Voyages to the Moon and the Sun

by Cyrano de Bergerac

He was at this point of his discourse when the young man who had carried off our philosopher brought him back. "What! Already dined?" exclaimed my demon. He answered that he had, except for dessert, as the Physionome had permitted him to taste ours. Our young host did not wait for me to ask him the explanation of this mystery.

"I perceive", said he, "that this manner of living astonishes you. Know then that although health is regulated more carelessly in your world, the regime in this is not to be scorned. In every house there is a Physionome supported by the state who is approximately what would be called with you a doctor, except that he only treats healthy people and that he decides upon the different methods of treating us from the proportion, shape and symmetry of our limbs, from the features of the face, the colour of the flesh, the delicacy of the skin, the agility of the whole body, the sound of the voice, the complexion, the strength and hardness of the hair. Did you not notice just now a rather short man who gazed at you so long? He was the Physionome of this house. Be sure that he has varied the fumes of your dinner according to his observation of your appearance. Notice how far from our beds he placed the mattress for you to lie on. No doubt he decided your constitution was very different from ours, since he was afraid the odour which flows from these little taps under your nose should spread to us or that ours should smoke in your direction. To-night you will see he chooses the flowers for your bed with the same precautions."

While he was speaking I signed to my host to try to bring these philosophers on to speaking about some part of the science which they professed. He was too much my friend not to create an opportunity at once. I will not tell you the talk or the requests which were the ambassador to this treaty, the transition from the ridiculous to the serious was too imperceptible to be imitated. The last-comer of these doctors, after touching on other matters continued thus:

"It remains for me to prove to you that there are infinite worlds in an infinite world. Conceive, then, the Universe as a large animal, the stars (which are Worlds) as other animals within it, which in turn serve as worlds to other creatures, like ourselves, horses and elephants; in our turn we are also the worlds of certain yet smaller creatures, like boils, lice, worms, and mites. And these are the earth of other imperceptibles, just as we appear a great world to these little things. Perhaps our flesh, our blood and our vital principles are nothing but a texture of little animals holding together, lending us movement from their own and blindly allowing our will to drive them like a coachman, yet drive us too and all together produce that action we call life. Tell me, I beseech you, is it very hard to believe that a louse takes your body for a World, and that when one of them has travelled from one of your ears to the other, his companions should say of him that he has been to the ends of the world or that he has passed from one pole to the other? Yes, no doubt this little nation takes your hair for the forests of its country, the pores full of moisture for fountains, pimples for lakes and ponds, abscesses for seas, fluxions for deluges; and when you comb your hair backwards and forwards they take this movement for the ebb and flow of the ocean. Does not itching prove what I say? Is the mite which produces it anything but one of these little animals which has detached itself from civil society to set itself up as a tyrant in its country? If you ask me how it is that they are larger than other little imperceptibles, I ask you why elephants are larger than we are, and Irishmen than Spaniards? As to the breaking-out and the scabs, whose cause you do not know, they must happen either from the corruption of the bodies of enemies massacred by these little giants, or because the plague produced by the scarcity of food which these rebels have devoured has left heaps of bodies decaying in the country, or because the tyrant, having driven away from him his companions, whose bodies stopped up the pores of our body, has thus opened a passage to the moisture which has become corrupted by extravasation from the sphere of the circulation of our blood. Perhaps you will ask me why one mite produces a hundred others. That is not difficult to understand, for, as one revolt awakens another, so each of these little creatures, urged by the bad example of their rebellious companions, aspires to rule, and kindles everywhere war, slaughter and famine. But, you will say, some persons are much less subject to itch than others, yet each of us is equally filled with these animals if, as you declare, they make life. It is true, as we perceive, that phlegmatic subjects are less liable to the itch than those of a bilious temperament, because this people sympathises with the climate it inhabits and is more sluggish in a cold body than another which is heated by the temperature of its region, ferments, moves about and cannot remain in one place. Thus, a bilious man is more delicate than a phlegmatic, because he is stimulated in many more parts, and as the soul is only the action of these little beasts, he is able to feel in every place where these cattle are moving, while the phlegmatic is only hot enough to make them act in a few places. And to prove this universal mitedom you have only to consider how the blood flows to a gash when you are wounded. Your doctors say that it is guided by far-seeing Nature, who wishes to succour damaged parts. But this is chimerical. For there would have to be besides Soul and Spirit a third intellectual substance in us with its own functions and organs. It is much more probable that these little animals, feeling themselves attacked, send to their neighbours for help; they pour in from all sides: the country cannot contain so many people, and so they die stifled in the throng, or of hunger. This mortality happens when the abscess is ripe. To show that these animals of life are then extinguished, notice that corrupted flesh becomes insensible; and if cupping, which is ordered for the purpose of averting the fluxion, is successful, the reason is that these little animals have had heavy casualties in trying to close this opening, and therefore refuse to assist their allies, having only a mean strength to defend themselves."

He ceased speaking and when the second philosopher perceived our eyes were directed upon his and were urging him to speak in his turn, he said:

"Men, I see you are anxious to teach this little animal, who resembles us, something of the science we profess. I am at present dictating a treatise which I should be very glad to show him because of the light it throws upon the understanding of our physics. It is an explanation of the eternal origin of the world, but I am in a hurry to work my bellows; for to-morrow without fail the Town moves off. You will excuse me this time if I promise that as soon as the Town arrives at its destination, I will satisfy you."

At these words the host's son called for his father, and when he came the company asked him the time; the goodman answered that it was eight o'clock. His son then said in a rage:

"Hey! Come hither, varlet, did I not order you to warn us at seven? You know that the houses are going to-morrow, that the walls have already left, and yet your idleness even locks up your mouth."

"Sir", replied the goodman, "it has just been announced, while you were at table, that it is strictly forbidden to start until after to-morrow."

"No matter", replied he, lending him a buffet, "you should obey blindly, not try to understand my orders, but simply remember what I have bidden you. Quick, go and get your effigy."