like orpheus, all the poets felt violent death staring them in the face. everywhere, publishers had been pillaged and collections of verse burnt. the admiration of all went out to horace tograth who, from far off adelaide (australia), had succeeded in unloosing this storm which seemed destined to destroy poetry forever. this man's knowledge, they said, bordered on the miraculous. he could drive away clouds or bring on rain anywhere he pleased. women, once they had seen him, were ready to do his bidding. for the rest, he did not disdain either feminine or masculine virginities. as soon as tograth had seen what enthusiasms he had evoked in the whole world, he announced that he would visit the principal cities of the globe, after australia had been rid of its erotic and elegiac poets. and indeed some time later uprisings of the population were heard of in tokyo, pekin, yakutsk, calcutta, buenos ayres, san francisco, chicago, upon the appearance of the terrible german, tograth. wherever he went, he left an unearthly impression on account of his "miracles" (which he called scientific), and his extraordinary healings, all of which lifted his repute as a scientist and a thaumaturgist to sublime heights.
on may 30, tograth debarked at marseilles. the people were massed along the quays; tograth landed from the steamer in a launch. no sooner was he recognized than cries, shouts, toasts, from innumerable gullets mingled with the sound of the wind, the waves and the sirens of the vessels. tograth, tall and thin, was standing up in the launch. as it approached the land, the features of the hero could be distinguished more and more clearly. his face was smooth-shaven and blue, his mouth almost lipless, disfigured by an ugly cut; he had a receding chin which gave him the appearance, one might have said, of a shark. his brow rose straight up, very high and very large. tograth was dressed in a pasty white costume, his shoes also being white and high-heeled. he wore no hat. as soon as he placed his foot upon the soil of marseilles the furor of the crowd rose to such heights that when the quays were cleared three hundred people were found dead, strangled, trampled, crushed. several men seized the hero and raised him upon their shoulders while they sang and shouted, and women threw flowers at him all the way to the hotel where a suite had been prepared for him and managers, interpreters and bell-boys were waiting to greet him.
* * *
on the same morning, croniamantal coming from brünn had arrived at marseilles to look for tristouse who had been there since the evening before with paponat. all three mingled in the crowd which acclaimed tograth before the hotel where he was to stop.
"happy tumult," said tristouse, "you are not a poet, paponat, you have learned things which are worth infinitely more than poetry. is it not true, paponat, that you are in no way a poet?"
"indeed, my dear," replied paponat, "i have rhymed at times in order to amuse myself, but i am not a poet, i am an excellent business man and no one knows better than i how to manage an estate."
"tonight you must mail a letter to la voix of adelaide; you must tell them all that, and so you will be safe."
"i shall not fail to do that," said paponat. "did you ever hear of such a thing, a poet! that goes for croniamantal."
"i hope to god," said tristouse, "that they will massacre him in brünn where he expects to find us."
"but there he is right now," whispered paponat. "he is in the crowd. he is hiding himself and hasn't seen us."
"i wish they would hurry up and massacre him," sighed tristouse. "i have an idea that that will happen soon."
"look," exclaimed paponat, "here comes the hero."
* * *
the cortège which accompanied tograth arrived at the hotel, and he was permitted to descend from their shoulders. tograth turned to the crowd and addressed them:
"citizens of marseilles, in thanking you i could employ, if i wished, compliments that are fatter than your world-renowned sardines. i could, if i wished, make a long speech. but words will never quite encompass the magnificence of the reception which you have accorded me. i know that there are maladies in your midst that i might heal not only with my knowledge but with that which scientists have accumulated for myriads of years. bring forth the sick, and i shall heal them."
a man whose cranium was as bald as that of an inhabitant of mycona cried:
"tograth! god-like mortal, all puissant savantissimo! give me a luxuriant mane of hair."
tograth smiled and asked that the man approach him: then he touched the denuded head, saying:
"thy sterile pate shall be covered with an abundant vegetation, but remember always this favor by hating the laurel."
at the same time as the bald man, a little girl approached. she implored tograth:
"sweet man, sweet man, look at my mouth, my lover with a blow of his fist has broken several teeth. return them to me."
the scientist smiled and put his finger into her mouth, saying: "now thou canst chew, thou hast excellent teeth. but in return, show us what thou hast in thy bag."
the girl laughed, opening her mouth in which the new teeth gleamed; then she opened her bag, excusing herself:
"what a funny idea, before everybody! here are my keys, here an enamelled photograph of my lover; he really looks better than that."
but the eyes of tograth were greedy; he had perceived all folded up in her bag several parisian songs, rhymed and set to viennese airs. he took these papers and after having scrutinized them, asked:
"these are nothing but songs, hast thou no poems?"
"i have a very lovely one," said the girl. "it was the bell-boy of the hotel victoria wrote it for me before he left for switzerland. but i never showed it to sossi."
and she proffered tograth a little rose sheet of paper on which was written a pathetic acrostic.
my dear beloved, ere i go away,
and thy love, maria, i betray,
maria rail and sob, my sweet, once more—again,
if you'd come with me to the woods, we twain,(!)
all would be sweeter; our parting would not pain.
"it is not only poetry," exclaimed tograth, "it is idiotic."
and he tore up the paper and threw it into the ditch, while the girl knocked her teeth in fright and cried:
"sweet man, good man, i did not know that it was bad."
just then croniamantal advanced close to tograth and apostrophized the crowd:
"carrion, assassins!"
they burst into laughter. they yelled:
"into the water with him, the rat."
and tograth, looking croniamantal in the face, said:
"my good brother, let not my affluence disturb you. as for me, i love the people, even though i stop at hotels which they do not frequent."
the poet let tograth talk, then he continued to address the crowd:
"carrion, laugh at me, your joys are numbered, each one of them will be torn from you one by one. and do you know, o people, what your hero is?"
tograth smiled and the crowd became all attention. the poet continued:
"your hero, o populace, is boredom bringing misery."
a cry of astonishment issued from all the throats. women crossed themselves. tograth wanted to speak, but croniamantal seized him suddenly by the neck, threw him to the ground and held him there with his foot on the man's chest, while he spoke:
"he is boredom and misery, the monstrous enemy of man, the behemoth glutted with debauchery and rape, dripping the blood of marvellous poets. he is the vomit of the antipodes, and his miracles deceive the clairvoyant no more than the miracles of simon the magi did the apostles. marseillais, marseillais, woe that you whose ancestors come from the most purely lyrical land, should unite with the enemies of poetry, with the barbarians of all the nations. what a strange miracle, this, of the german returned from australia! to have imposed it upon the world and to have been for a moment stronger than creation itself, stronger than immortal poetry."
but tograth who was able to extricate himself at last, arose, soiled with dust and drunk with rage. he asked:
"who are you?"
"who are you, who are you?" cried the crowd.
the poet turned toward the east and in exalted tones said:
"i am croniamantal, the greatest of living poets. i have often seen god face to face, i have borne the divine rapture which my human eyes tempered. i was born in eternity. but the day has come, and i am here before you."
tograth greeted these last words with a terrible burst of laughter, and the first ranks of the crowd seeing tograth laugh, took up his laughter, which, in bursts, in rolls, in trills, was soon communicated throughout the entire populace, even to paponat and tristouse ballerinette. all of the open mouths yawned at croniamantal, who became ill at ease. interspersed with the laughter were shouts of:
"into the water with the poet!... burn him, croniamantal!... to the dogs with him, lover of the laurel!"
a man who was in the first ranks and carried a heavy club gave croniamantal a blow, causing him to make a painful grimace which doubled the merriment of the crowd. a stone, accurately thrown, struck the nose of the poet and drew blood. a fish merchant forced his way through the mob and, confronting croniamantal, said:
"hou! the raven. i remember you, all right, you're a policeman who wanted to pass for a poet; there, cow; take that, story teller."
and he gave him a terrific slap, spitting in his face. the man whom tograth had cured of alopecia came to him and said:
"look at my hair, is it a false miracle or not?"
and lifting his cane, he thrust it so adroitly that he gouged out croniamantal's right eye. croniamantal fell over backward, women threw themselves upon him and beat him. tristouse jumped up and down with joy, while paponat tried to calm her. but she went over and with the end of her umbrella stuck out croniamantal's other eye, while he, seeing her in this last moment of sight, cried:
"i confess my love for tristouse ballerinette, the divine poesy that consoles my soul."
"shut up, vermin!" cried the crowd of men, "there are ladies here."
the women went away soon, and a man who was balancing a large knife on his open hand threw it in such a way that it landed right in the open mouth of croniamantal. other men did the same thing. the knives stuck in his belly, his chest, and soon there was nothing more on the ground than a corpse bristling with points like the husk of a chestnut.
