“The contents of this etherogram concern just your favorites in connection with these terrestrial beings I have just mentioned, that is, these apes. BTG XXIII

“I must tell you first of all, that on account of a cause also ensuing from the abnormal being-existence there, there was long ago crystallized, and there is periodically intensified in its functioning in the presences of those strange three-brained beings arising and existing on the planet Earth, a strange factor which from time to time produces in their presences a ‘crescendo impulse’, owing to which, during the periods of its action, they wish at all costs to find out whether they have descended from these apes or whether these apes have descended from them. BTG XXIII

“I very well remember that this ‘agitation of mind’ concerning the origin of these apes occurred there among them for the first time when, as they also like to express it, their ‘center of culture’ was Tikliamish. BTG XXIII

“This Menitkel then became a learned being, firstly because his childless aunt was an excellent what is called matchmaker and mixed a great deal with power-possessing beings, and secondly, because when by age he was approaching the ‘threshold of the being’ of a responsible being, he received on his birthday a gift of a book entitled Manual of Bon Ton and Love Letter Writing. Being materially secure and therefore quite free, thanks to an inheritance left him by his uncle, a former pawnshop proprietor, he out of boredom compiled a massive and erudite work in which he ‘spun out’, concerning the origin of these apes, an elaborate theory with every kind of ‘logical proof’, but of course with such ‘logical proofs’ as could be perceived and crystallized only in the Reasons of those freaks who have taken your fancy. BTG XXIII

“These favorites of yours would in my opinion get quite a correct answer to this question which always excites them, that is the question how the apes arose, if they were able in the given case to apply one of these sayings again of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin, who on many occasions used to say: ‘The cause of every misunderstanding must be sought only in woman’. BTG XXIII

“As this question of the genealogy of these apes there, is indeed exceedingly abstruse and unusual, I shall inform your Reason about this also as far as possible from every aspect. BTG XXIII

“In fact, neither have they descended from apes nor have apes descended from them, but . . . the cause of the origin of these apes is in this case, just as in every other misunderstanding there, also — their women. BTG XXIII

“In short, during the said terrible years on this planet of yours, a result very rare in the Universe was obtained, that is to say, there was obtained the blending of the Exioeharies of two Keschapmartnian beings of different brain systems of opposite sexes; and as a result, there arose the ancestors of these terrestrial ‘misconceived’ beings now called apes, who give your favorites no peace and who from time to time agitate their strange Reason. BTG XXIII

“This came about because the blending of the Exioëhary of the Keschapmartnian three-brained beings there of the ‘female sex’ which served as a beginning for the arising of the ancestors of these apes, then proceeded with the active Exioëhary of those same varied quadruped beings existing there up to the present time. BTG XXIII

“And indeed, my boy, when during the period of my last personal stay on the planet Earth, I chanced during my travels to meet with the said various independent species of apes, and when, by a habit which has become second nature, I also observed them, I constated very definitely that the whole of the inner functioning and what are called the ‘automatic posture’ of each separate species of these contemporary apes there, are exactly like those present in the whole of the presences of some normally arisen quadruped being there, and that even what are called their ‘facial features’ very definitely resemble those of the said quadrupeds; but on the other hand that what are called the ‘psychic features’ of all the separate species of these apes there are absolutely identical, even down to details, with those of the psyche of the three-brained beings there of the ‘female sex‘”. BTG XXIII

At this point of his tales, Beelzebub made a long pause and looking at his favorite Hassein, with a smile which very clearly expressed a double meaning, he, continuing to smile, said: “In the text of the etherogram which I have just received, it is further said that in order this time finally to settle who has descended from whom — whether they from the apes or the apes from them — these freaks, your favorites, have even decided to carry out ‘scientific experiments’, and furthermore that several of them have already left for the continent of Africa where many of these apes breed, with the object of bringing back from there the number required for these ‘scientific investigations’ of theirs. BTG XXIII

“Concerning the ‘scientific experiment’ itself, which they propose to carry out with the apes taken back from Africa, I can with certainty say beforehand, that at any rate the first part of it will without any doubt, succeed ‘wonderfully well’. BTG XXIII

“And it will succeed wonderfully well, because the apes themselves, as beings of what is called a ‘Terbelnian result’, are already, owing to their nature, extremely fond of occupying themselves with ‘titillation’ and before the day is out, will no doubt participate in and greatly assist your favorites in this ‘scientific experiment’ of theirs. BTG XXIII

“And we descended upon this Sea because it washed the Eastern shores of that continent where I wished to go, namely, to that continent then called Grabontzi and now called Africa, on which those ape-beings I needed then bred more than on any other of the terra firma parts of the surface of that planet of yours; and also because this sea was at that period particularly convenient for the mooring of our ship Occasion; but what was still more important was that on one of its sides that country was situated which was then called ‘Nilia’ and is now called Egypt, where those beings of our tribe then existed who wished to remain on that planet and with whose help I intended to collect the apes. BTG XXIII

“And so I decided to postpone for a while my first intention of immediately going further south on that continent to collect the apes I needed, and instead, to go first where the said construction was being made, in order on the spot to become personally acquainted with it from every aspect, and to find out all about it. BTG XXIII

“Having accomplished this, I telepathically signalled our ship Occasion which descended to us, it must be said on the first, very dark night; and when we had loaded these ape-beings into that special section of the ship Occasion which had been constructed for Gornahoor Harharkh under his directions, we at once reascended to the planet Mars; and three Martian days later, on the same ship and together with these apes, I ascended to the planet Saturn. BTG XXIII

“Though we had previously decided to carry out the experiments with these apes only on the following year, when they would have become thoroughly acclimatized and orientated to existence under the new conditions, I ascended then to the planet Saturn so soon because at my last personal meeting with Gornahoor Harharkh, I had promised him to be present at his family solemnity which had soon to take place. BTG XXIII