SCENES AND CUSTOMS IN THE MOON.

BY CYRANO DE BERGERAC.

[SAVINIEN HERCULE DE CYRANO BERGERAC, philosopher, man of letters, and fighter, was born in Paris in 1619, a younger son of a noble Perigord family. Educated first in the country and then at the Collège de Beauvais in Paris, — under tutors he satirized in "Le Pédant Joué," he led a wild student-life; his father cutting off his allowance, Cyrano entered Carbon de Castel-Jaloux's famous Gascon-noblemen's company of Guards, and from a butt forced himself into a foremost position of repute for reckless courage. Shot through the body at Mouzon in 1639, and stabbed in the throat at Arras in 1640, he had to leave the army, and began literary life and study at Paris at twenty-two. He became deep in ancient and modern metaphysics, and a speculator of great boldness and independence, upholding free thought for all; and the travels credited to him within the next twelve years may have been enforced, like Voltaire's, to escape persecution. He seems to have led a straitened life, and certainly a quarrelsome one, his immense nose being the cause of many duels. Finally enforced to seek patronage from the Duc d'Arpajon, his unorthodox "Agrippine "and an injury needing care caused the Duke to send him away, and he was cared for by an aunt and two other women of a convent, and his friend Lebret; but finally went to the house of a cousin, and died there at thirty-six. His "Voyage to the Moon," and "Comic History of the States and Empires of the Sun," were published posthumously.]

LANGUAGES, MEALS, AND HOW BILLS Are Paid.

You may judge what conversation I could have with these that came to see me, since, besides that they only took me for an animal, in the highest class of the category of brutes, I neither understood their language nor they mine. For you must know that there are but two idioms in use in that country, one for the grandees and another for the people in general.

That of the great ones is no more but various inarticulate tones, much like our music when the words are not added to the air and in reality it is an invention both very useful and pleasant; for when they are weary of talking, or disdain to prostitute their throats to that office, they take either a lute or some other instrument, whereby they communicate their thoughts as well as by their tongue: so that sometimes fifteen or twenty in a company will handle a point of divinity, or discuss the difficulties of a lawsuit, in the most harmonious concert that ever tickled the ear.

The second, which is used by the vulgar, is performed by a shivering of the members, but not perhaps as you may imagine, for some parts of the body signify an entire discourse; for ex

ample, the agitation of a finger, a hand, an ear, a lip, an arm, an eye, a cheek, every one severally will make up an oration, or a period with all the parts of it: others serve only instead of words, as the knitting of the brows, the several quiverings of the muscles, the turning of the hands, the stamping of the feet, the contortion of the arms; so that when they speak, as their custom is, stark naked, their members, being used to gesticulate their conceptions, move so quick that one would not think it to be a man that spoke, but a body that trembled.

Every day almost the spirit came to see me, and his rare conversation made me patiently bear with the rigor of my captivity. At length one morning I saw a man enter my cabin, whom I knew not, who having a long while licked me gently, took me in his teeth by the shoulder, and with one of his paws, wherewith he held me up for fear I might hurt myself, threw me upon his back, where I found myself so softly seated, and so much at my ease, that, although afflicted to be used like a beast, I had not the least desire of making my escape; and besides, these men that go upon all four are much swifter than we, seeing the heaviest of them make nothing of running down a stag.

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In the meantime I was extremely troubled that I had no news of my courteous spirit; and the first night we came to our inn, as I was walking in the court, expecting till supper should be ready, a pretty handsome young man came smiling my face and cast his two fore-legs about my neck. After I had a little considered him: "How!" said he in French, "don't you know your friend, then?" I leave you to judge in what case I was at that time; really, my surprise was so great, that I began to imagine, that all the globe of the moon, all that had befallen me, and all that I had seen, had only been enchantment and that beast-man, who was the same that had carried me all day, continued to speak to me in this manner; "You promised me, that the good offices I did you should never be forgotten, and yet it seems you have never seen me before; but perceiving me still in amaze: "In fine," said he, "I am that same demon of Socrates, who diverted you during your imprisonment, and who, that I may still oblige you, took to myself a body, on which I carried you to-day: ""But," said I, interrupting him, "how can that be, seeing that all day you were of a very long stature, and now you are very short; that all day long you had a weak and broken voice, and now you

have a clear and vigorous one; that, in short, all day long you were a grayheaded old man, and are now a brisk young blade: Is it then that whereas in my country, the progress is from life to death; animals here go retrograde from death to life, and by growing old become young again."

"So soon as I had spoken to the prince," said he, "and received orders to bring you to court, I went and found you out where you were, and have brought you hither; but the body I acted in was so tired out with the journey, that all its organs refused me their ordinary functions, so that I inquired the way to the hospital; where being come in I found the body of a young man, just then expired by a very odd accident, but yet very common in this country. I drew near him, pretending to find motion in him still, and protesting to those who were present, that he was not dead, and that what they thought to be the cause of his death, was no more but a bare lethargy; so that without being perceived, I put my mouth to his, by which I entered as with a breath: Then down dropped my old carcass, and as if I had been that young man, I rose and came to look for you, leaving the spectators crying a miracle."

With this they came to call us to supper, and I followed my guide into a parlor richly furnished; but where I found nothing fit to be eaten. No victuals appearing, when I was ready to die of hunger, made me ask him where the cloth was laid: But I could not hear what he answered, for at that instant three or four young boys, children of the house, drew near, and with much civility stripped me to the shirt. This new ceremony so astonished me, that I durst not so much as ask my pretty valets de chambre the cause of it; and I cannot tell how my guide, who asked me what I would begin with, could draw from me these two words, a potage; but hardly had I pronounced them, when I smelt the odor of the most agreeable soup that ever steamed in the rich glutton's nose: I was about to rise from my place, that I might trace that delicious scent to its source, but my carrier hindered me: "Whither are you going," said he, "we shall fetch a walk by and by; but now it is time to eat, make an end of your potage, and then we'll have something else: ""And where the devil is the potage?" answered I, half angry: "Have you laid a wager you'll jeer me all this day?" "I thought," replied he, "that at the town we came from, you had seen your master or somebody else at meal, and that's the reason I told you not, how people feed in this country. Seeing

then you are still ignorant, you must know, that here they live on steams. The art of cookery is to shut up in great vessels, made on purpose, the exhalations that proceed from the meat whilst it is a dressing; and when they have provided enough of several sorts and several tastes, according to the appetite of those they treat, they open one vessel where that steam is kept, and after that another; and so on till the company be satisfied.

"Unless you have already lived after this manner, you would never think that the nose, without teeth and gullet, can perform the office of the mouth in feeding a man; but I'll make you experience it yourself." He had no sooner said so, but I found so many agreeable and nourishing vapors enter the parlor, one after another, that in less than half a quarter of an hour I was fully satisfied. When we were got up, "This is not a matter,' said he, “much to be admired at, seeing you cannot have lived so long, and not have observed, that all sorts of cooks, who eat less than people of another calling, are nevertheless much fatter. Whence proceeds that plumpness, d'ye think, unless it be from the steams that continually environ them, which penetrate into their bodies and fatten them? Hence it is, that the people of this world enjoy a more steady and vigorous health, by reason that their food hardly engenders any excrements, which are in a manner the original of all diseases. You were, perhaps, surprised, that before supper you were stripped, since it is a custom not practiced in your country; but it is the fashion of this, and for this end used, that the animal may be the more transpirable to the fumes." "Sir," answered I, "there is a great deal of probability in what you say, and I have found somewhat of it myself by experience; but I must frankly tell you, that, not being able to unbrute myself so soon, I should be glad to feel something that my teeth might fix upon:" He promised I should, but not before next day; "because," said he, "to eat so soon after your meal would breed crudities."

After we had discoursed a little longer, we went up to a chamber to take our rest; a man met us on the top of the stairs, who having attentively eyed us, led me into a closet where the floor was strewed with orange-flowers three foot thick, and my spirit into another filled with gilly-flowers and jessamines. Perceiving me amazed at that magnificence, he told me they were the beds of the country. In fine, we laid ourselves down to rest in our several cells, and so soon as I had

stretched myself out upon my flowers, by the light of thirty large glow-worms shut up in a crystal (being the only candles they use), I perceived the three or four boys who had stripped me before supper, one tickling my feet, another my thighs, the third my flanks, and the fourth my arms, and all so delicately and daintily, that in less than a minute I was fast asleep.

Next morning by sun-rising my spirit came into my room and said to me, "Now I'll be as good as my word, you shall breakfast this morning more solidly than you supped last night." With that I got up, and he led me by the hand to a place at the back of the garden, where one of the children of the house stayed for us, with a piece in his hand much like to one of our firelocks. He asked my guide if I would have a dozen of larks, because baboons (one of which he took me to be) loved to feed on them? I had hardly answered yes, when the fowler discharged a shot, and twenty or thirty larks fell at our feet ready roasted. This, thought I presently with myself, verifies the proverb in our world of a country where larks fall ready roasted; without doubt it has been made by somebody that came from hence. "Fall to, fall to," said my spirit, "don't spare; for they have a knack of mingling a certain composition with their powder and shot which kills, plucks, roasts, and seasons the fowl all at once." I took up some of them, and ate them upon his word; and to say the truth, in all my lifetime I never ate anything so delicious.

Having thus breakfasted we prepared to be gone, and with a thousand odd faces, which they use when they would show their love, our landlord received a paper from my spirit. I asked him, if it was a note for the reckoning? He replied no, that all was paid, and that it was a copy of verses. "How ! Verses," said I; "are your inn-keepers here curious of rhyme, then?" "It's," said he, "the money of the country, and the charge we have been at here hath been computed to amount to three couplets, or six verses, which I have given him. I did not fear we should out-run the constable; for though we should pamper ourselves for a whole week we could not spend a sonnet, and I have four about me, besides two epigrams, two odes, and an eclogue."

"Would to God," said I, "it were so in our world; for I know a good many honest poets there who are ready to starve, and who might live plentifully if that money would pass in payment." I further asked him, if these verses would always