Taboo. A Legend Retold from the Dirghic of Sævius Nicanor, with Prolegomena, Notes, and a Preliminary Memoir

I—How Horvendile Met Fate and Custom

Now, at about the time that the Tyrant Pedagogos fell into disfavor with his people, avers old Nicanor (as the curious may verify by comparing Lib. X, Chap. 28 of his Mulberry Grove), passed through Philistia a clerk whom some called Horvendile, travelling by compulsion from he did not know where toward a goal which he could not divine. So this Horvendile said, "I will make a book of this journeying, for it seems to me a rather queer journeying."

They answered him: "Very well, but if you have had dinner or supper by the way, do you make no mention of it in your book. For it is a law among us, for the protection of our youth, that eating[2] must never be spoken of in any of our writing."

Horvendile considered this a curious enactment, but it seemed only one among the innumerable mad customs of Philistia. So he shrugged, and he made the book of his journeying, and of the things which he had seen and heard and loved and hated and had put by in the course of his passage among ageless and unfathomed mysteries.

And in the book there was nowhere any word of eating.

2—How the Garbage Man Came with Forks

Now to the book which Horvendile had made comes presently a garbage-man, newly returned from foreign travel for his health's sake, whose name was John. And this scavenger cried, "Oh, horrible! for here is very shameless mention of a sword and a spear and a staff."

"That now is true enough," says Horvendile, "but wherein lies the harm?"

"Why, one has but to write 'a fork' here, in the place of each of these offensive weapons, and the reference to eating is plain."

"That also is true, but it would be your writing and not my writing which would refer to eating."

John said, "Abandoned one, it is the law of Philistia and the holy doctrine of St. Anthony Koprologos that if anybody chooses to understand any written word anywhere as meaning 'to eat,' the word henceforward has that meaning."

"Then you of Philistia have very foolish laws."

To which John the Scavenger sagely replied: "Ah, but if laws exist they ought to fairly and impartially and without favoritism be enforced until amended or repealed. Much of the unsettled condition prevailing in the country at the present time can be traced directly to a lack of law enforcement in many directions during past years."

"Now I misdoubt if I understand you, Messire John, for your infinitives are split beyond comprehension. And when you talk about the non-enforcement of anything in many directions, even though these directions were during past years, I find it so confusing that the one thing of which I can be quite certain is that it was never you whom the law selected to pass upon and to amend all books."

This Horvendile says foolishly, not knowing it is an axiom among the Philistines that literary expression is best controlled by somebody with no misleading tenderness toward it; and that it is this custom, as they proudly aver, which makes the literature of Philistia what it is.

But John the Garbage-man said nothing at all, the while that he changed nouns to "fork" and "dish," and carefully annotated each verb in the book as meaning "to eat." Thereafter he carried off the book along with his garbage, and with—which was the bewildering part of it—self-evident and glowing self-esteem. And all that watched him spoke the Dirghic word of derision, which is "Tee-Hee."

3—How Thereupon Ensued a Legal Debate

Now Horvendile in his bewilderment consulted with a man of law. And the lawman answered a little peevishly, by reason of the fact that age had impaired his digestive organs, and he said, "But of course you are a lewd fellow if you have been suspected of writing about eating."

"Sir," replies Horvendile, "I would have you consider that if your parents and your grandparents had not eaten, your race would have perished, and you would never have been born. I would have you consider that if you and your wife had not eaten, again your race would have perished, and neither of you would ever have lived to have the children for whose protection, as men tell me, you of Philistia avoid all mention of eating."

"Yes, for the object of this most righteous law," declares the lawman, "is to protect those whose character is not so completely formed as to be proof against the effect of meat market reports and grocery advertisements and menu folders and other such provocatives to gluttony."

"—Yet I would have you consider how little is to be gained by attempting to conceal even from the young the inevitability of this natural function, so long as dogs eat publicly in the streets, and the poultry regale themselves just as candidly, and the house-flies also. Instead, the knowledge that this function is not to be talked about induces furtive and misleading discussion among these children, and, though lack of proper instruction in the approved etiquette of eating, they often commit deplorable errors—"

To which the man of law replied, still with a bewildering effect of talking very wisely and patiently: "Ah, but it does not matter at all whether or not the function of eating is practised and is inevitable to the nature and laws of our being. The law merely considers that any mention of eating is apt to inflame an improper and lewd appetite, particularly in the young, who are always ready to eat: and therefore any such mention is an obscene libel."

4—How There Was Babbling in Philistia

Now Horvendile, yet in bewilderment, lamented, and he fled from the man of law. Thereafter, in order to learn what manner of writing was most honored by the Philistines, this Horvendile goes into an academy where the faded old books of Philistia were stored, along with yesterday's other leavings.

And as he perturbedly inspected these old books, one of the fifty mummies which were installed in this Academy of Starch and Fetters, with a hundred lackeys to attend them, spoke vexedly to Horvendile, saying, as it was the custom of these mummies to say, before this could be said to them, "I never heard of you before."

"Ah, sir, it is not that which is troubling me," then answered Horvendile: "but rather, I am troubled because the book of my journeying has been suspected of encroachment upon gastronomy. Now I notice your most sacred volume here begins with a very remarkable myth about the fruit of a tree in the middle of a garden, and goes on to speak of the supper which Lot shared with two angels and with his daughters also, and of the cakes which Tamar served to Amnon, and to speak over and over again of eating—"

"Of course," replies the mummy, yawning, because he had heard this silly sort of talking before.

"I notice that your most honored poet, here where the dust is thickest, from the moment he began by writing about certain painted berries which mocked the appetite of Dame Venus, and about a repast from which luxurious Tarquin retired like a full-fed hound or a gorged hawk, speaks continually of eating. And I notice that everybody, but particularly the young person, is encouraged to read these books, and other ancient books which speak very explicitly indeed of eating—"

"Of course," again replies the mummy (who had been for many years an exponent of dormitive literacy)—"of course, young persons ought to read them: for all these books are classics, and we who were more obviously the heirs of the ages, and the inheritors of European culture, used frequently to discuss these books in Paff's beer-cellar."

"Well, but does the indecency of this word 'eating' evaporate out of it as the years pass, so that the word is hurtful only when very freshly written!"

The mummy blinked so wisely that you would never have guessed that the brains and viscera of all these mummies had been removed when the embalmers, Time and Conformity, were preparing these fifty for the Academy of Starch and Fetters. "Young man, I doubt if the majority of us here in the academy are deeply interested in this question of eating, for reasons unnecessary to specify. But before estimating your literary pretensions, I must ask if you ever frequented Paff's beer-cellar?"

Horvendile said, "No."

Now this mummy was an amiable and cultured old relic, unshakably made sure of his high name for scholarship by the fact that he had written dozens of books which nobody else had even read. So he said, friendlily enough: "Then that would seem to settle your pretensions. To have talked twaddle in Paff's beer-cellar is the one real proof of literary merit, no matter what sort of twaddle you may have written in your book, or in many books, as I am here in this academy to attest. Moreover, I am old enough to remember when cookery-books were sold openly upon the newsstands, and in consequence I am very grateful to the garbage-man, who, in common with all other intelligent persons, has never dreamed of meddling with anything I wrote."

"But, sir," says Horvendile, "do you esteem a scavenger, who does not pretend to specialize in anything save filth, to be the best possible judge of books?"

"He may be an excellent critic if only he indeed belongs to the forthputting Philistine stock: that proviso is most important, though, for, as I recently declared, we have very dangerous standards domiciled in the midst of us, that are only too quickly raised—"

Says Horvendile, with a shudder: "You speak ambiguously. But still, in criticizing books—"

"Plainly, young man, you do not appreciate that the essential qualifications for a critic of Philistine literature are," said this mummy bewilderingly, "to have set off fireworks in July, to have played ball in a vacant lot, and to have repeated what Spartacus said to the gladiators."[3]

"No, no, the essential thing is not quite that," observed an attendant lackey, a really clever writer, who wrote, indeed, far more intelligently than he thought. He was a professor of patriotism, and prior to being embalmed in the academy he had charge of the postgraduate work in atavism and superior sneering. "No, my test is not quite that, and if you venture to disagree with me about this or anything else you are a ruthless Hun and an impudent Jew. No, the garbage-man may very well be an excellent judge: for by my quite infallible test the one thing requisite for a critic of our great Philistine literature is an ability to induce within himself such an internal disturbance as resembles a profound murmur of ancestral voices—"

"But, oh, dear me!" says Horvendile, embarrassed by such talk.

"—And to experience a mysterious inflowing," continued the other, "of national experience—"

"The function is of national experience undoubtedly," said Horvendile, "but still—"

"—Whenever he meditates," concluded this lackey bewilderingly, "upon the name of Bradford and six other surnames.[4] At all events, I have turned wearily from your book, you bolshevistic German Jew—"

"But I," says Horvendile feebly, "am not a German Jew."

"Oh, yes, you are, and so is everybody else whose literary likings are not my likings. I repeat, then, that I have turned wearily from your book. Whether or not it treats of eating, its implication is clearly that the Philistia which has developed Bradford and six other appellations perfectly adapted to produce murmurings and inflowings in properly constituted persons,—and which Philistia, as I have elsewhere asserted, is to-day as always a revolting country whenever it condemns,—has had no civilised cultural atmosphere worth mentioning. So your book fails to connect itself vitally with our great tradition as to our literature, and I find nowhere in your book any ascending sun heralded by the lookouts."

"No more do I," said Horvendile; "but I would have imagined you were more interested in lunar phenomena, and even so—"

"Moreover," now declared another mummy (this was a Moor, called P.E.M., or the Peach,[5] who through some oversight had not been embalmed, but only pickled in vinegar, to the detriment of his disposition),—"moreover, I am not at all in sympathy with any protest whatever against the scavenger, for it might be taken as an excuse for what they are pleased to call art."

All groaned at this abominable word. And then another lackey cried, "You are a prosperous and affected pseudo-littérateur!" and all the mummies spoke sepulchrally the word of derision, which is "Tee-Hee": and many said also, "The scavenger has never meddled with us, and we never heard of you," and there was much other incoherent foolishness.

But Horvendile had fled, bewildered by the ways of Philistia's adepts in starch and fetters, and bewildered in particular to note that a mummy, so generally esteemed a kindly and well-meaning fossil, appeared quite honestly to believe that all literature came out of the beer-cellar of Paff, or Pfaff, or had some similarly Teutonic sponsor; and that handball was the best training for literary criticism; and that the cookery-books of fifty years ago had something to do with Horvendile's account of his journeying, from he did not know where toward a goal which he could not divine, now being in the garbage pile. It troubled Horvendile because so many persons seemed to regard the old fellow half seriously.

5—How It Appeared to the Man in the Street

Still, Horvendile was not quite routed by these heaped follies. "For, after all," says Horvendile, in his own folly, "it is for the normal human being that books are made, and not for mummies and men of law and scavengers."

So Horvendile went through a many streets that were thronged with persons travelling by compulsion from they did not know where toward a goal which they could not divine, and were not especially bothering about. And it was evening, and to this side and to that side the men and women of Philistia were dining. Everywhere maids were passing hot dishes, and forks were being thrust into these dishes, and each was eating according to his ability and condition. No matter how poverty-stricken the household, the housewife was serving her poor best to the good man. For with luncheon so long past, all the really virile men of Philistia were famished, and stood ready to eat the moment, they had a dish uncovered.

So it befell that Horvendile encountered a representative citizen, who was coming out of a representative restaurant with a representative wife.

And the sight of this representative citizen was to Horvendile a tonic joy and a warming of the heart. For this man, and each of the thousands like him, as Horvendile reflected, had been within this hour sedately dining with his wife,—neither of them eating with the zest and vigor of their first youth, perhaps, but sharing amicably the more moderate refreshment which middle-age requires,—without being at any particular pains to conceal the fact from anybody. Here was then, after all, the strong and sure salvation of Philistia, in this quiet, unassuming common-sense, which dealt with the facts of life as facts, the while that the foolish laws, and the academical and stercoricolous nonsense of Philistia, reverberated as remotely and as unheeded as harmless summer thunder.

"Sir," says elated Horvendile, "I perceive that you two have just been eating, and that emboldens me to ask you—"

But at this point Horvendile found he had been knocked down, because the parents of the representative citizen had taught him from his earliest youth that any mention of eating was highly indecent in the presence of gentlewomen. And for Horvendile, recumbent upon the pavement, it was bewildering to note the glow of honest indignation in the face of the representative citizen, who waited there, in front of the restaurant he usually patronized....