Gulliver's Fifth & Sixth Voyages 1732 Studios

Hungarian · Capillária

Kilencedik fejezet

Chapter Nine

105 sentences

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  1. 1

    The Author pays a visit to the bullok-settlements.

    Látogatásvisitlátogatás · noun, nominative, singularhead of the phrase
    athea · determinerdeterminer of bullok-telepen
    bullok-telepenat the bullok-settlementbullok-telepen · noun, nominative, singularsubject of Látogatás
  2. 2

    Of the bullok-artists.

  3. 3

    Space and time.

  4. 4

    My mistress's singular opinions concerning the human race.

  5. 5

    Body and soul.

  6. 6

    The sixth and seventh senses.

  7. 7

    Upon one of the days that followed, Opula gave me such an explanation of this whole intricate question as, notwithstanding that it might be clearly understood, stood in such contradiction to all my belief and knowledge, that a long time passed before I recovered myself, at least so far as a man requires to set his thoughts in order.

  8. 8

    My mistress was at that time visiting bullok-settlements under construction, and she permitted me to accompany her.

  9. 9

    In the flickering green light a whole row of Babel-towers swayed uncertainly in their building — a new suburb to the capital of Capillária, the work of bullok-multitudes laboring stubbornly and untiringly: each severally fashioning itself into a sky-storming ladder, so many attempts of one single thought, to gain at last that surface of the sea beneath which these hapless worms labor, and struggle, and perish, forgetting again and again that their end can never be attained.

  10. 10

    We went also into the inside of one of the towers: my mistress looked about her with an expert eye, and pronounced that this building, considered from the oihas' standpoint, would be complete within a few days.

  11. 11

    Three walls already stood high enough; should the fourth also reach them, she would give word to her friends, that they might come with their smoking-pots.

  12. 12

    It was touching to behold the bustle, the hurrying to and fro, and the labored striving of the little bulloks.

  13. 13

    Not even at Opula's appearance did they cease their work: only a few detached themselves from the ledges, came near, and swam about her, their tiny eyes staring wide.

  14. 14

    "They are observing me!" said Opula, smiling; whereupon, expounding her words, she added that among these little creatures there are some of an artistic bent, who adorn the wall of the tower under construction with drawings: these drawings, invariably and without exception, depict oihas, in singular postures, from which one might infer that in these small monsters there lives some glimmering intimation of beauty and happiness, of the true purpose of life.

  15. 15

    These little artists are despised and mocked by the laboring bulloks — Opula, imitating them with onomatopoeic sounds, gave me to understand that their fellow-bulloks call them "the pious," "believers": and the picture depicting the oiha, "idol," "god."

  16. 16

    The artists themselves signify the meaning of the image with a sound like "fate" and "destiny."

  17. 17

    From this I understood what Opula found perfectly natural, but what had hitherto been incomprehensible to me: why the bullok does not recognize in the oiha the sole enemy and expropriator of his labor, and why he does not war upon her, rather than tearing at his fellows.

  18. 18

    The bullok holds the oiha to be a higher being, a metaphysical power, an abstract conception that comprehends life itself — to struggle against her, therefore, according to his strange understanding, would be as much as to take up arms against himself and against life.

  19. 19

    The naive artist, among them as among men, calls this power god: he draws her likeness, and offers up, by his work, a sacrifice to her, that he may appease her and move her to hear him.

  20. 20

    I looked upon one such idol-image: bulloks were kneeling before it, who, at Opula's appearance, scattered in confusion, pointing at the picture, and jostling one another.

  21. 21

    I could relate what was the subject of this picture, depicting two oihas, only by circumlocution: thus much I may say of it, that were I to attempt to reproduce a copy of it within the text of the present work, the censorship of no country whatsoever would permit the publication.

  22. 22

    In short, the picture depicted a common obscenity, an indecent act: (besides the two oihas, several bulloks likewise figured in it) of the kind with which, among us, libertines are wont to entertain their little ladies, drawing them forth from hidden pockets at decisive moments, in the hope of thereby inflaming their ladies' imagination.

  23. 23

    With contempt and disgust I turned away, and entreated Opula likewise to cast her gaze rather upon the sweating, laboring multitudes of bulloks.

  24. 24

    I seized upon the occasion to hold them up as an emblem of that which I had hitherto striven in vain to instill into her with due reverence, that which I termed man's labor, man's understanding, man's will.

  25. 25

    Behold, I said, raising my voice: there is something that signifies more than happiness, more than pleasure, for which life itself may be sacrificed, some sacred calling of unknown purpose: duty.

  26. 26

    As Kant has it: the starry heaven above me, and within me the categorical imperative.

  27. 27

    These small creatures raise up a tower, that they may attain it — you destroy the fruit of their labor every time, but what does that signify?

  28. 28

    They set to it again, in faith and confidence.

  29. 29

    And is not this hopeless struggle fairer, more sublime, than to lie enervated, taking one's pleasure in the delights of life — is not this denial of life, for the sake of a fairer, higher life, worthier of the soul than to resign oneself to the endless present, desiring no splendid future?

  30. 30

    My mistress looked upon me in wonder, and observed that I made such outcries about space and time as she found exceedingly tedious: she begged that I would desist.

  31. 31

    High and low, past and future — these are follies, since we live through neither the one nor the other (nor, as she expressed it, enjoy them) — for the oiha exists neither deep nor high, but is there where she is, that is to say, in her own soul, at the center of the world, forever present and forever happy.

  32. 32

    As for the bulloks' longing after height, she found this not one whit more amusing or various.

  33. 33

    For what, after all, could they attain, in the best of cases, supposing that one of the towers were once to be completed?

  34. 34

    They would reach the surface of the sea — they might come out upon dry land, into that country of which I had spoken to her, and whence I professed to have my origin.

  35. 35

    But where, in this country, was that higher, happier form of life awaiting them?

  36. 36

    Up above, the bulloks are somewhat larger, but in essence, from all that I had set before her, she perceived them to be just as foolish (just as unhappy), if not more foolish, than down below.

  37. 37

    Somewhat more presumptuous, perhaps, that is the whole of it, and that they recognize and confess their own condition to themselves, if possible, even less.

  38. 38

    What I had related concerning marriage was, in essence, nothing other than bullok-breeding, as practiced in Capillária.

  39. 39

    That our bulloks creep into their tubes is altogether natural — our oihas wish it so, not suffering that by a display of their bodily nature they too should stir up desires, and upon that ground get themselves maintained for nothing.

  40. 40

    She could, moreover, prove, from my own confession, that our own poor bulloks likewise, in the depths of their souls, regard the oihas as a divinity, and that their denial of her superiority is but the unconscious feeling of having been worsted.

  41. 41

    Quite aghast, I entreated her to explain her words.

  42. 42

    Opula set before me my own confession, in her own construction of it.

  43. 43

    I had acknowledged, said she, that with the "woman question," as we call it — setting aside those few feminists, whom she considers not women at all, but merely degenerate men — so-called "geniuses" had, among us, occupied themselves: that, therefore, toward the solution of this question, which women resolve simply by their existence and their life, without any difficulty whatsoever — among men, at the very least, genius is required, intellectual excellence, an all-sacrificing diligence and exertion.

  44. 44

    How comes it that the mystery of the feminine soul is ever dissected by men, that a woman's character is analyzed by men: that the great achievements in this weighty science attach to the names of men, while women furnish only the data for this science?

  45. 45

    The inferiority of woman's understanding, the poverty of her spirit, I had sought to prove by this very fact, that behold, they cannot even define themselves — that to form any conception of them at all requires the genius of a man, since of their own souls they render no confession of their own.

  46. 46

    Upon this same ground, it might likewise be said that God is an understanding of a lower order than man's, since He has furnished no autobiography or character-sketch of Himself: what we know or believe of Him and His workings, men have discovered and determined — He Himself is silent, and acts.

  47. 47

    But the true believer is well aware that His silence, and our prayer, find their meaning in that very relation which subsists between God and man — that we have need of God, but God has no need of us.

  48. 48

    She maintains decidedly, that our great connoisseurs of women would rather be women than connoisseurs of women — and as for Strindberg, and the rest of the pessimists, who find the baseness of woman in this, that she would rather live her own life than rack her brains over what manner of man Strindberg might be, and how he might be made happy — for these, the grapes are simply sour.

  49. 49

    Furthermore, it appears that beneath every crack-brained theory and edifice of ideas there dwells in our bulloks some nameless yearning, that they too might become women, might "debase themselves," and abandon their Babel-towers.

  50. 50

    I myself had owned, that women love effeminate men better than men love masculine women — what else does this signify, but a longing after one single unified type of being, a longing toward "debasement," toward "sinking," toward "effemination" — in short, the dim homesickness of every earthly man for Capillária, for the floor of the sea, which hitherto it has been granted to me alone, to Gulliver, to know, and where a single sex lives, happy and serene, Nietzsche's Übermensch — but of this single sex, women bear a nearer resemblance than men.

  51. 51

    This same obscure instinct is not merely not refuted, but rather is proved, by that which I had spoken concerning "the love of like for like," this "unnatural vice," which occurs among us as well, among men and among women alike, in the form of a degeneration of love: — with this difference, that whereas women, exactly as in Capillária, love one another as women — the homosexual man seeks for his partner an effeminate man, gives him women's names, dresses him in women's clothing, so entirely that the question arises, if he seeks the woman even in the man, why does he not turn directly to the woman?

  52. 52

    And why does the libertine, whom I mentioned, display a naked woman's body to the woman whom he wishes to incline toward love: is it not for the very same reason that the bulloks paint their idol-images?

  53. 53

    For were we to believe that a woman, even in her soul, stood in as great need of a man as a man of a woman — had need of him, and did not merely make use of him as an instrument, for want of other instruments — then he would seek to kindle the woman by the seductive disclosure of his own nakedness.

  54. 54

    We use it in jest, the saying that a woman has bestowed her "favors" upon such-and-such a man, and we do not perceive how gravely, in reality, this stands.

  55. 55

    Saint Anthony was tempted by women in the desert, and he turned to God for succor — thereby acknowledging the woman as God, when he sent a power of equal rank into battle against her, feeling that he himself, in his majestic human nature, would be weak against that being whom otherwise we scarcely wish to acknowledge even as human.

  56. 56

    But why, then, do we hold tragic a man's longing after a woman, and comic a woman's panting after a man, if not for the very same reason that we feel the striving toward the more perfect to be tragic likewise?

  57. 57

    Opula fell silent, and I, who till now had listened with bowed head and a scornful ear, gathering within myself my counter-arguments, of a sudden looked up at her.

  58. 58

    Her countenance was calm and cold, yet so astonishingly fair, that the words stuck in my throat.

  59. 59

    For some moments I stood there, my heart pounding, and then, restless, trembling, I cried out in anguish:

  60. 60

    "But what, then, is this — what is it then — what does it signify, this confusion, this longing, this indeterminate and manifold will, this yearning after freedom in the hearts of the unhappy?

  61. 61

    Tell me, for I do not understand; give me some sign, show me the road upon which I am to set out!"

  62. 62

    Opula bent down, and with a practiced and dexterous motion of her hand caught up one from among the frisking little bulloks.

  63. 63

    She raised it and held it before my eyes.

  64. 64

    It was the first time I had beheld the strange small monster from so near.

  65. 65

    "Look here," said she calmly, and her transparent, pale-yellow fingers, like small flames, held fast the kicking little animal's waist.

  66. 66

    "Do you see this confused, intricate little mechanism?

  67. 67

    Originally, as you yourself explain, and as our legends likewise attest, it was a single organ, a part serving a single purpose of that great Whole which you, up above, call man, and we, down here, call oiha, that is, Woman.

  68. 68

    Its shape, in its rough outlines, still recalls, even today, its origin — if the description may be believed by which you have characterized, in the essence of its appearance, the earthly 'man.'

  69. 69

    This organ, this part of the Whole, detached itself from us, and set out upon a separate development.

  70. 70

    And it furnished itself with everything that belongs only to the Whole, and not to the Part: with eyes, and ears, and a mouth — see, it has fins too, and it has wings too — it wished to unite everything within itself; it believed that it would become perfect, if it assumed unto itself the form of everything perfect.

  71. 71

    But the wisdom of life cannot be overstepped, even by one who wishes to be wiser than life — and he who wishes to hasten faster than nature can hasten by no other road than nature's own — he may only outstrip her, but upon her own ground."

  72. 72

    "Do you not understand this plain discourse?

  73. 73

    From your ear, which you received from life, you may fashion a more perfect ear: for you have your telephones, and can stretch out your sense of hearing to a thousand miles — and you may fashion from your eye a more perfect eye, for you behold the moon at close quarters with your telescopes, and a swimming infusorian in the water becomes, to your microscopes, a whale.

  74. 74

    And your leg, which serves to move your body from where it stands, you may furnish with a railway and an aeroplane, that it may answer, a thousandfold more perfectly, the purpose to which nature ordained it.

  75. 75

    Behold, the natural road of perfection toward happiness: will, understanding, and insight in the service of nature, a holy trinity by which nature surpasses herself, when she manifests herself in her most perfect form, in man.

  76. 76

    All that is required is that we be clear on this one point: for what were the parts made, before we set about their perfecting?

  77. 77

    For he who would see with his ear and hear with his eye has strayed from this road, and will attain no result.

  78. 78

    This worm, this small particle of the wondrous oiha, rose up in rebellion against the Whole, and believed that it could rival her, could render her superfluous, could replace her, could overtake her."

  79. 79

    "Imagine that the ear should rise up in rebellion against man, should detach itself from him, should make itself independent, and begin a new life.

  80. 80

    However it may strive, it can truly do nothing but hear — it will never truly see, it does but deceive itself, it becomes a ridiculous deformity, a companionless, unhappy beast — it does not acquire that after which it yearned, and it loses that which it had: in its hopeless striving to see, it grows deaf.

  81. 81

    And thus it would fare with every other organ that wishes for something other than that for which it was made: if the eye wishes to hear, and the ear to see."

  82. 82

    "But reason..." I broke in.

  83. 83

    "Indeed, reason," Opula continued, and smiled.

  84. 84

    "What do you take it to be, and for what purpose?

  85. 85

    Could you say, precisely?

  86. 86

    I tell you, it is not for that for which you, over there, employ it.

  87. 87

    That intricate, exceedingly delicate organ, which trembles there, secretly, invisible even in our own tender body, in the graceful bony vessel of the skull, sends forth a thousand silken threads into every part of the body, gathering together joy and pain, and distributing them.

  88. 88

    And it labors to work up into joy and well-being and happiness everything that it has gathered — even pain itself, if you do not disturb it in its labor, and do not compel it to occupy itself with anything other than that for which it is made."

  89. 89

    "But consciousness... the sense of the self... that taut instinct to know the truth... the soul..."

  90. 90

    Opula smiled.

  91. 91

    "He who seeks something for the sake of the Self seeks not the truth, but only his own version of it.

  92. 92

    Leave the Self aside — we have spoken of an organ, which you call the brain — and this is not the Self; it is only a part of it — even if the most intricate and the most perfect part.

  93. 93

    Or else, what do you call it, over there — do you call your soul 'I'?

  94. 94

    No: you call it 'my soul,' do you not, thereby acknowledging that it is not you yourself, but only a part of you, just as you say 'my hand,' or 'my leg.'

  95. 95

    Leave the 'I' aside — with this intricate organ that you call the soul, you will never come to know who it is...

  96. 96

    But why do you disquiet yourself?

  97. 97

    For you use your hand and your leg, without any prick of conscience, for that for which they are made: use your soul in just the same way — for the happy contemplation of this one single being whom we, in one blissful cry, call oiha, and you, somewhat drily, call Man, the source of every joy, beauty, and rapture, and of the ascent to God, the very shape of every possibility: for in her resides every possibility, exactly as she stands before you, with hand, and leg, and soul.

  98. 98

    This is the soul's business and its task — for this was it made.

  99. 99

    Let it then perform its office, so long as it is able, and afterward let it rest — and then a new soul will come, to rouse our immortal body to new joy — for the soul is mortal, and the body alone immortal."

  100. 100

    "Man... soul... body... joy and sorrow... oiha..." I stammered — "... but if all is exhausted in this... upon whom, then, am I to lay it... upon which organ... who is to concern himself with Mankind... with the splendid race... with my fellow men... with women and with men... with Mankind, which has a calling upon this Earth... You speak only of Man... of the body... of hand, of leg... of eye and of ear... of the five senses which serve the body, which serve man... the soul you call the sixth... but who, then, will have a care for Mankind, if you engage the soul entirely for Man?"

  101. 101

    Opula smiled.

  102. 102

    I looked at her.

  103. 103

    "Have you, then, forgotten the seventh?"

  104. 104

    "Love..." I stammered, utterly annihilated.

  105. 105

    Opula smiled, and raised on high the bullok frisking in her hand.

The particulars

The text
Utazás Faremidóba / Capillária, Frigyes Karinthy. Capillária.
Translation
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.