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Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys
CHAP. XIII.
Of the opera at Banza.
Sixth trial of the Ring
Of all the public diversions of Banza, none supported itself but the opera. Utmiutsol and Utremifasolasiututut, two celebrated musicians, one of whom was growing old, and the other was but just new-fledged, alternately occupied the lyric scene. Each of these two original authors had his partisans. The ignorant and the grey-bearded dotards stood up for Utmiutsol; the smart young fellows and the Virtuosi were for Utremifasolasiututut: and the people of taste, as well young as old, held them both in high esteem. Utremifasolasiututut, said the latter, is excellent when he is good, but he sleeps at times; and, pray, to whom does not that happen? Utmiutsol holds up better, and is more uniform. He is full of beauties; yet he has not one, of which there are not examples to be found, and even more striking, in his rival; in whom there are strokes to be observed, which are entirely his own, and are not to be met with any where but in his works. Old Utmiutsol is simple, natural, smooth, sometimes too smooth, and that is his fault. Young Utremifasolasiututut is singular, brilliant, composed, learned, sometimes too learned: but perhaps that is his hearer's fault. The one has but one opening, beautiful indeed, but repeated at the head of all his pieces. The other has made as many openings as pieces, and they all pass for masterpieces. Nature guided Utmiutsol in the ways of melody; study and experience discovered the sources of harmony to Utremifasolasiututut. Who ever knew how to declaim, and who will ever speak a part like the old man? Who will compose light catches, voluptuous airs, and symphonies in character like the young one? Utmiutsol is the only person who understood dialogue. Before Utremifasolasiututut no body distinguished the delicate touches, which separate the tender from the voluptuous, the voluptuous from the passionate, the passionate from the lascivious. Nay some partisans of the latter pretend, that if Utmiutsol's dialogue is superior to his, this is not so much owing to the inequality of their talents, as to the difference of the poets, whom they made use of. "Read, read," cried they, "the scene of Dardanus, and you will be convinced, that if we give good words to Utremifasolasiututut, Utmiutsol's charming scenes will be revived." However that be, in my time, the whole town flock'd to the tragedies of the latter, and people stifled one another at the interludes of the former.
They were just then exhibiting in Banza an excellent piece of Utremifasolasiututut, which would never have been represented but in nightcaps, had not the favorite Sultana had the curiosity to see it. And besides, the periodical indisposition of Toys favored the jealousy of the fiddles, and made the principal actress flinch. She, who supplied her place, had not so good a voice, but as she made amends by her manner of acting, nothing hindered the Sultan and the favorite from honouring the piece with their presence.
Mirzoza was already come, Mangogul comes, the curtain is raised, they begin. Every thing went on marvellously well: Miss Chevalier had effaced the memory of Miss le Maure, and they were at the fourth act, when the Sultan bethought himself, in the middle of a chorus, which he thought lasted too long, and had already cost the favorite two yawns, to point his ring on all the singers. Never was there seen on the stage so odd and comical a sight. Thirty women were struck dumb on a sudden. Their mouths were wide open, and they kept the same theatrical attitudes they held before. And at the same time their Toys made their throats sore with the violence of singing, this a Pont-neuf, that a Vaudeville polisson, another a very indecent parody, and all of them extravagances relative to their characters. On one hand was heard, oh vraiment ma comere, oui; on the other, quoi douze fois? Here, qui me baise, est-ce Blaise? There, rien, Pere Cyprien, ne vous retient. In fine, they all wound themselves up into a strain, so high, so rude, and so mad, that they formed the most extravagant brawling ridiculous choir, that had been heard before and since that of – no – d – on —
Here the manuscript was worm-eaten.
All this while the Orchestra went on, and the loud laughs of the pit and boxes joined to the sound of the instruments, and the singing of the Toys, compleated the cacophony.
Some of the actresses, fearing lest their Toys, tired with quavering impertinences, might resolve to speak them out, ran behind the scenes: but they escaped with the fright only. Mangogul being perswaded that the public would learn nothing new, turn'd off his ring. In an instant all the Toys were silent, the bursts of laughter ceased, the audience grew calm, the play was resumed and finished peaceably. The curtain drop'd, the Sultana and Sultan went off, and the Toys of our actresses went to their several appointments, where they were to have a different employment from singing.
This affair made a great noise. The men laugh'd, the women were alarmed, the Bonza's were scandalized, the academicians rack'd their brains about it. But what did Orcotomus say? Orcotomus triumph'd. He had hinted in one of his memoirs, that the Toys would infallibly sing: they had sung accordingly, and this phænomenon, which disconcerted his brethren, was to him a new ray of light, and compleated the confirmation of his system.
CHAP. XIV.
Orcotomus's experiments
It was on the fifteenth of the moon of – , that Orcotomus had read his memoir to the academy, and communicated his thoughts on the tattle of the Toys. As he then did with the greatest assurance promise to produce infallible experiments, which he had repeated several times, and always with success; the majority of people was struck with his doctrine. For some time the public preserved the favorable impressions they had received: and for full six weeks Orcotomus pass'd for having made considerable discoveries.
Nothing was wanting to complete his triumph, but performing before the academy the famous experiments, which he had preached so loudly. The assembly that met on this occasion was extremely brilliant. The ministers of state graced the meeting: the Sultan himself did not disdain to be there, but invisible.
As Mangogul was a great Monologue maker, and the futility of the conversations of his time had tainted him with the habitude of soliloquy: "Either Orcotomus," said he, "must be an arrant quack, or the Genius my protector, a great fool. If the academician, who certainly is not a conjurer, can restore speech to dead Toys; the Genius who protects me was in the wrong to make a compact, and sell his soul to the devil, for the sake of communicating it to Toys full of life."
Mangogul was puzzling himself with such reflections, when he found himself in the middle of his academy. Orcotomus had for spectators, as appears, all those in Banza, who were knowing in the subject of Toys. In order to be satisfied with his audience, all he wanted was to give them satisfaction: but the issue of his experiments proved very unhappy. Orcotomus took up a Toy, put his mouth to it, blew into it till he was out of breath, quieted it, returned, tried another: for he had brought a variety of them with him, of all ages, sizes, conditions and colours: but in vain did he blow; nothing was heard but inarticulate sounds, vastly different from what he had promised.
Then ran a buzzing murmur thro' the company, which disconcerted him for a moment: but he recovered himself, and alledged that such experiments were not easy to be made before so great a number of people: and he was right.
Mangogul got up in wrath, went away, and in the twinkling of an eye was in the favorite Sultana's appartment. "Well, prince," said she upon seeing him, "who has won the day, you or Orcotomus? For his Toys have performed wonders to be sure." The Sultan took some turns about the room without a word of answer. "But," resumed the favorite, "your highness seems dissatisfied." "Oh! madam, the impudence of that Orcotomus is not to be match'd. Pray, do not so much as mention him from this moment – What will you say, O future generations, when you shall be informed, that the great Mangogul allowed a hundred thousand crowns in yearly pensions to such fellows; while gallant officers, who with their blood had watered the laurels that surround his brow, were reduced to twenty pound a year? – By Jove, the thought distracts me: I shall be out of humor this month to come."
Here Mangogul broke off, and continued to walk about the room. He hung down his head, marched to and fro, stop'd, and now and then stamp'd the floor with his foot. He sat down a moment, rose up in a hurry, took his leave of Mirzoza, forgot to kiss her, and retir'd to his own appartment.
The African author, who has immortalized himself by the history of the high and marvellous exploits of Erguebzed and Mangogul, continues in these words:
By Mangogul's ill humor it was thought, that he was on the point of banishing all the learned out of his dominions. Far from it, the next day he arose in a gay mood, performed his exercises at the riding-house in the morning, in the evening supp'd with Mirzoza and some favorites, under a magnificent tent in the gardens of the Seraglio, and never appeared more disengaged from affairs of state.
The dissatisfied and the disaffected of Congo, and the newsmongers of Banza, did not fail to spread their reports of this conduct. For what do not people of this stamp find fault with? "Is this," said they in the public walks and coffee-houses, "is this governing a state? To spend the day in tilting, and the night at table." "Well, if I was Sultan," cried a little Senator ruined by gaming, parted from his wife, and whose children had the worst of education, "if I was Sultan, I would make Congo a flourishing empire. I would be the terror of my enemies, and the darling of my subjects. Within six months I would reestablish the Police, the laws, the army and the navy in their full vigour. I would have a hundred ships of the line. Our heaths should soon be grub'd up, and our high-ways repair'd. I would abolish the taxes, or at least reduce them to one half. As for pensions, gentlemen of sublime wit, by my faith, ye should but just taste them with the tip of your tongues. Good officers, Pongo Sabiam, good officers, old soldiers, magistrates like us, who devote our labours and night studies to dealing out justice to the people; these are the men on whom I would shed my bounty."
"Gentlemen," said an old toothless politician, with greasy flat hair, a coat worn out at elbows, and ragged ruffles, "have ye quite forgot our great emperor Abdelmalek, of the Dynasty of the Abyssinians, who reigned two thousand three hundred and eighty five years ago? Have ye forgot how he caused two astronomers to be impaled, for an error of three minutes in their prediction of an eclipse; and his first physician and surgeon to be dissected alive, for having ordered him a dose of manna at an improper time?"
"Moreover I ask you," continued another, "what are those idle Bramins good for, that vermin who suck our blood, and grow fat on it. Would not their immense overflowing riches better become honest folks like us."
From another quarter was heard: "Forty years ago, were the new cookery and the liquors of Lorraine so much as known? Our rulers are plung'd deep into luxury, which threatens approaching destruction to the empire, a necessary consequence of the contempt of the Pagoda's and dissolution of morals. At the time when people eat but coarse meats, and drank but sherbet at Kanaglou's table; what regard would be paid to the cut-paper ornaments, to Martin's varnishes, and to Rameau's music? The opera girls were not more cruel then than at present, and were to be had much cheaper. The prince, you see, spoils many good things. But if I was Sultan – "
"If thou wert Sultan," answered in wrath an old officer, who had escaped the dangers of the battle of Fontenoy, and had lost an arm close to his prince in the fight of Laufelt; "thou wouldst commit greater impertinences than thou now dealst out. Eh, friend, thou can'st not govern thy tongue, and thou wouldst willingly rule an empire: thou hast not sense to manage thy family, and thou pretendst to guide a state. Respect the powers of the earth, and thank the Gods for having given thee birth in the empire, and in the reign of a prince, whose prudence instructs his ministers, and whose soldiery admire his valor; who has made himself dreaded by his enemies, and beloved by his people; and whose only fault is the lenity with which persons of thy stamp are treated under his government."
CHAP. XV.
The Bramins
After the learned had spent themselves on the Toys, the Bramins took possession of them. Religion laid claim to their chit-chat, as a subject that came within its jurisdiction, and its ministers pretended that the hand of Brama manifested itself in that work.
There was held a general assembly of Pontiffs, and a resolution was taken to employ the best pens to prove in form, that the thing was supernatural, and that, till their works could be published, it should be defended by way of theses in the schools, in private conversations, in the direction of consciences, and in public harangues.
Now, altho' they unanimously agreed that the thing was supernatural; yet as the people of Congo admitted two principles, and professed a sort of Manicheism, they were divided in opinion, to which of these two principles the chit-chat of the Toys ought to be attributed.
Those who had seldom or never been out of their cells, and had turned over nothing but their books, ascribed the prodigy to Brama. "There is none but he," said they, "that can interrupt the course of nature; and time will shew, that in all this he has most profound views."
Those on the contrary, who frequented the toilets, and were oftner surprized at bed-sides than in their closets, fearing lest some indiscreet Toy or other might unveil their hypocrisy, laid their prattle to the charge of Cadabra, a mischief-making deity, and a sworn enemy to Brama and his servants. This latter system was exposed to terrible objections, and had not so direct a tendency towards the reformation of morals. Nay, its defenders did not impose on themselves about it. But the business was, to screen themselves: and in order to compass that, religion had not a single minister, who would not have sacrificed the Pagodas and their Altars a hundred times over.
Mangogul and Mirzoza assisted regularly at the religious service of Brama, and the whole empire was informed thereof by the news-papers. On a certain day appointed for celebrating one of the principal solemnities in the great Mosq, they were present. The Bramin, whose turn it was to explain the law, mounted the rostrum, pour'd forth a volley of affected phrases and fulsome compliments on the Sultan and his favorite; and made an eloquent peroration on the manner of sitting orthodoxly in company. He had already demonstrated the necessity thereof by numberless authorities, when being instantaneously seized with a fit of sacred enthusiasm, he spoke this declamation, which had the greater effect, as it came in quite unexpected.
"What do I hear in all assemblies? a confused murmur, an unheard noise strikes my ears. All things are turn'd topsy-turvy, and the faculty of speech, which the goodness of Brama had hitherto appropriated to the tongue, is now by an effect of his vengeance transported to other organs. And what organs? You know, gentlemen. O ungrateful people, was there a necessity for a new prodigy, to rouze ye from your lethargy; and had not your crimes witnesses enough, but their principal instruments must raise their voice? Doubtless their measure is filled up; since the wrath of heaven has sought new chastisements. In vain did you envelop yourself in darkness, in vain did you choose mute accomplices: do you not hear them at present? They have given depositions against ye from every quarter, and revealed your baseness to the universe. O thou who governest by thy wisdom! O Brama! just are thy judgments. Thy law condemns theft, perjury, lying and adultery: it proscribes the blackness of calumny, the intrigues of ambition, the fury of hatred, and the artifices of insincerity. Thy faithful ministers have not ceased declaring these truths to thy children, and threatening them with the chastisements, which thou in thy just anger reservedst for prevaricators: but in vain; the fools have delivered themselves up to the tide of their passions, they followed the torrent, they have despised our admonitions, they have laughed at our threats, they have regarded our anathema's as empty noise; their vices are accumulated, strengthen'd, multiplied; the voice of their impiety has ascended even to thy throne, and we have not been able to prevent the tremendous scourge, with which thou hast smote them. After having long implored thy mercy, let us now extoll thy justice. Overwhelmed by thy strokes, doubtless they will return to thee, and acknowledge the hand which is laid heavy on them. But O prodigy of hardheartedness! O excess of blindness! They have imputed the effect of thy power to the blind mechanism of nature. They have said in their hearts, Brama is not. All the properties of matter are not known to us, and the new proof of its existence is but a proof of the ignorance and credulity of those, who object it to us. On this foundation they have raised systems, invented hypotheses, tried experiments: but from the highth of his eternal habitation, Brama has laugh'd at their vain projects. He has confounded audacious knowledge, and the Toys have broke, as glass, the impotent obstacles opposed to their loquacity. Wherefore let those vainglorious worms confess the weakness of their reason, and the vanity of their efforts. Let them cease to deny the existence of Brama, or to prescribe limits to his power. Brama is, he is almighty, and he does not shew himself to us more visibly in his dreadful scourges, than in his ineffable favours.
"But who has drawn down these scourges on this wretched country? Is it not thy injustice, greedy incredulous man? Thy gallantries and silly amours, worldly immodest woman! Thy excesses and shameful debaucheries, infamous man of pleasure! Thy hardheartedness for our monasteries, miser! Thy injustice, corrupt magistrate! Thy usuries, insatiable money-dealer! Thy effeminacy and irreligion, impious and sycophant courtier.
"And you, on whom this scourge is particularly fallen, women and maidens plunged into licentiousness; tho' we, renouncing the duties of our calling, should keep profound silence with regard to your irregularities, you carry about you a more importunate voice than ours: it accompanies you, and will every where rebuke you for your impure desires, your equivocal connections, your criminal conversations, such excessive care to please, so many artifices to engage, so much address to fix, and the impetuosity of your transports, and the fury of your jealousy. Why then do you delay to shake off the yoke of Cadabra, and return under the mild laws of Brama? But let us return to our subject. Well then I was saying that worldlings sit down heretically, and that for nine reasons; the first, &c."
This discourse made very different impressions. Mangogul and the Sultana, who were the only persons that knew the secret of the ring, were convinced that the Bramin had as happily hit off the tattle of Toys by the assistance of religion, as Orcotomus by the light of reason. The court ladies and petits-maitres declared the sermon seditious, and the preacher a visionary. The rest of the audience esteem'd him a prophet, shed tears, fell to prayers, and even flagellations, and did not change their courses of life.
The noise of this sermon spread to the very coffee-houses. A wit pronounced in a decisive tone, that the Bramin had but very superficially handled the subject, and that his discourse was but a cold insipid declamation: but in the opinion of the devout women and the enlightened, it was the most solid piece of eloquence that had been delivered in the temples these hundred years. And in mine, both the wit and the devout women were in the right.
