The Mosaic

                         by Aurel Antonie

The idea of the mosaic had dawned upon the Emperor during one of his artistic whims. He had dallied with every art in turn and now he was looking for a new way of expression, able to combine them all. And he had found the mosaic. After some attempts necessary to persuade him that working on a mosaic was a hard job and took a long time, he summoned all the mosaic experts of the empire and, having shown them the piece already begun, he ordered them to continue. The workers in mosaic started to work and within a few months completed it. A fine mosaic fenced in by a balcony of white marble with an ebony balustrade. A water sheet endlessly washed the surface of the mosaic, so that colours seemed to move in an undulating play. The beauty of that art gift was unparalleled. The Emperor spent long hours in front of it, watching the subtle play of light and colour, which fascinated him.

It goes without saying that the mosaic represented the Emperor riding his battle horse, in full armour and with his visor raised. The image radiated power, majesty, a boundless haughtiness, which went beyond the narrow edges of the work.

A few days after the unveiling, the head of the guardsmen approached the Emperor who was admiring his work; he was bringing with him a gipsy-like youth, with fiery eyes. The captain struck his breast with his gloved right hand and told the Emperor, looking straight into his eyes:

„This man requests the permission to speak to you, Master of the World. He says he is mosaic layer.”

„Go away!” The Emperor god rid of him. Then he turned to the young man, who was kneeling: „You say that you work in mosaic?”

„I do, Sun of the World!”

„Then, come closer and look at that art jewel and tell me if your eyes have ever seen a mosaic to match it!”

„Light of the Earth, my eyes are blinded by so much beauty and I don’t think there is another one to surpass it, and yet...”

„Yet what?” The Emperor frowned.

„Wet, I bear in my mind a mosaic whose greatness is suited to your brightness, Boundless Power. A vast mosaic which cannot be grasped by any man’s eye. A mosaic for the eyes of a God or of an Emperor. The boundlessness of your greatness cannot be bounded in this small mosaic created by some poor masters, to render your name immortal. Please watch it, Supreme Power, how it struggles, how your proud eyes are hampered by this limited horizon...”

„Shut up!” the Emperor shouted, grasping the wooden rail.

He looked frowning at the object he had thought perfect not long ago. „What is perfection? And, especially, where is perfection? How can a man’s words alter my state of mind and how is it possible that some simple words may change the quality of an object from the finest work of art into an ordinary work? Actually not the words alone, but my aroused imagination and my pride. As a matter of fact, I granted it the quality of unparalleled work and I can deny it all the same. Nothing is absolute, everything depends on me. On me, as long as I live, but later, another Emperor will reject everything I created and will create new mosaics, which he will feel to be perfect. And yet, an immense mosaic, whose edges are not to be seen by any man’s eye, shall not be denied by any mortal. Perhaps only gods could contest it, but wat an honour to be disputed by gods! Neither were the pyramids ever matched, or denied, or destroyed!”

„Listen, man, can you make such a mosaic?”

„I can!” The young man’s eyes were shining like stars.

The making of the mosaic started the next day on a vast plain, at the border of the desert. The blue mountains from the north provided the stone, and the coloured marble was brought from the southern provinces. In the first days, the mosaic worker asked the slaves to bring the materials in the centre of the plain. Then, one night, he started working. In the morning, the carters found him at the height of work. He was stooping over the mosaic and spoke to no one. The mosaic expert worked all day long and did never stop, not even for eating. The next day, when the slaves brought the baskets full of coloured pebbles, they found him at work and the food untouched. The next day, the same happened. Every morning, they found him with ever greater difficulty, ever farther. He worked at an amazing speed. Rumours were spread that he never slept.

The mosaic spread on the plain according to a strange plan, leaving here and there empty places on the stone surface, like a kind of grass islets. Because of his working speed, materials started being brought by long convoys of waggons, which crossed the vast surface of the mosaic. An ever greater number of slaves were now working for the mosaic.

When the Emperor came to see the work, the mosaic had gone beyond the edge of the plain and it began to cover the desert. It was impossible for a man to make such an expanse of mosaic, no matter how many helping hands he had. The Emperor walked for five hours across the mosaic until he found the young worker. Coloured lines were chasing one another and crossed on the boundless surface, turning around dark colour spots. Without dismounting, the Emperor asked whether the mosaic was to represent him, since he did not distinguish anything similar to a man’s face. The mosaic-maker, who did not stop working, told him that what he could see in that plain was nothing else than one of the dents of a spur. The Emperor left the mosaic quite overwhelmed. Indeed, what that mosaic worker was doing exceeded any human imagination.

After a few days, the Emperor was visited by the treasurer who announced him that the new mosaic might swallow all the incomes of the Empire. New taxes were created for the population.

After two months, when all the slaves of the Empire were working under the command of the young mosaic-maker, the desert had disappeared under the stone armour and the mosaic threatened to touch the boundary of the Nubers. The mosaic needed space and the Imperator was in need of gold, so that war broke out. After the land of the Nubers, the mosaic engulfed the fertile plains of the Burrus Land. At the time, the mosaic-maker was nowhere to be found on the incredibly large mosaic, and they lost touch with him. Nevertheless, it seems that he kept working at some of the edges, since the mosaic was growing all the time. There was some talk that the mosaic grew by itself and that the mosaic-maker had been swallowed by the unleashed stone.

The boundless plains where wheat once grew had disappeared under the stone cover. Starvation started being felt and the first upheavals broke out in the Empire. The Emperor was compelled by the present situation to order that work for the mosaic should be discontinued. It was too late. The young mosaic-maker could not be found anywhere and the mosaic grew ceaselessly. Villages and cities disappeared under the implacable progress of the stone. The wars waged at the borders of the Empire had no longer any reason, when the mosaic invaded the battlefields. Conquered and conquerors were all swallowed by that stone image of boundless vainglory.

There began an exode of the people to the edges of the mosaic, but the latter grew faster than the walking of the people, who starved to death on the shining surface. Their corpses were absorbed by the stone and only the bones, with their whiteness, were integrated in the arabesques of the design. Mountains and rivers disappeared under the stone cover. The whole Earth was stifled under the many-colour armour of the mosaic.

When the whole planet succumbed under the stone coat, the Emperor was the only survivor. It was then that he could see the mosaic in its vast display. The colossal mosaic, which had fettered the planet, represented the Emperor, crouching and sobbing.

                      Translated by Sorana Georgescu-Gorjan