Chapter XXIV "Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any Barrels to Sell?"
THE PERSIAN'S NARRATIVE CONTINUED
I have said that the room in which M. le Vicomte de Chagny and I wereimprisoned was a regular hexagon, lined entirely with mirrors. Plentyof these rooms have been seen since, mainly at exhibitions: they arecalled "palaces of illusion," or some such name. But the inventionbelongs entirely to Erik, who built the first room of this kind undermy eyes, at the time of the rosy hours of Mazenderan. A decorativeobject, such as a column, for instance, was placed in one of thecorners and immediately produced a hall of a thousand columns; for,thanks to the mirrors, the real room was multiplied by six hexagonalrooms, each of which, in its turn, was multiplied indefinitely. Butthe little sultana soon tired of this infantile illusion, whereuponErik altered his invention into a "torture-chamber." For thearchitectural motive placed in one corner, he substituted an iron tree.This tree, with its painted leaves, was absolutely true to life and wasmade of iron so as to resist all the attacks of the "patient" who waslocked into the torture-chamber. We shall see how the scene thusobtained was twice altered instantaneously into two successive otherscenes, by means of the automatic rotation of the drums or rollers inthe corners. These were divided into three sections, fitting into theangles of the mirrors and each supporting a decorative scheme that cameinto sight as the roller revolved upon its axis.
The walls of this strange room gave the patient nothing to lay hold of,because, apart from the solid decorative object, they were simplyfurnished with mirrors, thick enough to withstand any onslaught of thevictim, who was flung into the chamber empty-handed and barefoot.
There was no furniture. The ceiling was capable of being lit up. Aningenious system of electric heating, which has since been imitated,allowed the temperature of the walls and room to be increased at will.
I am giving all these details of a perfectly natural invention,producing, with a few painted branches, the supernatural illusion of anequatorial forest blazing under the tropical sun, so that no one maydoubt the present balance of my brain or feel entitled to say that I ammad or lying or that I take him for a fool.[1]
I now return to the facts where I left them. When the ceiling lit upand the forest became visible around us, the viscount's stupefactionwas immense. That impenetrable forest, with its innumerable trunks andbranches, threw him into a terrible state of consternation. He passedhis hands over his forehead, as though to drive away a dream; his eyesblinked; and, for a moment, he forgot to listen.
I have already said that the sight of the forest did not surprise me atall; and therefore I listened for the two of us to what was happeningnext door. Lastly, my attention was especially attracted, not so muchto the scene, as to the mirrors that produced it. These mirrors werebroken in parts. Yes, they were marked and scratched; they had been"starred," in spite of their solidity; and this proved to me that thetorture-chamber in which we now were HAD ALREADY SERVED A PURPOSE.
Yes, some wretch, whose feet were not bare like those of the victims ofthe rosy hours of Mazenderan, had certainly fallen into this "mortalillusion" and, mad with rage, had kicked against those mirrors which,nevertheless, continued to reflect his agony. And the branch of thetree on which he had put an end to his own sufferings was arranged insuch a way that, before dying, he had seen, for his last consolation, athousand men writhing in his company.
Yes, Joseph Buquet had undoubtedly been through all this! Were we todie as he had done? I did not think so, for I knew that we had a fewhours before us and that I could employ them to better purpose thanJoseph Buquet was able to do. After all, I was thoroughly acquaintedwith most of Erik's "tricks;" and now or never was the time to turn myknowledge to account.
To begin with, I gave up every idea of returning to the passage thathad brought us to that accursed chamber. I did not trouble about thepossibility of working the inside stone that closed the passage; andthis for the simple reason that to do so was out of the question. Wehad dropped from too great a height into the torture-chamber; there wasno furniture to help us reach that passage; not even the branch of theiron tree, not even each other's shoulders were of any avail.
There was only one possible outlet, that opening into theLouis-Philippe room in which Erik and Christine Daae were. But, thoughthis outlet looked like an ordinary door on Christine's side, it wasabsolutely invisible to us. We must therefore try to open it withouteven knowing where it was.
When I was quite sure that there was no hope for us from ChristineDaae's side, when I had heard the monster dragging the poor girl fromthe Louis-Philippe room LEST SHE SHOULD INTERFERE WITH OUR TORTURES, Iresolved to set to work without delay.
But I had first to calm M. de Chagny, who was already walking aboutlike a madman, uttering incoherent cries. The snatches of conversationwhich he had caught between Christine and the monster had contributednot a little to drive him beside himself: add to that the shock of themagic forest and the scorching heat which was beginning to make theprespiration{sic} stream down his temples and you will have nodifficulty in understanding his state of mind. He shouted Christine'sname, brandished his pistol, knocked his forehead against the glass inhis endeavors to run down the glades of the illusive forest. In short,the torture was beginning to work its spell upon a brain unprepared forit.
I did my best to induce the poor viscount to listen to reason. I madehim touch the mirrors and the iron tree and the branches and explainedto him, by optical laws, all the luminous imagery by which we weresurrounded and of which we need not allow ourselves to be the victims,like ordinary, ignorant people.
"We are in a room, a little room; that is what you must keep saying toyourself. And we shall leave the room as soon as we have found thedoor."
And I promised him that, if he let me act, without disturbing me byshouting and walking up and down, I would discover the trick of thedoor in less than an hour's time.
Then he lay flat on the floor, as one does in a wood, and declared thathe would wait until I found the door of the forest, as there wasnothing better to do! And he added that, from where he was, "the viewwas splendid!" The torture was working, in spite of all that I hadsaid.
Myself, forgetting the forest, I tackled a glass panel and began tofinger it in every direction, hunting for the weak point on which topress in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system ofpivots. This weak point might be a mere speck on the glass, no largerthan a pea, under which the spring lay hidden. I hunted and hunted. Ifelt as high as my hands could reach. Erik was about the same heightas myself and I thought that he would not have placed the spring higherthan suited his stature.
While groping over the successive panels with the greatest care, Iendeavored not to lose a minute, for I was feeling more and moreovercome with the heat and we were literally roasting in that blazingforest.
I had been working like this for half an hour and had finished threepanels, when, as ill-luck would have it, I turned round on hearing amuttered exclamation from the viscount.
"I am stifling," he said. "All those mirrors are sending out aninfernal heat! Do you think you will find that spring soon? If youare much longer about it, we shall be roasted alive!"
I was not sorry to hear him talk like this. He had not said a word ofthe forest and I hoped that my companion's reason would hold out sometime longer against the torture. But he added:
"What consoles me is that the monster has given Christine until elevento-morrow evening. If we can't get out of here and go to herassistance, at least we shall be dead before her! Then Erik's mass canserve for all of us!"
And he gulped down a breath of hot air that nearly made him faint.
As I had not the same desperate reasons as M. le Vicomte for acceptingdeath, I returned, after giving him a word of encouragement, to mypanel, but I had made the mistake of taking a few steps while speakingand, in the tangle of the illusive forest, I was no longer able to findmy panel for certain! I had to begin all over again, at random,fe
eling, fumbling, groping.
Now the fever laid hold of me in my turn ... for I found nothing,absolutely nothing. In the next room, all was silence. We were quitelost in the forest, without an outlet, a compass, a guide or anything.Oh, I knew what awaited us if nobody came to our aid ... or if I didnot find the spring! But, look as I might, I found nothing butbranches, beautiful branches that stood straight up before me, orspread gracefully over my head. But they gave no shade. And this wasnatural enough, as we were in an equatorial forest, with the sun rightabove our heads, an African forest.
M. de Chagny and I had repeatedly taken off our coats and put them onagain, finding at one time that they made us feel still hotter and atanother that they protected us against the heat. I was still making amoral resistance, but M. de Chagny seemed to me quite "gone." Hepretended that he had been walking in that forest for three days andnights, without stopping, looking for Christine Daae! From time totime, he thought he saw her behind the trunk of a tree, or glidingbetween the branches; and he called to her with words of supplicationthat brought the tears to my eyes. And then, at last:
"Oh, how thirsty I am!" he cried, in delirious accents.
I too was thirsty. My throat was on fire. And, yet, squatting on thefloor, I went on hunting, hunting, hunting for the spring of theinvisible door ... especially as it was dangerous to remain in theforest as evening drew nigh. Already the shades of night werebeginning to surround us. It had happened very quickly: night fallsquickly in tropical countries ... suddenly, with hardly any twilight.
Now night, in the forests of the equator, is always dangerous,particularly when, like ourselves, one has not the materials for a fireto keep off the beasts of prey. I did indeed try for a moment to breakoff the branches, which I would have lit with my dark lantern, but Iknocked myself also against the mirrors and remembered, in time, thatwe had only images of branches to do with.
The heat did not go with the daylight; on the contrary, it was nowstill hotter under the blue rays of the moon. I urged the viscount tohold our weapons ready to fire and not to stray from camp, while I wenton looking for my spring.
Suddenly, we heard a lion roaring a few yards away.
"Oh," whispered the viscount, "he is quite close! ... Don't you seehim? ... There ... through the trees ... in that thicket! If he roarsagain, I will fire! ..."
And the roaring began again, louder than before. And the viscountfired, but I do not think that he hit the lion; only, he smashed amirror, as I perceived the next morning, at daybreak. We must havecovered a good distance during the night, for we suddenly foundourselves on the edge of the desert, an immense desert of sand, stonesand rocks. It was really not worth while leaving the forest to comeupon the desert. Tired out, I flung myself down beside the viscount,for I had had enough of looking for springs which I could not find.
I was quite surprised--and I said so to the viscount--that we hadencountered no other dangerous animals during the night. Usually,after the lion came the leopard and sometimes the buzz of the tsetsefly. These were easily obtained effects; and I explained to M. deChagny that Erik imitated the roar of a lion on a long tabour ortimbrel, with an ass's skin at one end. Over this skin he tied astring of catgut, which was fastened at the middle to another similarstring passing through the whole length of the tabour. Erik had onlyto rub this string with a glove smeared with resin and, according tothe manner in which he rubbed it, he imitated to perfection the voiceof the lion or the leopard, or even the buzzing of the tsetse fly.
The idea that Erik was probably in the room beside us, working histrick, made me suddenly resolve to enter into a parley with him, for wemust obviously give up all thought of taking him by surprise. And bythis time he must be quite aware who were the occupants of historture-chamber. I called him: "Erik! Erik!"
I shouted as loudly as I could across the desert, but there was noanswer to my voice. All around us lay the silence and the bareimmensity of that stony desert. What was to become of us in the midstof that awful solitude?
We were beginning literally to die of heat, hunger and thirst ... ofthirst especially. At last, I saw M. de Chagny raise himself on hiselbow and point to a spot on the horizon. He had discovered an oasis!
Yes, far in the distance was an oasis ... an oasis with limpid water,which reflected the iron trees! ... Tush, it was the scene of themirage ... I recognized it at once ... the worst of the three! ... Noone had been able to fight against it ... no one... I did my utmost tokeep my head AND NOT TO HOPE FOR WATER, because I knew that, if a manhoped for water, the water that reflected the iron tree, and if, afterhoping for water, he struck against the mirror, then there was only onething for him to do: to hang himself on the iron tree!
So I cried to M. de Chagny:
"It's the mirage! ... It's the mirage! ... Don't believe in the water!... It's another trick of the mirrors! ..."
Then he flatly told me to shut up, with my tricks of the mirrors, mysprings, my revolving doors and my palaces of illusions! He angrilydeclared that I must be either blind or mad to imagine that all thatwater flowing over there, among those splendid, numberless trees, wasnot real water! ... And the desert was real! ... And so was theforest! ... And it was no use trying to take him in ... he was an old,experienced traveler ... he had been all over the place!
And he dragged himself along, saying: "Water! Water!"
And his mouth was open, as though he were drinking.
And my mouth was open too, as though I were drinking.
For we not only saw the water, but WE HEARD IT! ... We heard it flow,we heard it ripple! ... Do you understand that word "ripple?" ... IT ISA SOUND WHICH YOU HEAR WITH YOUR TONGUE! ... You put your tongue outof your mouth to listen to it better!
Lastly--and this was the most pitiless torture of all--we heard therain and it was not raining! This was an infernal invention... Oh, Iknew well enough how Erik obtained it! He filled with little stones avery long and narrow box, broken up inside with wooden and metalprojections. The stones, in falling, struck against these projectionsand rebounded from one to another; and the result was a series ofpattering sounds that exactly imitated a rainstorm.
Ah, you should have seen us putting out our tongues and draggingourselves toward the rippling river-bank! Our eyes and ears were fullof water, but our tongues were hard and dry as horn!
When we reached the mirror, M. de Chagny licked it ... and I alsolicked the glass.
It was burning hot!
Then we rolled on the floor with a hoarse cry of despair. M. de Chagnyput the one pistol that was still loaded to his temple; and I stared atthe Punjab lasso at the foot of the iron tree. I knew why the irontree had returned, in this third change of scene! ... The iron treewas waiting for me! ...
But, as I stared at the Punjab lasso, I saw a thing that made me startso violently that M. de Chagny delayed his attempt at suicide. I tookhis arm. And then I caught the pistol from him ... and then I draggedmyself on my knees toward what I had seen.
I had discovered, near the Punjab lasso, in a groove in the floor, ablack-headed nail of which I knew the use. At last I had discoveredthe spring! I felt the nail ... I lifted a radiant face to M. deChagny ... The black-headed nail yielded to my pressure ...
And then ...
And then we saw not a door opened in the wall, but a cellar-flapreleased in the floor. Cool air came up to us from the black holebelow. We stooped over that square of darkness as though over a limpidwell. With our chins in the cool shade, we drank it in. And we bentlower and lower over the trap-door. What could there be in that cellarwhich opened before us? Water? Water to drink?
I thrust my arm into the darkness and came upon a stone and anotherstone ... a staircase ... a dark staircase leading into the cellar.The viscount wanted to fling himself down the hole; but I, fearing anew trick of the monster's, stopped him, turned on my dark lantern andwent down first.
The staircase was a winding one and led down into pitchy darkness. Butoh,
how deliciously cool were the darkness and the stairs? The lakecould not be far away.
We soon reached the bottom. Our eyes were beginning to accustomthemselves to the dark, to distinguish shapes around us ... circularshapes ... on which I turned the light of my lantern.
Barrels!
We were in Erik's cellar: it was here that he must keep his wine andperhaps his drinking-water. I knew that Erik was a great lover of goodwine. Ah, there was plenty to drink here!
M. de Chagny patted the round shapes and kept on saying:
"Barrels! Barrels! What a lot of barrels! ..."
Indeed, there was quite a number of them, symmetrically arranged in tworows, one on either side of us. They were small barrels and I thoughtthat Erik must have selected them of that size to facilitate theircarriage to the house on the lake.
We examined them successively, to see if one of them had not a funnel,showing that it had been tapped at some time or another. But all thebarrels were hermetically closed.
Then, after half lifting one to make sure it was full, we went on ourknees and, with the blade of a small knife which I carried, I preparedto stave in the bung-hole.
At that moment, I seemed to hear, coming from very far, a sort ofmonotonous chant which I knew well, from often hearing it in thestreets of Paris:
"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell?"
My hand desisted from its work. M. de Chagny had also heard. He said:
"That's funny! It sounds as if the barrel were singing!"
The song was renewed, farther away:
"Barrels! ... Barrels! ... Any barrels to sell? ..."
"Oh, I swear," said the viscount, "that the tune dies away in thebarrel! ..."
We stood up and went to look behind the barrel.
"It's inside," said M. de Chagny, "it's inside!"
But we heard nothing there and were driven to accuse the bad conditionof our senses. And we returned to the bung-hole. M. de Chagny put histwo hands together underneath it and, with a last effort, I burst thebung.
"What's this?" cried the viscount. "This isn't water!"
The viscount put his two full hands close to my lantern ... I stoopedto look ... and at once threw away the lantern with such violence thatit broke and went out, leaving us in utter darkness.
What I had seen in M. de Chagny's hands ... was gun-powder!
[1] It is very natural that, at the time when the Persian was writing,he should take so many precautions against any spirit of incredulity onthe part of those who were likely to read his narrative. Nowadays,when we have all seen this sort of room, his precautions would besuperfluous.