Where Tigers Are at Home (74 page)

STRANGE how I’ve suddenly started finding quotations in favor of Athanasius.

AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY there were still eminent scientists who maintained that “the Egyptian pyramids are large crystals or natural excrescences from the earth fashioned to a small degree by human hand.”

MINOR OFFICIALS at the court of Louis XIV: Inspector of fresh butter, King’s councillor for the woodstacks, Treasurer of the emergency fund for wars, Senior and biennial seedsman (works one year in two), Alternative and biennial seedsman (works during the years when the senior seedsman isn’t working), Angevin examiner of pigs’ tongues (has the pig beaten to make it stick its tongue out “in order to see if it is measly”) …

BABEL, STILL … In eighteenth-century Germany the myth of an original language led two honest scientists to abandon two children in the woods in order to see what language they would start to speak in the absence of any linguistic models. The resulting aphasia should have put them on the right track …

KIRCHERIAN MINOR OFFICIALS: resuscitator of oysters and varnisher of dead lobsters.

MY MASTER INTRODUCED
Cavaliere Bernini to our two visitors with many complimentary remarks. Although quite different in temperament, Grueber & the sculptor appeared to like each other from the very beginning. Just as a cobbler would only have been interested in the natives’ footwear, or a roofer in their way of assembling roof timbers, Bernini immediately turned the conversation to the statues and monuments of Asia, asking if there were some worthy of comparison with those of the West or of Egypt. Henry Roth launched into a description of the buildings of China, arguing very learnedly that though the Chinese, like the Romans, excelled in the construction of walls, roads and bridges, their statues, although often colossal, never reached the refinement & beauty to be found in our countries. They were nothing but coarse idols or monsters & demons whose
deplorably grotesque & sometimes even lubricious style owed so little to art that they ought to be seen as the work of the devil rather than of human beings.

Grueber took up the argument. “I agree with what has just been said, even though I have seen some statues in China that do not deserve the disapproval shown by Father Roth, for they often have a nobility & serenity that, to my mind, characterize the outstanding examples of Great Art. However, it wasn’t in China but in the Sunda Islands that I came across the most divine sculpture you ever could see. And I am convinced, Signore Bernini, that even if you had merely glimpsed it you would consider it one of the wonders of the world.”

“That is certainly something to whet my appetite. Would you do me the favor of describing it?”

“Willingly. But allow me first to describe the location: during my voyage to China I took a ship from Tonkin heading for Amacao that was thrown off course by a storm; we had to put in at Batavia, or Jacquetra, the capital of the island of Java—”

Seeing Bernini’s baffled expression, Kircher came to the rescue by bringing over a large globe on which Grueber could point out the places he spoke of as he went on.

“There’s such a large number of islands among the ins and outs of the Indian Ocean that there’s no way of being sure how many there are. Sumatra—there—is the largest, Borneo the second, Java the third biggest. It has been called ‘the world in miniature’ because of its immense fecundity, of the ease with which it grows and produces all sorts of things. It not only gives us pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves & other aromatic spices but also harbors all sorts of animals, both wild & domesticated, which are exported to various foreign lands. There are also mines abundant in gold & precious stones of incalculable value. There are innumerable silks … In brief, it would be one of the
richest & most pleasant islands of the East, if it were not too often ravaged by storms the mere expectation of which brings despair & terror to all parts. The islands’ inhabitants claim to be descended from Chinese who in the past were so plagued by the perpetual privateering & invasions of the pirates that they abandoned their homeland & went to establish colonies on this island. The people are of middle height, with round faces, & the majority go completely naked or have little cotton cloths hanging from their belts down to their knees. I consider them the best mannered & most civilized of the Indians—”

“A true paradise on earth!” Bernini exclaimed. “Would that I were younger and wealthier so that I could go to that land!”

“A paradise, perhaps,” Father Roth snorted, “but inhabited by demons! I know for a fact that they’re greedy scroungers, they’re brazen, impudent & arrogant & freely lie to get their hands on other people’s property. These Indians are nothing but two-faced, mealy-mouthed, light-fingered thieves. They’ll flatter you, make promises, swear by Heaven, Earth & Mahomet, until you take everything they say as the unvarnished truth; but if you talk to them one hour later, they’ll brazenly deny everything they said! The language of men, they say, is not made of bones, by which they mean you can bend it to your will without it being constrained by oath.”

Grueber & Bernini were dumbfounded at this sudden diatribe. An uncomfortable feeling of embarrassment spread among us & I could see that Grueber, eyes lowered, was biting his lip to repress a retort to his elder colleague.

“I’d no idea,” my master said with feigned nonchalance, “that you had been to that island as well.”

“To be honest,” said Father Roth, slightly flustered, “I’ve never been there, but I had what I’ve just said from a Dutch merchant who had spent more than twenty years in Batavia & went on to me at length about the Javanese.”

Kircher gave Father Roth a severe look: “Ask the wolf what he thinks of the sheep he devours or keeps under his sway & he will always tell you that the poor creatures deserve their misfortune because of their numerous faults & if he concerns himself with them it is only out the goodness of his heart. For that reason I would be wary of giving credence to what your merchant says. That the Javanese are idolaters & that it is proving difficult to convert them to the true religion, I can well believe; but that they are demons forever impervious to reason & divine compassion is something I cannot accept. Nor can you, I am sure, Reverend Father …”

Father Roth apologized, albeit grudgingly, then asked to be allowed to retire, pleading his age & the strain of the journey. Bernini made no attempt to hide his delight at seeing such a carping tongue depart, for which he was given a friendly reproof by my master.

“You were saying, Father Grueber?”

“Well, while my ship was stuck in the harbor of Batavia I heard marvelous reports of a very ancient city, which was said to have been swallowed up by the jungle, a few days’ journey by mule from a small town called Djokdjokarta. Driven as much by my own curiosity as by my promise to report to you, Reverend Father, anything out of the ordinary, I had myself taken there. To get to the point—& leaving aside the travails of the journey, which I had been warned would be as difficult as it was hazardous—the first sight I had of Boeroe Boedor, the ‘lost city,’ came when, after one last turning, my guides pointed with trembling fingers at a little black mountain rising from a sea of luxuriant vegetation. But as I approached it I saw that not one inch of this hill of stone had escaped the sculptor’s chisel; & I think I am not wrong in saying that his pyramid was, on a base a hundred paces square, forty paces high!”

I saw Kircher’s face suddenly light up. “This ‘pyramid,’ ” he asked excitedly, “would you say it resembled those that can be seen in Egypt?”

“Not exactly. In form it was more like the structures of the ancient Mexicans as our missionaries have drawn them. Visualize four square tiers, each surmounted by a round terrace, the whole reducing in size as it rises up.”

“Forgive my impatience, Reverend Father, but you still haven’t described the sculptures you spoke so highly of.”

“Of course, I’m sorry … All along the galleries or the paths going from the base to the summit are some fifteen hundred bas-reliefs that, put end to end, would stretch over five leagues! From what I understood, these sculptures represent the life of Poussah or the idol, Fo, as it is recounted in the Chinese or Indian legends, but you would swear, Cavaliere, that they had been produced by the most talented of the Greeks, so perfect is the composition & so refined the ornamentation. There are more than 25,000 figures, a quarter or half in high relief, that come to life before our very eyes in such a natural way that there is nothing so beautiful in the whole world. Men & women, all in graceful postures, are walking, dancing, riding or praying in the most noble and refined attitudes: musicians are playing the flute or the drum, whole crews are busy on their proud vessels, sublime warriors are resting amid vegetation in which one can easily recognize all the trees, all the fruits, all the flowers & plants of the region, even those that have retaken possession of the stones & are inextricably intertwined with their own image. Elephants, horses, snakes, all kinds of fish and fowl can be seen in the postures typical of their species &, in a word, I could not imagine anything better than to spend my whole life as the simple warden of this sumptuous collection …”

Grueber fell silent. He seemed to have gone back in memory to Boeroe Boedor, contemplating the beautiful art he had just described to us.

“Why did you not make some drawings of these marvelous sculptures …’ Bernini said pensively. “Your account has made my mouth water & I would give much to have accompanied you to that place.”

“I have filled several books with drawings of them in wash & red chalk, which I intended to bring back to Europe; but God did not want that to happen, for it was doubtless He who inspired the young emperor of China with the desire to keep them in his possession.”

“That is not so important,” Kircher said, “for it is enough to have heard what you say to see in that temple the clear influence of ancient Egypt. Everywhere in Asia, as on your island of Java, you can find mystical pyramids & superb temples built on the model of those the Egyptians had erected to their guardian spirits. To put it in a nutshell, China is the ape of Egypt, given the naive way it imitates & resembles that country in everything.”

Without it being clear to me why, Father Grueber suddenly went pale; I saw his jaw muscles tense as if he were fighting an intense pain.

“Are you unwell?” I immediately asked.

“No, not really … There is no need to be concerned. It’s just … a nervous reaction that sometimes comes over me when I think of my journeys.”

“Come, Caspar,” my master said with urgency, “go quickly and fetch one of those bottles of Ho Bryan Mr. Samuel Pepys gave us; & then bring some jam, I think it is time to sample this famous herb that banishes sorrow.”

“Spoken after my own heart, Reverend Father!” Bernini exclaimed, rubbing his hands. “But tell me, what is this herb
to which you are going to treat us? If you are not deceiving us about its qualities, I will order a bale immediately for my personal use.”

Kircher repeated to Bernini what Father Grueber had told us just before he arrived, not without making a friendly joke about him not needing this remedy at all, being inclined by his nature to good humor. So we ate some of this
Quey
as we drank & conversed.

“This plant,” Grueber said, the wine apparently having brought some color back to his cheeks, “is very similar to hemp & grows in abundance in the province of Xinjiang, but they don’t use it in the same way as we do, for the Chinese don’t know how to weave its fibers to make ropes.”

To a further question from my master, Grueber continued to talk about the Chinese pharmacopoeia.

“I can tell you,” he said, “that they use five types of quartz, of earth & of mushrooms, according to their respective colors. We use honey & Spanish flies, but they think that that is to deprive oneself of the marvelous qualities of the bees themselves, of wasps, of their wax & their nests, of galls, cocoons, clothes moths, cicadas, mosquitos, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, ants, lice, fleas, cockroaches & crab lice! These insects are prepared, sold & bought just as happens here with rhubarb & mandrake.”

“Well I’ll be damned!” Bernini exclaimed. “Why haven’t we got such apothecaries in Rome! I haven’t got the whole collection of your creepy-crawlies, but I’ve got enough of some of them to grow rich!”

We all burst out laughing, congratulating Bernini on his witticism, then joyously drank to his health and wealth.

“You find that list amusing,” Grueber said, elated, “but what will you say to what comes next? For these same Chinese collect the venom that can be squeezed out from between the
toes of toads to make little pills, a sovereign remedy, they say, for bleeding gums, toothache & sinusitis—provided, in the latter case, that the pill is crushed, mixed with human milk and trickled drop by drop into the nostrils. The fluid from the longest tapeworms cures eye disease & boils; the threadworms from donkeys dissolve cataracts; mixed with cicada skin & alcohol then rubbed on the navel of a pregnant woman, lizard’s liver will bring about an abortion! Python’s bile will give clearer vision, its skin will cure paralysis & rheumatism, its fat deafness & its teeth avert maladies from those who wear them. Dragon’s bones, which are commonly found out on the steppes, make the male organ go rigid, disperse nocturnal sweat, calm the mind, exorcise devils, but they can equally be used to treat diarrhea, fever and nymphomania …”