Читать книгу Les Bijoux Indiscrets, or, The Indiscreet Toys - Дени Дидро, Дені Дідро, Denis Diderot - Страница 15

It was on the fifteenth of the moon of – , that Orcotomus had read his memoir to the academy, and communicated his thoughts on the tattle of the Toys. As he then did with the greatest assurance promise to produce infallible experiments, which he had repeated several times, and always with success; the majority of people was struck with his doctrine. For some time the public preserved the favorable impressions they had received: and for full six weeks Orcotomus pass'd for having made considerable discoveries.

Nothing was wanting to complete his triumph, but performing before the academy the famous experiments, which he had preached so loudly. The assembly that met on this occasion was extremely brilliant. The ministers of state graced the meeting: the Sultan himself did not disdain to be there, but invisible.

As Mangogul was a great Monologue maker, and the futility of the conversations of his time had tainted him with the habitude of soliloquy: "Either Orcotomus," said he, "must be an arrant quack, or the Genius my protector, a great fool. If the academician, who certainly is not a conjurer, can restore speech to dead Toys; the Genius who protects me was in the wrong to make a compact, and sell his soul to the devil, for the sake of communicating it to Toys full of life."

Mangogul was puzzling himself with such reflections, when he found himself in the middle of his academy. Orcotomus had for spectators, as appears, all those in Banza, who were knowing in the subject of Toys. In order to be satisfied with his audience, all he wanted was to give them satisfaction: but the issue of his experiments proved very unhappy. Orcotomus took up a Toy, put his mouth to it, blew into it till he was out of breath, quieted it, returned, tried another: for he had brought a variety of them with him, of all ages, sizes, conditions and colours: but in vain did he blow; nothing was heard but inarticulate sounds, vastly different from what he had promised.

Then ran a buzzing murmur thro' the company, which disconcerted him for a moment: but he recovered himself, and alledged that such experiments were not easy to be made before so great a number of people: and he was right.

Mangogul got up in wrath, went away, and in the twinkling of an eye was in the favorite Sultana's appartment. "Well, prince," said she upon seeing him, "who has won the day, you or Orcotomus? For his Toys have performed wonders to be sure." The Sultan took some turns about the room without a word of answer. "But," resumed the favorite, "your highness seems dissatisfied." "Oh! madam, the impudence of that Orcotomus is not to be match'd. Pray, do not so much as mention him from this moment – What will you say, O future generations, when you shall be informed, that the great Mangogul allowed a hundred thousand crowns in yearly pensions to such fellows; while gallant officers, who with their blood had watered the laurels that surround his brow, were reduced to twenty pound a year? – By Jove, the thought distracts me: I shall be out of humor this month to come."

Here Mangogul broke off, and continued to walk about the room. He hung down his head, marched to and fro, stop'd, and now and then stamp'd the floor with his foot. He sat down a moment, rose up in a hurry, took his leave of Mirzoza, forgot to kiss her, and retir'd to his own appartment.

The African author, who has immortalized himself by the history of the high and marvellous exploits of Erguebzed and Mangogul, continues in these words:

By Mangogul's ill humor it was thought, that he was on the point of banishing all the learned out of his dominions. Far from it, the next day he arose in a gay mood, performed his exercises at the riding-house in the morning, in the evening supp'd with Mirzoza and some favorites, under a magnificent tent in the gardens of the Seraglio, and never appeared more disengaged from affairs of state.

The dissatisfied and the disaffected of Congo, and the newsmongers of Banza, did not fail to spread their reports of this conduct. For what do not people of this stamp find fault with? "Is this," said they in the public walks and coffee-houses, "is this governing a state? To spend the day in tilting, and the night at table." "Well, if I was Sultan," cried a little Senator ruined by gaming, parted from his wife, and whose children had the worst of education, "if I was Sultan, I would make Congo a flourishing empire. I would be the terror of my enemies, and the darling of my subjects. Within six months I would reestablish the Police, the laws, the army and the navy in their full vigour. I would have a hundred ships of the line. Our heaths should soon be grub'd up, and our high-ways repair'd. I would abolish the taxes, or at least reduce them to one half. As for pensions, gentlemen of sublime wit, by my faith, ye should but just taste them with the tip of your tongues. Good officers, Pongo Sabiam, good officers, old soldiers, magistrates like us, who devote our labours and night studies to dealing out justice to the people; these are the men on whom I would shed my bounty."

"Gentlemen," said an old toothless politician, with greasy flat hair, a coat worn out at elbows, and ragged ruffles, "have ye quite forgot our great emperor Abdelmalek, of the Dynasty of the Abyssinians, who reigned two thousand three hundred and eighty five years ago? Have ye forgot how he caused two astronomers to be impaled, for an error of three minutes in their prediction of an eclipse; and his first physician and surgeon to be dissected alive, for having ordered him a dose of manna at an improper time?"

"Moreover I ask you," continued another, "what are those idle Bramins good for, that vermin who suck our blood, and grow fat on it. Would not their immense overflowing riches better become honest folks like us."

From another quarter was heard: "Forty years ago, were the new cookery and the liquors of Lorraine so much as known? Our rulers are plung'd deep into luxury, which threatens approaching destruction to the empire, a necessary consequence of the contempt of the Pagoda's and dissolution of morals. At the time when people eat but coarse meats, and drank but sherbet at Kanaglou's table; what regard would be paid to the cut-paper ornaments, to Martin's varnishes, and to Rameau's music? The opera girls were not more cruel then than at present, and were to be had much cheaper. The prince, you see, spoils many good things. But if I was Sultan – "

"If thou wert Sultan," answered in wrath an old officer, who had escaped the dangers of the battle of Fontenoy, and had lost an arm close to his prince in the fight of Laufelt; "thou wouldst commit greater impertinences than thou now dealst out. Eh, friend, thou can'st not govern thy tongue, and thou wouldst willingly rule an empire: thou hast not sense to manage thy family, and thou pretendst to guide a state. Respect the powers of the earth, and thank the Gods for having given thee birth in the empire, and in the reign of a prince, whose prudence instructs his ministers, and whose soldiery admire his valor; who has made himself dreaded by his enemies, and beloved by his people; and whose only fault is the lenity with which persons of thy stamp are treated under his government."