|
5.
In the Wilderness, Men Act Without Asking
 |
y & by it happent that as the famisht Brothers made their way apart from Sodom again through the wilderness, Oochie did find swillage & swallowgobs there in his |
asspack after all, neath the thousant scriben titles to the thousant assdonkies that were passt away to the universe; and the crewe was thorough refresht. And as they went making their way, clamoring with renewd stridence & braggadocio, lo, hither came a band of robbers from the south.
And this were in that time when men walkt not the path of righteousness, but glorified in their own choice of keel, their own store of mixt tricks & treats of character, their own specious speech, their own physicol thrust, their own demeaner under heat, their oan fortune, their own ranging aromae, their own living skits & wordsport escapaids, their own miraculous bladder actions after injury—and scars of obstinate survivol of surgicol proceedjer—their own skybuildings & magniform makes & farm fields growing (and those of other men of their crook & creed), their own wants & diswants, their own wine, their own seizures, their own Samsonic manes & emerald overcoats & ivyhandld whackstaves, their own imagind profyle under
assessoment of the average eye, their own daye on the jobbe, their own creditabol mimicry of the beast in the bush behind lovers aghast, their own wakingstate gestures hung out for picking up by their partners in sociel discourse, their own advocacies of enslavement & emancipasien, their own fingrenails & fishnets & fairweather footspeed, their own heartsoftning introspectacles indulg-ed in moments of self appreciatian, their own savor of layering upon harsh habits some triviol kindness in a frolic into personol dimensien: any thing save Righteousness, they did glorify in.
And one robber said unto them, being the captain, and named Thissel, Hearken unto me—what, be ye brothers? Hearken, brothers. We have adjourn-ed hither to slay you down, to smite you, to bone up on you, to quiet the russle of the unfolding of your chapters, and to trouble you sore; for we are—Robbers. Also will we have go of your store & caboodle. Yea, let us, first blink, to have out the thousant documents out from outen that pouch there. (And long was his fingre in pointing.)
[For is’t not the thing about robvers—those who be any goode upon the bizniss—that they do seem to know whereat is lodg-ed every stealabol item of the world, in all moments? In that pouch there, saith he. An thousands docoments. Sweet gods! How knoweth he which, an any, pouch to fix upon? Hap Thissel goeth out as doth the taxjackie, entippt by observasien spies hidden in every abode. Well. ’Tis the mark of the best that he knoweth what to demand, and its locus among thy piles.]
And Oochie came back, saying, Thou needst not to robv them, fearsum presenter, for I will cede thee them straightway. Heavy they are, and especial hopeless; for the assdonkies cognominated thereon are gone to the universe, through an hole. An thou expect assodonkies out here, then go and build a floor, and floor that hole, and await the next requisitien thru the wild. For what needst thou of these futile asstitles? So say I, Magnifiloochie Beanpharoah the Thaiphoid Antiquadian, calld Twelvecity, and Cosigner of the High Note, deemd much by many, tho I ask you all not to bow.
And the captain Thissel answerd out and said, Neither be it the asses proper that I seeks; for what shud an actien figure like as I to do with an thousents damns voracious asses? That were tragedie to flee, one egregious destiny. Yearn-ed I for a storied life in the assworks industry, then there be asseries & donkages about, suffish to clench the dream; I needs but grab a spade & forge a career.
Assman, on the one hand (saith Thissel). Ah! But on another: Hast thou even no glimmering, in seeing me astanding out here now as a captan of robbers, and arobbing at thee? It seemeth my true thing. Now. The thousandt of titles, they will suit me. For I shall pledge them as my daughter’s dowry, purchasing for her a king’s son in marriage; and I shall land me in a palace [pa-lah-chee], wherein—there is no kwestien—destiny, fortune & fate all insist for me to lodge. Then when in, what heights & opportunidy?
And Oochie clapt his hand upon his head, thinking, Wherefore ne’er thoght I of doing that? All my considerings, and varietageous schematisatiens, yet neither that; what is amiss with me? For I cud have whiskt up a strumpet to be my daughter for a fee, and with those thousant
10
titles bought me the king’s son, and enterd my self into royalidy, wherein destinie, fortune, & fate insist for me to lodge. And there, then, wud be my fame & esteem, making me prominent twixt Borhotchorus and Coo my prominent shadows.
 ow those robbers did number an hundreds and seventy. And the brothers, accustomd to bizniss, made tally of them. And Oochie said, They are more than several of my toes, but neither so many as all the lovers I have never had. And Borhotchus said, They are almo seven hundreds and fifty and five, for I them have tallied and made account. And Coo cast in and said, They are four thousants and one hundreds and fourscore and ten and one and none and then three, all said. And the brothers were fascinatnd that e’en derived by such’n’much different modes of accounting, their results were similor.
And Oochie, which was the second brother, being neither older than Borhotchus nor younger than Coo, and with a mouth about him, rebuk-ed the robbers, saying, Well now, so, then. Ta. To slay, and smite, and bone up, and quiet the rustle of unfolding chapiters, and trouble sore, and have go of things, say ye. To lodge this Thissel in the seat of power, ye say. Woe unto fools come athinking the thoght that we The Brothers are some privvy rags to be rippt & rolld & cast down at a wipe. For I am aware of no such amenability among us. Know ye not, brigands, that the magik Lord hath a bone against the like of you? That your atrocious feets do tread upon chewing sands; that ye go apulling cataclizzim up over you, apitching tent upon the hidden whittld teeth of hell? For I know such things as these.
More & over (saith Oochie), what know ye of any thousent titular docoments in this packenpouch, or e’en of six or eight? In fact, little remaineth of the proud docoments that were. When I said that I will give you them, I meant the smidgeoncrumbs thereof will I flick unto you. For We Brothers (and who hath tolt you that we be any brothers? Certain, ’twasn’t I mentcht any brothery, not at first. Have ye gone ransackling the Lord’s tree of family knowledge, to cause you to know us as ye do?)—We Brothers commenst astarving some hours past, and fried us an mess of titles, and garnish-ed them with some feathers we fount, and eated them up. Yea, I did wish to save some of them; but they were teu goode. Tho, seeing your countenances, that they are skeptic, I suppose you apt to peer into this pouch perforce and find those very titles.
And what, but a robber brake forth and cried out, saying, I am thew lissning to him. And he swang & smote Oochie with a great broad buccaneer sword which once a fop had purchast from 3B; and the strike took Oochie’s head. And the robber feeld that he were justified thus to make a point. And he eulogize-ed, saying, Thine own enemy tongue hath briefnd thy stature. And all that beheld did agree, even unto Borhotchus and Coo of T. Antiquadt.
But inasmuch as Oochie, which was slain, was a numeric brother of The Brothers, there arose a murmur within the bowels of the brothers. For they said, Behold poor Oochie, which long have we bebrother-ed. Alway was he there betwixt us, if an we needen any helpf (tho ne’er needed we any). Now are we pair The Three Brothers our selfs, untenabol tho yesterday the propositien seemd. For hath not his very head, like as some cartbounced melon, gone bounding down, even unto the valley?
And they lookt, and lo, an head lieth there upon her ear, the same which in olden day was the head of Oochie. But that young gun hath call for her nae more, being slain. Nyther spake the head, for ’twas smitten, tho it seemd to them about to.
And a swell of rage to break the world did move upon the brothers there in the wilderness, and their indelicacy vaulted to the fore. And laid they their vaunted cudgels into the band of robbers, and a vaunted hellhammer. And the pent inner reaver which was within Coo did for a time usurp his controls and give him to be a machine of infinit massacre; and his eyes were like unto blazing saucers, and his grin was the fullfangd slavering grin of Death’s doorman. And the shellshattring report of the brothers’ blows crackt the eggs of birds in their nests in the trees. And Thissel were smit, & lay expiring. And he said, Ye gods, all that I have workt so hard to bring to gether is trumpt.
And in the morn, behold, lay there two hundreds robbers, for some were born in the night; and they all lay smitten. And wiping the smum of battle offen his armaments onto the retire’d Thissel’s lavender greatcape, Borhotchus crinkt his brow with frankness and said, I gave them their chance. (Tho, he had given them no chance.) And Coo the forbearancedaisy, who with eyes narrow was again fixt to forbear, inner reaver pent, spake a parable, saying, Once was there a matron who, seeing a vagrant cart at rest upon her babychild, found the strength of giants, and lifted up the cart, and remov-ed away the babychild, which was dead all ready. And Borhotchus answerd and said unto him, I am not surprize’d.
And they The Brothers Remaindren said, It is done. And they spat down upon the captain, which was dead. And lo, they seen there their spittol, that ’twas an agent of the devil’s froth & gloss, as had been their father’s.
And after that they had spattnd upon the captain were they mounted by contrition & grinded by grief, that their spittal had fallen upon a man other than a taxigan. And they confesst, saying, That which we here have workt is the stuffe of a thousent days’ shame. And they rent their garments and mournd. Yet, neither repented they utter, but only fell sombre. For in this lyfe of fluid propriedy & facterd ethos (scribeth Coo in his memoirem), a man needs must hold willing in divers regretful matters, tho it grieve him to act. Thus go goode men mad, and the womens who love them.
Neither did they know that the capitan Thissel was, en facte, the very offisiel gubnatoric taxjackie in this wilderness; tho it had become his own notien that every season, were tax season.
|
luminance
9
to top