BOOK TWENTY-FOUR: TRIUMPH! O TRIUMPH!

 

 

I

 

They’re finished, the voyages of the three lives. Others will travel the same path, but not me. It’s necessary for me to say goodbye here to all the serene things that have given me peace.

Friends, I replace in your hands the hazel-branch that has enabled me to penetrate into the land of Merlin without fear of going astray. Hang on—here are the keys to the enchanted worlds. Open them in your turn. You know now how easy the route is through the innumerable halls of the house of justice.

At the place where I stopped, you’ll find other horizons, which I’ve been obliged to abandon. They’ll belong to you as soon as you set foot there.

Let your intelligence take wing. When you’ve found those new places, you’ll think to yourselves: “These places please us, they promise to be very beautiful. But he’s the one who opened them to us.”

For myself, I’m stopping; and I’m doing so like those who separate from an old friend who has retained them for a long time under his roof, and whom they despair of ever seeing again. They hasten their farewell, in order not to give the tears time to arrive.165

 

II

 

What became of Hell, though, deprived of its chief?

Hell, having been liberated, devoid of a guardian and master, devoured itself.

Until then, Merlin’s father had maintained in the abyss an order that rendered it habitable to the accursed. No one had dared to infringe a single one of is commandments. His will reigned supreme; that was the law of all. Everyone knew what his legitimate torture was, and remained attached to it. Everyone rendered to dolor exactly what he owed to dolor. There was no usurpation in the eternal fall. There was a regulation in despair.

When the chief of the abyss had disappeared, to begin with, all the accursed searched for him, for a long time, because they were accustomed to his authority, and they did not believe that they could live for a moment without the one who filled the vast inferno with his thought.

“Where is he?” said the accursed to the darkness. “When will he return?”

And the shadows of darkness replied: “We don’t know where he is.”

“Keep searching,” said the demons. “You’re his counselors.”

“We’ve searched,” the darkness replied.166 “We haven’t been able to find him.”

Then a flash of joy passed through Hell, for each of the accursed began to hope that he might replace the chief of the abyss. All of them looked simultaneously, with an oblique gaze, in the direction of the funereal throne, and, seeing it empty for the first time, each of them promised himself to sit down there, in the place of the one who had disappeared.

Immediately, the one who was closest to the infernal throne climbed its steps and shouted: “Console yourselves! I’ll replace the one you have lost, and will be a veritable father to you, which he has never been. In spite of appearances, I’m full of kindness. Only obey me as you obeyed him. All will be well. I’m a partisan of progress. I’ll carry out reforms.”

That was what he said. But know that there was not a single power in the abyss, no matter how petty, that did not enter into fury at those words. The smallest and the greatest alike all wanted, equally and with the same frenzy, to be the King of Hell; and each one roared: “Be careful! There are angels in disguise here!”

There was then an uninterrupted succession of tyrants of the abyss who passed over the throne that none of them could hold for more than a moment. Scarcely had one of them occupied it than he was overturned and torn apart by the crowd. Even though it was only for a moment, however, each one took advantage of it to change the old established order of tortures, with the result that the evil was revived hour after hour; it changed and was renewed, rotating like the wheel of a chariot drawn by winged horses. Tortures succeeded one another with a prodigious rapidity—or, rather, were inflicted all at once, at the same time, on every one of the damned. A long scream went up. All the wretched said: “Where is the old king of dolors? His reign was more just.”

And nothing in the world can give any idea of the force of Hell turned against Hell. It set about destroying itself with a hundred times more fury than it had ever put into destroying the work of Heaven, for it was the dupe of all its own traps; the grossest were those that pleased it the most. It fell infallibly into all its ambushes.

Then Malacoda, the most paltry, the most impotent of demons, always crawling, always sniggering, shouted in his high-pitched voice: “It’s me who ought to reign.”

“No,” replied Taillecosse,167 “it’s me.”

“Rather than let him reign,” howled a third voice, “let Hell perish!”

That voice was that of Merlin’s father, who had heard the frantic cries of the accursed resounding in his heart.

He arrives; he is carrying in his iron belt the rusty keys of the abyss. He alone knows what a twisted column supports that entire edifice, so terrible and so fragile, which he was charged with repairing and sustaining while time undermined it.

He draws near to it.

“I shall perish, but they will perish with me.”

As he finishes those words, he topples the column of his temple, already worn away at the base. The prodigious vaults that form the basilica of Hell all collapse together. Immense mountain plateaux slide into the valley. They leave behind them bare, eroded slopes that the accursed populations resident at their feet can to longer climb.

So the herdsmen of Goldau were surprised in the night by the collapse of the natal mountain. They were sleeping in their chalets, lying on the litter of dead leaves, after having marked the herds that they had to conduct the next day to the pastures of the verdant alp, because the season had arrived. The alp slid from the summit with the monstrous moraines; it collapsed over the pastures before the heifers and the bull could be untied in the stable. The stripped rock retained an immense wound on its face that no century could efface. Zug, you have howled your wrath there; and you, Uri, you are still uttering roars!168

In the same way, the pastors of souls who lived on tortures were taken by surprise. The funereal sun, which illuminated them dimly, is veiled and extinguished. The sea of fire flows away and dried up. In the distance, one last red wave fades way in the sands.

The ramparts of fire have fallen, and the chains are broken. But the imprisoned souls, accustomed to torture, dare not seize liberty. The immense servile proletariat remains lying and crawling in the ditches of dolor. They do not have the courage to escape the cowardly torments that have become life itself. Nourished by serpents, the greater number has acquired a taste for the inferno. How could they dream of rising from the depths of their extinct sepulchers? Seeing it devour itself, they wait, stupidly, for a new inferno to emerge from new darkness.

In that human sea, only a few souls dared to stand upright in the face of eternal dolor, and they saw it disappear. They appeared from a distance like the white sail of a vessel on a boundless Ocean. Among them surged forth the most ancient of the damned, who preceded all the others in evil and in punishment. Centuries of torture did not seem to have wearied him.

“Get up, Brothers!” said Cain to the troop of humans. “Out of here! Hell is finished!”

These words were repeated by those who had dared to raise their heads. Then the trembling souls emerged one after another from their torture beds, and, seeing that Hell was indeed collapsing, started to flee like people emerging hastily by night from a town shaken by an earthquake.

They fled, and none of the demons thought of pursuing them, so intent were they on destroying one another. In the anarchy of Hell, they had even forgotten to close the gates of the city of mourning. The souls exempted from torment hastened toward that gate; they passed through it; they saw the light again. Thus was realized Merlin’s prophecy: “The dust of the ancestors will be renewed.”

 

III

 

At the din of Hell’s collapse, Merlin felt the sepulcher shaking. His father, deprived of shelter, astonished to survive, disinherited and proscribed, had wanted to remain in the ruins of the empire of dolors. The two of them met in that vast abyss. They both searched for the effaced frontiers of the accursed realms.

Anyone who has climbed to the summit of Vesuvius or Etna at midnight in warm ash over trembling ground, cut by rivers of fire, from which the heavy respiration of giants exhales, can imagine the calcined road along which the last two pilgrims of Hell were walking.

As they went forward, Satan recognized the places that were most familiar to him.

“What a strange thing memory is!” he said. “I like seeing once again these places where all the wrath of Heaven was used up upon my head.”

And he pointed out the debris of his throne to his companion. They both sat down on the extinct ashes; they listened for some time. Instead of the gnashing of teeth that had filled the place, no sound could be heard. Only an occasional breath passed over the ashes, raising them in swirls. No living being had remained in that tenebrous immensity.

“We’re alone,” said Satan. “Everything passes. Even Hell has passed. Will it be thus with Heaven?”

That word case a shadow into Merlin’s soul; he dared not analyze it at first, but he thought secretly about his Guest, and recovered peace.

“At least it’s me who wanted it,” his father went on. “If I had consented to it, Hell would be triumphant still. Now, where is it? I can’t rediscover it in me.”

“Glory to you!”

“O sagest of sages, tell me where the countless multitudes of plaintive souls that once filled these valleys can have taken shelter?”

“In the mercy of Heaven.”

That said, they got up and eventually arrived at the gates, which were still open. At the sight of the inscription in letters of fire: Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, the Enchanter stopped; he would gladly have effaced that motto written by eternal despair, but he did not know whether that was in his power, and he hesitated.

“Let me do it, child—these gates know me.”

And the Accursed lifted them on his shoulders. After having removed them from their hinges, he hurled them into the depths of the pool of tears.

A little further on, he perceived brands that were reigniting; he extinguished them with his hot foot. An immense sigh was heard in the depths of the gulfs.

“That’s the death-rattle of Hell. Listen.” Then, after a pause: “Once again, Merlin, I and I alone destroyed the inferno. My punishment, I inflicted upon myself.”

“I’m witness to that.”

“I alone have delivered the world from that which was its terror, and the world will mock me for it. I’m already repenting of it, as a suicide—but the evil I’ve destroyed, I could remake.”

“Don’t regret it, Father. From all that I can see, the time of reconciliation has come. The best day of my life will be the one when I announce that to the world.”

“All well and good, my son. That’s precisely what costs me the most. I’ve been able to overturn Hell, but to confess it to the world is truly beyond my strength.”

“It would be the simplest ceremony.”

“At least don’t invite, as you too often have the habit of doing, worlds, spheres, comets and—what do I know?—the Milky Way as witnesses. If the thing has to be done, let it at least be done without a fuss. I’ve acquired a taste for simplicity. Let it be a family affair, then. Two or three witnesses sufficed, I believed for the creation. It would be materially impossible for me to bear, as before, the mocking gaze of all the assembled suns.”

“Choose your own witnesses.”

“Well, let’s see: your most intimate friends, Jacques, Archbishop Turpin and Prester John.”

“So be it!” replied Merlin, whose heart was overflowing with joy.

He carefully refrained from contradicting his father on one detail when, by dint of precaution, he had been victorious in almost all the rest.

“You, and you alone will be my tutelary demon,” he went on.

While these things were happening, the smallest of the spirits of evil, Farfadel, thanks to that vey smallness, had succeeded in escaping the destruction of Hell. He was meditating in isolation on that great ruin, and saying to himself: “That’s what it costs to counterfeit Heaven! We wanted to be too fine, too clever. We’re the ones who created Merlin, and its Merlin who has doomed us. Hell has been the dupe of Hell; it always will be.”

He fell silent, hoping than eye would perceive him in the ruins. A voice became audible in the distance, clear, high-pitched and silvery. Farfadel was afraid of being caught. He hid his head under his wing and covered up his ears with both hands, for that voice was saying from the depths of Heaven:

“Come back, Merlin, Merlin! There is no other enchanter but God!”

 

IV

 

The great day of reconciliation had come. Without Merlin having let his secret escape, the entire universe had divined it, so no more radiant sun had ever risen. There was not a bird that was not singing on its branch. The flowers from the height of their stems, seemed to be awaiting a visitor. Only the peoples had no presentiment of what was in preparation. They are sometimes much less well-informed of great secrets than the birds and the flowers; often, they are even deaf to the trumpets of the archangels and blind to the light of the midday sun.

At the hour marked by Merlin, a veiled pilgrim was seen to appear at the entrance to his tomb; he was accompanied by Prester John, Turpin and Jacques.

“What do you want?” Merlin asked.

“Peace.”

“I give it to you, Father; speak. Who are you?”

“The King of Hell,” replied the pilgrim, raising his hood.

At these words, his three companions recoiled in horror. They were about to run away; Merlin recalled them hastily.

“He’s my father,” he said to them. “My true father, in flesh and blood. He asks for peace. Friends, will you refuse it to him?”

“Kneel!” said Turpin. “Let him fall to his knees!”

“That’s not necessary,” put in Prester John.

“At least let him confess!” said Turpin.

“Peace! Listen. And you, world, be quiet.”

“I confess,” said the pilgrim, “to the torrent, to the unleashed tempest, to the sand of the Syrian sea, to the flowers of the forest, to the volcano that still burns.”

“Why those?” asked Turpin.

“Because,” the pilgrim replied, “my heart is more impetuous than the torrent, my soul more arid than the sand, my thoughts stormier than the tempest and more burning than the volcano, and because my works are more fragile than the woodland flowers.”

“Is that your Confiteor?”

“Don’t get into an argument with him,” Prester John put in.

“But what guarantee of his change has he given?”

“The destruction of Hell,” replied the king of Hell.

“Write that down,” said Merlin to Archbishop Turpin. “It ought to suffice.”

Turpin wrote down what he had just heard and seen.

The Enchanter ought to have many reflections to make on what had just happened, and his companions lent their ears in advance, but he feared more than anything else the impatience of his father, who was already showing a few signs of it. That is why he abbreviated the ceremony and contented himself with saying: “You are witnesses to the conversion of Satan. Go spread the news of it. It is, incontrovertibly, the greatest of my prodigies.”

For a long time, humans refused all credence to that news. When Jacques went to spread it in the cities, they closed his mouth. He had remained so credulous and had so little in his external appearance that his testimony had no authority. Turpin inspired more respect, but it was said that he had more imagination than intelligence and more intelligence than judgment. As for Prester John, he passed for a heretic. So the crowd assembled in front of Merlin’s tomb said, with a common voice: “How can we believe in the conversion of Satan? Undoubtedly, that’s just one lie more. Who will be his guarantor?”

“Me,” replied the tomb.

“You, Merlin?”

“In person.”

And with that, Merlin closed the vent of his sepulcher, which trembled and almost collapsed for a second time.

 

V

 

Meanwhile, at the splash as the gates of Hell were precipitated into the pool of tears by Merlin’s father, King Arthus had sighed; then he had extended his arms, felt his couch, bitten his lips and opened his eyes. Finally, he had raised himself up on his elbow. Jacques had hastened to present him with a cup of mead and a bottle of extravagant wine, sure that the sleeper as about to go to sleep again, as had so often happened.

Nothing of the sort—on the contrary, Arthus stood up, buckled on his sword and rubbed his eyes. He met Jacques’ gaze.

“My cup-bearer must have given me poppy, for it seems to me that my sleep has been longer and heavier than usual.”

Jacques excused himself without difficulty for that beverage, and to demonstrate his innocence, drank what remained in the cup. But as he feared reproaches, and had never had any exact notion of time anyway, he contented himself with replying: “The night has been long and rainy. The best thing was to sleep. Have you had a dream, sire?”

“Several, and all more strange than pleasant,” replied Arthus, in slightly Gothic language, in which the rust of time was detectable. “Remember what I say; this was the main one. I would have sworn that many centuries were devouring one another like unmuzzled bloodhounds, that many kingdoms were collapsing, that peoples were succeeding one another hastily, generations passing, like flowers or shadows, battles ranging; and, incredibly, languages were changing, along with laws and customs. Have you heard anything similar, you who have remained awake?”

“Something like that.”

“Furthermore, I heard peoples panting, like wild boar tracked to the lair.”

“Exactly.”

“And more than one altar was poorly incensed; the very face of the heavens changed.”

“As witness David’s chariot, which has lost its helm.”

“There were also kings without heads and queens who sat down on the ground and wept.”

“That’s been seen, sire.”

“After every one of these changes, I always found you again, Jacques, warming yourself at the same fire, half-extinct and half-flamboyant; and you were always more deceived and more miserable than before.

“That’s the truth, good King!”

“It seemed to me, too, that the desolate earth was calling me to its rescue, and I made a prodigious effort to arrive in time—but can you imagine that a quantity of dwarfs was holding me villainously, one by the foot, another by the arm, some by the hair, some by my baldric; and thanks to that host of gnomes, a good number of which were wearing crowns or miters, I couldn’t take a single step forward! Rancor and felony! That was the time, or never, to assist me, Jacques; you didn’t do anything. In the end, a loud noise, like a door being torn from its hinges, woke me up. What noise might that have been?”

“Seigneur Merlin will explain everything,” Jacques replied.

“But where is he?”

“Nearby, in his sepulcher.”

“What! He’s dead! Weep, peoples! When shall we ever see another sage like him?”

“He’s buried, but his wisdom is twice as great.”

“Let’s go visit him then.”

 

VI

 

At that moment, the sun, emerging from the edge of a black cloud, poured a cascade of flame over Arthus’ white armor; the horizon was dazzled by it.

By that sign, Merlin recognized the Monarch of Virtues, who was advancing slowly, in his glory, surrounded by his trusty friends. For the first time, the tomb weighed upon him. He would have liked to launch himself out of the funereal tower to meet the man who, alive or dead, he had always loved as his legitimate King. Too impatient, he shook the bronze doors that separated him from the living on their hinges; but his efforts were futile. He groaned dully, under the ground.

Then he resolved to give the King the best welcome he could in the enclosure of death. For that, he instructed Viviane and his son to weave garlands in haste, with which he crowned the twenty ventilation shafts of his dwelling. He released a number of birds with double eyelids, all of which bore this motto around their necks:

Death has remained faithful to sleep.

At the same time, he hoisted his tumulary banner, clouded with the brightest colors, fringed with gold, which blazed in the early morning light, so vividly that it was mistaken from afar for a joyous rainbow. How he would have liked be the first to offer King of the Future the bread and wine of honor, and the keys to his dwelling! But he could not think of any way to do it. All that he could imagine was to renew the oil in the enchanted lamp, tune his harp, alert the dead and make the subterranean regions resonate to the fanfares of the sepulcher—with the result that the flag-decked tomb was filed with a joy so profound that it radiated fully outside.

When these preparations were complete, the expected king was very near, and Merlin, with his family beside him, greeted him with these words:

“I salute you, great King Arthus! Come, come, great king of justice. Everything here among us is yours: yours the tomb, yours also the Interred. Many kings, sire, have passed over the earth, handsome, young, long-haired, amorous of battles. They came, triumphant, to ask my advice for the sake of appearances, fundamentally deaf, impatient to disobey me; they went away in mourning, bald, wrinkled, limping, and curbed by the years. You alone, Sire, have retained your youthful vigor. How little you have changed! Time has been impotent against you. Such as I left you in Lutèce, in the most beautiful days of my life, I see you again.”

At these words, Viviane and Merlin’s son let fall in front of the King, by way of homage, a white rain of apple-blossom, in which he rejoiced more than any other gift.

Touched by that welcome, the King graciously held out his hand to the Enchanter; if he had dared, he would have allowed his tears to flow. “Yes, it’s me, Merlin! My God protect you in joy! Your fidelity pleases me, and does not astonish me. Your honor has been preserved without stain in that sepulcher. I wish to Heaven that no one had erred more than you!”

“Thank you, sire. Since the day I saw your crown, I have not saluted any other.”

“O antique fidelity!” Arthur replied. “Heart of gold! Pillar of my house! How sweet it is for a king to rediscover a friend whom neither adversity nor time, not even the tomb, has been able to change!”

“A hundred times,” said Merlin, “I feared that I would never see you again. I begged death very quietly not to close my eyes until I had had that joy. ‘Implacable Death,’ I said, ‘sacred Death, enable me to see him one day, if only for an hour, in this place, at the base of this tower, and I will not dispute with you the portion of myself that remains to me.’ That, Sire, is how I spoke to her. She has been kind, and I thank her. My only pain, today, is not to be able to place in your hands the homage-liege of my sepulcher. If, Sire, I could offer hospitality here at least for a day, in my hall of honor, to you and your knights, your friends and Madame Genièvre, and your nephew Tristan, and all your people and their horses, whose proud whinnies I can hear from here, the memory of it would be eternal. Forgive me, great King of the just. It is neither ill-will nor avarice of the heart.”

And the good Merlin wept.

“Console yourself, friend,” Arthus replied. “I know that you possess nothing in that tenebrous place that is not your King’s. But you can still serve me, with a loyal heart, in the tomb where you are lying—to emerge one day, to our honor. Explain my dreams to me.”

“You have only to interrogate,” the Enchanter replied.

“Listen. In that night without dusk or dawn, have I dreamed everything, then?”

“There was also something real, Sire. Every time that your majesty shifted on side, the world turned over from top to bottom.”

“Did that happen to me often?”

“Enough.”

“How many times in the night?”

“Twenty or thirty.”

“And if I moved my head, what happened?”

“France shook her head.”

“And if I moved my arm?”

“Rome fell.”

“If the feet?”

“The Lombard snake reared up and bit the German worm. It announced its presence to its young with long hisses.”

“If the legs?”

“The marches of Germany began to tremble.”

“When I propped myself up on my elbow?”

“The Gaulish boar sharpened its teeth on the rock.”

“When I sat up?”

“Brittany, Germany and Sicambria threw off the bit fabricated in Italy.”

“And if I sighed?”

“Vesuvius and Sicily trembled.”

“And if I cried out?”

“The lion of justice roared, and its roars shook the towers of Gaul.”

Thus Merlin explained King Arthus’ dreams to him; the latter showed his contentment. At the same time as the monarch, his knights, his cavaliers and his courtiers stood at the base of the funereal tower and said, one after another: “It’s true, then, Merlin, that you didn’t deceive us in promising us an awakening?”

“Hard-hearted people, you can believe me now. Are you awake or asleep?”

“Awake, to be sure—but in the name of Heaven, let us not sleep the long slumber again. The dreams are too heavy.”

Here Jacques, after having hesitated for a long time, dared to interrupt he courtiers, for a muted desire as gnawing him, and he could not contain himself any longer. “I see here many barons, knights and men of the court,” he said, “but where are my companions of the plow that I left dormant in the stables? Where are the drowsy serfs? Why have they been forgotten? I’ll go myself to wake them up and sing their songs—or is the good awakening for barons alone?”

Then Arthus, seeing that jealousy was making him speak, smiled the smile of justice and replied: “Peace, friend! Look in this direction with me and cease to be envious. Do you know those who are following me?”

Jacques looked behind him. He saw the great populations of serfs who were emerging in a swarm from the glebe, all awake like the king, bewildered, their eyes wide. They seemed never to have been sleeping the brazen slumber. At that sight, he repented of having shown so much envy, and swore that he would correct himself.

The earth also emerged from its torpor; the flowers were ashamed of appearing drowsy, the butterflies quit their cocoons, and the serpents shed their skin.

That ensured that Merlin’s renown was then at its peak. He recovered at that moment all the favor he had lost on earth and in Heaven. People reproached themselves or having doubted him.

“Great God, what injustice!” was murmured on all sides. “It’s true, then, that the best are always the most misunderstood.”

That sudden return of the world toward Merlin also profited Jacques. He was no longer regarded with pity when he passed by, like a simple soul. Far from it; he was admired for having been alone in conserving a vague hope for so long, in spite of appearances. His past credulity appeared as an advertisement of Heaven. Even then, however, he still remained incredulous, as will be seen in one of the subsequent chapters, in which we shall also learn how difficult it was for the dead nations to be resuscitated.

 

 

 

 

VII

 

Walking in the woods, Jacques found the Sleeping Beauty at the food of an ivy-clad tower; her head on her arm, she was dreaming about love. By her side, on the same virgin grass, also asleep, was a person that the gods had once plunged into a similar divine sleep. It was the handsome Endymion.

At the noise of Jacques’ clogs on the stony path, they both raised their eyelids slightly and turned over. Without being aware of it, they wrapped their arms around one another while dreaming, like the elm and the vine. Jacques saw them: it annoyed him. He shook them, the one by her ducal mantle of sable fur and her cape, the other by his tunic of Tyrian purple.

Eventually, both of them opened their eyes. They both sat up, and then rose to their feet. They were both astonished to find one another so beautiful; they were also astonished to have been lying down for such a long time and sleeping beside one another. The Beauty blushed, still full of an amorous languor that increased her beauty.

“I was dreaming about you,” Endymion said to her.

“And I, Seigneur, saw you in a dream, in my Gothic manor.”

“Are you not Cynthia, the moon with the moist silver face?”

“Me, Cynthia? You’re still dreaming, Monseigneur. Are you not my fiancé, the Prince des Ardennes?”

“Me, the Prince des Ardennes! Open your eyes. I’m Endymion.”

“Don’t play that game, Seigneur. What would the barons say? Come on, let’s go back to the old château. I’ve already lingered too long in his shady wood.”

Let’s go instead to my grotto in Latmos, carpeted with hyacinths. It’s too long since I’ve watered my goats; they’ll perish of thirst.”

“Listen, Monseigneur. Here the sound of bells. The chaplain is calling us, to marry us at the altar in the gilded chapel.”

“Listen to the bagpipe! The nymphs are calling us to my cavern to sing: ‘Hymen! O Hymen!’”

“Are you a pagan then, my sweet seigneur? Since when and how? But what does it matter? Come, I’ll convert you!”

While they were speaking thus, Jacques, without listening to them, led them directly to Madame Viviane, who invited the Sleeping Beauty to climb up next to her, under a ruby awning.

“Where is my lover, then?” she said, as she said down.

“Have patience, Madame. Your lover is on the threshold; he’s putting on his carmine suit.”

“And my courtiers?”

“They’ll come, Madame; they’re putting on their livery.”

“And my morning gifts?”

“Here they are, Madame,” Viviane replied, offering her a casket filled with pearls of dew and, laughing with surprise, she entertained both of them thus for as long as the dawn lasted.

 

VIII

 

Arthur having awoken, Merlin immediately sought information regarding the dead nations buried alongside him in his own tomb. He sent his servant to take his message outside and call them by their names, to the powerful sound of the Alpine horn. Jacques, not receiving any response, thought of singing to them in his loudest voice, dragging out each syllable, the three verses of the following aubade:

 

Now the star is paling;

And the singing swallow awakes,

Sleeping peoples, get out of bed!

The silver dawn is smiling!

 

What says the watchman on the tower?

He says: shame on those who sleep!

Get up, peoples it’s daytime

The silvery dawn is paling.

 

Crowned with gold and jasmine,

Day is ablaze in the orchard,

What azure field appears out there?

Get up, peoples, there’s your road!

 

Hardened as they were, however, the nations refused to put any trust in Jacques’ aubades. After having jeered at him to the point of drawing more than one tear, they went back to sleeping the slumber of the dead.

It was, therefore, necessary for Merlin himself to come to them, indignantly, and he shouted, in a voice that broke his sepulcher:

“Idle nations, get up! Arthus has woken up!”

At the same time, he armed himself with a whip, which he caused to resound in the subterranean world; and the quadrigas, impatient to see the daylight again, stirred beneath the vast porticos hollowed out in the tomb.

 At that noise, new for them, the dead nations awoke; they groped around them searching for the festival garments that had been prepared for them; then, clad in luminous red, they climbed into their chariots and reappeared in the daylight, young and bright, so that they seemed as many new, autumnal dawns fleeing the domain of darkness.

Which was the one that reappeared in the light first and rendered to the world a part of the lost ancient joy? Is that you, Italy, that I see hastening so rapidly from the scarcely-open tomb? Oh, be careful of the unproven path that skirts the mountains on the edge of the Adige. Have the prophet climb into your chariot in order that he might guide your horses intoxicated by the sun. If you were precipitated once again into the bloody waves of the Tiber or the Oglio, no one could save you.

Is that you passing by, Poland? You glide over the hardened snow without leaving the imprint of your rapid course therein. The false aurora is blinding you. Mistrust that which you have loved too much; that road leads to the sepulcher.

Is that you pulling ahead of the others, Hungary, whose frightened horses are still respiring death? Take pity on those you have trampled for too long, and see that they are still ready to hate you. Don’t make them repent of having wept for you.

Is that you, Rumania, the most deeply buried?

Is that you, O most beloved…?

But the dust rises us beneath their feet and prevents me from discerning which is the first to emerge from the sepulcher. I only see that the gentle light of lost and rediscovered day has intoxicated them with a blind joy; already they would be lost a second time, and would already have taken the road to death again, if the prophet, without consulting them, had not climbed on to their chariots.

He guided them himself, by the best road, over the open threshold of the sepulcher, until they had accustomed themselves again to the dazzling light of the living. Then he reclosed the door of his tomb behind them and placed a large stone there that none of them could lift.

In vain lassitude, custom, indolence of heart and fear of the morrow rendered them, at moments, a taste for the sepulcher; they found it sealed; they could not get back in.

The first thing the conductor of peoples enjoined them to do, as soon as they had quit the threshold of the tomb, was to go to the noble Arthus. He welcomed them with a cheerful countenance, with the serene majesty that he had brought back from the vestibule of death; they confided mutually what dreams they had had during the night that had amassed over them; all of them, finding themselves better, without too much glory, no longer insulted anything but the darkness.

Arthur was astonished that his profound wound was closed; he would have liked to ask how it was that his blood had ceased to flow. The most heartbroken peoples also put their hands on their wounds. They consulted one another as to what had happened to them. Was it a sudden faint? Was it slumber, a dream? Was it death?

All of them looked at their nearest funeral companions and were astonished to find them alive. All of them sensed that Merlin had accomplished the prodigy while they were buried, but none of them dared to say of their wound: “Will it ever reopen?” Merely to think it would have been to die a second time.

 

IX

 

With things thus ordered, Merlin went to sit down on the threshold of his tomb; and, whip in hand, he chased away the nations as they reappeared, ready to plunge into it again. Seeing that several of them had avoided his surveillance, and that a number of people were coldly advising them to go and repose in death, he took the wisest course: that of destroying his sepulcher—which was already considerably worm-eaten and undermined, almost collapsing—with his own hands; it could only serve any longer as a dangerous refuge from night and rapine.

With the aid of his companions, the number of which was swelled by all the men of good will he could find, he patiently demolished his sepulcher, inside and out—but not without warning passers-by in advance when the great walls fell. He left one rock standing, similar to the Tourmagne of Nîmes; but soon, that still seemed too much; he only left one stone, on which he came to sit at dusk, having also planted around it a few bushy trees: walnut-trees, sycamores, plane-trees, chestnut-trees, tulip-trees and Judas trees with fiery red clusters of flowers. He had brought back from the tomb a love of beautiful shade: the only thing by which you would have recognized that he had been buried.

In that favorite place, he liked to tread on his tombstone, and to remember what he had said and done in the sepulcher. It was there that he arranged to meet his friends and most enjoyed working in peace; for he had no need to speak—to those who came to seek some hope, the location, the brute stone, spoke sufficiently for him.

He liked nothing better than the naïve surprise of good people who passed close by; there was not one who did not ask: “Where, then, is Merlin’s tomb? The entrance was here, and it extended a long way into the surrounding region, but we can no longer see any trace of it. Has Merlin taken his sepulcher away, like a tent or the caravan of some shepherd?”

Then they were afraid and began to flee. Soon, they turned their heads and changed their minds; and then, discovering Merlin in the sparkling evening light, sitting and smiling on the debris of his tombstone, between Viviane and his son, the reawakened people joined hands and formed an immense round dance around him.

To the poorest, he always gave some of the savings that he had accumulated in death. It was some cloak, some still-virgin diamond, or a provision of food, or a cordial to revive the dead. All were received with pleasure.

And everyone was delighted to see how easy it is for a free soul to wear away and abolish its tomb.

 

X

 

“Are you, then, a God or a son of God?” said Jacques to Merlin as soon as they found themselves alone. He would have liked to worship him and make him a fourth person in his Credo. He even made him a little ex-voto in secret, a simulacrum of lead that represented the sage Merlin—rather crudely, it’s true—as a little rustic, sylvan divinity; and he suspended that amulet in the debris of an ancient chapel, once consecrated to nymphs. Having lit two clay lamps, he put two grains of incense next to it.

Merlin, who soon perceived that crude worship, did everything possible to oblige Jacques to renounce it. He could not abide his servant taking him for a god, and he explained in a tone that permitted no resistance:

“Will you always confuse me with the Invisible, with the only true wisdom, the only true greatness? If I have a spark of him, am I, like him, eternal light? Oh, how far I am from that, my friend! I know full well that by means of that ex-voto—you ought, in all conscience, have sculpted it a little less crudely—you think that you’re honoring me, but, apart from the fact that the material is vile and the work barbaric, know, and may I never have to say it again, that you’re only humiliating me by confusing me with all the fairground spirits that have deceived your good faith.

“You want to honor me, you say, but you don’t see that you’re crucifying me with that image of lead, as if I had stolen  from the only sage, the only worthy individual, the only seer, compared with whom you and I are only dust. The things that I do astonish you, my son, but there’s no need to be a god to do them. One day, if you follow my advice, you’ll do them yourself, perhaps better than me. Magic isn’t always necessary. But what is necessary, I admit, is more courage than is commonly shown, even nowadays.”

Having spoken thus, he put out the two lamps, and returned the incense to the earth.

 

XI

 

In the meantime, Jacques wanted nothing more than to return to his village; he received leave to do that; and his heart almost failed him when, arriving in the evening. He saw the thatched roofs fuming above the wood bordering the Crau. He looked for the shortest path, but the long grass had covered it long ago.

Informed of his return, his best friends came to meet him on the other side of the stream. The first he perceived, coming out of the thickets, were the blond Polonius, Jonathan the Yankee, John the Englishman, with whom he was reconciled, Gauthier of Gascogny, Gustin the Bressan, still in clogs, Pancho the Araucanian, Tobie the Black, Herrman the Teuton, Zerbino the Lombard, Stefan the Rumanian, Marko the Serb and many others. They were the first who kissed his cheeks.

After them, entire peoples said that they were his family. They had him pass under arcades of flowers to where a feast had been set up. All together, you would have thought that they were brothers.

Everyone in the region, shepherds, carters, players of pipes and bagpipes, had assembled and were singing carols.

Where was his hut and his thatched roof? The thatch had been dispersed and the hut was in ruins, but everyone wanted to help him rebuild it; there was no one from far around who did not bring him at least a stone. They put a slate roof on it, and two spiral stairways at the sides, and two shady acacias nearby.

But he, visiting it sadly, said: “Where is my mother? Where are my sisters? What have you done with all my brothers?” And, not seeing them, he wept. A door opened. He saw them all come in, having seemingly just woken up, and his joy was so great that he thought he might die of it.

His dog came out of the thicket too, and came to lick his feet. It did not die, like good Ulysses’ dog, on seeing its master again; on the contrary, it was rejuvenated, and followed him to work many a time.

They felt his garments, without worrying about appearances. Great God, was it really him? They had thought for such a long time that he was dead, or lost, or at least buried. Everyone wanted to know what Arthus and Merlin had said to him while they had disappeared from the world, and he told them, not in the dialect of Bretagne, Bresse or Savoy, but in Parisian French, which they all understood.

And his old companions said: “Jacques! Is that you, Jacques? Have you come back from Hell? You talk better than a king.”

 

XII

 

It is true that, informed by so many adventures, by his periodic conversations with Arthus, and by the sight of Merlin escaped from the tomb, Jacques’ education was better than sketchy. You would have had difficulty recognizing him.

Although he had not lived in the sepulcher, he had seen its shadow, and had contracted something of the clear sight of sages. His eyes, once myopic, always half-closed and blinking, had finally opened to the light of day, and as they were naturally large, wide and well-shaped, his physiognomy had changed completely, to his advantage. As well as his forehead being more serene, his cheeks were better nourished, his hair tidier and his beard less bushy; which, combined with his more assured stride and his tall stature—of which he had not lost an inch—made him a new man, who no longer had anything in common, except with his old probity, with the man or homunculus he had been for so long.

During Arthus’ lethargy he had more than once, when he had nothing else to do, tried the crown on his head; he had accustomed himself to carrying it easily and simply, like a shepherd’s hat. Often, he had kept it on his head while doing his work, sometimes even while sleeping; no one took any notice of it, so much, thanks to habit and the lapse of time, did it seem to suit him.

Utterly disgusted with men of war, he did not forgive them for having dazzled him for such a long time and almost blinded him with the flash of the sword.

As for envy, he no longer had any. Of what could he have been envious? He had all that he wanted, basing his satisfaction on the happiness of others. Content with his peasantry, as with his Frenchness, he no longer denied his ancestors, He blushed to have pretended for a while to be a gentleman.

Certainly, he would have liked to avenge the noble Arthur against all those who had insulted his slumber; he proposed to himself that he do it right away; already he was holding in his hand the blade named Blue Death.169 But Arthus assured him that it would afflict him by drawing it from its scabbard. His glory would be diminished by it; his royal heart was weary of hatred; to forgive would be paying court to him. And those reasons, which would once have made Jacques leap with anger, entered into his heart; so much was it already purified, and penetrated in advance, by the rain of justice that then impregnated the earth, day and night.

 

XIII

 

The next day, at daybreak, he visited his field, which he found fallow and much diminished—but before he had even thought of complaining, it had been increased by a vast area that Hell had left as it retreated, and he found that the new portion was marvelously fertile because of the great abundance of ashes of Gomorrah, mingled with tears, with which it was covered.

Sometimes, while working it, he found beneath the soil a fang, a trident, a broken fork, or a rusty and twisted ring from the infernal chain. His plowshare sometimes ran into a calcined fragment of the furnace, and the abyss resonated beneath the plow. Then, the valiant oxen stopped, frightened by a whiff of sulfur. He took a step back himself. He contemplated the abyss, and was astonished that such a great evil could be destroyed. Then he spurred his oxen, in order to drive them across the uncrossable boundary.

And he sowed the next crop in the furrow of the accursed. He rejoiced to see his crop growing green in the mouth of Hell.

Already he could heard blackbirds whistling where demons had whistled; he saw bullfinches nesting in the debris of Satan’s worm-eaten throne.

Where the circle of the lukewarm had been, he planted his cold-sensitive vines; where the icy region of the gnashing of teeth had been, he grew winter-friendly larches and firs; but in the ditches of bitumen he assembled orange trees, lemon trees and sacred apple trees.

If a smoky lair still remained anywhere, a crevasse or a well of dolor, that was where he set up his press, and the rubicund demon of the vintage, surprised, bound, moaning, tortured and crushed under the stone poured torrents of crimson blood into the vat.

Meanwhile, at the end of a furrow, Merlin’s father lay on the ground in the new grass; he raised his white head through the darnel, and seeing, in the vast plain, still accursed the day before, trees budding, vines flourishing, crops yellowing and the earth amorous beneath garlands of green, he repeated: “Behold my punishment, Jacques! I’m inflicting it on myself.”

 

XIV

 

Jacques got married, not to increase the size of his property, but because Jonathan’s daughter pleased him. During the marriage ceremony, a chaffinch, hidden in the foliage, sang so loudly that it would not have taken much more to drown out the spouses’ ouis. The heavens heard it, and Jacques has several sons, all fair of face and great in heart, courage and audacity. He taught them to read Merlin’s book himself.

At the end of the day, he loved to sit down on the edge of the sea of Brittany, on the cape nearest to the sunset, and there he conversed, beyond the Atlantic, with his friend Jonathan the Yankee, sitting opposite him in the savannahs on the far side of the great Ocean. In the blink of an eye, their words traversed the profound sea. Were they borne by the albatrosses, the dolphins or the winds? Without raising the voice, they were heard from one world to the other.

They talked about the daily work, the crop or the haymaking, sometimes a little business. They enquired after their families and their grandchildren. What new-born peoples, still wailing, could be heard in the cradle? What great breath from on high was passing over their heads? What dreams, good or bad, had they had last night? If assistance was necessary, a word sufficed. If death rose up between them, they aided one another with a sigh.

By that means, the prophecy of Merlin’s book was realized: “Man will converse with man and the two opposite sides of the immense Ocean.”

The days went by in that fashion, similar to one another, the time of Merlin’s triumph having finally come. When everything was prepared, Jacques went in quest of the horses with bronze shoes that with grazing among the pools. For three days he made their litter of magic herbs and verbena; then, having fed them well on fresh gilded barley, he harnessed them to Merlin’s chariot.

 

XV

 

And neither the triumph of Bacchus, who had been believed lost and dead in India, nor that of Osiris swallowed by Typhon, nor that of Adonis devoured by the boar’s teeth, was anything by comparison with the return of Merlin, escaped from the long pilgrimage of death.

His joy on seeing so many old friends again was so great that he almost fainted. He spotted in the crowd some he thought returned to dust, and waved to them. All those who had loved him acclaimed him on the threshold, where they had come to welcome him. All now recognized his power, his wisdom and his generosity.

“Is that really him?” cried the crowd.

Then he felt such a disturbance in his soul that he thought he might die. But at that moment, the doors opened to hymns, and the echo was so powerful that the sources of life were reborn in his heart.

First came the liberated peoples, who were marching, heads erect, as if they had never been bowed down.

Then came Arthus covered by his white shield, in which the sun of justice was mirrored.

Then came the chariots clad in scarlet and crimson, laden with the tributes of the tomb.

Then came Merlin, Viviane and their child, in front of Jacques, who was carrying the harp.

After them, the legions of spirits, with Turpin marching at their head.

After them, the population of exiles—and for that day, they had recovered their robust youth.

In that place, the cortege had formed of all those who had known Merlin and who figure in this story, all those to whom he attached his thought or his gaze momentarily, and all those who had denied, insulted or hated him. Only the indifferent were excluded.

After them came, as in the Olympic fields, fuming quadrigas; they were laden with insignia drawn from Hell.

And, as in Naples on funeral days, a multitude advanced carrying banners; on every floating banner could be read:

Hell is vanquished!

Then, behind Merlin’s chariot, came the spirits of Hell, heads bowed, as prisoners, mute, covered in sweat and in despair, for they believed that they were going to be immolated. From their midst emerged a dull roar, which was that of the abyss. Their hands were not tied behind their backs; they were enchained by their own terror. At their head marched their King, who contained them with a glance. Without speaking, he mastered them, seemingly saying: Follow him! He’s my son!

Momentarily uncertain, the infernal troupe hastened to follow the banner-carriers. But their legion was confused; they marched sightlessly, so dazzled were they by the light of day. They resembled night-birds surprised by the summer sun at the foot of Minerva’s white house.

As they passed by, the nations went pale, fearing that they might break their bonds; but, seeing that they were tamed and prisoners, they resumed following the cortege.

Then came the birds of the woods, with iridescent plumage; they flew, soaring and singing, over the cortege, shading it with their wings.

After them was seen the troupe of bards, poets and all those able to sing hymns. Their voices rise up above the clouds. They looked at one another while they sang: “Triumph! O Triumph!”

Then came the spirits of air, water and fire; they were brandishing thyrses and formed an innumerable multitude; then those who had never emerged from veins of metal and precious stones, but found themselves free that day; those who inhabited the cold Alpine glaciers from which they never descended, which no sun of ancient days had been able to warm; those who lived petrified in the heart of rocks; those who made their abode in the Milky Way and disdained to descend therefrom; those who had never had names in any language and had never been evoked; those who hid in the souls of the just; those who lived in inexorable reclusiveness in the brazen skies, or vegetated dormant in the depths of ages of silver and bronze; and those who hid in hardened breasts closed to pity.

All of them emerged pell-mell from their retreats for the first time, and they too advanced, crying: “Triumph! O Triumph!”

And the skies of bronze and lead commenced to stir; those who had never wept shed tears of joy that could not be stemmed.

Even the seraphim and the cherubim, lost in the ultimate confines of the Empyrean, felt delight; cheeks inflated, they cried out to the four winds: “Alleluia! Glory to God!”

And those who were sculpted in stone in the porches of cathedrals suddenly opened their mouths of granite and porphyry. And all those voices—pagan or Christian, human or titanic, angelic or demonic, repeated: “Triumph! O Triumph! Hell is vanquished.”

Then came, crowned with myrtle, the twelve great gods; and all those who were along the road left their dwellings to swell that legion. Many had the feet of goats, or bulls, some of antelopes, hopping as they marched. Prometheus drove them before him like a shepherd pressing his flock; whenever they stopped he threatened them with the debris of his chains.

They were followed by Death on her pale, emaciated, breathless horse. She was covered with iron armor, but followed at a considerable distance, and also seemed to be among the vanquished.

And the cortege went all the way around the world!

Where the sea commenced, vessels were found, which carried them to the other shore. Those vessels whinnied like sea-horses, and black vapor emerged from their nostrils. Then came the dragons and the winged bulls that had carried Isaiah, Daniel and the ancient prophets. Breathless now, they took the new prophet on their wings and carried him across the abyss.

When they passed by, the isles quivered with hope. The continents lost in the vast seas emerged from the depths of the waters, on columns of coral, as the king of justice approached. The errant humans who feed on the marrow of palms, those who live in bamboo huts, those who have not yet discovered fire, those who wear loincloths and dress in sarongs, and those who eat the flesh and hearts of humans climbed to the summits of rocks and thought to themselves: Is that the Great Spirit passing by?

And there was not a single island, gulf, desert or cleft in the ground from which a voice did not merge, saying: “Triumph! O Triumph! Hell is vanquished.”