B150 <=> B152 [BTG XVIII The Arch-preposterous, p. 151]

“Gornahoor Harharkh, who afterwards, as I have already told you, became my essence-friend, was then considered one of the foremost scientists among the ordinary three-brained beings of the whole Universe, and all his constatations as well as the elucidatory apparatuses he had invented, were everywhere widespread, and other learned beings on the various planets were using them more and more.

“Here it will do no harm to remark that I also, thanks only to his learning, had later in my observatory on the planet Mars that Teskooano which, when it was finally established, enabled my sight to perceive, or as is said, ‘approach-the-visibility’ of remote cosmic concentrations, 7,000,285 times.

“Strictly speaking, it was owing to just this Teskooano that my observatory was afterwards considered one of the best constructions of its kind in the whole Universe; and, most important of all, it was by means of this Teskooano that I myself thereafter could, even while staying at home on the planet Mars, relatively easily see and observe the processes of the existence occurring on the surfaces of those parts of the other planets of that solar system which in accordance with what is called the ‘common-cosmic Harmonious-Movement’ could be perceived by being-sight at the given moment.

“When Gornahoor Harharkh was informed who we were and why we had come, he approached us and forthwith very amiably began his explanations.

“Before beginning his explanations I think it not inadvisable to warn you once and for all that all my conversations with various three-centered beings arising and existing on various planets of that system where I was obliged to exist for the ‘Sins of my youth’ – as for instance in the present case, the conversations with this Gornahoor Harharkh which I am now about to relate to you while we travel on the space-ship Karnak – all proceeded in dialects still quite unknown to you, and sometimes even, by the way, in such dialects the consonances of which were quite ‘indigestible’ for perception by normal being-functions assigned for this purpose.