The Napus, page 14
Scientists are the most docile of human beings. We might set fire to the universe with our inventions, or be subject to the deformations caused by human malignity, but we never rebel against an administrative decision, even if we estimate it to be pointless, absurd or dangerous. The Aristotle Foundation resolved to set a good example and take a trip as a body in the direction of Corbeil.
Why Corbeil? Because the inhabitants of that pretty location, situated on the banks of the Seine, had erected a statue to Ailette, their fellow citizen, for his marvelous discovery of the antinsapusian broth.
Leaving two guards at the Foundation—which was amply sufficient in view of the multitude of surveillance and autoprotection devices—we climbed into three electric vehicles, each containing thirty people, with sixty cans of food and a large packet of tablets of so-called excursion wine. Only Sterlett encumbered himself with a bottle of natural Burgundy wine, presently obligatory for Americans after the emergence from a period of prohibition.
Since the hecatombs of the year 2110, when, during the vacation period, a hundred thousand French men and women, crushers and crushed, had perished by virtue of the excessive speed of automobiles—that was the time of the two hundred and fifty an hour—it had been forbidden for ordinary mortals to exceed an average speed of thirty kilometers an hour, which permitted the admiration of the landscape and also kissing—something impossible, under the old system, without breaking jaws. The presence of an average of ten Polyplasts, originally intended to keep the peace, for every hundred persons increased the license to a speed of forty kph. That restriction contrasted with the immense amplitude of aerial, ondic, marine or subterrestrial speeds—the last in autoexacavators or autoborers—which Sidoine held responsible for the Napus.
Thus, we departed in a convoy. Seated between my beloved and an indifferent Polyplast, I nestled close to her, and thus displeased the Polyplast, whom I subsequently discovered to be named 4,030 and to be a hybrid of Persian, Arab, Austrian and Parisian. He was the most savagely bellicose individual I had ever met. He never ceased looking forward to the moment when one could reduce an enemy army to pulp just be pressing a button. He seemed to have concentrated within him all the ferocious savagery of the first three blood-lines in his make-up, with a leisurely and debonair accent that came from the quarter of pantruchian origin.18
The “legal excursions” whose paths we crossed beneath a cloudy autumnal sky, composed of people of all ages and social levels, gave an impression of anxiety. In order to please the Prefect of Police—who, in order to reassure the public, was wearing a glittering fireman’s uniform—the poor pedestrians put on sad little forced smiles.
“Well, Monsieur le Préfet,” I said, taking advantage of a pause, “when are you going to visit Underground 7?”
His only response was to point to the sky, where a circular green glow had appeared, reminiscent of that of discolored negroes.
Two hundred years ago, the region that begins at Maisons-Alfort and continues through Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, Dravail and Champrosay was prosperous—which is to say that it was bristling with little houses disposed in a checkerboard pattern, constructed on the sites of the great and beautiful dwellings of previous ages and the parks attached to them. There was a general fragmentation, the consequence of the old law of inheritance and division enforced by the Napoléonic Code. The latter, a military man of genius, after the fashion of Alexander or Caesar, but imbued with democratic, and therefore revolutionary principles, is nowadays deservedly reputed to have been an imbecilic and dangerous legislator.
Monarchical wisdom has once again come into play, and there is no Frenchman who does not think with terror of what the war of the Napus might have produced in a Republic—which is to say, a chronic state of disorder. With the monarchy restored, the indefinite parceling out of property ceased, and, in consequence, forced division and bad finance, and the era of estates with dependencies returned, in which many people live in the family organization most useful to the nation. The fabric of the earth is no longer in tatters, fragments of fragments. They form a vestment again.
The return of the estate marked the renewal of an architecture more comfortable than the original, inspired by the eighteenth century and sufficient, likewise, to reawaken painters in stone, who were not merely landscape artists or portraitists. Thus all things hold together, and the amelioration of a small legal text can bring forth beautiful buildings, prevent social convulsions and provoke talents of every sort.
Henriette and I played an innocent game, which consisted of choosing a property for the day of our retirement. In fact, reciprocal love and the prospect of marriage and children had gradually diminished the excessive scientific ardor in our hearts and would end up drying it up. In my composite heredity, a sensible individuality became predominant, whose announcement would have made me laugh—the ironic and distinctive laughter of a Polyplast—had anyone spoken about it to me before. That slow metamorphosis, about which we conversed in our leisure time, proved that any extrinsic scheme with a view to orientating the infinitely malleable being that we are toward one specialization or another, physical or mental, is a chimera.
Sidoine, who was in our vehicle, called the caravan to a halt. The region of Draveil, where we were, had once been littered with factories producing chemicals and other substances that had revolutionized a previously placid population, which had become peaceful again after the disappearance of those houses of hate. That return to normality was not merely a consequence of royalty; it was also due to the antiscientific revolution of 2214, whose excesses Sidonie—a scientist himself—deplored, but which he recognized to have been well-founded in certain respects. Was he not the author of the antielectric and antiondic law, which had just raised Germany against us?
“I’m convinced,” he said, “that industrial cycles, with their cortege of social evils, return periodically in different regions of the earth, where they bring, along with indisputable material ameliorations, run, revolution and war. It’s also that conviction which unleashed among our forefathers, a hundred and thirteen years ago, that fit of devastating wrath in which the majority of the great enterprises in oil, rubber, paper, cement and others were almost obliterated.”
We were scarcely disposed, however, to listen to considerations of that sort. We were observing the green glow on the horizon, whose circular form was that of a ring, darker at the center. Some thought it was an aurora borealis, others that it was a maleficent invention of the Germans.
“It’s extraordinary, all the same, that they haven’t given any sign of death since the declaration of war, especially since the fall of the dollar and the circulation of the Analgo.”
That observation by a Polyplast summarized the general opinion.
Sidoine opined that the Prussians, still the conductors and the champions of the Germanic nation, were experimenting with a state intermediate between war and peace, a kind of armed vigilance permitting brief raids akin to corsair incursions.
Thus engaged in discussion, we arrived at the village of Champrosay, where two beautiful gardens descended a gentle slope toward the Seine. There, in the nineteenth century, had lived the painter Eugène Delacroix, whose entire oeuvre has disappeared, with the exception of a single painting, representing an old peasant, the one who had rented him the house in which he had constructed a studio. Later, Alphonse Daudet, the novelist most widely read today, after an eclipse of a century, lived in Champrosay in three different houses, of which no vestige remains today. It is said that he wrote the scenario to L’Arlésienne there. The general farmer Polydore has restored that pleasant town, closer to the bank of the Seine, replanted a grove of poplars, which had the merit of breaking up the frequent storms, and has even put his mark on the beautiful fountains, imitations of Juvisy’s, which remained intact after four centuries.
As we were going into the woods of Sénart, reformed by royal edict to remedy the flooding of Paris, which deforestation had rendered periodic, we were surprised by the number of nomads who had taken refuge there. For the most part, they were Parisians and people from the city’s immediate suburbs, fleeing aerial bombardments and terrified of not seeing them come. Some of them recognized members of the Aristotle and approached us, their physicians, in whom they had the most touching confidence.
One of them, Monsieur Saint-Fernand, the proprietor of a fine fortune and a racing stable, was clad in a dressing-gown with a floral pattern, which, beneath the trees, made him resemble a huge parrot. A typical specimen of a socialite, a gossip and an idler, and a coward into the bargain, incapable of boiling an egg or roasting a kidney, he was living there in a camp with his wife, a redoubtable tyrant, his mother-in-law, an older version of his wife, three young children ad a forty-year-old domestic who kept the hut tidy and cooked the meals.
“Maître,” said Saint-Fernand, addressing Sidoine, “I’ve suffered a rather unfortunate mishap; I held on to the dollar and the dollar collapsed before that damned analgo. What would you advise me to do?”
“I’d advise you to hold on to your dollars,” the scientist replied. “They’ll go up again because the German analgesic is a hoax. We’ve proved that at the Foundation. We carried out a conclusive experiment on that subject.”
“Ah!” said Madame Saint-Fernad, delighted by this prognostication. “Can you imagine, my dear doctor, that I have a few shares in the Aristotle, which were part of my dowry. Would you advise me to sell them?”
“Keep them, Mdame. We’re presently the most sought-after share.”
The mother-in-law came over in her turn. Old and worn out, she had no thought for anything but money, although she could not take it with her into the tomb, and she wanted information about shares in artificial rubber, of which she had been told great things.
Attracted by the tendency of the conversation, other castaways came toward us, in the most unusual costumes, and asked for the latest news of the invisible war. The same anxiety was evident in all of them, combined with the immense frivolity of socialites, reminiscent of a cockroach or a scarab beetle in a tin of powdered rice. There was also a pretty cinema actress in a low-cut dress, surrounded by aging dandies, who never ceased to repeat to a middle-aged gentleman the color of bile, manifestly hepatic: “Oh, how I love scientists. Personally, I adore them. They’re my passion! Any man, even the richest in the world, is insipid to me compared with a scientist! Oh, show me a Polyplast.…”
“Messieurs,” asked one of the beauty’s adorers, comically, “is there a Polyplast among you?”
“Present!” I said, although Henriette, already anxious, was tugging my sleeve.
“Oh, Monsieur, I’m a film-star, you’re a Polyplast. We’re made to understand one another. What do you think of this frightful war?”
“And you, Madame,” I replied, in order to avoid such an inconvenient question, “what do you think of the Napus? Have you had many cases here?”
That question appeared to cast a chill. The gracious individual pouted. “It’s something we don’t talk about, because talking about it brings bad luck. Yes, right here, the day before yesterday, we had a case of aphanasia—which is more polite than ‘Napus.’ Fortunately, it was only a common person, whose name I don’t recall.”
“A certain Raoul…,” Saint-Fernand interjected, with an expression of disgust. “A chestnut-seller from the Boulevard du Temple. A very slight loss!”
“Raoul…yes that’s it. It appears that the epidermis shrinks. Is that what you think? Anyway, it’s far less interesting than the war. God knows what the Germans are preparing. Oh well, au revoir, Monsieur, for today! I’m going to have a snack with these gentlemen. Can you imagine that we even have muffins here, to take with tea. Oh, my dear, lend me your shoulder; I’m worn out.”
She drew away, supported by one of the old fogeys, gazing heavenwards expressively. Saint-Fernand, his wife and mother-in-law were letting their tongues rest in their saliva when an individual of unprepossessing appearance stood up in front of he vehicle just as well were about to move off. In a rude voice, replete with anger and alcohol, he demanded: “Is this really the Aristotle Foundation.”
“In person, my friend.”
“Is Professor Sidoine here?”
“That’s me.”
The man had his hands in his pockets, but his tone was threatening. “I’m not sorry to meet you, otherwise than in photographs. So it’s you, with your antielectric law, who’s responsible for this war?”
“Me, responsible for the war!” Sidoine exclaimed. “Oh, that’s a good one! Don’t you know that it’s the Germans who want war, and that they went so far as to make up Professor Murmelthier’s murder? Me, want war…that’s insane!”
“It’s you who are insane,” growled the anarcho. “Well, you’re going take back your wretched law, as quick as you can. If not, you’ll have to reckon with me, professor at the Aristiotle as you are, and I don’t.…”
The rest of the threat was drowned out by the roar of the engine. The driver had had the good idea of cutting the ruffian off.
Sidoine seemed anxious, though. It was the first time that anyone had addressed him other than in a tone of admiration and respect. In addition, he had not supposed that his responsibility, which was only apparent—for, in fact, he wanted general well-being—was seen in that way by the public. Henriette and I were also struck by the tirade.
Our companions remained ill-at-ease, and from the forest of Sénart all the way to Corbeil, passing through the woods of Rougeaud, similarly invaded by refugees, we remained under that annoying influence.
The municipality of Corbeil had come out to meet us, reinforced by those of Melun, Combs-la-Ville, Tigery and Soisy-sous-Etoiles. There were a dozen Maires there with the fine cunning faces of the environs of Paris, with their sashes over their chests and their papers in hand. For his part, Ailette, the inventor of the broth, had prepared—so his foreman assured us—a speech of sixty large-format pages, with all sorts of considerations on the disasters of the war and the means of avoiding them. That vast slash of the razor was in preparation, and there was still that troubling green glow in the sky.…
The memory of that scene remains present in my mind, down to its slightest details. I can still see the large head of the Maire of Corbeil, the sweat of his emotion, the houses grouped around the little square, as in a set at the Lyonnais puppet-theater, faces at the windows, the brass band, the ridiculous statue of Ailette holding a bottle of his inconceivable broth, unveiled, and the inscription, in golden letters, on the pedestal of the monument: To Professor Ailette of the Aristotle Foundation, the vanquisher of the Napus, from his grateful fellow citizens of Corbeil.
But scarcely had the municipal magistrate, getting up from his red armchair with the gilded arm-rests, opened his mouth than Ailette, flanked by a general in battle-dress, abruptly disappeared, snatched by the Disease that he was supposed to have vanquished.
You will now accuse us of hardness of heart. The initial sentiment of all of us—I have assured myself since—was: “That will spare us from a speech!”
It is necessary to remember that at the Aristotle Foundation, an official milieu where ministers were continually wiping their feet, we were submerged, inundated and deluged by speeches of every sort; since the fortunate disappearance of parliamentarianism, there is no official personage who does not have a dozen sonorous turnips to plant.
“A pati, n’a pus,” I said to the consternated Henriette.
We witnessed then the absurd spectacle of five mayors in tears and an entire population as afflicted as if they had lost their father. No one was stiff-necked or more indifferent than Ailette, who was a crafty knave into the bargain. As for his inventions, they were all as worthless as his most recent, the broth.
Sidoine, the most senior member of our household after Ailette, stood up then, and made an admirable comment, which was also an explanation.
“Messieurs, in the midst of the grief that is overwhelming us, one consoling—eminently consoling—fact merits the fixation of your attention. Our much-regretted master, Professor Ailette, whose admirable effigy will perpetuate his form and his memory, had stopped taking the protective broth a month ago. Deprived by the invisible war of some of the ingredients indispensable to the confection of the broth, he had reserved the entire fabrication for the poor. He died, therefore, of his devotion, and his spirit of public sacrifice.”
The Maire of Tigery had had the delicate idea of asking the leader of the band to replace the “Hymn to the Broth”—a local composition—with Chopin’s funeral march, which, since the nineteenth century, has accompanied deceased officials, with or without remains, into the shadows. The music goes as follows:
Poum… poum, poupoum, pou poupoum, poupoum, poupoum.
Hi, hiou, hiou, ou
Hi, hiou, hiou, ou,
Poum poum poupoumm, pou poupoum poupoum poupoum.
The cinema cameras began to roll, collecting both those melancholy tones and the reflections of worthy people. Unexpectedly, a few of the Corbeillois, in spite of being so close to the capital, had never heard mention of the Napus, and remained convinced that they had witnessed a conjuring trick, an incomprehensible scientific tour de force, or a kind of prodigy.
The toast of honor that was due to follow was naturally cancelled. Ailette’s Napus had hollowed me out; I was dying of hunger.
16. The Swiss physician Samuel-Auguste Tissot wrote textbooks on the disease of the poor, the diseases of the rich, the diseases of men of letters, migraines, and masturbation (which he treated as a debilitating illness). He was not, however, particularly associated with work on Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that causes syphilis, so Daudet’s reference might be mistaken.
17. The author inserts a footnote: “from the Greek peïtheïn, or persuader.” Crediting the discovery of the antipithiatic pill to someone named Babinsky is a joke, as the Paris-born Polish neuroscientist Joseph Baninski had been a key collaborator of Charcot’s in developing the study of hysteria (in which Daudet did not believe) and had developed the concept of “pithiatism,” subsequently associated with “shell shock” in his Hysteropithiatisme en neurologie de guerre (1917), in that context. Joseph Babinski’s brother Henri was an engineer and also a famous cook, who published a culinary guide-book under the pseudonym “Ali Baba.”
