The two women, meanwhile, were looking in the direction of the men, reading off their balloons in a satisfied way, as though they were sitting at a cinema. The elder woman good-naturedly expressed herself thus:
To which the young wife replied by mouth-balloon:
In addition to this, however, she was slyly sprouting out a balloon from her head. This bulged out well to the right of the group, and furnished a clue to all the others.
The reader will by this time have observed what an explicit, conscientious, informative, lengthy affair the average balloon is, and therefore how impossible it is for me, in a work of this kind, to give more than a few examples of the hundreds I watched that night with tireless fascination.
I was, in fact, so captivated by this, to me, so utterly novel method of reading, that I lingered for something like two hours over the table after I had finished my dinner, and presently found myself amongst quite a different crowd of people, who were coming in for supper. Soon I saw tables were being moved from the centre of the room; a carpet was rolled up and taken away; a band appeared and dancing began.
There is a lot of ballooning done on the dancing floor in Moribundia, though, of course, there is nothing of that mushroom-like proliferation brought about by the presence of dining-tables. I cannot refrain from giving, in conclusion, a striking little bunch of three balloons (two mouths and one head) floated by a young couple dancing amidst the blare of the band.
The girl, pretty enough, but whose face looked to me as though it had recently been splashed with black mud from a passing motor car, ballooned naïvely and innocently thus:
To which the young man responded with a halting and evasive balloon thus:
While in a balloon over his head he revealed what was going on in his mind:
How it had come about that the young man had not been able to observe the condition of his partner’s complexion before he had decided to take her out for the evening, I cannot understand—particularly as the blemishes of which he was belatedly complaining could be seen ‘a mile away,’ as they say. It also struck me as curious that the young woman should be so naïvely unaware of, or indifferent towards, the fact that her face looked as though it had been splashed with black mud from a passing motor car.
Indeed, at this point, the curiosity and complexity of everything I was seeing and had seen, begun to get the better of me, and I had an unpleasant feeling from which I suffered intermittently throughout my whole stay in Moribundia—a feeling that I was dreaming, that my senses were functioning in a world of realities so preposterous that my human brain could not cope with them—that I could not bear the stress much longer, and yet had no means of escape, of ‘waking up.’
I decided that I was dead tired and must go to bed.
I did so, and, leaving whatever weird and wonderful to-morrow that awaited me to look after itself, fell into dark, delicious sleep, almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.
CHAPTER VII
The room in which I slept had evidently, at one time, formed part of a suite of some sort, for there was a locked door leading from it into the next room. This room, I knew, was occupied by a young man, for I had seen him coming out of it as I went up to bed.
You could hear sounds quite clearly and easily through the locked door, and I was awakened the next morning by the murmuring sound of a voice the other side. I presumed at first that two people were holding a conversation, but I at last came reluctantly to the conclusion that the young man, who had seemed normal enough, was talking to himself.
“Goodness gracious!” I heard him saying, “it is a quarter to eight already, and if I am to reach that important appointment in time, I have to dress, shave and have my bath and breakfast by eight o’clock! But why should I worry, after all? With this wonderful new method of shaving (here he raised his voice a little) known as No-ra-zor-o, I shall be ready in next to no time!”
There was a short pause here, and then he went on, in the same genial, if somewhat complacent manner:
“There! Abracadabra! A perfect shave in fourteen and a half seconds! And no soap, no brush, no water, and no razor—this wonderful discovery—No-ra-zor-o—believed by scientists, by the way, to have been used originally in a crude form by the primitive Indian tribes—dispenses with them all! Now I have plenty of time to take everything easily and yet reach my appointment in time.”
He stopped again here and I thought he had finished, but he had not.
“When I think,” he went on, “of the dreadful scraping and scouring of the old razor method, of all the terrible gashes and slashes I used to give myself, with the necessary grave risk of infection and blood-poisoning, I feel more grateful to No-ra-zor-o than I can possibly say. In addition to which, No-ra-zor-o contains a certain ingredient believed to have been used in the first place by the ancient Persians, which has a markedly rejuvenating effect upon the skin. Ever since I have been using it, my friends have been telling me how much younger and handsomer I am. Blessings on No-ra-zor-o, I say.”
Well, I thought as I listened to this, it was good to know that somebody was starting the day in such excellent spirits. I got out of bed and began to dress myself, using the only method of shaving I knew, and with my mind full of problems.
It was not until I came to putting on my coat that my next surprise came. I was conscious of an unfamiliar bulge in my breast pocket, and, putting in my hand to see what caused it, I pulled out a thick wad of no less than twenty-five Moribundian money notes.
I could not imagine how they had got there, or who, if anyone, had played this benevolent trick upon me, but I was not going to let that worry me. For the time being my immediate problem was solved. I would be able to buy all the necessities I required, pay my bill at the hotel, tip, and get about as I wanted.
I should say here that this miracle was repeated every morning of my stay in Moribundia, and that however much I had spent the previous day, there were never less than twenty-five notes in my pocket in the morning. I shall try to give some explanation of this when I come to the question of the creation, appropriation, and distribution of wealth in Moribundia, where the laws governing such things are utterly different from our own, and practically inconceivable by us.
Full of the new-born confidence in myself engendered by this feeling of having an adequate supply of the currency of the country in my pocket, I went down to breakfast in the best of spirits, and gave my order to the waiter with the air of a man born and bred in Moribundia.
There was a good deal of what I call ‘breakfast’ ballooning going on at the other tables, some of it gay, some of it deeply despondent, and most of it concerned with the matter of the cereal for the first course. Whereas some people wore an exhausted, strained expression, and, putting out despairing balloons, could hardly eat a thing, others were beaming and chatting and swallowing up everything in sight. I, myself, made a good breakfast on the whole, glad of my human power to fall into neither of these extremes. As for the balloons themselves, I was now so used to the sight of them that I don’t believe I even troubled to read them all.
After breakfast, I decided to go and have a smoke in the lounge—a decision which was to have a far-reaching effect. For in the doorway to the lounge I accidentally collided with an old gentleman who was destined to play no small part in the history of my sojourn in Moribundia.
This old gentleman had such white and bushy eyebrows, such piercing eyes, such a tremendous moustache, such a vigorous forehead, such a hawk-like nose, such a prominent and pointed chin, and such an expression of general fury and irascibility, that for a long time I was most uneasy whenever I was in his presence. At this particular moment, however, I was genuinely terrified, for it seems that in bumping into him in the doorway, I had had the misfortune to tread upon his foot, and that he happened at the time to be suffering from corns. Back in the world I have never been so unlucky, in a whole lifetime, to place my foot accidentally upon anybody’s corns, nor have I actually ever seen this mishap take place i
n public anywhere; but in Moribundia it is possibly one of the most common forms of misfortune and the victim almost invariably lets out a tremendous yell of agony and protestation.
The old gentleman, however, though he glared at me with an anger so fiery and concentrated that I felt he would burst, mercifully expressed his opinion of myself and the situation in the silence of a balloon. Grateful as my nerves were for his use of this method, I was mystified by the appearance of the balloon itself, which looked something like this:
Which was followed, a moment later, after I had meekly endeavoured to stutter out some form of apology, by one containing no words whatever, being made up exclusively of asterisks, exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes, thus:
He then went on his way. I was looking awkwardly around to see if anyone had witnessed this embarrassing scene, when I saw a charming girl coming in my direction with an apologetic look in her eye.
“You must excuse my father’s awful language,” she said, smiling at me in the most delightful way. “He is a retired colonel, as you can see.”
As a matter of fact, I did not quite see at the time, as I did not then know that what I now call an ‘asterisk’ balloon was the one feature by which retired colonels, majors, and generals in Moribundia might be identified instantly anywhere, even if they were in plain clothes.
I now signified to this enchanting newcomer that I was in no way offended, and after a few remarks about the weather we went over in the direction of the fire-place and, sitting down, fell into light conversation.
This was the first time I had spoken to a Moribundian for any length of time, and at close range, and I was secretly relieved to find that I was ‘getting over’ all right. She seemed to see nothing odd in me, and conversed in the most polite and unsuspecting manner. True, when I made so bold as to offer her one of my cigarettes (I had bought a packet at dinner the night before) she did suddenly and rather snubbingly balloon at me:
while taking a cigarette (one made with a special sponge tip) from a packet of her own, but she at once went on to explain, in the most minute and painstaking way, how the sponge absorbed all the smoke, so that none of it got into her mouth, and I could see that she was not really offended.
In addition to the pleasure I took in finding someone to talk to, I was, of course, irresistibly fascinated by the physical charms of my new friend. In fact, I may as well say now that I fell head over heels in love with her, and I do not see how any man with blood coursing through his veins could have done otherwise. It would be impossible for me to exaggerate the beauty of face and figure, the slimness, litheness, and freshness of the average Moribundian girl when she is not suffering from any one of those disfigurements resultant upon the innumerable Moribundian epidemics. If it had not been this girl, whose name was Anne, I have no doubt I should have fallen as deeply in love, physically, with any other girl who took any notice of me. By this, I do not mean to convey that I am not glad that it happened to be Anne, or that having fallen in love with her I ever felt any inclination towards any other girl during my stay up there.
We had been talking for about half an hour, and I had noticed that for some time she had been trying gently to ‘pump’ me with regard to my profession and standing, when a sudden impulse seized me to throw myself upon the mercy of this lovely creature, and I acted upon it at once. I was too cautious to tell her the whole truth, but instead I invented a vague yet plausible story about myself which I thought would serve my purpose just as well. I told her that I had been ‘abroad’ for years, living ‘in the wilds’—that I had only just returned, and that I was utterly bewildered by the town and did not know my way about or what was what, that my ignorance of civilized things and behaviour was leading me into embarrassing predicaments, and that I should be infinitely grateful if she would give me some assistance until I found my feet.
She accepted this story so guilelessly, asking for no geographical details of my supposed sojourn abroad, and adopting at once so charming a maternal attitude, that I felt quite ashamed of myself. She said she would be only too happy to show me the town; and asked what it was that I wanted to see. I replied that the first thing I had to do was some shopping, to get something in the nature of an outfit, and that I had no idea where to go. She replied that there were plenty of places, and after a little modest hesitation on both sides, offered to come with me to them, if I wished, there and then.
I accepted, of course, joyfully, and about ten minutes later we were out in the street and on our way. It was a fine morning and I felt quite intoxicated with my good fortune. I compared my present walk with my walk to Chandos Street the ‘day’ before. I had arrived safely, I was staying at a splendid hotel, I had money, I was accepted as an ordinary being by the habitants of this strange world so like our own and so different from it, and I had as guide and friend the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life.
She said she would like to enjoy the fresh air by walking to Egdirrah,14 the big store at which she said I could get all I wanted, and I plied her with countless questions as we went along. After a time, however, I saw that I must be a little careful in the sort of questions I asked—there was a certain type of ignorance which no amount of hypothetical isolation ‘abroad’ could adequately account for.
For instance, we had not been walking long before I saw staggering towards us a middle-aged gentleman leaning heavily on two sticks. His face was contorted in the most dreadful manner, and he was yelling out in agony. The cause of this was not far to seek, for as far as I could see he had some kind of high-powered electric battery concealed under his coat and around his waist, which was causing flashes of jagged lightning to burst forth from his hips.
“Good heavens!” I said to my friend. “What is the matter with him?”
To my surprise she looked at me in a semi-puzzled way. “What is the matter with him?” she repeated. “Er—how do you mean, exactly?”
“Why,” I replied. “What are those flashes of lightning coming from him, causing him such hideous pain?”
“Why,” she said, now looking at me in fresh bewilderment. “You’ve seen people crippled with rheumatism before, haven’t you?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I see… of course… yes… rheumatism… yes… how silly of me….”
But, of course, I did not really see, as I was not then acquainted with the ghastly aspects which rheumatism sometimes assumes in Moribundia. I was later, of course, to see hundreds of these wretched old gentlemen with pieces of lightning coming out of their waists, and by then it was as easy to recognize a sufferer from rheumatism by his lightning flashes as it was to recognize a retired colonel or major by his asterisk balloon.
Then, a little farther on, a girl passed us who had no nose—this part of her face being replaced by a target. I am aware that I am already speaking in the most placid way of things which will seem incredible or monstrous to my readers, but this is only a reflection of that calm attitude towards the miraculous and the macabre which experiences of this kind had forced upon me before I had been twenty-four hours in the place. I say that the girl had no nose, and that a target was in its place. I do not quite know what the reader will make of this statement. I am sorry for him, but I can say no more, and I can say no less. She had a target for a nose, a target with a black bull’s-eye in the middle, and a few circles around it, such as you might see at any rifle range (only smaller, as the space for it on her face was naturally limited). I was not near enough, and she passed too quickly for me to see whether it was made of flesh or of wood, or how it had been fixed on, or whether it had grown like that from childhood. In addition to the target there were two huge arrows hanging in the air with their points adhering, by what means of magnetic attraction I have no idea, to the centre of the bull’s-eye; and on one of these arrows was written ‘Germs,’ and on the other ‘Infection.’
“I say,” I said to Anne. “Did you see that girl?”
“Yes, what about her?”
“I mean to say
—did you see her nose?”
“Yes—what of it?”
“Well, it was a target, wasn’t it?”
“Yes—what about it?”
“But why is it a target, and what does it mean?”
“Why, just that her nose is a target, that’s simple enough, isn’t it?”
“But why is it a target, and what is it a target for?”
“Why, for germs—for infection. I should have thought anyone could have seen that.”
“But why her’s particularly?” I said. “Isn’t everybody’s nose a target for germs and infection?”
“Not if you take the right precautions,” she said, and I could see she did not want to go on with a discussion that seemed to her foolish and pointless.
For this reason I made no comment when a few moments later we passed a man whose bronchial tubes and nose, seen in profile, were replaced, not by a target, but by a huge tap which was dripping on to the pavement most unpleasantly.
This blending of inorganic with organic matter is one of the most disquieting and curiously repulsive features of Moribundian life. The thing works both ways. Not only do taps, and targets, and suchlike, replace living tissue in the human face; also inanimate objects are constantly taking on human features. I have seen milk-cans, pillar-boxes, lamp-posts, teapots, clocks, and hundreds of other kindred objects, take on eyes, ears, nose, and mouth and grimace in a benign or despondent way. In fact, inanimate things are themselves actually capable of ballooning. I have, even, seen the froth on a glass of beer wink most seductively at its consumer and balloon:
I had made up my mind, then, to ask no more questions about these things, lest I gave myself away too flagrantly. But I had hardly made my resolution before it was too severely taxed by the sight of a young man coming in our direction. He bore exactly the same agonized expression as the old gentleman with lightning coming out of his waist, but in this case his anguish was caused by a band of five or six small devils, or demons, each horned, tailed, and with a three-pronged fork in its hand, flying about in the air around him, and prodding him in the stomach and side, in ecstasies of malicious glee.
Impromptu in Moribundia Page 8
