But the change I have witnessed in that language during the last thirty or forty years has been such, that instead of an original independent language coming to us from the remote past, there has resulted and now exists one, which though also original and independent, yet represents, as might be said, a “kind of clownish potpourri of languages”, the totality of the consonances of which, falling on the ear of a more or less conscious and understanding listener, sounds just like the “tones” of Turkish, Persian, FRENCH, Kurd, and Russian words and still other “indigestible” and inarticulate noises. 55 BTG I

Ah … me! Never mind, esteemed buyer of my wiseacrings. If only there be plenty of FRENCH armagnac and “Khaizarian bastourma”, I shall find a way out of even this difficult situation. 60 BTG I

“Not a single one of those ‘sorry-scientists’ has ever thought that the difference between these two cosmic processes is just about the same as that which the highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin once expressed in the following words: “‘They are as much alike as the beard of the famous English Shakespeare and the no less famous FRENCH Armagnac’. 900 BTG XVII

“This mentioned written compromise was that instead of the signs or letters which they could not pronounce although they understood the sense of this pronunciation they decided to employ a slightly similar letter of their alphabet at the time, and in order that everybody should understand that it was not that letter but quite another, they always wrote by its side a letter of the ancient Romans, now existing but already meaningless, called in English ‘h’ and among the contemporary FRENCH ‘ahsh’. 2803 BTG XXX

“Although contemporary learned beings there affirm that the beginning of this branch of their science was made by a certain English professor named Brade and that it was developed by the FRENCH professor Charcot, yet in reality, this was not so at all. 3224 BTG XXXII

“And so, my boy, just this custom, namely, of washing themselves periodically in special hammams, was taken by the Russians from the Asiatic beings; but when they fell under the influence of the European beings and for the most part, as I have already told you, of the beings of the community France, then in view of the fact that these FRENCH beings have not the custom of going to the hammam, they also gradually ceased to use hammams and thus this good custom established for centuries among them, began little by little to disappear. 3626 BTG XXXIV

“To go to the hammam is now considered among beings belonging to the ruling class as very ‘indecent’ and ‘unintelligent’. But indecent and unintelligent only because the contemporary ‘most intelligent’ beings of their planet, who according to their understanding are the FRENCH, do not go to the hammam. 3630 BTG XXXIV

“These unfortunates do not know of course that these same FRENCH, thanks always to the same reasons, namely, thanks to the abnormally established conditions of ordinary being-existence still but a few decades ago, not only did not go to the hammam, but these FRENCH, particularly, as they are called, the ‘intelligentsia’, did not even wash themselves in the morning in order not to spoil their, at that time, fashionable artificial appearance which was difficult to rearrange. 3631 BTG XXXIV

“They could not for instance consider even this, that conditions of ordinary existence among these FRENCH beings are perhaps being built up all the time abnormally and therefore they had not yet had time to become aware of the necessity of sometimes, as in the given case, washing themselves in hammams and chewing keva after using the first being-food. 3643 BTG XXXIV

“Now, my boy, I wish to inform you about the specific aspects of the psyche of those FRENCH three-brained beings in such a way that you may, at the same time, make clear to yourself how much in general among those three-brained beings of the planet Earth who please you, the normal possibility for the crystallization of all being-data in the sense of the capacity to ruminate impartially and personally, has already deteriorated and how at the present time subjective essence-opinion about every reality is formed in them at times entirely opposite to that which should be obtained by the perception of that reality, directly received by them personally through impressions. 3680 BTG XXXVII

“In my opinion, it will be well if we take these same FRENCH beings as an example for making clear what I have just told you. 3681 BTG XXXVII

“The point is that at the present time among beings of all groupings breeding on that continent Europe on which, as they express it, their ‘cultured existence’ is now concentrated, as well as on all other continents, there became infallibly crystallized already from the very beginning of their formation into responsible beings, data for their representation about the individuality of these same FRENCH beings, which data brings forth in them such a definite understanding that these FRENCH, of all beings similar to them of their planet, are, as they express it, the most ‘depraved’ and ‘immodest’. 3682 BTG XXXVII

“Before this, namely, before my choice of the community France as the place of my permanent existence, data was formed in my common presence for just such a representation about them, because, going about everywhere and existing among the beings there of all kinds of groupings which exist at the present time on almost all terra firma parts of the surface of your planet, I frequently heard during all conversations such an opinion concerning the FRENCH beings. 3683 BTG XXXVII

“While I was there in that provincial town, I was unable to elucidate anything for myself, hut later, when I happened to go to the capital of those FRENCH beings then there, from the very first day, the basic causes of that misunderstanding also began to be gradually elucidated in my Reason. 3689 BTG XXXVII

“As we, while talking, were examining that mixed crowd, whose faces expressed their satisfaction at the fulfillment of a long-awaited dream, my new acquaintance, the young Persian, suddenly turned to me in surprise and pointing with his finger at a passing couple, exclaimed: “‘Look! Look! There go genuine FRENCH people!’ 3706 BTG XXXVII

“After they had disappeared from sight in the crowd, we began to discuss in order to understand the reason why that genuine FRENCH couple came to be in this part of their ‘capital’. 3708 BTG XXXVII

“After various surmises, we unanimously agreed that that couple probably lived in some outlying part of genuine FRENCH Paris and had gone, for some family feast or other at their relatives, to another part of this FRENCH Paris which lay just on the opposite side. 3709 BTG XXXVII

“Probably for this reason alone, did these genuine FRENCH people appear in this part of Paris. 3711 BTG XXXVII

“When, among these ‘visiting foreign princes’, as some of the ‘natives’ call them, all sorts of also foreign ‘professionals-of-both-sexes’, already ‘well-acclimatized’ to that part of Paris, were walking ‘in mass’, my new acquaintance, the young Persian, suggested to me that he should become my ‘Paris cicerone’ and that we should go to what are called the ‘disreputable places of Paris’ and look at FRENCH ‘depravity’. 3714 BTG XXXVII

“And what will become of this contemporary center-of-culture of theirs, of the city Paris, and of the peoples powerful today who surround it: FRENCH, Germans, English, Dutch, Italians, Americans, and so forth? . . . future centuries will show. 3766 BTG XXXVII

“‘And they concoct this “melange” in the following way: the branch of the firm here, advertising itself well by American methods, is already widely known to my compatriots, and therefore, many of them, owing to always their same “vanity” and to other weaknesses, proper by the way to those beings of whom my compatriots mostly consist, always order their so-called fashionable dresses from this branch here, and the branch here sends to them “from the capital of the world” “real FRENCH models”. 3817 BTG XXXVII

“‘What is most interesting of all is that nobody is offended at this “commission business” of this “solid firm”, but on the contrary it is “convenient” and “easy” and “profitable” for everyone. From this “commerce” of theirs, even the FRENCH, the hosts of the “capital of the world”, “gain”, but . . . it is true, they only gain in so far as they make profit out of the postage stamps which it is necessary to stick on the letters during correspondence between the customers and the Paris Branch. 3821 BTG XXXVII

“And in view of the fact that generally the capacity for being-rumination in contemporary beings becomes atrophied and what is called a ‘wide-being-horizon’ is absent; they take everything and regard everything as ‘FRENCH’ and afterwards, when they return to their community again, they always relate to other beings of their community about everything they have seen, heard, and experienced in that part of Paris as if it were entirely of FRENCH origin and that FRENCH beings did it all. 3828 BTG XXXVII

“In this way, such an opinion about the FRENCH is gradually formed in other beings, not at all corresponding to reality. 3829 BTG XXXVII

“But, of course, had these FRENCH judges, and in general the judges of the whole planet, known that there exists in the Universe a definite law concerning all the formations without exception, which serve the Great Trogoautoegocrat in the transformation of cosmic substances, then they would without any doubt completely change their opinion concerning that understanding which they express by the word ‘majority’. 3854 BTG XXXVII

“In justice it must be said, my boy, that these FRENCH fairs are very very gay places. 3862 BTG XXXVII

“At these FRENCH fairs everything can be had ‘cheap’ and ‘fine’. 3864 BTG XXXVII

“And in case any of the ordinary beings there wishes as they say to ‘try his luck’ again for a few centimes, he can satisfy this desire there also on the spot; he may try his luck in every way, for at those famous FRENCH fairs there is every means of gambling that exists there on the planet Earth, for speculation as well as for fun, and almost all their games of chance are seen there. 3868 BTG XXXVII

Note: If anyone is very interested in the ideas presented in this chapter, I advise him to read, without fail, my proposed book entitled The Opiumists, if, of course, for the writing of this book there will be sufficient FRENCH armagnac and Khaizarian bastourma. THE AUTHOR 5563 BTG XLI

“‘And then, among other things I also read assiduously every kind of literature existing here in Europe concerning these diseases, and also most of the books on this question in FRENCH and German. 6029 BTG XLII

“‘This I could easily do because, as you see, I have such a command of FRENCH that you can scarcely guess that I am not a real FRENCH intellectual; and with the German language also I get along very well, because I lived a fairly long time in Germany and always, in my free time, studied their language and their literature for want of something to do. 6030 BTG XLII