The Mysterious Fluid Page 8

  “Apologize!” howled the members of the Club Nautico-Agricole, “We’re all familiar with the mouth of the Rhône—you’re the one with the bad mouth.”

  “All right—I’ll give you that and continue. It’s also in the strange land of Madagascar that eels are put in shafts of bamboo, between two knots; to fatten them up, three little holes are pierced on the bamboo, it’s dropped down to the river-bed with a stone attached, and after three months the bamboo is broken—for the eel, deformed like a bit of black pudding, is fitted exactly to the interior of the bamboo. You have to take care not to be bitten then, for it’s not pleased by its imprisonment, especially if it has been separated from its intimate friend, and its bite is dangerous.”

  “You’re joking,” Marius opined.

  “I’m telling the exact truth, but I’ll get to the main point of my story. Early one morning, a friend and I had set out for a stroll along the sea shore, on the Fort Dauphin coast.”

  “I can see that from here,” Marius opined, again.

  “You can’t see anything at all. We spent some time collecting marine algae for the boss’s collection; the sun rose rapidly to the zenith without the aid of a funicular railway, and we had a diabolical thirst. Suddenly, my companion stopped dead and uttered a cry of joy. I ran over; he was in front of a superb specimen of the acephalous conchifera, a Tridacna gigas—as Monsieur Grandidier later informed us—resting gently on the sandy beach.

  “I ought to tell you that these very strange animals are better known by the common name of giant clams, and that it was two of that species that the Republic of Venice once gave, in the times of its splendor, to François I, which can still be admired at the Église Saint-Sulpice in Paris.”

  “You’re boring us with your erudition.”

  “I’ll continue. The bivalve’s two valves were wide open; one could see that the bird was inhaling the warm air, the salty breeze and the perfume of the sea. It was all pink, nacreous, shiny and pretty inside, with its soft, flaccid flesh—and as the sea had only just retreated from the shore, it was full of admirably transparent water.

  “‘There’s an oyster unknown in Batignolles,’ said my friend, a Paris lad. And before I could even make a gesture, he was on his knees in front of the giant tridacna, sticking his head out in order to drink that water…”

  Here Castagnat stopped to mop his brow, breathlessly. Two large tears slowly escaped his eyes. He drank a small glass of chartreuse, feverishly, and continued:

  “At that moment, the beast abruptly reclosed its two valves, its colossal nutcrackers, and my friend uttered a scream—just one, which I shall never forget as long as I live. I hurled myself forward and, without thinking about the anger, I slipped my two hands into the gap in order to open the upper valve. It continued closing, automatically, and ten seconds later, I had the middle fingers of each hand—except for the thumb and the little finger—cut off at the first knuckle…”

  A frisson of horror gripped the assembly, in which there was no more laughter when Castagnat displayed his six severed fingers. He resumed as follows:

  “Having left my phalanges in the giant clam, I ran to get help. When we came back, the bivalve was open again, and my friend’s head was only attached to his torso by a shred of bloody flesh, A Malagasy went forward, and, with an accurate blow of his machete, cut the tendon permitting the beast to contract and close at will, like a large powerful rubber spring. It was dead. We took it away; it weighed no less than 240 kilos 353 grams.

  “Well, that’s an unholy font46 that’s stuck in my memory. We gave my friend an appropriate funeral and sent the terrible murderous giant tridacna, well wrapped-up, to his family in the Passage Hélène, in Batignolles.”

  Everyone, profoundly shaken and emotional, declared that Castagnat was well worthy of the Club Nautico-Agricole, and it was decided that we would spend the evening at Frioul, in order to listen to the story of the celebrated Capdediou, a distant cousin of Tartarin of Tarascon47 and a former long-haul captain in the Austral seas.

  III. Strange deaths. The surprising revelations of explorers. The fatal knot.

  Ever faithful to rendezvous, and moved by the hope of hearing some more interesting stories, we were all sitting tranquilly in a perfumed arbor at Frioul’s, inhaling the gently and warm sea-breeze, which seemed to be bringing us the heady scents of Africa, at nine o’clock on the dot.

  The night was radiant, and each of us had a glass of beer in front of us; without further ado, we gave the floor to Capdediou of Tarascon.

  “Indeed, gentlemen, I’ve spent a lot of time sailing the South Seas and the Pacific in my long career as an old sea-dog—on long hauls, it’s necessary to add—although today, if you please, we won’t go as far and we’ll stop on the way, on the enchanted island of Ceylon.

  “One morning, about thirty years ago, I had arrived with my old tub to make a stopover in Colombo, in order to drop off some rice and pick up a little coffee. I settled all my business in the town during the morning, and in the afternoon, while my matelots—as the admirals say—were finishing off unloading and loading the cargo, I slipped away in order to get a little air, through the outlying districts of the town, which I used to know like the back of my hand, by virtue of having frequented them at every shore-leave.

  “So, without a care in the world, I headed for a hospitable house well known to mariners, and was very glad to run into a young Englishwoman there, not long disembarked, still unfamiliar with the country, who spoke French well enough. Now, as I jabber English like a Spanish heifer raised in Russia, I was delighted to encounter a quasi-compatriot, at least in linguistic terms.

  “Having fulfilled the customary formalities, we went out together to take a stroll. After half an hour we were in a paradisal forest, and, suddenly reverting to childhood under the influence of the intoxicating effluvia of the tropical forest, I started dancing around among the trees, collecting a bunch of orchids—those marvelous parasites which, in Marseilles, would have been worth at least ten louis—and joyously putting them in her arms. While she struggled beneath the avalanche of strange flowers, I took out my pipe—an old sea-dog’s habit—stuffed it and lit it; that was her ruination.

  “Without me noticing it, that crazy daughter of Albion, ignorant of the terrible dangers of Ceylon, had picked up a red filament from the middle of the road to tie up her bouquet of flowers. She fell down, struck dead, without uttering a scream.

  “The red ribbon was a little coral snake, which had bitten her—and, as you know, it kills instantly…”

  The captain fell silent, and we remained pensive momentarily, for these tales of strange deaths were causing us to experience, involuntarily, the petite mort, as the immortal marquis puts it.48

  “A week later,” Capdediou went on, “I found myself in the harbor of a little independent Sultanate not far from Katmandu, in Nepal, when…but I’ve finished, for each of us only ought to tell one story.

  “Go on, yes, go on—there’s no need to make us salivate…”

  “I was invited to witness and execution the following day. At the appointed hour, in the square in front of the Sultan’s palace, the condemned man knelt down of his own accord, with typical Asiatic resignation, and put his own head on the block. Grave and solemn, sure of his strength and skill, the executioner put a foot on his head, laid on, and squashed it instantaneously, like a cooked apple. The man died of it, without even saying oof!”

  “Well, he was reliable, your executioner.”

  “I believe so—it was an elephant performing the noble function of executioner.”

  “It’s curious,” Castagnat interjected, sententiously, “how it has been necessary, in every country in the world, for man to make it a duty to corrupt animals in his own image, and render them as cruel as him.”

  “That’s true,” we said—and the floor was given to the celebrated inventor of the galvanized steel mosquito-net, who had also travelled extensively in the Pacific isles selling his incomparable product
.”

  “Over to you, Lagriffoul—let’s go!”

  And Onésime Lagriffoul began forthwith, in these terms…

  But first, my dear readers, I request a ten-minute interval, which you have certainly deserved.

  IV. Strange deaths. The surprising revelations of explorers. The golden cyst.

  A new decoration.

  All the members of the Club Nautico-Agricole de la Colonisation Pratique being very impatient to hear another marvelous story, the President, without further delay, gave the floor of Onésime Lagriffoul, a former long-haul captain celebrated throughout the Cannebière,49 as I’ve already said, for his voyages to the South Seas.

  “Well,” said the latter, “you’re going to be robbed again, poor chaps, for I shan’t take you to the Antipodes, but merely to the kingdom of Annam, but as I don’t want to be booed by you…”

  “Bravo!” cried the assembly.

  Without having noticed the excellent pun he had made,50 Lagriffoul continued: “I promise you that the tall lanky chap at the far end to the table, to the left, by the name of Isidore Phétu, who lives in the Rue Pavé d’Amour nor far from the Rue de la Pierre-qui-Rage—my first mate, in a word—will take you there in a little while.

  “Now, one day when I was in Annam to purchase a cargo of tea and rice, not to mention castor-oil…”

  “Bravo!”

  “I knew that a mandarin—a fat vegetable—had just been condemned to death by the king for forgetting to snuff out the candles for the ceremony celebrating Confucius’ birthday in a timely manner.

  “He could have argued in his defense that he was fat and impotent, and that his immense belly on his thin legs—more voluminous than late of the late Renan51—had prevented him from getting up in time to snuff out the sacred scented candles, but he preferred to die in carrying out the order of his most gracious overlord, and, as the thing was to be done in secret, the French authorities would be unable to intervene in time. As for me, I had been kept up to date by my quartermaster, whose girl-friend was a servant of the mandarin’s wife—you follow?

  “Yes.”

  “All right. On the appointed day, he took his long sword of honor, curved and damascened, and bang!—with a single stroke, he plunged it resolutely into his belly, thrusting it violently upwards, in such a way as to cleave the abdomen in two.

  “That done, he closed his eyes and waited, saying to himself: I’m dead. But some time passed and, utterly astonished at not being dead, he doubtless felt very weak, but also much better, and much lighter in front, for having delivered his great sword-thrust—and as he began a series of serious philosophical reflections on that subject, his wife, followed by her maid, who was my quartermaster’s girl-friend, from whom…but that’s enough…came in, all in tears, to see whether her poor potsherd of a mandarin had killed himself without overmuch pain, and was most astonished to find him tranquil on the sofa, a smile on his lips.

  “‘You’re not dead?’

  “‘I’m quite well—but it’s necessary to obey my master, the king, so finish me off.’

  “‘No need—you’ve obeyed your lord and master, so death doesn’t want you; you’ve simply burst your cyst, and here you are, saved.’

  “And right away, without losing a moment, she emptied the sac, washed it out with tea, as a substitute for carbolic acid, and sewed the belly up—as per Rollin—or stitched it up—as per Amyot—(the grammatical difference is indifferent to me)52 with a long silver needle.

  A fortnight later, the mandarin was back on his feet, with a figure as slim and elegant as a young man’s, the mandarin’s wife was wearing a cherubic smile and her maid was in an interesting condition…of joy.

  The king, amazed by the adventure, having convened a supreme council of physicians, pharmacists, apothecaries and veterinary surgeons of Hué and several suburbs, granted a pardon to the mandarin, and, in memory of the marvelous cure, made him a Grand Commander of a new Order, the Golden Cyst. Comprising a simple sharkskin pouch, the decoration is worn on the belly, and serves to carry all the utensils—bowl, pipe, seeds and Japanese matches—necessary to opium smokers.

  “And that’s how I was able, in Annam, in our beautiful Indo-Chinese empire, to witness the surprising cure of a brave mandarin, thanks to my quartermaster and his girl-friend, who was the maid of the aforementioned…enough said.”

  “Pardon! Forfeit! Forfeit!”

  “What?”

  “It’s not the story a death that you recounted there, damn it, since your mandarin came back to life,” said Marius.

  “That’s true—waiter, four bottles of champagne. He died twenty-seven years later, but I’m a good sportsman. Come on, my old Isidore Phétus, it’s your turn to talk—and, most of all, to do honor to your former captain!”

  V. Strange deaths. The surprising revelations of explorers.

  The magic herbal.

  A meteor strike.

  Without making him repeat it, with good grace and with the tranquil assurance of an old sea-dog, Isidore Phétu started speaking in these terms:

  “We had set out on a long-haul voyage to northern Polynesia, going from the Palaus to the Carolines and from there to the Marianas to buy up all the copra we could find from the natives before the Germans came to outbid us.

  “As you can see, we were good businessmen aboard our old tub, which made good headway under full sail—I’ll say no more than that.

  “It’s true,” opined Onésime Lagriffoul.

  “However, the captain had taken aboard a sort of eccentric, a middle-aged scientist…”

  “More than middle,” said Lagriffoul.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Marius.

  “…Who, without an official commission from the government, nevertheless claimed to have been sent to observe a transit of Venus, or some other peculiarity of the firmament.”

  “Pardon me,” said Capdediou. “Venus went to India—perhaps it was the same year.”53

  “Well, that was another one—enough said. As well as astronomy, this singular beanpole was interested in all the sciences—geology, for which he had collected so many stones that there were enough to ballast the ship, botany, etc., even though he had the most beautiful herbals in the world, and had one true marvel, a big one, for conserving plants and flowers with their original colors. I emphasize the herbals because you’ll see, later, that they were called upon to play a considerable role in our story.

  “Now, one morning we had landed on one of the largest Palaus to pick up copra, and also a little tortoiseshell, and we were calmly in the process of negotiation while our astronomer, whom we jokingly called Father Comet, had gone into the interior with a cabin-boy who was carrying his specimen-box and two or three young savages native to the island—for the inhabitants were very peaceful and liked us a great deal.

  “Suddenly—it was nine fifty-seven in the morning, I’ll never forget it—there was a terrible explosion in the sky no more than half a league away from us.

  “The natives dropped the sacks of copra, and we had a real fright ourselves, which didn’t last long—but twenty-five minutes later, covered in sweat, our cabin-boy and the young Polynesians came running crazily, with all the marks of terror on their faces.

  “Over there,” the cabin-boy finally articulated, “on a rocky plateau, a big stone has fallen from the sky—a black stone that smells of sulfur. It plunged down on the rocks, and it’s crushed Father Comet!”

  “We immediately launched ourselves on his track, and soon found the place, where we saw that an enormous bolide of more than two cubic meters, which had fallen on the rock—which was flat and smooth at that location—had made a sort of splash in the aforementioned rock, sending shards in every direction….and our poor astronomer was underneath it.”

  “In all the time I was selling my galvanized steel mosquito-nets and picking up copra in the Pacific,” Lagriffoul put in, “I’d never seen anything like it.”

  “With a winch and a capstan brought f
rom the boat and hastily set up, the bolide was carefully lifted up, and we pulled Father Comet’s corpse out from underneath it—as flat as a bug and absolutely desiccated already. As we were looking at one another, mournfully, the young cabin-boy had an impulse of sublime pity. ‘We shouldn’t throw him in the sea, but stick him between two sheets of silk paper in one of his herbals, fixing him there with three or four drawing-pins.’

  “Which is what we did—and when we got back to France we delivered him intact to his widow, who had him well and truly encased in glass and placed in the dining-room. Although the chap looked as if he had been put through a mangle, he was still perfectly recognizable—except that his nose was a trifle elongated, like Cyrano’s. All in all, he made another nice still life in his widow’s dining-room.”

  Everyone was ill with laughter and emotion at the same time.

  “It’s three o’clock in the morning,” Marius remarked. “It’s time for the Club Nautico-Agricole de la Colonisation Pratique to let Monsieur Vibert rest; come on, let’s be off—we’ll escort him back to his hotel.”

  And we left the Frioul, bathed by the radiant glow of that Tarascon moon, which gives the young women of Marseilles sunstroke.

  “And tomorrow, all hands on deck to see Monsieur off on the Paris express, and offer him a stirrup-cup!”

  “Hurrah! Until tomorrow!”

  VI. Strange deaths. The surprising revelations of explorers.

  A minute in mid-air.

  All hands on deck for the stirrup cup! Absolutely. I had to take the Paris express at seven forty in the evening, and everyone was at the Hôtel Terminus at five sharp, responding to my final invitation promptly.

  Without wasting any time, therefore—drinking Madeira, because it was early, as I said—I gave the floor to young Gardanne, who had said nothing so far and had been to Paraguay—Paragwoy, as poseurs say—with a trader in quest of rubber, if I remember correctly, and other Republics in South America. Flattered that I had remembered, young Gardanne began thus: