WE WERE STILL GAZING after the evocative grape vine when Rao appeared leading his slaves, who were groaning beneath a voluminous and rather elongated object.
Next to the group, Fogar, the emperor’s eldest son, walked in silence, holding in his right hand a magnificent purple flower whose stem bristled with thorns.
The new burden was set in the usual place, and Fogar remained alone to watch over it as the others quickly retreated.
The object, freely exposed to the moonlight, was none other than a very rudimentary bed, an uncomfortable-looking box frame decorated with many diverse attributes.
To the right, attached behind the raised portion intended to support the sleeper’s torso, a pot of dirt held the root of a huge, whitish plant that rose into the air, then curved to form a kind of bed canopy.
Above this graceful baldachin, a spotlight, unlit at the moment, hung from a metal pole bent at the top.
The farthest side of the bed frame bore numerous ornaments, arranged with care.
Just before the right-hand corner, a long triangular surface, suggesting a pennant, unfurled to the side at the top of a narrow raised stake made of blue-painted wood. The whole thing looked like the flag of some unknown country, given the colors on the muslin: a cream-colored background shot through with asymmetrical red streaks and two close-set black dots stacked one above the other near the vertical base of the triangle.
A little to the left rose a minuscule portico, barely an inch wide. Hanging from the lintel at top, the fringe from a dress or costume swayed its many white, even strands at the slightest disturbance; each of these strands ended in a bright red tip.
Pursuing our examination in the same direction, we found a shallow receptacle from which emerged white soap covered with thick foam.
Then came a metal recess containing a large, thin sponge.
Next to the recess, a fragile platform supported an amphora with strange contours, against which leaned a cylindrical object fitted with a propeller.
Finally, concluding this incomprehensible series of ornaments on the left side, a round zinc plate balanced horizontally on a narrow pillar.
The side of the bed frame facing the plant and the spotlight was no less crowded.
Against the corner next to the zinc plate one first saw a kind of gelatinous block, yellow and motionless.
Next, along the same plane, was a piece of carpet, on which a thin layer of dry cement was spread; in the cement, one hundred thin, sharp jade needles were vertically embedded in ten even rows.
The block and carpet rested alongside each other on a short board barely large enough for them.
Three gold ingots, whose perfect spacing seemed to prolong the median line of the frame, rose from three iron supports that held them solidly in their claws. One could not differentiate among them, as their cylindrical shape and rounded ends were identical.
Closer to us, next to the narrow space occupied by the three precious ingots, a second board mirrored the first.
On it, we first saw a basket containing three cats: lent by Marius Boucharessas, they were none other than three of the greens from the game of prisoner’s base, still sporting their ribbons.
Next to this, a delicate object, which looked like the door to a cage, was composed of two thin slats that, laid horizontally a few centimeters apart from each other, pressed between their four inner extremities two fragile vertical risers. In the rectangle thus formed, taut black horsehairs stretched top to bottom between the two wooden slats, passing through imperceptible holes and knotted at both ends. Nearby lay a very straight twig, sliced in half lengthwise, that displayed a slightly resinous inner surface.
Finally, placed directly on the board against the near corner of the bed frame, a fat candle stood next to two dark-colored pebbles.
From almost halfway down the bed, at what would be the sleeper’s left, rose a metal rod; upright at first, it then bent sharply to the right and ended in a kind of curved handle like the armpiece of a crutch.
Fogar carefully inspected the various components of the cot. His ebony face shone with precocious intelligence, to a degree astonishing in a boy who had just reached adolescence.
Using the only side that remained free of clutter, he climbed onto the bed and slowly stretched out, bringing his left armpit in line with the curved handle that fit it perfectly.
His arms and legs completely rigid, he froze in a corpselike pose, after having placed the purple flower within reach of his right hand.
His lids ceased blinking over his staring, vacant eyes, and the rhythm of his breathing gradually decreased under the influence of the powerful lethargic slumber that soon overcame him.
A few moments later, his prostration was absolute. The adolescent’s chest remained as motionless as if he were dead, and his half-open mouth seemed to exhale no breath.
Bex, walking up, pulled an oval mirror from his pocket and placed it before the young Negro’s lips; no fog tarnished the brilliant surface, and its shine remained intact.
Then, laying his hand over the patient’s heart, Bex shook his head to indicate the lack of a pulse.
Several seconds passed in silence. Bex had quietly retreated, leaving the area around the bed unencumbered.
Suddenly, as if he’d found some scrap of consciousness in the depths of his torpor, Fogar’s body gave an imperceptible twitch, which activated the handle under his armpit.
Immediately the spotlight lit up, projecting downward a dazzlingly white electric beam, its brightness increased tenfold by a freshly polished reflector.
The white plant that formed the bed canopy received the full force of that intense light, which seemed to be aimed specifically at it. Through the transparent overhang, we could see a delicate, clear, and vivid image, of a piece with the plant’s very fibers, which we now saw were tinted through and through.
The whole thing was oddly reminiscent of a stained-glass window, admirably unified and blended due to the absence of any seam or harsh glare.
The diaphanous image evoked some Oriental site. Under a cloudless sky stretched a splendid garden filled with alluring flowers. In the center of a marble basin, a fountain spurting from a jade tube gracefully described its slender arc.
To one side rose the façade of a sumptuous palace, in which one open window framed a couple locked in an embrace. The man, a fat, bearded individual dressed like a wealthy merchant from the Arabian Nights, wore on his beaming face an expression of expansive and inalterable joy. The woman, a full-blooded Moor judging by her dress and features, remained languid and melancholy despite her companion’s good humor.
Beneath the window, not far from the marble fountain, stood a young man with curly locks, whose outfit was consonant in time and place with the merchant’s. Lifting his face in inspiration toward the couple, he sang some elegy of his own composition through a megaphone made of dull, silvery metal.
The Moorish eyes avidly sought out the poet, who, for his part, was intoxicated by the young woman’s striking beauty.
Suddenly, a shift of molecules occurred in the fibers of the luminous plant. The image lost its clarity and contour. The atoms all vibrated at once, as if trying to settle into a new, predetermined arrangement.
Soon a second tableau formed, as resplendent as the first and similarly of a piece with the fine, translucent vegetal fibers.
In this scene, a large dune in golden hues retained several footprints on its arid flanks. The poet from the first image, bent toward the friable sand, gently placed his lips on the deep trace of a slim, graceful foot.
After several moments’ immobility, the atoms, again unsettled, recommenced their turbulent maneuver, yielding a third brightly colored view.
This time the poet was not alone: next to him a Chinaman in a purple robe pointed at a large bird of prey, whose majestic flight doubtless had some prophetic import.
A new reshuffling in the sensitive plant depicted, in a curious laboratory, the same Chinaman receiving several gold coins from the poet in exchange for a manuscript tendered and accepted.
Each bizarre image from the plant lasted the same amount of time; one by one the following scenes succeeded each other on the canopy screen:
The laboratory yielded to a richly appointed banquet hall. Sitting at the fully laid table, the fat, bearded merchant breathed in the aroma of a dish he held in both hands. His eyelids were growing heavy under the spell of the appetizing steam, which bore some treacherous substance. Opposite him the poet and the Mooress eagerly awaited the onset of this deep slumber.
Then we saw a marvelous Eden on which the burning rays of the noonday sun beat down. In the background flowed a graceful waterfall, tinted with green glimmers. The poet and the Moorish woman slept side by side, in the shade of a fabulous flower like some giant anemone. To the left, a Negro entered at a run, as if to warn the two lovers of some impending danger.
The same setting, evoked a second time, framed the amorous couple mounted on a spirited zebra that took off at breakneck speed. Sitting on its rump behind the solidly straddling poet, the Mooress laughingly brandished a purse containing a few gold coins. The Negro followed their departure with a respectful gesture of farewell.
The enchanting site eclipsed definitively to give way to a sun-baked road, at the edge of which rose a stall filled with various foodstuffs. Lying in the middle of the road and cradled by the anxious poet, the Moorish woman, pale and exhausted, received some nourishment provided by the attentive and zealous shopkeeper.
In the following apparition, the recovered Mooress wandered with the poet. Near her, a strange-looking man seemed to be making dire predictions that she took in with alarm and distress.
A final image, evidently containing the tragic denouement of the idyll, showed a terrible abyss whose walls bristled with sharp protuberances. The Mooress, her body smashing against these countless spikes, was in the midst of a horrifying fall, having succumbed to the dizzying pull of many bodiless, faceless eyes, their harsh expression fraught with menace. At the top of the precipice, the desperate poet was throwing himself after his lover.
This dramatic scene was replaced by the unexpected picture of a wolf with glowing eyes. The animal’s body alone took up as much space as each of the preceding views; beneath it one could read, in fat capitals, the Latin designation “LUPUS.” No similarity of color or proportion seemed to link this giant portrait to the Oriental scenes, whose own unity was evident.
The wolf soon vanished and the initial image reappeared, with its garden and marble fountain, singing poet, and couple posted at the window. All the tableaux paraded by a second time in the exact same order, separated by pauses of the same length. The wolf again concluded the series, which was followed by a third cycle, rigorously identical to the first two. Indefinitely the plant repeated its curious molecular revolutions, which seemed an integral part of its own existence.
When the initial garden and its fountain appeared for the fourth time, everyone’s gaze, weary of following this now-monotonous spectacle, lowered onto the still inanimate Fogar.
The young Negro’s body and the objects placed on the edges of his bed were covered in multicolored reflections coming from the strange bed canopy.
Like the floor slabs of a church on which sunlight reproduces the smallest subtleties of stained glass, the entire area of the bed frame slavishly plagiarized the shapes and hues fixed on the screen.
One could recognize the protagonists, water fountain, and palace façade, all enlarged by projection, as they sumptuously tinted the different lumps or objects they happened to fall on, espousing their infinitely varied forms.
The polychromatic waves overflowed extensively onto the ground, causing a scattering of fantastic colored shapes on either side.
Even without raising our eyes toward the plant canopy, we could still witness each pictorial change, the reflections echoing the now familiar and anticipated scenes.
Soon afterward Fogar’s prostration came to an end. His chest rose slightly, marking the resumption of his breathing. Bex rested his hand on the heart that had been stilled for so long, then returned to his place, notifying us of the timid, barely perceptible pulse.
Suddenly a blink of the boy’s eyelids indicated his complete return to life. His eyes lost their abnormal stare, and Fogar, with a sudden movement, grasped the purple flower lying limp near his right hand.
With a thorn on its stem, he made a longitudinal gash in his left wrist, then opened a bulging, swollen vein and pulled out a huge blood clot, greenish in color and completely coagulated, which he laid on the bed. Then, with a petal of the flower nimbly plucked and squeezed between his fingers, he created a few drops of an effective serum that, dripping onto his vein, swiftly sealed the two separated edges.
At that point his circulation, cleared of all obstacles, could resume easily.
The identical operation, which Fogar himself performed on his chest and near the inner bend of his right knee, procured two more blood clots like the first. Two more petals, needed to seal the blood vessels, were now missing from the purple flower.
The three clots, which Fogar now held side by side in his left hand, looked like three sticks of gummy, translucent angelica.
The young Negro had obtained the desired effect by his voluntary catalepsy, whose only purpose, indeed, was to entail a partial condensation of his blood and thus provide the solidified fragments full of delicate hues.
Turning to the right toward the red-streaked pennant, Fogar took one of the blood clots, which he raised gently to the blue flagpole.
Suddenly the whitish muslin, bathed in reflections from above, started quivering. Immobile until then, the triangle began to descend, clinging to its stem; rather than a simple rag, we saw before us some strange animal endowed with instinct and movement. The reddish streaks were actually powerful blood vessels, and the two symmetrical black dots a monitory, unblinking pair of eyes. The vertical base of the triangle adhered to the pole via numerous suction cups, which a series of contortions had now begun moving in a constant direction.
Fogar, still lifting his green clot, soon reached the animal, which regularly pursued its descent.
Only the upper suction cups remained affixed, while the lower ones, detaching themselves from the pole, avidly seized upon the clot that the adolescent abandoned to it.
With a greedy sucking action, the animal’s ingesting mouths, working in concert, quickly devoured the sanguine treat of which it seemed inordinately fond.
The meal over, the suction cups adhered once more to the pole, and the creature, immobile once more, resumed its initial appearance as a stiff flag sporting unfamiliar colors.
Fogar put his second clot near the fragile portico rising to the left of the blue flagpole on the edge of the bed.
Immediately, the fringe hanging from the horizontal lintel began to stir feverishly, as if attracted by a powerful lure.
Its upper spine was composed of a system of suction cups similar to the ones on the triangular animal.
Various acrobatics allowed it to reach one of the stiles and descend along it toward the proferred delicacy.
Floating tentacles, possessing life and strength, delicately gripped the clot and carried it to some of the suction cups, which, detached from the stile, feasted on it without further ado.
When the prey had been entirely absorbed, the fringe hoisted itself by the same path back to the upper lintel, where it regained its customary position.
The last clot Fogar placed in the container occupied by the white cake of soap.
At once, we saw movement in the thick foam spread over the top of the solid, slippery block.
A third animal had just revealed its presence, heretofore concealed by absolute stillness joined with its misleading appearance.
A certain snowlike carapace covered the body of the strange creature, which, crawling slowly, let out at regular intervals a dry, plaintive hiccup.
The reflections from the bed canopy took on particular vigor as they hit the immaculate tegument, giving it especially bright hues.
Having reached the edge of the soap, the animal descended the sheer vertical slope to reach the flat base of the container; there, filled with impatient gluttony, it gobbled down the blood clot, then settled in heavy silence to begin its calm, leisurely digestion.
Fogar knelt on his cot to more easily reach the objects placed farther from him.
With his fingertips, he moved a thin lever attached outside the metal recess that immediately followed the cake of soap.
At that very instant, a brilliant burst of light inflamed the sponge before everyone’s eyes. Several glass tubes, shot through by a luminous current, were aligned horizontally along the inner walls of the recess, which was suddenly inundated with brightness.
Made translucent in the glare, the sponge revealed, in the middle of its quasi-diaphanous tissue, a veritable miniature human heart attached to a highly complex circulatory system. The well-defined aorta transported a host of red globules, which, through a series of infinitely ramified branch arteries, distributed life even to the farthest reaches of the organism.
Fogar took up the amphora standing beside the recess and slowly poured several pints of pure, fresh water on the sponge.
This sudden shower seemed to displease the astounding specimen, which contracted vigorously to expel the unwelcome liquid.
A central opening, cut in the floor of the recess, provided drainage for the rejected water, which leaked onto the ground in a thin trickle.
Several times the adolescent repeated the same exercise. Amid the electric irradiation, the droplets sometimes harbored glints like diamonds, owing to the perpetually renewed multicolored projections.
Fogar replaced the amphora and picked up the cylinder with propeller lying next to it.
This new object, entirely made of metal and of very small dimensions, contained a powerful battery that the young man activated by pressing a switch.
As if obeying an order, the propeller, attached to the end of the cylinder as if to the stern of a ship, began spinning rapidly with a light whirring sound.
Soon the instrument in Fogar’s hand hovered over the horizontal zinc plate, which was still balancing at the top of its column.
Held downward, the propeller constantly fanned the grayish surface, whose appearance gradually began to change; the zephyr, successively caressing all points of the circumference, caused the strange disk to shrink in diameter and bulge like a dome; it was like the membrane of a giant oyster contracting under the effects of something acidic.
Fogar, without prolonging the experiment, shut off the fan, which he put back next to the amphora.
Deprived of wind, the edges of the dome slowly relaxed, and in just a few moments the disk regained its former rigidity, losing, through its deceptive appearance, all traces of the animal life it had just manifested.
Turning to the left toward the other side of his bed, Fogar lifted the gelatinous block and placed it carefully onto the hundred jade needles planted vertically in the layer of cement; released by the young Negro, the inert mass of flesh sank slowly under its own weight.
Suddenly, owing to the sharp pains caused by pricks from a hundred dark-colored points, a tentacle, placed toward the rear of the block, stood erect in a sign of distress, unfurling at its tip three divergent branches, each of which ended in a narrow suction cup facing frontward.
Fogar took from the basket the three sleepy cats. As he moved, the shadow of his body no longer fell upon the block, which now showed part of the enormous silhouette of the wolf, appearing for at least the tenth time in the fibers of the vegetable screen.
One by one the cats were attached by their backs to the three suction cups that held their prey with irresistible force, like the arms of an octopus.
Meanwhile, the hundred jade tips were sinking ever deeper into the flesh of the amorphous animal, whose increased suffering was expressed in a rotation of the three branches, which began spinning like a pinwheel.
Slow at first, the spinning accelerated feverishly, to the great distress of the cats that struggled helplessly with claws bared.
Soon everything blended into a frantic whirl punctuated by a furious chorus of yowls.
The phenomenon caused no movement in the ever-stable tentacle, which acted as support. Thanks to some subtle and mysterious hub, this sight was more powerful and interesting than the illusory spectacle offered by the Rotifera.
The speed of the gyrations accentuated still further under the influence of the hundred jabs, more and more painful as they sank deeper; the violently fanned air produced a constant hum of continually rising pitch; the cats, blending into each other, formed an uninterrupted disk streaked with green, from which escaped their fierce complaints.
Fogar lifted the block again and put it back in its original place.
With the suppression of the pain, the remarkable spinning quickly slowed, then stopped altogether.
With three violent shakes, Fogar liberated the cats, which he placed dizzy and moaning in their basket, while the tentacle with its three branches again fell inert amid the constantly varying reflections.
Shifting to the right, the adolescent picked up the amphora again and poured on the white soap a certain quantity of water, which soon dripped in a shower from beneath via small openings drilled in the bottom of the container.
Completely empty, the amphora was put back next to the cylinder with its propeller, and the young Negro firmly gripped the wet soap by the six flat surfaces of the slightly flattened cube.
Then, backing as far as possible toward the head of the bed, Fogar, his left eye shut, carefully took aim at the three gold ingots, which he saw one behind the other in perfect alignment between the basket of cats and the carpet with its hundred dark points.
At once, the young man’s arm uncoiled fluidly.
The soap, seeming to execute a complete series of perilous jumps, described a slender arc, then fell onto the first ingot; from there it rebounded, still doing cartwheels, to the second gold ingot, which it skimmed for but an instant; a third trajectory, accompanied only by two much slower somersaults, made it land on the third massive cylinder, on which it remained balanced, upright and immobile.
The viscosity of the object, added to the upper roundness of the three ingots, made the success of this feat of dexterity even more remarkable.
After replacing the soap in its special container, Fogar continued his exploration and carefully picked up the delicate object built like a cage door in his left hand.
Then, with three fingers of his right hand first wiped on his loincloth, he lifted the half-twig cut lengthwise.
This latter object, used as a bow, allowed him to stroke, as if it were a violin string, one of the black horsehairs stretched between the two pillars of the small rectangular harp.
The twig rubbed the string with its inner surface, on which a resistant coating, due to some natural secretion, made an excellent substitute for rosin.
The horsehair vibrated powerfully, simultaneously producing, thanks to the effect of certain very curious nodes along its length, two perfectly distinct notes separated by an interval of a fifth; looking up and down the hair, we could see two well defined and clearly uneven zones of vibration.
Fogar, changing place, ran his bow over another horsehair, which entirely unaccompanied produced a pitch-perfect major third.
One by one, each resonant string, tested independently with the bowing twig, simultaneously rendered two sounds of the same amplitude. Harmonious or dissonant, the intervals all differed, giving the experiment an entertaining variety.
The adolescent, putting away the harp and bow, grabbed up the two dark pebbles, which he struck forcefully against each other above the fat candle placed against the corner of the bed; some of the sparks generated by that initial friction fell onto the highly combustible wick, which caught immediately.
The substance of the candle, its peculiarity suddenly revealed by the light near the calm, upright flame, looked like the porous and appetizing pulp of some delicately veined fruit.
Within seconds, the atmosphere was rent by a formidable clamor coming from the candle itself, which, as it melted, imitated the sound of thunder.
A short silence separated this first roar from a second, even more violent noise, itself followed by several low rumbles marking a moment of calm.
The candle burned down fairly quickly, and soon the evocation of the storm acquired a marvelous perfection. Certain terribly loud claps of thunder alternated with the distant voice of the dying, prolonged echoes.
The full moonlight contrasted with this convincing racket, which needed only howling wind and flashes of lightning to complete the illusion.
When the candle, growing shorter and shorter, had almost entirely disappeared, Fogar blew out the wick, and peaceful silence was immediately restored.
At once, the black porters, who had returned several instants earlier, lifted the narrow cot, on which the adolescent reclined nonchalantly.
The group moved away noiselessly to the still changing lights emitted by the polychromatic projections.
Now came the solemn moment to award the prizes.
Juillard removed from his pocket a pendant cut from a thin sheet of tin, in the shape of an equilateral triangle representing a capital Greek delta; one of its angles bore a small ring, carefully twisted to sit perpendicular to the ornament.
This trinket, apparently nickel-plated and hanging from a wide, circular blue ribbon slipped through the ring, constituted the Great Sash of the Order of the Delta, whose wearer would enrich the wise investors who had put their faith in him.
Choosing as sole criterion the reactions of the Negro public to each of the exhibitions, Juillard unhesitatingly called on Marius Boucharessas, whose young cats, with their game of prisoner’s base, had consistently earned the Ponukeleans’ enthusiasm.
Promptly decorated with the supreme insignia, the child came back to us proud and delighted, admiring the effect of the blue ribbon as it crossed his chest diagonally over his pale pink leotard, while at his left hip the gleaming pendant, catching the moon’s rays, shone brightly against the black background of his velvet shorts.
Within the group of speculators, several cries of joy had burst forth from those who held shares in Marius, among whom a prize of ten thousand francs would soon be split.
After awarding the Great Sash, Juillard had produced six other deltas, smaller than the first but identical in shape and cut from the same metal. This time, each attached ring, parallel to the ornament itself, was threaded with a narrow blue ribbon several inches long, the two ends of which bore slightly bent pins.
Still impartially guided by the amount of native approval be-stowed on the various candidates, Juillard called forward Skariovszki, Tancrède Boucharessas, Urbain, Lelgoualch, Ludovic, and La Billaudière-Maisonnial, to affix to each man’s chest, without speeches or congratulations, one of the six new decorations symbolizing the rank of Chevalier of the Delta.
The rest hour had sounded.
On the orders of Talou, who, approaching with great strides, personally gave us the signal to retire, the natives scattered into Ejur.
Our entire group returned to the special quarters reserved for us in the heart of the strange capital, and soon we were all asleep in the shelter of our primitive huts.