Gulliver's Fifth & Sixth Voyages 1732 Studios

Hungarian · Capillária

Tizenkettedik fejezet

Chapter Twelve

83 sentences

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  1. 1

    Halvargó's foreign situation.

    HalvargóHalvargóHalvargó · proper noun, nominative, singulardepends on helyzete

    Invented name of the narrator's homeland-state (a Capillária coinage); keep as Halvargó, the term used in the English translation.

    külügyiforeignkülügyi · adjective, nominative, singulardepends on helyzete
    helyzetesituationhelyzet · noun, nominative, singular, third-person singular possessorhead of the phrase
  2. 2

    The war between the towers.

  3. 3

    A brief account of the social movements that follow the war.

  4. 4

    The Author is taken prisoner; he escapes, and, by means of a marvelous phenomenon, quits Capillária and returns to his native land.

  5. 5

    Halvargó's foreign situation had, in recent years, turned critical.

  6. 6

    The Empire of the United Towers, ever since the "General Law of Tower Defense" had been codified, had flung itself, with prodigious momentum, into arming.

  7. 7

    The spark was thrown out by a violent goncsargó, which destroyed three towers: for this misfortune the other towers laid the blame upon Halvargó, the charge being that we had overbuilt, that we had heaped up too great a quantity of material, and that this congestion had thickened the water above us and called forth currents, to which the collapse was to be attributed.

  8. 8

    The Empire's leading men urged, with ever greater vehemence, the strengthening of solidarity, and spurred the citizenry to more strenuous labor, lest the fate of the other towers overtake ours also — they proclaimed the necessity of disarmament, which, should it prove needful, must be carried through even by force, by fire and sword.

  9. 9

    According to the middle of our reckoning of time, toward the middle of June, war broke out among the towers.

  10. 10

    Halvargó belonged to the Left Alliance, and as such threw itself, resolute and embittered, into the defense of its conviction that the goncsargó could be prevented not by the lessening of building, but rather by its increase: for it was, after all, desirable that two or three towers should be governed under one common head of state, and that these towers, should no other way answer, must be taken by force.

  11. 11

    For this very reason, the moment war broke out, every exit was sealed watertight, lest the cowardly rabble should slip away and evade its military obligation.

  12. 12

    By the sealing of the exits, that ardent temper so necessary to an assault was successfully achieved — the whole tower was in an uproar, and everyone thronged toward the one remaining exit, the roof-parapet, where the first clashes with the soldiers of the neighboring tower were already under way.

  13. 13

    I myself went out to the field of battle holding the rank of chief piercer, where, as a valiant soldier, I soon won distinction, penetrated through and through by the idea of Tower Defense, which held out to the world the promise of eternal peace and happy labor.

  14. 14

    The campaign itself, and the times that followed upon it, I have set down in another book, which has since gone through many editions.

  15. 15

    Here I shall touch only briefly upon the principal facts.

  16. 16

    At the outset we fought with great success, and took a vast number of prisoners, whom we shut up and fed in the cellar of the tower — but our forces being unable to await reinforcement for such immense losses, we were, alas, compelled at the end of December to fall back before the Kurgi bulloks, and to abandon the field.

  17. 17

    The Kurgis set fire to our tower, and put to the sword the garrison left behind for its defense.

  18. 18

    Among the leadership of the towers allied with Halvargó, unity likewise broke down: an insoluble grammatical question furnished the occasion for a falling-out between the high command and the diplomatic corps.

  19. 19

    The philologists of the diplomatic service demanded that, in consideration of the great interests of bullok society, the first-person-singular personal pronoun be struck from the dictionary and from common usage, and replaced by the pronoun of the plural — for, in their view, the whole trouble arose from the impossibility of reconciling the constructions proper to "I" with those proper to "we": if a diplomat said, "we are ready even to the last drop of our blood, etc.," then into this little word "we" was understood also the "I," that is, himself, which gave rise to an impossible situation; whereas if a soldier on the field said, "I am hungry" or "I am dying like a dog," the diplomacy of the enemy tower at once concluded from it that something must be amiss over there, though nothing of the kind was the case.

  20. 20

    From this arose misunderstandings of every sort, which, in the diplomats' view, could be settled only by the thoroughgoing extermination of the word and the concept "I."

  21. 21

    The proponents of this view carried the day, inasmuch as a fresh goncsargó gave the whole movement a new direction.

  22. 22

    Even during the war, a rift had appeared within the several towers — half the combatants wished to bring the war to an end; the other half wished to continue it.

  23. 23

    The two parties fell to fighting one another, at first tower by tower; later, perceiving the strength that lay hidden in confederation among the towers, the anti-war parties of the several towers made common cause with one another, in opposition to the bloc of the war parties, which likewise confederated across the towers, the better to carry through its own will: the continuation of the war between the towers.

  24. 24

    This war lasted a very long time, and on both sides a vast number of prisoners were taken as spoils — at last, by virtue of its greater store of arms and its crueler, more vehement assaults, the moderate, anti-war party prevailed, and forced peace upon its adversary.

  25. 25

    The Five-Man Council of the Plural Personal Pronoun, having thus prevailed, addressed itself to its second great task: the preparing and securing of peaceable labor.

  26. 26

    Here again disagreements arose: a part of the philologists, the first-person-singular pronoun having already been abolished, demanded also the extirpation of the first-person-singular possessive pronoun, arguing that the word "ours" rendered "mine" superfluous, and would besides resolve the economic question.

  27. 27

    In vain did the Conservative Party of Infants of Eighteen Months argue that a man knows the word "mine" before he knows "I," and that it is therefore the more universal in its significance — the revolution broke out irresistibly, and stirred to uproar the laborers of the lower parapets.

  28. 28

    Scholars came forward who demonstrated that the bulloks had, up to now, squandered a prodigious quantity of labor by building the tower story upon story — since, the object being to reach the surface of the sea, it was entirely sufficient to begin at once upon the topmost story, and to set about this labor without delay.

  29. 29

    To this end it was best that the bulloks who had built the foundation should climb up to the topmost story, thrust those above down into the cellar, tear down all that had been built thus far, and begin the whole again, up above, at the tenth story.

  30. 30

    For a time this view prevailed, the demolition was begun, and those who resisted were shut up in prison — until at last someone perceived that the whole scheme was worth nothing, for the bulloks who were to build the tenth story were still little children, unripe for the work, while the grown builders of the cellar understood nothing of it.

  31. 31

    Another solution had to be sought.

  32. 32

    Thereafter followed, in rapid succession, the various solutions proposed for the avoidance of the goncsargó, together with the trial and application of each.

  33. 33

    In the movements that thus succeeded one another I took a vigorous part, as a zealous citizen of Halvargó — I was a member of that society which, rejecting the empty contests over the personal and possessive pronoun, recommended instead the reform of the verb-forms and of tense-designation, and which for a time even rose to the ascendant with the program that every action occurring in the present tense must be regarded as though it were taking place in the future.

  34. 34

    Since their scholars had precisely calculated that, twelve hundred years hence, the bulloks would of necessity go about dressed in such and such a fashion, would live thus and so, would desire this and that, would live under such and such a form of government, would paint such and such pictures and write such and such poems, would eat this and that — it was plain that we should save a great deal of time were we to put these results of exact calculation into practice at once, and to act as though those twelve hundred years had already elapsed.

  35. 35

    The Foresighted Social Rubber-Stretcher Party did indeed come to power, and for two days everything went off like clockwork, and would have gone on doing so, had not a sudden epidemic of intestinal catarrh, and its unpleasant consequence, put an end to the matter: the leaders, overcome by the dreadful stench, grew dizzy, and were compelled to yield their places, though maintaining their position that the calculation had, for all that, been perfect, and that they had merely overlooked the catarrh, for which they themselves were not to blame, but rather the sudden turn of bad weather, which had unexpectedly overcast the sky by afternoon — one really could not demand of scholars that they foretell what the weather would be an hour hence, when they were obliged to think a full twelve hundred years ahead.

  36. 36

    After this the Last-Year's-Snow-Refreezing Society took over the government, which, having learned from the memory of the dreadful devastation wrought by the Rubber-Stretchers, raised upon its banner the view that, since the future cannot be known, whereas the past can, it were best to begin again at that point where matters had been left off sixteen hundred and forty years before.

  37. 37

    In accordance with this, everyone was obliged to return to his place of legal residence — the debtor was released from paying his debt, while whoever had in the meantime come into money had it taken from him and given over to whomever it had belonged sixteen hundred and forty years before.

  38. 38

    Thus, under these successive powers, everyone came by something; only those fared ill who wished to live as though the third of June were indeed the third of June, and not the ninth of September or the eighteenth of March — these the Rubber-Stretchers and the Snow-Freezers alike punished, and shut up in prison.

  39. 39

    The lesser and greater collective movements followed hard upon one another, and, alongside them, magnificent ideas, as the science of society, the study of the bulloks, and the doctrine of tower-defense continued to develop.

  40. 40

    There were some who, breaking with the earthbound view of the monists, flayed one another's skins on the ground that the bullok is no witless, bloodthirsty beast, but a twofold being, soul and body, governed, alongside the ordinary selection driven by the struggle for existence, by cognition and insight — others again, keeping before them the interest of race-protection and race-improvement, proved that a bullok's worth, from a moral standpoint and a standpoint of silkworm husbandry alike, is determined by who his father and mother were: who he himself may be, or whether he is in the world at all, being wholly immaterial, just as at the racecourse we likewise put our trust in the racing horses according to what family they are sprung from.

  41. 41

    Thinkers and writers were driven from their places, and into their places there came a peculiar breed of chemists who, according to certain factions, had demonstrated those traits in men's thought and conduct which might be inferred in advance according to where they were born: this they then christened world-outlook.

  42. 42

    Later this science grew exceedingly refined: it set the bulloks against one another on the basis of various properties; it came to light that the growth, color, odor, and consistency of the hair, the ears, and the nails stood in close correlation with the bullok's nature and intention — and so there fell to fighting, first, the short of stature and the tall, then the prominent-cheekboned and the sunken-eyed, the fair and the dark, the fat and the lean.

  43. 43

    Later, unhappily, some confusion set in, owing precisely to the overdeveloped knowledge and sensibility of the apostles of anthropology and race-lore: in the last great struggle, in which vast numbers fell, were made homeless, and lost everything they had, and which was fought between two breeds, the Nose-Wart-Bearers and the Forward-Bent-Earlobed, it came to light that there were some who had both a wart upon the nose and a forward-bending earlobe, and others again to whom neither trait applied at all — so that, from this point of view too, it proved impossible after all to divide the whole of bullok-kind into two parts, that the great war of world-outlook might be fought out to good effect.

  44. 44

    The whole matter had to be begun again from the beginning — once more they returned to the naive folk-belief which takes the patches of mist for oihas, and the common peril, the goncsargó, for the punishment of providence.

  45. 45

    At the time when — as we shall presently see — I was compelled to leave Capillária without warning, the great struggle stood exactly at this stage, and thus I saw it last: what has happened since then I do not know: my last recollection, then, concerns this great upsurge that had come about in the politics of the defeated Halvargó.

  46. 46

    A goncsargó government took over power, and founded the First Goncsargó League, in opposition to the unbelievers; a Goncsargó Consumers' Institute was established, a Biochemical Shoe Factory, in other words the Political Governing Party of the Goncsargó-Believers, which strove with great force to establish order within the tower.

  47. 47

    I myself, who had taken part in a fair number of battles, stood at first, on account of my unknown origin, under suspicion before the Goncsargó Party: later, however, by means of a lecture which I delivered under the title "The Goncsargó Tendency and the International Spread of the National Idea, with Especial Regard to Ears Torn Off by Machine-Parts," I struggled back once more to the surface, at the side of Xa-ra, who, at this time, while maintaining his own principles, was once again a leading and guiding figure of power.

  48. 48

    The story of my deliverance from Capillária, told in a few words, amounts to this.

  49. 49

    One day there appeared before me an emissary of the government, who called upon me, as one versed in the oiha-question, to take upon myself the leadership of a delegation which Halvargó was dispatching to a tower lying at some considerable distance, where the astronomers had signaled a goncsargó, and from which we had been asked for troops to help restore the order that had there broken down.

  50. 50

    I accepted the honorable charge, and one morning we set out upon our way.

  51. 51

    Our journey lasted for days, and we had many obstacles to overcome — at last, however, we reached the tower in question, into which we were to have marched.

  52. 52

    But the insurgents surrounded us, disarmed my escort, and, before I could so much as cross the gate, arrested me as a traitor and cast me into prison.

  53. 53

    It was not given me to serve out my term of confinement pending inquiry, for in the meantime the goncsargó struck: the greater part of the bulloks perished, and the rest fled.

  54. 54

    I quitted my prison in the dead of night, its guards having vanished from beside me — dreadfully spent and racked half to death, I took my way in some uncertain direction, forever skulking and fearful lest I fall once more among hostile bulloks who, ignorant of the situation, might have adjudged my deliverance a mere escape, and simply shot me through the head, or plucked from my ears the gills fastened there, whereupon I should have drowned.

  55. 55

    A patrol did indeed take up my pursuit, but I made good my escape, and the coral forest afforded me its shelter.

  56. 56

    At dawn the ground began to rise; I clambered upward in the light that filtered down, and at last gained the summit of the mountain, where, spent and pale as death, I collapsed.

  57. 57

    I felt that I was undone, that there was no escape, that I could go nowhere, that no one would take me under protection — the oihas had driven me out; the bulloks sought my death: wretched, I must perish.

  58. 58

    I fell to praying aloud, and cursed my fate and my own folly, which, after so much bitter experience, had once more roused in me the desire and itch for travel.

  59. 59

    I believed I was living out my last moments, and that I should never again behold my beloved country, and I was already very near to tearing off my gills and shortening my sufferings, when a fearful roaring, and thundering, and quaking, brought me to myself.

  60. 60

    At the same instant the ground shook beneath me, and a boiling foam burst up at my side.

  61. 61

    It seized me with monstrous force, swept me along, rolled me over and over, and flung me upward — I gasped for breath, and lost my senses.

  62. 62

    In truth a very simple thing had befallen me; it was only the peculiar circumstances that made it extraordinary.

  63. 63

    I came to understand the connection only later, and I set it down here beforehand, by way of explaining my strange adventure.

  64. 64

    The mountain upon which I had come to rest was one of the volcanoes of the sea floor: that which had swept me up was the eruption of that volcano.

  65. 65

    The lava, which stiffened at once in the water into a white foam, lifted me up, and, while I drifted through it senseless, lodged in my limbs so lively a force as sufficed to cast me out upon the surface of the sea.

  66. 66

    When I came to myself, I found myself upon the narrow reef which the outpouring foam had formed at that place, and which the waves rocked gently and bore slowly northward.

  67. 67

    My gills were no longer upon me.

  68. 68

    I looked about me, rubbed my eyes, and gazed in wonder into the Sun and into the bell of the blue sky, which for so long it had not been given me to behold.

  69. 69

    It was toward evening, the sky was cloudless, and land I saw nowhere.

  70. 70

    After four-and-twenty hours of tossing about, a cruiser discovered me, and rescued me from my desperate plight.

  71. 71

    On the first day I felt no sign of that disorder of the nerves which afterward broke out upon me, and which, as a temporary derangement of the mind, I recall today only with shame.

  72. 72

    It was only when we made land, and the cruiser's captain inquired after my identity and my adventures, that I perceived I was no longer the man I had been.

  73. 73

    I found the smell of men insupportable; to the captain's question I answered in the oiha-tongue, the strange shriekings of which so astonished the good man that he sent for the ship's surgeon to examine me and place me in some hospital.

  74. 74

    I, however, before this could come to pass, took to my heels and made my escape into the town.

  75. 75

    I learned that I was in France, near Marseille: examining my pockets, I discovered some gold coin, which my long sojourn beneath the sea had not sodden through as it had my clothes and my boots.

  76. 76

    With this money I bought women's garments at a shop, put them on in secret, set false hair upon my head, reddened my mouth, and thickly powdered my face with rice-powder, after the fashion of the fair women of Marseille.

  77. 77

    I recall only dimly these and similar follies which I committed in the weeks that followed.

  78. 78

    Even this little that I do remember came back to me only some weeks later, when, in the madhouse at Dover, whither I had been shut up, I had rested myself somewhat, and, in the hours of my convalescence, related to my physician, the kindly and understanding Mr. Fox, the origin and history of my delusions.

  79. 79

    I owned, penitent, that, my brain tormented and turned inside out by the sufferings I had undergone among the bulloks, some confused and deranged resolve, or rather an obsession, had in those first days taken possession of me — that I should be a man no more, or if I were, only that I might take up arms against the oppressor and enslaving tyrant of the human race, namely woman — that I would take up the fight with her own weapons, with indifference and with falsehood — that in disguise, under a woman's mask, I would insinuate myself among them, spy out their secrets, and, being possessed of these, set free my unhappy and ignorant fellow bulloks.

  80. 80

    These follies I relate with shame, and related them, even then, to the good Dr. Fox.

  81. 81

    Having rested from the fatigues of my strange journey, I spent yet a few more weeks in the asylum, at the close of which, my speech being heard to be rational, and upon the opinion of the physicians, the directorship pronounced me cured.

  82. 82

    On the fourth of March, 1922, I left the institution, and a few days later, on the tenth of March exactly, arrived in my native town of Redriff, where I found my wife and children in good health.

  83. 83

    End of Gulliver's Sixth Voyage

The particulars

The text
Utazás Faremidóba / Capillária, Frigyes Karinthy. Capillária.
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Public-domain Hungarian (Karinthy, d. 1938; published 1916 and 1921). English translation © 2026 1732 Studios, LLC.
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Digital narration, directed by 1732 Studios.
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Our English translation, complete.
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Two whoopie pies and a pine. An inside joke.