your climate. Look carefully at the ground on which we walk; a little
while ago it was a confused and disordered mass, a chaos of intricate
matter, a black and slimy dross thrown off by the Sun. After it had
mingled, pressed and made compact these numerous clouds of atoms by the
vigour of the rays still cast forth; after, I say, a long and powerful
maturation had separated in this ball the most contrary bodies and
united the most similar, this mass was so provoked by heat and sweated
so much that it caused a deluge, which covered it more than forty days;
for that space of time was fully needed by so much water to flow into
the lowest and most sloping parts of our globe.
"From these united torrents of water was formed the sea, whose salt
still proves that it must be a mass of sweat, since all sweat is salt.
Following upon the retreat of the waters there remained on this earth
a fat and fertile mud, and when the Sun shone upon it it rose like a
blister, which cannot cast out its germ on account of the cold. It
then received another maturation and this maturation rectified and
perfected it by a more exact mixture and thereby the germ, which was
only able hitherto to vegetate, was rendered capable of sentience.
But the waters, which had settled so long on the mud, had chilled it
too much and the pimple did not burst; and so the Sun heated it up
once more. After the third digestion this womb was so heated that
the cold no longer made an obstacle to its delivery: it opened and
brought forth a man who has retained in his liver (which is the seat
of the vegetative soul and the place of first maturation) the power of
multiplying; in his heart (which is the seat of activity and the place
of the second maturation) vital power: and in the brain (which is the
seat of the intellect and the place of the third maturation) the power
of reasoning. Otherwise, why should we be longer in the belly of our
mothers than all other animals, if it were not that our embryo must
receive three distinct maturations to form the three distinct faculties
of our soul, and beasts only two, to form their two powers? I know
that the horse is only completed by ten, twelve or fourteen months
in the belly of a mare; but since its constitution is so contrary to
that which makes us men, since it is never born except in those months
(notice!) which are entirely hostile to our birth, when we remain in
the womb beyond the normal time, it is not surprising that Nature needs
a longer time for the delivery of a mare than of a woman.[58]
[Footnote 58: This sentence is so obscure that I do not understand it
either in French or English.]
"Yes, but, someone will say, the horse remains longer in its mother's
belly than we do and consequently it receives either more perfect or
more numerous maturations!
"I reply that it does not follow; for without relying on the
observations on the energy of numbers made by so many learned men
proving that, since all matter is in movement, certain beings are
completed in a certain revolution of days and destroyed in another,
and without strengthening myself with the proofs, whereby they deduce
(after explaining the cause of all these movements) that the number
nine is the most perfect; I shall content myself by replying that the
germ of man is hotter and so the Sun fashions and completes more organs
in him in nine months than it sketches out in a year in that of a colt.
And it cannot be doubted that a horse is much colder than a man, since
this animal only dies of a swollen spleen or other diseases which
proceed from melancholy.
"Nevertheless, you will say, in our world we never see a man engendered
from mud and produced in this fashion.
"I am sure that your world is now too heated; for as soon as the Sun
attracts a germ from the Earth it does not meet that cold damp or, to
put it better, that certain period of a completed movement which forces
it to several maturations, and so it immediately forms a vegetable;
or if two maturations take place, the second has no time to complete
itself perfectly and so it only brings forth an insect: thus, I have
noticed that the monkey, which like us carries its young nearly nine
months, resembles us in so many ways that many naturalists do not
distinguish the species from us; and the reason is that their seed is
tempered much like ours and during this time has almost been able to
complete the three digestions.
"You will undoubtedly ask me from whom I derive the story I have just
told you: you will tell me that I cannot have learnt it from those
who were not there. It is true that I was the only person there and,
consequently, I cannot bear witness to it because it happened before I
was born. That is true; but learn that, in a region so near the Sun as
ours, souls are filled with fire and are clearer, more subtle and more
penetrating than those of other animals in more distant spheres. Now,
since even in your world there were prophets whose minds when heated by
a vigorous enthusiasm presaged the future, it is not impossible that
in this world, so much nearer the Sun and consequently so much more
luminous than yours, some odour of the past should reach a powerful
genius, that his mobile reason should move backwards as well as
forwards and that it should be able to reach a cause by effects, seeing
that it can reach effects by a cause."
In this way he finished what he was saying; but after a still more
private conversation in which he revealed to me very hidden secrets
(one part of which I shall keep silent, while the rest has escaped
my memory) he told me that not three weeks before a lump of earth
impregnated by the Sun had brought him forth.
"Look at that tumour."
He then pointed out to me something on the mud swollen like a molehill.
"It is", said he, "a boil or, to speak more correctly, a womb which for
the last nine months has held the embryo of one of my brothers. I am
waiting here for the purpose of acting as his midwife."
He would have gone on had he not perceived the earth palpitating around
this clay sod. This, together with the size of the pimple, caused him
to judge that the earth was in labour and that this motion was already
the effort of the pains of delivery. He left me at once to run to it;
and I went off to look for my cabin.
I climbed up the mountain, whence I had descended, and reached its
top with some exertion. You may conceive my distress when I found my
machine was not where I had left it. I was already sighing for its loss
when I saw it fluttering a long way off. I rushed after it at top speed
as fast as my legs permitted, and indeed it was an agreeable pastime to
contemplate this new method of hunting; for, sometimes when I almost
had my hand upon it there would be a slight increase of heat in the
glass ball, which drew up the air with more force, and, as this air
became swifter, lifted my box above me and made me jump after it like
a cat at the hook where it sees a hare hanging. If my shirt had not
remained on the roof, and thereby intercepted the force of the mirrors,
the box would have gone off on its travels alone.
But to what end do I refresh the memory of an adventure which I cannot
recollect now except with a pain such as I then felt? It suffices to
know that the box bounded, ran and flew, and that I leaped, walked
and strode, until at last I saw it fall at the foot of a very tall
mountain. It would very likely have led me further if the shadow of
this proud swelling of the earth, which darkened the sky far into the
plain, had not spread half a league of darkness around it; for when
my box reached these shadows, its glass no sooner felt the coolness
than it ceased to create a vacuum, with wind through the hole, and
consequently there was no impulse to sustain it; in so much that it
fell and would have been broken into a thousand pieces had not the pool
into which it fell happily yielded under its weight. I drew it from the
water, repaired what was disorganized, and then grasping it with all
my strength, carried it to the top of a hill which was close at hand.
There, I spread out my shirt around the globe, but I could not clothe
it, because the mirrors at once began their office and I perceived my
cabin already wriggling to fly. I had only time to step nimbly in and
to shut myself up as before.
The sphere of our World appeared to me no more than a planet about the
size the Moon appears to us; and, as I continued to rise, it lessened
first into a star, then into a spark and then into nothing; this
luminous point grew so fine, to equalize itself with that which ended
the last ray of my sight, that finally it merged into the colour of the
sky. Some may perhaps be astonished that I was not overtaken by sleep
during this long voyage; but, since sleep is only produced by the soft
exhalation of meats evaporating from the stomach to the brain or by a
need felt by Nature to knit up our soul in order to repair during rest
the spirits consumed by labour, I had no need to sleep, seeing that
I did not eat and that the Sun gave me much more radical heat than I
expended. However, I continued to rise and as I approached that burning
world I felt a certain joy flowing in my blood, which rectified it
and passed into the soul. From time to time I looked up to admire the
brightness of the tints which shone in my little crystal dome; and I
still remember that as I directed my eyes towards the glass ball I felt
with a start something heavy fly out from all the parts of my body. A
whirlwind of very thick and almost palpable smoke suffocated my glass
with darkness; I stood up to examine this darkness which blinded me
and I saw no vessel, no mirrors, no glass, no covering to my cabin. I
looked down to see what was making my masterpiece fall in ruins, but in
its place and in place of the four sides and the floor I found nothing
but the sky about me. What terrified me still more was to feel some
invisible obstacle repulsing my arms when I tried to extend them, as if
the air had been petrified. It came into my mind then that I had risen
so high I must have reached the part of the firmament which certain
philosophers and some astronomers have said is solid.
I began to feel I should remain enshrined there, but the horror which
overwhelmed me at the strangeness of this accident was increased by
those which followed; for, as my sight ranged here and there, it
fell on my breast and, instead of stopping at the outer surface of my
body, passed through it; then a moment afterwards I perceived that
I was looking backwards with hardly any interlapse. As if my body
had become nothing but an organ of sight I felt my flesh, purged of
its opacity, carry objects to my eyes, and my eyes to objects by its
means. At last, after striking a thousand times without seeing them,
the roof, the floor and the walls of my chair, I understood that my
cabin and I had become transparent, owing to some secret necessity of
light at its source. Although it was diaphanous I might still have
perceived it, since we clearly perceive glass, crystal and diamonds,
which are also diaphanous; but I imagine that in a region so near the
Sun that luminary purges bodies much more perfectly of their opacity by
arranging the imperceptible channels of matter straighter than in our
world, where its strength is almost exhausted by so long a journey and
is scarcely capable of transpiring its light into precious stones; yet
on account of the interior equality of their superficies it causes them
to cast back through their glasses (as if through little eyes) either
the green of emeralds, the scarlet of rubies or the violet of amethysts
as the different pores of the stone, whether straighter or more
sinuous, extinguish or rekindle this enfeebled light by the quantity
of the reflections. One difficulty may embarrass the reader, which
is how I could see myself and yet not see my box, since I had become
as diaphanous as it was. To this I reply that the Sun doubtless acts
differently upon living than upon inanimate bodies, since no portion of
my flesh, of my bones, or of my entrails lost its natural colour though
they were transparent; on the contrary, my lungs preserved their soft
delicacy in an incarnadine red; my heart, still vermilion, swung easily
between the systole and the diastole; my liver seemed to burn in a
fiery purple and heating the air I breathed continued the circulation
of my blood; in short, I saw, touched and smelt myself the same and yet
I was not the same.
While I considered this metamorphosis my journey grew continually
shorter, but at that time much more slow on account of the serenity
of the ether, which grew rarefied the nearer I approached the source
of the daylight; for, since at this stage matter is very subtle on
account of the great amount of void with which it is filled, and since
this matter is consequently very idle because of the void which is not
active, the air, as it passed through the hole of my box, could only
produce a little wind barely able to sustain me.
I never think of the malicious caprices of Fortune, who continued to
oppose the success of my enterprise with such obstinacy, but I wonder
how it was my brain was not turned. But hearken now a miracle, which
future ages will find it difficult to believe. Shut up in a transparent
box, of which I had lost sight, with my movement so slackened that I
did well not to fall back, in a state where all that the whole machine
of the world encloses was powerless to aid me, I was reduced to the
height of extreme misfortune; yet, just as when we are dying we are
inwardly moved to desire to embrace those who gave us our being, so
did I lift my eyes to the Sun, our common father. This ardour of my
will not only bore up my body, but hurled it toward the thing which
it desired to embrace. My body thrust on my box and in this fashion I
continued my journey. As soon as I perceived this I stiffened all the
faculties of my soul with more attention than ever to attach them in
the imagination to what attracted me, but the efforts of my will forced
me against the roof in spite of myself and the weight of my cabin on my
head so incommoded me that finally the burden forced me to grope for
its invisible door. Fortunately I found it, opened it and threw myself
outside; but that natural apprehension of falling, which all animals
have when they find themselves supported by nothing, made me stretch
out my arm suddenly to catch hold of it. I was only guided by Nature,
which cannot reason, and therefore Fortune, her enemy, maliciously
thrust my hand against the crystal roof. Alas! What a thunder-clap
it was in my ears when I heard the noise of the icosahedron breaking
into fragments! So great a disorder, so great a misfortune, so great
a terror are beyond all expression. The mirrors attracted no more
air, for there was no more vacuum; the air ceased to become a wind
by hastening to fill it; the wind ceased to urge my box upwards; in
short, soon after this breakage I saw it falling far across the vast
fields of the world and in that region it regained the opaque darkness
it had exhaled. Since the energetic strength of the light diminished
there, the box eagerly rejoined the dark density which was, as it were,
essential to it, just as we see souls long after their separation
return to seek their bodies, and, in trying to rejoin them, wander
about their sepulchres for a hundred years. I surmise that it lost its
transparency in this way, for I saw it afterwards in Poland in the same
state as it was when I first entered it. I have since learned that
it fell in the Kingdom of Borneo, under the equinoctial line; that a
Portuguese merchant bought it from the islander who found it and that,
passing from hand to hand, it came into the possession of the Polish
engineer who now flies in it.[59]
[Footnote 59: It has been held that this refers to the "flying dragon"
experimented with by Buratini at Warsaw in 1648. The evidence that
Cyrano himself had visited Poland is very flimsy.]
Thus suspended in the airy regions of the sky, filled with
consternation at the death I expected by my fall, I turned my sad eyes
to the Sun, as I have already told you. My sight carried my thought
with it and my looks fixedly attached to its globe marked out a way
whose traces were followed by my will to lift my body there. This
vigorous bound of my soul will not be incomprehensible to any one who
will consider the most simple effects of our will; it is well known,
for example, that when I wish to leap, my will, borne up by my fantasy,
raises the whole microcosm and tries to carry it to the point desired,
and if it does not always reach this, the reason is that the principles
of Nature, which are universal, prevail over individuals, and, since
the power of will is peculiar to sentient things and that of falling to
the centre is common to all matter, my leap is forced to end when its
mass, having conquered the insolence of the will which surprised it,
draws near the point to which it tends.
I shall say nothing more of what happened on the rest of my journey for
fear of taking as long to tell it as to make it; let it suffice that
at the end of twenty-two months I landed very happily upon the great
plains of the day. This land is like burning snow-flakes, so luminous
is it. Yet it is an incredible thing which I have never been able to
understand whether, after my box fell, I rose to or descended upon the
Sun. I only remember that when I arrived there I walked lightly upon
it; I only touched the ground by a point and I often rolled like a
ball without finding it any more uncomfortable to walk with my head
than with my feet. Although my legs were sometimes turned towards the
sky and my shoulders towards the ground, I felt as naturally placed in
this position as if my legs had been upon the ground and my shoulders
towards the sky. On whatever part of my body I placed myself, on the
belly, on the back, on an elbow, on an ear, I found myself upright. By
this I perceived that the Sun is a world which has no centre and that,
since I was far outside the active sphere of our world and all those I
had met with, it was consequently impossible that I should still weigh,
since weight is only the attraction of a centre within the sphere of
its activity.
The respect with which I printed my steps upon this luminous country
suspended for a time my burning ardour to continue my voyage. I felt
myself ashamed to walk upon the daylight; my astonished body was
desirous of support from my eyes and since this transparent land which
they penetrated could not support them, my instinct, having mastered my
thought in spite of me, drew me to the most hollow part of a depthless
light. Little by little, however, my reason undeceived my instinct; I
pressed assured and not trembling steps upon the plain and I counted
my strides so proudly that if men could have perceived me from their
world they would have taken me for the great God who walks upon the
clouds. After I had walked about fifteen days, as I believe, I reached
a district of the Sun less resplendent than that from which I came. I
felt deeply moved by joy and I imagined that this joy was assuredly the
result of a secret sympathy for its opacity retained by my being. The
knowledge I had of it did not make me desist from my enterprise; for I
was like those sleeping old men who, although they know that sleep is
bad for them and that they have ordered their servants to deprive them
of it, are nevertheless very annoyed at the time they are awakened.
So, as my body grew darker when I reached more shaded provinces, it
re-contracted the weaknesses brought by this infirmity of matter; I
grew weary and sleep grasped me.
Those pleasing languors which possess us at the approach of sleep
poured so much pleasure into my senses that, captured by pleasure, my
senses forced my soul to thank the tyrant who chains his slaves; for
sleep, that old tyrant of one half our days, who, on account of his
old age, cannot endure the light or look upon it without swooning,
had been forced to abandon me when I entered the brilliant climates
of the Sun and had come to wait for me upon the borders of the shaded
region of which I speak, where he caught me, arrested me his prisoner,
and shut up his declared enemies, my eyes, under the dark vault of
my eyelids; and, fearing lest my other senses should betray him as
they had betrayed me and trouble him in the peaceable possession of
his conquest, he tied down all of them to their beds. All this means
in two words that I lay down very weary upon the sand. It was a flat
plain, so bare that as far as I could see my sight did not even meet a
bush; and yet when I woke up I found myself under a tree, in comparison
with which the tallest cedars would seem like grass. Its trunk was of
massive gold, its branches of silver and its leaves of emeralds, which,
underneath the glittering green of their precious surface, reflected as
in a mirror the images of the fruit which hung round about. But judge
whether the fruit owed anything to the leaves: the burning scarlet
of a large carbuncle formed one half of each and the other half was
uncertain whether its material came from chrysolite or from a piece
of golden amber; the open flowers were roses of very large diamonds
and the buds were big, pear-shaped pearls. A nightingale, whose smooth
plumage rendered him excellently beautiful, was perched on the summit
and seemed with his melody desirous of forcing the eyes to confess
to the ears that he was not unworthy of the throne upon which he was
seated.
For a long time I remained amazed at the sight of so rich a spectacle
and I could not be satiated with looking at it; but as I was
occupying all my thoughts in contemplating among the other fruits an
extraordinarily beautiful pomegranate, whose pulp was a cluster of
several large rubies, I perceived the little crown which took the place
of its head was moving and stretching out until it formed a neck. Then
I saw something white seething above it which, by thickening, growing,
advancing and retiring the matter in different places, at last appeared
as the face of a small bust of flesh. This small bust ended in a
circle about the waist; that is to say, its lower parts still kept the
shape of an apple. Little by little it stretched out, its stem became
two legs, and each of its legs split into five toes. This humanised
pomegranate loosened itself from its stem and with a light bound
fell exactly at my feet. Certainly I must admit I was impressed with
veneration when I saw this little reasonable apple, this little piece
of a dwarf no larger than my thumb, but strong enough to create itself,
walking before me proudly.
"Human animal", he said in that mother-tongue, whereof I have formerly
spoken, "after I had observed you for a long time from the branch on
which I was hanging I thought I read in your face that you were not an
inhabitant of this world, and for that reason I have descended to be
enlightened by the truth."
When I had satisfied his curiosity about all the matters concerning
which he questioned me, I said to him:
"But tell me who you are; what I have just seen is so very astonishing
that I despair of ever knowing the cause unless you instruct me. What!
a huge tree all of pure gold, whose leaves are emeralds, the flowers
diamonds, the buds pearls, and, among all this, fruits which make
themselves into men in the twinkling of an eye? For my part I admit
that the comprehension of such a miracle passes my capacity."
I was awaiting his reply to this explanation, when he said:
"As I am the king of the nation which makes up this tree, you will not
take it ill if I call them to follow me."
When he had spoken thus I noticed that he collected himself in
meditation. I do not know if he wound up the interior springs of
his will and thus excited outside himself the movement, which was
the cause of what you are about to hear, but it is certain that
immediately afterwards all the fruits, all the flowers, all the leaves,
all the branches, in short, the whole tree, fell apart into little
seeing, feeling and walking men, who began to dance around me as if
to celebrate their birthday at the very moment of their birth. The
nightingale alone retained its shape and was not metamorphosed; it
came and perched on the shoulder of the little monarch, where it sang
an air so melancholy and so amorous that the whole assembly, including
the prince himself, were moved by the gentle languors of its dying
voice and shed a few tears. My curiosity to learn whence this bird came
caused me so extraordinary a longing to speak that I could not contain
it.
"Seigneur", said I, addressing myself to the king, "if I did not
fear to importune your majesty I should ask you why among so many
metamorphoses the nightingale alone has kept its being?"
The little prince listened to me with a benevolence which showed his
natural kindness; and, understanding my curiosity, he replied: