I gave you, but I thought I owed it to the descendant of Codrus, the Kings of Pylos and the cousin of Pisistratus.”

  “Stupidity once again. I could have ruled, but I did not want that. Be without baseness as I was devoid of pride. My address is: Solon, merchant in Elysium. Remember that. Anyway, that subscription is very nearly the only thing that has made us laugh at your expense. It has been found in general that you have spoken well of the conscript Fathers.”

  “So much the better, for I feared that I might be reproached for not having distinguished Philippe from Jean-François,8 since it’s true that they’re not all friends of the fatherland. But moderation is a good thing, so I applaud the protective guard that is opposed to the ways of action of the monomachites, and which, full of humanity, have preserved the lamp of the Chevalier Sans-Peur, the servant of the God of peace, ever armed, whose conduct in the Senate is, it’s said, nothing less than evangelical. The people cried: ‘Curtain!’ I can’t see, though, that there’s much for which to reproach him. A philosopher has observed that while one people becomes civilized, another becomes barbaric. Since the Moors are losing their taste for piracy, since they’re presently renouncing living at the expense of their enemies, and want to render liberty to slaves, the laws of equilibrium demanded that the most flourishing nation in Europe should return to slavery, that the divine men who cultivate the arts and the useful men who labor the earth are treated like dogs and that the country’s corsairs take possession of all the galleons.

  “But let’s leave those honest folk to one side and talk about something else. Answer, please, one question that I have to put to you. If a poor people in distress, sighing after liberty, menaced with iron and death, had implored the help of the Athenians in the time when you were their adviser and no one acted without your approval, what would have done?”

  “I would immediately have sent them the number of men they had requested.”

  “Yes, but what if you too had been in such terrible difficulties that you did not have more than enough people to watch over the defense of your hearths?”

  “That changes the matter entirely. In such a case my heart would have suffered, because, the first of duties being love of the fatherland, I would not have been able to endanger mine without being criminal. But I would not have wanted the request of my brethren, left without response, to make them presume a murderous indifference on my part. I would probably have done what the Carthaginians did three hundred years after my death.”

  “And what was that?”

  That question, which characterized my ignorance, caused Solon to blush from the base of the chin all the way to the occiput.

  “Carthage,” he told me, “afflicted by the intrepid Agathocles, was betrayed within by the unworthy Bomilcar, one of its generals. Tyr, besieged by Alexander, informed the Carthaginians of the extremity to which its inhabitants were reduced. Carthage immediately sent them a deputation of thirty of its principal citizens to explain the chagrin it felt in being unable to send them troops. ‘At least preserve from the enemy sword,’ the Tyrians said, ‘that which is most dear to us in the world...’

  “That language was understood. Carthage saw its envoys return with a party of women, children and old men from the suppliant city. The Gods did not take long to recompense them for that action. Agathocles withdrew and Bomilcar was crucified.”

  “Those are fine sentiments on either side,” I said to Solon. “I am chagrined to see that that excellent example of centuries past did not offer itself to our memory, but it must be said that for some time, any history of ancient peoples, especially that of republics, has been treated by us virtually as fables. The fine arts have put us to sleep. Now that the sound of the trumpet of war, blown by the Abbé Mably, has succeeded the sweet music of Fontenelle’s flageolet, people are generally beginning to think differently.”

  “I can believe it. At this moment, I have no doubt, you’re writing once again about the advantages of livery; one can do nothing better, and I congratulate you for it...”

  As I was occupied at that moment in something quite different from which Solon presumed, the good opinion that he had of me rendered me as ashamed as a young woman before whom one speaks of a treasure that she has lost.

  “Such a felicitation,” I said to him, “would not have found the Camilles and Prudhommes at a loss; as for me...”

  “What! What are you doing, then?”

  “I’m amusing myself proving that the Earth is an animal. Terentia did not disdain to smile at that philosophical bagatelle, and I’m taking it up.”9

  “Too bad. What’s this other scribble?”

  “Another tale. You seem very surprised. I’m not, however, the first to have amused himself writing them during public calamities, and even during the horrors of the plague. This one might perhaps have been of some interest; it was taking on a physiognomy not foreign to present circumstances. The intelligent reader would have found analogies therein more flattering to the mind than the raw truth; but I didn’t have the courage to continue it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the love of slavery is an epidemic disease among us. Since the goblins, specters, ghosts and all the infernal spirits have not able to prevent my recent writings from reaching you in the realms of Pluto, you know what I have done to cure the idle.”

  “Has their number not diminished?”

  “I believe, on the contrary, that it’s increasing. It put me in a bad mood; that was what made me set aside that instructive bagatelle.”

  Solon put out his hand in order to find out what I meant.

  “Excuse me,” I said to him, “the title will not predispose you in its favor. It’s a matter of a virgin who offers herself to the highest bidder. Truly, though, I would be wrong to make a mystery about that article with you; the fair sex was not indifferent to you once. You have composed enough ribald songs, which proves that you loved both women…and wine!”

  “Agreed. Both have formed mores by softening the passions; I have only ever criticized excess. You put a woman on the stage? So much the better: the truth will be more pleasant for it.”

  It did not take him long to satisfy his curiosity.

  “Mores are respected—good!” he said. “Read, reread, correct and yield to the printer.”

  Reader, I have obeyed. This is my tale.

  BEAUTY UP FOR COMPETITION

  I. Aglaonice decides to marry and offers her hand

  on the conditions to be seen.

  Is it a good or a bad thing for a woman to be her own mistress at the age of fifteen? While awaiting the solution to that question, which has its difficulties, by virtue, on the one hand, of the shackles of dependency, and on the other, of the abuses that a young person might make of her liberty, I shall tell you, my brothers, a story of times past, which it is necessary not to regard as apocryphal, for I obtained it from a genuine Traveler, whose great-grandfather heard it recounted by a sage, who had it from his grandfather, who had read it in the Serapeon before the books in that library were employed to heat the baths of Alexandria.10

  Syracuse, after the memorable siege that it endured on the part of Marcellus, finally enjoyed, although included in the number of lands conquered by the Romans, a liberty submissive to the laws and the benefits of a profound peace. Like the birds of spring who recall verdure after the mortal breath of winter, the arts that the tyrants had frightened away returned to settle in that beautiful abode. The reputation that Archimedes has left behind attracted lovers of the higher sciences from far away, curious to see the debris of the instruments of war that had repelled the enemy for three years in succession, sometimes astonished by such considerable losses.

  That city had never seen so many inventors of genius in its bosom, gathered from all the corners of the earth. They were all in an admiration that verged on amazement, all saying that there was no gen
ius comparable with the celebrated Geometer who had defended Syracuse for so long; but that homage was accompanied by a certain discouragement, because none of those men, so lauded elsewhere, took the trouble to give the slightest idea of his talents here. Thus the brilliant light of the torch of day causes the feeble light of the stars of night to disappear.

  Aglaonice, a young woman of seventeen, orphaned of her father and mother, having no other relatives than an older sister, whose only wealth was a beauty of which she might be able to take advantage, took it into her head to make all those handsome men of genius do something. All that was required, in order to succeed in that, was the consent of Marius Cornelius,11 a Roman praetor, a worthy man of sixty for whom a pretty young woman was not yet indifferent, but of a probity so recognized that the Senate, interested in capturing the hearts of the Syracusans, were convinced, with reason, that no better choice could have been made.

  Aglaonice had seen the Praetor sitting in his curule chair more than once, but his imposing gravity, the ceremony resulting from a large number of Judges placed around him and perhaps also the crowd of the audience, had frightened her a little. There is, however, no way of keeping the magistracy out of the matter of marriage. One morning, therefore, without consulting the pontiffs as to whether or not it was a good day,12 Aglaonice went to see Cornelius, and, as she found him much less serious and dressed up than with his long robe fringed with purple, she asked him cheerfully whether he would not see with pleasure all those great makers of machines, so long inactive, finally taking flight and leaving some monument to their knowledge in Syracuse.

  “Certainly,” Cornelius replied. “I agree that, out of a hundred things imagined by those gentlemen, ninety-nine are almost useless, but in the end, since it’s recognized that one good one might be found among the hundred, it’s an acquisition that is not to be disdained. What are your means, though? It’s not you, presumably, who proposes to set these skillful laborers to work?”

  “Excuse me,” said Aglaonice.

  The good magistrate started to laugh. He thought he had divined her secret, but that was an error on his part. Aglaonice was virtuous without prudishness; knowing that youth and beauty are inappreciable treasures, she thought of putting them in the balance with lucrative talents, in a way that would enable her to escape criticism.

  Whatever the idea was that passed through the Praetor’s head, as it is rare for a man to refuse anything to beauty, he replied: “Do as you please,” and did not forbid himself to kiss her hand amorously.

  The following day, Aglaonice, taxed for a long time by a youth as fickle as it was hasty, tormented and persecuted by the choice of a lover, or at least of a husband, had it published by a herald in Epipoli, in Ortygia, in Achradina and Neapolis—in sum, in all the quarters of Syracuse—that she was disposed to listen to proposals of marriage that anyone cared to make to her, but that she would only give her hand to a Mechanician who had invented some machine that would prove not only his skill but that he knew the heart of women well. As for the birth of the individual, that was the least of her concerns. Nobilitas sub amore jacet.13

  II. Two aspirants present themselves; one offers a mobile tripod, the other a little ivory chariot and ship.

  The original proposition of the beauty spread throughout Sicily and passed into Italy and beyond. It was not long before Aglaonice was besieged by visits. All those who believed that they had enough talent to compete wanted, before anything else, to judge the prize that was offered to them. In addition, however, the same artist appeared ten times a day; the beauty was at risk of being stifled by the crowd of her admirers. She made the decision to go and see the Praetor again, convinced that she would obtain there a lodgment that would be infinitely more secure.

  Cornelius did not see without chagrin a beginning that presaged that Aglaonice would soon find a husband, but in the end, rendering justice to the thought that he was past the age of pretentions, he consoled himself with the pleasure of serving as her protector.

  “I consent,” he said, “to lodge you in my house and I promise to treat you as my daughter. Have no fear of the influx of a society that I understand the difficulty of keep away from you. They will be able to see you to the extent that you permit, but I shall be present and you shall have guards.”14

  She did, indeed, and did not go out without being accompanied. It was a further motive for increasing urgency and curiosity. No one was any longer talking about anything but the joy of seeing, and above all of espousing, Aglaonice.

  I would never finish if I went into detail about all the things imagined in order to reach that much-desired objective. I shall pass in silence over all those that do not merit a certain attention.

  The first one who came, after two long months, to present his masterpiece of Aglaonice was a species of imitator, a native of Pystira, an isle neighboring Smyrna and Petgama, who had constructed, in accordance with known descriptions, a polished steel tripod that walked on its own, so to speak, although it was necessary, beforehand, to set up the mechanisms hidden in each of its three legs.

  Aglaonice, who was aiming for the useful, refused the fine present flatly, on the grounds that a tripod that did not flinch when carrying a saucepan is preferable to one that can move away from the fire.

  That man was succeeded by a certain Mymecide of Miletus,15 who offered the beauty an ivory chariot, wrought with so much artistry and so small that a medium-sized fly could cover it entirely with its wings. That was only half of his tribute; he also presented a pretty ship with three rows of oars, also made of ivory, with all its rigging, every bit as dainty as the chariot.

  Aglaonice took great pleasure in considering those two marvels, but when she harnessed the chariot one day to a fly that was a little too big, the insect flew away, transporting the vehicle, through the window.

  The ship, for which a font full of water was no less vast than the Atlantic Ocean, could no longer be found one evening when Aglaonice had invited her sister and a few of her friends to come and see it. The Praetor and the ladies were at supper in a room softly lit, not by candles but by the light of the full moon. Aglaonice, asked to show her ship, asked for the vase in which it had been deposited; the surface of the water presented filaments of a greenish hue, which extended from the center to the edges of the bowl, but there was no more ship; it had disappeared.

  Aglaonice showed a great deal of ill-humor to the slaves that Cornelius had placed with her to serve her; she accused them of theft with considerable vivacity, adding nevertheless that if they had not stolen the ship, it was probable that they had been clumsy enough to throw it away thoughtlessly, since it was obvious that she was not being presented with the same water.

  The Praetor, who was something of a naturalist said to her: “My lady, do not put any of those who are here to serve you on trial. The water you see in the bowl is the same in which you set your pretty trireme afloat a fortnight ago. The green filaments that cover the surface today are nothing but Polyps, a voracious animal species whose form is infinitely variable, which one tries to destroy but only multiply by chopping them up. It’s a freshwater Polyp, an ogre in miniature, that has swallowed the ship.”16 He added, in a low voice: “Such a misfortune, could surely never happen to the large vessel of prudent Lutetia.”

  “Lutetia!” said Aglaonice. “That’s a Gaulish city. Are there polyps in cities?”

  Smiling, Cornelius took one of her plump little hands, which he squeezed in both of his, and only said, by way of reply: “Aglaonice, you are charming.”

  “I don’t understand all this gibberish,” she said.17 “At any rate, the Miletian has not found the secret of preventing me from remaining a virgin; let him know, I beg you, that a polyp has swallowed half his hopes and that a fly has flown away with the rest.”

  III. The story of Téraois-clouni-ca-law-bar-Cochébas; or, the telescope without lenses.

  The slave charged with that commission set out for Mymecide’s house. He was stopped on the way and ret
raced his steps, announcing a Necromancer whose name was a mixture of Greek and Hebrew. His name was Téréos-clouni-ca-law-bar-Cochébas;18 he had arrived from Egypt, where he had been initiated into the mysteries of the Great Goddess, and he was asking to speak to Aglaonice.

  “Send him in,” said the Praetor.

  Meanwhile, the taps on two fountains were turned, which poured an excellent Greek wine into the cups.

  “What do you have to show us that is fine and beautiful?” asked Aglaonice.

  “I could, my lady,” Bar-Cochébas replied, “talk to you about the secret I have or making gold, but you would doubtless think more of a talent that serves to procure it deservedly and strike good coin. Such as you see me with my long beard and my rather modest accoutrement, I have the right to hope for an alliance to which others have aspired in vain before me. Metals follow me as the trees and rocks once followed the singer of Thrace. You see this long tube of beaten iron; it is my talisman. With the aid of this machine, I can make known to you a host of objects that escape your overly short sight, and of which neither you nor anyone else can have a perfect knowledge without my help. Take, for example, my lady, the moon, from which you are presently receiving such a soft light, which you prefer to the annoying light of a hundred resinous candles, simultaneously wounding to the senses of sight and smell. The moon can serve as proof of what I say. Do you believe it to be inhabited?”