Now this reply (though undeniably rather rude) struck me as being extraordinarily witty, and I nearly burst out laughing. But the others, accustomed from childhood, as I now know, to the resource and sparkle of Yenkcoc Ruomuh, seemed to think nothing of it. Also, to tell the truth, they seemed to me to have the expression of people who have heard ‘this one’ more times than they cared to remember.
As I watched the conductor slowly and solemnly counting out the twenty-three coins into the wretched woman’s hand, it suddenly occurred to me that it was my turn next—that I had to pay my fare! Why had I not thought of this, and what was I going to do? Where did I want to go in any case? While my thoughts were still in a semi-paralysed state, the conductor finished with his other customer, and stood in front of me, waiting for my money.
“Er—” I muttered, in a bewildered way. “Do you—er—want the money for my fare?”
“Crikey, no, gent! Nothin’ like thet!” said the conductor. “Me an’ Bert’s just come aht fer a ruddy joy-ride! Ain’t we, Bert?” he shouted out of the window.
“Gorblimey—yus! Course we ’ave, Alf,” shouted back the driver. “Just to look at the bloomin’, blinkin’, blanketty-blank scenery—wot?”
While the two men continued to make fun of me in this droll manner, I dived in desperation into my pocket, and produced a sixpence. Mistaking this for a Moribundian piece, as anyone might have done, the conductor gave me a ticket in exchange for it, and no change. It was a great piece of good fortune that he thus absent-mindedly presumed that this was the ticket I was wanting. Had there been any further discussion I should probably have been discovered then and there. During all my stay in Moribundia I was never so near being found out as I was at that moment.
In the next three or four minutes, nothing, I think, of particular interest occurred. The bus, somewhat erratically and furiously driven, I noticed, forged ahead into streets growing more thickly populated every moment, and the stopping places grew more and more frequent.
At one of these stopping places two people got off, and three more got on. The first of these was a girl, so gloriously slim, clear-skinned and pretty that she took my breath away; the next was a big, dark, aggressive-looking man with a long nose and black tortoise-shell spectacles of a thickness and magnitude such as I have never seen on earth; the last was a gentleman whose face was swathed round and round with what I took to be flannel, and from whose right cheek there protruded the most horrible bulge. I was horrified at his appearance at the time, but later found out that the disease from which he was suffering was nothing graver than common toothache. In Moribundia toothache invariably takes this violent form—a state which has also been frequently depicted by such artists as Samoht and Rehtafsnriab. It is perhaps due to the Moribundians’ nervous dread of going to their dentists, outside whose houses they will often walk about for hours on end, before summoning up the courage to go in.
As the beautiful girl sat down, she happened to cross her legs in order to get into a more comfortable position, and in so doing lifted her skirt almost to the level of her knee. If only you could have seen the look which came across the Retsnips’ face at this!—the horror, the stiffening, the upturned nose, the sour-visaged and Puritanical disapproval! But it was clear to anyone that, thwarted in her own life, she was bitterly jealous of the other’s good looks and youth.
As soon as the aggressive-looking man in the tortoise-shell spectacles had settled in his seat, he began to look around him, and talk at random to anyone who cared to listen. He had the most harsh, grating, nasal voice, and such a boastful, arrogant air that I at once took a dislike to him. The other people in the bus liked him no better, but seemed to take him very much for granted. Actually, there are hundreds upon hundreds of these vain, boastful people, roaming about all over Moribundia and making themselves offensive—particularly in the summer months and amidst scenes of old-world dignity. They are known as Snacirema. Their speech, again like nothing I have ever heard on earth, is indescribably hideous and difficult to render, but I must make the best attempt I can.
“Say, Bo,” he said sneeringly, looking round to criticize something the moment he had sat down, and lighting a huge cigar, or cheroot, the fumes of which nearly choked us all. “Whaddya call this lil’ tin can—an automobeel?”
“Yus, mate—wot’s the matter with it?” said the conductor, for the moment nonplussed.
“Waal, Bo,” replied the Nacirema, “I jes kinda guess we got real buses back in my countree. Yes, sir! Yep!” And at this he spat upon the floor.
The conductor was quick to recover himself.
“Well, chum,” he said. “Wot you want fer a penny? A blinkin’ private suite, wiv bathroom attached?”
Everybody laughed at this, and it was felt that the man had been effectually and deservedly snubbed.
He, however, seemed to have the hide of a rhinoceros so far as jokes against himself were concerned, and spat again upon the floor with the utmost composure.
At this moment the bus began to go at an alarming rate and to take corners in a most dangerous manner. This was naturally alarming to all of us, but particularly to the Retsnips sitting opposite, who began to show the liveliest signs of nervousness. At last she could bear it no longer.
“Oh, dear—oh, dear!” she cried. “I’d give ten pounds to be out of this!”
“Don’t waste your money, lidy,” shouted the conductor, amidst all the roar and lurching of the vehicle. “You’ll be out soon enough!”
This, of course, was anything but consoling to the lady—charming specimen of Yenkcoc Ruomuh as it was. And, frankly, I was now terrified. I had yet to acquire a knowledge of that absolute disregard of danger, and complete inconsequence with respect to serious accidents, which characterizes the Moribundian Yenkcoc. A good enough example of it was given me in the next minute. For, in taking a corner at a most reckless speed, the bus ran clean into a hand-driven cart piled high with fruit and vegetables. The owner of the cart, from his appearance obviously a Yenkcoc like the driver and conductor, was thrown up into the air, and landed in the gutter. All the fruit, of course, was also projected violently into the air, and fell, like a shower of hail, upon the owner. By a comic freak of chance, a single apple fell into his outstretched hand, and now, scratching his head with one hand, and holding the apple in the other, he looked at the apple in a whimsical way which was most amusing to see. The bus had stopped, with a great screaming of brakes, and I waited eagerly to see what was going to happen next.
The owner of the cart remained in this foolish position for nearly a quarter of a minute, and then, with the utmost good humour, and looking from the apple to the conductor and back again, spoke.
“Thanks, chum,” he said. “Just the one I was wanting!”
Everybody laughed at this and the bus drove on. Instead of policemen arriving, instead of a crowd collecting, instead of bitter words and recriminations, collecting of evidence, witnesses, etc.—all was smoothed over by the delightful temperament of the victimized man!
Presently I observed that we were entering upon more spacious and imposing thoroughfares, and a little afterwards I noticed that there was a river on our right, very much like our own River Thames. This seemed to interest the Nacirema, who had been silent for some time.
“Say, Bo,” he said at last. “You don’t call this little dribble you’ve got here a river, do you? Why, back in my countree, we’ve got what you’d really call rivers.”
The conductor did not reply directly to this. Instead he leaned again out of the window, and shouted to the driver.
“Say, Bert,” he cried. “Your radiator’s leakin’, ain’t it?”
Even this piece of withering sarcasm did not have the desired effect of subduing the Nacirema, who seemed to have some extraordinary critical kink in his brain as regards the size of everything he saw. There happened to be an old lady sitting next to him, who was carrying a shopping basket on top of which was perched a large melon. I noticed him looking at this
in a curious way for some time, and then he spoke again.
“Say, Bo,” he said. “Would you folks on this side call that there lil’ fruit a melon? Why, back in my countree, I guess we got lemons bigger’n that.” And he picked up the melon to scrutinize it.
“Arfamo, chum,” said the conductor. “Put down that grape!”
I may say here that in Moribundia the Nacirema is driven by some urge in the depths of his being to show his worst side and make his most outlandish statements whenever he is in the presence of a Yenkcoc, and that in the verbal encounter which ensues he invariably gets the worst of it. But then it is an axiom there that no one can ever get the better of a Yenkcoc in a verbal argument.
I would only weary my reader if I recounted all the exchanges which now passed between these two, or the countless other absurd things which were uttered or enacted during the remainder of the journey. I think, however, that the episodes I have given furnish very fair examples of the general type and level of the humour and behaviour one is certain to encounter in a Moribundian bus drive. I only wish I could have brought back with me some copies of the well-known Moribundian newspaper, the Gnineve Swen. This deservedly popular paper gives columns daily to the narration, by its readers, of these deliciously funny little episodes illustrative of the Yenkcoc Ruomuh —which it certainly could not do unless there was a virile demand for it, and which goes again to prove how dear this extraordinary figure, the Yenkcoc, is to the hearts of all true Moribundians—whether it be for the reasons I suggested above or not.
About ten minutes later we came into a thoroughfare very closely resembling our own Oxford Street, and something told me we were in the centre of the town, and that it would be advisable for me to get off the bus. I was trying to make up my mind, looking out of the window at each stop, when all at once something happened, or rather I saw something, which nearly shot me out of my seat.
The gloriously pretty girl who had so fascinated me on entering, had moved over to a seat opposite to me, and had been looking out of the window so that I could only see her profile. She now turned and looked at me, and I saw her full face for the first time.
I do not know how to express the macabre horror of what I saw. It was not one face, but two faces in one! A straight, firm dividing line came down from the middle of the forehead, through the nose, to the chin, and it seemed that each half of her face belonged to a different person! While in the left side of the face I recognized the lovely creature I had before seen, the right side belonged to an old, vindictive, hideous hag!—a hag, moreover, whose skin was disfigured with such atrocious blotches, pimples, blackheads, wrinkles, wens, creases and spots that I still feel almost sick in writing about them. No horrible monster envisaged in ancient mythology, no crazy invention of a diseased modern surrealist, could approach in sinister terror this hag-maiden, this half-witch-half-girl looking at me in an ordinary bus—venomously with one eye, an angelic beam in the other!
I shall attempt to give an explanation of this extraordinary phenomenon later in this book.12 At present I shall merely note that it put an end to any hesitation I had in the matter of getting off the bus.
Notes
8. Treb Samoht: Bert [Herbert Samuel] Thomas (1883–1966), British cartoonist who was also the official artist for the 1914–18 War Bonds campaign. However, his best-known cartoon, published on 11 November 1914 in the Weekly Dispatch as part of that paper’s ‘Tobacco for the Troops’ campaign, is of a cockney ‘Tommy’ saying ‘“ARF A MO’, KAISER! WAIT TILL MY PIPE’S LIT!’”. Thomas received the MBE in 1918, and thereafter published in the Daily Sketch, the Evening News and Punch (p.45). Ecurb Rehtafsnriab: Bruce Bairnsfather (1888–1959), a second British cartoonist who became famous during World War I for his cockney soldier character, ‘Old Bill’. Perhaps his most popular drawing was of ‘Old Bill’ saying to his mate ‘Bert’, as they shelter in a shell crater during a barrage, ‘“If the’ knows a better hole, go to it’”.
9. ‘Cheeryble brothers’: Charles and Ned, two characters of great good humour in Charles Dickens’s novel, Nicholas Nickleby. Dickens was a favourite novelist of Hamilton’s, and his influence can be seen in much of the latter’s earlier work in particular.
10. ‘Muggins’, ‘Juggins’, etc. — again (see previous Note), a typically Dickensian trope.
11. ‘florins’ etc: pre-decimalisation English coins (a florin = 2 shillings; a half-crown = 2 shillings and sixpence). The following joke about ‘coppers’ relies on the fact that the old penny coin (a ‘copper’) was large and heavy, and that there were 24 of them to a florin.
12. Hamilton does not directly explain ‘this extraordinary phenomenon later in this book’, as he claims, but it is an early instance of the way Moribundians physically take on the images used in advertisements. Here, he is presumably invoking the type of ‘Before-and-After’ advert for a skin-care product he ‘balloons’ on later.
CHAPTER V
I myself am by now so familiar with the names of the main streets and thoroughfares in the centre of the Moribundian capital—Drofxo Teerts, Yllidaccip, Tneger Teerts, Elbram Hcra, Mahnettot Truoc Daor, Raglafart Erauqs and the rest—that I find it extremely hard to realize that they can convey nothing at all to the mind of my readers. For the moment, however, we will have to put up with this disadvantage, as it would be most inconvenient at this point to launch upon any detailed topographical description of the Nwotsemaht scene. I shall make do with saying that the general appearance of the architecture and layout was very similar to our own West End—though there were, of course, vital differences in detail and in the physical appearance of the pedestrians which will be described in due course.
Actually, the point at which I had fled from the bus was Drofxo Sucric—a point at which four roads, all teeming with traffic, meet. I took at random a road leading in a southerly direction—Tneger Teerts, a famous Moribundian shopping centre—and as I walked along I tried to decide upon my best plan of action.
I was now pretty exhausted and felt that I must have a rest, a meal, and, if possible, a bath, before I made up my mind to anything else. But for any of these I should have to go to a hotel, and how was I to go to a hotel without any baggage and with only English money in my pocket?
I at last decided upon a bold plan. Tired as I was, it was necessary for me to summon up all my remaining strength and courage, and bluff my way through. I must go to a hotel, say that my luggage had been in some way delayed, or was coming on immediately, and hope that my general appearance and carriage would win the day for me. At least I might get a night’s rest and a meal in this way—the morning would have to look after itself.
The question remained—at what sort of hotel would such a ruse be most likely to succeed? I soon decided that I must go to the best and largest I could find—something run on impersonal lines where as little interest as possible would be taken in me as an individual. Besides, I was wise enough to know that if one is going to bluff at all it is best to do it in a big way.
Coming to the end of Tneger Teerts, passing through Yllidaccip and then on through a place known as Retseciel Erauqs, I had so far seen nothing I thought suitable. But in a few moments I came upon a vast open place with a column in its middle, Raglafart Erauqs, and leading from this in the direction of the river (the River Semaht itself) was a wide avenue, one of whose sides consisted almost exclusively of hotels of the larger and more imposing kind.
One of these—called simply ‘The Moribundian’—I chose, and walked, with as nonchalant and bored an air as I could muster, through its great revolving doors, into its enormous and shining lobby, and up to its sumptuous desk.
The clerk, at the moment of my arrival, was so engaged with some correspondence at a desk behind the counter that he failed at first to see me. As my fate largely depended upon how this young man summed me up, I looked at him with particular interest. He was a good-looking young man of about thirty, and dressed with scrupulous neatness; but he had such a haggard, livid, overworked, e
xhausted, tense expression that one at once felt quite sorry for him. The mere fact that he had not seen me was proof that he was at the moment not fully capable of doing his duties properly, and the miserable way in which he looked at the mass of papers in front of him told the same story.
He still showed no signs of having seen me, and I was wondering what I could do to attract his attention, when all at once there entered, from a door at the back of the bureau, another man, as sprucely dressed as the clerk, but considerably older and less attractive. His head was bald on top—he wore pince-nez and a small moustache and there was a mixture of meanness, arrogance, and fury in his expression which was most repulsive. That he was going to address the clerk in angry tones was clear enough—as it was also clear enough that he was in a position to do so—that he was a manager, or at any rate under-manager of some sort.
I do not know whether the reader will believe, or even be able fully to understand, what now took place. I can only swear that it is the truth, and describe it as well as I can.
The manager had just reached the clerk, and I was expecting to hear a torrent of words—when nothing of the sort happened. Instead, there was a sort of blinding flash of white light (such as you might get in flash photography) and, pouring forth from the manager’s mouth, like steam, there was made visible (three or four times bigger than the manager himself, and, like the rays from the bus-driver’s nose, completely blotting out all the scenery behind it) what I can only call a vast sheet of illumination in the shape of a balloon. And on this ‘balloon,’ this white frozen steam, this mystic yet seemingly material emanation, words, ordinary words with ordinary punctuation marks, were printed for all the world to see!
I can only express this by some sort of illustration. Here is the balloon, with the words it contained, as it belched forth from the mouth of the manager, who was leaning over the clerk with the furious expression of which I have spoken:
Impromptu in Moribundia Page 6
