Le Dieu Beefsteak

LE DIEU BEEFSTEACK

L'anémie est à la mode comme la névrose. Elle nous empoigne les plus jolies et couvre lentement d'une blancheur de mort l'éclat frais de leurs joues. Toutes anémiques aujourd'hui, avec des faiblesses dans les genoux, et, comme me le disait si rudement un interne, avec le visage à la sauce pâle.

C'est pour celles-là qu'on a inondé Paris d'affiches énormes qui portent en capitales ces mots d'aspect étrange : Bains de sang. On croit d'abord à quelque titre à sensation, on lit et l'on comprend alors que sur ces feuilles enluminées, collées aux murs, c'est notre époque tout entière résumée dans ses pauvretés et ses besoins pressants...

Déjà le fer est usé, il n'est plus dans le ton; pendant des années on a fait de lui comme un petit remède très high-life; on l'a mis en pastilles dans des bonbonnières exquises, en liqueur dans des flacons de cristal ciselé. Il fallait les entendre s'écrier, les pauvrettes, mollement, gentiment souffrantes, avec un soupir d'àme qui s'envole : Je prends du fer!

Ce « je prends du fer » était tout un délicieux poème, attendrissant comme une plainte vague, rempli d'un charme mondain et discret. Maintenant, c'est au sang même qu'on s'adresse brutalement; c'est lui qui doit donner la vie nouvelle; on le boit à pleine jarre et l'on s'y plonge à plein corps.

Parfois, le matin, rue de Flandres, devant les abattoirs en éventail, c'est une longue file d'équipages : les portières armoriées s'ouvrent sous la main du larbin irréprochable, et des jeunes filles toutes frêks descendent de coupés capitonnés de satin bleu, laissant dans l'intérieur l'amour de petit chien blanc, frisé et bichonné.

C'est l'heure où l'on tue; le sang tiède, — le sang de Jouvence — va couler à flots. Recouverts de la serpillière, la boutique garnie des six couteaux au côté, les garçons circulent; de lourdes pièces éventrées voyagent sur les épaules des porteurs, les voitures numérotées attendent leurs cargaisons; c'est un va-et-vient fiévreux, on travaille dur pour le ventre de Paris; partout où flâne le regard, c'est l'immense boucherie organisée avec art. Par les avenues qui séparent les bâtiments, on se heurte à des viandes pittoresques, à des quartiers monstres qui laissent derrière eux un cordon sanguinolent.

Parfois, parti on ne sait d'où, un cri plaintif, un gémissement désespéré — l'àme de quelque bonne et douce bête qui meurt sous le coup...

Tandis qu'à pas menus, retroussant ses jupes un peu, pénètre dans cette tuerie impitoyable la jeune fille diaphane qui joue Chopin avec sentiment.

On a amené le bœuf, on l'attache à un anneau fiché dans le sol, on lui noue les cornes avec une grosse corde, on lui incline fortement la tète...

Le boucher prend un merlin, donne un coup sec entre les cornes, — le bœuf tombe comme une masse, soufflant, épais; souvent il essaie de se relever, — un nouveau coup sur le frontal l'achève, le voilà inerte sur le flanc, énorme, avec ses yeux — ses yeux si tendres hors de l'orbite...

Alors on lui coupe la gorge, le sang fait irruption de toutes parts, ardent, bouillant; autour dela pauvre bête assommée, on installe un cercle de larges baquets, — des roues qui reçoivent le sang pir cascades et fusées...

A quelques pas de là, la jeune fille attend ; sans le voirelle devine ce spectacle de mort; enfin un garçon arrive en courant, malgré ses sabots, les manches de sa chemise retroussées sur ses gros bras bossués de muscles, une tasse dans sa main vigoureuse; sans hésiter, il présente à la jeune fille cette tasse, où s'agite un sang bouillonnant...

D'un trait, comme habituée déjà, elle la vide, la rejette et se sauve en essuyant avec un fin mouchoir ses lèvres rougies — pour un instant.

A l'hôtel, vite!

Les chevaux repartent au galop,'la jeune fille s'enfonce dans un coin de la voiture, — et chaque fois, quand elle s'en retourne ainsi, lui revient obstinément un vieux souvenir classique, l'histoire de cette Sombreuil, qui l'effrayait tant en pension et à laquelle elle se trouve maintenant bien supérieure!

Avec les bains de sang, la scène devient plus caractéristique.

Le bain de madame la baronne est prêt; dans la baignoire qui brille, c'est une large tache rouge, mouvante; une chaleur monte de cette mare vermeille faite de tout le sang d'une bête jeune.

Mignonne, craintive, la baronne approche: une vision de crime lui traverse l'esprit et l'épouvante; elle se regarde dans sa petite glace à main, elle est plus pâle encore, jamais elle n'osera se plonger làdedans, —. et pourtant elle s'y plonge avec un grand cri, les yeux clos.

Elle ne veut pas voir, une odeur acre lui saisit la gorge... Mais en même temps il lui semble qu'une force vivifiante l'anime, elle s'enhardit, s'allonge et se laisse pénétrer par tous les pores...

Tandis que debout auprès d'elle, la soubrette robuste, saine et comme fraîche encore du bon air de sa campagne, se croit en un cauchemar et murmure: « Est-ce possible!»

Puis, après trois minutes, délivrée, la baronne qui sort du bain s'enroule dans un peignoir de batiste qui moule ses chairs délicates où le sang dégoutte, ruisselle et se fige en perles de corail.

Le matin, la baronne, la Tendresse, comme il est écrit tout le long des carnets mondains, se baigne bravement dans le sang, ce qui ne l'empêche pas de s'évanouir pour une piqûre d'épingle!

Du sang, du sang, c'était le cri de Macbeth après le crime — c'est aujourd'hui le cri du boulevard après l'épuisement des nuits blanches.

Pour peu que l'anémie sévisse longtemps encore, on dira désormais: « Je fais une saison aux abattoirs », comme on disait : « Je fais une cure à Vichy. » Ce sera le comble du chic, par ce tempsoù la maladie est un dandysme.

Un simple beefsteack, cependant, ferait mieux l'affaire : le dieu Beefsteack. est plus sûr que tous les bains du monde. A lui seul, saignant de beaux filets d'un rouge de sang, il est la providence.

Le dieu beefsteack, mais servi et adoré pour luimême, sans que Bordeaux ou Bercy n'aient rien à y voir, le dieu nature, et sur le gril.

Lui seulest de taille à refouler l'anémie qui monte, et il tient dans ses flancs de quoi rendre la fraîcheur rose aux plus fanées; la Villette et les bains miraculeux ne prévaudront pas contre lui.

Le dieu beefsteack, c'est l'avenir, en ce siècle ruiné de sang.

A quoi bon chercher autre chose, pourquoi faire de l'originalité — inutile, avec du sang en tasse ou en baignoire, quand on peut s'offrir, pour un rien, chez soi, au milieu de sa table, sur la belle assiette à fleurs, le dieu beefsteack... sauveur du monde!


Paris Patraque
Alexandre Hepp

Le Bréviaire Guyot

LE BRÉVIAIRE GUYOT

Ce Bréviaire de l'amour expérimental devrait être le livre de chevet de tous les nouveaux époux. (SARDOU)

Ce Bréviaire renferme surtout un chapitre qui m'a beaucoup ému et qu'on pourrait intituler: l'art de faire des enfants à sa femme en lui....... Ce Bréviaire m'a mis tout en joie. (LABICHE)

Je cueille ces deux épigraphes dans des lettres que Sardou et Labiche, — deux académiciens— ont adressées à l'éditeur du Bréviaire de l'amour expérimental, par le docteur Jules Guyot. Ce singulier Bréviaire, — pour la messe conjugale, Sardou l'a pris au sérieux, presque au dramatique ; Labiche, lui s'en est égayé tout simplement en songeant peut-être aux jolis effets qu'il en aurait tires jadis, quand il faisait au théâtre des mariages si extraordinaires et désopilants.

Il y a en effet dans ce bouquin minuscule de quoi s'arrêter un instant et de quoi sourire. On s'arrête lorsqu'on sait qu'il a eu parmi ses patrons et marraines Claude Bernard, Sainte-Beuve, Bixio, George Sand; mais on sourit vite, lorsque la liste se complète du cardinal Gousset, de l'abbé Montera, de l'abbé Hugon, l'exécuteur testamentaire d'Orsini, — et de... Virginie Déjazet.

Puis le sourire s'accentue, involontairement, quand on lit, — et quand on se rappelle que ce Manuel du mari modèle selon la Physiologie et la Religion, a été écrit à l'occasion solennelle du mariage du prince Napoléon avec la princesse Clotilde de Savoie!...

Balzac, dans sa Physiologie du mariage, s'est préoccupé presque exclusivement de Monsieur, de ses moyens de défense contre les minotaurisations :c'est de la politique d'intérieur.

PourBalzac, dans le ménage,toutes choses doivent revenir à Monsieur, les petits bonheurs comme les satisfactions complètes : le docteur Guyot a voulu réagir, et il a revendiqué pour Madame l'égalité des droits, — d'un droit surtout, d'un droit qui... que... oui enfin, celui-là, juste!

Celui qui précède le droit au travail— de la maternité.

J'accorde qu'il est bien des drames qui sont partis de l'alcôve. Certains jours, nous autres nous sommes d'un splendide égoïsme, nous avons l'air de donner et nous ne donnons rien, et dans la lune de miel même, souvent tout le miel est pour nous. En frelonnant dela sorte, il se peut que nous révoltions les roses....

Mais le Bréviaire Guyot me semble outré dans son accusation et imprudent dans son exclusivisme. A chacun son dû, notre femme est un créancier, l'amour une fonction naturelle et sociale: telle apparaît la théorie du docteur.

Jusqu'ici vous et moi, nous croyions volontiers qu'entre mari et femme la communion de l'esprit et du cœur était déjà de quelque haute importance. Non pas! Ce qui est nécessaire, urgent, c'est qu'il y ait symphonie conjugale parfaite, égalité de poids et mesures, — c'est qu'aucune valeur ne reste en compte.

S'il arrivetrop souvent qu'on se tourne le dos pour se montrer ensuite les griffes en pleinejustice, c'est que le mari est un naïf ou un brutal. La chasteté, la confiance, la sécurité du foyer, — tiennent tout entières dans sa générosité ou dans sa délicatesse...

Et là-dessus le docteur Guyot aligne cet axiome — qui a bien ce qu'il faut pour être du théâtre de Dumas fils:

Toute épouse incomprise qui sert passivement d'instrument à son époux est à la fois sainteet martyre; mais son époux demeure un égoïste et un sot....

Balzac avait écrit : le mariage c'est le lit. Avec le système du docteur, on en arrive à compléter ainsi cette définition déjà tout expérimentale : la vertu, la fidélité, l'honneur dsla femme, c'est le lit.

Je doute que les femmes, pour qui plaide le Bréviaire, consentent, même en secret, à tenir de la sorte d'un meuble acajou, palissandre ou thuya toute leur auréole!

La théorie du docteur fait un métier du mariage qui était déjà une loterie, comme on sait. Et ce métier a besoin d'être enseigné! Méthodiquement enseigné, non pas au point de vue dela philosophie, de la patience ou du courage, — pourtant indispensables,— mais au point de vue pratique : malheur au merle blanc!

Le docteur demande s'il n'est pas étrange que nous ayons des chefs de cuisine, des parfumeurs émérites, des professeurs d'optique, des maîtres de musique, que nous étudiions suivant des lois mathématiques ou sur des principes scientifiques tout ce qui concerne les muscles, le goût, Fodorat, la vue et l'ouïe et que nous abandonnions l'exercice du sens dominateur de l'existence humaine dans sa création, dans son cours et dans sa dernière fin, aux seuls instincts égarés par les lazzis, les chansons, les comédies, les romans, les images obscènes et la tradition des débauchés!

Assurément, il y a une éducation à faire. Le mariage de Daphnis et de Chloé, par le temps expérimental qui court, sentirait désagréablement l'idylle.

Il est convenu, accepté, que l'homme doit avoir rôti passablement le balai avant de le présenter au conjungo.

Mais que diable, cette éducation-là se commence et s'achève en dehors des bréviaires. Le docteur Guyot aura beau enregistrer conseils sur. conseils, développer sa théorie archi-sciemifîque, il n'empêchera pas que, — suivant d'ailleurs la mode pédagogique nouvelle, une bonne leçon de choses ne profite mieux!

Je ne conçois pas encore l'école professionnelle, où on apprendra au candidat le métier de mari. S'il faut tant de choses extra-superliriques, si l'amour a besoin de cette érudition bénédictine, on sera condamné sans doute à l'examen, et c'est Philémon et Baucis qui seront juges. M. et madame Denis seraient naturellement récusés — et pour cause.

Je ne vois pas davantage les belles-mères ayant à s'enquérir de la virtuosité du gendre!

C'est pourtant ce qu'elles seraient obligées de faire, les belles-mères consciencieuses, si la théorie du docteur Guyot l'emportait.

Mais non ! L'amour n'a pas besoin de ces démonstrations. Nous avons eu des amours et des mariages heureux avant le Bréviaire Guyot ; nous en aurons peut-être bien encore, sans que les amants ou les nouveaux époux cachent sous leur oreiller ce guide Contyde l'alcôve I

Sardou lui-même ne se serait pas attardé à piocher ce fameux Bréviaire qu'il préconise aujourd'hui, le jour où il a épousé la grande jeune fille aux yeux bleus, aux cheveux châtains qui lui est apparue un matin chez M. Eudore Soulié.

Quant à Labiche, du fond de son coin de Souvigny, il trouve ce Bréviaire charmant. C'est une opinion qui est de son âge, comme il l'avoue....

Mais je soupçonne bien un peu qu'il regrette le temps où, pour apprendre l'amour, il ne demandait de leçons qu'à l'amour!


Paris-Patraque
Alexandre Hepp


ps Le Breviaire de l´amour expérimental vient d´être réedité par Payot&Rivages
"Publié en 1882, ce Bréviaire est le premier manuel conjugal de sexologie. Son auteur, le docteur Jules Guyot, est sans doute le premier homme à proclamer que tout mari a le devoir de faire jouir sa femme. Il dévoile concrètement l'art de provoquer "à coup sûr" la volupté chez la femme, enseigne les préliminaires indispensables, les caresses à effectuer, les zones sensibles, les signes féminins de l'excitation et le rôle du clitoris. Claude Bernard, le prince Napoléon, l'actrice Virginie Déjazet, George Sand ou encore l'archevêque de Reims eurent entre les mains ce livre qui touchait juste".

Little Suck-a-Thumb

No Soup 2

No Soup

Golf In The Year 2000

On entering the hall we moved across it into another not quite so large, in which there were a great many men hanging about.

“We must see if we can get you the loan of a set of clubs and a coat,” said Adams, crossing the hall. He soon returned.

“It’s all right,” he said “young Lawson is laid up just now, so you can have his clubs and his coat as well; it will just fit you; you’re both much about the same make. Come along and we’ll try it on.”

We went into a long-shaped room with mirrors running down the centre of it, and boxes all round the sides. Mr. Adams went up to one of the boxes, and, opening it, produced a coat which he helped me on with.

It fitted perfectly, and felt nice and easy to golf in. We went back into the hall and forward to a large window, at which most of the men were congregated. The reason was that the teeing ground was just in front, and on a large board facing the window was the name of the man whose turn it was to play. As soon as each name was put up on the board a voice just above the window called it out in loud, clear tones. This, I afterwards discovered, was not a human voice, but was produced by the phonograph
and worked in conjunction with the board outside. At every change of name a little bell sounded.

I was struck with the amount of order and the quietness with which everything was carried out. No one was on the teeing ground except the player and his opponent. Not even a caddie. On my remarking upon this to my friend, he replied:
“Oh, yes, they have their caddies; there they go.”

Two players had just driven off and were leaving the teeing ground, and sure enough behind each followed what I supposed was the caddies Mr. Adams spoke of; a perpendicular rod about four feet long, supported on three wheels, the whole rather resembling a small tricycle with a small mast stepped where the saddle should have been. This rod was weighted at the foot and hung on the wheels, so that it was always perpendicular, however steep the gradient it was going up or down. On this contrivance the clubs were carried, and the players seemed to drag the whole affair after them. It seemed to me a poor substitute for the good old-fashioned caddie, about whom so many stories are told, and who were always ready with advice, and good advice too. My nineteenthcentury memory recalled a lad who, one morning, on each successive putting-green, showed me the line to the hole by saying it lay “owre that yelley fleur.” I may mention that there was not a “yelley fleur” on the whole links; and that my friend was not a teetotaler.

As we watched this couple and their queer mechanical caddies the voice shouted "Walter Adams,” and simultaneously his name appeared on the board outside. “Come on,” he said, “it’s our turn.”

We went down a broad flight of steps on to the green. At the foot of the steps we were met by two caddies—for I suppose I must give the things the old name. They had come from immediately below the room we had been in; but they didn’t require to be drawn or indeed worked in any way. They simply followed wherever we went, at a distance of twelve feet or so, and regulated themselves to our pace, stopped when
we stopped, and so on. Their wheels shot out spikes when necessary, so that they might not slip going up steep bits, or through bunkers and places of that kind. My friend explained that we had a sort of magnet behind our jackets which attracted them, but at the same time did not allow them to come nearer than the twelve feet before mentioned. Of course you could go up to them when they had stopped; but when you moved on they remained stationary until you were the twelve feet away, and not till then did they follow.

Each carried its clubs in an oblong box, where they lay with the heads exposed, as in my own time. I took out what I supposed was a driver. It was a very powerful weapon with a remarkably thin shaft, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be made of steel—indeed the head, too, was made of that metal. The shaft terminated in a little white disc, under glass, with figures on it and a hand like the face of a very small watch.

There was another small disc on the sole of the club. This one was, however, quite plain. My friend, seeing my look of astonishment, said:
“Ah! I thought we would show you something new in the way of clubs. What do you think of that, eh?”

“It seems a wonderful weapon,” I replied; “but what are all those dials for?”

‘That one,” he said, pointing to the one at the top of the shaft, “registers every stroke you take with the club. It is on every club, and as the strokes you have taken with each club are registered, the total of the set is your score for the round. At the end of the round your clubs are handed in to the secretary, who with his clerks counts the scores and awards the prize-money accordingly. You must understand that every day there is, so to speak, a competition. Every player pays five shillings before starting the round. This money is divided into two parts: one half goes to keep up the green, pay salaries, of which there are a good many,
taxes, & c.; the other half goes in prize-money. There is one scratch prize and about six handicap. We have got handicapping as near perfection as possible, for you see we have a record of every round a man plays, and by taking his average from day to day, and from week to week, we soon arrive at his right figure. Every man keeps an account with the secretary, and at the end of the week draws his winnings, that is to say, if he has any. Some men make quite a good thing of it.”

“You are very far advanced in golf, I see, as well as everything else. But what is this for?” I said, pointing to the dial on the sole of the club.

“Oh, that,” he answered, “registers the length of your drive—at least, of your carry. The head is a wonderful little piece of mechanism, with about as much work in it as in a watch. You see the face is slightly detached from the rest of the head; it is fixed to it by an immense number of small springs, which indeed almost fill the head, so that the propelling power of the club is greater than could be got from the shaft alone. But we must start. I think that couple in front are far enough ahead. Is the grip all right?” he added, looking at me.

“It’s rather thick,” I replied, “but it will do, I think.”

“Oh, we’ll soon put that all right,” he said. He took my club, and, screwing something at the top, reduced the grip. The balls, which didn’t seem, judging from appearances, to have undergone any marked change, having been teed, my companion motioned me to drive.

I addressed myself to the ball, and in the middle of my swing a voice which seemed to come from close behind me called out “Fore,” in a way that quite put me off, and made me top my ball.

“Sir,” I said, turning quickly round to my companion, for he was the only other person on the ground, “it was not customary in my day to speak when a player was addressing himself to his ball, much less to shout ‘Fore’ in the middle of his swing.”

Mr Adams said nothing. He only smiled, and, taking a club, prepared to drive off. In the middle of his swing he again called out “Fore,” much to my astonishment.

“Is this a new rule?” I asked him. “Must you always call ‘Fore’ in the middle of your swing?”

“I didn’t call ‘Fore,’ he answered, with a twinkle in his eye. I felt very much inclined to call him a liar, but restrained myself. We moved on, followed by our peculiar caddies. We were not long in coming to my ball which I had topped. I looked at it and then at my clubs. To tell the truth I was not very sure which one to take, some were of such curious shapes.

“That’s your club,” said Mr. Adams, taking from my set a club with a funny-looking oblong sort of head. It seemed to have been put on the wrong way, and you hit with its nose. A small bit also projected behind, making it something like a polo-stick on a small scale. I took this weapon, and again, in the middle of my swing, there came a shout of “Fore,” which of course gave me such a start that I missed my shot once more. I fairly lost my temper this time.

“What do you mean by trying to put me off in this manner?” I shouted. “If that’s the way you win your golf matches nowadays, the less I know of golf in the year 2000 the better.”

“Take it easy,” Adams replied, with another laugh, “and I'll explain.”

“Explain!” I said “I don’t see what there is to explain.”

“That long sleep of yours has evidently not destroyed your temper,” he said, with a quiet smile; “but as I said before, I did not call ‘Fore’ in fact, I believe it’s years since I called ‘Fore’ while golfing. You take a swing without hitting the ball; watch me instead, and see if I speak.”

I did so and sure enough the voice again shouted “Fore;” but it evidently wasn’t my companion’s doing, as his lips had remained tightly closed.

Somehow the sound seemed to come actually from myself. I was more puzzled than ever. Adams burst out laughing at my look of amazement.

“My dear fellow,” he said, still laughing, “it’s your jacket. Another new invention for you. The sound comes from under your arms when you swing. It acts like a concertina: draws the air in when you take the club back, and when you bring the club down out comes the voice.”

“Well,” I said, “you have certainly brought golf to a nice pass. The clubs keep their own score; your jacket shouts ‘Fore,’ your caddie keeps his mouth shut—everything seems to be turned topsy-turvy. You ought to have an invention for swinging the club, and all you would have to do operations.”

“Oh, it’s not quite so bad as that yet,” he answered ; “but there’s no saying what it will come to.”

The course at St. Andrews was not what it was in my day. All the whins had disappeared, and we played, going out, along by the sea, and came in on the old course, though it had been entirely re-planned. I need not go over the round: suffice it to say I ‘got my licks’—I won’t tell you by how many. There were still eighteen holes in the round, though much longer ones than I had been accustomed to, and I wasn’t sorry to get to the last. But like every golfer, I must have excuses for my bad play. To begin with, that beastly jacket was one—and a very good one—it was always putting me off. My companion soothingly explained that it might be some little time ere I got used to it; and that when I once did so I would never notice the sound. He said that, for his own part, sometimes he never even heard it. I thought to myself it wouldn’t be a bad plan at first to stuff one’s ears with cotton wool or something of that sort to deaden the sound.

And the clubs—a queerer collection I never saw. As I said before, they were all made in one piece, and were of steel. The faces all protruded about half an inch beyond the place where the shaft and head met. The heads were very small, which gave the clubs the appearance of hammers, and some looked as if you could reverse them and play lefthanded. Of course, though the clubs were entirely of steel, they were painted so that they did not look so very unlike the old tools. There were no irons in the set—at least, what nineteenth-century people understand as irons. Golfers seemed to have gone back to the old baffy in a sort of way.

The heads of the clubs they played approaches with were larger, the faces very much laid back, and slanting diagonally across the head. To look at these you would imagine you would slice everything. My companion showed me how to use them in order to put a cut on the ball and stop it. He himself did it wonderfully, laying a ball quite dead if he chose. But the niblick was the funniest of the lot. It had a double head, and when you swung it, it revolved like the paddle-wheel of a steamboat,
only very much faster. You addressed the ball with the one head, while the other came up behind the shaft, it being of course quite stationary.

As soon as you swung the club the two heads began to revolve—the opposite way from a paddle-wheel, of course—and threw the ball out of the bunker, with no end of sand. You had to look out for your eyes if there was any wind.

I must not forget the balls—they are quite worthy of description. To all appearance, as I have said, they were the same as we used in ’92; but though innocent enough to look at, they had more work in them than even the heads of the clubs. In the centre of the ball was a small chamber of compressed air; outside that was a rim of some hard substance like gutta-percha, about a quarter of an inch thick; then came the shell of the ball, which was made up of oblong little blocks, of the same hard, white
substance before mentioned. These blocks were each separate, and fixed to the inside layer by strong springs—four springs to every single square—crossing each other. When they were all fixed on the ball quite resembled one of the old-fashioned gutties. Even handling them you did not detect the difference, and the flying power was extraordinary.

So you see that with all those new inventions taken into account, it was hardly to be expected I could play much of a game to start with. Adams had taught me a thing or two after all, but I determined to get into form, accustom myself to the new clubs, and see if I couldn’t turn the tables on him. “It’s not the clubs that make the golfer, after all,” I said to myself, consolingly.

J. McCullough
Golf in the Year 2000
(1892)

Diminutive Beauty

" Pray be silent, Madam Tot," said the voice, " you will wake our patient."

" Not so, doctor," replied the singer lightly, " his soul is not there, but in the kingdom of faery with my kinsfolk."

" We must try and bring it back to his body then," said the doctor. "The lad has been severely shaken by his fall ; but as no bones are broken I trust he will soon be all right. You stay beside him, Madam Tot, while I go for some wine."

" Send Blunderbore to me," cried the lady, as the other departed. "I wish him to see after my summer-house, broken by the fall of this giant."

The idea that he was a giant so tickled Warwick, that, notwithstanding his aching head, he could not forbear a quiet laugh, and opened his eyes to see into what odd
quarter of the world he had wandered. The sight of the room in which he lay made him doubtful of his sanity, and he began to think that he had been thrust into a doll's
house ; everything was on so small a scale that he indeed felt as though he were a giant in the land of Lilliput.

He was lying on the floor with his head resting on a tiny sofa, and on looking upward he saw that the ceiling was so low that he could almost touch it by simply stretching up his arm. Tables and chairs on the same miniature scale were scattered about the apartment, and the doors and windows were commensurate to the size of the chamber.

The hangings were of green, ag also was the carpet, and everything betrayed aintiness and refinement, as though the room were inhabited by a luxurious doll. It was little wonder that these dwarfish surroundings confused the young man who so unexpectedly found himself amongst them. To lose consciousness in the actual world, and recover sensibility in the land of pigmies, is a rare, almost an inconceivable experience for the average human being.

The doll herself, who was seated on a little chair, started up when she heard his laugh, and hastened lightly towards him. This lady was a dwarf, not more than three feet in height, but so beautifully proportioned that for the moment she did not strike Warwick as anything out of the ordinary.

But for her white hair and wrinkled face he would have taken her for a child. She was dressed in a green robe, with a fHyer belt, and wore a hat of the sanie hue, adorned with white feathers. Leaning on an ebony cane, she nodded and smiled at Warwick ; while he could hardly forbear an exclamation of wonder at this perfect reproduction of a human being on a smaller scale. Head, body, hands, feet, all matched one another, and beyond the fact that she was three feet high instead of five or six, there was nothing incongruous or repellent in her looks. Evidently the chamber had been proportioned and furnished in accordance with her stature ; and so strong was the impression created by this congruity, that Warwick looked upon
himself, rather than on her, as an abnormal creature, and felt that he had no right to intrude his clumsy bulk into the miniature world presided over by this diminutive beauty.

" Am I in Lilliput 1 " asked he faintly, with an amazed glance at the green-clad faery.

"You are in my chamber," replied the dwarf in a sweet, low voice, quite in keeping with her tiny personality. " You fell off the wall on to my stimmer-house ; but that
its thatched roof broke your fall, you would have been killed ; for you tumbled," added the little lady solemnly, "from an enormous height."

Warwick laughed, as he quite conceived how infinitely high the wall would appear in the eyes of this little creature ; seeing that he, a full-grown man, found it sufficiently lofty. He looked down at his limbs, which seemed unnatiuraUy large in this chamber, where everything was reduced to suit the physical requirements of its dwarfish inmate, and wondered how he got in at the narrow and low door. Madam Tot, as the doctor had called her, guessed his thoughts, and smiled again. She had a very pretty smile, and revealed a row of pretty teeth as she anticipated his speech by a ready explanation.

" Blunderbore found you, sir, and it was Blunderbore who put you into my room, at my request."

"Who is Blunderbore?" demanded Warwick, with a vague recollection of some nurse's story.

" He is my guardian here," replied the lady in a dignified tone, " and I call him Blunderhore because he is so tall and strong. But his real name is Simon."

" Is he coming in here 1 I heard you tell the doctor to send him."

Madam Tot threw up her tiny hands, and shrieked in a horrified manner —

" My dear young man, Simon couldn't get inside that door. He's much over six feet in height. It was as much as we could do to get you in."

" Why didn't you leave me in the garden then? "

" Because I wanted you in here," replied the dwarf in a peremptory tone; "you have surprised a secret, sir, and you shall not leave this place until the will of my brother is known."

" But, Madam Tot," expostulated Warwick, remembering that she had been so addressed, " I "

" Madam Tot, you rude person," shrieked the lady, stamping a tiny foot, "how dare you call me by that odious name ! I am Miss Selina Lelanro."

" And your brother ? "

" Is James, Lord Lelanro ! You must call me Miss Lelanro ! And now, sir, what were you doing on my wall! No evasions, no lies, no fictions," cried she sternly,
" or I will order Blunderhore to throw you into the river again."

(...)

By this time Warwick guessed that he had surprised the secret of the Lelanros. Some hereditary taint in the blood produced at intervals a dwarf in the family, similar to the little being who now stood beside him. On account of their deformity, these poor creatures, suffering through no fault of their own, were shut up within the high wall; and the outside world was ignorant of their existence.

Warwick recalled the hints of Mistress Sally, and he no longer wondered that a cloud rested on the faces of the Lelanro family. To have such abnormal creatures prisoned
in their country house was quite sufficient to weigh on their spirits, and Warwick thought how many dwarfs, born to solitude and disgrace, had inhabited this tiny chamber.

He expected that, alarmed at the secret being known to a stranger, the servants who attended on the dwarf would not let him depart without the sanction of Lord Lelanro ; and foresaw that until the owner of the house returned from London, he would be obliged to regard himself as a prisoner. The gigantic Simon, evidently chosen to prevent such invasions of the dwarf's chamber, was quite powerful
enough to keep him there by force, and moreover there was the doctor to be reckoned with. Warwick wondered what manner of a man he would prove to be, and mentally
considered how his story would be received...


Fergus Hume, The dwarf`s chamber

The taste of the individual savage

When Sefu returned to Kasongo, a day or two afterwards, he gave orders that the pieces of Debruyne's body should be collected and buried with Lippens, whose body, with the exception of the hands (which had been sent to Sefu and Mohara of Nyangwe as tokens), was otherwise unmutilated. The strong innate respect for a chief had protected Lippens' body, while that of his subordinate had been hacked to pieces. A curious fatality followed these twelve murderers. The chief of the band, Kabwarri by name, was killed by us in the battle of the 26 th of February with Lippens* Martini express in his hand. Of the others — all of whom were the sons of chiefs, and some of them important men on their own account — four died of smallpox, one was killed at Nyangwe, one in the storming of Kasongo, and the remaining six we took prisoners at Kasongo. During the trial they one day, though in a chained gang, succeeded in overpowering the sentry, and thus escaped.

One was drowned in crossing a river ; three more were killed, either fighting or by accident, within a month or two of their escape ; and the two remaining we retook and hanged ; — which brings to me a curious point. Of the many men I have seen hanged nearly all died by strangulation, and not by having the neck broken. As compared with shooting, hanging seems to me the less painful death ; the wretched being becomes insensible in a very few seconds, whereas a man shot will often require a coup de grace, no matter how carefully the firing party is placed.

During this time I made several excursions through the country in search of game, and also as
a means of getting to know the district What struck me most in these expeditions was the
number of partially cut-up bodies I found in every direction for miles around. Some of them
were minus the hands and feet, and some with steaks cut from the thighs or elsewhere ; others
had the entrails or the head removed, according to the taste of the individual savage, though, as I
afterwards discovered, this taste is more tribal than individual. Neither old nor young, women
or children, are exempt from the possibility of serving as food for their conquerors or neighbours..."


S. L. Hinde