Chapter VI: Part 6

He was still talking when a man came in completely naked. I immediately sat down and put on my hat to do him honour, for in that country these are marks of the greatest respect one can show a man.

"The Kingdom", said he, "desires that you will advertise the magistrates before leaving for your country because a mathematician has just promised the council that if, when you reach your world, you will construct a certain machine which he will show you corresponding to another which he will have ready here, he will draw your world to him and join it to our globe."

As soon as he was gone I asked the young host: "I beg you will tell me what is meant by that bronze, shaped like our parts of shame, which hung from that man's belt? During the time that I lived at the court in a cage I saw quantities of them, but as I was almost always surrounded by the Queen's waiting-women I feared I should be lacking in respect to their sex and rank if I directed the conversation to so homely a matter in their presence."

He replied: "Here the females no more than the males would be so ungrateful as to blush at the sight of that which made them; the virgins are not ashamed to respect upon us, in memory of their mother Nature, the one thing which bears her name. Know then that the scarf with which this man is honoured and upon which hangs like a medal the shape of a virile member, is the symbol of a gentleman and the mark which distinguishes a noble from a commoner."

I protest this paradox seemed to me so extravagant that I could not keep from laughing.

"This seems to me a most extraordinary custom", said I to my young host, "since in our world to wear a sword is the mark of nobility."

He was not moved by this but exclaimed: "My little man, the nobles in your world are mad to parade an instrument which is the mark of a hangman, which is only forged for our destruction and is indeed the sworn enemy of everything that lives! And just as mad on the contrary to hide a member without which we should be in the category of things that are not, the Prometheus of every animal and the indefatigable repairer of Nature's weaknesses! Woe to the country where the marks of generation are ignominious and where those of destruction are honourable! You call that member, 'the parts of shame', as if there were anything more glorious than to give life and anything more infamous than to take it away."

During this discourse we continued to dine and as soon as we arose from our beds we went into the garden to take the air. The diversity and the beauty of the place delayed our conversation for some time. But since the noblest desire which then moved me was to convert to our religion a soul so uplifted above the vulgar mob, I exhorted him a thousand times not to smirch with matter the fair genius with which Heaven had endowed him, to draw out of the throng of animals a spirit capable of the Beatific Vision, in fine, to think seriously of uniting some day his immortality with pleasure rather than with pain.

"What!" replied he, with a peal of laughter, "you think your soul immortal to the exclusion of that of beasts? My dear friend, without exaggeration your pride is very insolent! And, I beseech you, whence do you deduce this immortality to the prejudice of the Beasts? Is it because we are gifted with reason and they not? To begin with, I deny that and whenever you please I will prove to you that they reason like ourselves. But even if it were true that reason has been granted us as a prerogative and that it was a privilege reserved to our species alone, does that mean that God must enrich man with immortality when He has already squandered reason upon him? I suppose I should give, in that case, a _pistole_ to a beggar because I gave him a _crown_ yesterday? You yourself see the falsity of the argument and that, on the contrary, if I am just, I ought to give a _crown_ to another rather than a _pistole_ to the first, since the other has had nothing from me. We must conclude from this, my dear friend, that God, who is a thousand times more just than we are, will not have given everything to some and nothing to others. To allege as an example the case of the eldest sons in your world, whose share engulfs almost all the property of the family, is simply a weakness of fathers, who are desirous of perpetuating their names and fear they may be lost or dissipated by poverty. But God is not capable of error, and has been careful not to commit one so great; then, since there is neither before nor after in God's eternity, with him the younger sons are no younger than the elder."

I do not dissimulate that this reason shook me.

"Permit me", said I, "to break off upon this matter, for I do not feel myself strong enough to reply to you. I shall go seek a solution of this difficulty from our mutual Instructor."

Without waiting for his reply I immediately went to the room of this able demon, and waiving any preliminaries I put before him the objections to the immortality of our souls which I had just heard, and this is what he replied:

"My son, this young hot-head is desirous of persuading you that it is unlikely man's soul should be immortal because God, who has called Himself the common Father of all beings, would be unjust if He had favoured one species and abandoned generally all the others to annihilation or misfortune. It is true these reasons glitter a little at a distance. Although I might ask him how he knows that what is just to us is also just to God, how he knows that God measures with our measuring-rod, how he knows that our laws and customs, instituted only to remedy our own disorders, serve also to cut out pieces from the omnipotence of God; I will pass over all these things together with all that has been so divinely answered on this point by the fathers of your Church and I will discover to you a mystery not yet revealed.

"My son, you know that a tree is made from earth, a pig from a tree and a man from a pig. May we not then believe, since all creatures in Nature tend to become more perfect, that they aspire to become men, whose essence is the result of the finest and best imagined mixture in the world and the sole link between the life of brutes and of angels? Only a pedant would deny that these metamorphoses occur. Do we not see that an apple-tree sucks up and digests the surrounding turf by means of the heat of its germ as if through its mouth; that a pig devours its fruit and thereby converts it into a part of itself; and that a man by eating this pig reheats this dead flesh, joins it to himself, and so causes this animal to live again in a more noble species? Thus the Great Pontiff upon whose head you see a tiara was a bunch of grass in my garden sixty years ago. Since God is the common Father of all His creatures and should love them all equally, is it not most credible that by a metempsychosis more reasonable than that of the Pythagoreans all sensible life, all vegetable life, in fine, all matter, will pass through man and then the great day of Judgment will come, to which the prophets direct the secrets of their philosophy?"

Fully satisfied I returned to the garden and began to repeat to my companion what our Master had taught me, when the Physionome arrived to take us to dinner and to the dormitory. I shall not particularize these, because I ate and went to bed as on the preceding day.

The next morning as soon as I was awake I went to arouse my antagonist. "'Tis as great a miracle", said I when I reached him, "to find a great wit like yours buried in sleep, as to see fire without movement."

He was annoyed by this clumsy compliment. "But", cried he in a passionate rage, "will you never free your mouth as well as your reason from these fabulous expressions of miracles? Such words disgrace the name of philosopher. Since the wise man sees nothing in the world which he does not understand or which he considers incapable of being understood, he ought to abominate all these expressions like miracles, prodigies, supernatural events, invented by the stupid to excuse the weaknesses of their minds."

I then felt conscientiously obliged to say something to disabuse him.

"Although you do not believe in miracles", I replied, "they do not cease to occur, and many of them. I have seen them with my own eyes. I have seen more than twenty sick people miraculously cured."

"You say", he interrupted, "that these people were cured miraculously, but you do not know that the power of the imagination is able to combat all maladies, because there is a certain natural balsam extended through our bodies containing all the qualities contrary to all those of every disease that attacks us. Our imagination is warmed by the pain and seeks in its place the specific remedy to oppose the venom, and so cures us. For this reason the ablest doctor in our world advises a patient rather to take an ignorant doctor whom he thinks very skilful than to take a very skilful doctor whom he thinks ignorant, because he believes that our imagination works for our health and when only slightly aided by remedies is capable of curing us, but that the most powerful remedies are too weak when not applied by the imagination! You are surprised that the first men in your world lived so many centuries without having any knowledge of medicine? Their constitution was strong and this universal balm had not been dissipated by the drugs with which your doctors undermine you. To become convalescent they had only to desire strongly and to imagine they were cured; immediately their clear, vigorous and taut imagination plunged into this vital oil, applied the active to the passive and almost in a twinkling they were as well as formerly. Even to-day these astonishing cures continue, but the populace attributes them to a miracle. For my part, I do not believe in a miracle at all and my reason is that it is more easy for all these talkers to be wrong than for the thing to happen. Let me ask them this: A man has a fever and he has been cured. It is clear that during his illness he wished very ardently to recover his health and so made vows; it necessarily followed, since he was ill, that he should die, that he should remain ill or that he should get better. If he had died they would have said God had rewarded him for his pains; they might have maliciously equivocated by saying that He had cured the sick man of all his ills according to his prayers. If his infirmity had persisted they would have said he lacked faith; but because he recovered it is a visible miracle! Is it not far more likely that his fantasy, excited by a violent desire for health, achieved this end? I admit that many of these gentlemen who make vows recover; but how many more do we see who have perished miserably with their vows?"

"But at least", I replied, "if what you say of this balsam is true, it is a proof that our soul is reasonable, since without making use of our reason and without leaning on the support of our will it knows of itself how to apply the active to the passive as if it were outside us. Well, if it is reasonable when it is separated from us we must necessarily conclude that it is spiritual; and if you admit it is spiritual I conclude that it is immortal, since death only happens to animals through those changes of form whereof matter alone is capable."

The young man then sat up in bed and making me sit down also, spoke in much these terms:

"I am not surprised that the souls of beasts (which are corporeal) should die, since they are probably only a harmony of the four qualities, the strength of the blood, a relationship of well-proportioned organs; but I am very surprised that our incorporeal, intellectual and immortal soul should be constrained to leave us for the same reasons that make an ox perish. Has the soul made an agreement with our body that, when the body receives a sword thrust in the heart, a leaden bullet in the brain, a musket shot through the trunk, it will abandon immediately its ruined house? But the soul often breaks this contract, for some die of a wound which others escape; and so every soul must make a separate bargain with its body. Truly this soul which, as they make us believe, is so clever, is very foolish to leave its lodging when it sees that by leaving this place it will find its apartment marked out for it in Hell. And if this soul were spiritual and reasonable by itself, as they say, if it were as capable of intelligence when separated from our body as it is when invested by the body, how is it that those born blind, with all the advantages of this intellectual soul, are not able to imagine what sight is? Why do the deaf not hear? Is it because they are not yet deprived of all their senses by death? What! I cannot then make use of my right hand because I have a left as well? To prove that the soul cannot act without senses although it is spiritual, they allege the case of a painter who cannot make a picture without brushes. Yes, but that is not to say that when a painter, who cannot work without brushes, has lost his colours, his pencils, and his canvases as well, he can then do better. On the contrary, the more obstacles are opposed to his work the more impossible it will be for him to paint. However, they maintain that this soul, which can only act imperfectly when it has lost one of its tools in the course of life, can work perfectly when it has lost them all after our death. If they repeat to us that the soul does not need these instruments, I shall repeat to them that they ought to whip the blind who pretend they cannot see."

"But", said I, "if our soul dies, as I see you wish to deduce, the resurrection you expect would be only a chimera, for God would have to recreate our souls and that would not be resurrection."

He interrupted me and shook his head.

"Hey! Faith!" cried he, "who has deluded you with that fairy-tale? What! You? What! I? What! My maid-servant be resurrected?"

"This is not an amusing tale", I replied, "it is an indubitable truth which I will prove to you."

"And I", said he, "will prove to you the contrary. To begin with, suppose that you ate a Mohammedan; you convert him consequently into your own substance! Is it not true that when you have digested this Mohammedan he is changed partly into flesh, partly into blood, partly into seed? You embrace your wife and with the seed drawn entirely from this Mohammedan's body you cast the mould of a pretty little Christian. I ask; will the Mohammedan have his body at the resurrection? If the earth yields it up to him, the little Christian will not have his body, since it is only a part of the Mohammedan's. If you tell me that the Christian will have his, God will have to take from the Mohammedan that which the little Christian only received from the Mohammedan's body. And so inevitably one or the other will be without a body! You will reply perhaps that God will reproduce from matter a body to furnish the one who is without a body? Yes, but another difficulty stops us. Suppose the damned Mohammedan is resurrected and God gives him a new body, because the Christian has stolen his old one, since the body alone does not make the man, any more than the soul alone, but the two joined together in one person, and since the soul and the body each departed from the man whole, if God then makes the Mohammedan another body, it is no longer the same individual. So God damns a man who is not the man who has merited Hell. One body has whored, it has criminally abused all the senses and, to punish this body, God casts into the fire another, which is virgin and pure, and has never lent its organs to the performance of the slightest crime. And what is even more ridiculous is that this body will have deserved both Hell and Paradise; for, in so far as it is Mohammedan, it must be damned, and in so far as it is Christian, it must be saved. Thus God cannot put it in Paradise without being unjust and rewarding with glory instead of with the damnation it deserved as Mohammedan; and He cannot cast it into Hell without being unjust and rewarding with eternal death instead of the blessedness it deserved as Christian. Then, if He wishes to be just, He must both save and damn this man eternally."

"I have nothing to reply", I answered, "to your sophistic arguments against the resurrection; God has said it and God cannot lie."

"Not so fast", he retorted, "you are still at 'God has said'; you must first prove there is a God, which for my part I wholly deny."

"I shall not waste my time", said I, "by repeating to you the obvious demonstrations used by philosophers to prove it; I should have to reiterate all that has ever been written by reasonable men. I simply ask you what harm there is in believing it; I am assured you cannot discover any. Then if nothing can be derived from it but what is useful, why do you not accept it? If there is a God, and you do not believe in Him, you will not only be mistaken but you will have disobeyed the precept which bids you believe in Him; and if there is no God, you will be no better off than we!"

"On the contrary", he replied, "I shall be better off than you, for if there is no God, you and I will be equal. But if, on the contrary, there is a God, I shall not have offended against something which I believed did not exist, since to sin one must either know or will. Do you not see that even a rather foolish man would not think that a porter had injured him if the porter had done it accidentally, or had taken him for someone else, or if he had been drunk? How much more then should God, who is wholly steadfast, forbear to grow angry with us for not having known Him since He Himself has refused us the means of knowing Him. On your honour now, little animal, if belief in God were so necessary to us, if it were a matter of our eternity, would not God Himself have inculcated in us all a light as clear as that of the Sun which hides itself from no one? To feign that He plays hide-and-seek with men, says like children, 'Cuckoo, there he is!' that is to say sometimes hides Himself, sometimes shows Himself, disguises Himself to some and reveals Himself to others--that is to make oneself a God who is either silly or malicious, for if I have come to know Him through the strength of my genius, the merit is His and not mine, since He might have given me an imbecile soul or imbecile organs which would have made me incapable of knowing Him. And, on the contrary, if He gave me a mind incapable of understanding Him, it is not my fault but His, since He could have given me a mind so keen that I should have comprehended Him."

These ridiculous and devilish opinions made me shudder from head to foot. I began to look at this man with a little more attention and I was startled to notice in his face something indefinably frightful which I had not yet perceived. His eyes were small and deep-set, his complexion swarthy, his mouth large, his chin hairy, his nails black. O God! thought I at once, this wretch will be damned after this life and he may even be the anti-Christ so much spoken of in our World.

I did not wish to let him know what I thought, because of the esteem I had for his wit, and truly the favourable aspects of Nature towards his cradle had made me conceive some friendship for him. Yet I could not so wholly contain myself but that I broke out into imprecations which menaced him with a bad end. But, throwing back my anger at me, he exclaimed: "Yes, by death...." I do not know what he meant to say but at this moment there was a knock at the door of our room and a large, black, hairy man came in. He approached us, seized the blasphemer by the middle and carried him off up the chimney. My pity for this wretch's fate obliged me to clasp him in order to drag him from the Ethiopian's claws, but he was so powerful that he carried us off both and in a moment we were up among the clouds. I was obliged to grasp him tightly now, not from love of my neighbour but from fear of falling. After passing I know not how many days in travelling through the sky, without knowing what would become of me, I saw I was approaching our world. Already I could distinguish Asia from Europe and Europe from Africa. And now I was so near that I could not lift my eyes beyond Italy, when my heart told me that this Devil was no doubt carrying my host to Hell, body and soul, and that he was passing by way of our earth, because Hell is in its centre. I wholly forgot this thought and all that had happened to me since the Devil had been our carriage, through the fear I was cast into by the sight of a flaming mountain which I almost touched. The sight of this burning spectacle made me cry out "Jesus Maria!" I had scarcely finished the last letter when I found myself lying upon the grass at the top of a little hill with two or three shepherds around me reciting litanies and speaking to me in Italian.

"Oh!" cried I, "praised be God! At last I have found Christians in the world of the Moon. Tell me, my friends, in what province of your world I am now?"

"In Italy", they replied.

"What", I interrupted, "is there an Italy in the world of the Moon also?"

I had still reflected so little on this accident that I had not yet perceived they were speaking to me in Italian and that I was replying in the same tongue.

When I was altogether disabused and nothing further prevented me from recognising that I was once more in this world, I let myself be taken where these peasants wished to lead me. But I had not arrived at the gates of ----, when all the dogs in the town came rushing upon me and had not my fear caused me to rush into a house and shut the door against them I should infallibly have been devoured.

A quarter of an hour afterwards, while I was resting in this house, all the dogs of the Kingdom I verily believe could be heard in a turmoil outside. All kinds from the bulldog to the lapdog could be seen howling with a most terrible fury as if they were keeping the anniversary of their first Adam.

This adventure caused no little surprise to all people who saw it; but as soon as I had directed my reflections upon this circumstance, I imagined at once that these animals were infuriated with me because of the world whence I came. "For", said I to myself, "since they are accustomed to bay the Moon on account of the pain she causes them from so far, no doubt they would have thrown themselves upon me because I smell of the Moon, whose odour annoys them."

I exposed myself to the Sun stark-naked on a terrace, to cleanse myself from this bad air. I dried myself some four or five hours, at the end of which I went down and the dogs no longer smelling the influence which had made me their enemy all returned home.

At the port I inquired when a ship would leave for France and when I was embarked my mind was wholly occupied in ruminating on the wonders of my voyage. A thousand times I admired the providence of God, which had placed those naturally impious men in a situation where they could not corrupt His chosen, and had punished them for their pride by giving them up to their own self-conceit. And I do not doubt that so far He has put off sending someone who preached them the Gospel, because He knew they would abuse the occasion and that this resistance would only serve to make them merit a harsher punishment in the next world.

VOYAGE TO THE SUN

At last our vessel reached Toulon harbour, and after returning thanks to the winds and stars for a prosperous voyage, we embraced on the wharf and said farewell. In my case, because money was among the fabulous stories of the World of the Moon whence I came and I had practically lost all memory of it, the skipper paid himself for my passage with the honour of having carried in his ship a man fallen from the sky. Nothing then prevented me from proceeding to Toulouse to a friend's house. I was burning to see him, for the joy I hoped to give him with the recital of my adventures. I shall not be so troublesome as to relate here all that happened on the way; I grew tired, I rested, I was thirsty, I was hungry, I drank, and I ate among twenty or thirty dogs which made up his pack.[49] Although I was in a very bad state, thin and swarthy with sunburn, he did not fail to recognise me. In a transport of joy he flung himself on my neck, kissed me more than a hundred times, and trembling with pleasure led me into his house, where as soon as his tears gave place to his voice he exclaimed:

"At least we live and shall live, in spite of all the accidents by which Fortune has shaken our lives. But, Good Gods! it is not true then that you were burned in Canada in the great firework display you had invented? And yet two or three people worthy of credit among those who brought me this sad news swore they had seen and touched the wooden Bird in which you were carried off. They told me that unluckily you had got into it at the moment it was fired and that the impetus of the rockets burning all around carried you so high you were lost to sight. And they vowed you were so completely consumed that when the machine fell back only a few of your ashes were found."

[Footnote 49: Something seems to have been omitted in this sentence.]

"Those ashes", I replied, "sir, were those of the fire-works themselves, for the fire did not hurt me in the least. The rockets were fastened on outside and consequently their heat could not trouble me. You know that as soon as the powder was exhausted, the swift ascent of the rockets ceased to raise the machine, which then fell to the ground. I saw it fall and when I expected nothing but to fall with it, I was surprised to feel myself rising towards the Moon. But I must explain to you the cause of an effect which you will take for a miracle.... The day of this accident I had rubbed all my body with marrow on account of certain bruises. But the Moon was then waning and at that period draws up marrow; it absorbed so gluttonously the marrow rubbed on my flesh, especially when my box rose above the middle region, where there were no intervening clouds to weaken its influence, that my body followed the attraction; and I protest it continued to suck me up so long that at last I reached that world we call the Moon."

I then related at length all the details of my voyage and Monsieur de Colignac was so ravished at hearing such extraordinary things that he implored me to set them down in writing. I enjoy repose and therefore resisted him for a long time, because of the visits such a publication would probably have attracted; but at length, shamed by the reproaches he continued to attack me with, I resolved at last to satisfy him. I therefore took pen in hand and as soon as I finished a sheet he went to Toulouse to vaunt it in the best company, for he was more anxious for my reputation than his own; he was considered one of the greatest minds of his century[50] and by making himself the indefatigable echo of my praises he made me known to everyone. Already, without having seen me, the engravers had cut my portrait and from every square the town echoed with pedlars shouting at the top of their voices from hoarse throats: "Portrait of the author of _The Voyage to the Moon_." Among those who read my book were numerous ignoramuses who turned over its pages. To counterfeit great wits they applauded like the others and clapped their hands at every word, for fear of a mistake, exclaiming joyously "How excellent he is!" at all the passages they did not understand. But superstition disguised as conscience, whose teeth are very sharp under a fool's shirt, so gnawed at their hearts that they preferred rather to give up the reputation of philosophers (which suited them like ill-fitting clothes) than to have to answer for it at the Judgment Day.

[Footnote 50: Cyrano had the true coterie spirit towards his friends. Compare his description of poor, drunken, gambling Tristan in _The Moon_.]

This was the other side of the question and each was then in a hurry to recant. The work they had so highly prized was now simply a _pot-pourri_ of ridiculous stories, a mass of disconnected fragments, a collection of fairy tales to lull children to sleep; and those ignorant even of syntax condemned the author to carry a candle to Saint Mathurin.[51] This contest of opinion between the men of wit and the idiots increased its reputation. Very soon manuscript copies were being sold secretly.[52] Everyone, in and out of society, from the gentleman to the monk, bought the book and the women even took sides. Each family was divided and the interested in this quarrel went so far that the town was divided into two factions, the Lunar and the Anti-Lunar.

[Footnote 51: Patron of madmen.]

[Footnote 52: It is thought _The Moon_ circulated in MS. before publication; this explains the entry in Marolles's memoirs.]

We were still engaged in the skirmishes of the battle when one morning there came into Colignac's room nine or ten grey-beards in long robes, who spoke to him as follows:

"Sir, you know that there is not one among us who is not your relative, your kin or your friend, and consequently that anything shameful which happens to you falls equally upon us. And yet we are credibly informed that you shelter a sorcerer in your house."

"A sorcerer!" cried Colignac, "Good Gods! Tell me his name. I will deliver him into your hands; but we must take care this is not a calumny."

"How now, sir", interrupted one of the most venerable of them, "is there any _parlement_ so competent in the matter of sorcerers as ours? But, my dear nephew, not to keep you any longer in suspense, the sorcerer we accuse is the author of _The Voyage to the Moon_; he cannot deny that he is the greatest magician in Europe after what he has admitted himself. Why! he could only have gone to the Moon with the aid of ... I dare not name the beast; and, tell me, what was his object in going to the Moon?"

"Well asked", interrupted another, "he went to take part in a Witches' Sabbath, which no doubt was held that day; and, indeed, you may see he grew acquainted with the demon of Socrates. After this are you surprised that, as he says himself, the Devil should have brought him back to this world? But however that may be, so many Moons, so many chimneys, so many travels through the air are worth nothing, nothing at all I say; and between you and me"--at these words he placed his mouth nearer my friend's ear--"I never saw a sorcerer but had dealings with the Moon."

After these worthy sentiments they were silent and Colignac was so astounded at their common extravagance that he could not say a word. Seeing this, a venerable blockhead who had not spoken said:

"You see, cousin, we know where the shoe pinches. The magician is a person you love, but have no fear, things will go easily with respect to you. You have only to deliver him into our hands, and out of love for you we pledge our honour to have him burned without scandal."

At these words Colignac could no longer restrain himself, although he was thrusting his fists into his ribs; he burst out laughing, which offended in no little degree the gentlemen, his relatives, to such an extent that it was out of his power to reply to a single point of their speech except by Ha! Ha! Ha! or Ho! Ho! Ho! so that our gentlemen, mightily scandalized, went off so affronted that they were still enraged when they reached Toulouse. When they had gone I drew Colignac aside into his study and as soon as I had shut the door I said:

"Count, it seems to me these hairy ambassadors are a kind of shaggy comets; I apprehend that the noise they broke out with is the thunder of the storm set in motion before falling. Although their accusation is ridiculous, and doubtless the result of their stupidity, I shall be none the less dead when a dozen men of wit who have seen me grilled observe that my judges are fools. All their arguments proving my innocence will not resuscitate me and my ashes will remain as cold in a grave as in a drain. For this reason, subject to your approval, I should be very happy to yield to the temptation which suggests to me that I leave nothing but my portrait in this province; for it would be doubly annoying to die for something in which I have not the slightest belief."

Colignac had scarcely the patience to wait for me to end before he replied. First of all he bantered me; but when he saw I took the matter seriously, he exclaimed with a troubled countenance:

"'Sdeath! They shall not touch the hem of your cloak until I, my friends, my vassals and all who respect me have perished. My house is so strong it cannot be carried without artillery; it is very advantageously placed and well covered on the flanks. But I am mad to guard against parchment thunders."

"Sometimes", I replied, "they are more dangerous than the thunders of the middle region."

Thereafter, however, we spoke of nothing but our amusements. One day we hunted, another day we took a walk, sometimes we received visitors and sometimes we went to see others; in fine, we abandoned each amusement before that amusement could bore us.

A neighbour of Colignac's, the Marquis de Cussan, a man who understood the good things of life, was usually in our company and we went from Colignac to Cussan and returned from Cussan to Colignac to render the places we stayed at more agreeable by change. Those innocent pleasures of which the body is capable are only a slight part of those the mind takes in study and conversation, whereof we lacked none; and our libraries, united like our minds, brought all the learned into our society. We mingled reading with conversation, conversation with good cheer, and that with fishing or hunting, when we went out; in a word we enjoyed, so to speak, both ourselves and all that is most agreeably produced by Nature for our use; we placed no limits to our desires save those of reason. Meanwhile my reputation, the enemy of my repose, circulated among the neighbouring villages and even the towns of the province; everyone, attracted by these rumours, found some pretext for visiting the Seigneur to see the sorcerer. When I went out of the castle the children and women and even the men looked upon me as upon the Devil, above all the parson of Colignac,[53] who either from malice or ignorance was secretly the worst of my enemies. This man was apparently simple and his gross, almost childish mind was infinitely amusing in its _naïvetés_, but he was actually very malicious. He was vindictive to the point of madness; a backbiter, excelling even a Norman; and so able a trickster that trickery was his ruling passion. After a long law-suit against his Seigneur, whom he hated the more for having successfully resisted his attacks, he grew afraid of his resentment and to avoid it desired to change his benefice; but either he had changed his plan or he had simply deferred it to avenge himself on Colignac in my person, while he remained on the estate; for he tried to persuade us he had changed his mind although his frequent expeditions to Toulouse made us suspect the contrary. He circulated a thousand ridiculous tales of my sorceries, and the voice of this malicious man joined with those of simple and ignorant people caused my name to be held in execration; I was spoken of as no other than a new Cornelius Agrippa, and we learned that there had even been an information lodged against me at the suit of the _Curé_, who had been tutor to his children. We were informed of this by several persons friendly to Colignac and the Marquis; and although this ignorant whimsey of a whole countryside was a matter of surprise and merriment to us, I could not fail to be apprehensive in secret when I considered more narrowly the unpleasant results which might follow upon this error. Doubtless this apprehension was inspired in me by my good genius, who enlightened my reason with all these perceptions to make me see the precipice towards which I was falling; and, not content with this tacit warning, showed itself still more decidedly in my favour.

[Footnote 53: Note that Cyrano's worst persecutor in this _Voyage to the Earth_ is a country parson. See Introduction.]

One of the most disagreeable nights I had ever spent followed one of the most agreeable days we had had at Colignac. I got up at dawn and to throw off the apprehensions and clouds which still oppressed my mind, I went into the garden where the green leaves, the flowers and fruits, Art and Nature, enchanted the soul through the eyes. At the same moment I perceived the Marquis walking alone in a large path which cut the grass-plot in two. His step was slow and his face thoughtful. I was very surprised to see him up so early, contrary to his custom, and I increased my pace to ask him the reason. He replied that he had been disturbed by some disagreeable dreams, which had forced him to come out earlier than usual to get rid in the daylight of a trouble the night had caused him. I confessed to him that a similar difficulty had prevented me from sleeping, and I was about to relate it to him in detail, but just as I opened my mouth we perceived Colignac walking rapidly round the corner of the hedge at an angle to ours. He exclaimed as he perceived us:

"You see a man who has just escaped the most horrible visions, the sight of which might turn one's brain. I barely took the time to put on my doublet when I went down to tell you about them, but neither of you was in his room; and so I ran down to the garden, supposing you would be there."

The poor gentleman was indeed almost out of breath, and as soon as he had recovered it we begged him to get rid of a thing, which, however light in one sense, does not fail to weigh heavily in another.

"That is my purpose", he replied, "but first of all let us sit down."

A jasmine-covered summer-house suitably offered us its freshness and its seats; we retired to it and when everyone was comfortably seated Colignac went on as follows:

"You must know that after fitful dozing, during which I felt myself greatly troubled, I fell into another doze about dawn and dreamed that my dear guest there was between the Marquis and myself, who held him closely embraced, when a great black monster, composed of nothing but heads, suddenly came to tear him from us. I even think the monster was going to cast him into a fire kindled near-by; for it held him suspended already over the flames. But a girl like that Muse we call Euterpē threw herself before the knees of a woman whom she besought to save him. This woman had the deportment and attributes used by our painters to represent Nature. She had scarcely had time to hear the request of her follower when she exclaimed in astonishment: 'Alas! He is one of my friends!' Immediately she put to her mouth a kind of trumpet and blew so hard through the tube under my dear guest's feet that she made him fly up into the sky and so saved him from the cruelties of the hundred-headed monster. I think I shouted after him for a long time and besought him not to go away without me, but an infinite number of little round angels calling themselves children of the dawn bore me up to the same country towards which he seemed to have flown, and showed me things I shall not repeat to you because I consider them too ridiculous."

We begged him not to refrain from telling us.

"I imagined", he continued, "that I was in the Sun and that the Sun was a world. I should not yet be disabused had it not been for the neighing of my horse, which woke me and made me see I was in bed."

When the Marquis saw that Colignac had finished he said: "And what was your dream, Monsieur Drycona?"[54]

[Footnote 54: Drycona = D. Cyrano.]

"Although mine was uncommon", I replied, "I consider it a mere empty tale. I am bilious and melancholy and so, ever since I have been in the world, my dreams have always been of caverns and fire. In my youth it seemed to me when I slept that I became very light and sped up to the clouds to avoid the rage of a band of assassins pursuing me; but after a very long and very vigorous effort and after flying over many walls I always met one at the foot of which I never failed to be stopped, worn out with the strain; or else I imagined I flew straight up and when I had swum with my arms for a long time in the sky I always found myself near land and, contrary to all reason, without my seeming to become either weary or heavy, my enemies had only to stretch out their hands to seize me by the foot and to draw me to them. Ever since I can remember all the dreams I have had have been like these, except last night, when, after flying as usual for a long time and often escaping from my persecutors, I seemed at last to lose sight of them and to continue my journey with a body delivered from all weight under a clear, very bright sky until I reached a Palace composed of heat and light. No doubt I should have noticed many other things, but my excitement in flying had brought me so near the edge of the bed that I fell down beside it, with my naked belly on the floor and my eyes wide open. This, gentlemen, was the whole of my dream, which I consider to be simply the effect of the two qualities which predominate in my temperament; for although this dream differs a little from those which usually happen to me, in that I flew up to the sky without falling back, I attribute this alteration to the diffusion of my blood by the joy of our pleasures yesterday, and since this was more extensive than usual it penetrated the melancholy and by uplifting it took from it that weight which before made me fall. But, after all, this is a science in which little can be discovered."

"Faith!" said Cussan, "you are right; it is a _pot-pourri_ of everything we think of when we are awake, a monstrous chimera, an assembly of confused mixtures, presented to us in disorder by our fancy which in sleep is no longer guided by reason, and yet by twisting them about we always think we shall squeeze out their true sense and derive a knowledge of the future from dreams as from oracles; but, on my faith, I see no resemblance between them, except that dreams like oracles cannot be understood. However, you may judge the value of all other dreams from mine, which is not in the least extraordinary. But, without torturing my brain with explanations of these dark enigmas, I will explain their mystic sense to you in two words: and they are, that Colignac is a place where we have bad dreams and in my opinion we should try to have better ones at Cussan."

"Let us go then", said the count, "since this mar-feast so wills it."

We agreed to go off that very day. I begged them to set out before me, because I wished to take some books with me since we had agreed to stay there a month. They assented and were in the saddle immediately after breakfast. Meanwhile, I made up a bundle of books which I imagined were not in the library at Cussan, placed them on a mule and set off about three o'clock, mounted on a good trotting horse. I advanced slowly in order to be near my little library and to enrich my soul at more leisure with the gifts of sight.

Hearken now to a surprising adventure. I had proceeded more than four leagues when I came to a piece of country I felt certain I had seen somewhere else. I urged my memory so much to tell me how it was I knew this landscape that the presence of the objects excited their images and I remembered that this was precisely the place I had seen in a dream the night before. This curious coincidence would have occupied my attention for a longer time had I not been roused by a strange apparition. A spectre--at least I took him for one--appeared before me in the middle of the road and seized my horse by the bridle. This phantom's height was enormous and from the little I could see of his eyes their expression was depressed and coarse. I cannot say whether he was ugly or handsome; a long gown made from the leaves of a book of plain-song covered him down to his nails and his face was hidden by a card on which was written the _In principio_.

The first words spoken by the phantom were as follows: "Satanus Diabolas", cried he in terror, "I conjure you by the great living God...."

At these words he hesitated. He continued to repeat his "great living God" and with a troubled visage sought for his pastor to give him the cue for the rest; but when he perceived that his pastor did not appear, no matter in what direction he turned his eyes, he was seized with such fearful trembling that half his teeth fell out with chattering and two-thirds of the music which covered him fell off like curl-papers. He then turned to me and said with a look neither rough nor gentle, from which I perceived his mind was unable to resolve whether it would be better to grow irritated or calmer:

"Ho!" said he, "Satanus Diabolas, By _Sangué_! I conjure you in the name of God and of Master Saint John not to oppose me, for if you stir hand or foot, Devil take me if I don't pull your guts out!"

I began to pull my horse's bridle away from him, but I was so suffocated with laughter that I had no strength left. Add to this that about fifty villagers emerged from behind a hedge grovelling on their knees and making themselves hoarse by singing _Kyrie Eleison_. When they came near, four of the strongest dipped their hands in a holy water stoop brought on purpose by the servant of the vicarage and seized me by the collar. I was scarcely arrested when Messire Jean[55] appeared and devoutly taking out his stole bound me in it, whereupon a mob of women and children sewed me into a great cloth in spite of my resistance and I was soon so bound up that only my head was visible. In this plight they carried me to Toulouse as if they had been taking me to my grave. At one time one of them would exclaim that there would have been a famine if I had not been captured, because when they met me I was assuredly about to cast a spell upon the corn; at another time I heard another complaining that the sheep-pox had begun in his fold on a Sunday, when I had tapped him on the shoulder as he came out from vespers. But above all I was tickled with a desire to laugh in spite of my disaster by the terrified scream of a young peasant girl at her betrothed, otherwise the Phantom, who had taken my horse (for you must know the lout was already astride it) and was spurring it as boldly as if it were his own.

[Footnote 55: Cyrano's eleventh satirical letter is addressed to Messire Jean; in the MS. of the Bibl. Nat. its title is _Apotheosis of an Ecclesiastical Buffoon_.]

"Wretch!" howled his beloved, "are you wall-eyed? Don't you see the magician's horse is blacker than coal--it is the Devil in person to carry you off to a Witches' Sabbath!"

Our peasant fell back in terror over the crupper and my horse took to the fields. They debated as to whether they should seize the mule and decided that they would. They undid the packet and the first volume they opened chanced to be the _Physics_ of _Monsieur Descartes_. When they perceived all the circles by which this philosopher has traced the movement of each planet, they all with one voice bawled out that these were the magic circles I drew to call up Beelzebub. The man who held the book dropped it in terror and unfortunately as it fell it opened at the page on which the action of the magnet is explained; I say unfortunately, because at the place I speak of there is a drawing of this metallic stone where the little bodies which detach themselves from its mass to seize the iron are represented as arms. Hardly had one of these fellows perceived it when I heard him roar out that this was the toad they found in the trough of his cousin Fiacre's stable when his horses died. At this, those who had appeared the most excited sheathed their hands in their bosoms or regloved them in their pockets. Messire Jean, for his part, bawled at the top of his voice not to touch anything, that all these books were a sorcerer's and the mule a Satan. The terrified mob then allowed the mule to go off in peace. But I noticed master _Curé's_ servant, Mathurine, driving him towards the parsonage stable to make sure the beast should not pollute the dead men's grass in the graveyard.