BOOK SIXTEEN: PARADISE REDISCOVERED

 

 

I

 

After having sent that letter by means of one of his usual messengers, Merlin went to embark at Epidaurus. On the marshy beach he found Mustensar, the king of the desert, and Alifantina, King of Spain, who were waiting for him while breathing the feverish exhalations of asphodels. Epistrophius had not neglected to offer him the aid of his fleet, formed of two of the most worm-eaten caiques that could be found in his Estates. Only one of the caiques had a complete crew; it consisted of two of the finest follets in the land; both of them, born in the tempests, were accustomed to laughing at them. The little craft emerged from the creek, skimming the waves with the rapidity of a petrel.

He only stopped to make landfall at a little Oriental port between Russicada and Mount Azara.

For a long time the king of the desert had been thinking about nothing but rendering Merlin favorable to the vast countries burned by the sun over which his empires extended.

“Don’t be unjust to my kingdom,” he said to him, as they touched the shore. “Although I can’t offer you the same fêtes as King Epistrophius—because, except for the djerib,120 the games here are held in mediocre esteem—it will perhaps be permissible for me to interest you in other spectacles.” And, wanting to strike his mind with some great impression at the outset, he added: “Do you know Prester John, Merlin?”121

“Prester John!” exclaimed our hero, leaping out of the caique. “The marvel of the Orient! The enchanter of the land where the sun rises! The pearl of men of our art! My master, if I have one!”

“As you say,” the king replied. “He lives in my Estates; I’ve made a vow to undertake a pilgrimage to see him, before even going to sleep under a roof of reeds.”

“Prester John!” repeated Merlin, again. “I’d have made the voyage solely to hear mention of him.”

“If you don’t fear scandal, I can take you to him.”

“Let’s hasten, Sire.”

Scarcely had they disembarked than they departed, without even being refreshed by the glass of water accompanied by candied fruits that an icoglan offered to them. They were all mounted on camels. Only Euphronius had chosen a white horse.

Having traveled for ten days through the highlands, they reached the abbey of Prester John in a desert area. From far away, the architecture struck Merlin with astonishment, for it featured was an incredible mixture of the pagoda, Greek and Roman temples, synagogue, mosque, basilica and cathedral, not to mention an almost innumerable host of marabouts, minarets, Byzantine and Gothic chapels, which gave the monastery the aspect of a modern pantheon open to all the religions of the world.

“Wait,” said the king of the desert, who was enjoying Merlin’s surprise. “Don’t condemn this bizarre taste before having listened to me.”

As they had drawn near enough to see the slightest details, they stopped on a small mound facing the portal. The king of the desert went on: “Every day of the week has its particular feast celebrated in that abbey. Monday is dedicated to Brahma, who is the most ancient, Tuesday to Buddha, Wednesday to Vishnu, Thursday to Jesus, Friday to Allah, Saturday to Jehovah; that’s why you find here, in the same cloister, a pagoda, a synagogue, a mosque, a basilica and a cathedral. As for Sunday, Prester John then combines all the religions into one. On that day, he preaches peace and concord, in the name of the God of all.

“That’s singular,” said Merlin. “Is Prester John a pantheist?”

“Perhaps.”

“You know that that’s the most terrible accusation with which one can blacken a man in our misty land?”

“So I’ve been told,” replied the king of the desert, who sought on every occasion to show his kingdom in the best possible light. “Just remember, Merlin, your promise not to be scandalized before having seen everything.”

“I’ll remember, O King!”

Then Merlin rang the bell at the door of the abbey with a firm hand. It rang twice in the silence of the desert. The door opened.

In the middle of the courtyard an august old man appeared, whose snowy beard hung down to his waist. On his head he was wearing a turban enriched by a sapphire cross. Around his neck hung a gold cross, and he was leaning on a white staff in the manner of a Brahmin. Three children were following him, each holding a book open over his breast. The first was the collection of the Vedas, the second the Bible, the third the Koran. At certain moments, Prester John—for it was him—paused, read a few lines from one of the sacred books, which always remained open before him. After which he continued his stroll, his eyes attached to the heavens.

He had just turned in the direction of the door when the strangers came in.

“They’re pilgrims,” he said. “Let’s go see what they believe, and let each receive here the hospitality of his own God.”

Then, with an imposing gravity, Prester John raised his hand to salute the voyagers.

“Be welcome here, all of you. Before we wash your feet, tell us which is your God, for it will doubtless please you to be treated in all things as he would wish.”

The king replied first: “I am the king of this land, and my God is Brahma.”

“That’s good, my son,” said Prester John.

Immediately, a troupe of Brahmins approached Mustensar and carried him away in a palanquin.

“As for me,” said Alifantina, “my God is Allah, and Mohammed is my prophet.”

“That’s good,” the worthy priest replied again.

Dervishes approached Alifantina and led him, dancing, toward the mosque.

Merlin kept quiet. Jacques did not wait to be questioned; his eyes on fire, he cried: “My God is Jesus, my church is in Rome!”

“That’s good, my son,” said Prester John for the third time.

Immediately, a procession of monks emerged from beneath the arcades of the courtyard with a banner similar to that of Jacques’ village. His heart shivered when he recognized from far the great Saint Christopher painted in gold on an azure field, as he had seen him floating through the hawthorn in the quarries—but he was amazed when he saw that the man carrying the banner was none other than Turpin.

Jacques uttered an exclamation, and threw himself into his arms. Turpin recognized him in his turn. He called to his master. Merlin turned round...

That moment alone paid for all the fatigues of the route.

In the meantime, Prester John had fixed his eyes on Merlin. He ended up saying to him:

“Where are we to lead you, my son? What is your church? By what book do you swear? What name do you give to your God? Is it the unknown God? We adore him also; the pomp of his ceremonies loses nothing among us to the other religions.”

“If you had not named him, perhaps I would have remained silent. But since you have anticipated my desires, I confess that the unknown God fills my soul.”

“Don’t be ashamed of that, Merlin. His church is very near here; you can see its marble roof whitening. No one but me will conduct you there.”

During the voyagers’ sojourn in the abbey, nothing was changed in the accustomed order. This is how the first hours of the day were organized. Before sunrise, a great fire of sandalwood, lit by the Brahmins, saluted the reawakening of Indra and perfumed the earth. By that sudden clarity, the chief of the dervishes climbed to the minaret and said the prayer of Allah, to which a Christian cenobite, digging a ditch in his garden, responded: “Brother, it is necessary to die.” Then a hymn from the Rig-Vedas rose up languidly from the depths of the courtyards, sung by silvery voices to which was soon added the guttural accent of ulemas intoning a verse of the Koran. The whole concluded by fading away into the majesty of the Roman Te Deum, sustained by Turpin’s gigantic baritone.

After that a solemn silence fell in the abbey. Prester John showed himself on a balcony, in the midst of a troupe armed with parasols; in a voice that resounded as far as the least corner of the desert, he pronounced the following prayer:

“God who delights on the bank of the Ganges among the herds of russet cattle harnessed to the chariot of the dawn; you who spring forth in the sacred fire that comes to illuminate the parsees wandering in the vicinity of the naphtha wells; whether you build your chosen temple at the exit from the desert with the white stones of Sion, or prefer to repose in the refreshing shade of cathedrals, or delight in staying awake on the towers of mosques, in the midst of angels armed with golden arrows; or whether you are suckled by the white virgin in the desert of Gobi, or the virgin of Judea, in the cradle of Nazareth, give us peace, light, concord and love.”

“Amen!” replied the crowd.

The walls of the different churches were covered with frescoes painted by the Raphaels and Michelangelos that Prester John had formed. Particularly admired was a painting the decorated by the great cloister. In the foreground was the little Buddha in the arms of the eternal virgin; he was playing with the infant Jesus, and Mary, full of joy, seemed to be rediscovering a sister in the Indian virgin and saying to her: “What! You too, my sister, have given birth to a god!” A little further away, on the high place, Brahma was smiling at that spectacle; cradled in a blossoming white nenuphar lily, he was landing in the Eden of Jehovah, who was holding out a hand to him and helping him to climb on to the bank. Meanwhile, Allah was placing himself in their midst, and putting his scimitar into its sheath forever, inviting both of them to rest under his tent, surmounted by a crescent whose shadow plunged into a transparent spring.

Every day the inhabitants of the abbey paused before that painting and others of the same genre. On seeing the union of their gods, they learned to remain united themselves, and that was what attracted Merlin’s admiration. For he had noticed that, during his sojourn among men so different in origin and belief, no brawl, misunderstanding, complaint, suspicion or resentful expression had saddened his eyes and mind for a single moment. On the contrary, there was behind so many believers a singular competition to imitate what they called the reconciliation of the Eternal.

“How have you been able to establish this peace?” Merlin asked Prester John every morning.

“By dint of patience, my son,” the old man replied. Then he added: “The Romans are the ones who gave me the greatest difficulty. For a long time I thought I’d be obliged to expel them from the abbey. Many a time I threatened to do so. The complete abstinence to which I reduced them came to my aid. They had the habit of command. I was obliged to teach them to forget that they had reigned. All that wasn’t the work of a day.”

“Will you not come with me to the Occident, Father? People there have exceedingly false ideas in your regard.”

“I know, Merlin. My time hasn’t yet come. You will precede me there.”

If Merlin admired the concord that reigned in the abbey, it was entirely different for Jacques. That profound peace scandalized him more every day. He could not help bursting forth on returning from a ceremony in which Prester John had personally explained the Vedas to the Brahmjins, the Izeds to the Sabaeans, the Koran to the Muslims, the Talmud to the Jews, the Gospel to the Christians and the catechism to the Romans.

“Horror!” he cried. “If the Christians here at least made war on the heretics! If they would only rush at one another, daggers in hand! But no: good companions, with neither worries nor resentments, they live as brothers, they officiate, they pray, they all worship together—isn’t that the entrance to Hell? I don’t know what restrains me from going to snatch his turban and staff away from Prester John, who’d certainly the Devil’s priest.”

“Don’t you ever know anything but violence?” Merlin replied, softly. “Would you pay with a crime for the generous hospitality that we’re receiving?”

“But what if that hospitality is Satan’s?”

“Listen to me,” his master went on. “Assuredly, many things are to be criticized among the spirits of the ruins, and you have been able to see that I said what I thought freely, at the risk of attracting the anger of the powerful monarch who reigns in those countries. But among so many faults, on which I have frankly explained myself, there are some qualities that we ought not to denigrate because they are buried in the dust. Such are their sobriety—may you always remember that, in order that it may serve you as an example!—their love of silence, of solitude, the small number of their needs, their scorn for luxury…you’ve seen what palaces their kings inhabit! Think about that when you complain about your thatched cottage. Those are true virtues, Jacques, although buried in the ash. But the one I esteem most, remember this well, is their tolerance, since they mingle all the ashes in the same sacred urn; and I would see nothing in this affair that is not praiseworthy if I did not suspect a little indifference, something of which I shall try to assure myself later.”

This speech did not succeed in persuading Jacques. For love of the Enchanter, however, he consented not to set fire to the abbey. The mages offered him the gift of myrrh, the Brahmins that of coral, and the Muslims a rosary.

“I accept the coral and the rosary for my sister Jeanne,” he said, “and the myrrh for the festival of the three kings.”

At the moment when his guests took their leave of him, Prester John detached a small lamp suspended from the vault of the cloister and presented it to Merlin.

“Have you heard mention of the marvelous lamp?”

“A thousand times.”

“Here it is, Merlin; I give it to you, since you’re the king of enchanters.”

At first Merlin wanted to refuse it out of modesty. The good priest embraced him and continued: “Take it Merlin, it’s yours! It won’t only help you to find treasures hidden in the earth, but even more so the virtues buried in the depths of human hearts. Go on—light it! Enlighten the earth; everywhere, in the slightest retreat, you’ll find treasures.”

Merlin received the marvelous lamp and handed it to Jacques, who could not avoid carrying it; but as he suspected that it came from Hell, he was careful only to light it when he could not do otherwise—which is to say, on the express orders of the Enchanter, who forgot it himself in various circumstances, as we shall see in due course.

Having saluted their host, our voyagers drew away, not without looking back several times to gaze at the abbey again.

“What do you think of Prester John?” asked the king of the desert.

“Sire,” the prudent Merlin replied, perceiving that the djinn of the desert, all courtiers, were spying on him to see whether he was an atheist, “I’ll give my opinion, but pantheistically!”

In the meantime, Turpin told his story. He related that, having perceived Merlin’s departure too late, he had interrupted his reading to follow him. On the basis of public rumor, often very deceptive, he had searched for him for a long time, vainly, in the company of sages. At least he had been fortunate enough to find Merlin’s harp in a harmonious pine-wood in Ravenna, and had brought it away intact, save for a few strings put out of tune by dew,122 which would be easy to replace.

I leave it to you to imagine my hero’s joy on seeing the sacred harp again, which he had thought lost forever. He received it from Turpin’s hands weeping. How had it gone astray in the wood of Ravenna? Who had forgotten it? On what occasion? I know exactly how it happened, and I could explain it. But I can’t suffice for everything, in a subject that opens the perspective of a new world at every step. It’s up to the reader to make an effort of genius here; it’s a good thing, after all, if you sometimes go toward the truth by means of your own conjectures.

Turpin’s long story was only concluded when our voyagers arrived near the sources of the Euphrates, in the vicinity of the terrestrial paradise. At this point, I yield the plume to Merlin. He alone can say how he alone, of all the human race, has rediscovered that location.

 

II

 

Merlin to Viviane

 

Eden, Palm Sunday

 

No, Viviane, that date-line is not mistaken. I am in the middle of Eden, in the famous garden that our first ancestors lost by their sin and I have just rediscovered. Next to me is the tree of good, further away the tree of evil; here, the first cradle, there, the four rivers of delights. But to the extent that the predicament I’m in permits. I want to give you a faithful account of a day unique among all the days of my life.

As I had just traversed the mount of Assyria between the towers of Seleucia and Thelassar, I was so close to Eden that I could not resist the desire to see it with my own eyes. No one wanted, or dared, to serve as my guide, for these peoples dare not approach that beneficent enclosure. They are held back by dread and its ancient renown.

Even my companions refused to go with me. I advanced alone, only taking my harp with me, to defend me from serpents and any evil spirits that might remain lurking in the dense brushwood with which the region is covered.

The surrounding barrier is still almost intact, except for a few places where the palisade has been devastated by the flaming word. As soon as I made out the entrance I was gripped by fear. I thought I could see a spirit armed with a sword coming to meet me. To preserve myself from his blows I drew from my harp one of the powerful chords with which you’re familiar. The echo resounded in the sacred enclosure. But no guardian appeared over the wall.

I entered without encountering any obstacle, either because the archangel had quit the place at the same time as the first man, or because the lapse of centuries had occasioned some negligence, or, in sum, because the power of Merlin extends beyond Eden and can open its gates.

I crossed the threshold. To say what new emotions, unknown to enchanters and prophets, assailed me at that moment would be impossible. What struck me the most was the silence. Although there was a multitude of birds around me, none was making the slightest song heard. As if they were still frightened and stupefied by the memory of the things that had happened there, they seemed to be saying: Are you the new Adam?

Fruits were hanging down above my head. I dared not touch them, so fearful was I of eating, by chance, one that was already wiser than me.

Everything was tangled with creepers and virgin vines. Long grass had grown over the footprints of our ancestors. As I went into the dense shade, I found a flaming sword on the ground, abandoned there. I picked it up in order to clear a passage.

Astonishingly, the grass even covered the footprints of the Eternal, so well that I could hardly recognize them, although they were at least six cubits long. As soon as I had discovered the vestiges of the gigantic feet, I started to follow them, and trembled all the way to my bones. Under every verdant crown I feared and desired at the same time to see the divine host of the place appear! And what became of me when, through the rustle of leaves, I thought I heard a hissing tongue…?

That initial dread dissipated when I did not see anyone appear. The footprints led me to a lair that the lions had abandoned. The many wild beasts that passed close to me, astonished and mute, caused me less fear than the murmur of an invisible spirit would have done.

Thus the first day passed. I wandered without repose, and it was only toward dusk that I discovered the cradle of our first ancestors. I saw—yes, saw—the nuptial couch where the first son of man was engendered. It had not changed much; flowers had replaced other flowers there; the odorous masses had renewed themselves from era to era. That was the only place that bore no imprint of the insult of the years and the wrath of Heaven.

What thoughts I had, Viviane, on entering that sacred cradle! It seems made for you, waiting for your feet to repose there. We would visit the entire world without finding a place so worthy of being your nuptial chamber. For myself—witness my credulity—that idea assailed me with such great force that I could not help thinking that it was the blessed place where my eyes ought to find you again.

Fatigue having become overwhelming, I went to sleep on those virginal flowers; I was convinced that I would see you again when I woke up, next to me beneath the embalmed vaults. So, as soon as my eyes reopened, I extended my arms to take hold of you. I searched for you; I called out to you. What dolor only to find myself! It was the first I experienced in that place of delights!

When I had given up hope of encountering you in that blissful enclosure, the sentiment of eternal solitude filled me entirely. At the moment when I abandoned myself, two living beings appeared to my eyes. Oh, how the sight of them was both welcome and cruel! They were two old people laden with years—what am I saying?—laden with centuries, who had stopped, prostrated, before the entrance without daring to cross it. I soon arrived near them. As soon as they saw me they worshiped me, prostrating themselves, and said:

“Oh most fortunate of children of the earth, it is thus permitted to you alone to enter this cherished abode where we have known felicity, and from which we have been precipitated by a common fault.”

“Who are you,” I asked, “To regret with so much love this place where no one lives?”

“This place,” replied the old man, “has not always been deserted. My name is known to you, my son, for, whoever you are, I am your father, and this is your mother Eve who is weeping by my side. Once a century we come on the same day to respire the perfume of Eden, without daring to cross the barrier. The perfume of ancient days gives us rebirth; we draw the strength therefrom to support our eternal labor.”

Then the woman, who had maintained silence, broke it in her turn.

“Oh, my son,” she said to me, “since you have penetrated into this place, which ought to be our heritage, tell me if you have found any trace of past felicity. Have you seen our first dwelling? Are flowers still wedded to flowers on the nuptial bed where I received the first speech of the man who accompanies me in dolor, having accompanied me in bliss? Does the resinous tree exhale the same odor of incense? Do cascades of delights still escape the basins in which I saw my face for the first time? Does the deadly tree with golden fruits, which I cannot name…?”

She was about to continue, but a sudden blush covered her face and, falling into her companion’s arms, she hid her shame. Both were weeping at the same time, although their eyes seemed drained of tears.

At that sight, I hastened to reply: “O Eve, my mother, let me kiss your feet. I’ve visited Eden. The flowers there remember you; they have retained the memory of your felicity. The gazelles that you have nourished remember the names that you have given them. Come, follow me, my mother. Reenter the blessed enclosure with me.”

At that moment I drew a chord from my harp. They were both shaken; they were about to follow me; but almost immediately, they shivered from head to toe and, drawing away from me, they said: “It’s enough that we have heard the words of the man who has seen Eden; a greater joy is not intended for us.”

And as if the mere thought of that beloved place had already filled their hearts with too much joy, they went away. As for me, I remained alone in the terrestrial paradise; neither the inhabitants of Heaven nor those of Hell attempted any longer to approach it.

Such was, Viviane, the meeting I had with our first ancestors. It has left my heart full of anguish, to the extent that I hesitate now to draw you toward this place, divine as it appears to me to be. Would the memory of such a great misfortune not follow us even into the arbors of Eden? Are we ingenuous enough for this ingenuous place? Would that spring-like life of our first ancestors be sufficient for us? What new needs and desires, alas, have entered into our hearts, which they did not know? What a torture, to sense oneself in Eden and find Hell there?

Already this horizon seems too narrow to me; it weighs upon me, oppresses me on all sides. A thousand flaming swords have ignited in my heart. Would you believe it? I’m in haste to get out of this place, which the unfortunate individuals I’ve just quit are burning to reenter at the price of a thousand lives.

It’s true, then, the heart of an enchanter is insatiable. The terrestrial paradise is impotent to fill it!

 

Wretch! What was I about to do, when I nearly brought you here, Viviane? Is this world no more, then, than a trap beneath the feet of prophets? How can I fish what I still have to say, and what are you going to think of me?

As I came back toward the grove of delights, a serpent slid in front of me, its head raised, from beneath the honeysuckle. I set out in pursuit of it. I was about to strike it with the sword, but it turned toward me, and said to me in a soft, almost ironic voice: “Be careful my son; do you want to kill your father?”

With that, it disappeared.

Him, my father! Me, his posterity! What does it mean? What abysms are reopening before me?

Thus, it is in Eden that I have found Hell.

No, no, Viviane, I’ll show you that I’m not his son.

 

III

 

Vivian to Merlin

 

Further on, further on, Merlin! What, you’re stopping so soon? Can you think so? The happiness worthy of you is much further on, I tell you; it can only be found at the end of the earth.

In truth, your abandoned and devastated paradise scares me. What would we do there? Everything consternates me when I think about it. Have you really been able to desire momentarily to enclose yourself in the ruins of lost felicity? What! Recommence that vanished dream of Eden, and see, at the end, the same flaming sword, the same serpent, the same bronze door open and close forever. Would you like to make of me an accursed Eve, without ignorance of tomorrow? No, no; it’s beyond that destroyed Eden that the edifice will be built of the unknown felicity for which your heart thirsts.

Continue your triumphant march, then. But be wary of returning to us, in the cold mists of Bresse and Brittany. A burning soul like yours needs a fiery sky.

Have you not heard mention, Merlin, of the valley of Kashmir and the gulf of Bengal, at the extremity of the realm of Cathay? It’s there, it’s said, in the shadow of cabbage-palms, that an amorous soul can content its infinite desires, without being troubled by any concern with the world. There, the roses have no thorns; the nights are voluptuous, all memory is embalmed. It is not yet the blue, starry palace of the ecliptic about which you have so often dreamed, but it is on the road to it. Suffer then that I give you a rendezvous at the place where the earth ends, on the beach, which the warm waves, as amorous as you, kiss day and night without ever wearying. There we shall exchange a few words, at the mouth of the Ganges; that moment will decide our future.

Go, then, Merlin, and come—or, rather, fly! But expect to find me very pale and changed by tears. You will recognize me at a distance by my long silken veil, which I shall wear down to my feet. I wish to Heaven that it had always been thus!

 

IV

 

Merlin to Viviane

 

Gulf of Bengal.

 

Sands, deserts, naphtha wells, antelopes, gazelles less prompt than you in fleeing toward the horizon; frowning mountains, devouring plains, abandoned cities, stone dragons standing in the ruins, mysterious inscriptions on spear-heads, to which I’ve added your name; dances of dervishes, almas and bayaderes; caravans, camels laden with peris, houris, sun-tanned gods: how different this world is from the empire of Arthus! My eyes are dazzled, but my heart drains and dries up the further I go.

I am wandering like a pilgrim who no longer has an altar, without daring to gaze into the depths of my thoughts. I am like someone passing through the middle of a forest or a jungle. He turns his eyes to every thicket of kousa, afraid of seeing the head of a boa constrictor emerge therefrom.

From here I can contemplate the silvery peaks of the Himalaya, and I lose myself in that immensity.

I have been well received by the enchanters of this country, some of whom are so old that moss has covered parts of their visage; they have shown me in their stables those famous herds of russet cows that draw the chariot of the dawn here; I have formed numerous relationships with them that will be very useful to us, Viviane, when we are established, if that eventually happens.

In the midst of the twittering of bengalis123 I have conversed with two god-infants eternally bathed in seas of milk. I talked to them about you. I promised them that you would bring them mulberries from the Crau, Normandy apples, medlars, water chestnuts and wild pears, of which they are all the fonder because they are unknown to them. In addition, what peace, what solitude, what inviolate repose! Everyone is astonished by my perpetual restlessness. How much more astonished they would be if they knew me better!

Viviane, Viviane, what are we doing with our days? We pursue one another and flee from one another in a continual anguish. Will we ever know what we ought to desire? Our thoughts are consumed by momentary caprices. They, on the other hand, have the repose and endurance of the baobabs, which no storm can shake.

What would I do here with my enchantments? The idea of exercising them has not even occurred to me. You know, Viviane, that there is nothing more fatal in our art than to come after other enchanters. One wants to do better than them, or at least something different, and one falls into eccentricity. That’s why, after mature reflection, I’ve made an irrevocable decision to do nothing at all here but dream about you, something to which the location is infinitely propitious.

I get up late, I go to bed at dusk. Cinghalese rock me in a hammock, while waving their peacock-plume fans over my face; it’s an idleness full of you. I haven’t yet despaired of encountering you unexpectedly, either in the vast forests of plumed sago-palms or on some desert summit; and that frail hope, which I don’t have the strength o forbid myself, nourishes me, exalts me, depresses me, lifts me up and casting me down all at the same time.

Let’s not lose happiness for the vain glory of pursuing it incessantly.

Tel me, what do you gain from this perpetual flight? Don’t hope, at least, to weary my heart. I can’t encounter here a queen, a sultana or even a bayadere, hidden beneath her veil, without enquiring of the camel-drivers as to whether it’s not you, fleeing from me and calling to me at the same time: a curiosity full of difficulties, and even of dangers, in a country where lives are lost for the slightest indiscretion. I’ve sometimes traveled entire kingdoms thus, drawn by two eyes that bore some resemblance to yours. Can you imagine what I experienced when, after having followed the adored image from oasis to oasis, I suddenly saw it disappear into a harem or a slave-market, happy again when I could follow it there and buy it myself!

The peris and apsaras, which are very malicious in this land, are well aware of my distress; they abuse it cruelly, to the point of giving me vertigo. Not long ago, I encountered one while crossing a meadow bordered with malati flowers. The figure, the bearing, the gait…it was you! A familiar serpent, as blue as the sky, preceded her at a distance of fifteen paces. She was going toward the gulf of Golconda, singing in a low voice that tune you know so well: “Merlin! Merlin!”

I follow her, I approach. She draws away. I reach out my arm, I call out. Finally, I catch up. She lifts her veil. Great God! What a face, dazzling with all the fires of dawn! But it wasn’t you.

She saw my mistake; she pursed her lips with chagrin, and avenged herself with a burst of laughter; after which she left me alone, lost in the forest of bamboo, cabbage-palms and prickly pears that separates the Euphrates from the Indus. Every day something similar happens to me.

From one lure to the next, here I am, relegated to the place where the world ends, on the edge of the sea of Bengal, where red-clad illusions make their abode in emerald grottoes beneath forests of coral. I’ve been vain enough to believe that you were waiting for me n this place, and it’s certain that as soon as I’d come down to the shore I thought I saw your diamond necklace undone and scattered in the sands. Was it yours, in fact? I made a chaplet of it, which I wear around my waist. So, Viviane, you have played with me all the way to the edge of the world.

Where shall I go henceforth, unless to plunge myself into the unfathomable abyss from which so many crystalline voices are calling to me, echoing from reef to reef?

Retrace my steps? Go back over the same deceptive traces by which, this time, I’ll no longer allow myself to be led astray? Everything is becoming insipid to me. The god-infants that I encounter here, everywhere, floating on lotus flowers, no longer interest me. I can’t abide their eternal wailing; I’ve come to hate their stupid smiles.

How, Viviane, can I stifle this fire that is reborn of its own accord, in this poor soul that is devouring itself without being able to annihilate itself?

If you really are the virgin of the Alps, as you often say, chill my heart again with your breath.

Speak softly to me to send me to sleep, as you did in the heather of Brittany. I too am an uprooted spring of heather, which has never flowered.

If you wanted to, there would still be time. I recently visited a banana plantation—a veritable Eden—in a forest of sandalwood, near the garden of a young woman named Sacontala.124 Say one word, just one, and I will build my cabin there, in the venerable shadow of the baobab where the foremost enchanter of this land, Valmiki,125 wrote his gigantic works on bamboo bark. May I imitate him one day!

The Ganges rises in our domain. There are thousands of pearl-gray bengalis in this locale whose songs, petulance and sparkling eyes would please you immediately. Sacontala, in the midst of her antelopes and gazelles, would be our only company. For me, I would not want any other. She is waiting for you with great impatience, merely on the basis of the description of you that I have given her. You would do well, I think, to bring a few assorted fabrics from Lyon and Bruges for her, a thimble and a few packets of English needles, of which she is entirely deprived. She is taming a gazelle for you, and I know that she’s preparing in secret a calabash and a rush mat, with which she wants to surprise you.

Here, we shall forget the overly agitated world of Arthus, and the concerns of courts. Soon, the world would forget us. Time would pass without encountering us in its paces. We would be like the recluses, of whom I know a great number here. When I ask them how old they are, they reply: “I’m the same age as the forest.”

Once again, what prevents us from commencing eternity here? Why adjourn hour after hour what it would be so easy for us to grasp today? We’d have a favorite elephant that would kneel at your door, to receive you in a tower of ebony or ivory. It only requires one liana to lead it; it’s the gentlest of creatures. When you pass along the bank of the Ganges, I can already see the king of rivers following you and bathing the soles of your feet, covering them with pearls.

We would only have one servant, a pariah, who cultivates kousa and whose hut is hidden in the jungle thickets. No enslavement, in any case, no constraint. Bananas and breadfruit in abundance. As for our clothes, you wouldn’t even need to think about them. The bark of a mango-tree, or a coconut-palm, and a baobab leaf, would easily suffice for an entire season.

If this letter reaches you, of which I have no doubt, tell me exactly what you think of my establishment plan. Write to me at the Pillars of Hercules. It’s a place that opportunities to reach are frequent. I’ll be there in the month of tempests at the latest.

 

P.S. I waited for a long time on the Malabar shore for a valiant people, the Portuguese, who ought to arrived one day in order to connect by a magic chain the Tagus and the Indus. I expected at any moment to see their lateen sails on the horizon, but my patience ran out.

Adamastor, the spirit of the tempest—you know him—had sworn to bar the passage. I’ve ordered him to open the doors to the Orient to them himself, on their ruby hinges, and he’s promised to obey.

Let them come, then, those sons of Lusus, to whom I extend my arms! Let them come! I respire in advance the glory of that fearless people, as one breathes at a distance the moist odor of the aquatic flowers of a continent long before seeing them emerge from the bosom of the warm oceanic plain.

Everything here has been prepared by my care for their hearts not to be afflicted by homesickness. I’ve suspended your necklace of precious stones and pearls on the embalmed shore, as the golden fleece once was, as the signal recompense for those new Argonauts. It’s for them that the nutmeg-tree, the flowering sandalwood and the date-palms are crowned with wild lianas.

Not content with these gifts, I’ve engraved their eulogy in verse in the harmonious grotto of Goa. How astonished they will be, on seeing that the renown of their feats has preceded them to this extremity of the world and that the echo of the Maldives already resounds to the fanfares of Portuguese clarions! On that day, they’ll be consoled for the absence of the cherished fatherland. They’ll wonder what hand was able to write their history in this place before they had landed here. Perhaps a young Portuguese woman with moist eyes the color of wild mulberries will reply: “It’s Merlin! Why was I not the one he loved?”

Such is the sole recompense I desire from those sons of the Occident, as the price of the sparkling realms of the dawn that I abandon to them as I leave.