Adam would soon perish.  A world without debts!  Everything would be in disorder.  The planets, reckoning they were not indebted to each other, would thrust themselves out of their sphere.  The sun would not lend any light to the earth.  No rain would descend on it, no wind blow there, and there would be no summer or harvest.  Faith, hope, and charity will be quite banished from such a world; and what would happen to our bodies?  The head would not lend the sight of its eyes to guide the hands and the feet; the feet would refuse to carry the head, and the hands would leave off working for it.  Life would go out of the body, and the chafing soul would take its flight after my money.

“On the contrary, I shall be pleased to represent unto your fancy another world, in which everyone lends and everyone owes.  Oh, how great will be the harmony among mankind!  I lose myself in this contemplation.  There will be peace among men; love, affection, fidelity, feastings, joy, and gladness; gold, silver, and merchandise will trot from hand to hand.  There will be no suits of law, no wars, no strife.  All will be good, all will be fair, all will be just.  Believe me, it is a divine thing to lend, and an heroic virtue to owe.  Yet this is not all.  We owe something to posterity.”

“What is that?” said Pantagruel.

“The task of creating it,” said Panurge.  “I have a mind to marry and get children.”

“We must consult the Oracle of the Divine Bottle,” exclaimed Pantagruel, “before you enter on so dangerous an undertaking.  Come, let us prepare for the voyage.”

V.—­The Divine Bottle

Pantagruel knew that the Oracle of the Divine Bottle could only be reached by a perilous voyage in unknown seas and strange islands.  But, undismayed by this knowledge, he fitted out a great fleet at St. Malo, and sailed beyond the Cape of Good Hope to Lantern Land.  As they were voyaging along, beyond the desolate land of the Popefigs and the blessed island of the Papemanes, Pantagruel heard voices in the air, and the pilot said:  “Be not afraid, my lord!  We are on the confines of the frozen sea, where there was a great fight last winter between the Arimaspians and the Nepheliabetes.  The cries of the men, the neighing of the horses, and all the din of battle froze in the air, and now that the warm season is come, they are melting into sound.”

“Look,” said Pantagruel, “here are some that are not yet thawed.”  And he threw on deck great handfuls of frozen words, seeming like sugar-plums of many colours.  Panurge warmed some of them in his hands, and they melted like snow into a barbarous gibberish.  Panurge prayed Pantagruel to give him some more, but Pantagruel told him that to give words was the part of a lover.

“Sell me some, then,” cried Panurge.

“That is the part of a lawyer,” said Pantagruel.  But he threw three or four more handfuls of them on the deck, and as they melted all the noises of the battle rang about the ship.