O BEAUTIFUL BOOK [The book was Macao et Cosmage, by Edy. Legrand. I think it is still obtainable. Published by the N.R.F.]! What would the art critics, whose rightful property you are, say about you? They would not say ‘O beautiful book!’ for they have the gift of words and can state with precision which of your pages are Illustrations and which Significant Forms. O fifty pages, each lovelier than its brother, so gorgeous in your colours, so moving in your theme that the beholder falls a-doting, and phrases of music come into his car, and quotations from poetry to his lips! Your scene is an island — a kingless continent sinless as Eden, and no one lives upon it but Adam and Eve.
‘Qui pourrait dire comment Macao et Cosmage vinrent dans cette!le, comment la destinée put les unir? Personne! Ni toi, ni moi, nous ne le saurons jamais.’
They have lived there as long as they can remember amongst birds and flowers; they have ridden giraffes and turtles, and danced in the shades and lights of the forest; they have played by the cataract at sunset; and at night, when all the island except its stars became azure, they have slept beneath plumed trees, while their innocence enclosed them in a shell of white light, in a magical fruit that gleamed in the highways of the darkness. New joys in the morning. By listening to the song of the birds Cosmage learned how to sing, and by watching their nests Macao learned how to build a house. They made a path through the wood, and found at the end of it the sea, and the sea opened her treasures to them — great fish that slithered, and scuttling crabs. Macao and Cosmage were not dignified, they had not the faked simplicity of Genesis or Greece, but he was chinless, like all truly good men, and she goggle-eyed and black. They neither toiled nor posed, nor did they give thanks.
And during a morning of that eternal spring they saw ‘une apparition inexpliquable’ upon the blue and white of the sea. It was the Commandant Létambot and his jolly tars, who had been chasing the Boche. He landed on the island, exclaimed, ‘Quelle trouvaille!’ and hoisted the tricolour upon a lofty palm. After many days he returned. The whole’ horizon was black with smoke this time. An immense fleet arrived, full of soldiers, colonists, officials, photographers, commercial travellers, botanists, electricians, policemen; and the Commandant made a speech in which he told the two inhabitants that their island’s name was ‘L’île du Coin du Monde,’ and that he was bringing to it ‘le bonheur,’ happiness. Before long the giraffes were exterminated and the waterfalls diverted for industrial purposes; the trees were cut down, and a public garden installed where they had grown; the birds were chased by gallant airmen out of the sky; and the mountains were scored with funiculars, and crowned with hotels for ladies and their dogs. Macao and Cosmage grew old. They could not find the happiness that they had been promised, they had lost the solitude that they loved, and they went upon the matter before the Governor, weeping. The Governor was a young and energetic man. He removed his cigar for a moment, and spoke over his shoulder to Macao and Cosmage as follows:
‘Vous vivez à l’époque des grandes inventions; l’activité humaine, sous toutes ses formes, est sans limites! Le bonheur est dans le travail.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean by work,’ replied Macao, ‘and I am too old to learn.’ However, he obtained permission to depart, together with Cosmage, and to seek out some corner which civilization had not yet blessed. They set out, followed by their faithful animals, and, having walked for many, many days, came to a place where the sky was not covered with smoke. It was a poor place compared to the home of their youth, but the trees, though scanty, were beautiful; the birds, though rare, still sang; and there was a little stream. Here they built a small house, and sitting on its doorstep, in extreme old age, they had the experience of happiness....
O beautiful book! O wisest of books! What help do you bring after all? You only underline the inevitable. As the author remarks, ‘Enfant, Macao était un sage, mais le gouverneur avait raison.’ But your scarlet birds, your purple precipices and white ponds, are part of a dream from which humanity will never awake. In the heart of each man there is contrived, by desperate devices, a magical island such as yours. We place it in the past or the future for safety, for we dare not locate it in the present, because of the Commandant Létambot, who sails upon every sea. We call it a memory or a vision to lend it solidity, but it is neither really; it is the outcome of our sadness, and of our disgust with the world that we have made.
[1920]