Jean-Marie Blas De Robles - Where Tigers Are at Home

“I’d no idea,” my master said with feigned nonchalance, “that you had been to that island as well.”

“To be honest,” said Father Roth, slightly flustered, “I’ve never been there, but I had what I’ve just said from a Dutch merchant who had spent more than twenty years in Batavia & went on to me at length about the Javanese.”

Kircher gave Father Roth a severe look: “Ask the wolf what he thinks of the sheep he devours or keeps under his sway & he will always tell you that the poor creatures deserve their misfortune because of their numerous faults & if he concerns himself with them it is only out the goodness of his heart. For that reason I would be wary of giving credence to what your merchant says. That the Javanese are idolaters & that it is proving difficult to convert them to the true religion, I can well believe; but that they are demons forever impervious to reason & divine compassion is something I cannot accept. Nor can you, I am sure, Reverend Father …”

Father Roth apologized, albeit grudgingly, then asked to be allowed to retire, pleading his age & the strain of the journey. Bernini made no attempt to hide his delight at seeing such a carping tongue depart, for which he was given a friendly reproof by my master.

“You were saying, Father Grueber?”

“Well, while my ship was stuck in the harbor of Batavia I heard marvelous reports of a very ancient city, which was said to have been swallowed up by the jungle, a few days’ journey by mule from a small town called Djokdjokarta. Driven as much by my own curiosity as by my promise to report to you, Reverend Father, anything out of the ordinary, I had myself taken there. To get to the point—& leaving aside the travails of the journey, which I had been warned would be as difficult as it was hazardous — the first sight I had of Boeroe Boedor, the ‘lost city,’ came when, after one last turning, my guides pointed with trembling fingers at a little black mountain rising from a sea of luxuriant vegetation. But as I approached it I saw that not one inch of this hill of stone had escaped the sculptor’s chisel; & I think I am not wrong in saying that his pyramid was, on a base a hundred paces square, forty paces high!”

I saw Kircher’s face suddenly light up. “This ‘pyramid,’ ” he asked excitedly, “would you say it resembled those that can be seen in Egypt?”

“Not exactly. In form it was more like the structures of the ancient Mexicans as our missionaries have drawn them. Visualize four square tiers, each surmounted by a round terrace, the whole reducing in size as it rises up.”

“Forgive my impatience, Reverend Father, but you still haven’t described the sculptures you spoke so highly of.”

“Of course, I’m sorry … All along the galleries or the paths going from the base to the summit are some fifteen hundred bas-reliefs that, put end to end, would stretch over five leagues! From what I understood, these sculptures represent the life of Poussah or the idol, Fo, as it is recounted in the Chinese or Indian legends, but you would swear, Cavaliere, that they had been produced by the most talented of the Greeks, so perfect is the composition & so refined the ornamentation. There are more than 25,000 figures, a quarter or half in high relief, that come to life before our very eyes in such a natural way that there is nothing so beautiful in the whole world. Men & women, all in graceful postures, are walking, dancing, riding or praying in the most noble and refined attitudes: musicians are playing the flute or the drum, whole crews are busy on their proud vessels, sublime warriors are resting amid vegetation in which one can easily recognize all the trees, all the fruits, all the flowers & plants of the region, even those that have retaken possession of the stones & are inextricably intertwined with their own image. Elephants, horses, snakes, all kinds of fish and fowl can be seen in the postures typical of their species &, in a word, I could not imagine anything better than to spend my whole life as the simple warden of this sumptuous collection …”

Grueber fell silent. He seemed to have gone back in memory to Boeroe Boedor, contemplating the beautiful art he had just described to us.

“Why did you not make some drawings of these marvelous sculptures …’ Bernini said pensively. “Your account has made my mouth water & I would give much to have accompanied you to that place.”

“I have filled several books with drawings of them in wash & red chalk, which I intended to bring back to Europe; but God did not want that to happen, for it was doubtless He who inspired the young emperor of China with the desire to keep them in his possession.”

“That is not so important,” Kircher said, “for it is enough to have heard what you say to see in that temple the clear influence of ancient Egypt. Everywhere in Asia, as on your island of Java, you can find mystical pyramids & superb temples built on the model of those the Egyptians had erected to their guardian spirits. To put it in a nutshell, China is the ape of Egypt, given the naive way it imitates & resembles that country in everything.”

Without it being clear to me why, Father Grueber suddenly went pale; I saw his jaw muscles tense as if he were fighting an intense pain.

“Are you unwell?” I immediately asked.

“No, not really … There is no need to be concerned. It’s just … a nervous reaction that sometimes comes over me when I think of my journeys.”

“Come, Caspar,” my master said with urgency, “go quickly and fetch one of those bottles of Ho Bryan Mr. Samuel Pepys gave us; & then bring some jam, I think it is time to sample this famous herb that banishes sorrow.”

“Spoken after my own heart, Reverend Father!” Bernini exclaimed, rubbing his hands. “But tell me, what is this herb to which you are going to treat us? If you are not deceiving us about its qualities, I will order a bale immediately for my personal use.”

Kircher repeated to Bernini what Father Grueber had told us just before he arrived, not without making a friendly joke about him not needing this remedy at all, being inclined by his nature to good humor. So we ate some of this Quey as we drank & conversed.

“This plant,” Grueber said, the wine apparently having brought some color back to his cheeks, “is very similar to hemp & grows in abundance in the province of Xinjiang, but they don’t use it in the same way as we do, for the Chinese don’t know how to weave its fibers to make ropes.”

To a further question from my master, Grueber continued to talk about the Chinese pharmacopoeia.

“I can tell you,” he said, “that they use five types of quartz, of earth & of mushrooms, according to their respective colors. We use honey & Spanish flies, but they think that that is to deprive oneself of the marvelous qualities of the bees themselves, of wasps, of their wax & their nests, of galls, cocoons, clothes moths, cicadas, mosquitos, spiders, scorpions, centipedes, ants, lice, fleas, cockroaches & crab lice! These insects are prepared, sold & bought just as happens here with rhubarb & mandrake.”

“Well I’ll be damned!” Bernini exclaimed. “Why haven’t we got such apothecaries in Rome! I haven’t got the whole collection of your creepy-crawlies, but I’ve got enough of some of them to grow rich!”

We all burst out laughing, congratulating Bernini on his witticism, then joyously drank to his health and wealth.

“You find that list amusing,” Grueber said, elated, “but what will you say to what comes next? For these same Chinese collect the venom that can be squeezed out from between the toes of toads to make little pills, a sovereign remedy, they say, for bleeding gums, toothache & sinusitis — provided, in the latter case, that the pill is crushed, mixed with human milk and trickled drop by drop into the nostrils. The fluid from the longest tapeworms cures eye disease & boils; the threadworms from donkeys dissolve cataracts; mixed with cicada skin & alcohol then rubbed on the navel of a pregnant woman, lizard’s liver will bring about an abortion! Python’s bile will give clearer vision, its skin will cure paralysis & rheumatism, its fat deafness & its teeth avert maladies from those who wear them. Dragon’s bones, which are commonly found out on the steppes, make the male organ go rigid, disperse nocturnal sweat, calm the mind, exorcise devils, but they can equally be used to treat diarrhea, fever and nymphomania …”