Charles Dudley Warner (1829—1900) was a widely read American essayist and novelist. He was a friend of Mark Twain, with whom he collaborated in writing the novel, The Gilded Age: The Take of Today.
His essay, “The Pursuit of Happiness,” was published in the Century Magazine (December 1900), and deserves to be read in our own age.
The Pursuit of Happiness
Perhaps the most curious and interesting phrase ever put into a public document is “the pursuit of happiness.” It is declared to be an inalienable right. It cannot be sold. It cannot be given away. It is doubtful if it could be left by will.
The right of every man to be six feet high, and of every woman to be five feet four, was regarded as self-evident until women asserted their undoubted right to be six feet high also, when some confusion was introduced into the interpretation of this rhetorical fragment of the eighteenth century.
But the inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness has never been questioned since it was proclaimed as a new gospel for the New World. The American people accepted it with enthusiasm, as if it had been the discovery of a gold-prospector, and started out in the pursuit as if the devil were after them.
If the proclamation had been that happiness is a common right of the race, alienable or otherwise, that all men are or may be happy, history and tradition might have interfered to raise a doubt whether even the new form of government could so change the ethical condition. But the right to make a pursuit of happiness, given in a fundamental bill of rights, had quite a different aspect. Men had been engaged in many pursuits, most of them disastrous, some of them highly commendable. A sect in Galilee had set up the pursuit of righteousness as the only or the highest object of man’s immortal powers. The rewards of it, however, were not always immediate. Here was a political sanction of a pursuit that everybody acknowledged to be of a good thing.
Given a heart-aching longing in every human being for happiness, here was high warrant for going in pursuit of it. And the curious effect of this ‘mot d’ordre’ was that the pursuit arrested the attention as the most essential, and the happiness was postponed, almost invariably, to some future season, when leisure or plethora, that is, relaxation or gorged desire, should induce that physical and moral glow which is commonly accepted as happiness. This glow of well-being is sometimes called contentment, but contentment was not in the programme. If it came at all, it was only to come after strenuous pursuit, that being the inalienable right.
People, to be sure, have different conceptions of happiness, but whatever they are, it is the custom, almost universal, to postpone the thing itself. This, of course, is specially true in our American system, where we have a chartered right to the thing itself. Other nations who have no such right may take it out in occasional driblets, odd moments that come, no doubt, to men and races who have no privilege of voting, or to such favored places as New York city, whose government is always the same, however they vote.
We are all authorized to pursue happiness, and we do as a general thing make a pursuit of it. Instead of simply being happy in the condition where we are, getting the sweets of life in human intercourse, hour by hour, as the bees take honey from every flower that opens in the summer air, finding happiness in the well-filled and orderly mind, in the sane and enlightened spirit, in the self that has become what the self should be, we say that tomorrow, next year, in ten or twenty or thirty years, when we have arrived at certain coveted possessions or situation, we will be happy. Some philosophers dignify this postponement with the name of hope.
Sometimes wandering in a primeval forest, in all the witchery of the woods, besought by the kindliest solicitations of nature, wild flowers in the trail, the call of the squirrel, the flutter of birds, the great world-music of the wind in the pine-tops, the flecks of sunlight on the brown carpet and on the rough bark of immemorial trees, I find myself unconsciously postponing my enjoyment until I shall reach a hoped-for open place of full sun and boundless prospect.
The analogy cannot be pushed, for it is the common experience that these open spots in life, where leisure and space and contentment await us, are usually grown up with thickets, fuller of obstacles, to say nothing of labors and duties and difficulties, than any part of the weary path we have trod.
Why add the pursuit of happiness to our other inalienable worries? Perhaps there is something wrong in ourselves when we hear the complaint so often that men are pursued by disaster instead of being pursued by happiness.
We all believe in happiness as something desirable and attainable, and I take it that this is the underlying desire when we speak of the pursuit of wealth, the pursuit of learning, the pursuit of power in office or in influence, that is, that we shall come into happiness when the objects last named are attained. No amount of failure seems to lessen this belief. It is matter of experience that wealth and learning and power are as likely to bring unhappiness as happiness, and yet this constant lesson of experience makes not the least impression upon human conduct. I suppose that the reason of this unheeding of experience is that every person born into the world is the only one exactly of that kind that ever was or ever will be created, so that he thinks he may be exempt from the general rules. At any rate, he goes at the pursuit of happiness in exactly the old way, as if it were an original undertaking. Perhaps the most melancholy spectacle offered to us in our short sojourn in this pilgrimage, where the roads are so dusty and the caravansaries so ill provided, is the credulity of this pursuit. Mind, I am not objecting to the pursuit of wealth, or of learning, or of power, they are all explainable, if not justifiable,—but to the blindness that does not perceive their futility as a means of attaining the end sought, which is happiness, an end that can only be compassed by the right adjustment of each soul to this and to any coming state of existence. For whether the great scholar who is stuffed with knowledge is happier than the great money-getter who is gorged with riches, or the wily politician who is a Warwick in his realm, depends entirely upon what sort of a man this pursuit has made him. There is a kind of fallacy current nowadays that a very rich man, no matter by what unscrupulous means he has gathered an undue proportion of the world into his possession, can be happy if he can turn round and make a generous and lavish distribution of it for worthy purposes. If he has preserved a remnant of conscience, this distribution may give him much satisfaction, and justly increase his good opinion of his own deserts; but the fallacy is in leaving out of account the sort of man he has become in this sort of pursuit. Has he escaped that hardening of the nature, that drying up of the sweet springs of sympathy, which usually attend a long-continued selfish undertaking? Has either he or the great politician or the great scholar cultivated the real sources of enjoyment?
The pursuit of happiness! It is not strange that men call it an illusion. But I am well satisfied that it is not the thing itself, but the pursuit, that is an illusion. Instead of thinking of the pursuit, why not fix our thoughts upon the moments, the hours, perhaps the days, of this divine peace, this merriment of body and mind, that can be repeated and perhaps indefinitely extended by the simplest of all means, namely, a disposition to make the best of whatever comes to us? Perhaps the Latin poet was right in saying that no man can count himself happy while in this life, that is, in a continuous state of happiness; but as there is for the soul no time save the conscious moment called “now,” it is quite possible to make that “now” a happy state of existence. The point I make is that we should not habitually postpone that season of happiness to the future.
No one, I trust, wishes to cloud the dreams of youth, or to dispel by excess of light what are called the illusions of hope. But why should the boy be nurtured in the current notion that he is to be really happy only when he has finished school, when he has got a business or profession by which money can be made, when he has come to manhood? The girl also dreams that for her happiness lies ahead, in that springtime when she is crossing the line of womanhood—all the poets make much of this—when she is married and learns the supreme lesson how to rule by obeying. It is only when the girl and the boy look back upon the years of adolescence that they realize how happy they might have been then if they had only known they were happy, and did not need to go in pursuit of happiness.
The pitiful part of this inalienable right to the pursuit of happiness is, however, that most men interpret it to mean the pursuit of wealth, and strive for that always, postponing being happy until they get a fortune, and if they are lucky in that, find at the end that the happiness has somehow eluded them, that; in short, they have not cultivated that in themselves that alone can bring happiness. More than that, they have lost the power of the enjoyment of the essential pleasures of life. I think that the woman in the Scriptures who out of her poverty put her mite into the contribution-box got more happiness out of that driblet of generosity and self-sacrifice than some men in our day have experienced in founding a university.
And how fares it with the intellectual man? To be a selfish miner of learning, for self-gratification only, is no nobler in reality than to be a miser of money. And even when the scholar is lavish of his knowledge in helping an ignorant world, he may find that if he has made his studies as a pursuit of happiness he has missed his object. Much knowledge increases the possibility of enjoyment, but also the possibility of sorrow. If intellectual pursuits contribute to an enlightened and altogether admirable character, then indeed has the student found the inner springs of happiness. Otherwise one cannot say that the wise man is happier than the ignorant man.
In fine, and in spite of the political injunction, we need to consider that happiness is an inner condition, not to be raced after. And what an advance in our situation it would be if we could get it into our heads here in this land of inalienable rights that the world would turn round just the same if we stood still and waited for the daily coming of our Lord!
Featured: Fröhliche Sangesrunde mit einer Donaulandschaft (Merry Round of Singing, with Danube Landscape), by Rudolf Alfred Höger; painted ca. 1930.
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Parvus vicus inter montes villae iacebat, ex qua quadriennio ad pugnam egressi sunt. Primo ierant optimi viri, deinde senes, deinde iuvenes, postremo pueri ludi. Videbitur neminem in villa remanere nisi pervetustis ac imbecillis corporis, qui mox exstinctus est, propter rei publicae belli rationem, ut pereat inutilis quo plus escae esset utilior.
Contigit autem omnibus hominibus praeterquam quod remanserant in tarta fame, pauci redierunt, pauci vero debiles et variis modis deformati. Iuvenis unus tantum partem faciei habebat, et pictam larvam stanneam induerat, sicut festus fabricator. Alius duo crura habebat sine bracchia, alius duo bracchia sed non crura. Vix unus a matre aspici poterat, exstinctis oculis de capite, donec instare morti aspiceret. Non bracchia, non crura, furens insuper aerumna, totumque diem in cunis velut infans iacebat. Erat autem ille senex admodum, qui nocte ac die strangulatus a veneni vapore; et alius juvenculus, qui, sicut folium in alto vento, a concharum concussione concussit, et ad sonum clamavit. Et ipse quoque manum et partem faciei amiserat, etsi non satis larvam ei sumptum ad warantizandum.
Hos omnes, praeterquam qui sui horrore extorres erant, ingeniosis adjumentis instructos, ut partim se sustentarent, et de tributis, quae victae genti onerabant, satis mereretur.
Ire per illum pagum post bellum erat quasi perambulans viculum vitae mediocris cum omnibus figuris mechanicis glomeratis et strepitantibus. Tantum pro figuris novis, hilaresque et bella, quassata et deridicula et inhumana.
Forent molendinum, et ferrariam, et domum publicam. Ordo casularum, villa, ecclesia, cataractae scintillantes, campi multicolores diffunduntur instar collium panniculorum, volucrum pompae, caprae et vaccae, etsi non multae postremae. Fuerunt mulieres, et cum eis aliqui pueri; perpaucae tamen, quia rationabiles feminae erant, et iam nollent habere filios, qui eis inermes ac furiosi aliquando remitti possent, in cunis gestari, fortasse multos annos.
Adhuc juniores, molliores impulsu, pepererunt aut duas. Horum unus, secundo belli anno natus, tribus admodum flavis et globulus scelestus fuit, truculento aere et piratico ingenio. Sed eae notae pueris satis teneris annis ineunt, et fuit quasi ludicra vicus, hic, illic, et ubique, in familiarissimis belli naufragiis, quod reipublicae gubernatio fecerat.
Ille in stagno quaesivit larvam et crus pistoris mechanicum ludebat, ita indulgens illi libidini suae; et saxum superflue oblectabat cunabula hominis, qui sine membris erat, et patrem.
In ac foras cucurrit, et flexis adsuevit. Alii amisisset filium, alii filium habere posset, si mundus aliter discessisset. Aliis brevis umbra futuri sine spe evasit; aliis tamen diversitas horae. Hoc maxime verum erat de caeco, qui ad fores suae veteris matris casae scopae ligaturae sedit. Praesentia pueri visa est ei sicut calidum solis radium per manum incidens, et eum ad morandum alliceret permittens tentare magnas caeruleas goggles quas in publico optime gestare invenit. Nulla tamen deformitas vel deformitas homunculi hominem terrere visus est. Haec ab infantia prima ludibria.
Quodam mane, mater, lotis vestibus occupata, eum solum reliquerat, confidens se mox aliquod fragmentum militis amicissimum quaesiturum, et usque ad meridiem et inedia se oblectaturum. Aliquando autem pueri habent notiones impares, et contrarium eorum quae quis supponit.
Hac aestate praeclaro mane puer solitariam vagari in ripa montis fluvii existimabat. Vage lacunam altius sursum petere voluit, et in eo lapides ejicere. Nunc in parvas valles, vel anates vias persequentes, lente errabat. Ante decem, quam virides nitentes spumeusque lacusque desuper adeptus erat, canae saxi delapsus in umbram, ter cui pinus in novo vertice plana flectitur aura. Sub illis, aspiciens puerum quasi nubem albam in viridi coelo, stabat juvenis pulcher, qui divei in meram ripam libratus. Vno momento ibi constitit umbra et sole obsita, proxime ita perite ediderat ut vix aquam circum se spargeret. Tum atro rorante caput constitit, micatque bracchia fixo navit ad litora. Alius divei scopulum conscendit. Has actiones in puro lusu et vitae laetitia repetivit toties ut spectatoris eius vertiginis excubiae fierent.
Tandem ille satis procubuit abiectis vestibus. Hos in occultiore loco gerebat, celeriter indutus, puer luscus et mirabundus, quippe qui multa in animo haberet.
Duo bracchia, duo crura habebat, totum vulto oculis, naso, os, mento, auribus, plenum. Videbat enim eum vestitum perstrinxisse. Loqui poterat, magna canebat. Audire poterat, nam cito ad stridorem columbarum alarum post se deflexerat. Pellis eius toto orbe teres erat, nusquam in eo atro coccineo tabulae, quas in brachiis, facie, et pectore exustis puer reperit. Non omne strangulavit pusillum, aut insano tremit, et ad sonum clamat. Vere inexplicabile, ideoque terribile.
Incipiente puero ad nutantem, tremefacit, matrem suam circumspectat, adulescens eum animadvertit.
“Bene!” avide clamabat, “si puer non est!”
Accessit per pontem peditem gratissimo risu, hoc enim primum illo die, quem puerum viderat, et mirum putabat, tam paucos natos esse in valle, ubi, cum haberet. Ante quinquennium ita fuerat, ut vix tot denarios invenire potuissent. Itaque “Salve,” inquit, “laete, et in loculos scrutatus est.”
At stupefactus puer flavos puerulus perterritus exclamavit in arma propere ad puellam confugit. Illa eum evidenti subsidio amplexa est, atque in eum modum objurgationis et deliciarum largiebatur, cum viator accessit, quasi laesus affectus.
“Mana mehercules,” inquit, “me modo filiolo tuo hos denarios dare voluisse.” Inspiciebat se admirationis. “Quid in terris est de me ut puerum terreat?” queritur quesiuit.
Utroque indulgens risit rustica virgo, ingemuitque puer, vultumque in oram abdidit, et in puero perplexum et formosum adulescentem.
“Est quia invenit Herr hospes tam inusitatus,” inquit, flectens. “Parvus est,” inquit, exiguitatem gestus ostendit, “et est primum totum hominem videri.”
(1917)
Featured: Untitled, by Gustav Wunderwald; painted ca. 1940s.
“Military service, under the banner, of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, brilliant soldier of the Elite Special Forces of the Spanish Old Tercios, at Lepanto, soul of every soldier and heart of Spain, is a divine virtue.”
For the first time since the death of the “King of Spanish Literature,” 407 years later, I have the great honor of dedicating a brief study to the invincible standards of the glorious Man of La Mancha, who loved them with all his heart and soul and defended them with the highest dignity, nobility and courage because “the soldier seems more likely to be dead in battle than alive and safe in flight” (Don Quixote, II-XXIIII).
Here the words of Major General (R) Rafael Dávila Álvarez come readily to mind: “There is nothing like the Spanish soldier, and my only aspiration has always been to be at his level.”
Under threat of imminent war against the Ottoman Empire of Selim II (1524-1574), Cervantes entered his first military service in Italy, and thanks to the recommendation of Giulio Acquaviva d’Aragona and Giovanni Girolamo I Acquaviva d’Aragona (1521-1592), the tenth Duke of Atri, and that of his son Adriano Acquaviva d’Aragona (1544-1607), very good friends of General Marcantonio Colonna (1535-1584), of whom Cervantes had heard “have often heard Cardinal de Acquaviva tell of your Lordship [Ascanio Colonna, Abbot of Santa Sofia] when I was his chamberlain at Rome” (Galatea, 1585).
Indeed, Cervantes’ first military mission began under the command of Marcantonio, who led numerous naval operations before the battle of Lepanto, and whom Cervantes served for more than two years, according to the dedication of La Galatea addressed to Cardinal Ascanio Colonna (1560-1608), where he affirmed that “I may at least deserve it for having followed for several years the conquering standards of that Sun of warfare whom but yesterday Heaven took from before our eyes, but not from the remembrance of those who strive to keep the remembrance of things worthy of it, I mean your Lordship’s most excellent father.”
To Cervantes it was an opportune occasion to restore his reputation and to enter the army because “the Turk was coming down with a powerful armada and his design was not known, nor where he was going to unload such a great cloud” (Don Quixote, II-I). Therefore, on June 5, 1570, Pope Pius V (1504-1572) appointed the Roman Marco Antonio Colonna, the general in chief of the pontifical squadron, and on July 15 of the same year, the “Prince of Christendom” ordered “his commanders in Italy to place themselves under the orders of the General of the Armada of Pius V” (A.Z. c. 51 no. 2).
According to the historian Ricardo de Hinojosa y Naveros (Los despachos de la diplomacia Pontificia en España,185-86) Marcantonio was general of the pontifical galley squadron before April 1570, which was part of the twelve galleys assembled along with the sixteen galleys of the Genoese admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria on September 1, 1570 in La Suda in order to organize the relief-expedition of Cyprus and to raise the siege of Nicosia.
Cervantes joined the Pontifical Armed Forces in early 1570 and took part in the unsuccessful campaign for the relief of Nicosia, whose was launched on August 30, 1570 and then abandoned after the loss of Nicosia.
Cervantes details that they arrived “at the strong island of Corfu, where they took water” (The Liberal Lover) and then crossed the place where The Liberal Lover began: “O pitiful ruins of wretched Nicosia, scarcely wiped with the blood of your valiant and unfortunate defenders!” and tells that “looking from an outcrop at the demolished walls of the already lost Nicosia; and so he spoke with them, and compared their miseries to his own, as if they were capable of understanding him.”
Cervantes undoubtedly served in a company of Marcantonio until the arrival of his brother Rodrigo in Genoa, on July 26, 1571, who was one of the 2,259 soldiers of the company of Captain Diego de Urbina, deployed in the Tercio of the field commander Miguel de Gurrea y Moncada (ca. 1549-1612) and in that of Lope de Figueroa, who crushed the Alpujarra rebellion under the command of John of Austria and the Third Duke of Sessa.
Cervantes alludes to the arrival of John in Genoa, on August 6, 1571, who on August 9, 1571 went on to Naples, as follows: “My good fortune would have it that Senor Don John of Austria had just arrived in Genoa and was passing on to Naples to join the Venetian armada” (Don Quixote, I-XXXIX).
Military historian Juan Luis Sánchez Martín thinks that Cervantes enlisted in Diego de Urbina’s company “between August 9 and August 19, 1571 in Naples” (Los capitanes del soldado Miguel de Cervantes, 176) and the letter of August 25, 1571 from Don Juan to García Álvarez de Toledo Osorio (1514-1577), captain general of the galleys of Naples, evidences the appearance of Spanish troops in the Venetian squadron thus: “I found here Marco Antonio de Colonna with the twelve galleys of his Holiness, which are in his charge, well in order; likewise I found Sebastián Vernier, general of the navy of the Venetians, with forty-eight galleys, six galleys and two ships” (M. Fernández Nieto, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quijote de la Mancha, 214-15).
On September 1, 1571 the sixty galleys from Venice arrived in Messina, and on September 8 Don Juan reviewed the fleet “in which he had boarded on his ships, the Venetians, 4000 soldiers, for the service of the king of Spain;” and on September 9 in Leguméniças he communicated that “with the occasion of a dispatch that I sent to Naples it has seemed to me to advise you that these Venetian gentlemen at the end have finished resolving to take in their galleys four thousand infantrymen of those of S. M… that is to say, 2500 Spaniards and 2500 Spaniards, that is to say, 2500 Spaniards and 1500 Italians” (J. A. Crespo-Francés, Miguel de Cervantes, 8).
On Sunday, October 7, 1571, Cervantes was part of the Third Squadron of the fifty-four ships of the Venetian commander Agustín Barbarigo (1500-1571), located on the left wing of La Real, led by Don Juan, about which on March 20, 1578, Ensign Mateo de Santisteban stated thus: “To know the said Miguel de Cervantes, which was the day that the said Cervantes served in the said battle, and was a soldier of the company of Captain Diego de Urbina in the galley Marquesa, of Juan Andrea” (K. Sliwa, Documentos De Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra, 49-50).
This statement proves that Cervantes fought in the only Genoese galley Marquesa, commanded by the Italian captain Francisco Molin, belonging to Admiral Giovanni Andrea Doria, No. 34 of the Third Squadron of the Venetian commander Augustin Barbarigo, second in the high command of the Venetian Fleet after the Venetian Admiral Sebastiano Venier (1496-1578).
At Lepanto, Cervantes was among, inter alia, the following standards:
Before ending this brief summary on the legacy of Cervantes, hero of Algiers, who infinite times, with tears of love, kissed the flag of his homeland, heart of Spain, I thank the excellent military historian and Infantry Brigadier, Miguel Angel Dominguez Rubio, decorated with the Cross of Military Merit with White Distinctive, the Cross of the Royal Military Order of San Hermenegildo and the NATO Medal, Head of the Communication Office, Infantry Regiment, “Tercio Viejo de Sicilia,” N. No. 67, and author of the exemplary book: 1719-2019 Tercio Viejo de Sicilia nº 67: 300 años de la llegada a San Sebastián (Halland Books, 2019), in collaboration with Josué del Cristo Pineda Gómez. His love, sacrifice and bravery to Spain, homeland of heroes, and his gift of the shoulder flash, the medal with the words: “Valor, Firmeza y Constancia” [Courage, Firmness and Constancy], and the pocket flag of the Infantry Regiment, “Tercio Viejo de Sicilia,” No. 67, whose words ennoble all of us, who love “our sweet Spain, beloved homeland” (Treatise on Algiers):
With this Flag on your pocket, you will always carry with you a piece of our Homeland. It will help you to keep your commitment of Service to Spain. It will remind you of all those who fight by your side and are proud of your sacrifice and it will give you the strength will give you the strength for your dedication in the defense of our Nation, its values and its freedom.
I conclude by making a special emphasis that our exemplary and excellent Infantry Regiment, “Tercio Viejo de Sicilia”, No. 67, has as a collective pride to recite every morning the Camino del Sicilia, the stanzas that form the essence of our identity, and the voice of the colonel who exhorts us loudly: “This is the old Third!” And everyone responds with the verses of the Camino del Sicilia: “This is the old third,
which in death has proven more than a thousand times its nobility!” And this compendium of virtues and commitments is sealed with our “Battle Cry,” that is answered by the three words of response: “In combat, courage!”
“In our ideals, steadfastness! In preparation, constancy!” (M. Á. Domínguez Rubio, 1719-2019, Tercio Viejo de Sicilia, 50).
Laus in excelsis Deo.
Krzysztof Sliwa is a professor, writer for Galatea, a journal of the Sociedad Cervantina de Esquivias, Spain, and a specialist in the life and works of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and the Spanish Golden Age Literature, all subjects on which he has written several books. He has also published numerous articles and reviews in English, German, Spanish and Polish, and is the Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Cordoba and Toledo.
Featured: The Battle of Lepanto, fresco by Giorgio Vasari; painted ca. 1572-1573.
If you would like to learn to speak and read Latin using the acclaimed Ecce Romani series, consider enrolling in Apocatastasis Institute, where Latin is anything but dead!
Caput V
Nunc me animo et animo conieci in munus praeparandi ad primam navigationem.
Bulger non segnis erat ad intelligendum quid omnia properantia significarent.
Iter in ultimas terras prospectu delectabatur, ubi minus vitae similitudo de eo erat. Per horam sessurus et observaturus me ad labores meos, et subinde ei placendum, demonstravi articulos hic et illic circa cubiculum, et jussit eos adduci, quod semper faciebat, multis apparitionibus voluptatis. Permisso domino suo filiolo subvenire.
Namque omnibus manum humanissimam praebuisti, ut, mihi magnae laetitiae, tempus vacandi navigandi studio relinquerem.
Mater paupercula, benigna baronissa, nulli permitteret notare vestem meam. Suis gracilibus, albis digitis cristas et initiales meae vestiariae operata est.
Res erat quam in cogitationem meam per aliquot dies versatus sum, scilicet: Qualem nationis habitum adoptarem.
Post longam et maturam deliberationem me in Orientali habitu degere decrevi. Id ego pluribus de causis. Gratus habitus meus fuerat.
Gratia eius ornatior ad amorem pulchri provocavit, cum ex altera parte, facilitas et levitas, uni membri et elasticitati gradus extremae suppletionis valde gratam fecit. Dum vetus domus manerium proprie versabatur perversitas et omnes, a coco ad cubiculariam, auribus constitutus, senior baro haudquaquam otiosus erat. Ille inter alia satis cautus sum, me salubri re lectu instructus, et plures mihi libros sententiarum, praeceptorum, cogitationum, cogitationum et studiorum attulit, quos a me postulavit ut in vacua pectorum meorum angulos detruderem. Nam,’ inquit, ‘idque praeclaro rationis genere’, ‘multas otiosas horas habebis in tranquillitate tua. Mentem tuam pascere oportet, ne ejus mirabilis progressio reprimatur, et fias vulgaris puer, nullis cogitationibus supra ludos et libros picturis. Mater paupercula, benignissima baronissa, huic bonarum literarum prosapia accessit, exhibens mihi parvo volumine inscripto: « Via recta ad Salutem bonam; vel, Doctorem suum omnes. Quod ad medicinam cistam meam pertinet, hanc meam vigilantiam dedi, nam semper in omni genere symptomatum et in arte legendi peritus fui, et rara facultate cognoscendi prope insita, quid remedium ad aliquod aegritudinem daret, nisi prius experirentur. Haud ex alio temptando, sicuti plerisque moris est, qui mederi aegritudinem fingunt.
Omnia nunc bene gerebam, et eram in animo optimo, cum seniorem Baronem ad me venit cum rogatione, quae aliqua de causa, vix scire possum, cur mihi displiceat, tametsi videatur habere debuisse; oppositum effectum. Proposuit me praecedere per hebdomadam vel decem dies ad Mare Septentrionalem, in cuius portu aliquo celeri, firmo vasculo empto et instructo, ipsum navigium empturus, operam suam, ut eam aptaret, darem. Naviculas delectorum turba.
Quid facerem?
Quod si recusarem, quantum esset ad confessionem diffidentiae meae.
Potestne in animo habere aliquod consilium quod technam meam repugnet?
O cogitatio!
Sed fateor me oblatum eius officia non sine gravi haesitatione suscepisse.
Haec subita anxietas majoris baronis, ad profectionem meam festinandam, cum tam diu et tam fortiter restitisset, me aliquantulum turbat in animo meo.
Priusquam proficisceretur ad Mare Septentrionale ad emendum mihi navem, senior baro prior cameram meam ingressus est, et sic locutus est.
Ignosce, parve baro, intermissis laboribus tuis, nam te profunde in studio navigandi esse video.
‘Loquere, baro,’ inquam, ‘respiciens, pernicioso risu,’ quod tibi rectum est.
Postremam petitionem habeo, inquit, more suo tranquillo, neque maximi momenti est. Magis placet, quam aliud. Tu scis ex ore meo, et ex lectione familiarum nostrorum, quod fuimus antiquitus latissimi possessores in litore Maris Septentrionalis. Compluribus portubus usi sumus multum in mercatura, saltem duodecimo mense navibus emissis. Portus nostri ditionis unus fuit celeberrimus, et inclutus, et excursus, alveus, mira indole clarus, etc. Dictum de hoc portu periculosius esse quam mare apertum, naves vero tutiores fuisse. Eius quam in ea. In his omnibus nescio quantum veri sit, sed scio quod unus antecessor noster, non solum navigavit in illud, sed etiam re- gressus est in eo, quia scias illum canalem, per quem navis admittitur; ad hunc portum iterum adhiberi non potuit, cum inexsuperabilis vena semper una via flueret, a mari scilicet in arcanum hunc lacum. Ut excederet, nauta audax alteri alvei suo corticem credere debet, et in hoc periculum delitescit.
« Gratum est mihi valde, parvule baro, si posses probare mundo quod, quantumvis difficile, alii duces olim reperti et nunc invenirent, e portu navigare, nulla tamen tibi offerebat impedimenta insuperabilis; quapropter venio te rogare ut ex hoc portu solvas.
“Dicitur?” Quaesivi neglegenter, cum ad aquilonis maris chartulam me convertissem.
“Portus Portus Nulli hominis,” respondit baro.
“Nomen mihi placet,” inquam, “Iube navem meam ibi me opperiri!”
Exsurgens senior baro, corpusque decoro Inflexo discessit. Ad ianuam eum comitatus, et eum honorifice obulans dimisi.
“Portus Nulli hominis” respondi. “Ah, hic chartula!” Textus describit hoc modo:
“Multis annis relictus; ingressu facilis; tam periculosum egressum, ut perniciosum significaret iniuriam, nisi exitium, ad navigandum astum; alveus exterior obstructus a voragini horribili et inclinata petra vocata ‘Thor’s Hammer:’ pelvis interior valde periculosissima ex arenis semper mutabilibus; claudi iussu Ministerii Regii Commercii et Marine ». His peractis verbis lectione exsilui, et pavimentum inscii ac semianimis agere coepi.
Sanguis in cerebrum irruit. Debui consistere et haerere dorso altae sellae quercus, aut vacillasse et ad terram decidisse.
Tumultuatus vehementer pertimuit ululatusque maeroris suppressus. Cum eo tam placide locutus sum, ut illum consolari possem.
Paucis post momentis vertigo excidit et mens mea funditus expurgata est.
“Immo impossibile est,” insusurravi, “maior baro non potuit me malae fidei esse reus! Tolle hanc cogitationem! Errat inprudentia et inscientia. Ille parum novit teterrimos periculosas negotii, quem praeficit. Ad eum, sermones de naufragio et de morte in Port No Man’s Portus non sunt nisi fabulae vitae nautarum antiqui. Non enim tam levissimam suspicionem suam, tam leviter, quam unigenitum, filium et haeredem principis fortunae, et nomen honoratum, aut immergi, aut pavido voragine immergi, aut in exitium immergi. Per ictu Thor’s Hammer.
Et tamen quid murmurat?
“Sero est reclamare. Iam senior baro superbus nuntium sibi praedicavit mundo, filium renovaturus priscae familiae suae glorias! Faciendum est ex duobus unum: haec pericula, ut hominem frigidum, tranquillum animi, aut me damnem vitae hebetis ac languidi, magnatae provinciae, non heros duorum mundorum!
“Minime! Alea iacta est!
Dixi et factum est sicut bonum est.
“Navis mea navigat a Portu Nulli Hominis, aut corpusculum hoc die piscem suum alit!”
Lucebant nimirum oculi mei, et ruborem ruborem genae susceperunt, nam Bulgerus, qui soliloquium meum audierat, gravissima facie in vultu, cum in vanum conaretur sensum verborum meorum, iam fregit. E in vivacem admodum seriem corticum, terminans et exiliens circa cubiculum in asperrima hilaritate. Solus etiam bene sciebat aliquod atrox certamen in animo meo gestum esse.
Iam bene omnia intellexit. Fidelis creatura, si tantum amorem suum indicaret, quomodo omnes homines amantes erubesceret!
Cum appropinquaret hora mihi, ut valediceret ad aulam baroniam, bona domina, clementissima baronissa, mater mea, subito cogitavit de mille et rebus, quae mihi maximi momenti videbatur. Monuit me in captura non esse dormire; panem recenter coctum non gustare; non ut exustus aqua frigida bibat; ungues ne digitos breviores incidant; non aperto ore dormire; vestem meam ne longiore hebdomade induaris; dentes peniculus ne despicias; ne deficiant comae novae lunae; non intendit oculos legenti levi levi, ne deglutiat cibum meum, nisi penitus mandendo; non ut rideam, dum cibum in ore meo habui; ne sternumenta prohibere conentur; non despicias frumenta meas; ne mucrone dentes carpere meos; finem nasi sine speculo non examinare; carnes non sine pipere, vel olera sine sale; ne post magnam cenam enitar; dormienti crure non stare; non tam celeriter, ut lateri meo dolorem capiam; ne somnum quidem, nisi prius a dextris meis quievissem; ne deficias diripio, si in tenebris micare vidi; ne despicias ligare ligaturam circa collum meum, si guttur meum gravem, etc., etc., etc. Omnes servi et clientes, intus et extra, in conspectu meo, osculati sunt manum meam, et in me benedictiones dederunt.
Impune dixeris solum esse praesens non flevisse Bulgerum fuisse. In tantum intentus erat ut per horam vel tam currendo e manerio ad carpentum transiret, et rursus miserabili conatu processuras incederet.
Initium fecimus tandem.
Centum manus vale nobis quassabant.
Degentes arbores in aula baroniae clausae solenniter versabantur. Laetatus sum cum e vestibulo curiae evolvi, quia mihi quieti et quieti opus erat.
Nervi mei in tali tractu mensis praeteriti fuerant ut mutatio scaenae mihi balsamum et relaxationem attulisset.
Iter meum ad Mare Septentrionalem quievit et incommodum fuit.
Navem meam in Port No Man’s Port tuto ancoram inveni, et ibi Seniorem Baronem praefecit. Me vela gubernatori immisit, et ipse amantibus armis me pressit, et blando subridens arduus unda manus, in raeda familiari se consedit. Unius valedicendi fuit.
“Fili, sapientia tua haereditate ad te venit. Non potuisti adepti. Itaque tam nobili dono uti. Vale!”
Silens tacens intendit caput. Raeda revolvit. Solus ego steti. Imo verus et amans ibi fuit. Suspexit oculis magnis, nitorem, quasi dicat:
“Noli tristis esse, mi magister. Omnis qui vadit, per te semper manebo!”
Conversus ad dominum meum velificandum, navigium expediri iussit, et statim explorare portum arcanum in quo mea navis ancoris iacebat.
Hanc ego pelvim spatiosam esse inveni, saxo alligato inclusam litore. Aquis in locis sub atris et vitreis superficiebus obdormivit; in aliis autem omnis motus et motus fuit. Fervens et ebulliens contra immittit arenae candidae globos undae, huc atque illuc, tanquam damnatae ad perpetuas inquietudines.
Quod homines mei, dum in variis sinus partibus piscantur, pisces profundi maris saepe deprehenduntur, mihi probaverunt Portum No Man’s per canalem a quattuor ad sex passus in altitudinem traiectum esse.
Sola difficultas foret huius viae semper vagae limites figere, dum per pelvim navigandum erat.
Deinde animum ad voragines converti. Coniunctionem alvei exterioris cum basi Port No Man’s Portus notavit.
Aliquot puppibus damnatis ad probandi vim et furorem gurgitis emptis, validam gubernacula ad litus appulsam eduxi, et hoc modo intra navis longitudinem immittere potui. Gurgite summa salus. Etenim, cum tantae fluitantis corporis irruptione ad plenum furorem incitatum est, visus terrorem fortissimi cordi incutere.
Cum magno sono et murmure aquae ejus in tumultum, ebullientem, bullientem, aestuantem, usque dum nivei spumae stagnum operiebant, sicut togam linteo infecit, sublato intrusore, qui tunc erat, unus de puppibus erat. In eas immitti iusserat, aquas iratas eas undique circumgyrabat. In momento, velut ingenti labore exhaustus, arcanus tranquillitas in stagnum subsedit. Spuma rupta ramentis molliter unda saliebat sinu. Pax erat omnia, nisi puppis adhuc tremefacta in gremio hujus monstri quietis iacebat!
Nam ecce! Excitatur iterum. Velocius et velocius praedam volvit. Altius atque bipatentes nunc faucibus urna descende infaustas puppis!
Clamor horrendus narrat finem prope esse.
Abierunt!
Hem, sed expecta! Praedam iterum dabit!
lam nunc frena natant pelago, rapidisque salientis aquis.
Mox solutos, fractos, fractosque valentis reliquiae puppis sequetur.
Monstrum aqueum hoc non pascit quod vorat! Solo amore exitii ipse perimit. Nox iam venerat. Redii ad meam navem. Horribiles et gurges detexit. At eos non timebam! Equus domitor ciun ferro freno inter frenos ac frendentes ferocem equitem tandem pervicit, victi iam sensi.
“Et nunc pro Thore Malleo!” clamor meus fuit, sicut sedi apud Bulgerum paulisper reflexionis.
Series prima glauci in oriente me in navi invenit.
“Thor’s Hammer” erat ingens scapus petrae nigrae, siliceae, eminens circiter pedes viginti ex aqua et in capite malleo desinens. Alveum, ubi ad mare pervenit, in medio stans, ita ut ex una vel altera parte urceum transire cogeret.
Excubiae tremendae sub aqua quam ingenti globulo finiri necesse est, quae nervum in strato alvei cubile sibi in fuga temporis attulerat; torsit enim laxus et solutus, omnique valido fluctuans latere in latus, ad perniciem quamlibet transitoriam artis celerem minans.
Ut ingenue dicam, terribili me exterruit machinae visio! Quid fugiam tantae vigilis vigilantiae, qui nescit somnum, nullam quietem, cuius in amicum vel inimicum pari furore ictus cadunt? Quomodo illum quiescam paulisper?
Intentus incumbere incumbere vires, celeritatem, et indolem ictuum “Thor’s Hammer”, multa ingentia tabulae et materiae erigi feci iuxta situm tanti vigilis petrae. Unum ex alio in alveum mitti iussi.
In primis satis paralyticus sum ad inveniendum etiam tenuem voragines e trudibus unius ex his ligneis structuris saxum vibrans vibratione posuisse et semper ad rem transeuntem.
Ex effectu Thor’s Hammer super has massas tabulae et ligna fluitantia, unus ictus sufficeret ad vitam ipsam opprimendam e nave mea, propter eximiam eius firmitudinem.
fixi fixa formidine ominibus. Sentire potui sudoris grana fronti erumpere et genas manare. Nunquid cedere et domum redire, fractos animos, humiliatos, ludibrium, ludibrium, villae ingenii, ludi ac risus in omni casa rustici argumento?
Oh, no! Fieri non potest, non oportet!
Sicut fulgur coruscans, cogitatio per tenebras mentis meae exarsit.
Non somnias? Itane vero?
Una e structuris ligneis adhuc manebat. Animum compescens aegre, praecipitari in alveum iussi, et opportunitatem cepi ut specularetur iterum arduus irae vigiliae. Paucis momentis “Thor’s Hammer” artificii adventum sensit, et se in impotens ira inflexit verberans aerem ictibus, qui ocius et ocius ceciderunt! Immo recte! Cum olim Thor’s Malleus laborem mortis et ruinae inceperat, non ab officio suo deflexit, dummodo aliquid superesset ei quod furorem insumeret!
Nec fuit ulla infausta calliditate fugae, donec teritur passibus. Imminens ictus, stridula terribili clamore secuta. Nec dum eiectae tenues ibant ad litora proras, Cessavit in atra silices telum rota furiosa.
Conversus ad dominum meum navigantem, qui cum admirandis oculis in me positis steterat, placido et negligenti sono exclamavi: “Tribus diebus, Gubernator, si sereno sereno, Portum Nulli Hominis Portum relinquimus!”
Massa surrexit in gutture suo, sed devoravit eam, et clamavit:
Immo vero, domine.
Et quam tres erant dies occupatus! Haud diu mei viri aliquid novi ducis invictum animi ceperant. Laboravi eos, sed bene cibavi, ministravi larga manu, sed prudens manu, et videbat omnia eorum necessaria saturari. Admiratio in admiratione, et admiratio eorum.
Prima die manus omnes, quae parceri poterant, ad piscandum lineas faciendas destinatae sunt, altera parte falce valida, altera subere innatat. Sectae sunt lineae circiter tres passus longitudinis, et liniamenta purpurea picta erant. Tunc imperavi tres iuratos malos, unam mids naviam et unam anteriorem et aff.
Homines mei voluntarie operam dabant, sed aliquoties deprehendebam eos in fronte percutiendo et aspectus significantes immutando. Sed si hic ultimus ordo eos in studium brunneum proiecerit, proximus meus effectus bombshellae in medio eorum explodendi habuit.
Navigantes omnesque, me intuebantur quasi exspectantes ut annihilarent.
Meus iussus erat calces gubernaculo sub capite figurae rigare. Vas maritimum, quod miseram, nunc otiose navigans in Portum Nulli hominis Portum. Gubernatori mandavi ut nautae tres menses extra mercedem solverent et eos dimitterent.
Quo facto, viri nostri in dextera parte oram verberare iussi sunt.
Credo equidem totum consilium meum, tam diligenter elaboratum, hoc in loco solum ab omni delicto servatum esse a fideli mei Bulgeri sapientia.
Litorus quamprimum ad nostrum latus defricuit, quam leviter per convicium insiluit, se lusu nitide ac nitide agere coepit. Repente prope unum excludit et in furiosissimum latrantem erupit. Et vocavi unum de ministris meis, ut viderem acumen et viderem quidnam esset. Paulum unum ex emissis nautis in praesidio deprehensum renuntiavit. Cum eum in vincula coniectum minatus esset, fassus est consilium suum ad oram maritimam secare, cum navis nostrae ad gurgitem appropinquasset.
Angustus effugium erat.
Carus, fidelis Bulger, quantum tibi debemus illi inventioni!
Tertius dies illuxit clara et pulchra.
Ventus secundus erat, valido litore flante.
Ad primam lucem perculsi sunt homines mei et aspectus speculatores mei.
Salutant me Bulgerum et tres magnos clamores.
Fecerant in animo id quod nesciebam, Bulger fecit! Tandem omnia parata sunt!
Adnuisti gubernatori velificanti, et subito vel sic ergastulum revolvi coepit, et laetus “Yo, o superne!” narrabant ancora inchoata. Centum acies ratibus bene inescatis iam excidere. Stans super taffrail manu vitreum, eos diligentius et anxie observavi.
Finge gaudium meum cum aliquot ex his purpureis ratibus evanescentibus instar fulguris, exsurgere, et momento iterum evanescere.
“Primum parta est,” clamavi. “Alveum inveni!”
Cito verbum transeundo ad dominum navigandum qui calces gubernandae praeerat, bonum meum navi tarde e Port No Man’s Portus, puppi primum movetur. Iterum atque iterum hamatis lineis purpureis ratibus praecipitantur. Pisces aquae profundae, qui semper alveum suum circumferebant, constanter ad opus servabant. Ut nostra navis processerat, lineas trahit atque ita tortum cursum distinxit. Speculum in manu, hanc partem consilii mei prosperam operam navavi, venis tinguentibus et cor continenti. Clamor huzza ex nostris narra mihi, quas vagas purgavimus arenas. Immo verum est! Basem Portus Portus No hominis! Frustra horrenda volutant syrtes. Non fatis erat ut navem baronis immergerent!
Sed vide! Angustias canalis! Nigrescunt aquae, et turbantur; Et audiat!
Non audistine illum stolidum rugitum? Ego e taffrail descendo! inter viros meos omitto et hic illico verbum consolationis omitto. Mea perfecta tranquillitas ea imprimit. Non gaude, heu, domine! ascendit, sed responsionem in vultu video. Est: “Confido tibi, centurio, loquere!” Hebes rugitus in maius crescit.
Rapaces conprehendunt et perferunt sicut astulae in spumae fluminis aestus. Nostra firmissima saxa quasi toy navis. Hinc stridoribus coaetor verberatur alter, et fremit indomitis nisus erumpere.
Ad me vocans Bulgeram circumeo aciem, et firmiter verberat in pelagus, timui enim ne subitus emitteret deseri. Die, trepidantes cursu, perlabitur undas. rugitus obstrepit. Aspicio ad nautas meos. Facies aeneae albae sunt. Inhaerent et in arundineto degunt. Oculi eorum in me confisi sunt.
Ecce! Timidus vorago ante nos mortuus est. Spumosis faucibus aperit velut monstrum terribile. In ipso os eius insilimus. An perimus? Quomodo aliter fieri potest? Quas si vas firmum esset nucis, atraque, furens, volubilis, praelians, ministri fervida cingentibus brachiis eam caperent, altam supra mare attollunt, eam undique circumagunt, ac tam terribilem vim moenium ingentia stillant. undique surgunt aquae, et fragilem rem ligneum minantur inundare. Sed mira mutatio maxime; vide quam vitreo innatat lacu! Spuma sub sole per undas saltat. Omnis pax est, ubi paulo ante natura furit dae- monis furore. Velox in cogitationem salio in caecas caecas: «Abscinde iudices malos!» Excidere cum fragore. Insanire homines laborent. Sciunt etiam quod omne instans sit ultimum eorum. Acatium nostrum iam levatum sine verbo aut clamore domum sternitur. Nimis morti sumus ut canamus! Vide! Vide! Ventum magnum velum implet! Movemus. Videntur aquae odorem nostrum effugere. Ad novum excitant furorem. Gravis murmur ab ipsis terrae visceribus vocat eos ut torpor excitent.
Earum nobis sunt.
Sero! Sero!
Verrimus e longinquo. Servati sumus! Servati sumus! Ex duobus faucibus clamor ascendit, unde metus nunc suscipit manum!
Respicere post tergum! Rapta quasi praeda, ingeminato evigilat vorago furore.
Centum scaturientes bracchii quasi rivuli scaturiunt et circumfundunt bonam navem nostram frustra conatu in illam terribilem vortice retrahendam.
Nubibus imbre et nebula perfundimur, dum sensim sed constanter cursum tenemus. Utinam tuti essemus in tumore maris, nam aliud adhuc periculum occurrit.
Alveus noster repente angustat. Biscuit murum saxei iactare potui, qui nos utrinque claudit.
Iterum altum silentium incidit in navim et remex, fracto modo miro sono aquarum inrumpentium, erumpentium ac defluentium, tam regulariter quam penduli oscillantium. Malleus Thor est, pavidas aquas in spumam verberans, quod a latere in latus flectit.
Gelidus torpet manus. Aspectu praecedens me excitat ictu tanquam manu invisibili. Ibi, cum sol matutinus in crista malleolo suo nixus, aversos saxum formidabile saxum, minatus instanti exitium nulli navii ausa est transire.
Iuxto meo iussu, omnis navigatio maritima posita erat, et gubernaculum eius verberavit, ut ad ius Thor’s Hammer transiret.
Tum ad Gubernator manum iactans, velum nostrum cum cursu descendit. Omnia tamquam leporem laboraverunt. Nostra navis retardavit, dum ad perniciem maritimam iaculatus est. Aspice, quam leto celerat peritura dolus. Increpuerat enim aura, et varios lauros et vexilla laetos, quae mei cucurrerant ad summum, volaebant rigido matutino aere.
Ibi! Nonne audisti ruinam illam?
Hammer Thor’s eam percussit!
Ictus sequitur ictus!
Crash! Fragor! Fragor!
Nostrum nunc tempus, neque numquam!
Indiligens non sum captus. Cum nos in litore essemus perspicui, vela satis erigi iussissem ut in cursu suo navem teneremus stabilitam.
Iam appropinquavimus ad Hammer Thor’s, quod in informi molem orae maritimae celeriter quatiebat. Frena impletur asseribus et lignis fractis impletur mare. Thor’s Malleus ad suum terrorem exitii laborem flectit, praesentiae nostrae immemor.
Quid atrox furoris potuit sustinere?
Ligna robusta cedunt sicut virgulta.
Aliud minutum, et monstrum habemus et eius victimam in nostro evigilo!
Nunc, nunc eum transimus! Vela tremunt ab ipso anhelitus impetu! Constrata est assulis nostra! Fremitus et fragor obstrepunt. Hammer Thor’s pro uno ultimo ictu ad costas et spinam victimae fractae et disiunctae flectit!
Euge! Euge!
Nostra navis bona in alto rotulo pectoris oceani immergit! In aperto mari sumus! Portus Nulli hominis, valete!
Cum homines mei ad ianuam saxosam respexissent et tristes vigiles portus Portus Nulli hominis, pileos in aerem iactaverunt et clamorem miserunt post clamorem.
Bulger cingitur cingulo, optime latratu strenuissimo agens, ut testetur suam admirationem parvulo domino suo.
Accessit navigatio; et cum tetigisset pileum et radit calceamenti pollicem calceamenti, exclamavit hilariter:
“Euge! Libellus Baron. Quod egregie factum est! Pro certo habebamus nos numquam debere per incertas arenas obtinere. Cum autem transirent, paratus eram ad gurges iurare opus nostrum breviare. Sed cum ex illo tuto navigaremus, accessi ad caudam clausurae paratae ad saliendum, nam sentiebam nihil nos ab ictu Thor’s Malleo salvare posse. Maculatus sum et griseus contra procellas dominii Neptuni, sed numquam dominum habui usque nunc.”
Adnuit et subridens, et sermonem in aliud locum cito convertit.
“In via, Gubernator,” inquam, “meminit, in ipso momento Anglicanum Channel purgamus, caput ad meridiem vertit!”
“Eia! Hey! Baro parvus!” responsum fuit. Vocans Bulgerum ad me iam infra ivi. Solus esse volui. Ita se res habet, cetera mihi opus est. Meorum nervorum spes et metus per hos dies indicare mihi diram incepit.
Me in conopeo iaciens, in soporem decidi unde a Bulgeris ploratu et vagitu excitatus sum.
Dominus navigat sollicite pulsum meum sentiens.
Ego dormivi tres dies et tres noctes. Hoc tempore Bulgerus omnino noluerat me a latere vel cibo sumendo discedere, cum nauclerus eum subtilissimis buccellis tentasset.
“In Atlantico lato, ad meridiem versus mortuus, parvus Baron,” responsum fuit.
“Bonum! Mitte mihi lardi temeriorem et callidum quempiam. Aura Atlantica appetitum mihi dedit et, Gubernator, addidi, “aculum volucri assi Bulger.”
“Nunc, terra calore et sole!” Murmuravi, “nunc pro domo aurantiorum et palmarum! Mihi non placet ventis frigidi, puer sum tropicorum, natus in terra, ubi natura operatur et homo ludit. Nullus umquam gelidus furor sibilavit tristes cunas meas! Qui volunt, dimidiam vitam degunt expectantes Tellurem matrem ut e somno hyemali excitent! Congelo corpus, et tu cerebrum riges. Ego sum eorum, qui magis flores amant quam nivis. Gloriosa terra Austri! Ave, puer iterum ad tua brachia venit, Suscipe benigne et amanter!
In meridiem, semper ad meridiem bona mea navis currit. Per diem navigium delphines in ludo spectare aut stuporem Bulgeri observare, cum pisces errantes in navi volitantes ceciderunt; nocte, oculis ardentem in cruce fixis australem, desiderabam tempus futurum, cum in acia quadam pulchro ramo corallio conchisque margaritis ornatam pedem ponerem, in cuius liquidis aquis pisces aureos in medio marinis plantis nidificarent. Non minus nitor.
Iam tres hebdomades erat cum ultimus murmur Hammer Thor’s in auribus nostris incidisset.
Meus chronometer.s. Omne velum positum est, et navis bona nostra tam lepide observavit quam hirundo volatu inclinata ad tangendas aquas vitrei lacus frigidos. Subito ventus cecidit, stabat navis nostra in immoto mari, pennata quasi filo pendebat. Non erat satis aer ad levandum fumum ab igne nostro triremis. Mirum in navi marique arcanum silentium appendit. Nimium novi quid velat. Eorum una formidandarum tranquillitas, quam nautica tempestas adurit magis timenda.
Nostra navis stabat quasi emporio marmoreo religata.
Et quia dies mens mea cogitatio emicuit, hebdomades etiam prius transirent, quam venti se iterum ad portandum iter haberent, summae languoris affectus supervenit mihi. Magnum opus erat mihi proicere.
Non audebam me viri quicquam dehortari in vultu videre.
Atqui labor erat. Nisi durior factus essem, ego flebam meum profectum videre in eo ipso momento quo prope in manibus erat victoria.
Item, sicut accidit, cum terrores Portus nullius Portus, sicut malignorum demonum potentiae, me in saxea circumtecta pelve in perpetuum clauderet, cogitationes mee ad domum reverterunt, seniori Baroni et gratiosa conjuge sua. carissima mater; servis et clientibus aulae baroniae; ut vicani et tenenti. Quomodo, o quomodo omnibus occurrerem, si turpi confessione defecissem iter ad domum redire cogerer?
Bulger in frontispicio primus umbrae. Obscuros ille nitidos oculos in me sic orando convertit ac si diceret: O homuncule, quid agis? Non possum a facie tua tristia pellere melancholia? Tu scis quomodo amo te. Doce me adiuvare te. Vita mea tua est. Sicut plumbum in corde meo premit dolor tuus. Loquere ad me parvulum dominum!” Leniter et amanter caput perculit, et mollissimis verbis ad eum locutus sum. Gavisus est, sed tamen sedit et observabat me, quia non potuit eum falli ficto esse levem et securum.
Secunda hebdomada invenit nos iacentes sicut tigillum in mola, vela nostra per levissimo flatu aeris; mare depressum in somnum quasi mors videbatur. Desperatio sedit in ora virorum. Excita te, parve baro. Murmuratus sum apud me, dum incedimus aream meam casulam, “Ubi est calliditas tua gloriata? Ubi est sapientia tua? Numquam dicere te virum esse consiliorum, cito ad excogitandum et ad faciendam promptum! Perdidisti tenere rotam locutam fortunae!”
“Putasne?” Ego autem in cogitationibus meis respondi.
“Sequere me, videbimus.” Vincto laxavi viam. Dominus navigat in navi obdormivit. Viri catervatim, hinc inde, ipsam desperationis imaginem spectabant. Gubernator cum strenuo cingulo ad cingulum excitans, adiutus a Bulgeri furentis latratibus eruptione, exclamavit:
“Avast! Ibi Gubernator. Somnum ab labore? Tibia omnia in navi manus!” Ascenderunt vivide, et oblectabant caedem meam velificantis, qui oculos attrivit, attonitus repentino impetu. “Mitte mihi faber naves.” perrexi; et frustum creta arripiens traxi consilium capsulae magnae vel cistae, fere modo latitudinis nostrae navis trabi, et mandavi fabro ut eam aedificarent fortissimis tabulis in tabula habendum. Ipse et socii mox in opere erant.
Conversus deinde ad cocum precepi eum ut porcos et volatilia, que ad nostram recentis copiam portaverat, interficeret, mandans ut caveret ne guttam sanguinis amitteret.
Haec ordines satis curiose feras meos.
Accessit navigans magister et conatus est mihi aliquid exponere, sed frustra. Profundior eram cogitatione loquendi.
Arca longa paucis horis parata erat. Verbum nunc ascendit quod navem deserturus sum et remigando terram attingere studeo, et hanc longam cistam commeatum tenere.
Naviculator rursus intuitum percontando in me defixit. Orantem non dissimulavi aspectum. Coquus iam recentem escam in promptu habebat. Totum sub pectore longum translatum est, perfusus sanguis, et arca secura occlusa cum operculo vitreo gravi, ex pluribus fragmentis confectus ad reparationem luminum fractis. Hoc tempore homines in arcano arcano et arcano adhuc contentis ita excitarunt, ut redire deberem, ut faber eiusque adiutores sine intermissione opere suo pergerent.
Proximum erat cistam plumbeis longam ponderare et armamenta ad singulas anulos ferreis firmis apponere. Cum paratis omnibus clamavi adstantes per saxum et deprimi. Ita ut demissionem longae cistae spectare possem, eam de tribus pedibus sub aqua demergere curavi et deinde in puppi navis eam firmiter verberare. Vix verbum demitterem omnibus velis, cum navis movere coepit! Effectus in viros ineffabilis fuit. Quidam exsanguis, steterunt quasi metu fixi. Alii in morem ferocem risum. Alii, qui de illis deerant, ad puppim mysterii integumentum proruperunt.
Satis erat aspectus!
Simplex post omnes.
Paulatim alii rationem recipiunt, et ad socios suos properant, et in aquas despiciunt, ubi capsulam longam, cum vitreo operculo et inusitata contenta, detruserunt. Interea bona nostra navis ocius et ocius per pigras et languidas aquas movit. Insonuit clamor, ter repetitus, cum plene solutum mysterium ascendit.
Sacramentum?
Audi ergo quid sit hoc sacramentum!
Primis diebus tranquillitas huius mortuae, quae velut stragulum terribile invisibiles monstri manus pervaserat, ad cohibendos progressus nostros, animadvertimus aquas immensas squalidum profluxisse; hos atroces daemones profundo nauigio nostro nauigio suspensos frequentibus, coeno deiectis allecti, multorum procul dubio animantium odore nauim conscendit.
Cum interdum magna purgamentorum copia in aquam incidit, adeo atrox impetus monstrorum rapacitatis fuit, ut vel latera vel puppim inruerent, velut instructae cohortes instructae in unum concurrerent.
Hoc admonitus feci. Si, ut cogitabam, hanc nunc feram vim tantum regere non possum, cur non utar illo graviore periculo navem meam quam furiosa tempestate eriperem? Multo enim satius est ululatum Obstrepere, et spumis spumis obstrepere undis, quam siti, anhela, pelagoque ligatus aperto.
Jam vero omnia mutata sunt.
In nostra, bona navis ivit, Increbrescente cursu, sine silentio, Velociter lapsus per aquas speculi. Longe melior mea ratio laborabat quam somniare auderem, nam dum recens per longae cistae rimas cruor manare coepit, monstruosi maris rapaces odore et gustu prope insaniunt. Maximus acerrimus et densus instat ordinibus, minores socios in sublime iactans, loca emissa, insana et avidissima praedae, quae se trahebat, in propinquo, semperque extra se.
Quod ubi Myrmidonum acies prima signa altae lassitudines ostenderunt, quam recentium et recentium tironum acies provolavit, dextra laevaque fatigatos, velut subere frenos, munus subegit. Semper cedentes praedae, quae, quamvis effuso sanguine et conspicuo, tamen nihil defatigatum scire videbantur, et tendere, et ante liaec tumultuantis impetu cohortes proruere.
Luna iam caeruleis moenibus aethera caeruleis fulgebat ut lamina caeruleis, frangiturque alta silentia soporis aquae torrens ingentium corpora micantia luce, dum moliti certabant urgere carinam. obiter.
Dormire non potui.
Panni laneo involutus, ut me ab insidiosis roribus tropicorum protegeret, in navi me conjeci, capite meo in gremio Bulgeri dejectus.
Aliquid mihi susurrabat, quod si inediti latrones profundi essent, solum suum munus retinerent usque ad matutinum solem orientem perplexum, molares ventos venientium flatum sentirent.
Sicque evenit. Prima luce lucem conspexit in stagno, Oceani Sinum. Eodem momento etiam animadverti nostram navem tarditatem esse. In taffrail exsilui. Ecce! Socii reliquerant. Nemo ex castris istius tumultus apparebat! Ah parum somniaverunt quomodo navem et nautas servaverunt! Quam immensa est hominis contentio! Bestiae agri, beluae altae, suo arbitrio ministrent, imperata facturos. Monstravi undam murmure, et cum primus ventus validus ad nos pervenit, parati eramus ad recipiendum. Omnis navis erat.
Exsultavit cor meum gaudio, ut nostra navis ad ventum traxit, ut vitse clavum paret!
Atque ita rem publicam meam navim et nautas graviore periculo quam procellosis fluctibus servavi. Ex hoc tempore omnia bene fuerunt. Vix hebdomadam intercesserat cum clamorem insuetum, qui dulcius auribus meis sonabat quam vox regis ad aulicum.
“Ho terra! Mortuus est ante!”
Rapiens vitrum meum in globulos prosilivi, et intuitum in partem significatam converti. Immo vero! Hic pronus ab Oceano mitis adsurgens clivis, Arboribus varies variegatam frondibus altam, litoreis nivei litoris aevum.
Purpureum supera ignota ferens caligine tingit olli pinguis, ut matura coma molares. Cum appropinquaremus ad portum positos nos excipere visum est. Haud tamen aut vox aut signum vitac frangere pontum quies cingebant sinus et litora fluctus.
Tarde et bonam navem nostram ferentes in portum navigaverunt et ancoris iacuerunt. Nunc super me terra splendida pulchritudo exorta est. Milia conchylia tinguunt margaritae colores candidis arenis micabant, liquidis dum in aquis, florea marina, ima purpurea coma leniter aestu flectebat. Declivis ripis natura altae Saturnalia tenuisse videbatur. Nulla virgulta, nec rubus, nec arbor simplici viridi gestare contentus fuit. Quisque aliquam in molli et mollis ac mollitia caeli florem vibrans. Hinc inde praeceps torrens volvens, undantia, spargens spargensque musco per saxa cubile. Aer gravabatur odore vasti horti tam pulchri, et tamen taciti ac deserti.
Postridie, relicto gubernatore meo velificante, profectus sum in comitatu meo fideli Bulger unice comitante. Si haec insula mihi erat videnda, sic enim inesse aliquid certi et curiosi putavi. Quo magis in interiorem hujus speciosissimi terram florum nitidorum, rivorum, rivorum, serenatorum, et odoratam aeris, processi, eo magis mirabar, quod nec vitis, fruticis, peniculus, nec arbor ullum baccam, nec fructum ad vescendum ferebat; et quamquam talis erat terra rivorum, florum et aeris balnei, ut quidam incola longinqui septentrionis somniare posset; necdum tamen calcatum est ab homine, nam rarum quidem est ut tropicorum populus alium sibi cibum parare velit, quam quod natura serpit.
Nunc gratias agere coepi quod siccis fructibus abunde me praestiteram priusquam navem meam proficiscerer ad iter insulae, quod ita mihi videbatur esse.
In hoc momento constitit Bulger, et in aere nasum suum attrivit, duram et longam attraxit, ac deinde obscuris oculis in me defixit, ut diceret: “Cura, magister, aliqua animalia appropinquant!” Vix tempus erat e sclopellis educere ac festinare ad eius primordia aspectum, cum miris clamoribus et peregrinis motibus duodecim aut plura humanae speciei e vepres e vestigio exsiluerunt et nos circumdederunt. Bracchium ignium, quod dextra manu tenebam, sustuli, paratum obsistere cohortis curiosissimae, occiso duce. Nam cum horridum famee stimulum horrendoque corporis habitu horridum aspectum vultusque corporum adspectum iudicasset, ad saccos pellium ossium compagibus suspensos, quod minime crepitantibus gressum caperent, praeveniebam. Eorum conatus percutere ac devorare.
Sed valde cito consolatus sum. Primo, quod cuiuslibet generis arma non ferebant; deinde per mollitiem vocum suarum, ac transversis similium corporum motuum, quam gratam quamdam permixtam cupiditatem amici cum homine tam ab se dissimilem significari interpretatus sum. Quanquam aut intelligere, aut facere conabar, anathesim motus capitum imitando, sequebantur conatum adaequare operam in arcubus infimis magna multitudine, tam lepida ac facilia, ut fidem fecissent. Ad magistrum choris Gallicum, quod nihil timerent, tamen a me quantum progredior retrahere perserunt. Bulgaro nonnihil miratus sum, quod tam ieiuna creaturarum intuitus amicos componendi, et atrocem rugitum servans, inspiciens eos suspiciose, dum ambulationem corporum motu a me recedente manerent.
Nunc me inveni ante globi umbellae bamboo figuratae casas in quas plerique se contulerunt. Non modice difficultatis fuit quod tandem blandis et persuadendis mihi in animo fuisse tranquillissimas valuissem. Horae enim quartae vel amplius me tacito circumibant admiratione, dum ego ex parte mea haec specimina generis nostri mirifice stupens intuebar. Quid de me senserint, disces sicut narratur, sed quomodo eas tibi semper describam, ut te vel levem speciem admirabilem reddam.
Finge sceleta parvae staturae ambulans, saccis farinae collapsis illis suspensis, pellis in plicas undique demissa, omnibus gradibus plaudens, et aliquam tenuioris notionem habebis ridiculi et deridiculi horum aspectus.
Fere omne os in corporibus sub hoc tenui velamine conspicuum erat. Genae eorum ut binae manticae vacuae ab utraque parte faciei pendebant, nasi sicut sculptilia fixa. Rugae altae et rugas transierunt, et facies crissa transibant, eis vultu tristium melancholiae et miserationis funditus.
Osseis digitis subinde complicare cutem arripientibus, expolire, vel alibi, ut laxius vestis apta, propulsare. Atqui miserrima ac melancholia, cum haec viderentur ad oculum spectantis, voces erant leves et hilares, ac molles ad tibiae notae. Loquebantur et deridebant inter se, pleni erant mali, et digitos suos penicillos demonstrabant in diversis partibus Bulgeri et corpus meum cum evidenti oblectatione rerum tam novarum et extranearum. Aliquoties dum has lugubres et evigilans vultus vultus intuens, simulque faustum ac puerilem audientem garritum, in cachinnum prorupi, qui non modo admodum inhumanus erat, sed qui semper effectus est causandi. ut iterum inordinate.
Paulatim tamen invaluerunt, et per signum quoddam sermonis dederunt mihi intelligere quod me tangere volebant. Recurrendo ad eandem hominum linguam communium, certior factus sum, quod nimium felix petitionibus eorum satisfacerem, et pectus meum nudare et manicas tunicae meae volvere perrexi. Paenitentes temeritatis suae, conferti, brachiis cruribusque ita implicaverunt ut, ut vitam servarem, nescirem ubi alter inciperet, alter finiretur.
Sed post paulum blanditias, persuasi ut mihi manus inferrent.
Clamores sequuntur admirationis et stuporis. Ut postea didici quod proferebant significabant: “Massa!” “Chunk!” “Lapis!” “Durum!” “Solidus!” Hoc momento esurientem sentiens pauxillum, saccum meum sicci fructus aperui et aliquot frusta in os meum coniecit.
Iamque atrocior admirationis, horrore et fastidio permixtus. Iterum abeuntes in nodum se ligaverunt.
An forte, inquam, istae creaturae solidum cibum numquam attingunt?
Cum animadvertissent inter se quidnam de me ageret consulere, veriti ne in capita, ne in dumeta evaderent, tam cito in motu quam mente ac phantasmata essent. Nihil morabatur, quod in conspectum regis vel principis duci cuperem.
Hoc eis placere videbatur. Sed cum multis anatibus capitum, paulum recesserunt, et quandam latralem tenuem tenuerunt. Post quem unus ex eorum numero, qui inter eos princeps esse videbatur, et cuius nomen Go-Whizz, ut postea comperi, multis demissis corporis flexibus ad me processit, et me certiorem fecit. principem eorum longe abesse unde fuimus, meque hic manere oporteret, dum ad principem suum me ad se perducendum peteret veniam.
Ego tali dispositioni libenter consensi.
Go-Whizz tunc me duxit ad unam mansionem eorum, monstrans cubile spicae aridae iunceae, et invitavit me ut consolarer me donec veniret, ut me duceret in conspectum principis eorum, Ztwish-Ztwish, sicut erat. Nomen ferebat.
Bulger et secundam iussionem non exspectavi, nam post longam corniculum ad os fessi eramus. Cum dimidia parte duodecim vel plurium arcuum, tam minore quam factae a Go-Whizz et sociis suis, ad quietem nocturnam parare coepi.
Parumper, vel ita, spectabam cedentes hominum eximiorum hominum figuras, qui in singulis fasciculis, velociter ac sine strepitu, tot phantasmatum, e vestigio devolaverunt. Tum me in cubile iunci deieci, Clamavit Bulgerum ut cubaret a me. Sed ille non adeo confidens, ut ego, et manibus blandiens, ad ostio habitaculi consedit, ut parvulum dominum suum ab omni fraude phantasticorum conservaret.
Dies nunc subito exiit, sicut lampas a vento exstinguitur.
Bulger dormire noluit.
At ego nocturnis roribus tecti densissimo tecto, mox in altum soporem et refrigerium incidi, e quo me movere difficilem inveneram Bulger, quia levi recordatione sensi scalpendi bracchio. Aliquot momentis, priusquam somni vincula possem excutere, quae me tam arcte tenebat.
Sedens propere, inveni Bulgerum in magno tumultu peragrasse solum, intermisso aere matutino subinde olfacere, quod, cum appareret, admonitio aliqua ei attulit. Statim mihi in mentem venit ferae in propinquo vagari. Primordia examina ignium meorum. Bulger bene prospexit me permotus ad periculum imminens.
Audebat iam, et sub divo exiens, habitaculum circuit, modo horrens redire crinibus fremens in suspicionem non oportebat.
Increbrescente sollicitudine nunc coepit me genuinum terrorem incutere. Ego in ipso navigio properans, cum cogitatio per meum animum emicuit: Quid? Celeres effugiunt ista phantasmata? Otiosum est id attentare!” Statui igitur casus meos capere, quid eveniat.
Tuguriolum valde aedificatum est eiusque tectum saltem nos ab fuga sagittae venenatae tutaturum.
Dum autem in festinatione loci perlustrando, clamor a Bulgero me instigavit. Unum aspectum dedi et tremefactum tremefecit corpus meum per obliquum.
Cohors armata in conspectu erat.
Clamore magno, propius mugire, propius ac propius accedere. Hinc ad latus formae ingentes versantur. Ingentes artus, mota more quercus. Brachiaque ad ramos robustos desinentia palmas, Luce obscuro mane, nodosasque per umeros nodosasque figuram accipiunt; latis et gravibus umeris adumbrata vis terrifica. Ictus unus e manu talis tribulae pondus mallei, fragilem creaturam tanquam me inopem in pulvere poneret!
Bulger, ut erat fortis, aspectu tremuit. Illico cogitationes meas collegi et ultimum vale Baroni seniori et clementi baronissae matri meae, in longinqua domicilio sub aquilonali.
lamque ad limen perventum erat, et pectora vastis stant tundentes sonitus emittit in alta sonos.
Prorsus ego poniam ensem detexi et in aere vibravi.
Effectus stupendum!
Clamore terribili, gemitu ac clamore, terribili pavore recidebant, inter se volventes globos instar giganteorum distrahentes, terram ferientes et in loca erecta terminantes.
Cum tandem hi sacci humanos in aliquid simile quietis consederant, unus e numero in lacrimosam et deprecantem orationem erupit, quam postea intellexi de hoc sensu: O Magister! O Magus! O mysteria massa! O Res impenetrabilis! auferte instrumentum horrendum. Ne nos pungat tremendo, ne pungat molles pelles. Atrox mucro levissima tactus causaret corpora nostra quasi pisces stimulos rumpere! Ne timeas nos. Amici tui sumus. Te perducimus ad magnum principem nostrum Ztwish-Ztwish. Ego sum Go-Whizz, servus tuus.
Subito veritas animum inrupit in admirationem meam. Falsitas in verbis oratorum nulla fuit. Go-Whizz erat! Alii socii, miserae ossei sacci, qui nudiustertius mecum dividebant.
Subridens et lenis unda manus, pugionem meum ad vaginam propere retuli, et Go-Whizz dedi ut intelligeret se nihil a me timere. Dimidium curiositatis insanum iam progressus sum ut propius inspiceret Go-Whizz et socios eius. Sobrius quippe est, cum dixero tibi hominem esse hominem, idipsum primum incidi, cum proficiscens ad explorandam insulam.
Sed hanc mutationem mirabilem requiris? Ut herculea fabricata fuisset una brevi nocte, arma membraque tam grandia quam Iaponica luctandi.
Dico totum esse aerem! Hos ego cum primum conveni non prandebam. Iam ex magna cena nuper veniebant. Scias enim me nunc fuisse in terra mirabilis Ventri comedentes! Cum aer tranquillus est et uenti dormiunt, curiosi homines ieiunare coguntur, et in saccis eorum rugosis, ut diximus, pellibus pendent; sed cum ventus in rabiem ludibrio vel etiam leni flatu et ictu surrexerit, istae res alienae statim crescere incipiunt, nec diu ante omnem rugam et rugam sicut magicam evanescunt.
Sicut Go-Whizz et socii eius coram me steterunt, ego perplexus sum ridicula antithesi inter voces et voltum vultus eorum. Hesterno die, vultu truci ac vetantis, voces molles et tibicinis erant; hodie voces terribiles, graves, mugire, voltusque inflare leves et circumfusae risum ac facetiarum.
Cum admiratus eram in conspectu horum hominum miris transformatorum, aliquid Go-Whizz fremuit, quod facile intellexi petitum esse, ut me permitterem ad residentiam magni principis sui Ztwish-Ztwish ducere permitterem.
Subridens assensum praeponens laqueos colligo.
Tumor exinanitus erat, ni fallor, ocellos, In me quantum diceret;
“Carissime magister, quomodo potes te credere ingentibus montibus carnis, quorum unus tam fragili corpore quam vellem murem comminuere potuit?”
Pauculas ei blanditias dedi et tunicam holoserica permulsi, ut scirem me rectum esse me scire. Go-Whizz et eius manus, informes ut videbantur, haudquaquam tardi gressui erant. Progrediebantur ad ratem alacrem, quia tranquillus aer erat et parum ad portandum. Nunc demum, simul bumping, seorsim tanquam globuli globos finiebant. Difficilis res erat mihi risum tenere, praesertim cum viderem aspectum Bulgeri summae perplexitatis. Oculos in me comice volvit. Tandem vero intravimus villam Ventorum Eaters, ubi magnus princeps Ztwish-Ztwish tenebat curiam suam.
Is et ipse rotundus inflatus est, quamvis, ut postea didici, non permisit eum tam aequo animo quam subditis terrae legibus vesci. Ruga passim apparebat. Vultus et arma non habebant speciem tumidam emissiones communem populo suo post magnam cenam. De meo adventu in eius insulam iam certior factus est, ac singulari gravitate et duritiei magnitudine.
Ventorum edentium circiter quindecim tulit ut me in statera libraret.
Dux Ztwish-Ztwish Bulger me suscepit humanissime. Statim oblatus fui ministris publicis et domesticis eius. Regina Phew-yoo erat domina valde magnifica, moribus decora et conservata; sed parva regina Pouf-fah puerili curiositate me delectavit.
Eorum principes, ministri civitatis, dominum suum stabant, et longe plus monendi quam audire volebant intenti videbantur. Nomina eorum Hiss-sah, Whirr-Whirr et Sh-Boom.
Credas tumultum in domo capitalis Ztwish-Ztwish meo adventu creatum. A summo ad imum, a summo ad serviendum homini, omnes orabant, orabant, ut de me sentire liceret.
Sollicitus es alienis favere populis, ut eis opportunitatem ad otium meum studere possem, ad horam vel amplius lepide submisi, pungendo, pungendo, fricando, mulcendo.
Frustra me conarer ad te dare mille et uno clamores admirationis, delectationis, prodigii, metus, metus, metus, quae ex hac multitudine alienarum rerum ascenderunt, qui, cum viderentur, non viderentur. ita existimare, quantas curiositates mihi ac ego illis.
Exsiccatum meum lignum iam admodum defatigatum est, ac famem rosiones sentire coepi.
Nunc, ut scis, vox Ventri comedentis ex conditione hominis est. Si modo comederit et corpus eius rotundum sit quasi vesiculam bene refertam, vox eius alta est et sonus; si vero interdiu cibum non sumpsit, cortex eius in sinubus et rugis ossium compage dependet, molli et tibia sono loquitur.
Ingredienti ad frontem, sequitur Bulgerus, et seviem juxta ostrearum acervum, clamor ingens ascendit, in quo fremitus inflati venti edentes permixti sunt mollibus tibicinis sonorum jejuniorum. Non animadvertens ullum instrumentum prope quo testas aperiret, incaute ponim e vagina traxit. Mox atrox pauor concursum multitudinis invasit. Regina Phew-yoo et regina Pouf-fah in deliquium inciderunt. Dux Ztwish-Ztwish cum in conditione ieiunii ad cubicula sua phantasma iacularetur. Ministri civitatis Iliss-sah, Whirr-Whirr et Sh-Boom, plenissime elati, terram pedibus collidunt et velut globulis ingentis e via evolvuntur.
Velox sicam putavi, cuius aspectus cuspis fulgida haec consternationem attulerat; et, lectionibus datis in primo congressu nostro Go-Whizz et Sociis, incepi seriem anatum et ambulationum motuum corporis mei, qui mox in tranquillis intentionibus fiduciam reddiderat, et dispersos auditores ad me reduxit. Sedes suas. Go-Whizzus, qui extremus cucurrerat, nunc maximus erat in eo, quod se minime timuisse gloriatur. Dux Ztwish-Ztwish resumpsit sedem neruo magno, sed animadverti eum defixis oculis in loco ubi pugionem meum in balteo abscondi. Quamvis ostrea dentifricia solum ad acuendam gulam visus, nunc tamen vehementer haesitabat scire, quonam modo conchas apertas rimaretur, nam leges terrae eduntes in aliquem inven- runt poenas mortis. acuto in possessione.
Ungues in prima infantia deprimuntur ad carnem, donec invalescere vires amittant, et durissimae cutis loco prehenditur.
Dentes, non habent venti; vel, quod rectius dictum est, dentes supra gingivas non nascuntur. Videbatur enim natura sensim cessasse operam dare, ut iis aliquid ad quod omnino nullum haberent usum, suppeditarent.
Meminerint curiosi homines non semper tam tenui victu contenti fuisse. Antiquitus — ita dux Ztwish-Zt- wish me certiorem fecit, maiores suos pomiferos fuisse; fructibus tamen deficientibus, ad gingivas, quae ex arboribus fluxerant, recurrere coacti fuerant, et cum sensim exsiccatae essent, varios ventos, qui per insulam flant, quibusdam invisibilibus seminibus vel particulis replerentur. qui vitae sustentandae potestatem habebat.
Ad resumendum: Ascia silicem humi iacentem observans, eam apprehendi et ad aperiendum unum e maximis ostreis laborandum est. Magnum silentium incidit in comitio. Subitoque contorto contorto contorto superiori, inferiorem sublato, cui pinguis ac decoriosa creatura imminense fatorum immemor iacebat, ore aperui, et e conspectu elabi lepide pinguis buccella. Centum stridorem stridorem semihorritum, Dimidium stuporem erupit, sicut chorus ingens a circumfuso ventorum edentium turbis. Iterum atque iterum erupit, modo geminato vigore iterum erumpere.
Hoc tam gravi morbo multi videntium, illis singulare spectaculum, ut abripiat locum, priusquam iterum buccam sumere posset.
Videas quomodo senserint. Ut voles ingurgitare ex lapide ac ferro incipiam.
Regina Phew-yoo timide adhaesit lacerto mariti sui; sed principissa Pouf-fah audacter propius ad me iit, quo melius perspicere posset homunculum totum per solidum. Iterum unam ex maximis conchis sustuli et occupantis iugulum labatur tacite, non oblitus toties ad solvendum album musculum, qui conchas pro parte festi Bulgeri tenebat.
Paulatim adeps Ventorum edentium, conspecto homine in massas cibum deglutiendi, cessit curiositati edacitatis, ut propius propius accederet, meumque satiandi famis modum melius consideraret.
Satis intelligere potui scire multos Ventorum Eaters dubitationes gravissimas habuisse me vere ostrea deglutivisse.
Ad eos minus veniam aliquam nequitia aute.
Principissa Pouf-fâh super scamnis unum conscendit, et statim ostrea evanuit guttur meum, institit aperienti os meum ad maximam latitudinem, ut sibi quaereret et videret si ostrea non esset. abscondi sub lingua mea, aut alicubi in maxillam meam.
Subitus clamor terroris insusuit spectatores, quantum me fecit.
Regina parva deliquium abrepta est.
Dentes erat! Terruere leves Pouf-fah media morte neci.
Parumper omnia confusio. Inciti a Go-Whizz, multi Ventorum Eateri fustes arripiunt, et parricidio intento urgentes. Principissae Pouf-fah reditio, splendida et arridens, omnia rursus recta statuit.
Turba autem inexplicabili curiositate correpta accedendi et quaerendi sibi rem horrendam quae Pouf-fah in deliquium proiecerat.
Mox incoepit dolor fauces extendere os meum satis apertum, ut unumquodque eorum spectet in duplici ordine eboreorum et molarium, et si hoc ipsum dico, habui in illis diebus unum ex tenuissimis. Dentes, qui semper per frustum Nienburgi biscoctum secarunt, aut frustum anseris assati Germanici terebant.
Posthac, pueriles ac simplices homines satis comperti sunt “Minimum Hominem Creber Totum Per” creaturam benignam ac pacificam ac omnimodam prorsus innoxiam fuisse.
Pueri circum me confluebant, et risibus et anatibus meis mox amici mecum fiebant.
Hoc gavisus sum, nam cupidus eram Ventorum comessatores arcte studiosos facere iuvenes et senes.
Mirationem meam iudicare licet, cum vidi turbam horum puerorum, animatam globulos, quos in illis erant, occupatos esse, novos lusus in me irruentis benivolentiam et quasi pilas globulos e saepe tabula iactantes.
Bene, credo, curiose ardes, aliquid certius de istis alienis audiendi.
Mihi non prorsus ignotae fuerunt. Antiquas peregrinationis libros ab Arabicis auctoribus passim legeram, et de tali aliquo genere; quorum corpora adeo fragilia sunt, ut validiores et graviores cibos gustare non possent, quam dulces gingivarum, quae ex arboribus fluxerunt, et quorum pellibus adeo perlucentibus, ut vitreae vocantur, pulsus corculi sui manifeste. visibilis est oculis aspicientis. Non dubito hos auctores ad insulae huius mirae incolas referri, in qua nulli fructus, baccae, vel eduli radices invenirentur, et quorum maiores, ut Ztwish-Ztwish praecipuus informatus sum, superioribus seculis fecerunt; ita vitam sustentant. Sed fateor me esse homines, qui proprie in aere vixerunt; vel, rectius loquendo, ventis quibusdam invisibiles materiae sustentandae particulas onustas, paulo plus fuit quam unquam etiam in vehementissima imaginationis meae operatione somniare ausus sum. Delectationem igitur meam iudicabis, cum me inter tam extraordinarias homines invenias, et ut eos genuinos naturae, mansuetos et placidos esse deprehendas.
Nec tamen diu inveniendo quod mihi satis magnum esse probaretur.
Hoc erat. Didici quod, licet verum sit, ut dictum est, Ventos edentes regulariter, genus pacis amantium, ingenio modestum et aversatum maleficium, tamen hoc generale regulae exceptiones fuerunt. Mirum dictu, quo vento pascebantur.
Sicut ipsae omnes mulieres erant mansuetudo. Mollibus zephyris austri vescebantur. Sed pars magna eorum famem suam implendo validi et salubris Favonii vento contenti sunt; bonus autem numerus, ex aliqua opinione quod suaviorem et subtiliorem saporem haberet, quamdam gravem et nucem similem saporem, ventosum ventosum irregularem praeferebat. Neque tamen a medicis nationis optimae habitae sunt alimenta salubria, et contendebant eos, qui hunc ventum pascebant, nunquam tam sanum ac cordi fuisse, quam qui se totum ad alunt et ventum Zephyrum stringerent.
Pauci erant, ut in omni terra, qui validis et opulentis cibis gaudent vescentes praeruptis, procellosis aestivis, affirmantes aptissimum esse ad inopiam et naturam homini destinatam. Ad sumendum ventum validum et validum, ut aptum illis ad bellum vitae. Fuerunt etiam nonnulli, perpauci, ad honorem mansueti et pacifici populi, qui contra leges terrae ac principes Ztwish-Ztwish expressa imperia susceperunt. Sibilus iratus, feruidus Aquilo, et periculosus umor hausit, donec melioribus naturis funditus mutatus est; et ex mites, timidi et pacifici, asperi et litigii facti sunt.
Huc pertinebat dux Go-Whizz. Nam, ut mihi per Whirr-Whirr dictum est, ipse dux Ztwish-Ztwish timoris signa praebuit, cum vidit Go-Whizz in villam venire fluctuantem, oculos inflammatos, gressus instabiles, orationem indistinctam post gravem coenam super. Rude et colaphis Aquilonis. Dum in hac conditione Go-Whizz modicam potestatem quam in se habebat amisit, et semel tantum oblitus est sui, ut minas et contumaciam contra principem Ztwish-Ztwish efflaret, e suis conclavibus ejiciendo rectorem. Ei cum silice, quod habebat, gravi cuspide acuto.
Tales erant curiosi homines per quos me peregrinam et iucundam familiaritatem cum principe suo inveni.
Paucis diebus post adventum meum ad villam Ventorum Eaters eram, proh dolor innocens causa gravioris casus, quae aliquantisper invidiosa me effecit apud Ztwish-Ztwish aulam capitalem.
Totum hoc modo factum est.
Dixi iam tibi quam cito pueri soliditatem corporis mei detegerent, et quantam laetitiam contra me se iactantes in me plenam benivolentiam iecerint, ut iterum ludibrio iterum quasi pilae tot pilae proiecerint.
Nunc memorare debes quod etiam post cordiam prandium, totum duodecim infantium istorum circiter unam bonam libram expendit.
Eos hortabar ad ludendum de me, quo melius observarent curiosas suas artes et vias, quarum una erat brachiis cruribusque cincinendis, et ita catenam humanorum nexuum formabat, quarum altera ad fastigium affixa erat. Tectum et alterum fortasse ad aliquod altum baculum vel pertica, interdum etiam per viam tendens et in tecto habitaculi oppositae desinens. Sic festos horas in auram diei nutantes, saepe iactantes somno. Nec inusitatum omnino fuit videre unam ex matres quaerentibus prolem insilire, claudicare, deponere nexus vivendi, uncoquere infantem, repone lineam ac festina domum.
Sedente quodam die, in podio vnius casis capitalis Ztwish-Ztwish, duodecim vel plures filiorum suorum positi ad talem catenam faciendam, uno extremo affixo inaures meas, sicut bonae. Nauta libebat interdum gero, et alter pene ad terram perveniens, podio summo clausurae transiens.
Ruere, obnixus, obnixus, clamores, clamores et stridore emisso, parvus ventus comessatores gaudio ferino erant, cum repente unus ex proximis mihi in acumen torsit, quem sine dubio in lapellum detrusit. Extremum tempus tunicae meae facerem aliquid reparandum, nam, ut vero nauta, acus et stamine usus eram.
Excitatus sum e somnis speculatione horum phantasticorum per rimam acutissimam, qualis facta est rupta ludibrii vesica.
Iterum atque iterum idem sonus acris in aurem.
Satis erat aspectus ad explicandum omnia. Comae horrore horrentes sentire potui, dum vivos nexus catenae huius post se disrumpere vidi, et in tenues auras evanescere. Explo- dando in contactum cum acumine, vis explosionis primae harum globulorum flatuum humanitatis satis fuerat ad infantem proxime in acie erumpere et sic usque ad finem catenae!
Duodecim ex eis intraverunt in minus quam tot secundis secundis et non tam quam crinem crinem ad domum matrum fractis ferentes!
Paucis momentis ex omnibus partibus vici. Fletus, ululantes matres, ultionis ululantes, de habitaculo in quorum interiora Bulger et se cesserant cito congregati.
Credas nunc mihi cum dico, quod minime formido exercitui Ventorum manducantium stetissem, quando post magnam cenam plenissime inflati sunt, sed contigit ut aer tranquillus esset per diem. Vel ita, ut multi iam ad vitalia sceleti magnitudinem adterriti essent, in qua ego primum occurram. In hac conditione hostes haud spernendi erant, quippe qui, ut fecerunt, fulminis prope celeritatem inicerent, in retibus subtilibus retibus contexta bamboicis fibra inplicabant ac fustibus interfecerunt.
Verum, fustes hae factae sunt de corkwood, et sexaginta ex illis minus pondo quam libra; sed haec res tardius et graviorem mortem faceret; Nam, cum paulis percussionibus unum sui generis pro sua miseria perduellionis sufficeret, totum diem eis de tam solido hoste, quam fui, vitam percutere oportuisset.
Priusquam forte cogitationes meas colligerem, Go-Whizz ad ianuam cum scapula erat, retia me obiiciebant, dum post iacula stabant fustium ordinem, exspectantes vices suas inceptas. Cogitavi apud me: “Grave est hoc negotium. Si dux Ztwish-Ztwish non adest, me retibus implicabunt et vitam ex me percutere conantur antequam redeat, bene enim noverunt amorem suum in me. Sed peius omnibus fuit quod Go-Whizz ex longinqua insulae parte nuper redisset, quo ipse et pauci ex suis faucibus clam iter fecerunt, ut in rudes et indomiti aquilone se effunderent. Favonius. erat plenus swag et ere! Ad tantam magnitudinem tumidum numquam videram. Vox eius sonabat tanquam profundus mugitus alicuius animalis truculentis.
Retia sua in aëre contorsit, et clamabat tonantibus, ut se sequi possent.
Sensi nunc momentum me advenisse ut vitam meam ac Bulgerium nimis arduum conatum facerem, nam cum quattuor pedibus in retibus suis tortis, praedae facilem caderet Go-Whizz eiusque. cohortis. Sensi etiam pejorem fore quam inutilem appellare Go-Whizz ad misericordiam, ut erat permotus longis et profundis haustibus saevi ac furentis aestivi zephyri.
Ibi constitit, inflans, flatus, tortus, vibrans, ut circum caput et circum caput torsit fatalem telam, quae, cum dorsum e muro tollere conaretur, intendit me obicere ut auceps captaretur avem.
Repente me cogitabam vasculum, quod me ad tam periculosum angustiam attulerat.
Priusquam tamen e latebris eam traherem, statui edendum esse et me paululum iactare.
Nunc gravissimus ventus Eater sex libras pondo pensat; et, ut credis, pondus meum, centum fere librae, magnae terrori fuit. Steterunt in timore assidue, ne forte unum digitos Ventri comedentis calcaret et exploderet.
Priusquam permitterent me unum ex maenianis suis audere, vel unam mansionem superiorem inhabitare, perrexerunt eam firmissimis polis bamboicis firmare quam invenirent. Ita, nunc coepit mihi pauca Go-Whizz fortissimis dare monimenta leves ponderis et soliditatis mei.
In altum saliens in aerem, bamboum in terram apposui tanto obstrepente obstrepente ut omnia tremerent ac tremerent.
Primo signatus generalis de sequacibus Go-Whizz, et dux ille strepitus solus relictus est contra Bulgerum et me.
Ille satis fortiter constitit, quamquam viderem se inclinari ad clamores suorum exaudiendos, et e conclave emittere priusquam frangeret. Sed, post aliquot ex meis saltibus, videns tabulatum restitit omne meum conatus ut eam frangeret, Go-Whizz in cohortem suam redintegrandae sunt.
Iterum iamque furiosius nos stridore et ejulantes tanquam furiosos circumdederunt, dextras manus erectas retia periculosas ferentes, quibus me et Bulgerum inplicare sperabant, ac deinde mitte.
Iam tempus erat mihi in subsidiis meis subsidia.
Ita feci. Effectus stupendum. Acus probatur unum genus audaciae; praelonga et splendens et acutissima. Punctus pugio mihi satis male erat. Is eos in atrocem ac perculsum metum conjecit. Sed hoc vasculum, quod ante eas vibravi, in vicia rigidi terroris injecit.
Ad terram defixa steterunt, ac si in acumine totos oculos defixit, unum omnes, si unc arriderent, ad necem sperabant.
Tandem magno conatu Go-Whizz ex loco erupit, elato alto horroris ac murmure clamorem, volvens post se, atrocissimo terrore. Quod videntes tumultus, in quo fortes Go-Whizz et ejus sequaces a me recesserunt a facie, convocati viri ac mulieres, clamore terribili, se ceperunt quasi legio daemonum insequentium.
Brevi tempore Bulgarum solus in acie steti. Non e parte mea movit sub tempore quo mihi mors minata est.
“Veni!” dixi ego, ut te inclinavi, et percucurri caput. “Veni, fidelis amice et comes, eamus ad principem Ztwish-Ztwish, et rem coram eo ponere!”
Princeps e somno meridiano modo evigilavit. Tota conflictu placide dormierat, unde necesse erat ei plenam rationem reddere casus infortunii, quod fiebat in explodendo totum chordas infantium, et conatus Go-Whizz me interficere. Animo magno et patientissime exaudivit. Postulavit deinde paulisper excusatum, quod sibi paulo ante nuntiasset mollissimum ac suavem austrum flare coepisset.
Et egressus est in podio; Et postquam circiter duodecim offam puram refrigerium auram reficiens, paulo pinguiorem reddidit, et, sicut omnes, accepti cibo prandio, amabilior et benignior fuit habitu quam antea.
Nuntii duodecim minimorum subditorum tam acerbe papaver exsistentiae non videntur eum valde sollicitare. Quod eum maxime movit, quod usque ad illam horam nunquam in mentem venit, p. vir!
Pro certo habeo hoc ipso momento in vestitu meo absconditum esse ante oculos.
Contremuit.
Confirmare studui, explicans ei me quamprimum putem immergere in cor meum, ut hoc paene invisibile et mortiferum in ejus vitam converteret.
Ridere conabatur, sed horrore finitum est.
Putasne, homuncule spissus, tremula lingua Ztwish-Ztwish dux interrogavit, ut videam, et in deliquium non incidam?
O certe, princeps magne, meum responsum. Imo, Ztwish-Ztwish, levissima et erectissima, perrexi, “Hoc horrendum instrumentum totius virtutis tuae spoliare possum, ut te laedat et in manu tua tanquam ligneum aliquod innoxium collocet. Visne metuenti sic tibi tradere punctum?
Cum levi horrore dux Ztwish-Ztwish responderet.
“Immo vero, magne et doctissime magister, iam videor posse conspectum eius ferre. Fortissimus quidem sum, sed scis unum stimulum illius lethalis puncti statim in vita fortissimi Ventri comedentis.
Iterum ajebam nihil esse vereturum, dum iter secutus sum. Haec fatus e latebris strinxi acum renidens.
Dux Ztwish-Ztwish primo oculos clausit, sed paulatim ausa est ut punctum micantis cerneret.
Procumbens tuli unum fustibus subere et abrumpi paulum minoris extremitatis acumen in illud intrudere.
Dux Ztwish-Ztwish meus motus observavit cum quadam acerbitate curiositatis.
Ibi, Ventorum comedentium princeps, exclamavi, “nunc cum eo gaudeas, in juncis lecti tui absconde, nocere tibi non potest. Tam innocens quam scurra saxum, unius micantis aquae rivuli tui montis. Accipite illum! Aliquando tibi serviat, si subito impetum in personam tuam illustrem.
“Tali momento nihil time! carpe firmiter, metuendum cuspis e latebris trahe in hoc cortice cortici. Tam parvum est, ut in manu tua invisibilis sit, et dum adstat inimico tuo ante te ficta salus, eum perforet ad mortem; tu enim dominator es, et eum qui populum tuum principem suum spoliare conantem mors decet percutiat.
Dux Ztwish-Ztwish arripuit acum cum tremore manu, et abscondit frenum cortici, quod tenebat sub culmo tecti. Tunc convocata e famulis suis unum e cubiculis quendam parvam cistam bamboo adferre iussit, e qua raras gemmas filo traxit, nonnihil succini natura, sed millies clarius. Hoc pulcherrimo munere me dimisit, ministris suis imperans ne quid mali mihi liceret venire ad casum, qui chorda ventorum eaters explosa est.
Ite-Whizz iram suam aegre celare potuit, ut me rursus honoratum hospitem apud Ztwish-Ztwish principis aulam videret.
vigilantiam tamen in minimo non relaxavi. Per singulas noctes manibus meis fenestras obstruxi, et Bulgeris iunci ante ianuam posui, ut me opprimi non posset irato duce.
Cum infantium explosio penitus oblitterata esset, peregrinatio mea inter Ventos Eaters pergrata maneret, nisi nova difficultas orta esset ut me sollicitum faceret.
Tenuior victu in quo fueram, quoniam adventus meus inter curiosos homines, dum mitigavit famem meam, expoliavit me pinguem et saginatum aspectum, quem semper habui, atrox me carne perdidisse. Dux Ztwish-Ztwish et regina Phew-yoo delectati sunt, nam, ut hoc expresserunt, “Parvulus homo densissimus-per in specie saltem verus ventus comedenti celeriter fiebat.”
Bulger quoque diro corruit.
Miratus deinde subinde nigris, oculisque micantibus in me, ut diceret: “Domine, magister, quid nobis est? Edimus, et tamen attenuamus. Numquid vere convertimur ad Ventri Eaters?”
Et alia mala res erat, quod, dum mea semper manitas me tantam sollicitudinem faciebat, ferebat laetitiam cordi reginae Phew-ioo, qui me de ceteris observare videtur instituisse. Mese in servicio domini et domini mei, donando mihi manum pulcerrimae principissae Pouf-fah.
Regina Phew-yoo explicatio tenuitatis meae semper crescentis fuit, quod effectus admirabilis insulae suae erat; Parum admodum interest, quam crassus et solidus homo, si satis diu inter eos vixerit, paulatim amitteret ac, si non genuinus Ventus comedentor, vel prope ut levis et aereus esset.
Quas opiniones cum ab aliis didici, antequam eas ex ore ipsius reginae audirem, minime mirum mihi erat, aliquando nuntium ex magnifico Phew-yoo accipio, qui me coram ea me praesentet.
Acceptatio mihi gratissima est, et etiam regina Pouf-fâh, quae me sub matris tecto videre plurimum delectat. Huc atque illuc quasi globulus ludibrium, nunc unguentum e floribus arefactis excutiens, nunc chordas gemmarum curiosarum, quas supra memoravi, tendens, ante faciem meam micabat.
Oblectabar eam tenentem manum manus meae et iactantem et captantem, velut pilam globulum volo.
Regina Phew-yoo aspexit tacita satisfactione.
Cum reginae Pouf-fah ludi pertaesum esset, regina sic locutus est:
« O homuncio spisse, habeo tibi dicere quod letificabit cor tuum. Summe princeps, mi vir, et notavi gaudio quod quotidie in dies tenuior ac tenuior es. Scito ergo, quod hic effectus magicus aëris spiras. Cum ad hanc insulam appulissent majores nostri, ipsi tui similes per omnia solida erant. Noli ergo expavescere, cum paucis hinc mensibus te totum mutatum inveneris. Hoc gravius onere inutilis carnis mox amittes, quem tanto tempore tecum circumferre damnatus fuisti, et levis et erectus fies, sicut nos. Et, dilecte Lump, ut ab presenti solida forma mutes properes, et venuste et concavus fiat sicut unus nostrum, consilio et assensu Ztwish-Ztwish, annuentes tibi licentiam comedendi apud nos illo die. Hac ipsa hora primam tuam coenam facies in vento dulci ac salubri Austri. Eo ipso momento, pusillule Chunk, quod satis macilentus fias ad magno principi, dabit tibi pulcherrimam reginam Pouf-fah in uxorem tuam.
Ad haec verba, regina, quae me valde amare videbatur, plaudit manibus gaudenter, et inter matrem et me quasi ludibrium pediludii proclamat.
“At, homuncule Lump,” regina Phew-yoo continuata, “priusquam proficiscamur ad cenandum in dulci vento, qui super Convivium Montem spirat, duo sunt, quae summus princeps Ztwish-Ztwish dixit me esse valde singularem. Commemorare tibi duas conditiones, quibus te super omnes homines honorare voluerit, manum pulcherrimae reginae Pouf-fah tibi largiendo.”
“Nomina illos, regina piissima!” Clamavi, quia nimium sapiens eram, ut quid in hoc loco opponam. Solus nimium bene novi, unum verbum a principe Ztwish-Ztwish me traderet in viscera trucis Go-Whizz.
“Sunt,” resumpsit regina Phew-yoo, genas inflans et dorsa pollicum ludibundus percutiens, “sunt, homuncule, perplexe, ut dentes etiam gingivis ac tuis limabis. Ungues tuos semper carni excisos.
“Erit, ut optas, clementissima regina,” respondi, multis humilibus corporis anfractibus.
Tum regina Phew-yoo gayly respondit, “Nihil tibi restat, nisi ut protinus te cibo nostro assuefacias; sic ad convivium montem sine mora proficiscamur, nam ventus auster dulcis et fortis flante recenti!
Comitatus sum reginam Phew-yoo et reginae Pouf-fah loco indicato. Pulvis erat colliculus, a quo longe ad meridiem versus per vallem spectare potui, lepide admodum pulchra.
Illa statim ac reginae mollem, dulcem aerem attrahere coepit, et me hortabatur ut idem facerent.
Gaudebant mea opera. Nam maternus Phew-yoo parum sollicitus videbatur ne ego me nimis.
Postquam paucas altas potiones reginae ceperat, miratus sum quod ad eam accederet famulus, et circa iugulum globuli iugulo elastico funiculo inserta ponerem. Id cautum erat, ne reginae nimis libenter comederent, si libuisset. Bene, ut credis, ad conclavia mea redii a cena cum regina Phew-yoo et reginae Pouf-fah in Banquet Hall hominem valde esurientem; si fieri posset, esuriens erat quam prius eram, nam me rapacem fecerat aura purum, dulcem multamque profundam flatus.
Rursum solus apud Bulgerum, pono operam excogitandi rationem aliquam ut plus cibi excipiat; et reprimendo meam terrorem carnis amissionem, reginae Phew-yoo consilium finem mutandi me in genuinum Ventus Eaterem et me reginae Pouf-fah in uxorem dando.
Visum est mihi ut aliquos pisces in armis maris proximi vicum caperem, et in vivis favillae aestuaret, nam fomes in sinu meo habui.
Hoc consilium lepore laboravit. Mox aliquot de servitoribus docendis complura retia sua velut in Sequanam aggerare potui, gavisus primum illud conicio ut bolum duodecim vel plus squamae marinae subtilius efficiat.
Bulger risum cum magno studio ingressus est, arripiens funem in ore et pro vita cara trahens, dum trahere coepimus.
Proximum erat ut folia arida et ligna colligeret et ignem idoneum inciperet ad faciendum favillas lectum. Ventorum catervas circa me convenerunt, et motus meos observabant cum quadam mixtura admirationis, timoris ac voluptatis.
Cum tandem fumus volvere coepit, et flamma se ostenderet, clamor consternationis erupit, et stimulus ferox consecuta est.
Dux Ztwish-Ztwish accitus fuit; sed nihil negotii erat ei persuadere, me nemini nocuisse, quod rubrae linguae, quas prosilire videbat, innoxias esse, si cum carne non convenirent; necesse esse ei id edici iubere, ne ad linguas purpurae, quae e fumo atris emicat, populum propius accedere.
Per tempus favillarum vivarum formavi paratus eram cum basa marina duorum pondo librarum et incoeptio incepit.
Supervacaneum est me tibi persuadere Bulgerum et ad jucundam cenam sedi, vere primum satisfacientem ex quo meus adventus inter Ventos eaters.
Ex hoc tempore omnia bene operata sunt. Cotidie ostrea conglobatores et piscatores mei ad litus visitabant, ut lardario meo inservirent. Rediens semper fui pulchro favillae cubili paratus. Ita res per hebdomadam vel sic ibat. Delectabar reperire Bulgerum et me splendide assequendo carnem. Et tamen omnibus subinde debui reginam Phew-yoo invitantem ad coenam cum illa et reginae Pouf-fah apud Banquet collem accipere, ubi simulavi cenam molli et odorato vento aeque ac illi frui. Sibi fecerunt. Regina Phew-yoo affirmabat complexionem meam in dies clariorem ac dilucidiorem esse, ac procul dubio paucis mensibus “deglutire lapides”, ut vocant, penitus emittere possem.
Dum mea studia curiosorum hominum quiete prosequebamur, alia infausta res evenit, et hoc tempore gravissima et gravissima res evenit.
Non diu adsuefacti adsueti edentes Ventorum, visu primo, visuque ab atrae Ora purpureae linguae spirantis nubila. Nam mox didicerunt dulcem boli odorem suavissimum in favilla iacuisse, et cum esset frigidus aer, non dubitavit circa Bulgem formare gyrum, et me sedentem prandio frui ac sedisse. Et eis curiosum spectaculum simul. Forte una vespera altius cubile reliqueram quam putabam. Et cineres super eos collecti usque ad noctem ardere pergebant. Cohors rostratorum factionis Go-Whizz, casu fortuito, ex itinere ad septentrionalem insulae littus domum rediit, ubi se vento illius partis vehementissimo convaserat. Reliquorum favillarum ardore attracti festinantes multam ligna colligere festinaverunt in linum iacientes, et, ut rubras linguas hinc inde flammas ejicere coeperunt, sese in orbem circumdederunt; calor enim nox humida et frigida erat.
Tam iucundum effectum caloris inveniunt, ut ibi pernoctare constituerint, ac prope ignem in terram se proicerent, quo ire arbitrati sunt.
Media circiter nocte, leniter a pede brachii scalpendi, mihi narravit aliquid insolitum accidisse, nam me numquam excitavit, nisi satis scivit rem esse gravem ut ei in perturbatione me confirmaret.
Dubitas, iam quid accidisset. Simpliciter haec res erant: Frigora abundabant nocte, multique Ventorum comestores semisomnus, et semisopitus alta potione feruentis Aquilonis, propius propiusque ignem accesserat; subito ingens vis aeris frigidi, quam absorpserat, dilatare coepit, et quatuor ex his terribili sonitu explosa est.
Citius quam nunciare oportet, habitatio mea circumfusa est quiritatione, stridore, ululatu ventorum edentium turba, mortem instantem flagitans.
Omnes principales auctoritates Ztwish-Ztwish cum suis requirebat ut me eriperet ne in retibus funestis implicaretur et illico necaretur.
Ad rem millies gravius, saevus et praeoccupator Go-Whizz vicum hoc ipso momento ingressus est, cum stipendio rixorum adseculorum in vestigiis eius. Fuerat in itinere secreto ad ultimum septentrionalem partem insulae, ubi aquilo fremit et fremit insana. Nunquam eum videram tam valde prorumpentem cum alimentis suis intumescere.
Audito fato, quod quattuor socii consecuti essent, furor non est modus. Ipse et socii pectora tundebant, donec alto sonante sonante tremuit aer, ac subinde in funestos funesti lamenta eruperunt. Principem Ztwish-Ztwish palam et audacter incussit, cum populum suum prodidisset, et quondam beatam insulam suam in ruinam quandam per manus “monstriculi per omnia densa” tradidit, qui per dierum magicam et turpia mysteria volebat. Mox suos lapides ut sibi pascat.
Dies iam frangere coepit; et, superveniente luce, tumultus castelli novas vires suscipere videbatur. Ita certus eram quod mors me percuteret, quod plures nuntios scripsissem ad Baronem seniorem et ad clementissimam baronissam, matrem meam, in foliis libelli mei, et cum uno e principibus servientibus reliquit partes. Hoc mihi optandum fuit, ut eos populo meo mitteret, quos in litore insulae longinquo in litore pulcherrimo navi inventurus essem.
De Bulgero nihil dixi, nam nimis bene sciebam illum meum latus esse moriturum.
Pessime paravi. Scindibulas examinavi sclopis mei, pugionemque meum sub pallio ad tergum cervicis abdidi, quo melius vellem attingere, si comminus accederet.
Quo facto, accessi ad ungues meos quam potui acuminibus incidi, nam vitam meam quam carissime vendere decrevi.
Dum ego de affectu erga me Ztwish-Ztwish principe confidebam, nesciebam tamen quo tempore animum amitteret et me ad populum converteret ut se ipsum servaret.
Bulger omnes praeparationes meas oculis apertis et intelligentibus observabat, interdum humilem, nervorum querimoniam proferens, sicut ululatus, eiulatus, rugiens turbae ante habitaculum principalem Ztwish-Ztwish.
Iure terrae populus prohibebatur ad interiorem clausuram principis mansionis ingredi, sed Go-Whizz, cum unus ex principibus vel principibus minoribus, decebat ut in conspectum principis progrederetur suasque iniurias faceret. eius precibus.
Nunc igitur furens Go-Whizzus, a suis discedens, non destitit ultionem de daemonio massam clamare, qui bis in conspectum populi sui mortem et interitum straverat dux Ztwish-Ztwish.
Tranquillus princeps fuit. Cibum non sumpsisset per quatuor et viginti horas, et stetisset, ruga, tegimen- tum, et coagmentatum; Prope eum sedit regina Phew-yoo et regina Pouf-fah, et statim post eum ordinati sunt tres consiliarii, Hiss-sah, Whirr-Whirr, et Sh-Boom. Recentibus haustibus validi et salubris Favonii venti bene rotundati erant, ac proinde quasi contenti et ridentes videbant Ztwish-Ztwish tristes et sollemnes. Steti in diaetam contiguam, post velum bamboum absconditum, cum fideli meo Bulgero iuxta latus meum. Ita sum positus, ut omnia viderem, quin ipse viderim. Dux Ztwish-Ztwish cognovit meam praesentiam ibidem.
Cum Bulger furentis et mugientis Go-Whizze conspectum arripuit, adeo timidus est, ut decumberem et caput mulcere deberem ut nihil pertimescam. sed ita se res habet, semper me magna pericula subiciunt.
Ego illos frigidos habeo, sed tristes, nam cogitationes meae in tantis momentis revertuntur ad Baronem seniorem et ad clementissimam Baronissam, matrem meam, in longinqua domo sub caelis patriae dilectae.
Sicut eu ingens pedis magni cuiusdam calcis impulsi, Go-Whizz in auditorio camera principis Ztwish-Ztwish appulit. Brachia violenter quassat, et interiori furore constringitur, quia adhuc nimium amens erat, ut alium sonum ederet, quam fremitus aut fremitus profundus.
Ex loco meo post Bamboo velum secutus sum, cum omni acumine visus, quo tam juste famosus sum, omnes motus furiosi Go-Whizz, ac actus et mores praecipui Ztwish-Ztwish et consiliariorum ejus, Statui enim me non indiligentem esse, si aliqua proditionis signa conspicerentur. In primo aspectu vidi quod rebellis Go-Whizz aliquid absconditum in cingulo suo habebat, et ex figura et longitudine statim scivi quod esset cultellus silicis. Velox ex sententia, annui servienti mihi lateri, nuntium ad Principem misi, nuntians apparitorem videri occupatum in unguentorum foliorum agitatione ramos, quod officium erat, dum in aurem principis insusurravit.
Erat haec.
“Cavete! Domine, dux. Litigator in zona silicem cultrum abscondit. tentabit te occidere. Cave! Et cessabit!”
Go-Whizz paululum iam quievit; sed, tonitrui voce, coepit vexari. Longos annos pacis et felicitatis in insula sua depingit, quibus benedictionibus longis et gloriosis principum, quorum Ztwish-Ztwish progenitus erat, dignus erat. Intonuit ferociam contra omnes Ventorum hostes Eatores, et suas laudes quam mollissime intonuit narrans tot operas virtutum, quas in Ztwish-Ztwish obsequio peregit, ac finem pro dilecto suo principe moriturum se paratum ac promptum declarans.
Cum Go-Whizz dixisset, princeps paulisper tacitus caput inclinat, ac deinde respondit: « Vere et sapienter locutus es, o Go-Whizz! Fortis es. Dextera es postulare gratiam a manibus meis. Dic, Go-Whizz, quid faciat tibi Ztwish-Ztwish?
Ad haec verba Ztwish-Ztwish, omnis ille furor Go-Whizz denuo erupit. Tunsis pectore, innixus et dejectus auditorio thalamo, fremit;
“Ut hac ipsa hora, ‘Solid daemone,’ tremendum ‘Man-Lump,’ monstrum ‘Crass-Omnis per manus meas dederis’, qui totam hanc mortem et ruinam in terram nostram perduxit!
Dux Ztwish-Ztwish paulisper tacuit.
Quid dicam tibi quod cor meum ipsum pro responso auscultavit?
Nihil audire potui nisi altum, crassum, sonum raucum spiritus Go-Whizze prono ad capiendum primum verbum quod de labiis capitalium caderet.
Visum vita. Tandem Ztwish-Ztwish locutus est;
“Frater meus, haustu saevo ac furiali Aquilonis inardescis profundo! Extra te es. Non vides manifeste. mortem non adiudicandum nisi cum legibus patrum nostrorum constituetur. Vera, ‘Homo Crassus-Omnis-per’ causa fuit magnae calamitatis nostris, sed causa innocens. Non est certavit nec voluit laedere. Pacis amator est, amicus benignus. Sectatores mei de periculo linguae purpureae admoniti sunt. Quod ‘homo Lump’ mortem suam non quaesivit. Et bene, nosti quod jura patrum nostra jubent Convivarum sacras ut textura tenere cutis. Vade ergo, Go-Whizz, adire non possum hominem ‘lump’ ad mortem.
“Numquid hic” fremit dux fallax, “iustitiam quam das populo meo?”
“Age, litigator!” re- spondit dux Ztwish-Ztwish, nunc celeriter amittens dominium in se. Obmutesce et recede, ne in indignatione mea ad frequentem iniuriam tuam te ad poenam merendam tradam.
“Curam habe, Ztwish-Ztwish!” fremebat Go-Whizz, fervens ira, cave ne populus tuus surgat in virtute sua et eiciat te, princeps iniquus.
“Abite, inquam!” Ztwish-Ztwish erat placida sed severa responsio.
“Vade igitur primum proditorem populi tui,” intonuit Go-Whizz, prosiliens scopulo cultro in sublime levato.
Clamorem terroris ab iis concursum in auditorium thalamum prorupit. Dux autem Ztwish-Ztwish placide extendens manum et tetigit futurum sicarium.
Mille furentis corpore crepitu Go-Whizz volavit, ut ingens tempestas manibus vesica rapitur, et eiectae quassatae quercus aegrae.
Regina Phew-yoo et regina Pouf-fah trepidi et attoniti inter se inhaeserunt, tacitus timor in vultu principum sedit. Ille autem placidus, et pauca leni et stabili voce ad reginam et reginam locutus est.
Cum populus Go-Whizz de conatu suo rectorem suum occidere et quomodo litigatorem cognosceret, in ipso momento cultrum silicem ad percutiendum, occulte percussum ad pedes Ztwish-Ztwish mortui, emisit voce huzzas pro truculento. Go-Whizz magis timebatur quam amabatur etiam a suis.
Postulabat aliquot dies ad vicum Ventorum Eaters ut quiesceret et in dies singulos aspectum reciperet, post arcanam Go-Whizz mortem; sed, suo evanescente evanuit omnis oppositionis regulae princeps Ztwish-Ztwish.
Firmiter enim credebat populus ultrices aeris esse, qui litigiosos ense tetigisset, cum manum contra rectorem levasset.
Haud equidem tibi dicam gratiam praecipuam mihi nullam esse. Nulla dona nimis pulchra aut nimis pretiosa mihi offerenda erant. Quod vero ab omnibus recusabam, tantum videbatur eius erga me confirmatio.
Sed quomodo potui, quomodo ausus sum negare donum manus pulcherrimae reginae Pouf-fah?
Facere hoc esset omnia quae feci, Ztwish-Ztwish inimicum meum facere, amorem in odium, fidem in suspicionem mutare, fortasse mortem meam scribere suadent.
Unum mihi reliquum fuit ut persequar. Fugiat id et!
Fugiendum quoque illico erit, antequam fiducia principis amisero. Primus actus Ztwish-Ztwish unus post liberationem e ferro silicis caedis Go-Whizz erat, mihi parvum instrumentum cum puncto invisibili restituturus erat.
Quo facto atrox videbatur ab eius mente sublatum. iterum factus est. Reversoque foelicitate ac contento, vehementior adhuc cupiditas venit ad nuptias maturandas cum reginae Pouf-fah.
Cautissime hanc et illam excusationem feci, ut tempus colligendi cogitationes meas et certum aliquod consilium evadendi capiendi cognoscerem, aut mortem aut deteriorem mortem, incarcerationem donec consentirem tradere. omnes ventorum Eedores insulam exeundi cupiunt, meque, quantum natura patiatur, ex eorum gente fieri spondeo.
Cautus eram, suspiciones excusationesque meae.
Prima probatio est, ut invenias imperatum datum esse ut piscium copiam intercludat.
Regina Phew-yoo veritus est ne, quamdiu mihi permissum est, omnes cibos solidos habere volebam, non satis macie contenta aere victu, et ideo non satisfecit ut domi meae apud illos de cetero ponerem. vitae meae.
Proximum est, ut mihi contingat, ut ostrearum et concharum mearum copia dimidia iussu Phew-yoo redacta sit. Hoc intelligitur, cede vel fame!
Percussit me sicut fulmen e caelo sereno!
Sed talis semper fuit ictus, qui me in omni vita ad tranquillitatem, velocem, ac prudentem excitavit.
Iam non haesitabam. Consilium meum uno momento perfectum est. Cum nox advenit, propere paucas ad naviganti lineas contorsit herum, fatum narrans venturum, iubensque paucos fidos armare viros ac properare ad opem. Hoc ligavi ad tortam dilecti et fidelis mei Bulgeri. Blanditiis texit manum, et amplexa tenebam illico dum lachrymis ardentibus et ieiunabat. Tum molliter ostium hospitii mei Bamboo aperui.
Nox erat clara et gloriosa. “Abe, mi Bulger dilecte!” Susurrans, procumbens et presso tandem ore labra sericis auribus et tereti capite. “Ad navem! Discedite!” Constitit, vultumque meum inspexit, ac si diceret: Heu heu, heu, heu minus, intelligo! Et auferetur quasi ventus. ilico illum sequor ut longo et valido currendo vinculo. Et tunc abiit!
Postridie mane, in stuporem meum, certior factus sum omnes apparatum nuptiarum principissae Pouf-fah et “parvulum per omnem hominem” confectum esse, et postridie postridie incipere convivium ac iocum.
Hoc nuntium, ut erat insuetum, summa tranquillitate accepi. Suspicionem plane omnem expoliavi mea apparenti satisfactione cum prospectu fiendi gener magni principis Ztwish-Ztwish. Loculos meos quaerebam pro ornamentis ad lucem et aeream Pouf-fah tribuendam.
Regina Phew-yoo non visibilis erat. Tanta laetitia cordis matris fuerat, ut in momento infirmitatis nimis avide divitum, sed pestilentis aestus, et horribili dyspepsiae impetu laborabat.
Hoc mihi felicissimum fuit, nam certo certo habeo reginam Phew-yoo nunquam consensisse ut me in mea illa nocte redirem permitteret. Nunc unum restat ut facerem, et id peterem in longinquam oram maritimam, ubi navem reliqueram et remigem.
Satus etiam ipsa nocte. Cum infausta fortuna esset, dux Ztwish-Ztwish animadvertens iucunde vehemens zephyros flare coepisse, quasi praeliminares epulas circa solis occasum habere coepisset.
Invitatus sum ad convivium.
Non ausi abnuere, cum laetis cantoribus profectus sum, nec me solum defatigavi, ut me invisibili cibo replerem furibunda conatu, sed media fere nocte, antequam villa quiesceret, omnes fores occlusisse videbantur, ac fenestrae habitationis suae. Sed tamen tumultus Ventorum Eedentium fortuna mihi fuit. Ibant cubitum ita multis et profunde cordis haustibus exsatiati, et favonio vento implentes, ut quasi tigna dormirent, si me globulos ligno solido comparare licuerit.
Exspectavi donec interiisset strepitus vocum, ut ultima turba rostri dirupta, et ventus solitarius comestores per plateas dispersus, singillatim in bamboorum habitacula disparuit.
Relinquens ostium intus affixum, leviter per fenestram provolavi, et tectus umbrarum profundarum iter ad urbis extremam latuit. Hic in currendum acutum fregi, nam plurimum haberem sex horarum initium Ventorum Eatentium et longe minus. Nam , ut ante dixi , phantasmata volitant , cum in jejunio, et etiam cum bene satur, pedis velocissimi sunt, praesertim si quievit aer, ne progressum impediat.
Ego vero valde festinavi propositum me tam bene usui meo facere, ut non posset me consequi.
Ad horrorem meum, postquam circa horam currendum est animadverti pedes meos lassescere incipientes.
Hoc atrox mihi ictus fuit. Parumper haesitavi semianimis, ubi essem, quo properarem, et tanti periculi impendentis. Nec mora, res mihi facta est.
Ego naufragio mei prioris fui. Longa mensium piscium victu eripuerat nervos meos mirae illae virium et elasticitatis, quae olim superbiam ac praecipuam in periculis periculi.
Fragili iam crevi, iam crura sub me flectuntur.
Tardior et tardior gressum meam crevit. Visum est cor intumescere et ipsum vitae halitum excludere.
Ego semper elaboravi summo studio persequentium fugiendi, quorum sonitus dimidium mihi videbatur languide sonare procul.
Sed natura non faceret!
Commota sum, titubavi, substiti, cecidi!
Quam diu ibi iacebam nescio. Sed cum ad me venissem, plane sentirem illam aeris mutationem, quae venturi diei narrat. De torrente incidit in aurem meam. Corpus traxi traiecto ad sonum. Alta trahere ad frigus, aqua limpida de torrente me aliquantum refecit. Assurgere conatus sum; sed, o nova spe deminuta, ut invenirem articulos meos in terra iacentes, detectos, etiam male vestitos, dormientem, nam unam partem vestimenti mei remansi pendentem in fenestri thalami mei. Castellum, ad quietandam suspicionem, quae oriretur ex servorum animis.
Cogitationes autem domus maioris Baronise, mitis Baronissae, matris meae, dilecti mei Bulgeri, volitaverunt per pectus meum febriculatum, et instigavit me ut plus laboraret ad pedes meos recuperandos et mortem evaderet de manu capitali. Ztwish-Ztwish’s irati homines, qui mox collisis, clivos et valles, ut erant spiritus, erant.
Gemitus elapsus labra dum surrexi ad pedes, sic ut mucrones in articulorum cultri sunt dolores quae per artus emissa sunt.
Sed conandum est ut sursum sit et absum, licet mihi labor mille atrox gemellis constaret.
Debeo caris domi impulsus, donec penitus contritus concidam, donec, tanquam percussa bellua, abreptus potestati standi, procumberem et procumberem et sectantium misericordia.
Tales erant cogitationes quae meum egenum nutantis cerebrum premebant.
Atrox mysterium, somnium cruciatus me gravavit.
Adhuc animus mihi erat. Viderem. Sentire potui. Audirem. Et cur non assurgo et progredior, et a certa morte me obversabar?
Talibus attonitus cogitationibus, nixus ad pedes, haesitans, emisso omni gradu gemitus!
Sed me ad opus pertraxeram, et trahebam me adhuc quodam insueta et occulta vi oppressam, quae omni lapillo saxi molem dabat, omnemque gyrum hiatu laxavi, cuius in margine aegra defixus sum. Metus aliquam in atram voraginem demitteret. Et tamen, o gaudium! paulatim membranae ab oculis defluebant, vis arcana e cerebro suo levavit. Sensi similior.
Clarius vidi. Firmior gressus meus. Nunc demum omnia bene me putavi!
Cum subito longa caerulea-viridia micabat per capita collium in longinquo orientale caelo. Mane erat signum!
Rursus genibus lapsi cum gemitu me decepi, stupefactus resurrexit, lente, lente, pressus, omne gradum cerebro calefacto quasi ictu mallei lacessens; sed usque in puram!
Horrendum tenaci quasi alicuius gigantis manus, palmam ferrei digitique ferrei, in ipsis meis visceribus posita. Putabam etiam nunc effugium meum notum esse inimicis meis, quod phantasma Ventus Eaters, retibus et fustibus armatus, e viis capitalis Ztwish-Ztwish vicus volitare, me vivum in pejorem mortem deportare praecepit, quam mors ipsa, seu me peremit, quia perfracta fidem et faciemque probitatis in fraudem dolisque meam pones, artus torpent, et parvae quae reliquerant vires eripiunt mihi.
Et usque in sæculum certavi, sicut erat in calice vini torpens. Celer! Nimium rapidus, qui series glaucis aurora dilatatur, et per matutinas umbras emissa diei orbis nuncius lucis huc illuc, nunc debilis et incertus, nunc validior et longius penetrabilis.
Vidi eos, et sentiebam, quia in terrore eorum visi sunt erga me emicare et percutere oculos meos conniventes, quasi pulsantes ad fenestras animae meae, et excitabant me ad movendum de morte nocumentum.
Ad breve tempus constiti tanquam aliquem cupidum et familiarem vocem in auribus meis sonantem.
Contigit.
Fuit mitis Baronissa, mater mea! Leniter, suaviter, suaviter, vox illa notissima fluitans in aere matutino iubente me cor capere, me nomine appellans sicut in diebus infantiae et dicens: “Infana mea! Meus puer! Fili mi! Amica mea! Excita te! Preme! Preme cito!” Et tunc corde tuli.
Fibulae tremendae pectori solvuntur custodia.
Vires reverti possem. Sed o tam lente, tam tarde! Tamen in reditu suo fuit tandem! Sentire possem pedes meos leviores fieri. Paene ad cursum gressum aliquo labore excitavi.
Die, speto, nunc omni momento vires novas mihi praebes, omnis motus calido sanguinis tinguendo ad digitos meos mittendo.
Sublata incantatio! iterum ipse fui!
Velocius et ocior gressum meum animavit, donec sicut in diebus antiquis volavi, cum facile omnes post me venientes reliqui!
Vix equidem sonitum fluctuum audirem in nivalibus arenis pulcherrimi portus, ubi mea bona navis iacebat.
In, semper et deinceps, nova et arcana viribus concito. Obstupui in factis meis. Paene timui, tam festinanter finiebam, ne rursus aliquis aeris daemon tangeret membra et cursum meum maneret.
Sed cor! Non audisti vocem profundam illam?
Caelum patet. Fieri non potest vox procellae.
Ha! Altius et clarius quam prius, raucus, humilis, murmurans, fremitus, fremens, alis excitatus aura fertur.
Perdita! Perdita! Perdita!
Clamor insequentium, vox hostilis.
Isti filii caeli sunt in via mea. Sequuntur me saltu et saltu. Quis furor est praecurrere eos. Sinite me ut homo moriar! En ut per campum vincti sunt!
Veloces et taciti sunt gressus eorum, phantasmata quae sunt!
Disvolvo, cado, voluto, circumvolvo, circumvolvo, in diro ambage!
Iamque super inermi corpus venit imber aculeis. Alti fremitus clamoribus auras implent, ac tempus in imbribus plagarum truculentissimum per ora et caput manusque pluunt.
Dum perseverent, vires crescere videntur.
Nam dolor, ante ac porta suscipit, nunc efficitur dolor. Lumen exit ex oculis meis, intumescit clausus sub hoc saevo hiatu.
Aures mille soni strepunt.
Meum cerebrum nutat, ego vado mori-
Cum, cor, iterum!
Hoc audire non potes! Aures tuae non noverunt! Sed mea do! Domine!
“Bulgaris cortex est et ego servatus sum! Velocius et velocius Ventorum edentes fustibus suis agunt.
Non exaudio. Non sentio nunc, nam propius ac propius est illa jucunda musica.
Hic est!
Iterum fortis sum. Exsurgo dimidium — labra moveo—loquor—clamo: “Cito, bone Bulger, vel omnia pereunt.” Unica aspectus formidolosa fortuna pusilli sui narrat ei omnia. Ululo irae, atris oculis flammam emittentes, Ventorum edentium se vestigiis inicit. Dentes eius acuti penetrant sicut acus!
Crack!
Dentes iterum iterumque per cutem Ventus emittit.
Crack! Crack!
Fustibus eorum inclinata cessant. Clamor horroris ascendit, quod quater bonus dentes Bulgeri calcaneum Ventriculi comedentis transfigit et corpus eius magna fama in tenues aerem mittit.
Vertunt; perculsa pavore frangunt; pro vita volant, fustibus abjectis, victimam deserentes. Plura videre non potui.
Nigrata est, rapuit me vertigo. Manus meas conabar tangere amantes Bulger, nam letum venisse putabam!
Cum vita reversus est, Bulger manus et os lingebat et gannit miserabiliter. Retem vacui domini membra roderat.
Cum clamore gaudii et lacrimarum rubigine, cepi fidelissimum, amans ad pectus meum.
Tum per colles volitant procul aequore clamor. Venerunt a meo velificante domino eiusque factione subsidio.
Respondere non potui. Sed Bulger caput levavit et paucas cortices acutas misit ut narraret ubi essemus.
Brevi media hora ad latus meum erant.
Contusi os et manus in aqua frigida abluta et aliquot offas vini deglutivi, satis valens sensi super pedes meos et pedetemptim progredior.
Bulger superbus ambulabat a latere meo, intermissa semper et subinde intueri me in facie, quod quaereret:
“Quomodo tecum agitur, parve magister?” Cum in navi, bono cibo confirmatus, et casulae meae commoditatibus elaboratus, non diu valetudinis mee recipiam. Post septimanam requiem precepi ancoram pensare et ad aquilonem vertere bone navis nostre caput, quia anxius eram valde anxius videre Baronem seniorem et mitem baronissam, matrem meam, et narrare omnia de mirabilibus que videram.
“Oh, sweet Spain, beloved homeland.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
The distinguished historian, Don Sabino de Diego Romero, President of the Cervantes Society of Esquivias, former mayor of Esquivias, and author of excellent books and articles, including Genealogía de Fray Francisco Ximénez de Santa Catalina, fraile de la Santísima Trinidad de Calzados, natural del Lugar de Esquivias, que fundó un hospital en Túnez (Genealogy of Fray Francisco Ximénez de Santa Catalina, friar of the Holy Trinity of Calzados, native of the Place of Esquivias, who founded a hospital in Tunis), Cervantes y Esquivias, lo que todos debemos saber (Cervantes and Esquivias. What We All Should Know), and Catalina. Fuente de inspiración de Cervantes (Catalina. Cervantes’ Source of Inspiration), discovered a new document about a real person in Don Quixote.
In 2015, Diego Romero published Análisis biográfico sobre Catalina de Salazar y Palacios (Biographical analysis on Catalina de Salazar y Palacios), which provided new, unpublished documents on the barber Mease Nicolás, a character in Don Quixote, that most outstanding work of universal literature by the “king of Spanish literature.”
According to the excellent documentary work of Diego Romero, from the of the time of the publication of Don Quixote, in 1605, Cervantine researchers have been making all kinds of speculations about whom Cervantes took as literary models, starting with Don Quixote himself and continuing with characters, such as Sancho Panza, the priest Pero Perez, as well as a character whom Cervantes gave the responsibility of bringing Quixote’s “madness” to a happy ending, namely, the barber Maese Nicolás.
In this sense, it should not be forgotten that Maese Nicolás is introduced by Cervantes, for the first time, in Chapter V of the Part One of Don Quixote, together with the priest Pero Pérez, both residents of Esquivias, who eagerly conspire to bring Don Quixote back to his senses and are found in Quixote’s library, burning the pernicious books that altered his mind, in the opinion of both characters, found in Quixote’s library.
Therefore, in this context, I would like to emphasize that according to Don Sabino de Diego Romero, the barber’s shop, together with the tavern, were the ideal places for conversation among neighbors, and playing the guitar, and being also the centers of attention and influence. The barber, tonsor (of medieval origin), in addition to shaving beards, exercised the function of tooth-puller, performed bloodletting, healed wounds, bruises and broken bones well into the nineteenth century, when doctors became an independent guild and looked after the ailments once taken care of by the barbers. The barber of Esquivias was the one who took care of the tonsure—popularly known as coronilla (“crown”)—of Father Pero Pérez, priest of Esquivias, who exercised his pastoral work in the hermitage of San Bartolomé, in the outskirts of the town. The number of services rendered by the barber meant that:
“The influx of people to the barber’s shop was such that this place was the most frequented for social interaction and public discourse, where public forums were formed, for open debates with the participation of the locals on current issues. “In small towns, in the absence of a regular doctor, it was the barber-surgeons who looked after medical needs, and accompanied the physician in his sporadic visits to the sick of the place. “This meant that the affluence to the barbershop was massive and the barber needed the assistance of a good number of people, women in this case, who helped, cleaned, and produced soaps for personal use that were sold in the establishment, among other things. “Likewise, as the shaving process was slow, given the deficient tools used, this meant an inevitable delay, resulting in the crowding of people in the barbershops being greater than in the taverns.”
Without a hint of doubt, Don Sabino de Diego Romero has found in Esquivias the barber-surgeon of the last third of the 16th century, whose name was Nicolás de Olmedo, a person of primordial influence among the commoners of the town. His opinion was respected by all, even by the noblemen of the town, who were also his clients, since the Master Barber, Nicolás de Olmedo, exercised a decisive influence between the two cultural strata of the town of Esquivias, noblemen and commoners, both for being the center of attention in his barbershop, as well as the natural gratitude of the families of Esquivias, for hiring a good number of young girls for the many services at his shop.
At this point, I must state that Diego Romero has found precise documentation that, between 1577 and 1589, Nicolás de Olmedo hired 20 young girls, all of whom were eleven years old. According to the new document of January 5, 1592, found by Diego Romero, we know that the Council of Esquivias agreed to appoint a new barber officer in this way:
“For being Able and sufficient and having a Letter of Review for such barber by Cristobal Ximenez… And that he be obliged to have knowledge of the Sick that are found in the said place and to walk with the doctor to visit them… that he cannot leave the said place without the License of Justice. That he may not play ball or throw or work with an axe or adze or anything else. And if he should be ill, that he be obliged to have another barber in the place at his own expense, and if he does not do so, that the Council bring another barber at his own expense.” (And it is signed by Nicolás de Olmedo, as a member of the Council).
Thus, from the beginning of January of 1592, the Master Barber, Nicolás de Olmedo, stopped holding the office of the barber’s shop in Esquivias, which then reverted back to Cristóbal Ximénez.
Further, it is worth mentioning that thanks to these new documents, found by Diego Romero in the archives of Esquivias, other native characters have become known, and there is now evidence that some of these were relatives of María de Uxena (Quixote, “Galatea,” 288º, 19), the girl whom Catalina de Salazar y Palacios named as heir. One of the most representative of these characters is the Master Barber, Nicolás de Olmedo.
In addition to this, the investigations carried out by Diego Romero document that Nicolás de Olmedo was married to Magdalena Rodríguez, sister of Catalina Alonso, mother of Ana Rodríguez—who married Juan de Uxena, who were parents of María de Uxena (Diego Romero, Catalina, p. 280), and in turn, Nicolás del Olmedo was the brother of Lucía Romana, who married Martín Alonso, parents of Pedro Alonso (Quixote-V-I; “Galatea,” 290º, 18-19).
In this respect, it is indispensable to emphasize that Nicolás de Olmedo and Magdalena Rodríguez were grandparents of the child Juan, whose baptism, Miguel de Cervantes and his wife Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, on the basis of the good friendship between both families, sponsored, on October 25, 1586.
Add to this that on April 9, 1588, Catalina, together with her cousin, Diego García de Salazar, acted as godparents at the baptism of Susana, the granddaughter of the Master Barber, Nicolás de Olmedo, where, on that occasion, Catalina was identified, in the baptismal certificate, as “muger de Miguel de Cervantes” (wife of Miguel de Cervantes).
Adding to the extensive list of inhabitants of Esquivias, and those related to the Master Barber, Nicolás de Olmedo, Diego Romero has discovered that Magdalena Rodríguez, Olmedo ‘s wife, was the aunt of Juana Gutiérrez (obit October 25, 1604) who was the wife of the Sacristan Mayor, Francisco Marcos, who in turn appeared as witness in the marriage of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra with Catalina de Salazar y Palacios.
It should also be said that Catalina Alonso, the maternal grandmother of María de Uxena, was the sister-in-law of Nicolás de Olmedo, and who, at the time of her death (Documents, 10-IX-1590), named Don Juan de Palacios y Salazar, Catalina’s maternal uncle, as her executor.
Baptismal certificate of Diego, son of Nicolás de Olmedo and Magdalena Rodríguez. February 8, 1573 (B1059v2ª. Unpublished).
In view of this, through the documents revealed, linked to Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, husband of Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, and the evident relationship that existed between Cervantes and Nicolás de Olmedo, for being contemporaries; in fact, according to Diego Romero, it is crystal clear, based on the legitimate documentation, that for the character of Maese Nicolás, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra took the person of the Master Barber of Esquivias, Nicolás de Olmedo.
In short, I congratulate the Esquivian historian Don Sabino de Diego Romero for the magnificent discovery of new documents of capital importance about the authentic characters presented in The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha for the documented biography of Catalina, the glorious Man of La Mancha, the history of Spain and of Esquivias.
As well, I must emphasize that Diego Romero has discovered the twelfth real character of Don Quixote, after Quijano or Quijada y Quesada, sometimes called Alonso Quijano, protagonist of Don Quixote; the priest Pero Perez; Teresa Panza, wife of Sancho Panza, whom Cervantes calls Juana Gutierrez, Mari Gutierrez or Teresa Cascajo; Sancho Panza; the squire Vizcaíno; Pedro Alonso, also called Pedro Alonso de Salazar; Aldonza Lorenzo; Ricote, the Morisco; Pedro Martínez, Tenorio Hernández, and Juan Palomeque, named in Chapters XVII and XVIII of the first part of Don Quixote.
Without a shadow of a doubt, I thank Don Sabino de Diego Romero for his exemplary and excellent work; and with all certainty these documentary gems will form part of the new book, Documentos de Catalina de Salazar y Palacios (Documents of Catalina de Salazar y Palacios), which currently includes 1700 legal documents, 1350 of which were discovered by our extraordinary and indefatigable author Don Sabino de Diego Romero, President of the Cervantine Society of Esquivias. Congratulations.
Laus in excelsis Deo.
Krzysztof Sliwa is a professor, writer for Galatea, a journal of the Sociedad Cervantina de Esquivias, Spain, and a specialist in the life and works of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and the Spanish Golden Age Literature, all subjects on which he has written several books. He has also published numerous articles and reviews in English, German, Spanish and Polish, and is the Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Cordoba and Toledo.
Featured: Escrutinio de las Novelas llevado a cabo por el Cura y Maese Nicolás, el Barbero (Scrutiny of the Novels carried out by the Curate and Maese Nicolás, the Barber), engraving by Jérôme David, and published by Jacques Lagniet in Paris, between 1650—1652.
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Charles Péguy (1873—1914), and by coincidence, next year will mark the 109th anniversary of his death, when he was killed in action at Villeroy, one day before the Battle of the Marne. What follows is the Preface, written by Maurice Barrès (1862—1923), to a book of memoirs, (Avec Charles Péguy de la Lorraine à la Marne, aôut-septembre 1914, With Charles Péguy of Lorraine at the Marne, August-September 1914, published in 1916), by Sergeant Victor Boudon, who served under Lieutenant Péguy,
I adored Péguy. These feelings were reciprocal. He showed me a lot of friendship. You know the penchant he had for handing out roles, so like tasks, to each of his friends; which is quite evident in the extraordinary talks that the faithful Lotte noted. To all those who appreciated him, he intended to give a task in his life. In his eyes, I was a boss, an elder, an “old man” on whom he could rely. One day he said to me, “You are our patriarch.” I was astonished.
I can still hear him, I can still see him, as he was that day, arriving in Neuilly, as usual, in his devilish great coat, his eyes full of fire and insight, but a little turned inward and intent on his own concerns. His bushy, ageless face, radiant with the youth of children and the bonhomie of old people, and thus casting me, with a single word, quite unexpectedly, into the cellars of the deepest old age, as much as into the grave. A patriarch! How fast life goes by!
He named me thus out of affection and to mark out my path for me. I was a subscriber to the Cahiers; the first one; I had announced and celebrated the Joan of Arc. If it had been up to me, he would have had the great prize of literature at the Academy. But all the same, we had obtained for him another prize, an equivalent—he gave a part of his work to my publisher and friend, M. Emile Paul. Then, as he reported in his Entretiens avec Lotte(Talks with Lotte), he and I dreamed that he would enter the Academy quickly.
He was happy with all this; but all this is nothing but trifles and dried grass compared to the real service that I was able to render him, comparable to a source of living water that I was allowed to make gush out and that forever preserves him from death.
On December 12, 1914, a soldier wrote to me from hospital no. 17, in Laval: “I had the honor of fighting alongside and under the command of Charles Péguy, whose glorious death on the field of honor you have exalted. He was killed on September 5th, at Villeroy, next to me, while we were marching to the assault of the German positions.”
Just imagine my emotions of pleasure and piety. What! A man wounded at the Ourcq, struck the day after Péguy fell, was able to speak! On the 26th of the same month, without making a single change, I printed Victor Boudon’s admirable account. Two months later, on February 27, 1915, he put me in a position to offer a complement of the highest importance. Today, here he is publishing his incomparable deposition in all its extent and scrupulous sincerity.
With Péguy from Lorraine to the Marne August-September 1914. “These simple pages,” he says in his introductory dedication, “are the modest testimony of a soldier, to the memory of Charles Péguy, his leaders, his brothers in arms, the glorious dead of the 276th, all those who, by their heroic sacrifice, saved Paris and France in September 1914.” And this book, as Anatole France had already done with his precious collection, Sur la Voie Glorieuse (On the Path of Glory), Victor Boudon, wounded in the war, expressly notes that it will be sold “for the benefit of the Fédération Nationale & Assistance aux Mutilés des Armées de Terre et de Mer” (National Federation and Assistance to the Wounded of the Armies of Land and Sea).
May we add our thanks to the gratitude of all. What is this noble witness? What is the merit of this companion who will never leave Péguy down the centuries?
When the war called him to the regiment, Victor Boudon was a salesman. Before that, still very young, he had worked as secretary to Francis de Pressensé at the Human Rights League. That is to say that no one more than he would have been able to immediately become intoxicated with our friend’s theories on the Mystery of the Revolution and of the Affair, and very quickly with his theories on the Mystery of Joan of Arc. But, curiously enough, Boudon was unaware of these meditations when the chance of mobilization put him under Péguy’s command in August 1914, in the 276th Infantry Reserve Regiment: “I knew,” he told me, “that Péguy was writing the Cahiers de la Quinzaine. I had read a few issues, at the time of the Affair; but since then nothing.”
He regrets not having “exchanged ideas” with Péguy. “I had my place. We hardly spoke. And then it was all so short, so full of fatigue, of events. Yes, I promised myself on occasion to ask him questions and to listen to him.”
Let Boudon rest assured. He knows a truer, more beautiful, more eternal Péguy than the one we used to see; and his testimony brings us the Charles Péguy of eternity.
I am not simply saying that in this Memorial you will see Péguy standing upright in the midst of his men and as posterity welcomes him. He will appear to you in the course of these thirty days of war as a man of the oldest France; and you will see in action what you have already distinguished in Péguy’s geniality, a contemporary of Joinville and Joan of Arc—in short, the Frenchman of eternal France.
Keep in mind that there are, in these pages written by this Parisian of 1916, passages which seem to be of “the loyal servant” of Bayard type (See the place given at night to a poor woman, on page 94).
Such scenes, so pure and, so to speak, holy, are mixed in with other scenes that are far cruder and which, moreover, show prodigiously innocent souls. That is the beauty of this book; one sees in all its reality the swarming of life, the common crowd not yet quite become the warlike troop, the sancta plebs Dei, so dear to the historians of the Crusades.
There was, in the first psychology of our armies of 1914, a shade of sansculottism. A combatant who knew how to observe said to me: “At the beginning of the campaign, I was often struck by the unabashed sansculotte attitude with which the mobilized workers and peasants pretended to maintain, in front of the Kaiser and his henchmen, the right they recognized, to have neither God nor master, to practice a cordial alcoholism and a cheerful anticlericalism as they pleased.”
To what extent had this initial disposition changed? What is the truth behind the stupor in which some seemed to live, the peaceful obstinacy of the majority, the indifference to danger of the best, the docility of most of the others?
Victor Boudon (August 6, 1914).
At present, there is something uniform in many people, with very simple, very primitive feelings, from which emerge above all resentment against the henchmen and exploiters and a certain obsession developed by solitude. Under the influence of suffering, sacrifice, in the gravity of this terrible or tedious life, in short, with experience, everything has changed. It seems that other combinations of qualities, virtues and defects have forced themselves on all, on the professionals as well as on the soldiers coming from the civilian world. Even the small de facto aristocracies that provided the framework have found their value in a different order of magnitude from the one they initially placed as the highest.
But the army that Péguy saw was the army of the early days, which had not yet undergone the crushing and recasting that the war imposed on it, and in which the superb elements of the suburbs and the professional military elements were juxtaposed rather than amalgamated.
Read, at the very beginning of Boudon’s account, this very characteristic scene of the brave mobilized drunkard who quarrels with an officer on the departure platform. Everything goes wrong, but Péguy intervenes with the tone of a Parigot, and the amazed man says: “For a lieutenant, he is a nice guy.”
Throughout the thirty days that Boudon recounts, you will constantly find this popular vein. Observe, for example, with a bit of divination, the feelings inspired in these workers of Belleville and Bercy, in these peasants of Seine-et-Marne, by Captain Guérin, a great figure of an older, more austere model, less completely accessible to those who from the first moment knew how to see in Péguy “a nice guy.” Captain Guérin, a professional of purely military discipline and science, embodied doctrine and tradition. Whether or not he is “a nice guy,” I will let you decide, but that he is a guy, I mean a man who is strongly drawn and who has authority as a model. Péguy knows it. Péguy notices it; accepts the exemplary lesson of a Guérin against whom native independence, more warrior-like than military, is first raised.
Péguy, and this is his incomparable value, is placed at the confluence—do I make myself heard?—of our traditional and revolutionary forces; he can be at the same time the man of doctrine and of the most ardent individual excitations. Our friend, those who know his work and his nature realize it easily, was capable, better than anyone, of recognizing and using the bold independence and the rich humanity of these suburbanites of Paris, of these farmers of Crécy and Voulangis, and making a noble imagination out of them. Son of a worker, grandson of a peasant, given a scholarship, proud of his poverty, regarding himself a journeyman typographer even more than a man of letters, all nourished by Joinville and Joan of Arc, and added to that the infinitely noble and warm heart, Péguy always wanted to operate by way of friendship, without disciplinary measures, for the benefit of a higher friendship, for the benefit of the fatherland. Péguy marched off with his brothers.
No one had the understanding of the companionship of arms, in the old sense of our country, more than him. In the old days, in the France of the Middle Ages, what constituted the political system, was not the fief, the land, the real (landed) relationship, it was the personal relationship. What wove together the threads of the feudal fabric was the attachment of man to man, the faith. And the same need to support the relations of leader to soldier on a free acceptance, on a voluntarily consented fidelity, subsists in our peasants, in our workers, in the bottom of all our hearts. In the past, between leaders and companions, or between companions of the same leader, pacts were formed with extreme energy which sometimes amounted to brotherhood: Oliver and Roland, Amis and Amile, Ogier and Oberon, Clisson and du Guesclin. You will recall the beautiful words of the agreement that Bertrand du Duesclin and Olivier Clisson concluded, putting nothing above their friendship but their loyalty to the king, that is to say, to their country: “Know that… we belong and we will always belong to you against all those who may live or die, except the king of France… and we promise to ally and support you with all our might… Item, we want and agree that of all the profits and rights that may come and fall to us from here on out, you will have half entirely. Item, we will keep your own body at our disposal, as our brother… All which things we swear on the holy gospels of God, corporally touched by us, and each of us and by the times and oaths of our bodies given to each other.” Well! Our Péguy spent his life sealing similar pacts with Joseph Lotte, Charles de Peslouan, the Tharauds, Claude Casimir-Périer, Daniel Halévy, the two Laurens, Suarès, Julien Benda, Moselly, Lavergne, Eddy Marix, Louis Gillet, and with all the regulars of the little store in front of the Sorbonne, or more simply with the subscribers to the Cahiers de la Quinzaine; and then, a little bit further away from this portico open to all the winds, with Monseigneur Batiffol, Dom Baillet, the pastor Roberty, Georges Goyau and Madame Goyau. And then he sealed this pact with each of the “guys,” as he liked to say, whom he led to war.
It is not a game to bring Péguy closer to the noble men of old. If we loved his character with respect, even in his excessive originalities, at the time when he was not yet a hero of France, it is because we recognized in him the ancient virtues that he took as models. And these men of the people, mobilized workers and peasants, if they took to him immediately, it was because they too belonged to olden times; I mean they carried proud and good instincts in them, always vigorous, which could not be better disciplined than by an attachment of man to man.
Victor Boudon has added to his Memorial the letters that Péguy, during his month of war, wrote to his family and friends. Precious treasure. One seeks there what the hero thought. These quick writings are not enough. I give you something better. What Péguy thinks, or rather what forms in his conscience, deeper than his clear thoughts, what animates and obliges him, you will know by meditating on the great book that we have and that he certainly knew, loved and revered. It is Joinville who speaks. He says: “The Sire of Bourlémont, may God bless him! declared to me when I went overseas: You go overseas; beware of returning, for no knight, neither poor nor rich, can return, unless he is disgraced, if he leaves in the hands of the Saracens the little people of Our Lord, in whose company he has gone.”
Thus thought Péguy. And now that you know the warm, animating thought that places him in the direct line of eternal France, watch him act and die as portrayed by his true witness.
Heureux ceux qui sonl morts dans les grandes batailles, Couchés dessus le sol à la face de Dieu. Heureux ceux qui sonl morts sur un dernier haul lieu, Parmi lout l’appareil des grandes funérailles,
Heureux ceux qui sont morts, car ils sont retournés Dans la première argile et la première terre. Heureux ceux qui sont morts dans une juste guerre, Heureux les épis murs et les blés moissonnés.
(Charles Péguy, “Prière pour nous autres charnels,” 1913).
Blessed are they who died in great battles, Laid upon the soil in the face of God. Blessed they who died on the last high place, Amidst all the pomp of grand funerals.
Blessed they who died, for they have returned To the very first clay and the first earth. Blessed are they who died in a just war, Blessed the ears ripened and the wheat reaped.
Beatriz Villacañas is a poet, essayist, translator and literary critic. She holds a PhD in English philology and teaches English and Irish literature at the Complutense University of Madrid. Her father was Juan Antonio Villacañas, one of the greatest Spanish poets of the post-war period. She has published many books of poems and has won various literary prizes. For her poem, “Peace Calls Us” (newly translated below), she was named an International Cultural Ambassador on behalf of Spain by the International Chamber of Writers and Artists, CIESART, as well as an International Ambassador for Peace.
The translations that follow are by Krzysztof Sliwa, who is a biographer, documentalist, writer and Corresponding Academician of the Royal Academy of Cordoba, Corresponding Academician of the Royal Academy of Toledo and Member of Honor of the Sociedad Cervantina de Esquivias, Spain.
“God is the only example” [Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591)].
“The pen is the language of the soul” [Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616)].
Peace Calls Us
Peace calls us, brothers, it invites us, and opens for us the lights of its bridges, on which we walk to find the sources of a Good that heals every wound.
Although evil is winning the game, let us not give up, let us be resilient. May peace, justice and the good be the currents to navigate in this life.
Let us open our eyes to Truth and with its lucidity and its caress, let us be a worthy humanity.
And in the face of lies and their malice let us defend peace and truth: And with them will come the good and justice.
Peace and Truth: Union
Truth in life is essential, Truth is our need. With truth we will have freedom, and Peace will arrive wholesome and complete.
With truth, peace will be real and peace will give us security, wholesome path to happiness. Peace and Truth: vital union.
We must know truth delivers us from lies and its betrayal and not let evil take its toll. Peace and truth in our hearts will come and give us good strength: after crying, the song.
Praying in Hope
Jesus, in my soul I feel now that You will come to save us from the one who lies. In Your Love, I see and feel that Your bridge leads us to the truth and to the dawn.
You give springtime to those who long for it: for my thirst for You, You give me the spring that your Permanent Presence flows in me, with the Truth that saves and redeems.
You are, Jesus. Truth, Way and Life, and I believe, Lord, for Thou sayest it, Thou art the all-embracing Good.
May the Truth set the guidelines and may lies be destroyed, while You, Jesus Christ, bless us.
Living Word
Your Word is so living, Father that it gives light to the meadows, gives color to the flowers, makes the roots fruitful, enlivens the fire of love, opens the way to the steps that yearn for transcendence, makes my verses sprout.
You, at each of our steps, You teach us that everything here is born from the fruitful root of Your Word. Each day opens a dialogue with You. I thank You because Your Word is daily news of Love: and Love, day after day, gives us news of the eternal.
When Faith Came to Dwell In Me
Question after question I asked myself and, without an answer, I spoke with doubt, always searching for the naked Truth, that would illuminate my life.
Poetry came to lend a hand. With it, Dear God, You gave me Your help. The faith that does not make mute penetrated me, that which turns tears into joy.
Faith is a gift, also a workout, an indispensable and persistent effort to which Your Love gives great benefit.
Faith entered to dwell my ardent soul, which thirsted for You from the beginning, and, wanting to feel You, already feels You.
“Gain a heart of wisdom” (Proverbs 4:23).
Laus in excelsis Deo.
Featured: The Last Judgment, detail, by Fra Angelico; painted ca. 1435-1440.
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CAPUT IV
Quaestio, quae nunc animum patris occupavit ad exclusiones omnium aliarum cogitationum, hanc magnam pecuniae summam collocare erat, ut, cum pervenisset ad annum vigesimum primum, satis magno fructui ad habitandum Baroni provideretur. Praesertim cum ad tam celebrem familiam quam nostram pertineat.
Ita se res habet, pater, hanc quaestionem depraedari tranquillitate animi permisit in tantum, ut sensim carnem amitteret.
Mater quoque eius miserabilem condicionem videns usque adeo anxiari et laborare coepit, ut ipsa quoque valde macer fieret. In carne enim sua minuebantur naturaliter, et paulatim vel nullo cibo suppeditabatur; vel, certe, non plus quam satis erat satisfacere Bulgeris et meis necessariis.
Unde servi coeperunt amittere carnem et tectum et foris; cum magno animo esse intermisso, equi iumentaque exiguis frumento pasti, quo fit, ut celeriter etiam labi incipiant.
Itaque admodum gravis visio crevit, ut miserum patrem et matrem in meris pellibus et ossibus redactis, meris raedarii et peditis umbris circumacta patria, quatuor equis traheretur, quorum ossa sub pellibus cum essent satis crepitantia. Coactus fueris aut tunditur in curriculo piger.
Bulger et ego solus pinguedinem nostram et bonos spiritus retinuit. Tandem intervenire decrevi et celerem finem huic rei miserandae statui. Exegi a seniore Barone promissionem sponsionis, quod mandassemus se ad amussim, et non obiiciebamus, quantumvis ferae vel irrationabiles sibi vel matri meae viderentur.
Tunc precepit ei ut sumeret aliquod bonum et sucosum cibum, et primo secederet et caperet sibi iucundam diu somnum, salutavi eum reverenter et dixi:
Baron, usque ad crastinum diem.
Vix ientaculum finieram cum fores apertae et senior Baron in cubiculum ambulabat.
Refectus multum aspexit. Color in maxillam rediit, fulgor ad oculum.
Erat jam alius homo.
Ecce, domine clementissime, incepi ei pergamenum tradere, index omnium notissimorum Almanachorum in terra nostra. Colloquium cum illis statim habes et ab illis emptionem ius praebet ut tempestatum praesagitiones praebeant anni futuri!
Senior Baron coepit expostulare. “Baron!,” ego duriter inspexi manum, “Verus eques non habet unum verbum dare.”
Ille tacuit et me pergere annuit.
Ita sum secutus.
“Reuerende parens, cum ab utroque hoc iure obtinueris, ad me redi.”
Paucis diebus pater munus suum perfecit.
Et intravit cameram meam, et dedit in manus meas concessiones necessarias ab omni almanac factore prenotato in terra.
Iterum imperavi ei se ipsum refocillare, ut bonam noctis quietem caperet et mane me videret.
Cum Bulgerus et ego rediens a prandio, senior Baron senior se obtulit ad fores mansionum mearum.
Vidit fortis et bene. Vultus iterum impleverat et gressus pristinam elasticitatem recuperaverat.
Iterum in manibus suis librum pergameni posui et dixi ei.
Per singulas almanach istius membranae contenta aequaliter et copiose sparge in paginas devotas mensibus Novembris, Decembri, Ianuario, et Februario.
Respexit ad me percunctando, et movere labia coeperunt.
“Domine illustrissime!” inquam, antequam sonus ex ore eius emanasset, “In familia nostra semper milites sine timore et sine opprobrio fuistis.” Tacitus inflexit sublimem formamque recessit.
Fortasse lector aliquantulum curiositatis scire potest contenta voluminis pergameni, quam in manibus baronis maioris hac occasione posui.
Si brevitas sit animus ingenii, facetus. Si rotundus, vestis veri, verax fuit. Hoc ut esse libuerit, verba quae in illo volumine pergameno exaravi stylo meo, haec leguntur.
“Omnes signa demonstrant frigidissimo hiemali.” “Indicae sunt hiemem venientem dimidio saeculo gravissimam fore.” “Omnes idem praesagiunt responsum, eximiae longitudinis hyemem et frigora amara.” “Prognosticatores peritissimi concordant in praedicando gradum temperaturae humilis raro in his latitudinibus perventum.” “De hoc tempore expecto insolitum frigus.” “Protege plantas.” “Nunc vide bene herbas tuas hiemales.” “Conserva eos ab extremo gelu.” “Duplici copia brumalis cibus.” “Nunc saevas nives expectamus procellas.” “Exspecta frigoris amarum in toto hoc mense.” “Praeparate rarissimas grandines procellas.” “Cavete de repentinis ac penetrabilibus Aquilonibus ventos.” “Domus pecudes conlaudantes per totum hoc mensem.” “Cavete a lethalibus blizzardis, venient rabie ruenti.” Paucis diebus absens pater meus domum rediit. Eius adventus mihi rite nuntiatus est a Bulgero, cui dixi: “Ite, bone Bulger, et baronem deduce ad cameram meam.”
Multis saltu et cortice ludibrio se circumscribit, et mox seniori barone cum iocunditate tam communi sibi serviendi more inauguravit.
Obedivi tibi, fili mi. Murmuravit senior baron cum grandi arcu in flexa.
“Salve!,” Respondi eum sedere rogans.
“Et nunc incertorum pedum meorum rector honorate, verba mea attende: negotium nostrum paene factum est. Paucis diebus confecta erit haec pecunia, quae tibi tantam sollicitudinem attulit, et cordis tui officia expilavit; atus, completus; et, quod melius est, tam feliciter investituram, ut patrem unius ditissimi filii in regno vocare valeas.
Audi, Baron. Ite nunc in primores mercatus terre et quemlibet furnum mercatorem sub stipulatione scriptionis ponite, ut tradat tibi in primo autumno omnes pelliculas, indutas, vestes, vel dorsa dominis, de quibus manutenebunt traditionem sub manibus eorum et sigillis.”
Vix labiis exciderant verba prius quam senior Baron e sella surrexerat meque ad pectus amore rapuit.
Permitte me hac nocte proficisci! “Exspecta Barone!” Dixi, ducens eum ad sellam suam et cogente leniter sedere. Exspecta, Baron; nonnihil tamen dicendum est. Cum perfeceris emptionem omnium pelliculorum, quae hoc anno exspectantur in Regnum, expende reliquam pecuniam in emendo omnibus lignis, carbo et gagatis invenis, non quod lucrum ex pauperis emolument. Graciles copia; sed ne alios iniquum in eum contrahendo, quod in prima tempestatum praedictione certe faciunt. “Ah, parve Baron!” pater, “quam cogitatione; non enim, ut dicis, pauperum humeris oneramus!
Tanta fuit diligentia qua pater meus consilia perfecit, ut uno mense totum opus macelli emissem ac vendidissem, parvo quidem progressu, sed satis amplo, ut me perquam pessime faceret dives.
Quod ita leniter et scite factum est, ut nemo callidam calliditatem umquam suspicaretur qua satis mihi ad iter faciendum divitias comparare potui, sicuti animus promptus erat, et scire me captum et teneri. Redemptis praedonibus avarissimis, nummulariis meis aurum satis esset ad redimendum me.
Post octavum annum expletum, inexstinguibili desiderio sum, ut statim ingrediendi ad perficienda diuturna consilia dilecta, longinquas terras, ab extraneis et curiosis hominibus habitatas, visitaret. Domus mea, lingua mea, populus meus multa me fœtebat, et circumdederat me.
In somnis ego navia pudens navigia pressi, iussa mea vociferans, placidum vela scopulum imminentem tempestatem creber. Transivi tempus meum a mane usque ad noctem, congruis articulis mercandi cum barbaris positis stipendiis, ut penetrare in interiora nunquam possem ab homine humano visitari, et ascendere flumina clausa a mundo incohata alatis nunciis. Mercatura et mercatura. Sed, quod mirum dictu, pater ad hoc adhortatus est, forte precibus matris meae, firmiter ac fortiter intendit in consilium abiturum domum.
Iuxta me destitutione fui. Oravi, obtestatus sum, minatus sum. Primum enim in vita mea—dolet enim me etiam nunc confiteri—cuiusdam incusavi autorum meorum contemptio.
Bulger, post aliquot dies res perspectata, conclusionem habuit seniorem Baronem aliquo modo infelicitatis meae causa, et postulabat interdum severissimo meo imperio eum a vitulis maioris dentes cohibere. Tibiis Baronis, ut ex mea diaetas post aliquod turbidum colloquium egrederetur.
“Quid!” exclamavi voce tremens maerorque, “Ego magna pereo munera, quibus me natura dedit, muris oppidi huius saeptus, cuius rixis fora amplissima sunt, quorum numquam homines testantur. Quid magnificentius quam regia turma equitum transitus? Non oportet, non erit. Tute dixisti, me non vulgarem esse puerum, ut pila et cacumine delectetur, et picturis excipiatur libris.
Sed senior Baron induraverat cor suum, et omnis oracio mea incassum erat.
Et tamen non desperavi in fine potiri.
Tandem aqua iugi stillicidio abstraxit petram. Constitui nunc animum meum Baronem seniorem movere ut acquiescendum in consilio meo relinquendi domum, conferendo ad rationem prorsus diversam. Dixi egomet mihi.
“Puer me esse vult: unus ero!” Statimque in oppido omni pernicioso scelesto amicos facere institui.
Non una iuvenilis curas meas ne-do-bene fugit.
Quo magis vehemens, strenuus et infatigabilis suae mali potentiae, eo arctius involvi affectibus meis.
Haec mihi de cinereis aurora roscida vesper Concurritur, comitesque mei comitantur in arcem. Me ducem colebant, et praeceptis meis obsequens obtemperabant, ac si alicuius dominii super eos haberem.
Senior Baron vidit glomeratam nubem et intendit caput quasi ad occurrendum tempestati meliori casu resistendi.
Ibi convivio accessit, electissima Burgundia subductus repertus est et utres communi claviculis referti. An senior Baron senior cum accipitribus amicis in campis ad iudicium venit, id solum deprehensos ita fuisse demersos ut cucullo remoto stolide placide sederent. Dicatur coquus hospites expectari et cavendum esse ut globuli pulmenti sui extra delicati, seniori Baronis horrori, in centro cuiusque globuli cerasi inveniretur.
Unus ex coadjutoribus meis satis ausum fuit cistam Baronis senioris surripiere et eam pipere implere. Consequens cogitari potest. Alius bene curavit ut omnes pyxides fomes infunderent aquam coram invitantibus ad fistulas. Cum a mensa surgere conaretur, passim queue dorsum cathedrae secure reperiretur alligata.
Una mearum rerum gestarum me in prima statione scalae constituo et, “Pontem teneo ut olim Horatius Cocles,” mea effera cohors duorum duodenarum iuvenum barbarorum per scalas ruentium clamoribus, clamoribus, vocibusque quae haberet. Cui umquam immanium verarum turbae fidem visitavi, dum ego, cum ligneo sabre, fustibus tundendo, interdum nimis audacter adolescentulus in articulos irruens, et ad calcem scalae Bulgeris infinito ludibrio mitto. Ut semper adsensum in acie esse et de virtute gloriantem.
Tandem cum magno gaudio meo animadverti, quod maior Baron maior deditionis signa ferebat.
Ego quasi prudens imperator omnes in ipsa acie impetum feci.
Futurum esse ut vulpes postridie venaretur. Unam ex meis legatis fidelissimis mandavi ut canes cibos omnes crudos deglutirent, circa horam ante initium.
Alios denos, velocissimos ac dicaces, decem principes medicos et chirurgos oppidi et vicinitatis eius domos misi, cum isdem mandatis, ut singulos, feminas, puer; violenter egrotante manerio fuerat, et maxime festinandum est ad uenturam cum medicinis pectoribus, ut pestilentia reprimatur.
Eodem fere momento decem doctores in atrium incurrerunt, solum ut Seniorem Baronem et amicos suos in suggestu congreges invenirent, et de insolitis canum actionibus sibila consultatione tenentes. Irati Galeni discipuli pro animalibus pauperibus praescribere noluerunt, et bene repletis holsteriis in crura involaverunt.
Interea non eram otiosus.
Ad ungues scoriae vel plurium volatilium Baronum senioris ligavi quamdam fuzeam inventionis meae, ita inflammabilem, ut levissima frictio exardesceret, et tunc in campis et hortis adiacentis resolutos converti domus praetorium.
Tota aestas occupati erant et laetati sunt in spe boni temporis scabendi, inter folia arida et stipulam camporum patentium.
Per hoc tempus venatores canes nonnihil e stupore excitando successerant, cum clamor, “Ignis! Ignis!” Ascendit. Venaticus raptim desiluit et insana ruunt aqualis hydrias iunctaque ministris.
Sedebam placide in conclavi meo, cum Bulgerus ad latus meum, cum tumultus sublatus est.
Senior Baron in primis inclinabat in mentem, quod, licet mea opera manifesta esset in fabrica mali, quod in edacitate canum consistebat, et decem doctores ad manerium vocato in venatione anseris feri, igne tamen erumpente. In proximis hortis et agris nihil ad rem pertinens. Reditus vir venerabilis Dominici Galli senis, qui vel nimis imbellis vel nimis piger fuerat, ut fuzees unguibus adnexis exploderet, rem tamen confecit.
Maioris Baronis animus iam claruit quisnam facinus conceperit in quo tam ignari conscii eius miseris avibus facti sunt.
Illa nocte Bulger et levibus cordibus cubitum ivi.
Senior Baron tandem consensit, ut primo proficiscamur ad quaerendum peregrinos casus inter curiosos populos longinquarum terrarum.
The accomplished humorist, Eduardo Aguirre Romero, author of the magnificent books, inter alia, Cine para caminar (Walking Cinema), Blues de Cervantes(Cervantes Blues); Cervantes, enigma del humor (Cervantes, The Enigma of Humor) prologued by the writer Víctor Fuentes, has just published his masterpiece, Entrevista a Cervantes(Interview with Cervantes), which is dedicated “with gratitude and affection to the memory of the architect Jesús Martínez del Cerro (1948—2022), builder of the two prototypes of the machine to detect false readers of Don Quixote.”
“Don Quixote opened the way to a more humanitarian comicality”
In this context, it should be emphasized that Eduardo Aguirre Romero, journalist at the Diario de León, offered a reading workshop in the León City Hall, entitled, “Don Quixote for the elderly,” and he promotes the language of sweet Spain, by way of his first-rate works, in which, to better understand the life and works of the “King of Spanish Literature, he gives special emphasis to the humor of Cervantes, a subject of capital importance but very little studied by scholars.
But, before continuing, it is important to add a word about Cervantes, enigma del humor (2017), in which Aguirre Romero (who is originally from Madrid and now based in León since 1985) clearly deduces that in Don Quixote, humor rhymes with both love and pain and states that Cervantes’ humor is a multifaceted one, as “it does not evade your reality; it helps you to interpret it” (Cervantes, enigma del humor).
The insightful wit of Aguirre Romero accurately detects that “in these uncertain times, Miguel de Cervantes still has a lot of light to offer us.” As well, he meditates on the origin of humor and comes to the conclusion that “the best thing would be to ask Cervantes himself” (Cervantes, enigma del humor).
Consequently, in his Entrevista a Cervantes, “a work in progress,” the Cervantes-enthusiast from León converses with the genius of Spanish literature, not only because the immortal Miguel is still alive but also because the interviewer wishes to give the biography of the glorious man of La Mancha, in order to learn about the trajectory of his enigmatic life. Therefore, Aguirre Romero brings Cervantes to life, in flesh and blood, gives him a voice with all the freedom of expression and opinion; and without disguising the truth, even if it is unpleasant, he gives a biographical sketch of the famous Alcalá native.
Regarding his economic situation, Miguel maintains that “I had good times… but in my last years, if it wasn’t for the Count of Lemos and the Archbishop of Toledo, I would end up in a corner with a monkey and a goat. Isn’t that poverty? I had it tattooed on me since childhood” (Cervantes, enigma del humor, 48).
“All that can be forgiven, and more. When the time comes”
When asked about the words of the Spanish writer, Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), who belonged to the “Generation of ’98″—”’Don Quixote is immensely superior to Cervantes,’ what do you think?” The peerless novelist answers that “He is worth more than me… and more than almost all of us, because he does not condense. And Sancho also condenses us. But read, read, for sure there is more material to cut” (Cervantes, enigma del humor, 50).
Referring to Avellaneda, Aguirre Romero asks, “Can that also be forgiven, that in addition to murdering the book, he defamed you in the prologue? He even bragged about wanting to take away your profit, besides making certain allusions to… your horns.” Miguel replies that “all that can be forgiven, and more. When the time comes” (Cervantes, enigma del humor, 57).
“Thank you, O Lord, for you have revealed these things to the simple and you have hidden them from the wise.”
Similarly, the journalist sheds light on the doubts surrounding the character of Cervantes, who does not mince words and confesses that “I was wounded in my self-love, many times. Battered, too. I was even tempted to give up… but I was never rancorous. Nor vindictive, except for a few blows in this prologue or in that sonnet, because we are not of the same mind” (Entrevista, 58); and further on he declares that “one can be very intelligent and not understand anything. In fact, it is often those who understand the least. There is a very beautiful phrase of Jesus: ‘Thank you, Lord, for you have revealed these things to the simple and hidden them from the wise'” (Entrevista, 64-65).
The humorist Aguirre Romero notes that “Cervantes was the first to combine with genius the dramatic and the comic; that laughter was more than laughter… and no one before had so united comedy with depth and compassionate tenderness, though Cervantes himself often ignores such potential… and to perceive it, he had to fall in love with his characters, to feel responsible for them… There is not a comic Quixote and a serious Quixote. It is a single book. That is the marvelous multifaceted condition of Cervantes’ humor. A single humor, with numerous registers” (Entrevista, 34-35).
However, the key question that the author poses to Cervantes is:
Aguirre: “Where does Cervantes’ humor come from? You were poor in fits and spurts, you were crippled in a battle, you were imprisoned for five years, you were jailed several times for alleged embezzlement, you got along badly with your daughter… in old age you had to ask for help to survive… With that biographical background, where did you get the vital forces to write the universal masterpiece of humor?”
Cervantes: “Precisely from there… from pain.”
Aguirre: “Does his humor come from pain?”
Cervantes: “From pain and love. When he had the worst time… he laughed. And not only that, he was capable of making others laugh… Only fools need to smile when things go well for them. [If they steal your humor, they will have defeated you (Entrevista, 65).
“My humor comes from pain and love”
In all honesty, Entrevista a Cervantes is a well of wisdom, where humor and truth emerge, which characterize the writing of Aguirre Romero, who always follows the proverb of Cebantes, that brilliant soldier of the Elite Special Forces of the Spanish Tercios Viejos: “Be brief in your reasoning, because no one is pleased if it is long;” and he hides “an ace up his sleeve: there is also pain and love hidden behind what—a priori—only seemed funny” (Entrevista, 34).
Before concluding, it is my great honor to congratulate not only Eduardo for his excellent work that carries much of him within it, but also for his proclamation of vital joy—and that of the believer—in a period of great economic concerns due to the crisis, from which he has not been spared, but also to Professor María Fernández Ferreiro, the editor of Entrevista a Cervantes, for her excellent series of books that she has gathered, and the extraordinary Grupo de Estudios Cervantinos (GREC) at the University of Vigo.
Without the slightest shadow of a doubt, this masterpiece of our admirable Eduardo Aguirre Romero, “dedicated to society hit by a long economic crisis and a crisis of values” (Entrevista, 37), which fills the heart with greater joy, has managed to combine the funny with the serious. The characters and themes are identified with those of Cervantes’ works, while the entire work stems from a healthy and wise humor, which captures the soul of the reader, and makes us better people.
All this proves that Entrevista a Cervantes is a flagship and this book belongs to the whole world. Congratulations!
Laus in excelsis Deo.
Krzysztof Sliwa is a professor, writer for Galatea, a journal of the Sociedad Cervantina de Esquivias, Spain, and a specialist in the life and works of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and the Spanish Golden Age Literature, all subjects on which he has written several books. He has also published numerous articles and reviews in English, German, Spanish and Polish, and is the Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Cordoba and Toledo.
Featured: Miguel de Cervantes, Gustave Doré; published in 1863.
Władysław Broniewski (1897—1962), the famous Polish poet, translator, writer and soldier, wrote this poem as a homage to Mikhail Bakunin (1814—1876), the Russian revolutionary. This poem is translated by Przemysław Abramowski.
Bakunin
Such veiny hand on manuscript Lionish profile of head above it. Huge shadow falls on wooden doors Slightly ajar. On the table Oil lamp glows While the night—immense, starry… The silence overwhelms, it’s midnight. Sparkling snow on roofs, fluffy snow. Bakunin’s writing. (This veiny hand. The lion’s mane. Ominous shadow alludes pain?) The shadow here might rise a cloud Which could unleash a storm today! (How heavy’s hand… To think about Why pen—my weapon—is a weight…) Outside—just snow, night, stars… The tea is tepid. Pipe’s smoke rises… Bakunin dreams—scenes from his life Flow in his brain… some, inter alia, Adventurous—like freedom run He made alone through Transbaikalia With Tsarist posse right on his heels Escape by luck—chance U.S. sail… His traces then, to their blight As if some snow obscured white. The silence grows. The darkness crawls. Cherry smoke curls dreamingly wade… This shadow there, dwarfing the walls It’s him! Year eighteen forty-eight! Again, voracious and so savage Sniffing for blood in shifts of tone Song sung on Dresden’s barricades Which cries as then: Tear down the thrones! This song puts Europe to a torch The spring of nations, freedom’s magnet The million-footed crowd now bulging In booms of salvos—hear, young Wagner! …all lost. Last, mutinous Prague would flash, then only darkness. And so things ended up In chains, in bloody Chemnitz dungeon. Each day he measured the world with thought His cell had three steps for him only. Freedom! Many hard years went by Whispering her name to walls in torment. Nicholas’ thugs put him in chains Whose ringing he only heard as “Rise!” Free man he sailed the world around, No land was safe like Switzerland Where he had settled—and what today— Bern’s eerie silence so tough to heart? Here—Siberian snow… Wild and unbounded freedom! Longing, which Herzen didn’t know! In this great silence time seems to Roll back the memory with its weight Bakunin’s mind breaks free and talks Again to Orlov, which their fate Prevented, yet the old man swears To give the Tsar no more weak lies Never kowtow—better offend! “Pugachov’s spectre is now me So like a phantom shall I stand Over Empire, and people’s fury From prison here I will swing On world and Russia!” With squinted eyes This January Bakunin writes: “I’m leaving only what I got Some clothes (all patched), some free thought. The glass of life—I took a good sip So as a free man I’m on this old trip I’m leaving now. Swiss city Bern, Its silence—Iet clock-masters keep them. Our stars have harsher sparkle learnt Over the steppes and in my wisdom. Slowly through snow I’ll walk alone After the call of northern wind Which in eternal snowstorm blows And blasts, so free—all time it did Shake fist at Earth—while in its path Teaching us humans its full wrath.”
