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"I obey," answered Jalaladdeen; "but suffer me before my departure to ask, Who are ye?" "We are three genii," said they, "sent here by the King of Spirits, as keepers of the mysteries of the holy Mount Massis. But proceed, in order that thou mayest arrive in due time at thy destination."
Mr. Massis has noted Zola's method of literary travail, the formation of his style, the labour of style, the art of writing, the pain of writing, and his infinitely painstaking manner of accumulating heaps of notes, and building his book from them. The Massis study, the most complete of its kind, may interest the student, not alone of Zola, but of literature in general.
You tell me that the old woman has desired you to fetch the wonder-stone from Mount Massis; follow her advice, journey to the mountain, and work out your good fortune. Perhaps your fate may take another and a more prosperous turn."
Massis has had access to the manuscripts of Zola deposited by his widow in the National Library, Paris. They number ninety volumes; the dossier alone of Germinal forms four volumes of five hundred pages. Such industry seems fabulous. But, if it did not pass Zola through the long-envied portals of the Academy, it has won for his ashes such an honourable resting-place as the Panthéon.
She carried a crutch under her left arm, and held another in her right hand. She limped over the side of the vessel, and hobbling towards the astonished Jalaladdeen, said, "Fool, fool that thou art! is it befitting for thee, so young as thou art, to stand there like an old idler? Go forth into the world, and fetch the wonder-stone from Mount Massis, otherwise thou canst never be my husband."
Without allowing himself time for reflection, he threw the lion's tail and eagle's wing to the ground, exclaiming at the same time in a loud voice the names of the three genii of Mount Massis, "Arjeh, Neschar, Mana-Guma!"
He lengthened out his speech in the same tone and spirit, and spoke seriously for some time, till at length he succeeded in quieting Jalaladdeen; so that he embraced the hope of being restored one day to perfect health. "But," said he to the magician, "whither shall I bend my course? where is Mount Massis? and even if I succeed in reaching it, how shall I discover the wonder-stone?"
I fancied I had already discovered the wonder-stone of Mount Massis, and now I must journey out into the world again on anew adventure. God knows whither the brother will send me." His soliloquy was interrupted by the appearance of a man, who stepped forward from the opening, and presented to him a lance with a glittering steel head. "Take it," said he, "and with it do thy duty."
After a much longer journey than before, and many different detours, he arrived at a spot from which he could see the two-pointed head of Mount Massis.
Jalaladdeen assured the magician that he had sufficient patience to carry him through any trial, and that he was ready and willing to submit to any labour, if by that means he could rid himself of the illness from which he was at that time suffering. "Then," said he, "where is Mount Massis? which I have never before heard of."
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