The Bohemians

CHAPTER NINE: Nocturnal Adventures That Deserve to See the Light of Day, and Worthy of an Academician's Pen

c h a p t e r n i n e Nocturnal Adventures That Deserve to See the Light of Day, and Worthy of an Academician’s Pen If I ever some day write an epic poem—or somehow find my imagination fertile enough to write a novel without borrowing episodes from my colleagues right and left—then I promise to let my heroes sleep in peace from sunset to dawn every night. Wouldn’t you say daytime allows plenty of time for cutand -thrust swordplay? At the rate of one arm and leg per minute, which is easy for a goodfellow after a night’s sleep, the daylight hours are surely sufficient to obtruncate an army of fifty thousand men, even at the winter solstice. Whenever inclined to spread worldwide death and destruction, I awaken my Achilles before daybreak and send him out in the killing fields with no break until nine o’clock; at nine, he pauses for tea with nicely buttered toast, as the “Annalist of the Eighteenth Century” elegantly informs us is the English custom;1 then after tea has been drunk and the newspapers read, the fighting continues until three o’clock. The following two hours are plenty for an active man’s dinner and digestion; then from five o’clock to dusk, enough time remains for him to chop off heads and immortalize himself if the weather is fine. Do admire the brilliant flourishes of my imagination: rather than restrict my hero to a single deadly weapon like a dread medical doctor, I vary the genre of my hero’s exploits, and do not fear to reveal them in the light of day. My delicacy is a disadvantage in one respect, because nocturnal surprises are so useful for an author. But everybody knows there is something annoying about them, though I can’t say why; they seem more characteristic for a high- Nocturnal Adventures 59 wayman than a war hero. Surely anyone who invents his own heroes should make decent people of them. Aren’t there enough rapscallions, fools, traitors, calumniators, and cowards in the world without stuffing them into our books? On the other hand, if a military surprise is absolutely necessary, our modern generals make it easy to arrange for high noon; the verisimilitude of your surprise is then all the greater. Basically, the whole surprise genre is a simple one. I can give you an army in retreat with two strokes of my pen. Listen closely: The two armies that must decide the fate of both Brutiens and Galles2 were now but a league apart, the sun had traveled a quarter of its career, and fierce Mars, thirsty for bloodshed, had just stripped off the godly armor forged for him by the cuckold Vulcan, who works night and day in a Sicilian cave for his heavenly wife’s lovers and bastards. Brandishing his lance and a barbed spear like the ones used by Africans, the god of war tapped his foot and foamed at the mouth, impatient for the moment when he would be awash in human blood. Just so, impeded by the tight virgin charms of a young nun, will a hearty Cordelier gasp, sweat, squirm, and shudder with rage. Sometimes he may use his hand to guide his lance, then again use the strength in his loins to push it; the bed trembles under these vigorous blows; the only thing that can calm the lubricious ardor of the intrepid Franciscan is blood flowing from the broken hymen and merging with a torrent of semen; and he bathes in this mixture several times, withdrawing only to feel anew the burning desire to plunge back in. Meanwhile Apollo, never any too fond of Mars, has taken wicked pleasure at sunburning his warlike colleague in order to increase his ardor, while in Jupiter’s closet Fate has donned her spectacles, eager to read the names of mortals whose competition to kill or maim each other would be contributing to Olympian entertainment later in the day. Having already exploded a landmine under Sloth and set traps for Stupidity , Surprise is quite touched by seeing the God of War nearly dead of devastating thirst. She has always been on close terms with him, a topic for occasional gossip on Olympus. She approaches him on tiptoe, covers him with her gray cloak, and addresses him in more or less the following terms: “O Mars, thou who art aflame with thirst for blood, whose steely teeth...