THE MONTALESCOTS HAD SOON grown accustomed to their new residence. Louise delved passionately into her amazing discovery, while curious Norbert explored the Behuliphruen or the right bank of the Tez.
The ever faithful pet magpie won everyone’s admiration through its marvelous affection and intelligence; the bird, making new progress every day, reliably performed its mistress’s most varied commands.
One day, walking along the Tez, Norbert was attracted by the extreme malleability of a vaguely damp, yellowish earth, of which he promptly gathered a supply. The young man could from then on occupy his time modeling, with his usual facility, delightfully fashioned statuettes, which once dried in the sun acquired the look and consistency of terracotta. Talou, clearly intrigued by these artistic pursuits, seemed to be hatching some plan, which a chance occurrence soon brought to full maturity.
Since our arrival in Ejur, various animals, loaded onto the Lynceus to be slaughtered during the voyage, had contributed one by one to our board. Thanks to our parsimonious ship’s steward, who was exceedingly thrifty with the precious reserves, several calves still remained to share their companions’ fate. The provident cook finally started in on these survivors and one evening served us at dinner, alongside the appetizing slices of the first victim, a platter of finely seasoned calves’ lungs. Talou, who by instinctive curiosity had always been partial to our European fare, carefully tasted this dish, whose provenance and appearance when uncooked he immediately wanted to know.
The next day, a sad and anxious Sirdah came to see us on her father’s behalf, bearing his laborious directives that she annotated with numerous personal commentaries.
In her opinion, Talou loathed Louise, whose image was still linked in his mind with that of King Yaour. Brother and sister had been mixed up in the same fierce dislike, and the emperor offered them a double exeat only on condition that they perform impossible marvels, whose every detail he had meticulously elaborated in advance with cruel and malicious refinement.
Among the crates and bundles smashed open during the wreck of the Lynceus was a huge shipment of toys addressed to a dealer in Buenos Aires. Talou had ordered a demonstration of all these items, which were new to him, and took particular interest in the wind-up toys, whose key he turned himself. He had been especially delighted by a certain railroad that, due to its complex network of easily detachable tracks, rolled with remarkable ease. It was partly this amusing invention that engendered the plan Sirdah had come to detail. Inspired by his last dinner, Talou demanded that poor Norbert create a life-sized statue, fascinating to look at and light enough to roll over two tracks made of that same raw, inconsistent matter the steward had prepared for us the night before, without damaging them in the slightest. In addition, without this time setting any weight requirements, the emperor demanded three articulated sculptures, whose mechanism only the trained magpie would activate, with its beak or claws.
If these conditions were fulfilled—in addition to a successful demonstration of the device Louise was working to complete—the siblings would win their freedom and could join our detachment when we left for Porto Novo.
Despite the harshness of this ultimatum, Louise, rather than giving in to despair, understood that her duty was to encourage and guide Norbert.
The first thing was to find a material light, pliable, and resistant enough to be used to erect an almost weightless statue. We rummaged haphazardly through the luggage taken from the ship, and Louise suddenly let out a cry of joy on discovering several large parcels stuffed with uniformly black whalebone corset stays. Reading the labels, we saw that the shipment had been sent by a liquidation firm, which had probably sold off part of its excess inventory at a discount to some American manufacturer.
The stakes being too important to stand on ceremony, Louise made away with the merchandise, prepared to reimburse the addressee later on if need be.
To choose the fascinating subject the emperor demanded, the young woman had only to search her memory, copiously enriched by her countless readings. She recalled an anecdote related by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, in a brief preamble in which the illustrious chronicler seeks to compare the Athenian character with the Spartan mentality.
Here is the substance of the classical tale translated by so many generations of schoolboys:
A rich Lacedemonian named Ktenas had in his service a large number of helots.
Instead of despising these slaves, whom his compatriots considered mere beasts of burden, Ktenas wanted to raise their moral and intellectual level by educating them. His noble, humanitarian goal was to make them his equals, and in order to force the laziest among them to study he resorted to severe punishments, not hesitating at times to use his power over life and death.
Without a doubt, the most recalcitrant of the group was a certain Saridakis, who, as ungifted as he was apathetic, shamelessly let himself be overtaken by all his comrades.
Despite the harshest reprimands, Saridakis made no progress, vainly devoting hours on end to the simple conjugation of auxiliary verbs.
Ktenas saw in this manifestation of utter inability the chance to strike fear into the minds of his pupils.
He gave Saridakis three days to memorize once and for all the verb e?µ?. After that, the helot would recite his lesson before all his fellow students and in front of Ktenas, whose hand, clutching a stiletto, would run through the laggard’s heart at the first sign of error.
Knowing that the master meant what he said, Saridakis cudgeled his brains and made heroic efforts to prepare for the supreme test.
On the appointed day, Ktenas, assembling his slaves, placed himself near Saridakis, aiming the tip of his blade at the unfortunate’s chest. The scene was brief: the pupil made a stupid mistake in the dual of the aorist, and a muffled thud was suddenly heard in the midst of an anxious silence. The helot, pierced to the heart, spun a moment before falling dead at the feet of his inexorable judge.
Louise unhesitatingly adopted this stirring model. Aided by his sister’s directions, Norbert managed to erect a lightweight statue on wheels, using the flexible stays. The nails and tools he needed for the task were supplied by Chènevillot, who himself built a well-calibrated bascule, made to receive the delicate and fragile train tracks at the last minute. To complete the work, so full of impressive vigor, Louise traced in white letters on the black plinth a large explanatory title, preceding the famous dual conjugation on the helot’s dying lips.
The emperor’s other order, effigies with moving parts, demanded three new subjects.
Louise was an enthusiastic admirer of Kant, portraits of whom vividly crowded her mind. Under her supervision, Norbert executed a bust of the famous philosopher, carefully hollowing out the inside of the block to leave only a wafer-thin layer of clay at the top of the skull. Chènevillot fitted the cranial cavity with a system of powerful reflector lamps, whose brightness was meant to symbolize the ingenious flames of some luminous thought.
Next, Louise took inspiration from an old Breton legend that touchingly related the heroic and celebrated subterfuge of the nun Perpetua, who preferred to risk her own life rather than betray two fugitives hiding in her convent to the thugs pursuing them.
This time it was an entire group of figures that Norbert had to model with skill and patience.
Finally, the young man, his sister’s docile instrument, portrayed the regent bowing before Louis XV; Louise, a student of history, liked the paradox contained in this humble sign of respect shown to a child by the most powerful man in the kingdom.
Each sculpture was provided with a very simple mechanism, specially adapted to the beak or claws of the magpie, whose training demanded far more effort than they ever would have expected.
Indeed, this new task was much more complex than the insignificant tours de force the bird had performed up until then. Its movements had to be executed in the correct order without guidance or prompting, and it was hard for the creature to retain such a long series of varied and precise instructions. Norbert helped his sister with the laborious instruction, which they had to get just right.
Meanwhile, Louise actively pursued her chemical endeavors, whose final adjustments demanded a workplace built with very particular lighting conditions in mind.
At her request, Chènevillot constructed a kind of very narrow cabin, whose walls, prudently devoid of openings, would let no sunshine through.
Only a very attenuated yellowish light was to be allowed into the confines of the laboratory; but a tinted window, even with the densest coating, would surely have produced disastrous glimmers on the strange photosensitive plate Louise was preparing.
The solution to the problem was found by Juillard, who had sat in on Louise’s conversations with the architect.
The scholar’s crate of books contained a precious copy of The Fair Maid of Perth, from the first edition of the celebrated work. The pages, more than a century old, were completely yellowed and could serve to filter and muffle the blinding brightness of the African sun.
Despite the incalculable price of this extremely rare item, Juillard unhesitatingly offered it to the student, who, finding it perfectly suited to her designs, thanked the kind donor warmly.
Chènevillot trimmed the pages into tiles, which, laid down in multiple layers and held in place by a fine framework, composed the top of the cabin. A skylight cut in the middle of this light roofing allowed the prisoner to emerge once in a while for some fresh air, after having scrupulously covered her various utensils and ingredients. Prudence winning out over comfort in such a serious matter, it was through this one opening, the sole egress by design, that Louise would enter and exit, using two small folding ladders with flat steps that the architect fashioned for this purpose. The slightest infiltration of light could in fact compromise the success of the entire project, and a roof skylight was more likely than any side door to form a hermetic seal, aided by its own weight.
The cabin stood on Trophy Square, not far from the Stock Exchange, from which Norbert’s precisely aligned statues separated it. Before installing the roof, Chènevillot had arranged the interior, which contained one of the folding ladders, a portable chair, and a worktable laden with the equipment necessary for the marvelous discovery.
From then on, Louise spent the better part of her days shut up in the laboratory, among her concoctions, vials, and plants; she used the rest of her time to finish training the magpie, which faithfully kept her company inside the fragile hideaway.
When people asked the young woman about the success of her chemical mixtures, she seemed cheerful and optimistic.