di Antonio Napoli

Paris, winter of 1889. In the grand mahogany hall of an elegant salon in Faubourg Saint-Germain, a group of gentlemen and ladies sipped cognac and discussed with fervor. The topic of the day was the latest wonder or the latest monstrosity of the century: the Eiffel Tower, erected just a few months earlier. For some, it represented the symbol of the grandeur of human industry; for others, a steel monster whose imposing presence drove away the city’s faint magical aura.

“My friends,” proclaimed Count de Montferrat, the leader of the group of enthusiasts, “our era is triumphing over the barbarity of the past. The Eiffel Tower is not just a tower; it is the ladder with which man can rise above the earthly miseries!”

A murmur of agreement spread among the guests. The ladies, adorned in jewels, nodded with admiration, and the men smiled with satisfaction. But at the back of the room, near the window from which the illuminated tower could just be glimpsed through the Parisian fog, a man remained silent.

“And you, Monsieur de la Roche,” asked the host courteously, “what do you think of this great marvel of progress?”

Victor de la Roche had recently returned from Africa. He was a tall, lean man, with a beard that still held a trace of the African sun. With an enigmatic smile, he placed his glass on the table and adjusted himself in the velvet armchair.

“With all due respect, ladies and gentlemen, may I tell you a story?” he said.

Everyone nodded.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he began, with a deliberately theatrical tone, “it is said that in the red earth of Africa, there is a baobab so large that its roots sink to the heart of the world, and its branches lose themselves in the sublime summit of the sky. From its boughs flows the sap that nourishes the rivers, gives breath to the air, and fertilizes the land. Animals drink from its shade, and among them, the wise monkey dances among the branches with the lightness of the wind.

At the top, it is said, bloom mysterious flowers: no bird, no monkey dares to touch them, for they belong only to the great tree and to the breath of the universe.

It is told that one day, man, in his greedy ambition to become more powerful, wanted to take these flowers for himself. No one knows what made this desire arise in his heart, but one can imagine that the most pernicious feeling at the dawn of time was envy. In any case, the man watched the monkeys climb and decided to imitate them; he practiced day and night, gripping the rough bark with hands and feet, jumping from branch to branch. But no matter how hard he tried, he could never reach the forbidden flowers. He asked the monkey to gather them for him, but it refused with disdain: no monkey would ever work for man. And tell me, if that was not so.

One day, the man discovered a curious shape on the ground, formed by the action of the wind, some animal, and chance: an action that had crossed broken branches into a rectangle. It was then that the industrious imagination of man conceived the idea of the tool we call a ladder. With it, he could reach higher, climb beyond the limits imposed by the earth. He had given a ladder to his ambitious envy.

With dedication, the man planted two poles in the ground, wove sturdy vines, and fixed branches to the supports already erected. As the structure grew, he added more. Thus, day by day, the ladder rose towards the sky, until it brushed the petals of the sacred flowers.

Finally, the man succeeded in picking one and felt so intoxicated by its fragrance that he believed himself the master of the world. He descended to plant it. Meanwhile, the branches of the baobab from which the flowers had been plucked withered; one of the many rivers stopped flowing, drying up; part of the earth began to crack: the green vanished, and a creeping, yellow, silent monster advanced, what we now call the desert.

Life itself seemed to flee from that place, and what remained was no longer life. The animals wept, the birds sang a desperate song. But the man, seeing that the flowers he had planted had dried up, wanted to obtain more, regardless of what he had destroyed all around. He climbed the ladder again, determined to pick more.

But behold, the monkey, in its gloomy wisdom, understood the danger. With a sudden leap, it climbed the ladder and, with strong hands and sharp teeth, broke it, making it collapse to the ground while it saved itself by jumping onto a branch; the man, however, fell. As a result of the fall, which fortunately had not broken his head but had expanded his heart, as if he had shaken off his blinding greed, he saw the disaster he had caused by breaking the prohibition.

From that day on, the people of the land of Africa learned to respect nature and its balance. The baobab began to bloom again, life returned, and the desert stopped advancing. And so, even today, when the wind blows through the baobab’s branches, it is said to be the breath of nature reminding men not to ask for more than what it, generous and wise, decides to give.”

A dense silence enveloped the room. Even the crackling of the fire in the fireplace seemed to have softened, as if even the flames were captivated, listening to Victor de la Roche’s voice. The ladies’ eyes were fixed on him, while the gentlemen exchanged thoughtful glances, almost seeking mutual comfort in a world they had believed to be solid in their convictions only moments before.

It was Count de Montferrat who first broke the suspended silence, but his voice carried a note of mockery. “A beautiful story, Monsieur de la Roche… Poetic, no doubt. But I do not understand how one can compare a wooden ladder, built with makeshift materials, to an imposing steel structure. Your myth, if we may call it that, is nothing but an invitation to perpetuate a superstitious fear.”

Victor smiled, calmly stood up, took his glass, and sipped the last drop. Then he let his gaze slip out the window, towards the Eiffel Tower, which loomed in the night like a gigantic spear thrust into the heart of Paris.

“In less than an hour, I will board a ship headed for Africa. I am gladly fleeing from this nightmare of artificial paradise,” Victor announced as he headed for the door. But after a few steps, he paused for a moment on the threshold.

“You see, gentlemen, I do not know whether building a ladder to rise higher is a legitimate or necessary aspiration for man. But of one thing I am sure: not every height conquered leads to greatness, and not every flower of conquest spreads its fragrance of well-being beyond the day,” he said, bidding farewell to the guests.

Count de Montferrat, eager to have the last word on the departing guest, thundered: “Go back to your baobab; ours, which will forever feed the city and the Seine, as well as our pride and glory, is out there.”

Beyond the glass, the gazes rested on the colossal stature of the new progress, which shone in the night, immense and indifferent.