Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, Chapter 34, p. 613-19
“Two days later the opening of this building took place and, having the previous evening received what is called an official invitation,’ I betook myself to that ceremony.
“Well, at this general state solemnity of the contemporary many-millioned community, to which came even he himself, as they call him, ‘His Majesty the Emperor,’ there began there, in respect of my person, what is called ’Ooretstaknilkaroolni,’ which generally speaking always flows from the totality of the surrounding abnormalities and, being formed automatically in the psyche of every one of the three-brained beings of this ill-starred planet, holds them so to say in an ‘exitless magic circle.’
“And the further events proceeded in the following order:
“On the day of the said state solemnity while the ceremony was still proceeding, my first acquaintance the Russian suddenly ran towards me shoving his way through the beings who appeared there in all the blaze of various what are called ‘orders’ and ‘regimentals,’ and in a joyous voice told me that I was to have the ‘happiness’ of being presented to His Majesty the Czar; having said this and speaking rapidly, he hurried away.
“It turned out that at this solemnity there he had had some conversation with the Emperor about me, as a result of which it had been decided that I should be presented to him.
“Such a presentation to the Emperor, Czar, or King is considered there as a very very great piece of luck, and that is why my acquaintance having received such a permission rejoiced beyond words on my behalf.
“Evidently he wished by this presentation to give me great ‘pleasure’ and by this to calm his own conscience, as he considered himself to blame for my unsuccessful stay in this capital.
“After this event, two days passed.
“On the third morning, looking by chance out of the window of my lodging into the street I saw there quite an unusual commotion; everyone was cleaning, everywhere there was sweeping, many of what are called the ‘gendarmerie’ and ‘police’ were walking up and down.
“To my question as to what caused all this, our Ahoon explained to me that on that day, in our street, the arrival of a very important general of that community was expected.
“On this same day, in the afternoon, while I was sitting at home and talking with one of my new acquaintances, the concierge of the house came running in to me, agitated and bewildered, and stammering exclaimed: ‘Hi … s, his … Ex … Exce … ce … ce … lency!’ But he did not have time to finish before His Excellency himself entered. As soon as the unfortunate concierge saw him appear, he appeared as if struck dumb by lightning, and then, having pulled himself together, he hurriedly, as it is said there, ‘backed’ out of the room.
“But His Noble Excellency himself, with a very friendly smile, although with a shade of what is called ‘hauteur’ characteristic of all the power-possessing beings of that community at that time, came towards me, at the same time examining with great curiosity the ‘antiques’ which were in my room, and, shaking me in a special way by the wrist, sat down in my favorite armchair.
“Afterward, continuing to examine the antiques, he said:
“ ‘You will in a day or two be presented to our “Great Autocrat,” and since it is I who attend to these affairs I have come to you just to explain to you how and what you must do on such a great and important occasion of your life.’
“Having said this, he suddenly stood up and approaching what is called a china figure of old Chinese workmanship which stood in a corner of my room, he exclaimed with impulsive rapture which thrilled his whole presence: ’How charming! … Where did you get this marvel of ancient wisdom … ?’
“And not ceasing to look at the said figure and giving himself up to the feeling of his rapture, or, more strictly speaking, with all his feelings coursing together through him, he further continued:
“ ‘I myself am very much interested in all ancient art, but chiefly in Chinese, and that is why, of the five rooms given up to my collection, three are filled with productions of ancient Chinese work alone.’
“Continuing to speak in this strain about his adoration for the production of ancient Chinese masters, he without ceremony again sat down in my armchair and began to enlarge upon antiques in general, their value and where they are to be found.
“During this conversation he suddenly and hastily took his watch from his pocket, automatically looked at it, stood up quickly and, once on his feet, said:
“ ‘How vexing! I am obliged to interrupt our chat, interesting to the highest degree, as I must hurry home where doubtless the great friend of my youth and his charming wife are already waiting for me.
“ ‘He is here for a short while, passing through on his way abroad from the provinces, and I have not seen him since we served in the same regiment and received different appointments, I to the Court, and he to a civil post.’
“He afterward further added: ‘And as regards the instructions I am required to give you, about which I had come to you, I will send my adjutant this very day, and he will explain everything to you, and no worse than I perhaps would.’
“After this, with fussy self-importance, he left me.
“And indeed, on the evening of the very same day, as His Noble Excellency had promised me, one of his adjutants came to my house who was still, as is said there, a ’young man,’ that is a being who had only quite recently attained to responsible age. This adjutant of his who came had the very marked specific type of a terrestrial three-brained being whom in recent times among your favorites one has often come across, and who is very well defined by the words mama’s and papa’s darling.
“This former mama’s darling, when he arrived and began to speak to me, manifested himself at first towards me quite automatically according to the data fixed in his common presence by the rules enforcedly inculcated into him of what are called bon ton; and when a little later it became clear to his being-rumination that I belonged neither to his own caste nor to a higher one, but appeared to be one of those beings who according to the abnormal understanding of the beings of that community are considered little higher than what are called ‘savages,’ he immediately changed his tone and again quite automatically began to manifest himself towards me according to the data for ‘commanding’ and ‘ordering about,’ data also already fixed in the common presences of the beings of that community of that period who belonged to that caste, and he began to point out how I must ‘enter,’ ‘leave,’ and ’move,’ and when and what words must be spoken.
“Besides the fact that in the course of two hours he had shown me by his own example how, namely, one had to manifest, he declared to me that he would return on the morrow and he ordered me to practice, so that, as he expressed himself, no misunderstanding at all might arise which might lead to where even ‘Makar did not drive his goats.’
“When on the day of my, as they call it, ‘supreme presentation’ I arrived there where the chief of this large community had the place of his residence, I was met at the railway station itself by ‘His High Excellency’ in person, who had arrived there accompanied by five or six of his adjutants, and from that moment he himself began—of course quite without the participation of, as it is called, his ‘personal-subjective-initiative,’ but guided only by automatic habit acquired by him, thanks to the doing of always one and the same thing—to subjugate all my separate spiritualized parts and all the self-manifestations of my common presence, taking it as it were under the directive of his own ‘I.’
“From this moment, I had, in the sense of my ‘outer manifestations,’ as our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin would say, to ‘dance in everything to his tune.’
“As soon as we had left the station and were seated in the carriage, he immediately began to show me and to prompt me as to what and how I had to act and speak and what I had not to do or say.
“And when later, in that hall where the celebrated presentation took place, he further showed and directed my presence … about this we can neither speak now in the language of a Scheherazade, nor describe it with the pen of a Mr. Canineson.
“In the hall every movement, every step I made, even to the blinking of my eyelids, were seen in advance, and prompted to me by this important general.
“However, in spite of all the absurdity of this procedure, if one takes into account that the perfection of a being depends on the quality and quantity of his inner experiencings, then objective justice demands that due must be given for this to your favorites, that on that day they compelled me, of course, unconsciously, to undergo and to feel perhaps more than I had undergone and felt during all the centuries of my personal sojourn there among them.
“However that may be, I must yet say that having agreed to this ‘famous presentation’ for the purpose of observation and investigation of the peculiar and such a ‘contorted’ psyche of your favorites, and after all the ‘great agitation’ which I had lived through on that day, I finally breathed freely only in the carriage of the train after my tormentors, particularly that important general, had left me alone by myself.
“In the course of the whole of that day, I was so occupied with the fulfillment of all the innumerable foolish manipulations required from me and which fatigued me in view of my declining years, that I did not even notice what the unfortunate Emperor there looked like or how he manifested himself in this comedy.
“Now, my boy, if you will strive to assimilate well the information about the subsequent events which happened to me and which were the results of this famous presentation of mine to His Majesty the Emperor, then you will probably acquire the possibility of clearly picturing to yourself and well understand how, there among your favorites, particularly in this large community Russia at that period, their what is called ‘individual significance,’ particularly in recent centuries, began to be appraised and be built up for the majority of these unfortunates always exclusively on the basis of the outer ephemeral as they are called ‘Vietro-yretznel,’ as, in the given case, it similarly took place in relation to me.
“This gradual acquiring of the habit of judging the merits of beings according to the outer ephemeral appearance in all other beings, developed and continued to develop their imagination, which became strengthened about this, that just in this consists the acquisition of ’being-individuality,’ and all began subjectively to strive only for this.
“That is why at the present time, all of them from the very beginning of their arising gradually lose from their common presences even the ‘taste’ and ‘desire’ for what is called ‘objective-being-Being.’
“The manifestations of the mentioned ‘Vietro-yretznel’ personally in relation to my person began to have their action already from the very morning of the following day, in this sense that every data for ‘being-notion’ about my personality which had been before this already soundly fixed in the presences of all the beings there who knew me suddenly sharply changed, thanks only to this ‘objectively maleficent’ official presentation of me to their highest power-possessing beings.
“My personal significance and their notions about all my qualities and merits also changed for their individuality; I suddenly became for all ‘important’ and ‘wise,’ ‘extraordinary’ and ‘interesting,’ and so on and so forth; that is, the possessor of all kinds of abnormal being-qualities thought out by themselves.
“As a very characteristic example which will well make clear to you what I have just said, the following illustration may serve:
“The proprietor of that shop where, before going to my business, I bought the provisions for my kitchen, wished on the first morning after this, as is sometimes said there, ’royal audience’ of mine, to bring, happen what may, my purchases home to me himself. All the police standing at the street corners in that district in which I temporarily dwelt, and who already knew me well as a newcomer physician, began at the sight of me, while still standing some way off, to salute just as they saluted that important general of theirs.