Walking at sunset over the hills and dales, and willy-nilly perceiving the exterior visibility of those enchanting parts of the bosom of Great Nature, the Common Mother, and involuntarily inhaling a pure air uncontaminated by the usual exhalations of industrial towns, our Kurd quite naturally suddenly felt a wish to gratify himself with some ordinary food also; so sitting down by the side of the road, he took from his provision bag some bread and the “fruit” he had bought which had looked so good to him, and leisurely began to eat. BTG I

“In the fundamental religious teaching of this sect there was a full explanation of just what manipulations and for how long a time it is necessary to produce them upon oneself in order to merit being immured in one of the strongly built cells, there to receive every twenty-four hours a piece of bread and a small jug of water. BTG XXII

“At that time when we came within the walls of that terrible monastery, all these monstrous cells were already occupied; and the care of the immured, that is, giving them once in twenty-four hours, through the aforementioned tiny apertures, a piece of bread and a small jug of water, was carried out with great reverence by those sectarians who were candidates for that immurement, and who, while waiting their turn, existed in the said large building that stood in the monastery square. BTG XXII

“‘Don’t we always labor and sweat for our daily bread? BTG XXVIII

“‘Let them prove it to us, for instance, that they can at least change a pinch of the common sand, in which, thanks to our sweat, our daily bread arises, into bread. BTG XXVIII

“‘ It is true that for eight months of the year we now have no trouble in obtaining our daily bread; but then, how we must labor those four summer months and exhaust ourselves getting the barley we need! BTG XXVIII

“Among them there at the present time, these surrounding conditions of ordinary collective existence have already become such, that if, for some reason or other the specialist professionals of all the kinds necessary for their ordinary collective existence should cease to come to them from the other continents to ‘earn money’, then it is safe to say that within a month the whole established order of their ordinary existence would completely break down, since there would be none among them who could even so much as bake bread. BTG XLII

“Before I describe the fate of this American bread I must tell you that this terra firma part of the surface of your planet celled ‘North and South America’ was formed thanks to various accidental combinations ensuing, in the first place, from the second greet ‘cataclysm not according to law’ which occurred to that ill-fated planet, and secondly, from the position that terra firma occupies in relation to the process of the ‘common systematic movement’ having a stratum of what is called ‘soil’ which was and still is suited for the production of that ‘divine grain’ of which this same ‘prosphora’ is made. With conscious knowledge of how to use it, the soil surface of these continents is capable of yielding in a single what is celled ‘good season’, the ‘fullness of a complete process of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh’, or in other words, a ‘forty-nine-fold harvest’, and even by its semiconscious use, as is now the case, the soil there yields of this ‘divine grain’ a considerable abundance in comparison with the other continents. BTG XLII

Hence, it IS, my boy, that the prosphora or bread now produced there from this wheat which arises in such abundance on this continent, contains nothing useful to the beings who consume it, and from its consumption there is produced in their presences nothing but noxious gases and what are called there ‘worms’. BTG XLII

“At any rate, the beings breeding on this continent have already achieved by these wiseacrings of theirs with this bread, what they have greatly desired and striven to obtain, and, namely, that the beings of all the other continents should never fail to say of them, as, for instance, in the given case, something as follows: “‘Astonishingly smart fellows, these Americans; even their bread is something extraordinary; so “superb”, so “white” and simply charming — really the splendor of splendors of contemporary civilization’. BTG XLII

“But that from this deformity of wheat, their bread results in being ‘worthless’ and, furthermore, constitutes another of the innumerable factors in the spoiling of their stomachs — what is that to them? Are they not also in the front rank of contemporary what is called ‘European civilization’? BTG XLII

“Prosphora or bread is in general made everywhere by beings who are aware of its sacred significance. Only your contemporary favorites regard its preparation without any consciousness of its effect, but merely as a practice automatically transmitted to them by inheritance. BTG XLII

“In this bread the crystallization of cosmic substances is also obtained according to the law of Triamazikamno, the substances from the following three relatively independent sources serving as the three holy forces of this sacred law, namely: the holy affirming or active principle is the totality of those cosmic substances composing what your favorites call ‘water’; the denying or passive principle is the totality of the substances composing what your favorites call the ‘flour’ obtained from the divine wheat grain; and the holy reconciling or neutralizing principle is the substance issuing or obtained as the result of burning, or, as your favorites say, from ‘fire’. BTG XLII

“For a better elucidation of the thought I have expressed concerning the significance of a permanent fusion of diverse-sourced cosmic substances, let us take as an example the said relatively independent totality of substances which in the formation of this prosphora or bread is the active principle, namely, the relatively independent totality which is called by your favorites ‘water’. BTG XLII

“Further, if this dough, that is, water mixed with flour, is baked over a fire, then, thanks to substances issuing from or formed from this fire — substances which in the given case, as I have already said, serve as the third holy neutralizing force of the sacred law of Triamazikamno — there will result in the given case a chemical fusion, that is, a permanent fusion of substances’, as a result of which the new totality of substances obtained from this water and the flour, namely, the prosphora or bread, will now resist the merciless Heropass, that is to say, it will not decompose for a much longer time. BTG XLII

“The bread made in this way can ‘dry’, ‘crumble’, or even be to all appearances gradually completely destroyed, yet from this process of transformation the elements of the water will, during the said fairly long time, bc no further destroyed but will remain active for the said time among what are called the ‘enduring prosphorian active elements’. BTG XLII

“Every family of these gypsies has also what is called a ‘Tandoor’, that is, a special kind of earth pit, such as is found in the houses almost everywhere on the continent of Asia and which serves as a hearth on which they usually bake bread and prepare food. BTG XLII

“So it is not difficult to picture to yourself that the sudden appearance of that quadruped animal called ‘bull’, such as she had seen at home on the farm and which had enjoyed there the affection of all the children, who secretly even took it bread from the table, was to this as yet unformed impressionable young girl a shock for the corresponding associations under the influence of which, she, being full of a feeling of sincere happiness still unspoiled by the abnormally established conditions of being-existence, instantly wished to share her happiness with her bosom friend who was some distance off, and shouted to her to look at that dear bull. BTG XLII