Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) (13 page)

Fogar, still lifting his green clot, soon reached the animal, which regularly pursued its descent.

Only the upper suction cups remained affixed, while the lower ones, detaching themselves from the pole, avidly seized upon the clot that the adolescent abandoned to it.

With a greedy sucking action, the animal’s ingesting mouths, working in concert, quickly devoured the sanguine treat of which it seemed inordinately fond.

The meal over, the suction cups adhered once more to the pole, and the creature, immobile once more, resumed its initial appearance as a stiff flag sporting unfamiliar colors.

Fogar put his second clot near the fragile portico rising to the left of the blue flagpole on the edge of the bed.

Immediately, the fringe hanging from the horizontal lintel began to stir feverishly, as if attracted by a powerful lure.

Its upper spine was composed of a system of suction cups similar to the ones on the triangular animal.

Various acrobatics allowed it to reach one of the stiles and descend along it toward the proferred delicacy.

Floating tentacles, possessing life and strength, delicately gripped the clot and carried it to some of the suction cups, which, detached from the stile, feasted on it without further ado.

When the prey had been entirely absorbed, the fringe hoisted itself by the same path back to the upper lintel, where it regained its customary position.

The last clot Fogar placed in the container occupied by the white cake of soap.

At once, we saw movement in the thick foam spread over the top of the solid, slippery block.

A third animal had just revealed its presence, heretofore concealed by absolute stillness joined with its misleading appearance.

A certain snowlike carapace covered the body of the strange creature, which, crawling slowly, let out at regular intervals a dry, plaintive hiccup.

The reflections from the bed canopy took on particular vigor as they hit the immaculate tegument, giving it especially bright hues.

Having reached the edge of the soap, the animal descended the sheer vertical slope to reach the flat base of the container; there, filled with impatient gluttony, it gobbled down the blood clot, then settled in heavy silence to begin its calm, leisurely digestion.

Fogar knelt on his cot to more easily reach the objects placed farther from him.

With his fingertips, he moved a thin lever attached outside the metal recess that immediately followed the cake of soap.

At that very instant, a brilliant burst of light inflamed the sponge before everyone’s eyes. Several glass tubes, shot through by a luminous current, were aligned horizontally along the inner walls of the recess, which was suddenly inundated with brightness.

Made translucent in the glare, the sponge revealed, in the middle of its quasi-diaphanous tissue, a veritable miniature human heart attached to a highly complex circulatory system. The well-defined aorta transported a host of red globules, which, through a series of infinitely ramified branch arteries, distributed life even to the farthest reaches of the organism.

Fogar took up the amphora standing beside the recess and slowly poured several pints of pure, fresh water on the sponge.

This sudden shower seemed to displease the astounding specimen, which contracted vigorously to expel the unwelcome liquid.

A central opening, cut in the floor of the recess, provided drainage for the rejected water, which leaked onto the ground in a thin trickle.

Several times the adolescent repeated the same exercise. Amid the electric irradiation, the droplets sometimes harbored glints like diamonds, owing to the perpetually renewed multicolored projections.

Fogar replaced the amphora and picked up the cylinder with propeller lying next to it.

This new object, entirely made of metal and of very small dimensions, contained a powerful battery that the young man activated by pressing a switch.

As if obeying an order, the propeller, attached to the end of the cylinder as if to the stern of a ship, began spinning rapidly with a light whirring sound.

Soon the instrument in Fogar’s hand hovered over the horizontal zinc plate, which was still balancing at the top of its column.

Held downward, the propeller constantly fanned the grayish surface, whose appearance gradually began to change; the zephyr, successively caressing all points of the circumference, caused the strange disk to shrink in diameter and bulge like a dome; it was like the membrane of a giant oyster contracting under the effects of something acidic.

Fogar, without prolonging the experiment, shut off the fan, which he put back next to the amphora.

Deprived of wind, the edges of the dome slowly relaxed, and in just a few moments the disk regained its former rigidity, losing, through its deceptive appearance, all traces of the animal life it had just manifested.

Turning to the left toward the other side of his bed, Fogar lifted the gelatinous block and placed it carefully onto the hundred jade needles planted vertically in the layer of cement; released by the young Negro, the inert mass of flesh sank slowly under its own weight.

Suddenly, owing to the sharp pains caused by pricks from a hundred dark-colored points, a tentacle, placed toward the rear of the block, stood erect in a sign of distress, unfurling at its tip three divergent branches, each of which ended in a narrow suction cup facing frontward.

Fogar took from the basket the three sleepy cats. As he moved, the shadow of his body no longer fell upon the block, which now showed part of the enormous silhouette of the wolf, appearing for at least the tenth time in the fibers of the vegetable screen.

One by one the cats were attached by their backs to the three suction cups that held their prey with irresistible force, like the arms of an octopus.

Meanwhile, the hundred jade tips were sinking ever deeper into the flesh of the amorphous animal, whose increased suffering was expressed in a rotation of the three branches, which began spinning like a pinwheel.

Slow at first, the spinning accelerated feverishly, to the great distress of the cats that struggled helplessly with claws bared.

Soon everything blended into a frantic whirl punctuated by a furious chorus of yowls.

The phenomenon caused no movement in the ever-stable tentacle, which acted as support. Thanks to some subtle and mysterious hub, this sight was more powerful and interesting than the illusory spectacle offered by the Rotifera.

The speed of the gyrations accentuated still further under the influence of the hundred jabs, more and more painful as they sank deeper; the violently fanned air produced a constant hum of continually rising pitch; the cats, blending into each other, formed an uninterrupted disk streaked with green, from which escaped their fierce complaints.

Fogar lifted the block again and put it back in its original place.

With the suppression of the pain, the remarkable spinning quickly slowed, then stopped altogether.

With three violent shakes, Fogar liberated the cats, which he placed dizzy and moaning in their basket, while the tentacle with its three branches again fell inert amid the constantly varying reflections.

Shifting to the right, the adolescent picked up the amphora again and poured on the white soap a certain quantity of water, which soon dripped in a shower from beneath via small openings drilled in the bottom of the container.

Completely empty, the amphora was put back next to the cylinder with its propeller, and the young Negro firmly gripped the wet soap by the six flat surfaces of the slightly flattened cube.

Then, backing as far as possible toward the head of the bed, Fogar, his left eye shut, carefully took aim at the three gold ingots, which he saw one behind the other in perfect alignment between the basket of cats and the carpet with its hundred dark points.

At once, the young man’s arm uncoiled fluidly.

The soap, seeming to execute a complete series of perilous jumps, described a slender arc, then fell onto the first ingot; from there it rebounded, still doing cartwheels, to the second gold ingot, which it skimmed for but an instant; a third trajectory, accompanied only by two much slower somersaults, made it land on the third massive cylinder, on which it remained balanced, upright and immobile.

The viscosity of the object, added to the upper roundness of the three ingots, made the success of this feat of dexterity even more remarkable.

After replacing the soap in its special container, Fogar continued his exploration and carefully picked up the delicate object built like a cage door in his left hand.

Then, with three fingers of his right hand first wiped on his loincloth, he lifted the half-twig cut lengthwise.

This latter object, used as a bow, allowed him to stroke, as if it were a violin string, one of the black horsehairs stretched between the two pillars of the small rectangular harp.

The twig rubbed the string with its inner surface, on which a resistant coating, due to some natural secretion, made an excellent substitute for rosin.

The horsehair vibrated powerfully, simultaneously producing, thanks to the effect of certain very curious nodes along its length, two perfectly distinct notes separated by an interval of a fifth; looking up and down the hair, we could see two well defined and clearly uneven zones of vibration.

Fogar, changing place, ran his bow over another horsehair, which entirely unaccompanied produced a pitch-perfect major third.

One by one, each resonant string, tested independently with the bowing twig, simultaneously rendered two sounds of the same amplitude. Harmonious or dissonant, the intervals all differed, giving the experiment an entertaining variety.

The adolescent, putting away the harp and bow, grabbed up the two dark pebbles, which he struck forcefully against each other above the fat candle placed against the corner of the bed; some of the sparks generated by that initial friction fell onto the highly combustible wick, which caught immediately.

The substance of the candle, its peculiarity suddenly revealed by the light near the calm, upright flame, looked like the porous and appetizing pulp of some delicately veined fruit.

Within seconds, the atmosphere was rent by a formidable clamor coming from the candle itself, which, as it melted, imitated the sound of thunder.

A short silence separated this first roar from a second, even more violent noise, itself followed by several low rumbles marking a moment of calm.

The candle burned down fairly quickly, and soon the evocation of the storm acquired a marvelous perfection. Certain terribly loud claps of thunder alternated with the distant voice of the dying, prolonged echoes.

The full moonlight contrasted with this convincing racket, which needed only howling wind and flashes of lightning to complete the illusion.

When the candle, growing shorter and shorter, had almost entirely disappeared, Fogar blew out the wick, and peaceful silence was immediately restored.

At once, the black porters, who had returned several instants earlier, lifted the narrow cot, on which the adolescent reclined nonchalantly.

The group moved away noiselessly to the still changing lights emitted by the polychromatic projections.

Now came the solemn moment to award the prizes.

Juillard removed from his pocket a pendant cut from a thin sheet of tin, in the shape of an equilateral triangle representing a capital Greek
delta
; one of its angles bore a small ring, carefully twisted to sit perpendicular to the ornament.

This trinket, apparently nickel-plated and hanging from a wide, circular blue ribbon slipped through the ring, constituted the
Great Sash of the Order of the Delta
, whose wearer would enrich the wise investors who had put their faith in him.

Choosing as sole criterion the reactions of the Negro public to each of the exhibitions, Juillard unhesitatingly called on Marius Boucharessas, whose young cats, with their game of prisoner’s base, had consistently earned the Ponukeleans’ enthusiasm.

Promptly decorated with the supreme insignia, the child came back to us proud and delighted, admiring the effect of the blue ribbon as it crossed his chest diagonally over his pale pink leotard, while at his left hip the gleaming pendant, catching the moon’s rays, shone brightly against the black background of his velvet shorts.

Within the group of speculators, several cries of joy had burst forth from those who held shares in Marius, among whom a prize of ten thousand francs would soon be split.

After awarding the Great Sash, Juillard had produced six other
deltas
, smaller than the first but identical in shape and cut from the same metal. This time, each attached ring, parallel to the ornament itself, was threaded with a narrow blue ribbon several inches long, the two ends of which bore slightly bent pins.

Still impartially guided by the amount of native approval be-stowed on the various candidates, Juillard called forward Skariovszki, Tancrède Boucharessas, Urbain, Lelgoualch, Ludovic, and La Billaudière-Maisonnial, to affix to each man’s chest, without speeches or congratulations, one of the six new decorations symbolizing the rank of
Chevalier of the Delta
.

The rest hour had sounded.

On the orders of Talou, who, approaching with great strides, personally gave us the signal to retire, the natives scattered into Ejur.

Our entire group returned to the special quarters reserved for us in the heart of the strange capital, and soon we were all asleep in the shelter of our primitive huts.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Norbert Montalescot woke us at daybreak.

Our compact group hastily assembled and followed the path to Trophy Square, sensuously relishing the relative coolness of the morning air.

Also alerted by Norbert, the emperor and Sirdah arrived at the esplanade at the same time as we. Abandoning his costume from the day before, Talou had donned his habitual chieftain’s garb.

Norbert summoned us to the cabin where Louise had been up all night working. Awake with the dawn, he had come for his sister’s orders; the latter, calling from inside without showing herself, had commanded him to fetch us immediately.

Suddenly, with a sharp tearing sound, a certain gleaming blade, partially visible to us, seemed to slice through one of the cabin’s black walls of its own accord.

The edge, forcefully sawing the thick fabric, ultimately traced a large rectangular path; it was Louise herself who manipulated the knife from within, and it was she who, ripping away the cut portion of cloth, soon leapt outside, carrying a large and tightly packed travel bag.

“Everything is ready for the experiment!” she cried with a smile of joyful triumph.

She was tall and charming, looking like a soldier in her baggy breeches tucked into tight riding boots.

Through the gaping hole she’d recently made we could see, scattered on a table, a panoply of beakers, retorts, and shallow basins, which made the cabin seem an odd laboratory.

The magpie had just escaped and flitted from one sycamore to another, giddy with freedom and fresh air.

Norbert took the heavy bag from his sister’s hands and began walking beside her toward the south of Ejur.

The entire retinue, Talou and Sirdah at its head, followed the siblings, who moved forward quickly in the ever-increasing daylight.

After leaving the village limits, Louise continued on a moment, then, seduced by certain combinations of hues, she halted at the exact place from which we had contemplated the fireworks the evening before.

Dawn, illuminating the magnificent trees of the Behuliphruen from behind, produced curious and unexpected light effects.

Talou chose a suitable spot from which to view the tantalizing experiment, and Louise, opening the bag her brother had brought, unpacked a folded object, which once set in its correct position formed a rigorously vertical easel.

A fresh canvas, tautly mounted on its stretcher, was placed halfway up the easel and held firmly in place by a screw clamp that Louise lowered to the desired level. Then, with great care, the young woman took from a lightproof box a previously prepared palette, which fit snugly in a certain metal frame attached to the right side of the easel. The paints, in carefully separated dollops, were arranged in a semicircle of geometric precision on the upper half of the wooden slab; like the empty canvas, it faced the Behuliphruen.

In addition, the bag contained a folding stand similar to a photographer’s tripod. Louise grabbed hold of it and unfolded its three extensible legs, then set it on the ground near the easel, scrupulously adjusting its height and stability.

At that moment, obeying his sister’s command, Norbert took from the travel bag a heavy case and placed it behind the easel; its glass lid revealed that it contained several batteries placed side by side.

Meanwhile, Louise, slowly and with infinite precaution, unpacked what was clearly a very fragile item, which looked to us like a thick, massive plate, protected by a metal lid that fit its rectangular shape tightly.

Reminiscent of the stiff arms of a scale, the upper part of the tripod was composed of a kind of widely spread fork, abruptly terminating in two vertical tines between which Louise could cautiously fit her plate lengthwise, setting it into two deep grooves intended to take a pair of carefully placed knobs, the whole designed to allow for easy removal of the lid.

Wishing to check the arrangement of the various items, the young woman, blinking one eye, backed toward the Behuliphruen the better to gauge their respective distances. To her right she saw the tripod, to her left the easel in front of the heavy case, and between them the palette with its supply of paints.

The smooth lid of the rectangular plate, which could be grasped by a ring in its center, directly faced the glare of dawn; the plate’s unprotected verso disgorged a mass of remarkably thin metal wires, like an overly straight head of hair, which served to connect each infinitesimal area of the surface to a kind of device furnished with an electrical energy source. The wires were gathered in a thick coil under an insulating sleeve, ending in a long ingot, which Louise, kneeling back at her post, plugged into a socket on the side of the battery case.

Now the bag provided a rigid vertical tube, somewhat like a photographer’s headrest, which, firmly set on a heavy circular base, was flanked at its summit by an easily turned screw that adjusted an inner metal shaft to the desired height.

Setting the device before the easel, Louise raised the adjustable shaft out of the tube and tightened the screw after scrupulously verifying the level reached by its uppermost tip, which was placed exactly opposite the still virgin canvas.

On the stable, isolated tip, the young woman solidly embedded, like a ball in a cup, a certain large metal sphere bearing a kind of horizontal, pivoting, articulated arm whose extremity, aimed at the palette, held about ten brushes arranged like the spokes of a wheel laid flat on the ground.

Soon the operator had connected a double wire between the sphere and the electrical case.

Before launching the experiment, Louise, unstopping a small burette, poured a drop of oil on the bristles of each brush. Norbert set aside the cumbersome bag, almost empty now that the young woman had removed the metal sphere.

During these preparations, daylight had gradually risen and the Behuliphruen was now resplendent with dazzling lights, forming a magical and multicolored tableau.

Louise could not suppress a cry of wonder when she turned toward the splendid park that gave off such an enchanted glow. Deeming the moment unsurpassable and miraculously propitious to the success of her project, the young woman approached the tripod and gripped the ring on the lid covering the plate.

All the spectators huddled around the easel, so as not to block the sun’s rays.

Louise, on the verge of attempting her great experiment, was visibly moved. Her orchestral breathing quickened, giving greater frequency and vigor to the monotonous chords continually exhaled by the aiguillettes. With a sudden pull, she yanked off the lid, and then, slipping behind the easel stand, came to join us to keep watch over the movements of the apparatus.

Deprived of the shutter that the young woman still held in her hand, the plate now lay exposed, showing a surface that was smooth, brown, and shiny. All eyes latched onto that mysterious substance, endowed by Louise with strange photomechanical properties. Suddenly a slight tremor shook the automatic arm facing the easel, a single, glossy, horizontal rod bent in the middle. The flexible angle of the elbow tended to open fully under the action of a powerful spring, which a single metal wire, running from the sphere and attached to the arm’s extremity, counteracted by regulating its spread; at the moment, the lengthening wire was letting the angle progressively widen.

This first movement provoked a slight stir in the anxious, uncertain audience.

The arm stretched slowly toward the palette, while the horizontal, rimless wheel created at its extremity by the star of brushes gradually rose to the top of a vertical axle, itself moved upward by a toothed gear directly linked to the sphere by an elastic transmission belt.

The two combined movements guided the tip of one brush toward a plentiful supply of the color blue, amassed near the top of the palette. The bristles rapidly coated themselves, then, after a short descent, spread their purloined particles over an uncovered area of the wooden surface. Several iotas of white pigment, picked up the same way, were deposited on the spot recently daubed with blue, and the two colors, which some prolonged rubbing had left perfectly blended, yielded a very attenuated pale cerulean.

Retracted slightly by the metal wire, the arm then pivoted gently and stopped by the upper left-hand corner of the canvas mounted on the easel. Immediately the brush, impregnated as it was with delicate hues, automatically traced on the edge of the future painting a narrow, vertical strip of sky.

A murmur of admiration greeted this first sketch, and Louise, now sure of her success, breathed a huge sigh of satisfaction accompanied by a noisy fanfare from her aiguillettes.

The wheel of brushes, once more at the palette, abruptly rotated on itself, moved by a second transmission belt that, made like the first of stretchable material, led inside the sphere. A sharp click was heard, produced by a ratchet that firmly set a new brush with clean bristles in the place of honor. Soon several additional unadulterated paints, blended on another area of the palette, composed a vivid yellowish tint, which, transposed onto the canvas, extended the vertical ribbon begun moments earlier.

Turning toward the Behuliphruen, we could verify the absolute accuracy of this sudden juxtaposition of two tones, which formed a clearly defined line in the sky.

The work continued with speed and precision. At this point, during each visit to the palette, several brushes effected by turns their different blends of colors; brought before the painting, they deployed again in the same order, each one applying to the canvas, sometimes in infinitesimal amounts, its particular new pigment. This process allowed for the subtlest gradations of hues, and little by little a section of landscape full of realistic splendor spread before our eyes.

While watching over the machine, Louise supplied helpful explanations.

The brown plate alone set everything in motion, through a system based on the principle of electromagnetism. Despite the absence of an actual lens, the polished surface, owing to its extreme sensitivity, received extremely powerful impressions of light, which, transmitted by the countless wires in back, activated an entire mechanism inside the sphere, which measured more than a yard in circumference.

As we had witnessed with our own eyes, the two vertical arms ending the fork on the supporting tripod were made of the same brown material as the plate itself; thanks to their perfect fit, they and it formed a single, homogenous block and now contributed, in their particular area, to the continual progress of the photomechanical communication.

Louise revealed that the sphere contained a second rectangular plate. Provided with another network of wires that transmitted to it the polychromatic impressions received by the first, this second plate was criss-crossed from edge to edge by a metal wheel that, through the electrical current it produced, could power a complex assortment of rods, pistons, and cylinders.

The image spread progressively toward the right, always in vertical strips painted one after another from top to bottom. Each time the rimless wheel turned in front of the palette or the canvas, we heard the high-pitched squeal of the fastening clip holding a given brush in place for the length of its brief task. This monotonous sound reproduced, albeit much slower, the prolonged screech of fairground turnstiles.

The entire surface of the palette was now sullied or blemished; the most heterogeneous blends lay side by side, constantly modified by some new addition of unadulterated paint. Despite the disconcerting riot of tones, no confusion ensued, each brush remaining devoted to a certain category of hues that conferred on it a given, loosely defined specialty.

Soon the entire left half of the painting was complete.

Louise watched joyfully over the operation of her machine, which so far had functioned without accident or error.

This success did not falter for a moment during the completion of the landscape, whose second half was painted with marvelous sureness.

A few seconds before the end of the experiment, Louis had again positioned herself behind the easel, then behind the tripod, in order to stand once more near the photosensitive plate. By then, all that remained was a narrow strip of white at the far right edge of the canvas, promptly filled.

After these final brushstrokes, Louise vigorously clapped the obturating lid over the brown plate, and by this act alone immobilized the articulated arm. Freed from any further concern over the machine’s workings, the young woman could appreciate at leisure the painting that had been executed so curiously.

The great trees of the Behuliphruen were faithfully reproduced with their magnificent limbs, whose leaves, of strange hue and shape, were covered with a host of intense reflections. On the ground, large flowers in blue, yellow, or crimson sparkled amid the mosses. Farther up, the sky peeked through the trunks and branches: at bottom, a first horizontal area in blood red faded to make way, a bit higher up, for an orange strip, which itself lightened and yielded to a vibrant yellow-gold; then came a pale, scarcely tinted blue, in which a final, tardy star shone to the right. The work, in its entirety, gave a singularly powerful impression of color and remained rigorously faithful to the model, as everyone could verify with a single glance at the park itself.

Aided by her brother, Louise, loosening the clamp on the easel, replaced the canvas with a drawing pad of equal dimensions, formed by a thick accumulation of white sheets bound at the edges; then, removing the last brush used, she put in its place a carefully sharpened pencil.

A few words revealed to us the ambitious young woman’s plan: wishing now to show us a simple drawing, necessarily more precise than the painting in the subtlety of its outlines, she had only to activate a certain switch placed at the top of the sphere to slightly modify the internal mechanism.

In order to furnish a dense and animated subject, fifteen or twenty spectators, at Louise’s request, went to stand together a short distance away, in the plate’s visual field. Seeking to obtain a brisk, lively effect, they posed as pedestrians on a busy street; several, their postures evoking a rapid gait, lowered their foreheads with a look of deep preoccupation; others, more relaxed, conversed in strolling couples, while two friends crossing paths exchanged a familiar greeting.