Penguin Island | Page 8

howls struck the stone trough, carried off the mast with all the sails,
and tore away the rudder and the stem.
The trough was drifting on the sea, which had now grown calm. The
holy man knelt and gave thanks to the Lord who had delivered him
from the snares of the demon. Then he recognised, sitting on a block of
ice, the mother bear who had spoken during the storm. She pressed her
beloved child to her bosom, and in her hand she held a purple book
marked with a golden cross. Hailing the granite trough, she saluted the
holy man with these words:
"Pax tibi Mael"
And she held out the book to him.
The holy man recognised his evangelistary, and, full of astonishment,
he sang in the tepid air a hymn to the Creator and His creation.

V. THE BAPTISM OF THE PENGUINS
After having drifted for an hour the holy man approached a narrow
strand, shut in by steep mountains. He went along the coast for a whole
day and a night, passing around the reef which formed an insuperable
barrier. He discovered in this way that it was a round island in the
middle of which rose a mountain crowned with clouds. He joyfully
breathed the fresh breath of the moist air. Rain fell, and this rain was so
pleasant that the holy man said to the Lord:
"Lord, this is the island of tears, the island of contrition."
The strand was deserted. Worn out with fatigue and hunger, he sat
down on a rock in the hollow of which there lay some yellow eggs,
marked with black spots, and about as large as those of a swan. But he
did not touch them, saying:

"Birds are the living praises of God. I should not like a single one of
these praises to be lacking through me."
And he munched the lichens which he tore from the crannies of the
rocks.
The holy man had gone almost entirely round the island without
meeting any inhabitants, when he came to a vast amphitheatre formed
of black and red rocks whose summits became tinged with blue as they
rose towards the clouds, and they were filled with sonorous cascades.
The reflection from the polar ice had hurt the old man's eyes, but a
feeble gleam of light still shone through his swollen eyelids. He
distinguished animated forms which filled the rocks, in stages, like a
crowd of men on the tiers of an amphitheatre. And at the same time, his
ears, deafened by the continual noises of the sea, heard a feeble sound
of voices. Thinking that what he saw were men living under the natural
law, and that the Lord had sent him to teach them the Divine law, he
preached the gospel to them.
Mounted on a lofty stone in the midst of the wild circus:
"Inhabitants of this island," said he, "although you be of small stature,
you look less like a band of fishermen and mariners than like the senate
of a judicious republic. By your gravity, your silence, your tranquil
deportment, you form on this wild rock an assembly comparable to the
Conscript Fathers at Rome deliberating in the temple of Victory, or
rather, to the philosophers of Athens disputing on the benches of the
Areopagus. Doubtless you possess neither their science nor their genius,
but perhaps in the sight of God you are their superiors. I believe that
you are simple and good. As I went round your island I saw no image
of murder, no sign of carnage, no enemies' heads or scalps hung from a
lofty pole or nailed to the doors of your villages. You appear to me to
have no arts and not to work in metals. But your hearts are pure and
your hands are innocent, and the truth will easily enter into your souls."
Now what he had taken for men of small stature but of grave bearing
were penguins whom the spring had gathered together, and who were

ranged in couples on the natural steps of the rock, erect in the majesty
of their large white bellies. From moment to moment they moved their
winglets like arms, and uttered peaceful cries. They did not fear men,
for they did not know them, and had never received any harm from
them; and there was in the monk a certain gentleness that reassured the
most timid animals and that pleased these penguins extremely. With a
friendly curiosity they turned towards him their little round eyes
lengthened in front by a white oval spot that gave something odd and
human to their appearance.
Touched by their attention, the holy man taught them the Gospel.
"Inhabitants of this island, the earthly day that has just risen over your
rocks