The Germans on Venus Read online

“It often happens, superhuman Manifafa, that the eruptions of aerial volcanoes descend much lower, at least when the ambient rotation of the atmosphere does not transform them into pretty little pocket satellites, as I have often seen in my travels. The explosion that threatened us at such close range could have been the one that destroyed Paris. It was, to tell you the truth, that of one of those wretched provincial planets that the Earth carries away, like a scatterbrain, in its stupid revolutions, like one of those baskets of plums that children whirl around in a sling without letting a single one fall, and which, being composed of inflammable elements tormented by an igneous principle, end up brutally dissolving into a rain of aeroliths when poor passers-by least expect it. Considering its apparent diameter, we judged that it was scarcely any larger than a third-class prefecture, which the least of your civil servants would not have wanted.”

  “He would have been quite right!” replied the Manifafa. “A prefecture composed of inflammable elements tormented by an igneous principle would be no favor. The description that you have given me of these aeroliths appears, moreover, to be very instructive and very amusing, and I excuse you, because of that, for having taken this route to the center of the Earth, even though, looking at the thing rationally, it was not the shortest.”

  “That was not the only inconvenience of our journey. We had just dropped the pneumatic sounding-line into a rather beautiful depth of atmosphere—from which it brought back, entirely to our satisfaction, a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, formed according to the proportions that the chemists consider most suitable for everything that breathes—when we were distressed to perceive that the hull was leaking air in two places.”

  “And there’s another, damn it, Berniquet! I’ve heard mention of water leaking, but I never heard of leaking air.”

  “There’s nothing easier to understand. It means that gas was escaping in abundance through fissures in the capsule, for want of repair. Your Majesty can imagine that we lost no time sending out caulkers, but Castor and Pollux, the protectors of mariners, permitted one lad of tender age and little experience to bring the flaming tar so close to the breach that the hydrogen suddenly caught fire, decorating the balloon superbly with a marvelous girdle, which radiated a dazzling spray, and must have given it the appearance to those below—for the Sun had been hidden for a long time throughout that hemisphere—of a shining meteor. On my jester’s honor, I might live through my 10,000 years, so quickly passed, and 10,000 more, but time could not efface from my memory the sentiments of admiration with which I was filled by that sight of that fiery globe…”

  “Which burned on an equal footing with planets,” Hurlubleu interrupted. “I willingly put myself in your shoes at the present moment—but not otherwise, parenthetically. Admiration presumably did not absorb you, though, to the extent that you did not pay attention to anything else?”

  “We made haste to disencumber the vessel of its useless cargo, for it had no excess ballast in reserve: the steam engine first, then the Siamese cannon! Their like had never been seen for the excellence of the work and he richness of the carving. After that, a whole encyclopedia, in order of topic. I did not regret them much. After that, the entire record of laws, decrees and ordinances, with all the speeches from the two chambers. That was a terrible loss! After that, someone had the impertinence to say that it would have been better to commence with the savants. I took the plunge along with the others, but I was so fortunately favored by my particular weight—heaven be eternally praised!—that in the course of my perpendicular flight I overtook one of those aerial barges, which was foundering. As it was made in the form of a seahorse, according to the fashion of the period, current since the famous cetacean of Monsieur Lennox,18 I bestrode it as gently as could be in such circumstances, in such a manner that I found myself firmly saddled, with my right hand in the mane, maintaining a good seat, planted like a Saint George.”19

  “And then Berniquet, you dug your spurs in, as your position demanded, and I see you with pleasure on the road to the land of Zeretochthro-Schah, if the aggregate weight is reciprocally multiplied by the square of the velocity.”

  “I came down, as chance would have it, in a large rut set in the exact middle of the highway, where I was only embedded up to the neck, because I had soon recovered my courage as I recognized, from the nature of the soil and the geological configuration of the locality, that my lucky star had set me on my feet in one of the most civilized countries on Earth.”

  “Setting on the feet is a hyperbatic manner of speaking, to which I will gladly subscribe if it pleases you, but I warn you that I shall have more difficulty in agreeing to the indefinite perfection of a country in which there are such large and profound ruts is the exact middle of the highway.”20

  “Oh, that was because the philosophers of that country, Divine Manifafa, had something much better to do than fill in ruts.”

  “What were they doing, then?”

  “Cookery,” Berinquet replied.

  “Well,” replied the Manifafa, “I can’t blame them—but begin at the beginning, jester, for we just left you, to my great regret, in a situation that was scarcely convenient for exploring the terrain.”

  “It was, however, favorable to meditation—and, as for the terrain, I knew it thoroughly, independently of my personal experience, by virtue of what I had read in cosmographies and traveler’s tales, which never lie. The isle of the Patagons,21 so far as I had been able to judge by sight while plunging into that mid-Atlantic empire, forms a circle about 1130 leagues in diameter, which gives a circumference of 3550 leagues—or should, if Adrien Métius of Alkmaar is no fool.22 It is the fact that it has never produced any living thing that renders it particularly appropriate to civilization.”

  “Which remains to be explained,” cried Hurlubleu, shaking his head defiantly. “An island that produces no living things, but where there are philosophers! It’s true that they crop up everywhere—according to you, though, their cuisine must be rather meager.”

  “The most perfect that could ever be savored at a royal table. It would only be necessary to presuppose, if ‘presuppose’ were admitted to the Hurlubièrean language—which depends on the Academy—that the island of the Patagons is the center of an archipelago entirely populated by philosophers, who are methodically arranged in their islets, according to the encyclopedic system of Bacon, with such technical precision that the languages of Earth merely require labels to figure in the topography of perfectibility the universal compendium of human knowledge.23 This species being very populous, because it is extremely idle, it decided one day to take advantage of the proximity of he metropolitan island, where I was presently in the situation of which you are aware, and where I beg you to permit me to remain for a little while longer…”

  “As long as you care to, jester,” said the Manifafa. “Take your time.”

  “It decided, as I said, to send a creative colony there, and that only required laboratories, since it knew how to produce by chemical combination all that Creation produces. It was by this means that the philosophical consistory of the Isle of the Patagons devoted itself to culinary manufacture, to satisfy the communal necessities of healthy individuals who took pleasure in eating two meals a day, when they were able to afford them—I’m not taking about poor authors, those innocent proletarians of speech, disgraced tributaries of the press, honest people who scrape a living when they live at all, and who have lost their pensions through the malice or ineptitude of a chibicou; they are hardly to be seen there. But suppose, for example, that Your Highness had a sudden desire tomorrow to dine on an excellent tête de veau en tortue,24 as could happen to anyone; you send your menu to the mammalogical section, which makes a calf and puts the head aside for you. The section’s Architriclin—that’s a highly-placed official—immediately sends your menu to his colleague in the ornithological section, who makes you a cock, and dispatches the comb and the kidneys to the first laboratory; the same with the crustaceological section, which c
oncocts superior crayfish. After that, everything proceeds as normal, and it is served hot. It’s a delicious meal.”

  “Who are you talking to?” said the Manifafa. “All that appears perfectly in order to me, and I would take great pleasure in interrogating you on a few details, if I weren’t too scrupulous to retain you in that rut any longer than is appropriate to a man of your age and quality.”

  “I was there for 100 hours and I don’t know how many minutes, Divine Manifafa.”

  “Then we have time—so amuse yourself by answering me; it will give you a rest. How is it that these philosophers, who were making so many things, had not succeeded in making the man for whom you were searching with such rare intrepidity?”

  “Eh! Be assured, Lord, that they were making such men very well. A man is no more difficult to fabricate than a wild rabbit when one knows his composition. The anthropological section had no other occupation from dawn to dusk, in contrast to backward and mechanized countries where people voluntarily occupy themselves with it, in a more specialized fashion, from dusk to dawn—and it must be admitted that it has not spare its efforts, since it has made the Patagons, in the least of which there is material for the dozen drum-majors of the dozen legions of your capital, including those of the suburbs. But beyond the five natural senses, it had found itself considerably embarrassed, the ideological section never having been able to furnish the intellectual sense in good condition. The intellectual sense! Divine Manifafa, you would have reduced the ideological section to rubble, because you would not have been able to obtain enough of it therefrom to make a vaudeville—and when that is distributed in equal parts between 50 million giants, it’s almost as if they had none of it at all. That’s why the unhappy race of Patagons is so stupid that the nations of the world have since adopted into their speech the proverbial usage as stupid as a Patagon.”

  “Heaven help us—and the Holy Bat too!” said the Manifafa. “With what did these poor people make kings?”

  “That’s a great pity,” Berniquet replied humbly lowering his eyes. “They made them with Patagons.”

  “That proves, jester, that there was no great profit in this method, since the philosophers did not preserve it for themselves.”

  “One is careful with kings and peoples, sire, when one calculates their living expenses! The philosophers, who had continued to reproduce in the vulgar manner, because it is slightly more amusing, remained very small—which forbade them the chance of acquiring positions of public authority in the country of the Patagons, where all such positions are determined by height, including the crown. When the king dies, the population is passed beneath a hectometer, and his successor is selected by the ruler.”

  “With the result that the reigning sovereign,” the Manifafa put in, “has a perfect right to judge himself the Great and receive that title from his court without anyone having grounds for criticism—which seems quite agreeable to me. But what happened, Berniquet, if some petty Patagon peasant took it into his head to grow immeasurably all of a sudden, surpassing his legitimate prince by a cubit or two, while the latter was peacefully enthroned on the word of the ruler, geometry and the philosophers?”

  “He would be recognized as the heir presumptive, lord, and proclaimed Caesar, until another came along to contest his rank. I’ve heard it said that this had spared them many revolutions and civil wars, and they were no worse-governed for it.”

  “I can easily believe that, jester. It’s the most reasonable electoral system that anyone has ever invented, to my knowledge, and I’ll try it out on my chibicous before long. Whatever happens, I’ll be almost certain not to lose by the change. If your report is accurate, though, there are still two things that bother me. My first concern, Berniquet is to know what becomes of Patagon women in a country where the anthropological section takes the trouble to make the children?”

  “Oh, the women are very busy, sire; they discuss, they manage, they administer, the judge, they govern, they formulate plans of campaign, statistics, laws, constitutions—and, from time to time in their spare moments, write little eclectic pamphlets: treatises on ontology, epic poems in 36 songs. They do a great deal of harm! But what is Your Highness’s second concern, Divine Manifafa?”

  “My second concern, Berniquet, is to know what you did to extricate yourself from that diabolical rut?”

  “I did not spend all my time reflecting on the notions recalled confusedly from my reading. I made every effort to shout at the top of my voice, and with all the force of my lungs, that I was the sole survivor of a dozen members of the universal propaganda, who had come to pay homage to the civilization of the Isle of the Patagons. I added, with a compassion easier to imagine than to express, that that I would probably be the last propagandist who tried to land in that philosophical rut, especially by the route by which I had come—unless, that is, one of my comrades had succeeded in remaining in the air longer than me, and I saw no possibility of that.”

  “My Grand Orator could not have put it better, dear Berniquet, even though that is his profession, for which I pay him a fat salary, and he has raised his voice several times in opposition—but to whom did you address this eloquent and naïve discourse?”

  “To a handful of wretched children, 25 or 30 feet tall at the most, who were playing follow-my-leader and other similarly puerile games on the roadside.”

  “On the side of the rut, you mean. And what happened after that, jester?”

  “Alas, milord, you know what happened: a legion of philosophers in fancy coats and silk stockings, with gloved hands and umbrellas under their arms,25 came to sit down around me on folding chairs to arrange the means of getting me out of it. On the first day they were not excessively embarrassed. The judged almost unanimously that I appeared to have fallen into the rut accidentally. On the second day, they decided that it would be best to extract me by means of some machine. On the third day, they contrived a marvel….”

  “They finally got you out!”

  “No, Divine Manifafa. They appointed a commission composed of scientists highly-skilled in mechanics. I thought I was lost, that time. Holding out my shaking hands, which I had succeeded in detaching from the rut, at the level of my head—where they had made themselves very useful by chasing away the flies—I renewed my futile supplications with a great abundance of tears. The philosophers were already some distance away. What saved me was that among the numerous brats that I had the honor of mentioning a little while ago, there were two who had made a monstrous seesaw out of the mainmast of a three-decker sailing-vessel and were indulging themselves wholeheartedly in that ridiculous exercise—which is, as I had made sure to tell them, unworthy of occupying human thought.

  “One of these little brutes, whom I had observed paying a stupid but nevertheless rather crafty attention to the philosophers’ discussion, brought his mast closer when they had disappeared, and, having carefully established the equilibrium of the large moving part on its fulcrum, set about turning the extremity towards the place where my convulsive hands were still agitating vainly. I took hold of it mechanically, but firmly, to avoid a collision between my head and the gigantic joist that would probably not have been to my advantage. At the same instant, the miserable Patagon ruffian jumped up to a considerable height to reach the other end, and pulled it towards him with al his weight, with the result that I sprang forth from the rut like a dart; by letting myself slide along the beam, of which I had not let go, I landed quite comfortably on solid ground of rocks and pebbles that would not have given way beneath and army of Patagons.

  “The fortunate meeting with that instinctive expedient caused me to reflect bitterly upon the misery of those unfortunate Patagons, who were reduced by the deprivation of the intellectual sense to be stupidly confined to the exercise of their animal faculties, without any hope of becoming savants, and whom civilization—ordered and gentle, to be sure, but set up like an instrument—turned perpetually like cogwheels. That is harmful.”

  “I recogni
ze your good heart there,” said the Manifafa, “but that’s the fault of the ideological section, which is not in the land of the Patagons for nothing, and who, if I understand you correctly, diminished the intelligent and perfectible minds of these islanders. Since their civilization is ordered and gentle, however, Berniquet, and they do not lack instinctive expedients for getting themselves—and others—out of difficulties, what more, and what better could they desire?”

  “Better, I don’t know; but more, progress—or, to explain myself with all the precision and eloquence required in these elevated matters, I wanted them to be making progress. Good God, what good is a nation that isn’t making progress? The essential destiny of man is not to furnish with simplicity his brief career in the midst of his family, faithfully fulfilling his duties to God, the state and humankind, as those miserable driveling moralists preached in ignorant antiquity. The essential destiny of man is to make progress; and, whether he likes it or not, he will make progress, mark my words, or he’ll explain why he isn’t…

  “These Patagon children were, however, naturally benevolent. The poor little fellows hastened to plunge me into a pool of pure water, at a rather bitter temperature, which washed away the mud of the rut and restored a little suppleness and elasticity to my painful limbs. They dried me off afterwards, in the rays of an ardent and reparative Sun, while fanning my forehead with a few balsamic leaves with which they had equipped themselves for that purpose; and, without further delay, they delicately peeled the remaining detritus of their breakfast, in order to prepare me a good meal—which proved very copious, for one could easily live on a Patagon’s crumbs. I had scarcely expressed my gratitude, by means of gestures of which they took little or no notice, when they returned to their seesaw, after having pointed me in the direction of the city of philosophers, where I expected to find someone with whom to talk.

  “As I was on the point of arrival, I saw a vast procession emerging from the walls with great ceremony, which headed towards me. I immediately recognized the objective of that scientific excursion equipped for travel. There were planks, poles, ladders, ropes, pulleys, rails, levers, weights, counterweights, wheels, capstans, tackle-blocks, cranes, dredgers, clamps, measuring implements, pick-axes, hooks, jacks and all the movable equipment of the Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, with the exception of a seesaw. I was very flattered by the foresight of these great men, and tried to make my sentiments manifest to them in some 20 languages—of which they appeared to have no knowledge. For my part, I understood nothing at all of theirs, which made me think with admiration that they might well have invented the universal language, or at least discovered the primitive one.