I. MOTHER ROUQUIN
Ægidius Aucupis, the Erasmus of the Penguins, was not mistaken; his age
was an age of free inquiry. But that great man mistook the elegances of
the humanists for softness of manners, and he did not foresee the
effects that the awaking of intelligence would have amongst the
Penguins. It brought about the religious Reformation; Catholics
massacred Protestants and Protestants massacred Catholics. Such were
the first results of liberty of thought. The Catholics prevailed in
Penguinia. But the spirit of inquiry had penetrated among them without
their knowing it. They joined reason to faith, and claimed that
religion had been divested of the superstitious practices that
dishonoured it, just as in later days the booths that the cobblers,
hucksters, and dealers in old clothes had built against the walls of
the cathedrals were cleared away. The word, legend, which at first
indicated what the faithful ought to read, soon suggested the idea of
pious fables and childish tales.
The saints had to suffer from this state of mind. An obscure canon
called Princeteau, a very austere and crabbed man, designated so great
a number of them as not worthy of having their days observed, that he
was surnamed the exposer of the saints. He did not think, for instance,
that if St. Margaret’s prayer were applied as a poultice to a woman in
travail that the pains of childbirth would be softened.
Even the venerable patron saint of Penguinia did not escape his rigid
criticism. This is what he says of her in his “Antiquities of Alca”:
“Nothing is more uncertain than the history, or even the existence, of
St. Orberosia. An ancient anonymous annalist, a monk of Dombes, relates
that a woman called Orberosia was possessed by the devil in a cavern
where, even down to his own days, the little boys and girls of the
village used to play at a sort of game representing the devil and the
fair Orberosia. He adds that this woman became the concubine of a
horrible dragon, who ravaged the country. Such a statement is hardly
credible, but the history of Orberosia, as it has since been related,
seems hardly more worthy of belief. The life of that saint by the Abbot
Simplicissimus is three hundred years later than the pretended events
which it relates and that author shows himself excessively credulous
and devoid of all critical faculty.”
Suspicion attacked even the supernatural origin of the Penguins. The
historian Ovidius Capito went so far as to deny the miracle of their
transformation. He thus begins his “Annals of Penguinia”:
“A dense obscurity envelopes this history, and it would be no
exaggeration to say that it is a tissue of puerile fables and popular
tales. The Penguins claim that they are descended from birds who were
baptized by St. Maël and whom God changed into men at the intercession
of that glorious apostle. They hold that, situated at first in the
frozen ocean, their island, floating like Delos, was brought to anchor
in these heaven-favoured seas, of which it is to-day the queen. I
conclude that this myth is a reminiscence of the ancient migrations of
the Penguins.”
In the following century, which was that of the philosophers,
scepticism became still more acute. No further evidence of it is needed
than the following celebrated passage from the “Moral Essay”:
“Arriving we know not from whence (for indeed their origins are not
very clear), and successively invaded and conquered by four or five
peoples from the north, south, east, and west, miscegenated, interbred,
amalgamated, and commingled, the Penguins boast of the purity of their
race, and with justice, for they have become a pure race. This mixture
of all mankind, red, black, yellow, and white, round-headed and
long-headed, as formed in the course of ages a fairly homogeneous human
family, and one which is recognisable by certain features due to a
community of life and customs.
“This idea that they belong to the best race in the world, and that
they are its finest family, inspires them with noble pride, indomitable
courage, and a hatred for the human race.
“The life of a people is but a succession of miseries, crimes, and
follies. This is true of the Penguin nation, as of all other nations.
Save for this exception its history is admirable from beginning to
end.”
The two classic ages of the Penguins are too well-known for me to lay
stress upon them. But what has not been sufficiently noticed is the way
in which the rationalist theologians such as Canon Princeteau called
into existence the unbelievers of the succeeding age. The former
employed their reason to destroy what did not seem to them, essential
to their religion; they only left untouched the most rigid article of
faith. Their intellectual successors, being taught by them how to make
use of science and reason, employed them against whatever beliefs
remained. Thus rational theology engendered natural philosophy.
That is why (if I may turn from the Penguins of former days to the
Sovereign Pontiff, who, to-day governs the universal Church) we cannot
admire too greatly the wisdom of Pope Pius X. in condemning the study
of exegesis as contrary to revealed truth, fatal to sound theological
doctrine, and deadly to the faith. Those clerics who maintain the
rights of science in opposition to him are pernicious doctors and
pestilent teachers, and the faithful who approve of them are lacking in
either mental or moral ballast.
At the end of the age of philosophers, the ancient kingdom of Penguinia
was utterly destroyed, the king put to death, the privileges of the
nobles abolished, and a Republic proclaimed in the midst of public
misfortunes and while a terrible war was raging. The assembly which
then governed Penguinia ordered all the metal articles contained in the
churches to be melted down. The patriots even desecrated the tombs of
the kings. It is said that when the tomb of Draco the Great was opened,
that king presented an appearance as black as ebony and so majestic
that those who profaned his corpse fled in terror. According to other
accounts, these churlish men insulted him by putting a pipe in his
mouth and derisively offering him a glass of wine.
On the seventeenth day of the month of Mayflowers, the shrine of St.
Orberosia, which had for five hundred years been exposed to the
veneration of the faithful in the Church of St. Maël, was transported
into the town-hall and submitted to the examination of a jury of
experts appointed by the municipality. It was made of gilded copper in
shape like the nave of a church, entirely covered with enamels and
decorated with precious stones, which latter were perceived to be
false. The chapter in its foresight had removed the rubies, sapphires,
emeralds, and great balls of rock-crystal, and had substituted pieces
of glass in their place. It contained only a little dust and a piece of
old linen, which were thrown into a great fire that had been lighted on
the Place de Grève to burn the relics of the saints. The people danced
around it singing patriotic songs.
From the threshold of their booth, which leant against the town-hall, a
man called Rouquin and his wife were watching this group of madmen.
Rouquin clipped dogs and gelded cats; he also frequented the inns. His
wife was a ragpicker and a bawd, but she had plenty of shrewdness.
“You see, Rouquin,” said she to her man, “they are committing a
sacrilege. They will repent of it.”
“You know nothing about it, wife,” answered Rouquin; “they, have become
philosophers, and when one is once a philosopher he is a philosopher
for ever.”
“I tell you, Rouquin, that sooner or later they will regret what they
are doing to-day. They ill-treat the saints because they have not
helped them enough, but for all that the quails won’t fall ready cooked
into their mouths. They will soon find themselves as badly off as
before, and when they have put out their tongues for enough they will
become pious again. Sooner than people think the day will come when
Penguinia will again begin to honour her blessed patron. Rouquin, it
would be a good thing, in readiness for that day, if we kept a handful
of ashes and some rags and bones in an old pot in our lodgings. We will
say that they are the relics of St. Orberosia and that we have saved
them from the flames at the peril of our lives. I am greatly mistaken
if we don’t get honour and profit out of them. That good action might
be worth a place from the Curé to sell tapers and hire chairs in the
chapel of St. Orberosia.”
On that same day Mother Rouquin took home with her a little ashes and
some bones, and put them in an old jam-pot in her cupboard.
II. TRINCO
The sovereign Nation had taken possession of the lands of the nobility
and clergy to sell them at a low price to the middle classes and the
peasants. The middle classes and the peasants thought that the
revolution was a good thing for acquiring lands and a bad one for
retaining them.
The legislators of the Republic made terrible laws for the defence of
property, and decreed death to anyone who should propose a division of
wealth. But that did not avail the Republic. The peasants who had
become proprietors bethought themselves that though it had made them
rich, the Republic had nevertheless caused a disturbance to wealth, and
they desired a system more respectful of private property and more
capable of assuring the permanence of the new institutions.
They had not long to wait. The Republic, like Agrippina, bore her
destroyer in her bosom.
Having great wars to carry on, it created military forces, and these
were destined both to save it and to destroy it. Its legislators
thought they could restrain their generals by the fear of punishment,
but if they sometimes cut off the heads of unlucky soldiers they could
not do the same to the fortunate soldiers who obtained over it the
advantages of having saved its existence.
In the enthusiasm of victory the renovated Penguins delivered
themselves up to a dragon, more terrible than that of their fables,
who, like a stork amongst frogs, devoured them for fourteen years with
his insatiable beak.
Half a century after the reign of the new dragon a young Maharajah of
Malay, called Djambi, desirous, like the Scythian Anacharsis, of
instructing himself by travel, visited Penguinia and wrote an
interesting account of his travels. I transcribe the first page of his
account:
ACCOUNT OF THE TRAVELS OF YOUNG DJAMBI IN PENGUINIA
After a voyage of ninety days I landed at the vast and deserted port of
the Penguins and travelled over untilled fields to their ruined
capital. Surrounded by ramparts and full of barracks and arsenals it
had a martial though desolate appearance. Feeble and crippled men
wandered proudly through the streets, wearing old uniforms and carrying
rusty weapons.
“What do you want?” I was rudely asked at the gate of the city by a
soldier whose moustaches pointed to the skies.
“Sir,” I answered, “I come as an inquirer to visit this island.”
“It is not an island,” replied the soldier.
“What!” I exclaimed, “Penguin Island is not an island?”
“No, sir, it is an insula. It was formerly called an island, but for a
century it has been decreed that it shall bear the name of insula. It
is the only insula in the whole universe. Have you a passport?”
“Here it is.”
“Go and get it signed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
A lame guide who conducted me came to a pause in a vast square.
“The insula,” said he, “has given birth, as you know, to Trinco, the
greatest genius of the universe, whose statue you see before you. That
obelisk standing to your right commemorates Trinco’s birth; the column
that rises to your left has Trinco crowned with a diadem upon its
summit. You see here the triumphal arch dedicated to the glory of
Trinco and his family.”
“What extraordinary feat has Trinco performed?” I asked.
“War.”
“That is nothing extraordinary. We Malayans make war constantly.”
“That may be, but Trinco is the greatest warrior of all countries and
all times. There never existed a greater conqueror than he. As you
anchored in our port you saw to the east a volcanic island called
Ampelophoria, shaped like a cone, and of small size, but renowned for
its wines. And to the west a larger island which raises to the sky a
long range of sharp teeth; for this reason it is called the Dog’s Jaws.
It is rich in copper mines. We possessed both before Trinco’s reign and
they were the boundaries of our empire. Trinco extended the Penguin
dominion over the Archipelago of the Turquoises and the Green
Continent, subdued the gloomy Porpoises, and planted his flag amid the
icebergs of the Pole and on the burning sands of the African deserts.
He raised troops in all the countries he conquered, and when his armies
marched past in the wake of our own light infantry, our island
grenadiers, our hussars, our dragoons, our artillery, and our engineers
there were to be seen yellow soldiers looking in their blue armour like
crayfish standing on their tails; red men with parrots’ plumes,
tattooed with solar and Phallic emblems, and with quivers of poisoned
arrows resounding on their backs; naked blacks armed only with their
teeth and nails; pygmies riding on cranes; gorillas carrying trunks of
trees and led by an old ape who wore upon his hairy breast the cross of
the Legion of Honour. And all those troops, led to Trinco’s banner by
the most ardent patriotism, flew on from victory to victory, and in
thirty years of war Trinco conquered half the known world.”
“What!” cried I, “you possess half of the world.”
“Trinco conquered it for us, and Trinco lost it to us. As great in his
defeats as in his victories he surrendered all that he had conquered.
He even allowed those two islands we possessed before his time,
Ampelophoria and the Dog’s Jaws, to be taken from us. He left Penguinia
impoverished and depopulated. The flower of the insula perished in his
wars. At the time of his fall there were left in our country none but
the hunchbacks and cripples from whom we are descended. But he gave us
glory.”
“He made you pay dearly for it!”
“Glory never costs too much,” replied my guide.
III. THE JOURNEY OF DOCTOR OBNUBILE
After a succession of amazing vicissitudes, the memory of which is in
great part lost by the wrongs of time and the bad style of historians,
the Penguins established the government of the Penguins by themselves.
They elected a diet or assembly, and invested it with the privilege of
naming the Head of the State. The latter, chosen from among the simple
Penguins, wore no formidable monster’s crest upon his head and
exercised no absolute authority over the people. He was himself subject
to the laws of the nation. He was not given the title of king, and no
ordinal number followed his name. He bore such names as Paturle,
Janvion, Traffaldin, Coquenhot, and Bredouille. These magistrates did
not make war. They were not suited for that.
The new state received the name of Public Thing or Republic. Its
partisans were called republicanists or republicans. They were also
named Thingmongers and sometimes Scamps, but this latter name was taken
in ill part.
The Penguin democracy did not itself govern. It obeyed a financial
oligarchy which formed opinion by means of the newspapers, and held in
its hands the representatives, the ministers, and the president. It
controlled the finances of the republic, and directed the foreign
affairs of the country as if it were possessed of sovereign power.
Empires and kingdoms in those days kept up enormous fleets. Penguinia,
compelled to do as they did, sank under the pressure of her armaments.
Everybody deplored or pretended to deplore so grievous a necessity.
However, the rich, and those engaged in business or affairs, submitted
to it with a good heart through a spirit of patriotism, and because
they counted on the soldiers and sailors to defend their goods at home
and to acquire markets and territories abroad. The great manufacturers
encouraged the making of cannons and ships through a zeal for the
national defence and in order to obtain orders. Among the citizens of
middle rank and of the liberal professions some resigned themselves to
this state of affairs without complaining, believing that it would last
for ever; others waited impatiently for its end and thought they might
be able to lead the powers to a simultaneous disarmament.
The illustrious Professor Obnubile belonged to this latter class.
“War,” said he, “is a barbarity to which the progress of civilization
will put an end. The great democracies are pacific and will soon impose
their will upon the aristocrats.”
Professor Obnubile, who had for sixty years led a solitary and retired
life in his laboratory, whither external noises did not penetrate,
resolved to observe the spirit of the peoples for himself. He began his
studies with the greatest of all democracies and set sail for New
Atlantis.
After a voyage of fifteen days his steamer entered, during the night,
the harbour of Titanport, where thousands of ships were anchored. An
iron bridge thrown across the water and shining with lights, stretched
between two piers so far apart that Professor Obnubile imagined he was
sailing on the seas of Saturn and that he saw the marvellous ring which
girds the planet of the Old Man. And this immense conduit bore upon it
more than a quarter of the wealth of the world. The learned Penguin,
having disembarked, was waited on by automatons in a hotel forty-eight
stories high. Then he took the great railway that led to Gigantopolis,
the capital of New Atlantis. In the train there were restaurants,
gaming-rooms, athletic arenas, telegraphic, commercial, and financial
offices, a Protestant Church, and the printing-office of a great
newspaper, which latter the doctor was unable to read, as he did not
know the language of the New Atlantans. The train passed along the
banks of great rivers, through manufacturing cities which concealed the
sky with the smoke from their chimneys, towns black in the day, towns
red at night, full of noise by day and full of noise also by night.
“Here,” thought the doctor, “is a people far too much engaged in
industry and trade to make war. I am already certain that the New
Atlantans pursue a policy of peace. For it is an axiom admitted by all
economists that peace without and peace within are necessary for the
progress of commerce and industry.”
As he surveyed Gigantopolis, he was confirmed in this opinion. People
went through the streets so swiftly propelled by hurry that they
knocked down all who were in their way. Obnubile was thrown down
several times, but soon succeeded in learning how to demean himself
better; after an hour’s walking he himself knocked down an Atlantan.
Having reached a great square he saw the portico of a palace in the
Classic style, whose Corinthian columns reared their capitals of
arborescent acanthus seventy metres above the stylobate.
As he stood with his head thrown back admiring the building, a man of
modest appearance approached him and said in Penguin:
“I see by your dress that you are from Penguinia. I know your language;
I am a sworn interpreter. This is the Parliament palace. At the present
moment the representatives of the States are in deliberation. Would you
like to be present at the sitting?”
The doctor was brought into the hall and cast his looks upon the crowd
of legislators who were sitting on cane chairs with their feet upon
their desks.
The president arose and, in the midst of general inattention, muttered
rather than spoke the following formulas which the interpreter
immediately translated to the doctor.
“The war for the opening of the Mongol markets being ended to the
satisfaction of the States, I propose that the accounts be laid before
the finance committee . . . .”
“Is there any opposition? . . .”
“The proposal is carried.”
“The war for the opening of the markets of Third-Zealand being ended to
the satisfaction of the States, I propose that the accounts be laid
before the finance committee. . . .”
“Is there any opposition? . . .”
“The proposal is carried.”
“Have I heard aright?” asked Professor Obnubile. “What? you an
industrial people and engaged in all these wars!”
“Certainly,” answered the interpreter, “these are industrial wars.
Peoples who have neither commerce nor industry are not obliged to make
war, but a business people is forced to adopt a policy of conquest. The
number of wars necessarily increases with our productive activity. As
soon as one of our industries fails to find a market for its products a
war is necessary to open new outlets. It is in this way we have had a
coal war, a copper war, and a cotton war. In Third-Zealand we have
killed two-thirds of the inhabitants in order to compel the remainder
to buy our umbrellas and braces.”
At that moment a fat man who was sitting in the middle of the assembly
ascended the tribune.
“I claim,” said he, “a war against the Emerald Republic, which
insolently contends with our pigs for the hegemony of hams and sauces
in all the markets of the universe.”
“Who is that legislator?” asked Doctor Obnubile.
“He is a pig merchant.”
“Is there any opposition?” said the President. “I put the proposition
to the vote.”
The war against the Emerald Republic was voted with uplifted hands by a
very large majority.
“What?” said Obnubile to the interpreter; “you have voted a war with
that rapidity and that indifference!”
“Oh! it is an unimportant war which will hardly cost eight million
dollars.”
“And men . . .”
“The men are included in the eight million dollars.”
Then Doctor Obnubile bent his head in bitter reflection.
“Since wealth and civilization admit of as many causes of wars as
poverty and barbarism, since the folly and wickedness of men are
incurable, there remains but one good action to be done. The wise man
will collect enough dynamite to blow up this planet. When its fragments
fly through space an imperceptible amelioration will be accomplished in
the universe and a satisfaction will be given to the universal
conscience. Moreover, this universal conscience does not exist.”