Paris Before the Deluge Read online

  “Perhaps a deluge,” said Chephren, smiling.

  “Ha ha! Who can tell?”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “No, since I’m in your ark,” the doctor replied, caustically.

  “But if we are indeed going to have a frightful tempest, floods and diluvian rainfall, wouldn’t you do better to stay with me?”

  “Aha! It’s you who fears a deluge, Philosopher,” the doctor said, turning to look at his friend.

  “I don’t know whether we’re under threat,” Chephren replied, seriously, “but if we look around, what do we see? What do we hear? Dull rumbling in the bed on the Sequanian Sea; more rumbling in the heart of the mountains, earthquakes—feeble as yet, but which might intensify; incredible seething in all the waters...”

  Oh, all that’s commonplace hereabouts.”

  “To this degree? No.” The philosopher continued: “And extraordinary clouds in the sky, storms in preparation that threaten to be devastating. And that comet? That comet, which is visibly growing, taking giant strides toward us with every passing minute, so that if it continues, it will drown us all in the torrents of its tail within a matter of hours! Have not all deluges, as the most ancient histories tell us, as well as the history of our forefathers, commenced like that?”

  “You’d frighten a man less skeptical than me, Philosopher,” Plunos replied.

  “I don’t want to frighten you, my friend,” Chephren retorted, “but I assure you that those are signs of the end of days for us.”

  “So I’m in haste to depart,” said the doctor, darting a final glance outside. “I want to know the denouement of our story before the deluge arrives.” He laughed, and shook his friend’s hand. “So, au revoir!”

  “No—adieu!”

  “No, my friend, au revoir!”

  “And if we don’t see one another again?”

  “Why? Because of the deluge?” said the doctor, smiling incredulously as he left.

  “Who can tell?” said the philosopher, in his turn, going back into his ark, which he closed and made weather-tight with a very particular care.

  It was the seventeenth of November.

  On the morning of the next day, the eighteenth,28 the philosopher did not receive a visit from the doctor, but he did get a brief letter send by him. The weather was too poor and offered too much threat of becoming a deluge, he wrote, underlining the last word, to risk going out, even to go to the ark of salvation.

  He gave an account of the previous evening’s visit to Lord Speos.

  He had found Lady Ludia there, forming with her husband the most cheerful depiction of conjugal love. All hint of jealousy had disappeared; the presence of Mo-kie-thi in her room in the middle of the night had been adequately explained, and the nobleman, who loved his wife dearly, was trying to make her forget her exile with the most affectionate caresses.

  The doctor had also learned there that Nirvana had been released and his daughter’s marriage to Atlas had been conclusively decided. It was a guarantee of civic loyalty that Lord Nirvana owed the fatherland.

  More than once, the philosopher Chephren interrupted his reading of the letter, short as it was, to dart anxious glances at the sky, from which water was pouring in torrents, as if to justify the apprehensions of Dr. Plunos, who was doubtless applauding himself inside his apartment for not having brought the news he had sent to his friend in person.

  The news in question was unimportant, as is evident, but there had been considerable developments since the previous day, as events moved rapidly toward a denouement of which the doctor was probably unaware.

  Since his release, Nirvana had taken up residence, with his daughter, in the house of his friend Speos, where he would remain until the marriage took place. That day had been fixed for the eighteenth of the month, as Dr. Plunos had written—the very day on which he was writing.

  Early that morning, therefore, Atlas rigged himself out like a groom and presented himself at Ormudza’s door, as was customary. The young woman was dressed in white, with a virginal crown on her head and tears in her eyes.

  The young man stopped short at that sight, his feet glued to the doorstep. He lowered his head; then, taking a little flower from his cloak that he had attached there as a symbol of joy and hope, he dropped it at the young woman’s feet.

  “You’re free, my lady,” he said to her, a troubled and unsteady voice. “God forbid that I should want to make you shed tears to ensure my happiness.” But he added: “And yet, the great prophet Sylax knows that everything that I have done until now was for you. For you, I became your father’s servant; for you, I became a Me-nu-tchean, perhaps harsh and perhaps ferocious. For you, I wanted to become famous; I wanted to place you under and obligation to me in order that I might be generous to you. I know, lady, what you have made of me. What do you want of me? I’m not demanding, I’m begging.”

  The young woman looked at her father, who took his daughter’s hand and placed it in the young man’s.

  “You’re better than I thought, Atlas” Ormudza replied, with a smile mingled with large tears. “Who can tell? Perhaps I’ll love you more one day, if the three divine friends will it!”

  “Thank you, God!” said Atlas, raising his eyes to the heavens. “Can I ask more for the present?”

  But his tongue suddenly froze and his legs became unsteady, while his fiancée, feeling faint, leaned heavily on her father’s arm.

  They had just seen Hyperion and Chemnis come in, whom no one expected—except for Nimrod, who had summoned them, and who appeared behind them, accompanied by Mo-kie-thi.

  That appearance astounded everyone.

  “My lords,” said Nimrod, in a sarcastic voice, “You’ve all assembled here to celebrate a family fête. That fête, I wanted to render more complete by inviting those you had forgotten. First, know one thing: the government of the Me-nu-tcheans is over. Another, more progressive and, especially, more moral, was installed last night. It holds in its hands all the necessary force to be obeyed. Now, that government does not leave crimes unpunished, no matter how old they might be.

  “It is a crime in our legislation, as you know, my lords, for a young woman to become a mother outside a legal contract; it’s a crime to abandon one’s children on dolmens in public places; it’s a crime to kill or abandon other people’s children on the dolmens in order to inherit their patrimonial wealth.”

  Nimrod’s voice became thunderous, while all his listeners remained immobile, trembling under guilty memories. “Well, my lords, Ludia Arimaspes, now Lady Speos, brought into the world at the age of fourteen a son, whose father was Lord Mo-kie-thi; and her husband, Lord Speos has had since his marriage, and outside it, a child, in addition to stealing the wealth of his friend Mo-kie-thi, for which purpose he abandoned the son who had been confided to him.

  “Here is Lucia’s son.” He pointed at Atlas. “This is Speos’ child,” he added, indicating Chemnis, “And this is the son of Mo-kie-thi.” He pointed at Hyperion. “In the name of the law of the new government of the Atlantis of the Pah-ri-ziz,” he went on, his ferocious eyes gleaming, “I arrest you all in order to take you before the tribunal by which you will be judged.”

  At the same time, the open doors and windows allowed the sight of an armed troop guarding all the exits from the house. It was, therefore, evident to everyone that Nimrod was telling the truth in representing himself as a representative of the new government.

  When the initial emotion had passed, Atlas could only see one thing to do, above all, which was to defend himself and the threatened life of the family to which Nimrod had just attached him. His first movement, therefore, was to seize with his two Herculean arms the accuser who was standing before him, and hurl him into the street, where he fell into the arms of his satellites.

  At the same time, the doors and windows closed as if by magic; everyone grabbed whatever weapon came to hand, and got ready to withstand a siege, no matter how disproportionate it might be.

  A frightf
ul clap of thunder rang out at that moment and caused the entire house to shake. It was followed by a continuous roll, which burst from the clouds from instant to instant, with raindrops so dense and so abundant that the daylight was darkened. There were strange noises, sinister whistlings in the tempests, extraordinary shocks, and then screams and moans were heard outside, coming from all directions.

  All those frightful signs did not disconcert the besieged individuals, who closed their ears to the threats of the storm in order to hear nothing but Nimrod’s threats. No one, however, attacked their fortress. They were astonished by that, but continued prudently to maintain an attentive and vigorous attitude. Then they perceived trickles of water penetrating into the ground-floor rooms on all sides, through the doors, which were not watertight.

  Atlas ran up to the second floor in order to investigate. The house was not under siege by the armed force that had threatened it, but he saw, fearfully, that the streets had disappeared under a sheet of water that no longer permitted anything to be distinguished but the houses, which were gradually disappearing. A host of men, women and children, surprised some distance from their homes, were struggling ineffectively against the torrents in search of some shelter, but the habitations were all shut.

  Meanwhile, the storm continued its rumblings and its racket, and the water was still rising.

  The guests of the Speos house were soon unable to remain on the ground floor any longer. The water suddenly flooded in, breaking through the doors and windows. They went up to the second floor, and then on to the platform, where they found the frail shelter of the tent, which had only been constructed to provide shelter from overly ardent sunlight.

  But the water followed them there; it soon threatened to invade the retreat they thought they had found from the inundation. From there they were able to see the cadavers of humans and animals floating all around them, along with infants’ cribs, garments, items of furniture, the roofs of houses, and wooden beams ripped out of walls by the waters: debris of every sort, as well as a few unfortunates clinging with the ardor of desperation to fragments of wreckage, appearing and disappearing alternately before finally sinking into the immense gulf.

  Nothing more of the anterior life was apparent anywhere, save for the summits of a few tall trees, the tips of his highest hills and the spires of a few public monuments.

  The Speos house was one of the tallest in the city; it was apparent a long time after the disappearance of others, but the inundation, which was unceasing, threatened to engulf it imminently in its turn.

  There was, however, a moment of hope. Either because some gulf had suddenly opened to carry water away, or some powerful dam had burst in order to let torrents flow away, the water finally stopped rising.

  It was just in time, for it was already touching the platform of the Speos house, and everyone was looking at it in terror, calculating with anguish the minutes that they still had to live.

  None of them, at that moment, was entertaining any bad memories, any desire for vengeance; was there even any love left in them? There was not only the love of life, but love for one another, forgiveness of the past; there was an immense pity, which bound them all together. They formed a single group in the middle of the platform, their arms linked together, in order to struggle, if there were any means to do so, against the invasion of the waves, or in order to die without being separated, if they had to die.

  That was a very minimal consolation, but it was one, for in the union of the unfortunate there is always the hope of the unexpected.

  There was more than that, at that moment, among Lord Speos’ guests. The waters had stopped, they could see that; that was hope; and the heavens, for their part, began to smile. The sky became more serene; the rain, without stopping completely, was falling like gentle dew. Then, a ray of sunlight, still rather pale but full of promise, became visible through the clouds.

  All eyes turned gladly toward the heavens, thanking God and praying for the mercy of life.

  At that moment, only Mo-kie-thi’s face went pale. He had just seen, as he looked up at the sky, a star that he feared more than any other, perhaps scientifically, and perhaps instinctively, too: it was the comet, the predictive comet long held in Atlantis to precede great misfortunes. All Lutecia had been seeing it for several days, but without trembling. The philosopher Chephren was perhaps the only one to have talked about it as a threatening manifestation.

  Mo-kie-thi was not a specialist scientist, but he had some scientific knowledge, and at that moment, in the critical situation in which he found himself, his science was full of terror, for it seemed to him that the comet was heading toward the Earth with an unspeakable rapidity, and that it was about to crash into it.

  As if to confirm his fears, the clouds swelled up in the atmosphere at that moment, covering the sun completely, and a strange, indescribable noise was produced in the air. Then a sea of water suddenly collapsed on the city, which it swallowed in its entirety.

  The tallest houses had disappeared; the hills and mountains were swallowed up; no vestige of land could any longer be seen; the sea was everywhere.

  The comet-induced avalanche had created that sea in an instant: a turbulent and torrential sea. One might have thought that the sky had just opened all its cataracts, and emptied them at a stroke. But a few moments after that frightful fall, which had made the inundation turbulent all the way to its profoundest depths, there was a kind of calm on the surface of the waters.

  Then, all the debris that the incredible downpour had driven into the gulf began to reappear again as flotsam: countless cadavers, the few unfortunates who had found a refuge thus far, and those who were disputing their lives with the fury of the waves with a tenacity worthy of a better future.

  A little hope returned to the hearts of the castaways at that moment, for they suddenly perceived, afloat amid all the debris and all the cadavers, a vessel—one alone—which the waves were tossing about madly. It sometimes leaned over so far on its side that one might have thought that it was about to plunge into the watery gulf, but it suddenly righted itself, to recommence running the same dangers a moment later.

  No one was steering that vessel. There was, however, someone inside it: a benevolent man, a hero of humankind—for, at the risk of causing it to sink, he had attached ropes all around the perimeter of his vessel, in order to serve for the salvation of swimmers, if there were any sufficiently powerful and sufficiently fortunate to grab hold of them.

  There were some.

  At the moment that the water that had just started licking the feet of the unfortunate group on the Speos house, at the moment when they all recovered a little hope, a sudden idea had flashed through Atlas’ mind. With his robust hand, he had seized from amid all the debris within reach beams, uprooted trees and furniture, which he had attached to the platform, transforming it into a raft onto which he had roped, at the moment of greatest danger, Ludia, Ormuzda and Chemnis. The men were clinging to it as best they could.

  It was a wisp of straw carrying ants on a stormy sea, but it was still a glimmer of hope, a few moments longer to live…and then, who can tell?

  Unfortunately, the frail raft did not hold together for long; it was immediately swallowed up by the diluvian avalanche of the comet, but bobbed up again thereafter.

  A few members of the poor family were already lacking; Hyperion had disappeared, and Speos was only hanging on to the branches of a tree with one hand—which lost its grip just as all the other hands reached out to grasp it.

  It was at that moment that the ark of the philosopher Chephren appeared to the eyes of the castaways, for the fortunate waves were pushing it toward them. After extraordinary efforts recommended by prudence, and strange alternations of hope and dread, the philosopher was finally able to collect them. It was just in time, for they were dying of emotion and fatigue.

  That frightful inundation, the immensity of which put it far above the flooding of a river or the sea, invaded the whole of Europe. It
was our Deluge. It was probably the greatest inundation that has remained in the records of history, even though that of Ogyges frightened the memory of Attica and Boetia for a long time, and that of Deucalion, which, like Ogyges’ and ours, has the honor of also bearing the title of deluge and is reputed to have completely depopulated Thessaly.

  The Deluge lasted more than a month; in the meantime, the waters continued to grow, but with much less intensity in the latter days than the earlier ones. History records, and reason also tells us, that they required several months to decrease and finally to retreat to their respective beds, or to form new ones.

  XX. The Day After the Deluge

  The ark of the god Chephren was not very far from Lutecia; it stopped on a hill in the vicinity. When he got down from it, the philosopher raised his hands to the heavens to thank God for having inspired the precious idea of his ark. Perhaps he alone had had it, although he was not alone in knowing the information of history and science. But many had doubtless said, like poor Dr. Plunos: “What is done is done; let us live now, and let tomorrow come.

  After emerging from the ark, the philosopher set out in search of Lutecia. Lutecia was no more. There was nothing on its soil by rubble, ruins and cadavers partly buried in the mud. A deathly silence reigned everywhere in the city that recently been so animated, so noisy, so tormented by the ardent passions of conspirators, rabble-rousers and revolutionaries, the plots of ambitious men and petty tyrants. Everyone—the great and the small, the rich and the poor—was now, underneath the water or lying in the mud, in the equality of death.

  The philosopher wept for his homeland, for his enemies, so cruelly annihilated; he wept for that immense chaos, created by an immense misfortune.

  There was no longer anyone alive in the Atlantis of the Pah-ri-ziz at that moment, nor in the whole of Europe, except the guests of Chephren’s ark. There was only them to repopulate those vast regions, to reanimate Atlantis, to reconstitute its greatness, its wealth and its glory. They were as numerous, it is true, as those that the tempest had cast up a thousand years before to populate that island the first time, and create everything that had been annihilated.