In many places huge cupolas spring up amongst and above the palaces, like gigantic eggs rising out of the ground. Wondrous, indeed, the imagination which could devise such structures. The whole building seems to be of a piece, yet it consists of millions of stones deftly joined together with a single large lateral opening.
In the midst of the city rises a temple of colossal proportions, the eight sides of which are covered with silver plates polished to a blinding brightness. In this gigantic mirror one sees reflected the wondrous image of the far-extending city, and the repercussion of the sunbeams therefrom fills the remotest corners of the city with a dazzling refulgence. On the summit of the temple is a huge idol of massive silver. The head is round, like a man's, and its hands and feet have each five digits; but the long, squirrel-like tail behind seems to deny its human origin. Diamonds as large as eggs supply the place of eyes. This is the giant Triton, the supremest idol of that ancient continent, exalted above all the other monsters whom men adore—a millennial monster whose living original sits within the walls of that temple, and utters a roar when it is hungry, and then the whole city—the whole land—trembles before its wrath. It asks but one meal a year, but then it must have a man and a woman to bury in its maw. After that it is dumb again for another year, and sits in the midst of its temple on a golden throne with its five-fingered hand resting on its knees, and its immovable eyes blankly staring before it, just like its silver effigy on the roof up yonder.
CHAPTER VII
THE TETZKATLEPOKA
In the broad streets a mass of men and women are surging to and fro. What festival is being held to-day in Triton's city?
The windows of the palaces are adorned with living flowers, wonderful zoophytes, which belong partly to the rapacious, locomotive world, and partly to the world that is rooted to the soil; huge green snakes, winding up the slender columns and terminating in marvellously beautiful tulip-like calices; but in the midst of each calix lurks a poisonous sting, and the leaves, as they shrink together, greedily devour the bird of paradise that has ventured into the calix while the tail of the floral beast is rooted in the living earth. The balconies are adorned with deep-sea vegetation, which the perverse ingenuity of man has acclimatized to the tropical air. Between the bright ridges of the coral the interlacing suckers of the tumid polypus grope their way, presenting an eternally shifting maze of shapes and colours, whilst through the thick, branching arms of the transparent mollusc the pulsation of its vital juices is distinctly visible. The flowers of the field no longer charm the senses of men; the blunted, unreceptive soul can only be excited by the wondrous, the extraordinary, in Nature.
The main street, from the gate to the Temple of Triton, is covered by a carpet—a carpet woven entirely out of the locks of young damsels. Ebony-coloured hair forms the groundwork of the pattern, and the figures of wreaths, palaces, sacrifices, and all manner of groups are worked into it with tresses of every shade of colour from the blondest blonde to the deepest chestnut. No reigning prince of this world has ever possessed a more costly carpet. Every year the girls cut off their locks; every year the carpet grows longer and longer, and, although the city itself increases every year, the carpet keeps pace with it, and reaches from gate to gate.
Over this gossamer net-work, more precious than gold, the festal host sweeps like a flowing stream.
More than 20,000 children—boys and girls—lead the way to the gorgeous temple, singing merry songs, and as they sing they dance with quivering limbs—a dance which flushes their cheeks with a feverish glow, and fires their eyes with an ardour which has nothing childish in it. On the morn of the feast of Triton an intoxicating potion was given to these children, which has robbed them of all modesty, and, writhing hideously, they dance and sing in honour of the god.
After them come 20,000 women, their bodies covered with dazzling stuffs and gorgeous plumage; women with painted cheeks, gilded eyelids and eyebrows, and with dishevelled tresses rolling down their shoulders in hundreds of ringlets entwined with gold wire. There is not a spot on their bodies which reveals God's creating hand. Human madness has covered, painted, and gilded everything. Only their sparkling eyes show that they are human; only their languishing glances tell that they are women.
The women are followed by three hundred and sixty-five old men, the priests of the god, with lofty, gold-embroidered, peaked caps, and long trailing mantles, each holding in his hand a staff covered with silver bells. These grave old men with the high caps and the long robes dance with insane gestures round a golden car resting on six wheels. Each wheel bears the image of the sun, and six pillars, surmounted by a golden drapery, form a sort of baldachin over the car.