Recent imprudent or ignorant public utterances serve only to confirm the pervasive presence of the Neo-Cons’ chief ideologue, Carl Schmitt, and beg the question: would it be the promotion of Carl Schmitt unleashing fascism? Or would the European fascists simply be reverting to type?
Although Papa Mendelssohn had been working on the subject for some months now, he has been prompted to rush to judgment following a chance remark uttered by the otherwise perfectly-respectable Colonel Xavier Moreau, in the course of his weekly strategic briefing from Moscow. To one’s surprise and horror, Colonel Moreau described the new Russian Diplomatic Concept as a “Schmittian moment.”
Of which more below.
To Germany’s greater misfortune, there was born at Plettenberg in 1888 one Carl Schmitt, who most regrettably, would go on to live nearly a century. Become a legal scholar, Schmitt was endowed with the academic’s typically admirable traits: savage ambition, vanity coupled with sour jealousy, impenetrable rhetoric, graphomania, connections in high places and pseudo-Catholicism.
As the Republic fell, a triumphant Schmitt, aping Halford Mackinder, began to elaborate on the Grossraum concept as he clambered up the NSDAP totem pole. Alongside his friend Martin Heidegger, on May 1st, 1933 he joined the NSDAP, never to leave it, contrary to claims from his apologists.
At the Nuremberg trials, bizarrely, given his prominence in the NSDAP, he was apparently interrogated as a mere “witness.” Emboldened not to say enchanted by the worldwide publicity afforded him by the Nuremberg forum, Schmitt dared to suggest to his accusers that his rôle vis à vis Hitler’s direct entourage was like that of Plato, who in 366 B.C. , had sailed to Sicily to advise the tyrannos Dionysos (NB: Τύραννος did not mean “tyrant” in ancient Greek) (“Carl Schmitt plaide l’amnistie en termes platoniciens, by Branco Aleksic.
In any event, after a few months’ interment—the Carl Schmitt Society is at pains to distinguish the notion from that of imprisonment—during which Schmitt drafted an opuscule portraying himself as Christian Martyr (“Ex captivitate salus: Experiences, 1945-47—Out of Captivity cometh Salvation“), he swiftly became the academic cesspit from which the US Neo-Cons and notably Leo Strauss would drink, and deeply.
Such was Carl Schmitt.
A “Schittianm,” Moment—Minus the M
Back to Colonel Moreau. A graduate of the famed Saint-Cyr Military Academy, Moreau has been living for the past twenty years with his large Russian family in Moscow, where he works as a business consultant, part-time journalist and and hobby-historian. Inter alia, he founded Stratpol, a thinktank and on-line journal, and has a programme on Russia Today (L’Echiquier mondial). Originally confidential, Stratpol’s weekly video briefings on Russian weapons systems, strategic thinking etc., have gone from a few thousand views each a few years back, to tens, prhaps hundreds of thousands of views today. Despite this large following in the French-speaking world, Moreau has remained what the Russians call “an innocent”—never would he knowingly act against the best interests either of France, or of Russia.
That said, Colonel Moreau, who co-incidentally happens to be innocent of all specialised knowledge whether in law or philosophy, nonetheless baldly stated in his weekly video dated 6th April 2023, that Russia’s New Diplomatic Concept published on 31stMarch 2023 is a “Schmittian moment” (sic), as are Xi Jin Ping’s statements of a month ago (at 20 minutes).
Confounding in his naivety, the Colonel has crawled out onto a limb alongside the very Neo-Cons he abhors, as he rejoices at Carl Schmitt’s purported influence on Russia and refers us back to his May 2021 interview with the think-tanker Pierre-Antoine Plaquevent “Actualité de Carl Schmitt.”
In the first five minutes of that interview, the thoroughly-disingenuous P.A. Plaquevent babbles such arrant nonsense as to call up a a berserker episode in the listener. For Plaquevent, Carl Schmitt was a resistance fighter (!), who supposedly quit the NSDAP in disgust in 1936.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
A Falling-Out amongst Thieves
Thieves DO fall out. Just as factional in-fighting led the Jungian gymnast Rudolf von Laban, who adopted the Lebensraum notion for his Choreutics, to leave for England in 1937 and there become a Saint and Martyr Himself(von Laban’s Wikipedia pages being regularly purged of all Unpleasantness, in 1936 the same sort of infighting led Schmitt to resign from his positions as Reichsfachgruppenleiter, chief editor of the Deutschen Juristenzeitung, DJZ, and the German Academy of Law.
On no account however, did Schmitt attempt to leave for a neutral country, challenge Reich policy, or denounce Operation Barbarossa. Never was he prevented from travelling to “friendly foreign countries,” as the Carl Schmitt Society reports, for example to Occupied France in 1941, where, invited by the Deutsches Institut (Cf. Eckward Michels, “Das Deutsche Institut in Paris 1940-1944: Ein Beitrag zu den deutsch-französischen Kulturbeziehungen und zur auswärtigen Kulturpolitik des Dritten Reiches”), he met with Luvverlies, such as Ernst Junger, Henri de Montherlant or Drieu de La Rochelle. Never was he asked to resign from his Chair at the Friedrich-Wilhelm University, or from his role on the Preußischen Staatsrat, thanks to Hermann Goering’s fraternal solicitude, all this with no interruption up to the bitter end in 1944.
Opportunist to the core, his attacks on the Jews were so vulgar as to raise eyebrows amongst some Party members. In 1936, the year that P.A. Plaquevent describes as that of his “disgrace” (!), Schmitt chaired the seminar Das Judentum in der Rechtswissenschaft (Jewry in the Legal Sciences), where he proposed that libraries henceforth classify works by Jews, rather than by discipline, on designated “Jewry” shelves. To Schmitt, the Nuremberg Racial Laws (1935) were Die Verfassung der Freiheit, i.e., Freedom’s Constitution, article published on 1st October 1935 in the DJZ.
Regardless, Plaquevent repeats the tall tale according to which Schmitt was “sidelined” (a very relative term here!), owing to his anti-semitism being of the “Conservative Catholic” (sic) rather than outright racialist stripe. As it happens, at a conference held on 28th November 1935 intitled “National Socialist Law and the Public Policy Reserve in International Private Law,” Schmitt seized the opportunity to insist that inter-racial marriages be strictly regulated, especially those that threatened Germany vitality, i.e. those involving Jews, since the latter cannot be assimilated.
Schmitt’s public utterances to that effect are so numerous as would weary the reader by listing them. Thus, to deny or ignore what lies as much in plain view as Jeffrey Epstein’s paeodophilia and blackmailing, spells either ignorance… or something more distasteful. To the reader objecting that Mendelssohn Moses is a Jew and therefore slanted, one should stress that Schmitt’s life and character would be every bit as repugnant had he taken issue with the Hottentots, Pygmees, Lesser-Vehicle Buddhists or Zoroastrians.
Schmitt Wriggles into the Ratline… and Rodents Scurry to Leave their Ratline Droppings in Russia’s Path
Freed from internment with suspicious haste in 1947, thanks to the Usual Suspects Carl Schmitt promptly joined the West German Ratline, a network of Nazis hastily woven into cover afforded by the US intelligence, propaganda and terrorism US underground.
Need evidence? Schmitt was neither indicted nor tried at Nuremberg; his internment was described as simple “witness detention” (witness to WHAT, pray tell?). Whilst in internment camp, a US medic slipped him contraband paper and ink, thus allowing him to draft an apologia or rather auto-hagiography Ex captivitate salus, while the camp’s priest, purportedly touched by Schmitt’s “return to the fold” smuggled his writings out of the camp. As for his 4,000-volume library, seized in 1944, the US authorities dutifully sent it back—at taxpayer expense, no doubt.
According to the Carl Schmitt Society, “in 1947 the interrogations by the prosecutor, Robert W. Kempner were more moral reproaches than preparations for a justiciable indictment.” Nor can the Society resist boasting of how Schmitt got the Ratline’s attention: “After Schmitt, at Kempner’s request, had written expert reports on Hitler’s Greater Region (sic, Grossraum/Lebensraum—editor’s note) policy and the internal power structure of the Nazi government, he was able to leave Nuremberg and arrived in Plettenberg as a free man on May 21.”
Although after 1945, the US bell-jar sucked all the air from Germany’s intellectual life, whether the daily press, publishing, academe, the music world, business management (university, science…), with US bases sprouting like weeds and US troops combing the country, one nevertheless finds Schmitt’s works being printed, reprinted, translated and soon taught everywhere above all in the USA.
As for Carl Schmitt’s own person, never again did he come under scrutiny from the Occupying Forces.
In his home town of Plettenberg, where Schmitt returned at age 60 to a charmingly völkisch garden-cottage, furnished with thathuge library courtesy of the Occupation Forces, he became a Citizen of Honour and a Carl Schmitt Society was founded to celebrate him, the Carl Schmitt Gesellschaft E.v. Pilgrims freely wended their way to Plettenberg, while others kept up a sustained correspondence. Most especially, the Quislings tasked with moulding minds throughout the German-speaking world: Rudolf Augstein, who founded Der SPIEGEL, Ernst Jünger, Armin Mohler, the American George Schwab.
Should one be surprised at Schmitt’s cozying up to the Occupiers and their Quislings? Hardly: the Satanist’s True Love was ever to Self, nor was Schmitt an apprentice turncoat, the most striking illustration being his glee at the murder of his erstwhile “friend” General Kurt von Schleicher on30th June 1934. One month later, one finds Schmitt braying alongside the assassins (“The Führer stands up for the Law,” essay in Deutsche Juristen-Zeitung July 13th, 1934 edition).
As Prof. Dr. Renaud Baumert has shewn in his superb essay, “Carl Schmitt contre le Parlementarisme weimarien,” from the outset of his career Schmitt never wavered from onesingle aim: totalitarian rule. To Schmitt, the true enemy, is the people. ‘Twas a specific motive brought him to join forces with ex-Chancellor von Schleicher. While the latter viewed breach of the Weimar Constitution as the last resort to prevent the NSDAP’s seizing power, to Schmitt that manœuvre would ensure the Party’s de facto coup d’état.
To suggest that Carl Schmitt was “trapped” by the NSDAP in Germany is ludicrous. Dissidents of every ilk and religious belief, most of whom had scant funds, managed to flee Germany until the War broke out in 1939. As for Schmitt, perhaps the most prominent of German legal scholars, he had but to wink to slide straight into a lucrative academic position in Switzerland, Sweden or Down Under. That he stayed shows only that he found his perch high on the totem pole beside Hermann Goering both agreeable and advantageous.
Accordingly, when one hears P.A. Plaquevent assert that “it is only too easy to pass judgment on people’s commitments, at a moment in time when events moved so fast,” one might suggest that it’s only too easy to see Plaquevent lose his footing in shallow but stinking waters. In a word, it’s Spinach, and I don’t Like It. Either he’s not done his homework, or there are Things that Go Bump in the Dark.
Where Schmitt gives Hermann Göring a Leg Up
In a collective work, published under Prof. Y-Ch. Zarka in 2009, Jean-Pierre Fayet’s essay, “Carl Schmitt, Göring et l’État total” opens thusly:
“One reads here and there of Göring as Carl Schmitt’s protector, as though Göring were some sort of Renascence gold-shower or sponsor to up-and-coming youth.
“Perhaps they fail to realise that it was the other way round: it was Göring in political debt to Carl Schmitt. State power was delivered up into Hitlerian hands on January 30th, 1933, by President Hindenburg’s signature on a piece of paper, thanks to an apposite manoeuvre worked out by the group around ex-Chancellor von Papen. At the centre of the manoeuvre one finds Carl Schmitt, the fellow who had been von Papen’s public advocate at the Constitutional Court.” Cf. also, Prof. Dr. Johann Chapoutot.
Back to the Ratline; The Neo-Cons
A number of historians, including very recently Prof. Dr. Daniele Ganser, have documented the terrible harm wreaked on Western Europe after WWII by US (and British) intelligence agencies, trampling on the principles of the American Republic. A certain E. Beggin remarks the following on the Ratline:
“Given the extent of American cooperation with and support for former Nazi leadership, as well as other fascist organizations through Operation Gladio, we should consider that Stalin was not only correct in believing the Americans had attempted to secure a separate peace with parts of the Nazi government, but that they had actually done so. In this light, the Cold War was a continuation of World War II, with the United States allying with the remnants of the Third Reich who they reconstituted into a new, supranational form. The American military intelligence apparatus dismissed the doomed approach of Operation Unthinkable in favour of a long term Werewolf style war waged through clandestine means such as Operation Gladio and Operation Condor. The ideological fervour of Hitlerism might have died in 1945, but the pragmatic new Nazism lived on through the efforts of men like Dulles and Gehlen and finally triumphed over its eternal enemy in 1991. Today we live in the world created by that lingering Nazi victory: an Invisible Americanized Reich.”
In the USA, Dr Matthew Specter, an IR specialist,has been taking on Schmitt and the Schmittians’ disastrous influence on US policyfor over a decade. As Dr Specter puts it, referring to the Jim Jones cult in Guyana, he declines to “drink the Schmittian Kool-Aid” (sic) which appeals to so many academics.
“In the run-up to the Second World War, geopolitics appears in the American public sphere as urdeutsch—a kind of Nazi superweapon that is essentialized and seen as something foreign, something to be feared. This ignored American political geographers like Bowman who had been in dialogue with the group around Haushofer’s Zeitschrift für Geopolitik. It also undersold the American inspiration for German geopolitics, especially since the circle surrounding Haushofer saw themselves as responding to Bowman’s book The New World: Problems in Political Geography (1921).
“…the implication that there is a clean break between the 1880s and 1930s discourses and those of the 1950s forward is not borne out. Not only are the discursive continuities more significant than the breaks but the temporality of imperial realism doesn’t conform to the moral narrative about 1945 as turning point.
“When you are socialized into the American foreign policy establishment or into the discipline of international relations by reading its founding fathers, you are being socialized into not just specific axioms or doctrines—but, more importantly, a way of seeing, a way of thinking and feeling. For me, it is, fundamentally, a way of thinking like an empire and as an imperial subject.
“… The Atlantic realists all shared a common imperial blind spot and democratic deficit. Both Kissinger and Morgenthau were committed to the idea of an elite statesman who would understand and develop the art of statecraft. This art was for the privileged few, as statecraft was not something they believed the democratic public could handle—it was too emotional, too plural, too divided, too fickle, what have you.”
In point of fact, the enthusiasm for Carl Schmitt expressed by the US Neo-Cons and their European hounds is perhaps the salient feature of political philosophy since the War. Dozens of articles both scholarly and for mass-circulation, point to the overweening impact of Schmitt’s ideas amongst those who did the thinking for Presidents Bush Sr and Jr and slammed down the Permanent State of Exception (“restraining chaos,” as Anastasia Colosimo chirps) which since 2001, has put paid to civilised life both in the USA and Europe. Cf. For example, Kim Lane Scheppele, “Law in a Time of Emergency: States of Exception and the Temptations of 9/11.”
As for France groaning under the Sarkozy-Hollande-Macron clique of Quislings, over the past 20 years she has become Schmitt’s waking dream: Parliament stripped of its prerogatives, zero separation of powers, myriad unaccountable agencies standing in for the civil service, privatisation of the public domain covered by executive action … Professor Johann Chapoutot is one of the few to have realised that at the end of the day, the Schmittian goal is to liquidate the modern Nation-State which emerged a thousand years ago in defence of the common weal, and replace it by smoke-and-mirrors agencies answerable solely to private interests—almost invariably foreign at that.
Schmitt’s Chiefest Enemy: The People
In Russia at the present time—as in China though doubtless for different reasons—there are clusters of individuals who dispute the policies of the Russian Presidency and General Staff for being insufficiently “authoritarian,” “ruthless,” and to be frank, “brutal,” Carl Schmitt being the reference; they would have a Schmittian Presidency wield the State of Exception and sweep all before it (Cf. Hans Koechler).
By God knows what stretch of the imagination, these persons believe, or wish to believe that the new Russian Diplomatic Concept affirms the friend-enemy opposition on which, so Schmitt claims, rests the State, conveniently forgetting that to Schmitt, the chiefest enemy is the people. Which makes Schmitt the chiefest enemy of the people.
Blithely disregarding the vast and irreversible changes in the structure of international relations provoked by the Government of Russia over the last year, of which the perfect anti-Schmittian Sergey Lavrov is a chief architect, these individuals apparently seek vindication of their theses in the annihilation of the Ukraine, Poland and the USA in a Götterdämmerung style firestorm. A mixed bag—some would like the universe to up-end at one fell swoop, others are British and Neo-Con agents, others are cobweb-covered Slavophiles stuck in the 1870s, while the bulk are well-meaning but impatient Russians as well as Western dissidents, angry at the Government’s previous overtures to the “West.”
“… the United States of America (USA) and its satellites have used the measures taken by the Russian Federation as regards Ukraine to protect its vital interests as a pretext to aggravate the long-standing anti-Russian policy and unleashed a new type of hybrid war. It is aimed at weakening Russia in every possible way, including at undermining her constructive civilizational role (…) (and) violating her territorial integrity. This Western policy has become comprehensive and is now enshrined at the doctrinal level. This was not the choice of the Russian Federation. Russia does not consider herself to be an enemy of the West (…) and has no hostile intentions with regard to it; Russia hopes that in future the states belonging to the Western community will realize that their policy of confrontation and hegemonic ambitions lacks prospects, will take into account the complex realities of a multipolar world and will resume pragmatic cooperation with Russia being guided by the principles of sovereign equality and respect for each other’s interests.”
Well, hello! Where in this new Russian Concept might there be any trace of the Schmittian “friend-enemy” construct, which, dixit Schmitt, the Sovereign must define in order to found his Sovereignty! Put otherwise, “No Enemy? Find one! Provoke someone!”
The Flash-Ball Gun to “Hold back Chaos”
Where does one find any trace of the notion of “holding back chaos” (“retenir le chaos”) as lisped by E. Macron’s new and juvenile diplomatic advisor Miss Anastasia Colosimo? The latter teaches Schmitt’s Political Theology (sic) at a Neo-con nursery known as the Institut de Sciences Politiques (“Carl Schmitt had SUCH a brilliant idea … the thing to do is hold back chaos. That’s how I see myself as an intellectual, my mission is to hold back chaos.”)
Were it not for the difficulty in reading with a glass eye, the 26 Yellow Jackets who lost an eye to flash-balls shot by French police “holding back” non-existent “chaos,” would doubtless be most impressed.
Where in the new Russian Diplomatic Concept does one find any trace of “major” and “minor” nations, with supremacy as by right resting with the first? Or any trace of the notion of Grossraumor/Lebensraum, or of the notion of State of Exception as the prerogative cum crowning glory of the Sovereign’s power?
Schmitt writes: “National-socialist law is not one that embraces the universe and mankind… it is not universal. Our law is völkisch… it refers solely to the principle of taking into account each people’s peculiarities. The right to define what is German, what is the German substance, what must be done to safeguard German blood, is and remains a matter for the German people alone.”
Perfectly clear, thank you. Whereas, the international law to which the new Russian Concept refers, is natural law, the right to life of all peoples and nations, rather than some völkisch Slavophile edifice. It is a reflection of Socratic thought, nor can it be a mere coincidence that the late Daria Platonova Dougina took as patronymic the name of Socrates’ scribe and disciple Plato rather than that of her father Alexander.
To conclude, hats off to Professor Baumert who has twigged onto Schmitt’s modus operandi:
“Rather than ‘an art of writing’, one should prefer the term ‘rhetoric’ so as to emphasise the very practical aim Schmitt had set himself. His legal doctrine was designed, not as a science, which would have meant attempting to bring forth knowledge valid for some length of time, but as a form of struggle aimed at redefining legal notions along with the mental categories which enable one to apprehend them. Far from being a mere intellectual exercise, that struggle represents a full-out political ‘investment’. With that in mind, redefining concepts is of the essence, since it will likely allow one to win over to the cause, from within as it were, those who would otherwise reject it. That idea appears in Schmitt’s 1947 Glossarium where, under interrogation at Nuremberg, Schmitt addressed the following notes to himself:
“Take the measure of the power-holder who has got you in his grasp; against his moves, put up no counter-moves at the same level but let his power beat against your own power to conceive. He will seize upon your concepts. Let him but do so. He will soon slash his paws.”
And so, whether a medical doctor from Bregenz might ring Minister Sergey Lavrov to propose changes to Russian foreign policy, or a violinist from Ferrara write to Minister Gerasimov with advice on the Special Military Operation, is a thing hardly to be conceived. Accordingly, might one suggest that observers such as P.A. Plaquevent or the amiable Colonel Moreau, skilled as they may be in their respective fields, refrain from rooting about on the terrain of eminent legal scholars, such as Prof. Baumert or Dr. Hans Köchler, and immediately remove themselves from the path so thoughtfully traced for them by the Neo-Cons—unless of course, they wish to dig Russia’s grave.
Mendelssohn Moses writes from France. (Revised and amended from the original French on Réseau International).
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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.
On September 25, 2022, I was standing at the window in my room on the 5th floor of the Park Inn hotel in Donetsk. I watched as an artillery shell hit an apartment building. 800 meters away from me, part of the facade came crashing down. At about the same time, I got a text message from T-Online. The editor, Lars Wienand, wanted to know if I was an election observer at the referenda in the Russian-occupied territories. I was on one of several research trips to Ukraine and Russia. I clarified that I belonged to a journalist group. Apparently, he only asked pro forma. Because my denial did not interest him at all.
What came next is a moral picture of self-proclaimed quality journalism and foremost academic culture. I therefore must tell you about myself. But, in fact, this is really all about you. About your freedom of opinion and information, about your freedom of research and teaching. It’s about Article 5 of the German Basic Law. It is about how, in the service of propaganda, desk jockeys try to censor public opinion, to politically cleanse academic life and to destroy livelihoods; and in this way make an example, to force anticipatory obedience by creating fear—in you.
While my associate and I were trying to escape militias, snipers, artillery shells and mines in the Donbass, desk-jockey editors in Germany were launching a journalistic attack. I was made into an election observer at Putin’s sham referendums, an apologist for the Kremlin, a journalist on a political errand. As a result, the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and the Hochschule für Medien, Kommunikation und Wirtschaft (HMKW) in Berlin cancelled my lectureships. They fell for a hoax that has been fabricated in such a way that someone has to fall for it. Such denunciation campaigns, for which T-Online is well-known, only work when others join in. No one checked. This points to the kowtowing of academic elites to propaganda.
Here are the facts:
In Luhansk and Donetsk, I attended two press conferences at the request of the local authorities. I also did this during research in the Kosovo War in 1999 and in Afghanistan in 2002—both wars of aggression, by the way, that were also illegal under international law. There were no mandates from the UN Security Council.
Nevertheless, I accompanied German soldiers on their missions, took part in military briefings and press conferences, spoke there myself, explained my research assignment and reported on my experiences. This is nothing unusual, if only because all those involved need to exchange information, for example, about where mines had not yet been cleared or where dispersed free fighters were on the move. Anyone who, like me, has been in a minefield (near Orahovac) or under fire (near Prizren) knows the importance of such coordination. Thus, I was “embedded” in the KFOR. No one would have thought of accusing me of this or even of claiming that I could not report independently, that I would even spread KFOR propaganda or justify a war of aggression in violation of international law.
My stay in Donetsk demonstrated yet again how dangerous such research is: our hotel was shelled with heavy artillery from Marinka, while a 155-millimeter shell just missed the Park Inn and my room on the 5th floor. Our local associate and driver Yevgeny was killed six weeks later by HIMARS rocket fire.
Exchanging information, including that concerning the mood of the population, is virtually a matter of survival in a war zone. That’s why I also talked to Russians. As a journalist, I am constantly talking to people who have different origins or different opinions. That is the core of my work. It’s not about having something in common with them, but that’s how information is researched. Moreover, no one would have thought of accusing Peter Scholl-Latour, for example, who was the first to film from the Viet Cong side, in the 1973 Vietnam War, of spreading communist propaganda. Reporter Martha Gellhorn survived eight wars (Spain 1937; Finland 1939; China 1941; Italian front 1943; Normandy invasion 1944; Vietnam War 1966; Six Day War 1967; civil war in El Salvador from 1980). She was also “embedded” in the U.S. Armed Forces (at the rank of captain) during World War II. No one ever thought of accusing her of one-sided reporting.
Reporting from a war and crisis zone is absolutely impossible without contact with the people involved—even if they have blood on their hands.
One more thing: This war in Ukraine will end at the negotiating table—or we’ll all be blown up. One can get used to the idea of negotiating with Russians. I have been talking to people from Russia for 25 years. Among them are government employees as well as opposition members. I have friends on both sides of the front, in Russia and in Ukraine. For more than 20 years, I have been bringing back films from Russia that critically examine grievances in Putin’s state. The Swiss Infosperber and the Canadian The Postil Magazine have taken the trouble to link these contributions so that everyone can see them. My research in Russia has brought me two unpleasant encounters with the FSB domestic intelligence service. Once we narrowly escaped arrest. There are witnesses to these events.
It is quite brazen when desk jockeys in universities or editors of online media, who have no idea about the conditions in war and crisis zones and have hardly attracted attention with their own independent research results, accuse me, who has stuck my neck out for independent reporting, of propaganda. They should first of all listen carefully so that their own heads are not crammed with propaganda.
At the beginning of the press conference, I made it clear that I was not speaking as an election observer, but as a journalist doing research for a book project. This was correctly translated into Russian by Sergey Filbert. We were both properly accredited. The planning of the trip had begun in the spring of 2022, when there was no talk of referenda. The date was communicated to us only three days before, in Moscow. The research trip was paid for by ourselves; we did not receive any offers of bribes. We were able to move completely independently in the war zone. The local military authorities did not impose any conditions.
During the press conference, I explained that this referendum did not meet the requirements for a free and secret-ballot election. However, I also explained that the results reflect the mood of the population. After all, the Donbass has been shelled by the Ukrainian army since 2014, and there have been more than 14,000 deaths, according to UN figures. For this reason, the population came into opposition to the government in Kiev. All this was too much for the journalistic satraps of the power elites: the truth about the Donbass must not reach German living rooms—that would undermine the propaganda narratives.
T-Online portrayed me as an election observer, although I clearly stated that I was not an election observer. The portal insinuated that I was indifferent to Putin’s war of aggression. I took legal action against this. Russian media may have called me an election observer, but it would have been T-Online’s job to check the factuality of this. Media is a filter pretending to be a clear window. In journalism, it’s not enough to sit at a desk and stare at a computer. Because on the Internet, you can only find what someone else has uploaded—according to their own selection and their own interests. Anyone who knows that is looking for a reference source in the real world.
It would have been easy to find out. A call to the Civil Chamber of the Russian Federation, which is competent according to the Constitution, would have sufficed; the contact details can be found on their website. Something like, “Could you send me a list of your election observers?” Don’t worry. German is a very popular foreign language in Russia; English can also help in a pinch. Presumably, the Civil Chamber media center would have referred to its website. There you will find a press release dated September 29, 2022, about a hearing before the Civil Chamber in Moscow with all election observers. I was not a participant in the hearing, nor am I named in the press release. Time needed for such? Maybe 15 minutes. Those who are afraid to talk to Russians could have entered my name into a search engine. They would have come across my website, or the portal Vimeo. My reports from Russia can be viewed on these sites. The effort involved? Perhaps 10 minutes. But T-Online forged ahead without any such source in the real world and thus violated its duty of care. The principle of craftsmanship: Audiatur et altera pars—which is why I researched on both sides of the front—was also put aside. The number of clicks is more important than clean craftsmanship. All this shows that it was obviously not about research, but about denunciation. Because such denunciation campaigns generate clicks and increase advertising revenues.
This made it all the more urgent for T-Online to call the universities mentioned. Helge Buttgereit’s account probably hits the nail on the head: “The T-Online journalist learned of Mr. Baab’s presence on site, researched his background and made a press inquiry to the Berlin University of Media, Communication and Business (HMKW). “Do you know what your lecturer is doing there? At the mock referendums? He’s legitimizing them! Do you think that’s good?” That’s how it might have been. It doesn’t matter how exactly, because according to its own statement, the university was on the phone with the delinquent, who was made one by his mere presence in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then a statement was hastily published on the homepage. The gist: We condemn and distance ourselves (HMKW, 26.9.22). Meanwhile, the article appeared on the net. Author Wienand could now add the accomplishment of his mission right away; online many things can be changed and enhanced quickly.”
The call from HMKW was indeed not long in coming. We were on the edge of the gray zone and had just escaped direct fire. The line was full of static. All I heard was, “We will sharply separate ourselves from you… What you are seeing on the ground is bogus objectivity!” That the shells that just flew around our heads were only fired for appearances—I would not have thought of that. Someone who at best has newspaper knowledge wants to know the truth in the war zone by remote diagnosis from a distance of 2,100 kilometers. That would be a challenge even for experts on Eastern Europe. But the chancellor of HMKW, Roland Freytag, is not an expert on Eastern Europe; his area is psychology. In his field, such a thing is called “projection.”
In the HMKW press release, I was accused of having legitimized the “sham referenda” and of having made myself the fig leaf of the aggressors. It was incompatible with the basic principles of HMKW to employ me further. But if research on the ground legitimizes the local rulers, then the press is no longer allowed to check the propaganda of the warring parties against reality and is limited to spreading their propaganda lies. For only on the spot is something possible that cannot be done at the desk—and nor in editorial offices or academies—a reality check. [Walter Lippmann observes: “The newspaper covers a lot of events that are beyond our world of experience… Apart from the interested party, seldom is anyone able to verify the accuracy of a report.”]
So, what Freytag says and does, how the CAU behaves, is an attack on press freedom and an attempt at indirect censorship. Quite apart from the fact that journalists would then also no longer be allowed to report on abuses or violations of the law in Russia, as I have done. This means that these universities support the disinformation of a war party and thus become a war party themselves. They are thus violating Article 5 of the German Basic Law and the freedom of opinion, research and teaching enshrined in the Basic Law.
HMKW Chancellor Roland Freytag was an obedient GDR citizen, a fellow traveler of the SED system. Then came the time of change, and he changed roles. Now he strongly advocated democracy and invoked the new freedoms. That’s how he got to the top as a turncoat. He was one of the speakers at the big demonstration on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz on November 4, 1989, which heralded the beginning of the end of the SED state.
A turncoat from the GDR like Roland Freytag wanted to explain to me (who has demonstrably been resistant in different systems), and from a distance—the reality that I was currently researching on the ground. This behavior belongs in the textbook of anticipatory obedience. For here we are dealing not only with an uninformed know-it-all, but with the primacy of propaganda, albeit Western propaganda. Professor Freytag obviously learned a lot in the SED state—above all, to swim with the tide. The attitude is: If the prevailing opinion does not fit reality—all the worse for reality.
Kiel University also immediately terminated my teaching contract. In contrast to HMKW, however, the teaching contract had already been written out. This made it possible to take legal action. The notice was given in an expedited procedure, because there was imminent danger. Therefore, the hearing required by administrative law was waived. Christian Albrechts University saw its reputation at risk because I assumed the role of an election observer in the Donbass, or at least gave that impression. Again, no proper examination of the false allegation. The dean of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Professor Christian Martin, wrote, according to the administrative file before the court, “I also don’t know what there is great to look at in Donbass.” That is the rejection of any form of science. Because its findings are measured against reality. Again, it was obviously not about proper examination, but about protecting oneself in panic from supposedly bad press, and hastily submitting to the prevailing climate of opinion. This shows that it was not about knowledge, but about commitment—commitment to a war party, Ukraine and NATO. This has nothing to do with science.
When it comes to the reputation of Kiel University, it is worth taking a look at the past. For the heroism of the faculty in defending democracy and peace was kept within narrow limits from the beginning of the 20th century. Before and during the First World War, hurrah-patriotism and anti-democratic-monarchist sentiments prevailed. The “meaning of sacrificial death for the fatherland” was explained to the youth. During the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch in 1920, armed Freikorps were formed at Kiel University, who wanted to crush the Weimar Republic and engaged in firefights with the defenders of democracy in Muhliusstrasse and Bergstrasse. When the National Socialist era dawned in 1933, professors and students at Kiel University did not want to stand on the sidelines. They went into battle against the intrusion of “Western liberalist and democratic ideas,” in order to create a “new unity out of blood;” and on May 3, 1933, they confessed to the Kiel student body: “The study of history takes its innermost justification only from its service to the present”—the National Socialist one, of course. From 1933 on, liberal, social democratic or Jewish scholars were expelled—at least 38 out of 222, according to other accounts even half. (See the work of Ralph Uhlig and Hans Christian Petersen, “Expertisen für die Praxis. Das Kieler Institut für Weltwirtschaft 1933 bis 1945,” in Christoph Cornelissen].
Joachim Krause, a political scientist from Kiel, who has since retired, justified the war of aggression waged by a U.S.-led coalition against Iraq in 2003, which violated international law, saying that it was a matter of “protecting the system of collective security against a state that… quite deliberately sets out to undermine this system… in order to gain leeway from it for the renewed production of weapons of mass destruction…” Except that these weapons of mass destruction have never been found and corresponding claims have turned out to be lies. I am not aware that he was deprived of his professorship for this. Here one sees how CAU measures with a double standard. Kiel University may have many reasons to worry about its reputation; I am probably the least of them. Roberto de LaPuente writes: “If journalist Patrik Baab had spoken of Germans’ ‘escalation phobia,’ he might still be doing his teaching job at Kiel University today. However, he was doing journalism: That is the worst reproach one can face today.” This is how journalism becomes an offense. The freedom of research and teaching is replaced by political correctness. In this way, CAU itself takes sides in the propaganda war.
It becomes completely dubious when the university involves uninvolved parties. It refused to rent a room in the guest house to my American friend Professor Robert E. Harkavy, unlike in previous years, and justified this by saying that my lawsuit against CAU was not helpful in the matter. [“You might have heard that the institute/the university is in a legal dispute with Patrik. That does not make things easier.” Email from Wilhelm Knelangen to Robert E. Harkavy on January 18, 2023, 7:18.]
What does Robert Harkavy, a scientist who has been associated with this university since 1982, have to do with my lawsuit? The foreign press spoke of a return of National Socialist “Sippenhaft.” Such things endanger the reputation of CAU, not my research in the Donbass.
Harald Welzer and Richard David Precht speak of the “ethics of mind surplus”: “And the morality presented with power and vehemence springs by no means from the firm stance one supposedly takes, but one moralizes opportunism.” It is a matter of swimming along in the current of prevailing opinion. Pierre Bourdieu has described the habitus behind this as “respectful conformism.” Respect, of course, for the supposedly powerful. When it comes to appropriate campaign journalism, T-Online has the knack for provoking hasty reactions by way of fear of bad press. That is one side. The other side is the complete absence of clean craftsmanship and moral courage on the part of those called upon. The alacrity with which they make themselves accomplices in the campaign is actually laughable. One believes oneself safe in the protection of the power elites. This is the opportunism of intellectuals.
This cancel culture has nothing to do with a democratic public sphere. After all, democracy means allowing even those positions to have their say in the arena of the public sphere that one does not like. But in the meantime, many academics and journalists are carriers and promoters of identity-politics thinking. It aims at putting specific social groups in the center and enforcing a higher recognition of such groups. Cultural, ethnic, social, or sexual characteristics are used. This politicization of identity is directed against the universalism of the Enlightenment. It is thus a central discourse characteristic of the Counter-Enlightenment. The assumption that different cultures can arrive at knowledge through different paths and claim special rights for themselves is historically seen as a precursor to racial thinking and national superiority. In this perspective, freedom no longer means being argumentatively convincing in the arena of debate, but rather professing one’s allegiance to a group, demonstrating a certain attitude. All those who do not submit to the collective process thus lose their claim to validity. Thus, identity politics approaches are directly connectable to fascist figures of thought. The historian Götz Aly: “National Socialism was also an identitarian movement!”
When press organs present denunciation campaigns instead of facts; when leading university members launch an attack on the freedom of the press and thus on the freedom of opinion and information; when professors smash the freedom of research and teaching without necessity—rights with constitutional rank, mind you—then one can confidently speak of anti-democratic thinking. It does not spread in circles of the intellectually disadvantaged. Rather, intellectuals—or what is left of them, academics—make themselves the drivers of anti-democratic thinking. T-Online is stepping out of the role of reporter, just as those responsible at CAU have stepped out of the role of academic discourse participant. They have become political-ideological actors in the process of opinion control and mind control, and thus self-appointed censors with the goal of narrowing the public debate space to the state-desired area, indeed to the soup plate horizon of their own huckster’s soul.
“Major press outlets also bear responsibility. Rather than seeking to contextualize events properly for their readers, the media have trumpeted the government’s preferred narrative. Whatever its motivations, the mainstream media have implemented, and continue to implement, a regime of propaganda that misinforms the public and can only be perceived by Russia as an affront to the national character of its people. Online providers of information are doing much the same. In fact, as the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and First Amendment lawyer Glenn Greenwald has shown, massive censorship of dissenting views is now occurring at many levels of society in both the United States and Europa. Although it is difficult to look at the horrific images coming out of Ukraine without revulsion and anger, succumbing to blind emotion and embracing the dominant Western narrative is a dangerous error. It empowers the worst forces in Washington, including the nexus of bureaucratic power and commercial interest… This narrative also enables the most Russophobic and militaristic of European leaders, as well as those with the least guts to stand up to misguided American policies. The narrative clouds the minds of American and European citizens, leading to jingoism and war-mongering” (Benjamin Abelow).
From Anne Morelli one can read how this war hysteria is promoted by propaganda—also, and especially, by the propaganda used by NATO:
The Kremlin is to blame for everything. After all, it has invaded a weaker neighboring country. We don’t really want war.
It is an “unprovoked” war of aggression. The enemy is solely responsible for this war.
Putin is a fascist, a butcher. The enemy has the face of the devil—or at least of a villain.
In Ukraine, what is being fought for is “western values” or “freedom.” The real interests are disguised with honorable, higher goals.
The enemy intentionally commits heinous war crimes—as in Bucha. When our people make mistakes, it’s stupid.
We have hardly any losses, but the enemy has enormous losses. We hear this on both sides now, the actual numbers are secret.
We fight for a good cause—the enemy must learn to lose; we are morally in the right after all.
Whoever questions our propaganda is a Putin-stooge, a lumpen-pacifist, a submission-pacifist, a right-wing cross-front agitator, the Fifth Column of Moscow.
I got dragged into this propaganda narrative. Because one thing must not happen under any circumstances—that the truth about this war become known. Therefore, the reporter on the ground must be made out to be a fig leaf of the aggressors and supporter of a war of aggression. The goal then becomes to undermine his credibility through denunciation and political purges. For under no circumstances should one’s own outrages, one’s own shared responsibility, one’s own interests and the suffering of others be allowed to reach German living rooms. This would enable people to do what propaganda undermines—the reality check. Instead of war fever, there would then be disillusionment. Propaganda works particularly well when people themselves have no knowledge.
Part of the propaganda narrative is to omit essential historical facts in connection with this war, or at least to push them into the background. Here, without claiming to be exhaustive, are the most important:
NATO’s eastward expansion to Russia’s borders despite promises to the contrary;
The Maidan Coup and the masterminds around Victoria Nuland responsible for it;
Then-Vice President Joe Biden’s bragging about how he used financial blackmail to force the Ukrainian government to fire a prosecutor who was investigating a corruption scandal involving an energy company with the then Vice-President’s son, Hunter Biden on its board;
Ukraine’s biological weapons production facilities;
The neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and similar organizations;
President Zelensky’s self-enrichment and secret foreign assets;
Human rights abuses in Ukraine;
Zelensky’s laws restricting freedom of expression and banning political parties;
The blocking of a peace agreement all ready for signature, negotiated between the warring parties in Istanbul in March—for which there are at least six sources, two of which were involved in the negotiation process.
[“According to multiple former senior U.S. officials we spoke with, in April 2022, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators appeared to have tentatively agreed on the outlines of a negotiated interim settlement: Russia would withdraw to its position on February 23, when it controlled part of the Donbas region and all of Crimea, and in exchange, Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership and instead receive security guarantees from a number of countries”—Fiona Reed and Angela Stent. “I have one claim. I claim there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire”—Naftali Bennett. “The Grinding War in Ukraine Could Have Ended a Long Time Ago”—Branko Marcetic. More broadly on the Ukrainian conflict—Harald Kujat].
In light of this, Noam Chomsky laments the collapse of the democratic debating space: “Perhaps parts of the intellectual class are so deeply immersed in the propaganda system that they cannot even perceive the absurdity of what they are saying. Either way, it’s a drastic reminder that the arena of rational discourse is collapsing precisely where there should be hope that it will be defended.” In academic circles, that is.
Denunciation cascades, triggered by academic and media networks, in league with influencers on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., have one goal in the end: to shatter the economic livelihood of the targeted individuals. So, this is not about democratic discussion, but the opposite: preventing democratic discourse about structural violence. The critics of NATO propaganda are to be deprived of their livelihood. This is not about individual cases. Rather, an example is to be made. The goal is to force anticipatory obedience by generating fear. This is essentially initiated by states or supranational organizations such as the EU, but also by state-sponsored institutions. But the drivers are the eco-libertarian and militaristic-conservative academic milieus.
The overarching characteristic of all these cases is that university decision-makers believe themselves to be under the protection of the executive branch and therefore act with the arrogance of borrowed power. The result is a conglomeration of academic soul-sellers who are either beholden to transatlantic organizations or U.S. foundations, or who spread their narratives in anticipatory obedience. The actors themselves, according to Upton Sinclair, do not notice: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
It is no coincidence that at least at one university, it was precisely those who consider themselves committed to transatlantic networks, such as the German Marshall Fund, who actively pursued my expulsion. This shows where the real masterminds of censorship and denunciation sit. By this, it is by no means meant that the operators receive instructions from Langley. Rather, the alacrity of their actions proves that they see themselves in a kind of debt to be discharged. After all, it’s all about invitations to conferences, scholarships, research trips and the approval of research projects. David Michaels, former director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, calls such scientists “science-for-sale specialists”—scientists who can be bought for money. This does not necessarily mean direct payments. They believe that it is better for one’s career to act as a legitimacy canvasser for American interests.
The entanglements of Kiel professor Werner Kaltefleiter in intelligence machinations of the BND and CIA during the Cold War have been elaborated by Katja Backhaus. According to press reports, CAU received 2.7 million euros from the German Ministry of Defense and NATO between 2005 and 2012, most of which went to Professor Joachim Krause’s Kiel Institute for Security Policy (ISPK). These funds went primarily to a counterinsurgency project in Afghanistan. The project partner at the time was Victoria Nuland’s Center for a New American Security, which has set itself the task of protecting American interests and is partly paid for by the arms company Northrop Grumman. Krause also belongs to the Integrity Initiative, a program of the British Institute for Statecraft, which is close to NATO and British intelligence services. Officially, it is supposed to expose Russian disinformation, but it is actually about NATO propaganda. The Integrity Initiative’s German Cluster in 2019 included political scientist Hannes Adomeit, now deceased, his friend Joachim Krause, former MI6 agent Harold Elletson, and Marie-Luise Beck of the Center for Liberal Modernity. Critics call Krause a “NATO janitor.” No wonder he accuses the German people of an “escalation phobia” in the Ukraine war. Of course, my research does not fit into such war propaganda, so it must be sanctioned.
T-Online yet again. The portal also acted as a denunciation portal against Professor Ulrike Guérot and Professor Gabriele Krone-Schmalz and put together press campaigns aimed at triggering a political purge and destroying the economic livelihood of these two targeted professors. Then I found out that the State Protection Department in the Federal Ministry of the Interior also keeps a file on me—as an alleged election observer. This kind of thing usually happens on orders from above. So, one may ask whether the office of the Minister of the Interior itself orchestrates such denunciation campaigns. And secret services do what they are there for: Chinese whispers. Here, one has to ask whether journalists also cooperate with intelligence services and do the dirty work for the BND, for example, as the federal government openly stated in its answer to a parliamentary question in the German Bundestag. The same applies to university employees.
In this way, a censorship and denunciation cartel is being created as if by magic, which is supported by US foundations and NATO apron organizations. The Pentagon alone employs 27,000 PR specialists with an annual budget of five billion dollars, whose goal is to influence the media with targeted messages, with experts for interviews or footage for television. During NATO’s war against Serbia in 1999—it’s not only the Russians who wage wars of aggression in violation of international law—31 PR agencies ensured that public opinion was brought into line: the Serbs were portrayed as the bad guys, the Muslim Bosnians as their victims. As a result of such manipulation, virtually no one understands what was actually going on in Yugoslavia.
None of this works with coercion; it works only with consent. This active participation shows the susceptibility of the academic elites to anti-democratic thinking. When anti-democratic thinking is then combined with racial thinking, we are on the threshold of fascist figures of thought. Political scientist Florence Gaub on April 12, 2022, on the talk show, Markus Lanz: “We must not forget, even if Russians look European, that they are not Europeans—right now in the cultural sense—who have a different approach to violence, who have a different approach to death.” Such phrases open the door to racism. Ukrainian author Serhij Zhadan calls Russians a “horde,” “animals,” “filth”: “Burn in hell, you pigs.” This is the language of fascism. For this, Zhadan received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade.
Conformism becomes a weapon: As in the case of Ulrike Guérot, who was dismissed from the University of Bonn, and Gabriele Krone-Schmalz, who is subject to massive attacks, the aim is censorship and acts of political cleansing that are unworthy of a democracy. In the process, the campaigns also aim to destroy the livelihoods of the targeted individuals. This alone documents their anti-democratic character. The smashing of democracy is preceded by the smashing of the democratic public sphere. The media and universities play a decisive role in this transformation, because they make themselves the bearers of counter-enlightenment and influence the transformation of democratic consciousness. T-Online and many other media, as well as the University of Kiel and HMKW in Berlin, have made themselves the warring party in the propaganda battle without need. This has consequences that extend beyond their direct sphere of influence. They are contributing to the poisoning of the social climate and are thus sawing away at the foundations of democracy.
Scolding colleagues is not usually my style, but it is appropriate here. I summarize: 1. Very bad craftsmanship: no verification by second source in the real world. 2. Political denunciation because of economic calculation. 3.Obliviousness to history and ignorance, both of one’s own and of Ukraine’s history. 4. Opportunism: succumbing to propaganda unchecked. 5. Anticipatory obedience: making oneself a tool of propaganda. 6. Anti-democratic thinking and acting. The result is a sum of dangerous stupidity that is capable of dragging this country into the abyss once again.
Some people speak here of the intellectuals’ refusal to work. But that is not the case. It is a matter of business. Those who work with their heads, sell their heads to the highest bidder. They are paid for their ideas, with which they organize the cultural hegemony of the power elites and their rule.
We are sitting in the bus from the Chonhar border crossing to Simferopol, the capital of Crimea. Only now does the tension fall away. I lean my head against the window and nodded off. In dream images, the fear that I had locked away at the bottom of my soul in the war zone catch up to me. Shelling, mines, arrests swirl in tangled scraps and perform a witches’ sabbath in my half-sleep. Only gradually do I realize that another St. Vitus dance awaits me on my return: that of journalistic contract writers, “a well-organized gang of literary rustlers,” as Heinrich Heine put it, “who go about their business in the Bohemian forests of our daily press.” A sentence by Zygmunt Bauman comes to my mind: “Not wanting to see, not wanting to look, and thus suppressing the possibilities of another coexistence with less suffering, is part of suffering and contributes to its perpetuation.” Another hour to Simferopol. As the bus rocks, I ponder the misery of intellectuals.
Patrik Baab is a political scientist and journalist. His reports and research on secret services and wars do not fit in with the propaganda of states and corporate media. He has reported from Russia, Great Britain, the Balkans, Poland, the Baltic states and Afghanistan. His most recent book is Auf beiden Seiten der Front—Meine Reisen in die Ukraine (On Both Sides of the Front—My Travels in Ukraine). More about him is found on his website.
Featured: Join the Navy. Poster by Richard Fayerweather Babcock (1887-1954), published in 1917.
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CAPUT VI.
Redeundo a primo meo itinere ad terras longinquas, senior baro et fidelis sponsus, dilecta mater mea, subsecuta omnes hospites hospicii, occurrerunt me Bulgerum et me ad portam exteriorem, et cum illa indomita et indomita laetitia domum nos excepit. Quae sola Germanorum corda capaces sunt.
Senior baro bracchia circa collum meum jactavit, et oblitus rei me mediae magnitudinis, me penitus de terra levavit in irrationabili gaudio cordis patris, me pene suffocans.
Calcavi fortiter, sed, mollia pedum orientalium meorum calceamentorum sensi percepi, quominus intelligam eum ieiunum me suffocantem ad mortem.
Animadvertit tandem pia mater, quod me in facie nigrescere, et crurum prehendere, me deorsum traxit ab amplexu periculoso, quo me senior baro obvolvit. Non tamen, donec ovum patris mei Nuremberg in frontem protuberantem graviler perforasset, aliam gibba in agro iam aspero addens. Quo animadverso senior baro famulum suum ad diaetam suam emisit cum mandatis ut quaereret cistam medicam pro lagena volatilis lini. Quod illatum laesionem solvendi cupidus, acrem liquorem torrens in oculos fudit, meque intensum dolorem effecit. Hanc vero meam rubeam et inflammatam conditionem tenentibus ac clientibus affectui meo attribuit, post tam longam absentiam intrantibus in aulam baroniam iterum.
Huiusmodi casus minime paenituit, nam cum in promptu animi mei genere, quem aliqui semper tenent, opponor, nobili et gravi lacrimarum usu nihil obiicio.
Supervacuum est dicere quod omne corpus gaudebat videre Bulgerum. Multitudine, pulchritudine et intelligentia invenerunt omnes.
Hoc totum obsequium cum dignitate conspicuum excepit.
Ad turbam vero illius disciplinae ac temperantiae, quam sibi constantem ac fidum sui domini comparaverat, turbam moveret, tot aestus ac delicata offensa, quae illi offerebant, minime tangere recusavit. Ceteri canes in rabiem ruentes cibo quem noluerant permoleste neglexerunt.
Lorem ipsum dolor erat ipsum.
Paucis interiectis diebus omnia sub baroniali tecto ad solitam quietem consederant. Ad vesperas transivi narrationes multarum rerum, quas in foris videram.
Ad haec subsellia pauci ex senioribus et secretioribus domestici servi admissi sunt.
Ea bona mater collocavit in semicirculo post cathedras baronis majoris et hospitum suorum. Ego cum Bulgero iuxta latus meum occupavi gradum, vel ad latus mensae sedens curiositates meas tenentes, vel stantem ante auditores meos in loco facili, dum eas narrando tenebam alligari.
Unum erat quod me anxium erat, et hoc erat: Quomodo senior baro recipiet annunciationem intentionis meae ut iterum exiturus, ante plures lunas?
Ad magnam admirationem et delectationem meam ne exspectes quidem me ut mea consilia cognosceret.
Dum in bibliotheca mea sedet, quodam die perferens rarissimum librum peregrinationis quam nuper emeram, lenem ad ianuam sonum effecit Bulgerum, ut caput levaret et rugirem humilem redderet.
Et hoc dicens, disposui pellem pulcherrimi et rarissimi animalis, quod in foris occideram, ut faceret sedem commodam seniori baroni in conopeo.
“Fili mi!” Dixit baro, “Venio ad te offerendum hoc parvum signum a domino nostro clementissimo imperatore.”
Levavi oculos meos.
In manu insignium Magnae Crucis Vermiculi Cincture gerebat.
Vitrum in mensa posui.
“Parvus baro,” inquit, pater, “Conplacui tibi.”
Humilem adorationem feci.
“Ora omnia mirabilia tua casus implent. Novum decus familiae posuisti nomen tuum, et venio ad excitandam te de apparentia tua desidia. Faciendum sit et excute hanc socordiam, quae tibi singulis horis transeuntibus auctam obtinebit potestatem. Te novi expectant triumphi. Egredere iterum. De viis declinate. Mira et mirabilia quaere. Sed antequam exponis, pergameni huius voluminis contenta expende. Multos ante annos, cum primum ad genam meam descenderat humanitas, et antequam vitae onera gravarentur animae meae, reperi in humidis et atroces antra vetusti Romani Coenobii, quam pestilens aeris incusat. Palus exinanita inquilinis. Vestigia tua ad res novas et iucundus convertat!”
Gaudium patris mei verbis ac diligentiam cognoscendi contenta rotuli pergameni aegre celans, salutationem reddidi senioris baronis cum honore notabili, et discessit.
Lectorem pene anhelantem, qua volumini evolvimus, certiora non indigeo.
Lingua Latina erat, et scribae opus erat.
Atramentum aliquantum evanuerat, sed etiam in locis ubi penitus evanuerat, ope lentis validae facile verba lineas in membrana exaratas a puncto calami indagare potui.
Exemplar diurnae Romanae vetustae seu Acta Diurna fuit ac diem ferebant respondentem nostro anno quadragesimo quinto ante tempus praesens.
Florebat Caesar in potestate sua.
Pax regnavit, artes floruerunt. Romae, medium orbis terrarum, domicilium magnificentiae ac magnificentiae fuit, quam quod procul oculis hominum aspexerant.
Quae in hoc exemplari Acta Diurnae peractae sunt magnae rei gestae diurnae magni iudicii quae Romae peractae sunt, in qua septem statuarii notati damnati sunt veneficii formosae ancillae nomine Paula, cum singulas simulacrum perfecisset. Ea, ne qua alii statuarii unquam ad hoc uti possint.
Judices in eos sententiam mortis pronuntiaverunt: sed pro tantis meritis Caesar ad decorandam civitatem, supplicium de morte in longum exilium mutaverat.
Septem statuarii in triremis imperialis ad longinquam insulam in mari Australi devecti erant. Ut in hoc exemplari Acta Diurna erat ultima pars agri Romani imperii ad meridiem vergens.
Ad insulam remotissimam imperii Romani medianorum.
Accedit imperatoria clementia coniuges liberosque damnatorum statuariorum concessum, ut maritos patresque suos in atrocem exilium sequerentur.
Cum omnia perlegerem minutissima huius tanti sceleris et tam horrendi eventus, inveni sanguinem meum per venas furiali impetu currere. Ibam pavimentum tam rapido et nervoso gradu et trepidatione tam conspicuum in vultu meo, ut e reveretione mea excitatus sum anxia stridatione Bulgeri, qui me sequebatur circa cubiculi mei calcem.
Cur non quaeramus hanc insulam longinquam, ad quam hi septem statuarii ac familiae iussu Caesaris magni transportati sunt?
Forsitan in illa longinqua insula habitat genus hominum, qui, oblitus orbis, oblivio, insuetis moribus ac peculiaribus institutis ita interest, ut me ad omnia pericula transeundo ignara maria curram. Et declinans ab Oceano semitas.
Forsitan et posteri eorum adhuc supersint?
Haec idea totum meum nunc occupavit esse.
Somnus esse non potest.
Absit in noctem, prisca perspicio chartis.
Dum alta silentia tectis involvunt baronia, elaboravi animo, vel potius elaboraret animus, quem persequar cursum.
Nam mea semper consuetudo fuit, ut numquam insolubilem solvere tentarem. Re quidem vera primum compertum feci impedimentum aliquod a me impedire cum arcanis mentis operibus tendere potius suam actionem impedire.
Ita lucem placide expectavi.
Pervenit tandem.
Oculos claudens, oculis meis internis videre poteram mappam orbis orientis exaratam in candenti, lineas meridianas in atramento.
Atque ibi etiam viderem cursum meum discoloribus lineis igneis designatum.
Voce magna, tinnitu gaudii ad pedes meos prosilui et exclamavi: “Miram insulam hanc inveniam! Portas austri recludam maria! Inspiciam interfectores Paulae posteros!
“Veni, Bulger! Discedite! Discedite!”
Praecipitans iussa parentibus, ipse me in ephippia fixi, et, ense croupe tutoque Bulger, in Mediterranei litora furens proripuit.
“Filius baronis rursus insanus est!” exclamaverunt rustici, praetervolantes villas suas.
Tribus diebus steti super navi vasis mei.
In mandatis meis obtemperans, manu magistri gubernacula restitit.
Tota illa die stantem oculis in littus defixit, aliquid enim ei dixit me procul abesse non posse.
Omnia in promptu erant usque ad ultimum buccellatum.
Bulger et ego transivi per rail, bona mea navis rotunda ad ventum, et emicuit quasi res vitae.
Sanguis in venis tinctus caeruleis adspectus undis, Candida vela dedit.
Bulger in rabiosis ludis et auriculae latrat Saevit satis.
Fuit certe auspicatum.
Relicto navi ad maritum imperium, dux me in casulam adjunxit, ubi ei consilium meum explicavi navigandi in maria australi ad insulam diu oblitam quaerendam.
Festinavit chartulam suam evolvere et spectacula aptare, ut insulae locum cum latitudine et longitudine darem.
Fac trepidi paene, cum ei indicavi solum argumentum me esse talem insulam brevitatem in ephemeride Romana antiquitatis fuisse mentionem.
Num me insanire?
Nihilne magis vitae curavi quam abicere in tam stulte suscepto?
An nesciebam rabiem immanis Typhonis, fraudem abditi scopuli, pondus aquosi montes, quae nobis strata ruerent?
Poteratne sperare nautas ire ubi non erat recordatio periculosissimi nautae praeteritorum saeculorum umquam aquam arasse?
Risi.
“Magister,” inquam, post silentium temporis, “navis haec mea est, et iurasti mihi ut vero navita servire, sed si virtus tua te defecerit, in primo portu quem facimus exiens eris. Vade!”
“Immo parvus baro,” exclamavit nauclerus, “Iam sententiam tuam tentabam. Si audes in ignota navigare freta, audeo te sequi, veni, serenas lucidas undas placidasque ferat tibi nimbos et fulmina venti!
Senis manum excussi et eum ornare iussit, nam ad vigilias meos, primum in tribus septimanis, ad ultimum somnum venerat, et solus esse volebam.
Paucis diebus transivimus fretum Gaditanum, et ad meridiem venimus, in conspectu Africae tunicam habentes.
Praeteriebam me in Latino sermone perficiendo, ac saepe vehementissimas protestationes a Bulgero appellando in ea lingua evocavi, et utens in auditorio quodam, ante quod orationes meas promulgavi et expolivi eos.
Sola clausula nunc nobis erant aquae vel commeatus.
Luce et luce stellata mea praecordia navis cursum suo claudit, quasi quidam amicae nereides ad puppim impellentes. Longis vigiliis noctis in cubili recumbam et fingebam mihi illam Romanam triremem, septem illos exules cum dilecta terra sempiterno a carissimo parente suscepisse.
Priusquam alia luna sub vesperam lunam inflexisset, ad promunturium venissemus, atque in ancoras venissemus, quo navim nostram diligentissime traheremus, priusquam in meridiem iret.
Hoc complures dies occupaverunt.
Urebam moras.
Ter in die dominum navis meae ad casulam vocavi eumque hortatus sum ut properaret. Patientissime mecum tulit, cor saltum dedit, cum tandem dominum iubere vela vela dare.
Nautae canebant et schedulae in summa nixae in navi nixae erant.
“Quomodo illam capiam, parve baro?” dominum rogat, manus ad pileum elevata.
“Mortuus ad meridiem!” respondi.
Constitit, traiecit.
Promontorium nos circumituros putaverat, et solitum cursum ad Indos sequendum.
Movet labra quasi ad recusabo.
Praecidi tamen unda manu.
Complures nautae, pallorem conspicati, qui vultum principis invaserat, appropinquaverunt et aspicientes nos, semianimis admirantes, percontando steterunt.
“Dux!” dixi placide, sed satis clarae satis audiri a circumstantibus in coetu prope, “pistolae meae factae sunt ab armigero Imperatoris. Ignis numquam deesset. Inveniam te unum punctum orientis et occidentis meridionalis orientis vel occidentis cursum mutans te in vestigiis tuis te necabo!”
Hoc dicens, abiit.
Et ex hoc tempore omnia opera bona sunt.
Dominus navis me iudicatum est iter habere, etsi vitam perdideram, et ille cessit.
Conversus ad catervam nautarum clamavi, “Mille ducatos homini qui terram primus vidit.”
Magnanimus clamor aerem discidit, et vocato Bulgerum ad me sequendum, infra ad cogitandum ivi.
Illa nocte non solum cautum in lanternum suspendi, ut in cubili meo cubarem, et aliquando evigilarem gyrum navis viderem, sed timens ne aliqua fraude tentaretur, mandavi fidelem meum Bulgerum dormire cum. Dorsum eius contra ostium, ut minima vibratio eum excitaret.
Noctes quoque diligentissime haec cautela secuta est. Interdiu quoque sclopi mei semper in balteo fuerunt.
Bulgarum periculum in me essem sensit, et ille vigilanter commodum oculorum in occipitio mihi dedit.
Admonuit me humilis fremitus accessus domini vel unus e turba.
Sic munitus et custoditus sum nihil timeri praeter communem seditionem. Idque vix fieri posse sciebam, plures enim turbae mihi erant studiosiores ad quamlibet perfidiae propositiones. Percussissent dominum gelido sanguine, ausum Spirare seditionem!
Res bene per decem dies processit cum atrox proelium in mente ducis geritur vidi.
Vereri coepi ne ratione careat ac se in mare praecipitet.
Vultus eius colorem subpallidum suscepit.
Ad litteram ille erat pavore moriens.
Mane unus ante me provolutus genibus, lacrymis genas orabat ut iterum Africae reducerem.
Omnia potui ei sedare, sed frustra.
Tarde sed certe cedente ratio erat.
Vocans ad me coniugem, praeposui eum vasi, et ordinavi eum ad capitaneum in casula sua, et custodiam super eum collocavi.
Hoc me animo facere cogor, orabat enim miser ut cane navi praeesset relinqui.
Sed precibus ejus surdus fui.
iam omnem molestiam sensi esse confectam.
Horam quindecim nodis flabat ventus.
Omne pannum navium refertum erat.
Satis ex aqua quasi res vitae exsiluimus, medium volantes natantes.
Semper in sæculum inspexi circini.
Illa mortua est versus meridiem.
Tinxerunt genae meae et potui sentire sanguinem calidum per omnem venam in corpore meo.
Ascendens luna sicut scutum auro purum. Mare resplenduit sicut ignis liquidus. Turn porpoise insiluit ac mille orbibus orbes immisit volvens iterumque in aequora torsit.
Bona nostra navis vitreum sinum maris scindit, tanquam monstrum quoddam atri magni maris, et vestigia ignis in evigilando, quantum oculus attingere potuit, reliquit.
Media nocte ad quietem veni.
Sed nec quies, nec somnus dabatur.
Dimidium ephebum, me in hamum conjeci, et solitum Bulgerum ad fores assumpsit.
Lucerna plenae lunae lucem superare non valuit. Oculos tauri per infandum, radios phantasticos perfluebat, et casulam meam crebris et occultis formis frequentabat.
Septem erant!
Facies et figurae deiformes, tam albae, tam pulchrae erant.
Tristitia inenarrabilis erat in tenebris oculis plena.
Verbum non loquebantur.
Subito tabulatum cubiculi laqueatum divisum, et scalarum obscuritate involuta, lucem incertam patefecit.
Ad hos gradus veniebat clementissimus, tam candidus, tam formosus, et amabilis, ut vidi anhelitu.
Descendere, demittere, propius ac propius accedere.
Sed alas degebat ut angelus esset!
Sed, heu! Pulchro vultu maerore impleta!
Diffisi labra, diu nigros cinxere capillos confusos humeris.
In Cameram ingressa est. Tum celer e vultu, septem curvata figuras decidit.
“Paula!” clamaverunt, et attraxerunt super capita sua stolas albas.
“Ho terra! Terra ho!”
Quid est! Credere potui aures meas?
“Ho terra! Terra ho!”
Vincto e cubili meo exsilui, et in navim provolavi.
Immo vero! Ibi, quingentos passus ante nos, aspectus erat qui me velut ictum ephebi sopitum.
Tellus erat, sed non ea terra, quam me in somnis somnia speraveram.
Decem milia luminum arcana eluxit in litore, Romana ante templum lacte candidiora illustravit. Gradus marmoreus eiusdem coloris ad ipsum ripam aquae deductus.
Sacrificium edebatur.
Ex summo atrox fumi nigri columna lente sursum crispans.
Nullus ad aurem sonitus pervenit.
Prope sensibus orbatus steti.
Tandem oratio mea rediit. Ancoram proici iussi, et bone navis inhaerens scaenis, longam et laetam in vestibulo spectabat.
Terra enascebatur naturali solaria e litore, quacumque in partem aspexisti, prospexit in speciem decoris simulacrum aut coetum statuarum candidam lunam inter opaca, inter opaca folia, velut in albo vestitis figuris errans lignum.
“Debet esse!” Murmuravi ad me.
“Inveni eam! Hoc templum Romanum, hoc scala marmorea, haec statuaria circulis, omnia monstrant ad felicitatis meae navigationis inventionem. Haec est insula sculptorum!”
Quam diu ibi steterim hanc pulchram spectans litus nescio. Quidam manica mea leniter trahens me e reverie movit.
Bulger fuit.
Ego inclinavi et permulsi caput ejus paulisper.
Subito evigilavi ad sensum magnae taedii, et alium aspectum in arcanum illud litus proiciens, conversus sum et descendi ad Cameram.
Mox in soporem decidit.
Ex quo promunturium meum nervorum terribilem intendit, ex media seditione remigum, insania magistri navis, et vigilias longas, per quas iacuerat et audieram clamorem terrae, tandem mihi narraverat.
Sol aliquot horis altus erat, cum e cubili meo elapsus sum, et in navim provolavi.
Poteratne hoc omnes somnium fuisse? Egone templum nobile, scalas marmoreas, omnesque statuas eminentes in tenues auras defluxisse?
Ah non!
Adhuc ibi erat illud pulcherrimum littus, evolvitur ante oculos meos admiratio velut quaedam pulchra imago, plena lucis et gratiae ac delectamenti fuco.
“Homo est Lorem!” Clamavi celerius quam id narrare, deducebam ad litus Sculptorum Insulae.
Fidelis Bulger iuxta me sedit, ocellos lucidos et expressos in faciem meam intuens.
Ad pedem scalae marmoreae appulsus, leviter e launch, quam secutus est Bulger, marmoreis gradibus concludam.
Tres erant egressi priusquam ad gradum templi pervenissem, e quibus singulis gratior et suavior prospectus est. Pulchrum sane ad ea, quae arte et natura sese satis superaverunt. Tandem gressus fugam ultimam purgavi, et pavido corde tessellato aulam trajecit, et ante templi ostium moratus est.
Favillae adhuc linum in altari, circa quod steterunt sacerdotes aliquot albo-rolatos capite demisso capite et aversa facie. Sollemni officium irrumpere nolui. Verti secutus sum viam latam, strata marmorea, obumbrata amoenissimis arboribus et lentae vitis.
Singulis gradus incidit in aliquam effigiem stupentis formae, nunc nymphae; nunc dea; nunc ipse luppiter; nunc magnus Caesar; nunc formosae Gratiae; nunc atrox Pluton; nunc ridet alma Ceres; iam lunata coronata Diana venandi studio; nunc Satyri chori ; nunc capripedes Pana bipes; nunc aliquis Romanus heros aut capessivit; et identidem forma virginalis, miro modo formosa, sed ineffabili moeroris vultu in facie formosa erat. Ita saepe eadem figura oculis meis obviavit, me demum ad eius basim accedere in spem explicationis inveniendae. Clamavi quasi in sculptile nomen oculi mei.
Paula fuit.
Sed omne dubium dissipabatur.
Ego quidem sculptores inveneram Isle.
Latus anfractus, dextra laevaque ducens, nunc mea decepi vestigia. Nulla terra mediocris pulchrior esse potuit.
Fructus aurei micabant in viridi foliis opacis.
Florent undique innumerabiles colores emittentes unguenta delicatissima. Vites trahentes graciles festos pendebant, aut statuarum bases circumplexi, albas flores ad candidiora ferentes manus tacitis et immotis huius regionis solitudinis incolis. Dico incolas, nondum enim animam viventem viderat oculus meus, nisi sacerdotes adiuncti altari.
Litora apposui insulae, super quas natura larga manibus silvas, placidas, lacus, purpureas rivos, pomis onustas, floriferas floccis et cristas in odorato iactans aere vites. Frondem ab arbore in arborem copiose variegatae, caelo superne fulgidam, solo velutino subtus virentem obsitum, solum relictam ab homine relictam reperire; quid pulchritudinis et tamen solitudinis, mera polita et fucata testa, ex qua vita omnis excessit in aeternum?
Talis erat cogitationum series quae in animo meo inambulavi per has anfractus stratas marmoreas inclusas frondoso tecto, per quod identidem sol inluminabat magisteria artis sculptoris, circa cujus bases ascendebant. Et florentibus vitibus usta pereuntis, pars inflexis bacis in gremiis, nitidior auro quam polita, alii lanugine uvae magis ostro quam Lydia murice tenentes.
Dum per hoc cantatis hortum meum sequebar iter, in quo lilii flexiles caules unguentatos cyathos in genas flectebant, et arbores ad pedes meos aurum et purpureum fructum decidebant, in altoque frutice rubicundi fruticis virgulta. Et pinus sericans, melancholia luscinia, lento et querulo modulo movit liquidum melos, concupivit cor meum ad sonum vocis humanae.
“Utinam aliquod animal,” inquam, “quamvis inflexum ac detortum figura, vel quam dissonum voce, mihi in hac pulcherrima solitudine occurreret.”
Animadverti nunc viam meam clivum clivum leniter ascendere. gressum incitavi, nam cupiebam in aliqua altitudine consistere, quo latius viderem longinquam regionem.
Ut summum collis assecutus sum, scena ineffabilis pulchritudinis oculis meis occurrit.
Quantum oculus attingere posset, evolvit sub me notae tantae venustatis, ut haererem ligatum. Finge vallem inclusam silvestribus altis, Per quam placide currit argenteus amnis; hic nemus ingens lato diffundit in artus, atque ibi glebae pomiferis aurea solis gazis ostentant onus; hinc florentia virgulta nitent ut ebur contra virides opacas, inde trahentes vites et intonsa silices, multas umbraculae fantasticae imaginis thalamum fabricavit manus hominis; huic adiiciunt ustulo statuum in omni cogitabili habitu gratiae et pulchritudinis positae — hic coetus, illic una figura, et infra bini et terni, stantes, accumbentes, sedentes, ad ludendum, in meditatione, audiendo, legendo, pulsando. Fidibus, in habitudines venationis, discive proiciens, vel attingens fructus vel flores vellere.
“Estne hoc somnium?” Murmuravi. “Nonne ego ludibrio mali spiritus alicuius loci?”
Ex hoc profundo reveritus latratu voce Bulger me concussa vi excitavit.
Vidi in directione soni.
Pauper, stulte canis, de una statuarum alebat, et se oblectabat expergefactus voce sua.
Subiratus eram, interpellavi, et vocavi ad cessandum latratu suo.
Prope sacrilegium visum est mihi tam profundam pulchrae vallis quietem turbare.
Iterum latratus erupit. Hoc tempore barbari saeviores sunt quam ante.
Statua quae iuvenis erat, ut fructum aut florem ferret, satis amens videbatur circumeundoque circumeundoque, et in medium quendam furorem, medium malum, in serie corticum, fremit ac fremit querimoniis. Rara quidem erat quod Bulger votis meis, quamvis languide, non attendebat, sed nunc ne minax quidem vox in eo aliquid momenti habere videbatur.
Insaniens alea continuat latratibus acuta. Illi gravissime ob inoboedientiam exprobrare constitui, et in eum irato perrexi.
Accessi.
Et vidi! Vidi!
Cinis progenitorum meorum. Quid est? Statua oculos bipatentes habebat. Statua genas vitae ruborem habebat.
Motus, motus usque ad latitudinem capillorum nullus erat! Et tamen hi oculi caerulei in Bulgarum inflexi media percunctanti, semisi admiratione conspicati sunt.
Lumina detrivi et vidi iterum.
Accepi gradum.
Repente me fluctus timoris obrepsit super me sicut fluxus glacialis aquae. Vivumne marmor, diuturnis inclusae passionibus ad vitam calefactum, manum erigat, et me mortuum feriat?
Ipse in unum colligo, sub umbra frondis tectae frondentis et intertextae vites frondentis catervam virginum ludentium inspexi.
Dico citius quam capit, prosilivi et in eorum vultum defixi aspectum.
Mors humanam formam in habitu suo immobiliorem tenere non potuit.
Oculi tamen eorum mira luce repleti sunt.
Color vitae rubeus in faciebus pulchris fulsit, lucidus et calidus!
Ubi eram?
Insolens timoris sensus, pars laetitiae, nunc in me rapitur.
Et adhuc loqui non ausus sum. Vox mea franget incantatores, quo omnes hi spirantes terrae filii pectus teneant vitam, et in nihilum defluant.
Iamque propinqui mei oculi, nigrius magis quam politi carbonis, pleni in me visi sunt. Viderem, cogitabam, ebonum illorum globorum splendorem quasi lachryma in eos irruisse.
Manus eius extenta.
Quid, si tetigero, videro, an calor vitae in se habeat, an re vera non sit res lapidea, et ludibrio mali alicujus insulae spiritus?
Hoc faciam, si quasi vermiculus misellus occidar, qui appropinquante flamma tepefactus obviam repit.
Digitorum apices tetigi!
O rem miram!
Non lapidea erant, sed mollissima, caro calidissima.
Ego retro haesivi, exspectans videre globi in aere evanescentem.
Sed non; non movit.
Stabat ut ante.
Iamque sensi sub me convalescere membra.
Statui loqui, veni malum, vel veni bonum!
Defixus in vultus pulchros iuvenesque oculosque detexit et sic verba locutus est:
“O res novas atque arcanas, ne aegre feram hanc in sacram quietem mortalium audaciam tantilli irruptionis! Loquere ad me! Si vis, liceat mihi de solo tuae pulchrae insulae pedes tollere. Sed antequam vado, loquere ad me, sciam, an non sitis creaturas alicujus spiritus hujus insulae, an vere vivitis spirantes.”
Nullus ab illis roseis labris sonus edita, quasi in ipso dicendi genere scinditur.
Non motus, nullus tremor, horum pulchra figuras Marmora rumpere.
Totum momentum intercidit.
Mihi aeterno visum est.
Ego ad terram valde suspenso defixi.
Minuta corpora gravia una post alia trahebant.
Sed gaudium ineffabile!
Labia movere incipiunt.
Subridens, primo imperceptibilis, lente, lente, in faciem serpit.
Purpura genarum profundiorem colorem sumit.
Oculi dulcissimi et amicissimi me intuentur.
Verbum “nos” leniter in aurem cadit.
Alia pausa!
Procumbo, molestissima suspenso, ut sequentem syllabam tenui capiam.
Pervenit tandem.
“Vive!”
“Vivunt!” Clamavi magna et laeta voce, “vivunt! Non sum ludibrio ullius divinitatis. Hae figurae non sunt frigidi et sine sensu marmoris, sed sanguinis, spirandi, cogitandi, viventis!
Non possum tibi dicere altitudinem satisfactionis meae hanc inventionem a dilecto meo Bulgero factam esse. Vidit anxium trepidationis dominum suum, et festinat ad subveniendum; non frons, non minax vox satis erat avertere ab animo in obscuram lucem. Alta contritione vix potui adduci ut nomen eius dicam.
Quam indignus essem amore sensi.
Sed mihi ignovit generoso plusquam humano ingenio, veniamque dedit, blanditiis obtegens manus, et demissam corticum seriem exprimens.
Cum latere meo Bulger, nunc cum his carnibus et sangui- nibus comitibus incolarum marmorum insulae permistus sum, ab uno coetu ad alium transiens in admirationem stupens. Enimvero bona fide viverent, sed non magis quam flores, frutices, arbores, vites, quae conficiunt amoenissima, quorum erant pulcherrima ac pulcherrima ornamenta.
Celerius quam illi de loco ad locum moventur vites, citius germinant flores, quam virgines labra. Ut cerea figurae pulchrae, tardo demerso cuiusdam fontis occulto motae, statuae vivae permeant horas, imo dies, ad pedes exsurgentes, vel in velutino herbae subsidentes.
Ego per aliquot horas steti spectans candidam manum virginis emissam, motu insensibili, rubentem persici, qui juxta eam pendebat, vellere. Plena hora ibat antequam illi digiti delicati circa persici iuncti erant, alius antequam ad labra delatus esset. Ibi tota die pressa tenuit, sed cum sole occubuit nemorosis collibus, decidit a laxis manibus pedibusque revolvit. Tarde demittebam, neque enim diu inveniebam quod vivos motus meos has statuas animatas dolerem ac sustuli. Sentire potui, aliquod pulpamentum e fructu laetissimo extractum, sed cutis vix fracta, ita leniter super illo pascebatur.
Hoc momento, arridens vultu cuiusdam virginis conversus sum ut invenirem in quem vultum suum inflexit.
Pulcherrima iuventus, quae forte quinquaginta pedibus aberat, oculis in virgineis fixa.
Certe, sicut alias terras, motus eorum excitabo affectum meum; aliquantum iam properabunt ad invicem.
Sed nulla, longa crepuscula paulatim cedit ad umbras profundiores; nox venit; lunam in caelo rutilantem deposuit orbes, nec tamen adfuit ut iuventa teneret virginis illa manus.
A primo crepusculi adventu, risum lente ingerebant aliorum iuvenum et virginum ora, quorum oculi in amantes versabantur.
Nunc mitis “ha!” incidit in aurem meam, et, elapso semihorae spatio, alius ac clarior “ha!” secutum esse, post longiorem moram, sequitur etiam aliud “ha.” Hoc ultimum “ha!” producta est in notam claram et tinnitum quae tacuit tacuit. Tunc decrevit languidior et languidior, et exanimata est sicut resonatio absumpta. Laetitia peracta est.
Cum inter has vivas statuas iter plicabam, unum mane veni in coetum puerorum ludentium.
Primo non potui videre quod adventum meum omnino animadverterent, sed post elapsam quadrantis horae spatium sensi oculos pulchre lucidos suos sensim converti ad me, et decrevi prope secumbere et observare. Placet mihi, quod deliciarum tenui filo florentis vitis circumplexa est, et circa corpus parvae flavae ancillae circiter septem, collo cinctum multis coloratis foliis et coralliis, et se in modum coronae plexum. Purpureoque auro mollibus anulis, omissis floribus et claviculis, leniter circa caput et umeros descendit.
Videns stuporem meum, et verba mea delectationis audiens, mulier mitis facies ad me lente sedet, manus sensim levavit et digitos extendit ad me ut intelligerem quod isti cherubi decem dies in terra ibi ludentes fuissent.
Hanc, putavi, pulchram vitem, ioco iunctam. Quantum illi vivit, re vera unus e sociis suis se vulnerat et circa puerum amanter proxime sedet.
Iterum vidi. Ecce! Arbor onusta dulcibus nucleis in auram vibrabat et quatiebat in gremiis puerorum ludentium, cum illinc, alta et decora planta ferens cyathiformes flores apricis albedinis, quorum singula notavi impleta. Aqua limpida, cuius guttae tamquam gemmis nitidis in sole micantes, contra genam pueri ridentis leniter reiciebant, ac si diceret:
“Bibe, fratercule carissime!”
“Mirum dictu!” “Haec beata animalia, hae arbores et flores, haec poma et vites omnes eiusdem familiae liberi sunt. Nullae unquam tempestates istas caelos sereno obscurant. Ver aeternum hic regnat. Per lucem, stellam et lunam, vita eorum leniter fluunt sicut quidam latis, argenteus amnis, cuius motus tardior est oculis hominum ad notandum. Myste populus! Quomodo investigabo mirabile arcanum tuae vitae? Quomodo legam historiam populi, cuius soli libri obmutescunt rivi et nemori taciti, quorum linguas ita amiserunt vires interpretandi ut menses praeterirent et mysterium tamen insolutum remaneat!
Post paucos dies commoratus apud “Motores tardos”, ut ita dixerim, invenio quae me valde terrebat.
Hoc arcanum silentium, hoc novum fatum, quod me inter animalia objecerat, cum quibus sermocinari non potuit, hoc funditus non posse discernere vivos statuas a marmoribus, incipiebat depraedari animo meo.
Animadvertit bulger melancholiam meam ingravescentem, et ad oblectandum et consolandum me elaboravit.
Sed male respondi mille et uno versutis dolis et ridiculis antiphonis.
Equidem sensi animum meum sensim cedere ad aliquam vim horroris , quae pervasit ipsum aerem, quae etiam per singulas horas, ita convalescit, ut necesse sit, ut necesse sit, evelli a potestate superhumana. De me iam acquisierat, vel fierem vivam simulacrum et fratrem ad formas carnium et marmorum, quae incolebant hanc admirationem.
Non taedet lectores minutim consilium quod ad extremum periculum imminens concepi, quo me iam subrepens sentiamus morte ereptum essem.
Desperatio mea decrevi vetustissima tardis motoribus applicare meque ad ejus misericordiam, ut ita dicam, dicere, quod cupiens me ab imminente fato gravi effugere, ad meos parentes, ad dilectos parentes, redire. Maerens ad sepulchra descenderet, si, unicus infans, fastus et spes, non numquam reditura senectae.
Sed plusquam hoc statui, si fieri potest, historiam insule ejusque arcanam discere, eoque fine rogari decrevi, ut indicaret mihi ubi invenirem aliquam memoriam rerum gestarum, aliquem librum aut membranam; ne vitam gravem animi cruciatibus adirem cogitationem me non posse solvere hoc mysterium, quod si dies meos non minueret, certissime exacerbaret.
Quemadmodum iam exposui, cum tardis motoribus colloqui conanti mihi occurrit duplex difficultas. Primum, etsi impatienter rumpar, tamen tranquillissimam et placidam exteriorem servabo, deinde, cum post longam ac fatigationem morae venerit, ut respondeam quod respondeam. Non excedunt cochleae gressum tardi motorum sermonis, alioquin lucidi oculi obnubilant, et celeritate sermonis mei perculsi videbantur. Palpebrae eorum lente descenderunt, et visi sunt in soporem cadere, ex quo horae ad excitandum eas factae sunt.
Prima Aurorae series quaesivi longaeva motorem, Quem saepe in templo frondoso notaverat aede, Marmoreo residens tacito defixa cacumine, quae perfudit radicibus arborum, cujus pandi ramos. Adiuvisti tecti habitationis suae.
Tota dies illa et nox siderea que secuta est, sedebam ante pedes.
Finge tibi meam desperationem in eo studiorum, quod non verbum aut linea, non folium aut membrana exstiterint, quae formidolosam sollicitudinem finiret. Horrendum dico, quia fortius et validius per horas impetus crevit vitae inutilis, insensibili actui finiendae vitae, et ad multitudinem statuarum viventium adiungo, in quorum cor non inanis desideria obscurant vitam placidam somnii sui.
Mane secundi diei cogitatio in mentem inrupit. Hoc erat.
Habitet fortasse alicubi in hac insula, animal aliquod, qui, dissimiles fratribus, celeritatem sermonis vim habeat, cuius lingua aliqua ratione soluta remaneat.
Sic cogitabam: In omni terra erant contraria, bona et mala, pulchra et deformis, decora et inconcinna, velox et tarda. Certe in hac insula talia contraria sunt vivendum. Verum, exceptio fortasse; sed mirum si non esset.
Tota die exegi in tradendo sene tardo movens me cogitationum series.
Alta erat crepuscula, antequam interrogarem, an non esset aliquod animal in hac insula habitans, cujus loquelae magis similis esset mihi, et cui possem in me semper ingravescentem transmutationis horrorem. In tardum motorem, confugium a me, ad satisfactionem inexsuperabilis desiderii mei ipsius animae incumbentis.
Sed vespertinae umbrae non adeo altae erant ut obscuriorem umbram notare non possem, quae senis tardi motoris faciem colligere coepi cum interrogationem perfeceram.
Attonitus sum.
Tantae erant cordis pulsus cordis mei, ut streperet, licet obvolutus, super gemitum zephyri, murmur foliorum, querellarum strepitus luscinii.
Cum haec umbra ingravescentibus, magis magisque altioribus, in visu senis, sensi me aliquod vetustum vulnus tetigisse, quod, etsi diu oblitus, nunc denuo iecisti.
Labra dirupta, caput lente, tarde mersa, gemitus tam plenus significationis prodiit, ut quasi susurro diuturni doloris absconditi, ut timerem ad pessimum.
Membra rigebant.
Sanguinem sentire potui venas minuere gressum, et quasi incertus viae palpitare pergam.
Apices digitorum meorum pressi genas. Frigidum erant ut marmor politum.
Conatus sum dicere. Venire verba noluerunt.
Denique feci vehementi opera.
“Bulger!” in aurem.
Miser canis, ad pedes meos dormivit.
Certavi uno momento temporis effugere incantamentum, ut demitterem fideli amico vale blandiri.
Hist!
Tardus motor locutus est.
“Filius!”
Servatus sum!
Dicere debebat ille mihi.
Aetio fracta.
Cor cæpit iterum; perque meas venas ruit ille cruor.
Angustus effugium erat.
Iam digiti mei tepuerant.
Alio momento et turbam motorum tardarum adiunxeram et frater factus incolarum marmoreorum in insula sculptorum.
Tota nocte illa senex Tardus movens mecum loquebatur. Cum sol occumberet, novi omnia. Arcanum quod tam placidum vultum obscuraverat agnovi. Sciebam speluncam in qua habitabat eremita sculptorum insulae, ejectus, vinctus, clausus inter angustias cavernae maris, sine culpa ejus, sine peccato, sine injuria.
Natura sic voluit.
Cur, tardus motor nesciebat senex.
Erat nomen Antonius heremita.
Mane facto, quaesivi eum.
Inueni eum in porta spelunce sedentem intuentem gloriam orientis caeli.
Hoc fuit arcanum exilii sui.
Hunc quidam crudele fatum in iuventute horribilem morbum adiit, non dissimile illud quod tripudium sancti Viti notum est. Ubi febris incessit, non solum membrorum omnium potestate perdidit, ut pedes quo ire vellet, atque id quoque summa celeritate adficeret, sed arma etiam quam celerrime ac vehementes exercuisset. gestus, nunc apparente ira, nunc precibus, nunc admirantibus. Facile intelliges, cur infaustus Antonius e mediis tardis moventibus exul venerit.
Quorum frater, licet penitus amabilis, fulminis velocitate, motu violento, motu prope adsiduis animi, non modo tarda moventium offensa, attonitus est; abhorrent eos; tardumque cruorem vitae cohibebat venae, cunctaque lento sed certa morte minabatur.
Ire debet!
Fecit!
Antonius in speluncam maris relegatus est, ubi nunquam sonus venit, nisi Oceani fremitus a daemonibus agitatus, aut tristis ejus murmur ac sine intermissione perfringit ac torsit momenta somni et quies.
Sed foedissima omnium infelicis Antoni aegritudo formidolosissima fuit orationis eius celeritas taeterrima atque indomita.
Ut furiales equi, lingua et labia ruentia!
Oculis auribusque tardis, tam vis expressa facies, tam insana celeritas sermonis, ipsa mors!
Non unus mensis brevis in illo solido pectore statuam reperiret vivam, nisi abisset Antonius!
Gratum fuit Antonio illi dirae sententiae, quae eum in antro marique perpetuo collocavit!
Videbat sui populi dolores, et quamvis in illo brevi tempore plus lacrimae oculi flerent, quam omnes fratres sui semper in segnem vitam effusissent, tamen tam horrendi doloris quam pauperis documentum est.
Antonius ad me convertit, accedens ad locum ubi summa meditatione involutus sedit. Triste sed et blando volitante labra risu, fulminis in remoto ceu velox sed languido caelo.
Resurrexit.
Ego moratus sum opperiri iussum eius accedere.
Non locutus est verbum, sed extendit manum suam.
Circumdedi illud terminis meis, et premo ad labia mea.
Et continuo cecidit in eum locus.
Videre possem doloris aspectum qui per suam faciem emicuit.
Elapsus est, nunc retrorsum, nunc prono, nunc obliquo, nunc obliquo, porrecto magno conatu ad me, qui, pari desperatione, insano conatu ad capiendum quod me assidue fefellerat, cessit.
Bulger hunc inter scopulos illius litora scopuli, Insequitur furiose latrantem vestigia prorsus.
Non potui tempus sedandi.
Procul, geminato cursu tenditque Antonium, dextramque ad me veluti miserabili precatione capias, et sic aptam quatientem membra furibundus finiat.
Intermisso ut spiritum meum caperem, iterum figuram volitentem assecutus sum cum proposito ut eum consequeretur vel in conatu periret.
Tandem circuli minores et semper minores circuli videbantur.
Nunc tempus erat mi!
Exsilio in illam volubilem formam, insania quadam desperatione, manum extensam arripere ac tenere.
Tandem tenuit.
Sed non!
Venerat ad quietem corpus, nunc alte supra caput, nunc ad pedes, nunc emicare, nunc deprimere, nunc vibrare ante oculos meos, nunc cingere caput meum, sicut avis cita volatu; manus ibat semper in inmensum et arcanum.
Fortitudo mea me deficiebat!
Num semper id capere potero?
Antonius quoque dirae potentiae dirae quam torquebat cederet.
Vultus insolito pallorem suscepit! Pectus eius convulsivos. Uno tandem conatu desperato, manum volitans circum caput arripiebam!
Adhaesi strenue!
Meus tactus a venis discutit venenum.
Visus est evigilare tanquam ex aliquo horrore somnio. manu trans oculos transmisit.
Subridens.
Ad manum haerens, super scopuloso scamno eum sedere sensim compuli, cui velutini maris gramen et zizania texuerat oceanus.
“Antonius!” “Pax super te veniat; Oblivisci doloris tui. Esto sicut olim. Tactus meus potest tibi saltem breve spatium dare!
Celeris ad me eius sermo fuit, sed non magis quam multorum acutorum cum quibus locutus sum.
“Quid vis?” Submissa, inquit, sed mirae suavis, vocis lenis.
Eum rem veniam explicavi.
Redii ad actis diurnum Romanum et ab domo discessum meum.
Omnes, omnes; ei omnia dixi; quomodo venissem in domum tardi motorum, quomodo eos ad marmora fefellissem, sicut reliquae insulae figurae, quomodo patefactum mysterium habere cupiebam.
Totus illo die Antonius et ego ad mare iucundissime conloquor.
Semel in meridie, fabulae suae modum brevem posuit, dum in specum ejus transivimus ad sumendum cibum et potum.
Animo magno, audivi fabulam de septem Sculptoribus in insulam descensu. Primum opus fuit, ut longos marmoreos educere templos volatu ad mare deducens. Tunc illi, et postea filii, et filii eorum, hanc insulam pulcherrimam hominibus paene infinitis figuris rarissimae gratiae operam navare decreverunt.
In silvis, per ripas fluvii, per vallem, per clivum, subtus solaria, in ipso aquarum ore, statuas sine mira pulchritudine et profusione sustulerunt.
Hic illic et ubique refulsit egregiae formae gratia, niveis inter frondea nemora aut perplexum.
Arcanus exsulis artificum praecordia urebat ardor. Ferae spei videretur, ut aliam illam urbem longe aliam Romam, infantulam filiam, candidiorem et candidiorem marmoreo magnificentia quam gloriosa mater, quae septem montibus insidebat, educeret.
Iterum atque iterum ter denos terque quaterque denos, misera Paula e lapicidinis orta, formosior semper et formosior semper, nunc flexa tremendo maerore, nunc ipsa sui specie resupinato pudore sethera ponens; blanda et miseranda facies.
Hic quoque magnus Caesar stetit, nunquam oblitus divinae clementiae statuarios ex gravi morte rapuit.
Cum secundo exsilii saeculo regnum parvum Romanum longe sub caelo meridionali exortum sit, eo ipso tempore, quo colonia invalescit ac viget res nova et obscura, habitantibus in hac insula domicilio suavissimae acciderunt.
Non plures pueri masculi nati sunt!
Septem statuarii, iam senio inflexi, et facies eorum acutis compunctionibus cavata, una post alteram in mortis tenebrosam regna ibant.
Filii quoque eorum in maturam aetatem pervenerunt. Et filii eorum creverunt, felices possessione splendidi ingenii, qui tam eximiae pulchritudinis formis insulam impleverat.
Sed iam genus ad finem longi imperii pervenit in arte.
Decennium post decennium defluxit et adhuc non venit unus puer masculus qui domum sculptoris laetificavit.
Desperatio quaedam in coloniam delapsus est.
Maiores statuarii scalpturas in summa desperatione deposuerunt.
Nam et minoris et minus.
Nullus adhuc puer erat, qui carmen priscum excitaret et risus quondam illius insulae laetae domum rediret.
Rigebant arte digiti callidissimi senio.
Corda gloriosa inspiratione plena hebetata sunt et sopita! Singillatim omnes ibant viam, quam mortale pedes calcare debent.
Atrox, mira mutatio in populum venit.
Hoc plumbeo maerore praegravatus, his stupefactis et immotis marformis die ac nocte circumdatus, quae, licet ipsa glaeba tacita, tamen indesinenter exclamavit: “Date nos in his solitudinibus plures”. Isti miseri paene ad ipsum marmora conversi.
Vero sane fratres ac sorores marmorarii in hac insula facti sunt.
Tandem venit finis!
Novissimus sculptor sculpsit super feretrum magni templi albi ad mare.
Tamdiu silentium, tam altum, tam atrox invasit populum, ut paene in perpetuum oratio eorum amissa sit.
In obscuro specubus et nemoroso truculento, ab ipsa luce diei se occultare prorepserunt.
Eorum artus, olim tam molles et elastici, prompti dominis suis per clivum et per campum ferendi, choreis adsueti generis delectati, nunc graves et tardi facti sunt.
Visi prope ad saxum converti, et tacita circum se iungere consortia.
Nimirum tale imminebat fatum, cum euentus laeta res avertebat.
Annus erat elapsus ex quo ultimus sculptor iverat ad comitatum umbratilem quae per desertum aeternae Silentii semper movetur, cum septem filiae eius tristes ab infantis clamore commotae sunt.
Sed ecce!
Infanti subnixa in amplexu stat mater vidua.
Filius est!
Laetus nuntius nonnisi e familia ad familiam subrepit.
Eheu! serum revocare ad priscos mores moresque, serum cruorem pristino cohibere, cursu per venas salire.
Homines mutati erant!
Felicitas vera eorum iterum venit, sed eadem non fuit. Ridere et ridere poterant, sed vix plus quam facies marmoris arcano quodam numine movebantur. Loqui potuerunt, sed verba tam lente ceciderunt ut prope videri statua aliqua inter frondea insulae secreta locuta sit. Movere poterant, sed cochlea vel testudo facile eos praevenit.
Tarn mutati sunt; fatis posthac populis pulcherrimam insulam domum cum statuis viventibus.
Longa nam fuga fugit annos, donec alia centuria secuta est, nec tamen mira ingenii res rediit.
Perpetuum perierat!
Iampridem etiam populus fabulae patrum oblitus est.
Paucorum electorum in cordibus vivitur, idque singulis saeculis iunioribus ad id delectis tradunt.
Antonio ita creditum est.
Talis autem narratio mihi narravit!
Levato animo, iam inde dubitationis et incerti ponderis elato, valedicens Antonium iubebam, deinde Bulgerum ad tardum moventium domicilia repetentem.
Praeterirem nemorum, qui marmora ferebant, Constiti, ante magni cur miranda Caesaris imago.
Adjunxit me Bulger, et ibi stetimus, pueri huius diei, oculis elevatis ad faciem eius, cuius minimus sermo in tabulis ceratis olim descriptus est, quasi dei vox.
Caesarem semper amavi.
Multis inter se similes sumus.
Ambo viri pugnandi fuimus.
Misertus sum nunc eum, ut etiam in marmoris effigie, inter tam hebes et inertes homines, quam segnes motores, vivere cogeretur.
Sic ei dixi.
“Et tamen”, inquit, “Iulius”, inquit, “vocavi ab hominibus, Magne Caesar, quam felix nunc non es; nam pudore vincere vis omnes casus meos legere, dum scripsisti librum. De Gallia in brevibus bibliothecarum mucida et pulverulenta iacet!
Sequenti die obiter iter faciens et magni Caesaris vultum respexi, animadverti risum modo in dextro oris eius angulo coepisse. Ita stolidissimus factus est per longam mansionem apud motores tardis ut nuper coeperat oblectari dicto priore die.
Cogitationes domus iam animo obortae sunt.
Re vera paulo post, cum Antonio in caverna maritimo colloqueretur, Bulger manifestas domesticae aegritudinis signa coeperat ostendere. Itaque eum chirographo praefecto navis meae misi ut de reditu suo statim pararet iter.
Bulger festinavit ad faciendam commissionem.
Profectus est ad pedem scalae marmoreae, ac deinde latratu maximo magistratus quem praefecerat admovit.
Navem in eiectam misit et Bulger cum meis litteris in ore suo occurrit.
Ut verum fatear, per septimanam vel tam diutius inter motores tardiores morari vellem, sed apparebat apparere quod ad meam praesentiam resuscerent.
In genis eorum multa persici rubicundi signa evanuerunt.
Quotidie magis magisque crescebant fratribus marmoreis.
Celeres motus eorum oculos ita defatigavi ut paucis horis in medio eorum commoratus me dormientium soporatum coetu circumventum inveni.
Nec audeo dicere.
Nam quamvis vocem delenirem, vel quam lente proferret verba, lentorum moventium aures offenderunt, et vultus signa doloris praeteribant.
Celeriter igitur formatum est consilium meum.
Gradu cochleae transivi a coetus ad catervam, ab arcu ad ima, a nemus ad nemus, sono molli et mensurato dicens: “Vale bene! Bene valete!”
Tunc gressus meos direxi ad templum candidum iuxta mare, nam cymbam meam sciebam sub pede scalae marmoreae me opperiri.
Ante Magni Caesaris statuam praeteriens novissimam valedicendi fluctum verti.
Quid ego te vidi existimare?
Quin idem risus, qui ante aliquot dies in dextro oris eius angulo coeperat, ad alteram faciei partem traiecerat, et in sinistro oris eius angulo suberat.
Dextro, unde venerat, omnia tam trux ac placidus erat, cum sedisset Romae sedentem orbem terrarum.
Aliquot post horis, cum bonae navis meae vela poneremus, incidit in aurem meam verbo sono molli et resonante.
Cum sol occubuit, diluvium aureum infundens super scalas pulchras marmoreas, templum magnum candidum, et statuae multae niveae, quae inter opaca arborum et vinearum folia tam clara et pulchra fulgebant in arcano illius insulae. Posui me in cincinnis intentis oculis ut quam diutissime in amoena scena defixos servarem.
Bona navis in altissimo silentio enavigavit. Mandaveram enim ne quis supra susurrum loqueretur.
Nunc Sculptores Insula in mera spelunca in horizonte defluxerat, et nunc in noctis umbris colligendis absorpta est et in perpetuum amissa!
Cor aggravatum est.
Tum caput in gremium irrepsit, oculisque amantibus in me plenum defixis.
Ambos somnus devicit.
Caelum erat stelliferum cum evigilantes.
Frigida me nocte ventus refecit.
Egrediendi animo infra exorsus sum. Ilico volitans vesperi auram, instar montis repercussus pene consumptus, sonus mollis arcanus.
Born in the province of Alberta in 1939, Lynn Seymour was one of the tiny circle of classical dancers for whom the turn “genius” is not hyperbole.
At the age of 14, she was sent to England to study at the Sadler’s Wells (now Royal Ballet) School, where her most influential teacher was Winifred Edwards, a disciple of Anna Pavlova. Such was her talent, that at 20 she was appointed principal of the Royal Ballet, despite a curvaceous physique and ample bosom, scarcely the norm in the trade even then.
What is Plastique?
Every human being, every body, is different. Thus, the world’s leading dancers can call only upon what is known as “available technique”, and no more. That means dancing within the limits peculiar to one’s own body type, biomechanics and mental/emotional abilities, lest one come a cropper. What one refers to as a “great” dancer is he who masters, first, all the technique his own being will allow of, and then has the mental strength and cultural depth to project “thoughts, feelings and emotions” across the footlights, in Maria Fay’s words. Now, some, such as the French, will stress clean articulation and faithful execution of academic forms (attitude, arabesque…) and steps (jeté, assemblé…), others, such as the Danes, revel in the in-between, indeterminate moments of transition. Given men’s straight up-and-down structure, tremendous attack and superior muscle quality, they will tend towards exact articulation, and women, towards the in-between shapes.
In the profession, the French term plastique describes something rare and paradoxical: the ability to trace academic forms that, whilst being one-of-a-kind, sprung from that artist as an individual, are so strictly true to the principles that they remain in the spectator’s mind forever. The forms become a thought-object; they will never die. Without there being a literal explanation for the phenomenon, the dancer has unleashed in the spectator’s mind a movement of grey-matter which has changed him, and will therefore, in some unpredictable way, affect everyone that spectator meets.
Although the notion is harder to grasp in relation to the aforesaid in-between or indeterminate forms, they too belong to the category of plastique; as such events are almost impossible to photograph, a pragmatist will likely dispute their very existence. In the theatre, faced with a great dancer who plunges boldly into that domain, an attentive spectator will confirm that he has indeed perceived indefinite ideas that are, however, definitely ideas, associated with a premonition of the eternal or the infinite.
In the dance world, the Russian critic Achim Wolyinskii (1863-1926), well-acquainted with the world of ancient Greece and the Renascence, attempted to make intelligible a terrain which the Germans call Unheimlich (uncanny, eerie), a terrain lying between the visible/conscious, and the invisible/preconscious (for further discussion of Wolinskii Cf. Alexander Meinertz’ biography of Vera Volkova, published by Dance Books in 2007).
Amongst the ballerinas for whom we have some record on film, three are indisputably masters of the plastique: Galina Ulanova, Lis Jeppesen – and the late Lynn Seymour.
In the short excerpts linked to below, observe how Miss Seymour moves from an academic form of severe and ideal beauty to virtually liquid shapes, nameless, summoned up from .. whence? and vanishing … whither? As though independent of her will, an ectoplasm takes shape, surrounded by some kind of electric field of emotion. Around Miss Seymour, the depth and breadth of the stage seems not a void, but inhabited, extending into space but also, strange to say, in time. The arms, shoulders, the full length of the spine all speak, her hands echo like shells with the sound of the sea. Alert in every fibre to her partner, Lynn Seymour never tries to “look pretty” – the impetus is all.
Below, two of the few films that remain of Lynn Seymour (bearing in mind that she was nearly 40 and a mother of three when they were made):
The choreography, by Ashton and MacMillan respectively, was made on her and her partner.
Moufid Azmaïesh writes from France. This article originally appeared in France Soir.
This very interesting exchange between an Iranian, Esfandiar, and Julie Cronshaw on the topic of ballet, points to the importance and necessity of the arts to properly cultivate the ground of culture so that it may yield good fruit.
Julie Cronshaw is a graduate of the Royal Ballet School’s Teacher’s Training Course and has danced professionally in ballet companies in Germany, the United States and Russia. Currently, she is the Artistic Director of the Highgate Ballet School in England. She gained her Cecchetti Teaching Diploma in 2009 and Fellowship (the highest teaching award given by the ISTD) in 2010. Julie guest teaches regularly in Paris. She is a founding member of the Auguste Vestris Society, a non-profit, Paris-based teaching organization which is dedicated to promoting classical ballet, particularly the work of great ballet masters such as Enrico Cecchetti and August Bournonville.
Esfandiar (Es): Hello Miss Cronshaw. This is Esfandiar here in Turkey but I am from Iran. My friends in the Lebanon have told me about your film Ballet’s Secret Code, on the teacher Enrico Cecchetti, and that now it has 460,000 views after two years on YT.
We have no ballet in Iran since 1979 but I like it. I feel happy when I see the people dancing to that beautiful music and I would like to do it too. Also, the Russian people here always talk about ballet and their favourite dancers. I read about it, I have learnt names for steps and watched many films. These are my questions to you about Enrico Cecchetti.
Julie Cronshaw (JC): First of all, thank you for taking the time to write to me.
It has been quite a surprise, to follow the rise in audience figures of Ballet’s Secret Code, since its release in January 2021. The project evolved from a ‘light-bulb’ moment which distilled the Method of Cecchetti’s Days of the Week into a few simple principles, and which I felt needed to be shared. When the project was finally finished I could say to anyone who asked: if you want to know, it’s on film and the information is freely available to all.
What has been even more of a surprise is to receive and read the hundreds of interesting comments and questions from across the world. There have been some lively debates on aspects of ballet as an art form and how the principles relate not only to other kinds of dance and sports, but also to society in general.
Es: What is the difference between what they teach in Russia today, and Cecchetti ? Is Cecchetti too old-timer for stage-dancing now?
JC: To be honest, the only ballet classes in Russia that I have seen recently are on the internet and the last time I watched a Russian ballet company live in London was when the Bolshoi Ballet visited a few years ago. Their dancers are so superb technically and artistically, and the love, reverence and understanding they have for the art form is palpable, I don’t wish to criticise…that would be petty and small-minded of me! Cecchetti -and a decade or two before him, August Bournonville- were not wrong when they said that the light of Terpsichore would shine again in Russia when it had dimmed in Europe.
Still as we say here, ‘A Cat may look at a King’ and when I watch a Russian ballet class sometimes it is interesting to see how the dancer’s anatomy is pushed far beyond what I believe to be aesthetically and morally acceptable. This is a personal observation! I state it clearly on the documentary, a dancer’s body is their instrument, don’t trash it! Do you not wince in empathic pain when you watch unnecessary contortion and the extreme stretching? This is in their classes and onstage as much as it is in so many other companies and schools around the world.
Also I notice the ‘international style’ combinations one sees in so many ballet classes everywhere (Jean-Guillaume Bart of the Paris Opera refers to them as ‘McDonalds’ ballet’) are creeping into some of their company classes too.
When I danced briefly in Russia in 1994, the company classes were full of ballet steps I recognised from my Cecchetti ballet training and had not otherwise seen for a while – I was living in the USA at the time and not studying Cecchetti Method. The Vaganova style is different but the principles are the same, exactly as they were back then, as far as I experienced for the short time I was there in that company.
The Russian dancers are otherwise so fabulous and they deliver what an audience expects these days, which would be a short answer to the second part of your question: is Cecchetti too much of an old-timer for today’s stage dancing? I fear “Yes, at the present time”. This could all change and hopefully for the better, because we can all see how the Western world is descending into a very dark place at a very fast pace.
Artists have always reflected the society around them and this includes its moral, cultural, philosophical and spiritual aspects. Whether one likes or loathes what a choreographer puts onstage, it usually reflects some of these aspects in his creations. I discovered just how prescient a well-known contemporary choreographer is, when I gave a presentation on ballet, ballet training and the arts in the summer of 2021 and showed an excerpt on video. I’m not sure if the piece was intended to be for or against trans-humanism and the war on women, but it was quite frightening and some of the audience asked me to switch off the video as it made them feel sick.
If one can be optimistic about the future of humanity then there is a place for Cecchetti’s Method in the ballet companies of that world. Cecchetti’s training is moral, as well as anatomically sound, and of great artistic merit. The old laws of England tell us: Be honest, do no harm and cause no loss. Cecchetti would surely agree.
Es: I do a lot of sports, but I would one day like to try ballet. I see that the Italian man in your film does not have today’s special ballet physique. But he can do the steps. The ballerina is quite old and can still do all the steps. You are quite old and can do the steps, too. So, is it necessary to be young and have special ballet physique to dance Cecchetti correctly?
JC: How does one define “old”!? When you watch those of us with maturity who can dance those Cecchetti combinations, we do not feel “old” because the enchaînements (step combinations) do not require us to push our muscles, ligaments and joints beyond their limits. We enjoy and appreciate the sophistication of these wonderful combinations, where younger dancers cannot, yet. And we do not need to compete with the ballet-gymnast who can kick up their legs for effect when we are instead, whether consciously or not, exploring the geometric shapes and Platonic forms within an adage set to a Beethoven sonata. There is of course a minimal necessary technical requirement and a very high bar is set for some of the combinations, but this is classical ballet and an art form to be studied for years, decades, not just a jog around the gym.
It is recommended that if one wishes to become a competent practitioner of anything, better to start when one is young – but Cecchetti Method does not preclude beginners who are adults or dancers with less than perfect physique. As it is a Method based on the efficient mechanical actions of the human body in motion, it can be taught to anyone who is willing and reasonably able to learn it.
Es: I notice that Cecchetti seems very decent, I think it’s the word, compared to today’s ballet. There seem to be more steps to the music, difficult, fast steps; it is less exhibitionist, less putting the body on show. In the Middle East, we don’t like it when private things are shown in public. Cecchetti could be more popular in the Middle East because of decency. Do you think?
JC: Cecchetti lived and worked at a time when people were more modestly clothed and classical ballets favoured elaborate costumes, a story, and step combinations.
As the 20th century wore on, what became “acceptable” in society (or rather, it has been proposed, what has been thrust upon us by influential people intent on pushing their own agenda) also became acceptable on the stage. As I mentioned above, artists reflect what is going on around them, so ballet styles have changed too. Of course you can argue, times have to change, but one should always strive for better in any age, or leave that which is good and true to serve as a baseline from which to begin to explore the new.
The classical ballet can so clearly express the most noble expressions of humanity in form and movement and yes, simply through steps! It’s a language.
We have now reached a point here in the West where we are scraping the bottom of the barrel culturally and morally, and it’s in the arts as well. There is a profound disgust that many of us feel when we are subjected to the unmentionably vile ugliness of modern art. As spectators we must distance ourselves from it or we will suffer emotional and spiritual abuse, which causes us long term psychological damage and leads to societal moral decline and degradation.
Es: I study physics. You write on your Website The Cecchetti Connection that Cecchetti knew about the physical principles that he put into each day of class for one week. Why is that important? Instead of just thinking up nice moves to keep students happy?
JC: Without standing upon the basic physical principles of movement that correspond to natural law, dancers would, almost literally, not have a leg to stand upon.
The beauty of Cecchetti’s Days of the Week is that each day concentrates both the dancer’s body AND mind on a specific set of steps with similar movement qualities, and builds upon their complexity and variety as the dancer’s competency and artistry develops. As a result, the dancer’s competency and artistry also develop through the repetition and increase in complexity of the original basic step of the day—and the following week this step returns to provide the theme for that day’s class.
Just as the ballet class is structured with a barre and centre work, Cecchetti took the structure and development of basic movement principles one by one, and taught them in their most obvious order, across six days of the week. They begin on Monday with the notion of aplomb and progress to the Saturday class of bouncing allegro.
It’s a very disciplined and highly organised method of working that constantly scales up the dancer’s capacity to improve technique and movement possibilities. Just kicking up the legs, doing multiple turns and throwing oneself across the floor with a few fancy circus tricks is not only hazardous, but also eventually stagnates the mind and will have the opposite effect on any thinking dancer whose level of artistry would otherwise grow with maturity, even as their pliancy and strength starts to decline.
Es: You are a Fellow of the Imperial Society of Dancing, Cecchetti branch. Someone told me that it is harder than getting a PhD, so many years of study and theory, and you have to dance all the steps well too. How did you learn all the things that you know about Cecchetti ? Who are the teachers who were your guides?
JC: I could not comment on a comparison of the difficulties of becoming a Fellow in the Cecchetti Method with the challenges of attaining a PhD! When one has danced classical ballet all one’s life, and then teaches, at some point it becomes either an obvious or natural progression to study in depth the Method learned for so many years.
I am thankful to all my many ballet teachers for sharing their years of experience, knowledge and wisdom. I was not Cecchetti-trained as a child, and when I lived in the USA I was a professional dancer, working with my former husband, whose career was with American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet.
As a student at the Royal Ballet School, I studied with the internationally-renowned Cecchetti teacher Richard Glasstone and then trained on and off with him over many years.
Roger Tully has been the most profoundly influential ballet teacher I have ever worked with, and he taught a completely different style of ballet class, but always stated the principles.
It was because of his teaching that I put two and two together and realised the underlying principles behind Cecchetti’s Days of the Week. In 2007, I was lucky enough to be asked to join the Société Auguste Vestris, a not-for-profit teaching society in Paris, whose founder is a woman of exceptional intellectual and practical capabilities, Katharine Kanter. The extraordinary people that Katharine knows from around the world and has brought together—either to become part of the society or to give presentations and workshops—has stimulated a quest for knowledge, and for certain it sparked off a latent intellectual predisposition that sent me down the path I’ve been on ever since!
Thanks to Katharine, a series of lucky happenstances, useful contacts and the financial support from the AV Society, I was able to persuade two dancers to take part in the film and find the spaces and the time to rehearse them. Then the film itself gradually came together! I read all I could find on Cecchetti and his contemporaries. His life story often provides a background context when I am occasionally asked to write an article for a Cecchetti or other dance journal.
Es: I have watched many films from the 50s and 60s. For example, Margot Fonteyn and Michael Somes in The Swan Lake, 1960. The music is very fast, faster than today. But she can do all the steps in time, very fast “inside” turns and very fast backbend, or else tilting sideways or forwards on one leg off-balance. She was old then, 40, but she doesn’t seem worried. Her muscles are pretty; she doesn’t look athletic. Today, the girls look like sportswomen with big muscles, they are tense and push the steps hard. Why is that? Is ballet a sport?
JC: Margot Fonteyn was not only an artist of the highest level but also a very special human being, according to the anecdotes of those who knew and worked with her. The artist reflects their state of being and doing through their art. Dancers today are not educated to think and act either inside or outside of the studio, in the way that Fonteyn did.
During the decades that Fonteyn was a prima ballerina, Cecchetti Method was still being taught extensively in London, for example at the Royal Ballet School even though the Founder and Director of the Royal Ballet company at that time, Dame Ninette de Valois, was already looking around internationally for teachers and dancers to enhance the technical level of the company, its prestige and global appeal. The style of the Royal Ballet, exemplified by the choreography of Frederick Ashton, showed intricate footwork, lyrical lines and fluid port de bras. It developed as a combination of the teaching of the first and second generation of Cecchetti trained dancers, Ballets Russes emigres, and other independent ballet teachers from around the world.
This style of dancing depended upon step choreography and gestures to convey a story or sometimes an abstract idea. It was the way things were done in those days, and it wasn’t the fashion to dance onstage in one’s underwear. Nor to kick the legs up and perform ballet tricks for sensational effect. This is maybe why dancers today push so hard and have the big muscles and dance like it’s a sport: the training encourages effect and show, not so much anymore the crystallisation into form of an idea or ideal from the realm of the imagination, and projected through the highly contrived – and perfectly suited for it- environment of the theatre stage.
As a side note, one cannot say that dancers from those mid 20th century decades could not do the tricks, like the fouettés and so on, of course they could, but there was another aesthetic that took precedence over the effects. Technique was used as a means to an end not its end. Ballet is an art not a sport.
Es: I have also watched the Russian ballet films from the 50s and 60s. I enjoy to see the girls like Svetlana Efremova or Gabriela Komleva. Other girls are good too. They could do anything, jump high, criss-cross very fast with the feet, also doing very hard steps on their toe-tips. They seem better than the girls today, stronger, telling about the music, and also, making it look easy. Why is that?
JC: They are fabulous yes aren’t they? The technique taught in those days was more likely focused on step combinations and different kinds of steps rather than stretching and effects, as I’ve tried to explain in replying to your previous question! When one takes up more time in class stretching at the barre, obsessing over the height of an arabesque, hitting those numbers for pirouettes and wondering how one is going to look wearing not much more than a leotard or shorts that evening onstage, it must surely change one’s approach to training!
I have a theory that the rampant narcissism in society and especially in the ballet, is in no small part, brought about by the ongoing unpleasant cultural changes being forced upon us at all levels, the abusive, un-education system, the horrendous global situation, political lawlessness and the pervading sense of uncertainty in the world that dancers pick up upon because they are artists and reflect that which is around them.
Es: I have watched films with American men dancing classical ballet now. Their leg muscles seem bulged up, especially the quadriceps, and they seem to put the weight to their toes. I am a sportsman and I don’t put the weight on my toes. The American men are thin but they look heavy. Why is that?
JC: The body is a heavy and solid object! When one puts weight over the toes the direction of force is directed downwards and the effort required to shift it is more than when the weight is distributed about the central axis – and where the musculature in the torso can be more efficiently directed.
When the legs do more work proportionately to that of the torso it becomes obvious that the muscles in the legs will develop disproportionately to the muscles in the torso.
Es: Does Cecchetti have special steps, special training, for men ? Do the feet have to be pointing outwards as much as in modern ballet which is 180°?
JC: There are lovely combinations for the male dancer including long, sustained adages, some choreographed and complex others using simple repetition of movements and poses in the basic directions of the body. There are slow adagio pirouettes (turns) and fast, virtuosity pirouettes, for which the Maestro was renowned in his dancing years, and all sorts of jumps, not just the big leaps across the stage but bouncing combinations (in the style of Bournonville), petite and grande batterie (criss-crossing the legs in beats close to, or farther off the floor)) and unusual, off-balance combinations that wouldn’t look out of place in a contemporary class!
No, the feet do not have to be turned out to 180 degrees, and Cecchetti’s 5th position doesn’t over- cross, which helps to keep the legs turned out at the thigh and facilitates speed.
Es: I saw your “Tips for a Ballet Teacher.” You talk about renversé (bending strongly and turning upon oneself, either towards (en dedans) or away (en-dehors) from the standing leg). I don’t understand how you can hold off-balance like that while moving downwards or turning. You don’t fall down. Is it special muscles you use? Or is it the move that helps you?
JC: It’s the momentum of the turn generated by the torso, the correct carriage and use of the head as it’s heavy, and the coordination of the legs and arms, all of which are vital for carrying the momentum of the renversé and enabling the recovery, especially if it’s into a position of extension en l’air (the gesture leg is fully stretched and held in the air), as in renversé en dedans.
Es: I saw that Lebanese teenagers have sent you a video of a ballet they made up, to honour Cecchetti, after they watched your film. Please tell about that.
JC: The YouTube video made by this couple (who were young but not teenagers, if I recall!) was made during one of the Covid lockdowns. They rehearsed and produced a pas de deux in the summer heat, in a ruined building which was little more than a shell, and the piece they created, was very simply and honestly done, sincere and very artistic. I was contacted through the Ballet’s Secret Code e-mail address and sent the link. It reminded me of what Roger Tully used to say in class sometimes, and it would be said not in irony, but as a high compliment:
“It could almost be dancing!”
Featured: Anna Pavlova in the Ballet Sylphyde, by Valentin Serov; painted in 1909.
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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.
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.
