The Eternal Adam and other stories (25 page)

But alas! if the animals were mad, the men were scarcely less so. No
age was spared by the scourge. Babies soon became quite insupportable, though
till now so easy to bring up; and for the first time Honor
é

 Syntax, the judge, was obliged to apply
the rod to his youthful offspring.

There was a kind of insurrection at the
high school, and the dictionaries became formidable missiles in the classes.
The scholars would not submit to be shut in, and, besides, the infection took
the teachers themselves, who overwhelmed the boys and girls with extravagant
tasks and punishments.

Another strange phenomenon occurred. All
these Quiquendonians. so sober before, whose chief food had been whipped
creams, committed wild excesses in their eating and drinking. Their usual regimen
no longer sufficed. Each stomach was transformed into a gulf, and it became
necessary to fill this gulf by the most energetic means. The consumption of the
town was trebled. Instead of two repasts they had six. Many cases of
indigestion were reported. The Counsellor Niklausse could not satisfy his
hunger. Van Tricasse found it impossible to assuage his thirst, and remained in
a state of rabid semi-intoxication.

In short, the most alarming symptoms
manifested themselves and increased from day to day. Drunken people staggered
in the streets, and these were often citizens of high position.

Dominique Custos, the physician, had plenty
to do with the heartburns, inflammations, and nervous affections, which proved
to what a strange degree the nerves of the people had been irritated.

There were daily quarrels and altercations
in the once deserted but now crowded streets of Quiquendone; for nobody could
any longer stay at home. It was necessary to establish a new police force to
control the disturbers of the public peace. A prison-cage was established in
the Town Hall, and speedily became full, night and day of refractory offenders.
Commissary Passauf was in despair.

A marriage was concluded in less than two
months, – such a thing had never been seen before. Yes, the son of Rupp, the
schoolmaster, wedded the daughter of Augustine de Rovere, and that fifty-seven
days only after he had petitioned for her hand and heart!

Other marriages were decided upon, which,
in old times, would have remained in doubt and discussion for years. The
burgomaster perceived that his own daughter, the charming Suzel, was escaping
from his hands.

As for dear Tatanémance, she had dared to
sound Commissary Passauf on the subject of a union, which seemed to her to
combine every element of happiness, fortune, honour, youth!

At last, – to reach the depths of
abomination, – a duel took place! Yes, a duel with pistols – horse-pistols – at
seventy-five paces, with ball-cartridges. And between whom? Our readers will
never believe!

Between M. Frantz Niklausse, the gentle
angler, and young Simon Collaert, the wealthy banker’s son.

And the cause of this duel was the
burgomaster’s daughter, for whom Simon discovered himself to be fired with
passion, and whom he refused to yield to the claims of an audacious rival!

In which the
Quiquendonians adopt a heroic resolution

We have seen to what a deplorable condition
the people of Quiquendone were reduced. Their heads were in a ferment. They no
longer knew or recognised themselves. The most peaceable citizens had become
quarrelsome. If you looked at them askance, they would speedily send you a
challenge. Some let their moustaches grow, and several – the most belligerent –
curled them up at the ends.

This being their condition, the
administration of the town and the maintenance of order in the streets became
difficult tasks, for the government had not been organised for such a state of
things. The burgomaster – that worthy Van Tricasse whom we have seen so placid,
so dull, so incapable of coming to any decision – the burgomaster became
intractable. His house resounded with the sharpness of his voice. He made
twenty decisions a day, scolding his officials, and himself enforcing the
regulations of his administration.

Ah, what a change! The amiable and tranquil
mansion of the burgomaster, that good Flemish home – where was its former calm?
What changes had taken place in your household economy! Madame Van Tricasse had
become acrid, whimsical, harsh. Her husband sometimes succeeded in drowning her
voice by talking louder than she, but could not silence her. The petulant
humour of this worthy dame was excited by everything. Nothing went right. The
servants offended her every moment. Tatanémance, her sister-in-law, who was not
less irritable, replied sharply to her. M. Van Tricasse naturally supported
Lotchè, his servant, as is the case in all good households; and this
permanently exasperated Madame, who constantly disputed, discussed, and made
scenes with her husband.

‘What on earth is the matter with us?’
cried the unhappy burgomaster. ‘What is this fire that is devouring us? Are we
possessed with the devil? Ah, Madame Van Tricasse, Madame Van Tricasse, you
will end by making me die before you, and thus violate all the traditions of
the family!’

The reader will not have forgotten the
strange custom by which M. Van Tricasse would become a widower and marry again,
so as not to break the chain of descent.

Meanwhile, this disposition of all minds
produced other curious effects worthy of note. This excitement, the cause of
which has so far escaped us, brought about unexpected physiological changes.
Talents, hitherto unrecognised, betrayed themselves. Aptitudes were suddenly
revealed. Artists, before commonplace, displayed new ability. Politicians and
authors arose. Orators proved themselves equal to the most arduous debates, and
on every question inflamed audiences which were quite ready to be inflamed.
From the sessions of the council, this movement spread to the public political
meetings, and a club was formed at Quiquendone; whilst twenty newspapers, the
Quiquendone Signal,
the
Quiquendone Impartial,
the
Quiquendone
Radical,
and so on, written in an inflammatory style, raised the most
important questions.

But what about? you will ask. Apropos of
everything, and of nothing; apropos of the Oudenarde tower, which was falling,
and which some wished to pull down, and others to prop up; apropos of the
police regulations issued by the council, which some obstinate citizens
threatened to resist; apropos of the sweeping of the gutters, repairing the
sewers, and so on. Nor did the enraged orators confine themselves to the
internal administration of the town. Carried on by the current they went
further, and essayed to plunge their fellow-citizens into the hazards of war.

Quiquendone had had for 800 or 900 years a
casus belli
of the best quality; but she had preciously laid it up like a
relic, and there had seemed some probability that it would become effete, and
no longer serviceable.

This was what had given rise to the
casus belli.

It is not generally known that Quiquendone,
in this cosy corner of Flanders, lies next to the little town of Virgamen. The
territories of the two communities are contiguous.

Well, in 1185, some time before Count
Baldwin’s departure to the Crusades, a Virgamen cow – not a cow belonging to a
citizen, but a cow which was common property, let it be observed – audaciously
ventured to pasture on the territory of Quiquendone. This unfortunate beast had
scarcely eaten three mouthfuls; but the offence, the abuse, the crime – whatever
you will – was committed and duly indicted, for the magistrates, at that time,
had already begun to know how to write.

‘We will take revenge at the proper moment,’
said simply Natalis Van Tricasse, the thirty-second predecessor of the burgomaster
of this story, ‘and the Virgamenians will lose nothing by waiting. ‘

The Virgamenians were forewarned. They
waited thinking, without doubt, that the remembrance of the offence would fade
away with the lapse of time; and really, for several centuries, they lived on
good terms with their neighbours of Quiquendone.

But they counted without their hosts, or
rather without this strange epidemic, which, radically changing the character
of the Quiquendonians, aroused their dormant vengeance.

It was at the club of the Rue Monstrelet
that the truculent orator Schut, abruptly introducing the subject to his
hearers, inflamed them with the expressions and metaphors used on such
occasions. He recalled the offence, the injury which had been done to
Quiquendone, and which a nation ‘jealous of its rights’ could not admit as a
precedent; he showed the insult to be still existing, the wound still bleeding;
he spoke of certain special head-shakings on the part of the people of
Virgamen, which indicated in what degree of contempt they regarded the people
of Quiquendone; he appealed to his fellow-citizens, who, unconsciously perhaps,
had supported this mortal insult for long centuries; he adjured the ‘children
of the ancient town’ to have no other purpose than to obtain a substantial reparation.
And, lastly, he made an appeal to ‘all the living energies of the nation’!

With what enthusiasm these words, so new to
Quiquendonian ears, were greeted, may be surmised, but cannot be told. All the
auditors rose, and with extended arms demanded war with loud cries. Never had
the Advocate Schut achieved such a success, and it must be avowed that his
triumphs were not few.

The burgomaster, the counsellor, all the
notabilities present at this memorable meeting, would have vainly attempted to
resist the popular outburst. Besides, they had no desire to do so, and cried as
loud, if not louder, than the rest, —

‘To the frontier! To the frontier!’

As the frontier was but three kilometres
from the walls of Quiquendone, it is certain that the Virgamenians ran a real
danger, for they might easily be invaded without having had time to look about
them.

Meanwhile, Josse Lietfrinck, the worthy
chemist, who alone had preserved his senses on this grave occasion, tried to
make his fellow-citizens comprehend that guns, cannon, and generals were
equally wanting to their design.

They replied to him, not without many
impatient gestures, that these generals, cannons, and guns would be improvised;
that the right and love of country sufficed, and rendered a people
irresistible.

Hereupon the burgomaster himself came
forward, and in a sublime harangue made short work of those pusillanimous
people who disguise their fear under a veil of prudence, which veil he tore off
with a patriotic hand.

At this sally it seemed as if the hall
would fall in under the applause.

The vote was eagerly demanded, and was
taken amid acclamations.

The cries of ‘To Virgamen! to Virgamen!’
redoubled.

The burgomaster then took it upon himself
to put the armies in motion, and in the name of the town he promised the
honours of a triumph, such as was given in the times of the Romans to that one
of its generals who should return victorious.

Meanwhile, Josse Lietfrinck, who was an
obstinate fellow, and did not regard himself as beaten, though he really had
been, insisted on making another observation. He wished to remark that the
triumph was only accorded at Rome to those victorious generals who had killed
5,000 of the enemy.

‘Well, well!’ cried the meeting
deliriously.

‘And as the population of the town of
Virgamen consists of but 3,575 inhabitants, it would be difficult, unless the
same person was killed several times -’

But they did not let the luckless logician
finish, and he was turned out, hustled and bruised.

‘Citizens,’ said Pulmacher the grocer, who
usually sold groceries by retail, ‘whatever this cowardly apothecary may have
said, I engage by myself to kill 5,000 Virgamenians, if you will accept my
services!’

‘Five thousand five hundred!’ cried a yet
more resolute patriot.

‘Six thousand six hundred!’ retorted the
grocer.

‘Seven thousand!’ cried Jean Orbideck, the
confectioner of the Rue Hemling, who was on the road to a fortune by making
whipped creams.

‘Adjudged!’ exclaimed the Burgomaster Van
Tricasse, on finding that no one else rose on the bid.

And this was how Jean Orbideck the
confectioner became general-in-chief of the forces of Quiquendone.

In which Ygène,
the assistant, gives a reasonable pie
ce of advice, which is eagerly rejected by Doctor Ox

‘Well, master,’ said Ygène next day, as he
poured the pails of sulphuric acid into the troughs of the great battery.

‘Well,’ resumed Doctor Ox, ‘was I not
right? See to what not only the physical developments of a whole nation, but
its morality, its dignity, its talents, its political sense, have come! It is
only a question of molecules. ‘

‘No doubt; but -’

‘But -’

‘Do you not think that matters have gone
far enough, and that these poor devils should not be excited beyond measure?’

‘No, no!’ cried the doctor; ‘no! I will go
on to the end!’