José Saramago - The Elephant's Journey

THAT SAME AFTERNOON, two carrier pigeons, one male and one female, set off from the basilica in the direction of trent, taking with them the news of this marvelous miracle. Why trent and not rome, where the head of the church is to be found, you will ask. The answer is simple, because, since fifteen forty-five, an ecumenical council has been taking place in trent, engaged, according to them, in preparing a counterattack on luther and his followers. Suffice it to say that decrees had already been issued on the sacred scriptures and tradition, on original sin, justification and the sacraments in general. It is understandable, therefore, that the basilica of saint anthony, a pillar of the faith at its purest, needs to be kept permanently informed about what is going on in trent, which is so close, only twenty leagues away, a mere vol d'oiseau, appropriately enough, for pigeons, who have been flying between the two locations for years. This time, however, padua is the first with the news, because it isn't every day that an elephant solemnly kneels at the door of a basilica, thus bearing witness to the fact that the message of the gospels is addressed to the whole animal kingdom and that the regrettable drowning of those hundreds of pigs in the sea of galilee could be put down to inexperience, occurring as it did before the cogs in the mechanism for performing miracles were properly oiled. What matters now are the long lines of believers forming in the encampment, all eager to see the elephant and take advantage of the chance to buy a tuft of elephant hair, a business rapidly set up by fritz when the payment he naïvely assumed he would receive from the basilica's coffers was not forthcoming. Let us not censure the mahout, for others who did far less for the christian faith were nonetheless amply rewarded. Tomorrow it will be claimed that an infusion of elephant hair taken three times a day is a sovereign remedy for cases of acute diarrhea and that if the same tuft of hair is soaked in almond oil and the oil massaged energetically into the scalp, again three times a day, it will halt even the most galloping of alopecias. Fritz can barely cope with the demand, the purse tied to his belt is already heavy with coins, if the camp were to stay there a whole week, he would be a rich man. His customers are not all from padua, some are from mestre and even venice. It is said that the archduke and archduchess are having such a good time at the doge's palace that they will not return today, or even tomorrow, a piece of news that makes fritz very happy, indeed, he never thought he would have so many reasons to feel grateful to the house of habsburg. He wonders why it had never occurred to him before to sell elephant hair when he lived in india and then he thinks to himself that, despite the ridiculous number of deities, subdeities and demons infesting that country, there are far fewer superstitions in the land where he was born than in this particular part of civilized and very christian europe, which is capable of blithely buying some elephant hair and piously believing the vendor's lies. Having to pay for your own dreams must be the most desperate of situations. In the end, contrary to the prognostications of the so-called barracks gazette, the archduke and archduchess returned on the afternoon of the following day, ready to resume their journey as soon as possible. News of the miracle had reached the doge's palace, but in somewhat garbled form, the result of the successive transmissions of facts, true or assumed, real or purely imaginary, based on everything from partial, more or less eyewitness accounts to reports from those who simply liked the sound of their own voice, for, as we know all too well, no one telling a story can resist adding a period, and sometimes even a comma. The archduke summoned his steward to clarify what had happened, not so much the miracle itself, but the reasons that had led to it. On this particular matter, the steward lacked sufficient information, and so it was decided to summon the mahout fritz, who, given the nature of his role, should have something more substantial to tell. The archduke did not beat about the bush, They tell me that a miracle took place during my absence, Yes, sir, And that suleiman was involved, That is so, sir, You mean that the elephant decided, of his own volition, to go and kneel at the door of the basilica, That isn't quite how I would put it, sir, How would you put it, then, asked the archduke, Sir, I was the one who took suleiman there, So I thought, although that's not what interests me, what I want to know is in whose head was the idea born, All I had to do, sir, was to teach the elephant to kneel at my command, And who gave you the order to do so, Sir, I'm not allowed to discuss the matter, Did someone forbid you to, Not exactly, but a word to the wise is enough, And who proffered you that word, Forgive me, sir, but, If you don't answer my question at once you will have reason to regret it most bitterly, It was a priest from the basilica, And what did he say, He said that they needed a miracle and that suleiman could provide that miracle, And what did you answer, That suleiman wasn't used to performing miracles and that the attempt might result in failure, And what was the priest's response, He said that I would have reason to repent if I didn't obey, almost the same words that your highness just used, And then what happened, Well, I spent the rest of the morning teaching suleiman to kneel at a signal from me, which wasn't easy, but I managed it in the end, You're a good mahout, You're too kind, sir, Would you like some advice, Yes, sir, Don't tell anyone else about our conversation, No, sir, That way you'll have no reason to regret anything, Right, sir, I won't forget, Off you go and be sure to remove from suleiman's head the idiotic idea that he can go around performing miracles by kneeling down at the doors of churches, one expects much more from a miracle, for example, that someone should grow a new leg to replace one that was cut off, imagine the number of such prodigies that could be performed on the battlefield, Yes, sir, Off you go. Once alone, the archduke began to think that perhaps he had said too much, that his words, if the mahout let his tongue run away with him, would be of no benefit whatsoever to the delicate political balance he has been trying to keep between luther's reforms and the ongoing conciliar response. After all, as henry the fourth of france will say in the not too distant future, paris is well worth a mass. Even so, a look of painful melancholy appears on maximilian's slender face, perhaps because few things in life hurt as much as the awareness that one has betrayed the ideas of one's youth. The archduke told himself that he was old enough not to cry over spilled milk, that the superabundant udders of the catholic church were there, as always, waiting for a pair of skillful hands to milk them, and events so far had shown that his archducal hands had a certain talent for that diplomatic milking, as long as the said church believed that the results of those matters of faith would, in time, bring them some advantage. Even so, the story of the elephant's false miracle went beyond the bounds of what was tolerable. The people at the basilica, he thought, must have gone mad, after all, they already had a saint who could make a new pitcher out of the fragments of a broken one and who, while living in padua, was able to fly through the air to lisbon to save his father from the gallows, why then go and ask a mahout to get his elephant to fake a miracle, ah, luther, luther, you were so right. Having vented his feelings, the archduke summoned his steward, whom he ordered to prepare for departure the following morning, traveling, if possible, directly to trent or, if necessary, spending at most one night encamped en route. The steward replied that he thought the second option more prudent, for experience had shown that they could not count on suleiman when it came to speed, He's more of a long-distance runner, he concluded, adding, The mahout has been taking advantage of people's credulity and is selling them elephant hair so that they can make potions that won't cure anyone, Tell him from me that if he doesn't cease doing so this instant he will have reason to regret it for the rest of his life, which will certainly not be a long one, Your highness's orders will be carried out at once, we have to put a stop to this fraud as quickly as possible, this elephant hair business is demoralizing the whole convoy, especially the balder members of the cuirassiers, Right, I want this matter resolved, I can't prevent suleiman's so-called miracle pursuing us for the rest of the journey, but at least no one will be able to say that the house of habsburg is profiting from the crimes of a lying mahout and collecting value-added tax as if it were a commercial operation covered by the law, Sir, I will deal with the matter forthwith, he'll be laughing on the other side of his face when I've finished, it's just a shame that we need him to get the elephant to vienna, but I hope, at least, that this will teach him a lesson, Go on, put out that fire before anyone gets burned. Fritz did not really deserve such harsh judgments. It's only right that the criminal should be accused and condemned, but true justice should always bear in mind any extenuating circumstances, the first of which, in the mahout's case, would be that the idea of the fake miracle came not from him, but from the priests of the basilica of saint anthony, who thought up the hoax in the first place, if they hadn't, it would never have occurred to fritz that he could grow rich by exploiting the capillary system of the maker of that apparent miracle. In recognition of their own greater and lesser sins, given that no one in this world is blameless, and they far less than most, both the noble archduke and his obliging steward had a duty to remember that famous saying about the beam and the mote, which, adapted to these new circumstances, teaches how much easier it is to see the beam in your neighbor's eye than the elephant's hair in your own. Besides, this is not a miracle that will linger long in people's memories or in those of future generations. Contrary to the archduke's fears, the story of the false miracle will not pursue them for the rest of the journey and will quickly fade. The people in the convoy, both noble and plebeian, military and civilian, will have far more to think about when the clouds building up over the region around trent, above the mountains that immediately precede the wall of the alps, become, first, rain, then possibly hard-hitting hail and, doubtless, snow, and the roads become covered in slippery ice. And then it is likely that some members of the convoy will recognize, at last, that the poor elephant was nothing but an innocent dupe in that grotesque entry in the church's accounting records and that the mahout is merely an insignificant product of the corrupt times in which we happen to live. Farewell, world, you go from worse to worse.