which formed them were so extremely tall that they appeared to support
in the heavens a high garden-plot of greenery. Glancing from the root
to the top and then from the summit to the foot I wondered whether the
Earth bore them up or whether they themselves did not rather carry
the Earth hanging from their roots. It seemed as if their heads, so
proudly lifted, were bowed by force under the burden of the celestial
globes and that they groaned as they supported this weight; their arms
extended towards the sky seemed to embrace it and to ask from the stars
the pure benignity of their influences which they receive before they
lose any of their innocence in the bed of the elements. There, on all
sides the flowers with no gardener but Nature exhale a wild breath
which awakens and satisfies the sense of smell; there, the incarnate
of a rose on the eglantine and the bright blue of a violet under the
brambles leave no liberty of choice and make you think that each is
more beautiful than the other; there, every season is spring; there,
no poisonous plant grows but that its existence betrays its safety;
there, the rivulets relate their journeys to the pebbles; there, a
thousand little feathered voices make the forest ring with the sound of
their songs and the flattering assembly of these melodious throats is
so general that every leaf in the wood seems to have taken the tongue
and form of a nightingale; Echo delights so much in their songs that
to hear her repeat them one would think she wished to learn them by
heart. Beside this wood two meadows are to be seen whose continuous
happy green formed one emerald to the horizon. The confused mixture of
colours which the Spring attaches to a hundred little flowers mingles
the tints together and these waving flowers seem running to escape
the caresses of the wind. This meadow looks like an ocean but, since
it is a sea without shore, my eye, terrified at having wandered so
far without discovering a limit, quickly sent my thought over it; and
my thought wondering if it were not the end of the world would have
convinced itself that so charming a scene had perhaps compelled Heaven
to join itself to Earth. In the midst of this vast perfect carpet flow
the silver bubbles of a rustic fountain whose banks are crowned with
turf enamelled with daisies, buttercups and violets, and the crowding
of these flowers all about appears as if each were thrusting forward
to be the first reflected. The stream is still in its cradle, it is
but just born and its young smooth face shows not one wrinkle; the
large curves it makes, returning upon itself a thousand times, show
how regretfully it leaves its native country, and, as if it had been
ashamed to be caressed too near its mother, it repulsed murmuring the
hand I put forth playfully to touch it; the animals that came there to
drink, more reasonable than those of our world, showed their surprise
at seeing it was full day above the horizon while yet they saw the Sun
in the Antipodes and scarcely dared to lean over the brink lest they
should fall into the firmament.[32]
[Footnote 32: All this long paragraph comes from an earlier work of
Cyrano's, a letter called "Le Campagnard". _Œuvres Diverses._ 1654. In
Jacob's edition, 1858, the title is "D'une Maison de Campagne".]
I cannot choose but admit that the sight of so many fair objects
tickled me with those agreeable pangs the embryo is said to feel when
the soul is infused in it! My old hair fell out and was replaced by
thicker and finer tresses; I felt my youth re-lighted, my face grow
rosy, my natural heat mingle gently once more with my radical moisture;
in fine, my age diminished some fourteen years.
I had walked half a league through a forest of jasmine and myrtles
when I perceived something that moved, as it lay in the shade; it was
a young man whose majestic beauty compelled me almost to adore him. He
arose to restrain me.
"'Tis not to me", he exclaimed loudly, "but to God, that you owe these
acts of submission!"
"You see me", I replied, "amazed with so many miracles that I know not
how to begin the expression of my wonder. First I come from a world
which you here no doubt take to be a Moon; and I thought to reach
another, which the people of my country call the Moon, and I find
myself in Paradise at the feet of a God who refuses to be adored, of a
stranger who speaks my language."
"Except for the attribute of God", he replied, "what you say is true;
this Earth is the Moon which you see from your Globe and the place
where you walk is Paradise, but it is the Earthly Paradise into which
only six people have ever entered: Adam, Eve, Enoch, Myself who am
old Elijah, Saint John the Evangelist and you. You know very well
how the two first were banished hence but you do not know how they
came to your World. Know then that when they had both tasted the
forbidden apple, Adam, fearful lest God should be further irritated by
his presence and increase his punishment, considered the Moon, your
Earth, as the sole refuge wherein he could shelter from the vengeance
of his Creator. Well, at that time man's imagination was so strong,
being not yet corrupted by debaucheries, by coarse foods or by the
weakening of diseases, that when he was excited by a violent desire
to reach this refuge his whole body became lightened through the fire
of this enthusiasm and he was uplifted just as certain philosophers,
whose imagination has been greatly moved by something, have been
carried into the air by transports which you call ecstatic. Eve who was
weaker and not so hot, because of the infirmity of her sex, doubtless
would not have possessed an imagination able to conquer by the mere
strength of its will the weight of matter, but since she had been but
a little time made out of her husband's body the sympathy which still
bound this portion to the original whole carried her after him as he
went up, just as amber is followed by a straw, as the loadstone turns
to the north from whence it has been torn. And Adam attracted this
part of himself as the sea attracts the rivers which are made out of
her. When they reached your Earth they took up their abode between
Mesopotamia and Arabia; the Hebrews knew him by the name of Adam and
the idolaters by the name of Prometheus, feigned by their poets to have
stolen fire from Heaven, because the progeny he begot were endowed
with a soul as perfect as that which God had filled him with; thus the
first man left this world deserted to inhabit yours, but the All-Wise
willed that so happy a dwelling-place should not remain uninhabited
and a few centuries later he granted Enoch permission to leave the
company of mankind, whose innocence had become corrupted. This holy
personage considered that no retreat was secure against the ambition
of his relatives (who were already cutting each other's throats for
the possession of your world) except that happy land whereof Adam,
his grandfather, had formerly talked so much. Yet how was he to get
there? Jacob's Ladder was not yet invented! The grace of the Most High
supplied the deficiency by causing Enoch to observe that the fire from
Heaven descended upon the sacrifices of the just and of those who were
acceptable before the face of the Lord, according to the word of His
mouth: 'The savour of the just man's sacrifices has reached me.' One
day when this divine flame was fiercely consuming a victim which he
offered to the Eternal, he filled two large vessels with the vapour
it gave off, sealed them hermetically and attached them under his
arm-pits. The smoke immediately had a tendency to rise straight up to
God and, not being able to penetrate the metal save by a miracle, bore
the vessels upwards and in the same way carried with them this holy
man.[33] When he reached the Moon and looked upon this fair garden
an almost supernatural out-pouring of joy showed him that it was
the Earthly Paradise wherein his grandfather had formerly dwelt. He
promptly loosened the vessels which he had bound like wings on to his
shoulders and did so with so much good fortune that he was scarce four
toises in the air above the Moon when he took leave of his bladders.
However he was sufficiently high up to have been sadly hurt had not the
wind borne up the ample skirts of his robe.[34] The ardour of the fire
of charity sustained him also. As to the vessels they continued to rise
until God set them in the Heavens and they are what you to-day call the
Balance, showing us every day that they are still full of the odours of
a just man's sacrifice by the favourable influences they exert on the
horoscope of Louis the Just, who had the Balance as his ascendant.
[Footnote 33: Juppont considers this a premonition of the balloon.]
[Footnote 34: A parachute. (Juppont).]
"Enoch nevertheless was not yet in this garden; he arrived there some
time later. This was during the flood when the waters which engulfed
your world rose to so prodigious a height that the Ark swam in the
Heavens beside the Moon. The human beings within saw this globe
through the window but the light reflected from this great opaque body
was weakened because they were so near that they shared it and so
each of them thought it was a part of the Earth not yet flooded. One
daughter of Noah, named Achab, alone maintained tooth and nail that
it was positively the Moon, perhaps because she had noticed they had
approached this body as the ship rose. They pointed out to her that the
sounding-line marked but fifteen fathoms of water; she only replied
that the lead must have touched the back of a whale which they took for
Earth and that for her part she was well assured it was the Moon in
person they were about to board. In fine, since each one follows the
opinion of his like, all the other women in turn grew convinced of it
and in spite of the men's prohibition they launched the skiff on the
water. Achab was the most daring and desired to be the first to affront
the peril. She threw herself gaily into the boat and would have been
followed by all those of her sex had not a wave separated her from the
ship. They called to her, said she was a hundred times lunatic, vowed
that through her every woman would one day be reproached for having a
quarter of the Moon in her head--she did but flout them. There she was
sailing outside the world. The animals followed her example, for most
of the birds, impatient at the first prison that had ever restrained
their liberty, flew thither if they felt their wings strong enough to
risk the journey. The boldest of the quadrupeds even began to swim.
More than a thousand got out before Noah's sons could shut the stables
which were kept open by the crowd of animals rushing through. Most of
them reached this new world. As for the skiff, it grounded upon a very
pleasant hill where the courageous Achab landed. Delighted at having
recognised that this Earth was indeed the Moon she was unwilling to
embark again and join her brothers. She spent some time in a cave and
one day as she was walking out, debating whether she were sorry or very
glad to have lost the company of her relatives, she saw a man knocking
down acorns. The joy of such a meeting made her fly to embrace him, and
she received the like from him, for it was still longer since the old
man had seen a human face. It was Enoch the Just. They lived together,
begat posterity and had he not been obliged to withdraw into the
woods by the original sin of his children and the pride of his wife,
they would have passed the remainder of their days together with all
the comfort God bestows as a blessing upon the marriage of the Just.
There, every day in the wildest retreats of these terrible solitudes
he offered up to God with a purified spirit his heart as a sacrifice.
One day the Tree of Knowledge, which as you know is in this garden,
dropped an apple in the river on whose bank it is planted and the fruit
was carried out of Paradise by the waves to a place where poor Enoch
was fishing to gain his scanty subsistence. This beautiful fruit was
caught in his net and he ate it. Immediately he knew where the Earthly
Paradise was and he came to live in it by secret means which you cannot
conceive if you have not eaten, as he did, the Apple of Knowledge.
"Now I must tell you the manner in which I came here myself. You have
not forgotten, I suppose, that my name is Elijah, for I told you so
just now. You must know then that I was in your world and that I dwelt
with Elisha, a Hebrew like myself, on the banks of the Jordan where I
spent among books a life pleasant enough not to make me regret that
it was continually passing away. However, as the enlightenment of my
spirit increased, the knowledge of the enlightenment I did not possess
increased also. Whenever our priests reminded me of Adam I could not
forbear sighing at the recollection of that perfect Philosophy he had
possessed. I despaired of being able to acquire it, when one day,
after I had sacrificed to expiate the sins of my mortal Being, I fell
asleep and the Angel of the Lord appeared to me in a dream. As soon as
I awoke I failed not to labour at those things he had commanded me; I
took of loadstone two square feet and cast it into a furnace, and when
it was purged, precipitated and dissolved, I drew out the attractive
principle, calcined the whole elixir and reduced it to the bulk of a
medium-sized ball.
"Following upon these preparations I had made a very light chariot
of iron and some months later, all my engines being completed, I
entered my ingenious cart. Perhaps you will ask what was the use of
this appliance? Know then that the Angel told me in my dream that if
I desired to acquire the perfect knowledge I wished for I should rise
from the world to the Moon, where I should find the Tree of Knowledge
in Adam's Paradise and as soon as I had tasted its fruit my soul would
perceive all the truths a created mind can perceive. For this voyage
I had built my chariot. I got into it and when I was well and firmly
seated in it I cast the loadstone ball high into the air. Now I had
expressly made my iron machine thicker in the middle than at the ends
and so it was lifted immediately in perfect equilibrium because it
moved always more eagerly in that part. Thus, directly I arrived where
the loadstone had drawn me I threw up the ball again in the air above
me."
"But", I interrupted, "how did you throw the ball so straight above
your chariot that it never went sideways?"
"I see nothing astounding in this adventure", said he, "for when the
loadstone was cast into the air it attracted the iron straight to it
and consequently it was impossible that I should rise sideways. I must
tell you that I held the ball in my hand and continued to rise because
the chariot rushed always towards the loadstone which I held above it;
but the movement of the iron to join with the ball was so vigorous
that it bent my body double and I dared not attempt the new experiment
more than once. In truth it was a very surprising spectacle to behold,
for I had polished the steel of this flying house carefully and it
reflected on all sides the light of the Sun so keenly and sharply that
I myself thought I was being carried away in a chariot of fire. At
length after I had many times thrown the ball upwards and had flown
after it, I arrived (as you did) at a place where I began to fall
towards this world; and because at that moment I happened to be holding
the loadstone ball tightly in my hands my chariot pressed against me
to approach the body which attracted it and therefore did not leave
me. All I had to fear now was breaking my neck, but to preserve myself
from that I threw up the ball from time to time so that my machine,
feeling itself attracted back, would rest and so break the force of
my fall. Finally, when I was about two or three hundred toises above
the ground I threw the ball out on either side level with the chariot,
sometimes in the one direction and sometimes in the other, until my
eyes discovered the Earthly Paradise. Immediately I failed not to throw
my loadstone above it and, when the machine followed, I let myself
fall until I saw I was about to be hurled against the ground; then I
threw the ball upwards a foot only above my head and this little cast
diminished altogether the speed I had acquired in falling so that my
descent was no more violent than if I had jumped down my own height. I
will not describe to you my amazement at the sight of the marvels which
are here, because it was very similar to that which I perceive has just
perturbed you.
"You must know, however, that the next day I came upon the Tree of
Life, by whose means I prevented myself from growing old. Age very soon
disappeared and the serpent went up in smoke."
At these words I said: "Venerable and holy Patriarch, I should be happy
to know what you mean by this serpent which disappeared."
With a laughing face he replied thus: "I forgot, O my son, to reveal to
you a secret which could not hitherto have been imparted to you. You
must know then that after Eve and her husband had eaten the forbidden
apple, God punished the serpent that had tempted them by confining it
in man's body. Since then in punishment for the crime of the first
father every human being who is born nourishes in his belly a serpent,
the issue of the first one. You call this the bowels and think them
necessary for the functions of life, but learn that they are nothing
else than a serpent coiled upon itself in several folds. When you hear
your guts rumble, it is the serpent that hisses and, according to that
gluttonous nature with which he formerly incited the first man to eat
too much, asks for food himself. God, to punish you, desired to make
you mortal like other animals, and caused you to be possessed by this
insatiable beast, to the intent that if you feed him too much you choke
yourself or, if you refuse him his pittance when the starveling gnaws
your stomach with his invisible teeth, then he rumbles, he rages, he
pours out that venom which doctors call bile and so heats you with the
poison he pours into your arteries that you are soon destroyed by it.
Finally, to show you that your bowels are a serpent you have in your
body, remember serpents were found in the graves of Æsculapius, Scipio,
Alexander, Charles Martel and Edward of England, still feeding upon the
corpses of their hosts."
"Truly", said I, interrupting him, "I have observed that since this
serpent is always trying to escape from man's body his head and neck
may be seen projecting from the lower part of our bellies. But God did
not permit man alone to be tormented by it, he willed that it should
rise up against woman to cast its venom upon her and that the swelling
should last nine months after she had been bitten. And to prove to you
that I speak according to the word of the Lord, He said to the serpent
(to curse it) that though it might make woman fall by rising up against
her, she would make it lower its head."
I would have continued these trifles but Elijah prevented me:
"Remember", said he, "that this place is holy." He then remained silent
some time as if to recollect the place in which he dwelt, and continued
in these words: "I only taste the Fruit of Life every hundred years.
The taste of its juice somewhat resembles spirits. I think it was the
apple that Adam had eaten which caused our earliest forefathers to
live so long, because something of its energy had flowed into their
seed and was only extinguished in the waters of the flood.[35] The Tree
of Knowledge is planted opposite. Its fruit is covered with a rind
which produces ignorance in anyone who tastes it and preserves under
the thickness of this peel the spiritual virtues of that learned food.
After Adam was expelled from this blessed land God rubbed his gums
with this peel, lest he should find the way back to it again. For more
than fifteen years after this time he doted and forgot everything so
completely that neither he nor his progeny down to Moses remembered
the creation. But the remains of the power of this weighty peel were
finally dissipated by the warmth and light of that great Prophet's
genius. Happily I began on one of the apples which was so ripe it had
shed its skin and my saliva had scarcely dampened it when universal
Philosophy took me by the nose. It seemed to me that an infinite number
of little eyes sank into my head and I knew at once how to converse
with the Lord. Afterwards when I reflected upon this miraculous removal
I felt that I could not have overcome merely through the occult virtues
of a simple body the vigilance of the Seraph whom God placed on guard
over this Paradise. But since it pleases Him to make use of secondary
causes I thought He had inspired me with this means of entering it as
He had made use of Adam's ribs to create a woman, although He could
have formed her out of earth as well as the man.
[Footnote 35: Cyrano seems to have forgotten that the apple of Eden
came from the Tree of Knowledge, not the Tree of Life.]
"I remained for a long time in this garden walking without a companion.
But at last, as the Angel at the Gate of the place was my principal
host, I felt a desire to speak to him. An hour's walking ended my
journey, for at the expiration of this time I reached a country where a
thousand flashes of lightning confounding themselves into one formed a
blinding daylight which served but to make darkness visible.
"I had not yet recovered from this adventure when I saw a fair young
man before me. 'I am', said he, 'the Archangel you are seeking and I
have just read in God that He had suggested to you the means of coming
here and that He desires you to await His pleasure.' He conversed with
me on several subjects and among other things told me that the light at
which I had seemed frightened had nothing formidable about it, that it
lighted up almost every evening when he was making his rounds because,
in order to avoid the artifices of sorcerers, who enter everywhere
without being seen, he was forced to indulge in broad sword play with
his flaming brand all round the Earthly Paradise and that this light
was caused by the flashing of his steel. 'Those which you perceive
from your World', he added, 'are produced by me. If you see them
sometimes afar off, that is because the clouds of a distant country,
being disposed to receive this impression, reflect on to you these
light images of fire, just as vapour differently placed is disposed
to make a rainbow. I will not tell you any more, because the Apple of
Knowledge is not far from here and as soon as you have eaten of it you
will be as learned as I. But above all take care of this mistake; most
of the fruits which hang on that plant are covered with a rind and if
you taste it you will descend beneath Man, whereas the inner part will
uplift you as high as the Angels.'"
Elijah had reached this point in the instructions the Angel had given
him when a little man joined us. "This is the Enoch of whom I have
spoken", whispered my guide. As he spoke, Enoch presented us with a
basket filled with I know not what fruits, similar to pomegranates,
which he had discovered that day in a retired grove. I put some of them
in my pockets at Elijah's command, when Enoch asked who I was.
"'Tis an adventure which merits a longer conversation", answered my
guide, "this evening when we go to bed he will tell us himself the
miraculous details of his journey."
As he said this we reached a kind of hermitage made of palm branches
ingeniously interwoven with myrtles and orange-trees. There I perceived
in a little corner several heaps of a certain thread so white and so
fine that it might have passed for the spirit of snow. I saw also
spindles lying here and there. I asked my guide what they were used for
and he replied, "To spin. When the good Enoch wishes to unbend from
his meditations, sometimes he dresses the thread, and sometimes he
weaves the linen which serves to make chemises for the eleven thousand
virgins. You must have met sometimes in your world with something that
floats through the air in the autumn about harvest-time. The peasants
call it, 'Our Lady's cotton', but it is really the waste which Enoch
clears off the linen as he makes it."
We went away without taking leave of Enoch, who lived in this hut, and
we were obliged to depart from him so soon, because he prays every six
hours, and that time had fully elapsed since his last orison.
As we went along I besought Elijah to conclude the story of the
assumptions he had begun, and I told him that I thought he had broken
off at the story of Saint John the Evangelist.
"Since you have not the patience", said he, "to wait until the Apple of
Knowledge teaches you all these things far better than I can, I will
tell you. Know then that God...."
At this word I know not how the Devil interfered, but I could not
prevent myself from interrupting him waggishly: