by Karel Čapek
“You are entirely right, sir,” Hypometheus sniffed. “I would only ask you, gentlemen, what need did we ever have for this fire? Tell me: did our forefathers use it? To introduce such a thing as this is clearly disrespectful to the inherited order, is — hhm, nothing short of a subversive act. Playing with fire, that’s all we need! Just consider, gentlemen, where it will lead: people huddled idly around a fire, wallowing in warmth and comfort, instead of — — well, instead of fighting and that sort of thing. Nothing will come of this but softness, moral decay, and — hhm, general disorder and that sort of thing. In short, gentlemen, something must be done to combat such an unwholesome phenomenon. Times are serious, and that’s all there is to it. I merely wished to point this out.”
“Very true,” declared Antimetheus. “Surely we all agree with our president that Prometheus’s fire may have unforseeable consequences. Let us not delude ourselves, gentlemen: it is a formidable thing. To have fire in one’s power — what new possibilities suddenly unfold! I mention only a few at random: to burn enemy crops, to set fire to their olive groves, and so on. With fire, gentlemen, our people are given a new force and a new weapon; with fire we will become almost the equals of the gods,” Antimetheus whispered, and then suddenly he burst out sharply, “I accuse Prometheus of having entrusted this divine and invincible element of fire to shepherds and slaves, to whomever crossed his path; I accuse him of not having surrendered it into competent hands, hands which would have guarded it as a national treasure and properly governed its use. I accuse Prometheus of having thereby misappropriated the discovery of fire, which should be a mystery of the priesthood. I accuse Prometheus,” Antimetheus shouted wildly, “of having taught even foreigners to kindle fire! Of having not concealed it even from our enemies! Prometheus stole fire from us by giving it to everyone! I accuse Prometheus of treason! I accuse him of conspiracy against the state!” Antimetheus was nearly choking on his tirade. “I propose the death penalty,” he managed to sputter.
“Well, gentlemen,” said Hypometheus, “does anyone else wish to be heard? — Then, in the opinion of this tribunal, the defendant Prometheus is found guilty on the following counts: the crime of blasphemy and sacrilege; and then the crime of inflicting grievous bodily harm as well as damaging the property of others and endangering public safety; and then the crime of treason. You gentlemen propose that he be sentenced either to life imprisonment — rendered more rigorous by hard pallet and shackles — or to death. Hhm.”
“Or both,” Ametheus offered thoughtfully. “So that both proposals may be accommodated.”
“What do you mean, both sentences?” asked the president.
“I’ve been thinking it over,” muttered Ametheus. “Perhaps it could be arranged this way . . . we sentence Prometheus to be shackled to a rock for the rest of his life . . . perhaps with vultures pecking at his godless liver, if I make myself clear?”
“It could be arranged,” Hypometheus said complacently. “Gentlemen, it would be a unique and exemplary punishment for such — hhm, criminal excesses, would it not? Has anyone any objection? Then I believe we have finished.”
“But, Daddy, why did you sentence Prometheus to death?” Hypometheus’s son, Epimetheus, asked him at dinner.
“You wouldn’t understand,” grunted Hypometheus, gnawing at a leg of mutton. “I must say, mutton tastes better roasted than raw; so it seems this fire is good for something, after all. — It was a matter of public interest, you see. Who knows what it might lead to if anyone at all was allowed, with no fear of punishment, to come across great, new things? Do you see what I mean? But as to this meat, there’s still something missing — — I’ve got it!” he shouted joyfully. “Roast mutton should be salted and rubbed with garlic! That’s the way to do it! Now that, son, is a real discovery! You know, a fellow like Prometheus would never have come across that!”
June 5, 1932
Times Aren’t What They Used To Be
It was quiet in front of the cave. The men, brandishing their spears, had gone off into the hills early that morning, intent on tracking a herd of elk; the women, meanwhile, were picking berries in the forest, and only now and then could their shrill yelling and chatter be heard; the children were mostly splashing in the stream below — not that anyone could keep an eye on those brats, that wild, rascally pack of little savages. And so old primogenitor Janecek was drowsing in the rare quiet under the soft October sun; truth to tell, he was snoring, and his breath whistled through his nose. He was pretending, however, not to be asleep but rather watching over his tribe’s cave and ruling it, as befits an old chieftain.
Old Mrs. Janecek spread out the freshly skinned hide of a bear and set about scraping it with a sharp flint. It had to be done thoroughly, one small section at a time — and not the way that girl did it, thought the old woman; that scatterbrain only gave it a lick and a promise, and before you knew it she was scurrying off again to kiss and cuddle the children — the way that girl treats hides, they won’t last any time at all, oh no, they’ll either rot or burn. But I’m not going to meddle, not when my son won’t tell her himself — Only it’s true, that girl has no idea how to take proper care of things. And here’s a hole in the skin, right in the middle of the back! Dear me, the old woman was shocked, what clumsy fool speared that bear in the back? Why, it ruins the whole skin! Never in his life would my old man have done a thing like that, she thought, thoroughly vexed. He always aimed at the neck and hit it —
“Ah yah,” old Janecek grunted just then, rubbing his eyes. “Aren’t the men back yet?”
“Of course not,” grumbled the old woman. “You’ll just have to wait.”
“Tcha,” the old man sighed, and he blinked sleepily. “So much for them. Oh, well. And where are the women?”
“Am I supposed to be standing guard over them?” snapped the old woman. “You know they’re lolling around somewhere — ”
“Ah yah yah,” grandfather Janecek gave a lengthy yawn. “Lolling around somewhere. Instead of — instead of, well, doing this or that or — Well, there you have it. That’s the way it goes!”
There was silence, except for old Mrs. Janecek scraping swiftly and irritably at the fresh hide.
“I can tell you this,” Janecek broke the silence, scratching his back thoughtfully. “You’ll see, they won’t bring anything back this time, either. Stands to reason, with those good-for-nothing bone spearheads of theirs. I’ve told our son time and time again: ‘Look, no bone’s hard and strong enough to make spearheads out of!’ Why, even a woman like you’s got to know that no bone, and no antler either, has the — well, the striking force, see? Hit a bone with it, and it shatters: you can’t cut through bone with bone, right? Stands to reason. A stone spearhead, now — sure it’s more work; however, on the other hand, you’ve got one fine tool on your hands. But you think our son listens to reason?”
“Don’t I know it,” Mrs. Janecek said resentfully. “Nobody takes orders from anybody these days.”
“I’m not ordering anybody to do anything,” the old man flared up angrily, “but they won’t even take advice! Yesterday I found this nice flat piece of flint under that rock over there. All it needed was a bit of trimming along the edges to make it sharper, and you’d have one fine spearhead, a beauty. So I brought it in and showed it to our son: ‘Look, isn’t this a great stone?’ ‘It is,’ says he, ‘but what can you do with it, Dad?’ ‘Well, think about it,’ says I: ‘you could work it up into a spearhead.’ ‘Come on, Dad,’ he says, ‘who’d bother chipping and fussing with that? Why, we’ve got a whole pile of that old junk in the cave, and it’s no good for anything! It won’t stay on a spear shaft no matter how you try to fasten it, so what can you do with it?’ What a lazy bunch they are!” the old man shouted fiercely. “Nobody wants to work a piece of flint properly these days, that’s what it is! They just want things easy! Sure, you can make a bone spearhead in less than no time — but it breaks in no time, too. ‘No problem,’ says our son, ‘you just make
another one, that’s all there is to it.’ Well, maybe so, but where does that get you? A new spearhead every other minute! Tell me, whoever heard the likes of that? Why, a good flint spearhead used to last years on end! But what I say is, and you can take my word for it: one of these days they’ll be glad to go back to our honest stone weapons! That’s why I hang on to them wherever I find them: old arrows and hammers and flint knives — And he calls it junk!”
The old man was nearly choking in his grief and rage. In an effort to distract him, Mrs. Janecek spoke up. “You know,” she said, “it’s the same thing with these hides. That girl actually said to me, ‘Ma, what’s the use of all that scraping? It’s not worth the effort. You should try dressing them with ashes sometime; at least they won’t stink.’ Don’t try to teach me anything,” the old lady railed at her absent daughter-in-law. “I know what I know! We’ve always scraped hides, ever since time began, and what hides they were! Of course, if it’s not worth the effort — All they want is to get out of doing any work! That’s why they’re always dreaming up excuses and trying to do things differently — Dressing hides with ash! Whoever heard of such a thing?”
“There you have it.” Old Janecek yawned. “How we do things isn’t good enough for them. And to think they say stone weapons aren’t comfortable to hold. Well, that’s certainly true, we didn’t pay much attention to comfort! But these days — no, no, no, you might get calluses on your poor little hands! I ask you, where’s all this leading to? You take kids today. ‘Lay off them, grampa,” says the daughter-in-law, “they’re only playing. Let them have a good time.’ Sure, but what’s going to become of them?”
“If only they didn’t make such a racket,” the old woman complained. “They’re out of control, that’s what they are!”
“That’s today’s upbringing for you,” lectured old Janecek. “And if now and then I do mention something to our son, he says, ‘Dad, you don’t understand, times are different now, it’s a different era. Why,’ he says, ‘even bone’s no longer the latest word in weapons.’ You know what else he says? ‘One of these days,’ he says, ‘people are going to come up with even better stuff to make weapons out of.’ Now isn’t that the limit? As if anybody ever saw any better material than stone, wood, or bone! Why, even a foolish woman like you must admit that — that — that’s going way too far!”
Mrs. Janecek let her hands fall into her lap. “So tell me,” she said, “where is all this nonsense coming from?”
“From what I hear, it’s the latest fashion,” muttered the toothless old man. “For your information, over in that direction, four days’ journey from here, some new tribe’s moved in without even asking, a pack of foreigners, and supposedly that’s how they do things. That’s where the younger generation’s getting all these crazy ideas — from them. Bone spearheads and everything. And our young people are even — are even buying things from them,” he shouted, getting all worked up again. “Trading our nice warm furs! As if anything good ever came from foreigners! Never, never have any dealings with foreign riffraff! No, do as our forefathers’ experience teaches us to do: when you see a foreigner, strike first and bash his head in, no fuss and no formalities. That’s what we’ve done since time began: no chitchat, just kill him. ‘Come on, Dad,’ says our son, ‘times have changed — we’re setting up an exchange of goods with them — ’ Exchange of goods! If I kill somebody and take what he’s got, then I’ve got his goods and don’t have to give him anything in return — so why trade? ‘Come on, Dad,’ says our son, ‘you’re still paying in human lives, and it’s not worth it.’ So there you have it: they say it’s not worth taking human lives! That’s the modern view,” the old man growled in disgust. “They’re cowards, that’s all they are. Not worth taking human lives! And how, if you please, are so many people going to get enough to eat if they don’t kill each other? There’s damn few elk now as it is! It’s all very well to feel sorry about human lives, but they have no respect for tradition, they have no consideration for their fathers and forefathers — Why, it’s a disaster!” grandpa Janecek burst out vehemently. “Just the other day I spied one of those snot-nose whiners daubing clay on the wall of a cave, in the shape of a bison, if you please. I gave him a clout to the head, but our son says, ‘Let him alone, Dad; why, that bison looks like it’s alive!’ Now that’s really too much! Why waste time on something as useless as that? If you don’t have enough work to do, boy, then polish up a piece of flint, but don’t paint bison on the walls! What do we need that kind of idiocy for?”
Mrs. Janecek pursed her lips tightly. “If it were only bison,” she let drop after a pause.
“What’s this?” asked the old man.
“Nothing, really,” Mrs. Janecek said defensively. “I’m ashamed to talk about it — But if you must know,” she suddenly resolved, “this morning I found . . . in the cave . . . a piece of mammoth tusk. It was carved like . . . like a stark-naked woman. Breasts and everything!”
“You don’t mean it!” the old man uttered in astonishment. “And who carved it?”
Mrs. Janecek shrugged her shoulders, a shocked expression on her face. “Who knows? One of the youngsters, probably. I threw it in the fire, but — Those breasts it had! Disgusting!”
“ — — Well, this better not go any farther!” old grandpa Janecek finally managed to say. “It’s perverse, that’s what it is! You see? That’s what happens once they start carving this, that, and everything out of bone! We’d never in our lives have thought of doing anything so shameless, because with flint you plain couldn’t do it — This is what it leads to! That’s their new-fangled inventions for you! They’ll go on thinking up new ways of doing things, always trying out something new, until everything’s gone to rack and ruin — Mark my words,” old caveman Janecek shouted with prophetic enlightenment, “it’s not going to last long at all!”
December 24, 1931
Just Like Old Times
Eupator, citizen of Thebes and basketmaker, was sitting in his courtyard weaving baskets when his neighbor Philagoros came running over, calling while still a long way off: “Eupator, Eupator, leave your baskets and listen! Terrible things are happening!”
“Where’s the fire?” asked Eupator, apparently willing to leap to his feet.
“It’s worse than a fire,” replied Philagoros. “Do you know what’s going on? They mean to bring charges against our General Nikomachos! Some people say he’s guilty of some sort of intrigue with the Thessalonians, and others claim he’s involved in some kind of dealings with the Malcontents Party. Come quickly, we’re gathering for a demonstration in the agora!”
“But what would I do there?” Eupator asked uncertainly.
“It’s terribly important,” said Philagoros. “The place is already jam-packed with speakers; some say he’s innocent, and others say he’s guilty. Come and listen to them!”
“Wait a minute,” said Eupator. “I’m just now finishing this basket. And tell me, what is this Nikomachos actually accused of?”
“It’s not known, exactly,” said his neighbor. “Somebody says one thing and somebody else another, but the authorities haven’t said anything, because it seems the investigation isn’t finished yet. But it’s a regular free-for-all down at the agora, you should see it! Some of them shouting that Nikomachos is innocent — ”
“Wait just a minute; how can they shout that he’s innocent when they don’t know for certain what he’s accused of?”
“It doesn’t matter; everyone’s heard something, and they just talk about what they’ve heard. We’ve all got a right to talk about what we’ve heard, don’t we? I myself believe that Nikomachos was trying to betray us to the Thessalonians; someone there said so, and he says someone he knows saw some kind of letter. But one man said it was a plot against Nikomachos and that he knows a thing or two about it — They say that even the government’s mixed up in it. Are you listening, Eupator? So the question now is — ”
“Wait,” said the basketmaker. “The qu
estion now is: are the laws we’ve passed for ourselves good or bad? Did anyone say anything about that at the agora?”
“No, but that’s not really what it’s all about; it’s about Nikomachos.”
“And is anyone at the agora saying that the authorities investigating Nikomachos are bad and unjust?”
“No, no one’s said anything like that.”
“Then what are they talking about there?”
“Why, I’m telling you: about whether Nikomachos is guilty or innocent.”
“Listen, Philagoros, if your wife had a falling out with the butcher because she said he’d given her less than a full pound of meat, what would you do?”
“I’d take my wife’s side.”
“No you wouldn’t, you’d check to see if the butcher’s weights were accurate.”
“I know that even without you telling me.”
“So then. And you’d check to see if his scales were working properly.”
“You don’t need to tell me that either, Eupator.”
“I’m glad to hear it. And if the weights and scales were in good working order, you’d check to see how much that piece of meat weighed, and you’d know at once who was right, the butcher or your wife. It’s odd, Philagoros, how people are smarter when it come to their cuts of meat than when it comes to public affairs. Is Nikomachos guilty or innocent? The scales will tell us, if they’re in good working order. But if they’re to weigh accurately, you mustn’t blow on the pans to make them tilt to one side or the other. Why do you claim that the authorities investigating this Nikomachos affair are scoundrels or the like?”
