Part 20

"A very accomplished young man called Narcissus had deserved by his love the affection of a very beautiful girl, whom the poets have celebrated under the name of Echo. But, as you know, even more than those of our sex, women are never so beloved as they desire; and she, having heard the virtues of these apples of Orestes greatly commended, went about to collect them from several places; and because she was fearful and her love apprehended the apples of one tree might have less strength than those of the other, she willed him to taste of both; but he had scarcely eaten them when Echo's image was effaced from his memory, all his love turned towards the person who had digested the fruit, he was the lover and the beloved; for the substance derived from the apple of Pylades embraced within him that from the apple of Orestes. This twin fruit, extending through the whole of his blood, excited all the parts of his body to caress themselves. His heart, into which flowed their double virtue, darted its flames within; all his limbs animated by his passion desired to penetrate each other. Even his image, which burned in the coldness of pools, attracted his body to join with it; in short, poor Narcissus became madly in love with himself. I shall not be so tedious as to relate to you his deplorable catastrophe; past ages have already sufficiently spoken of it and I have still two adventures to tell you, which will better fill up the time.

"You must know that the beautiful Salmacis frequented the shepherd Hermaphrodite, but with no familiarity beyond that authorised by the vicinity of their homes, when Fortune, who delights to trouble the most peaceful lives, permitted that Hermaphrodite should win the prize for running and Salmacis that for beauty in a meeting for games, where the prizes for beauty and running were two of these apples. They had been plucked together, but from different boughs, because these amorous fruits mingle with such cunning that one from Pylades is always met with beside one from Orestes; and their appearing to be twins was the cause that they were usually plucked in pairs. The beautiful Salmacis ate her apple and the gentle Hermaphrodite placed his in his shepherd's scrip. Salmacis, inspired by the enthusiasms of her apple, and of the shepherd's apple, which began to grow warm in his scrip, felt attracted towards him by the sympathetic ebb and flow of her apple with the other.

"The shepherd's parents, perceiving the nymph's desires, tried to preserve and to increase them, because of the advantages they perceived in this alliance; and therefore, having heard these twin apples vaunted as a fruit whose juice inclines the mind to love, they distilled some of them and found means to cause their son and his mistress to drink the purest quintessence. They had sublimated its energy to the highest degree it could attain and thereby lighted in these lovers' hearts so vehement a desire of joining together that at first sight Hermaphrodite was absorbed in Salmacis and Salmacis melted away in the arms of Hermaphrodite. They passed into each other and they composed from two persons of different sex a double 'something', which was neither man nor woman. When Hermaphrodite desired to enjoy Salmacis he found he was the nymph herself; and when Salmacis desired to be embraced by Hermaphrodite she felt she was the shepherd. Yet this double 'something' retained its unity; it begat and conceived without being either man or woman. In short, Nature here produced a marvel, which she has never since been able to prevent from being unique.

"Well, are not these astonishing stories? They are; for to see a daughter lie with her father; a young princess satisfy the desires of a bull; a man yearn to enjoy a stone; another marry with himself; to see one celebrate as a girl a marriage she consummates as a boy, cease to be a man without beginning to be a woman, become double outside the mother's womb and twin of a person who is no relative; all these are very distant from the ordinary paths of Nature. And yet what I am about to tell you will surprise you even more.

"Among the sumptuous diversity of all sorts of fruits brought from the most distant climates for the wedding banquet of Cambyses, they presented him with a graft of Orestes, which he inserted in a plane-tree; and among other delicacies, at dessert they put before him apples of the same tree.

"The agreeable taste of the fruit led him to eat a great deal of it; and after the three digestions, which converted the substance of this fruit into a perfect germ, he formed from it in the queen's womb the embryo of his son Artaxerxes; for all the details of his life caused his doctors to conjecture that he must have been produced in this way.

"When this prince's youthful heart was of an age to merit Love's anger it was noticed that he did not sigh for his own kind; he loved only trees, orchards and woods; but above all those to which he appeared tender, the plane-tree on which his father Cambyses had formerly grafted the shoot of Orestes consumed him with love.

"His temperament followed so scrupulously the plane-tree's progress that he seemed to grow with the branches of that tree; every day he went to embrace it; in his sleep he dreamed of nothing else; and he transacted all his business under the curve of its green tapestry. It was perceived that the plane-tree, pierced by a reciprocal ardour, was ravished by his caresses; for suddenly, without any apparent reason, its leaves were seen to stir and as it were to thrill with joy, the branches curved down upon his head as if to make him a crown and descended so near his face that it was easy to perceive this was rather to kiss him than from a natural tendency to grow downwards. It was even noticed that the tree jealously ranged and pressed its leaves together for fear lest the rays of daylight as they glided through should also kiss him. The king for his part placed no limits to his love. He caused his bed to be made at the foot of the plane-tree and the plane-tree, not knowing how to repay such friendship, gave him the most precious thing trees have--honey and dew--which it distilled every morning upon him.

"Their caresses would have lasted longer if death, the enemy of all beautiful things, had not ended them. Artaxerxes expired of love in the embraces of his dear plane-tree; and all the Persians, afflicted at the loss of so good a prince, decreed (in order to give him some satisfaction after death) that his body should be burned with the branches of this tree, without any other wood being used to consume him.

"When the pyre was lighted its flame was seen to knit with that of the body's fat and their burning hair curled together and diminished in pyramid shape until it was out of sight.

"This pure and subtle fire did not divide; but when it reached the Sun, to which as you know all igneous matter tends, it formed the germ of the apple-tree of Orestes, which you see there on your right hand.

"Now the seed of this fruit is lost in your world and this misfortune happened as follows:

"Fathers and mothers, who, as you know, in directing their families, are governed only by interest, were angry that their children as soon as they had tasted these apples bestowed on their friend everything they possessed; and so the parents burned as many of these plants as they could discover. The extinction of the race is the reason why a true friend is no longer found.

"As these trees were consumed by fire the rains which fell on them calcined the ashes, so that the congealed juice petrified in the same way that the humour of burnt fern is metamorphosed into glass; and thus in all the countries of the Earth the ashes of these twin trees formed two metallic stones called to-day the iron and the loadstone, which, because of the sympathy of the fruits of Pylades and Orestes, whose virtue they have always preserved, aspire every day to embrace; and notice that if the piece of loadstone is larger it attracts the iron, but if the piece of iron exceeds the other in quantity it attracts the loadstone, as happened of old in the miraculous effect of the apples of Pylades and Orestes; for whoever had eaten more of one of them was the more beloved by him who had eaten of the other.

"Well, iron feeds upon the loadstone and the loadstone feeds upon iron so visibly that the one grows rusty and the other loses its strength unless they are brought together to repair what is lost of their substance.

"Have you never observed a piece of loadstone placed on iron filings? In a flash you see the loadstone covered with these metallic atoms; and they grip with such amorous ardour so suddenly and so impatiently that after they have embraced everywhere you would say there is not a grain of loadstone which does not desire to kiss a grain of iron, and not a grain of iron which does not wish to unite with a grain of loadstone; for the iron and the loadstone, when separated, continually send out from their bulk the most active small bodies in search of what they love, but when they have found it and have nothing more to desire, each terminates its travels; the loadstone spends its repose in the possession of the iron, as the iron collects all its being to enjoy the loadstone. It is therefore from the sap of these two trees that the moisture flowed from which these two metals were born. Before that they were unknown; and if you wish to know from what matter they manufactured weapons of war--Samson armed himself with the jaw-bone of an ass against the Philistines; Jupiter, King of Crete, with artificial fire by means of which he imitated thunder and overcame his enemies; and Hercules conquered tyrants and tamed monsters with a club. But these two metals have another much more specific relation to our two trees. You must know that although this lifeless couple of lovers turn towards the pole, they never do so except in each other's company; and I will discover to you the reason of this after I have discoursed to you a little about the poles.

"The poles are the mouths of the sky by which it takes in the light, heat and influences it has diffused upon the Earth; otherwise, if all the treasures of the Sun did not return to their source it would long ago be extinct (since its light is only a dust of burning atoms shed from its globe) and would shine no more or else this abundance of small igneous bodies heaped continually upon the Earth would already have consumed it. Therefore, as I have said, the sky must have vent-holes by which the repletions of the Earth are cast out and others by which the sky can repair its losses, so that the eternal circulation of these little bodies of life may successively penetrate all the globes of this great universe. Now the vent-holes of Heaven are the poles by means of which it feeds upon the souls of everything that dies in its worlds and all the planets are the mouths and pores by whose means its spirits are exhaled afresh. And to show you that this is not so novel a fancy, observe that when your ancient poets, to whom philosophy had discovered the most hidden secrets of Nature, were speaking of a hero and desired to say that his soul was gone to dwell with the Gods, they expressed themselves thus: '_He has risen to the pole; he is seated above the pole; he has passed the pole_:' because they knew that the poles were the only entrances by which the sky receives all that has left it. If the authority of these great men does not fully satisfy you, the experience of those moderns who have travelled towards the north will perhaps content you. They have found that the nearer they approach the Bear during the six months of night, when it was thought this country was entirely black, the horizon was illuminated by a great light, which could only come from the pole, because the nearer they approached it, and consequently the farther they drew from the Sun, the larger the light became. It is therefore very probable that this light proceeds from rays of daylight and from a great heap of souls which, as you know, are made of luminous atoms alone, returning to the sky by their accustomed portals.

"After that it is not difficult to understand why iron rubbed with loadstone or loadstone rubbed with iron turns towards the pole; for since they are extracted from the bodies of Pylades and Orestes and have always preserved the propensities of the two trees, as the two trees preserved those of the two lovers, they must aspire to rejoin their soul, and so they strain towards the pole, whither they feel it has risen, with this proviso, that the iron does not turn unless it is rubbed by the loadstone nor the loadstone if it is not rubbed by the iron, because iron will not abandon a world without its friend, loadstone, nor loadstone without its friend, iron; and they cannot resolve to make this voyage without each other."

I think the voice was going to begin another discourse; but it was prevented by the noise of a loud alarm; the whole forest in disturbance echoed with the words: _Beware the plague!_ and _Pass it on!_

I begged the tree, which had talked to me so long, to inform me what was the reason of this great disorder.

"My friend", it said, "in this district we have not yet received precise details of the misfortune; I can only tell you in three words that the plague by which we are menaced is what men call a conflagration; and we may well name it a plague, for among us no disease is so contagious. The remedy we shall apply to it is to hold our breath and then to blow all together on the place whence the conflagration is moving, in order to repulse this dangerous air. I think this burning fever has been brought to us by a Fire-Beast, which for some days has been wandering about these woods; for since these beasts never go without fire and cannot do without it, this one no doubt has set fire to one of our trees.

"We have sent for the Ice-Animal to come to our aid; but it has not yet arrived. But now farewell, I have no time to talk to you, I must think of the common safety; and you yourself should take to flight, otherwise you run the risk of being involved in our ruin."

I followed its advice, but without hurrying very much, because I knew my legs. However I was so ignorant of the plan of that country that at the end of ten hours' walking I found myself behind the forest I thought I was avoiding; and to increase my apprehension, a hundred terrible thunder-claps shook my brain, while the pale dismal light of a thousand flashes of lightning quenched my eye-balls.

From moment to moment they increased with such fury one would have said the foundations of the world were about to collapse; yet, in spite of it all, the sky never appeared clearer. I was unable to find reasons for this and my desire of knowing the cause of so extraordinary an event urged me to walk towards the place whence the noise seemed to come.

I walked for about four hundred _stadia_, at the end of which I perceived in the middle of a very large field what looked like two balls which, after moving round each other for a very long time with a humming noise, came together and then recoiled; and I observed that the moment of the shock was that when these great noises were heard. Drawing nearer I perceived that what at a distance had seemed to me to be two balls were two animals; one of them, although round at the base, formed a triangle from the middle, and its very high head with red hair streaming upwards narrowed off in a pyramid shape, while its body was filled with holes like a sieve and one could see through these hollow places, which served it as pores, little flames issuing forth which seemed to cover it with fiery plumage.

Walking round I met a most venerable old man looking at this wonderful combat with as much curiosity as I. He signed to me to approach; I obeyed and we sat down beside each other.

I was about to ask him what motive had brought him into this country, but he closed my mouth with these words:

"Well, you shall know the motive which brought me into this country."

And immediately he related to me at length all the details of his journey. I leave you to imagine whether or no I was astounded. But my amazement was increased, for just as I was burning to ask him what demon revealed my thoughts to him, he exclaimed:

"No, no, 'twas not a demon revealed your thoughts to me."

This new trick of divination caused me to observe him with more attention than before and I noticed he was imitating my carriage, my gestures, my appearance, placed all his limbs and disposed all the features of his face on the pattern of mine; in short, my shadow in relief would not have represented me better.

"I see", he went on, "you are anxious to know why I imitate you, and I am glad to tell you. Know then that in order to understand what goes on inside you, I arrange all the parts of my body in an order similar to yours; for, by arranging all parts of me like you, I excite in myself by this disposal of my matter the same thought that is produced in you by this same disposal of your matter.

"You will conceive this effect to be possible if you have ever before observed that twins resembling each other have generally similar minds, passions and wills; to such an extent that two doubles were met with in Paris who had always undergone the same illnesses and the same health, had married without knowing the other's intention at the same hour of the same day, wrote each other letters, whose sense, wording and construction were the same and who composed the same sort of verses on the same subject, with the same conceits, the same turn and the same order. But you must see that if the composition of the organs of their bodies were similar in all circumstances they could only act in a similar manner, just as two equal instruments equally struck must give forth an equal harmony; and so when I model my body on yours and become, as it were, your twin, the same movement of matter must cause us both the same movement of the mind."

After this he again settled himself to imitate me and went on thus: "You are now very anxious to know the origin of the battle of these two monsters, whereof I will inform you. Learn then that the trees of the forest behind us were not able to repulse the violent efforts of the Fire-Beast with their breath and therefore sought the aid of the Ice-Animal."

"I have only heard these animals spoken of", I said, "by an oak in this country, but this was in great haste, for it was only thinking of its safety; and so I beg you will inform me."

He spoke in this way: "In this globe where we are the woods would be very scattered, on account of the desolation caused them by the large number of Fire-Beasts, but for the Ice-Animals which every day at the request of their friends the forests come to heal these sick trees; I say heal, because as soon as their icy mouth breathes upon the coals of this plague they are extinguished.

"In the world of the Earth, whence you come and whence I come, the Fire-Beast is called a Salamander and the Ice-Animal is known by the name of Remora.[74] Well, you must know that the Remora dwells towards the extremity of the pole in the deepest part of the frozen sea, and it is the cold which evaporates from these fishes through their scales, which in those districts freezes the sea-water, although it is salt.

[Footnote 74: Any reader of our Caroline poets will know how fond they were of the Remora.]

"The greater part of the pilots who have sailed to discover Greenland have noticed at one season of the year that the ice which stopped them at other seasons was no longer to be met with; but although this sea was free of ice at the time when winter is at its harshest they have not failed to attribute the cause to the melting of the ice by some secret warmth; but it is much more likely that the Remoræ, which feed on nothing but ice, had absorbed them at that time. You must know then that some months after they are filled this terrible digestion makes their bellies so cold that the mere breath they exhale freezes the whole Polar Sea again. When they come out on land (for they live in both elements) they feed on nothing but hemlock, aconite, opium, and mandragora.

"In our world people wonder whence come those chilly north winds, which always bring the frosts with them; but if our compatriots knew, as we do, that the Remoræ inhabit that climate, they would understand, as we do, that these winds come from the breath wherewith these fishes attempt to repulse the heat of the Sun as it approaches them.

"That Stygian water used to poison the great Alexander, whose cold petrified his entrails, was the piss of one of these animals. In short, the Remora contains so eminently all the principles of cold that when it passes under a ship, the ship is gripped by cold and remains so benumbed it cannot move from where it is. That is the reason why half of those who have sailed northward to discover the pole never returned, because it would be a miracle if the Remoræ, whose number is so great in that sea, did not stop their vessels. So much for the Ice-Animals.

"As to the Fire-Beasts, they dwell in the earth under mountains lighted by bitumen, such as Ætna, Vesuvius and the Red Cape. The pimples you see on this one's throat, which proceed from the inflammation of its liver, are...."[75]

[Footnote 75: Another hiatus here, perhaps.]

After that we remained without speaking to watch this extraordinary duel.

The Salamander attacked with great ardour, but the Remora withstood him impenetrably. Each blow they exchanged caused a clap of thunder, as it happens in the worlds round about where the meeting of a warm with a cold cloud excites the same noise.

At every glance of anger cast by the Salamander upon its enemy there came from its eyes a red light, which seemed to burn the air as it flew along; the beast sweated boiling oil and pissed acid.

The Remora, on its side, fat, square, and heavy, showed a body all scaly with icicles. Its large eyes looked like two crystal plates, whose glances carried with them so benumbing a light that I felt winter shiver upon every limb of my body it looked at. If I put my hand before me, it was numbed; the very air about the beast, attacked by its rigour, grew thick with snow, the earth hardened under its feet; and I could trace the footprints of the beast by the chilblains which greeted me when I walked above them.

At the beginning of the fight the Salamander had made the Remora sweat by the vigorous attack of its first ardour; but at length this sweat growing cold enamelled the whole plain with so slippery a frost that the Salamander could not join battle with the Remora without falling. The philosopher and I could easily see it was tired from falling and rising up again so often; for the thunder-claps created by the shock as it struck its enemy, which were before so terrible, were now only the dull sound of those small rumbles which mark the end of a storm; and this dull sound, diminishing little by little, degenerated into a hissing like that of a red-hot iron plunged into cold water.

When the Remora perceived the combat was drawing to an end by the weakening of the shock which now scarcely shook it, it rose up on one angle of its cube and let itself fall with the whole of its weight on the Salamander's belly so successfully that the poor Salamander's heart, in which all the remainder of its heat was concentrated, made so horrible a noise in bursting that I know nothing in Nature to compare with it.

Thus died the Fire-Beast beneath the passive resistance of the Ice-Animal.[76]

[Footnote 76: Some have thought this combat of the Salamander and the Remora was the lost _Story of the Spark_. In any case it is typical of the age. See Montfaucon de Villars's _Comte de Gabalis_. 1670.]