Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/83

pig's lip, another teeth as a dog, another the horns of an ox, another donkey's ears, another eyes of a basilisk, another the brush of a fox, another the claws of a wolf. Some did I see with a peacock's neck stretched out on high; others with the bristling crest of a lapwing; others with horses' hoofs, and so forth; mostly, however, they had the similitude of apes.^[1] And I am frightened, and say: "Nay, here, meseems, I see monsters!" "What, froward one" (the guide said), "thou speakest of monsters," and he threatened me with his fist. "Look but well through thy spectacles, and thou wilt see that they are men." But some of those who were passing heard that I had called them monsters, stood still and growled at me, and even threatened me, as if they would attack me. Then having understood that to reason here was vain, I became silent, and thought within myself: "If they will be human beings, let them be so; but as for me, what I see, I see." I then feared that my guide would press down my spectacles more firmly and mislead me; therefore did I decide to be silent, and rather quietly to behold these fine things of which I had seen the beginning. I then gaze again, and I see how artfully some handled these masks, quickly removing them and then again putting them on, so that they were able to give themselves a different mien, whenever they saw that this was to their advantage.

 

1. Compare with this: "At bottom they are all respectable, pompous horse-faces, and self-opinionated donkey-muzzles, and lop-eared, low-browed dog-sculls, and fatted swine-snouts, and sometimes dull, brutal bull-fronts as well."—Ibsen, "When we Dead awaken."