Franz Blei (1871–1942) was an Austrian playwright, essayist, and critic who also translated many works into German. From 1908 to 1910, Blei edited the journal Hyperion, which was the first to publish work by Franz Kafka (who later became Blei’s good friend). Many of his works were erotic and religious, so The Big Bestiary of Modern Literature (1918), excerpted here, can be considered somewhat on the border of his usual mode of writing. When first published, The Bestiarium was not well received and, for a time, caused Blei to be excluded from the German book market. For the second edition, Blei adopted the name “Peregrin Steinhövel.” Today, many critics see it as an amusing literary history brimming with sardonic detail. But it is also a historical document, a kind of snapshot of the literary landscape. Some of the entries showcased feature now-obscure writers but are included because of Blei’s delightful and pointed gift for satire. Like any encyclopedia, excerpted or not, the Bestiary is meant to be dipped into, not read straight through. Until now only a thousand-word excerpt had been translated into English.
The Big Bestiary of Modern Literature
Franz Blei
Translated by Gio Clairval
SECTION I (INTRODUCTION)
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
UNDETERRED BY so many predecessors, I have in this bestiary made the attempt to give a short, as well as vivid and accurate, description of the living animals that the Lord was pleased to bring into the book world, inasmuch as they walk the lands of the German Language—for better and for worse. If we human beings, observing the specimens of this fauna, find it more difficult than ever to recognize the usefulness and purpose of God’s creations, then we should berate ourselves and not the Creator, because, being able to perceive much of the very meaningfulness of His work, we should also assume that even that which seems to be useless has a precise meaning. Given the short span, not only of our own lives but also of the objects of our observations, not to mention our limited means of comprehension, we should not be obsessed with the vain pursuit of deciphering God’s each and every intent.
And allow me to say one more thing to the skeptics who doubt the order immanent in the person of our Lord: that we shall not think ourselves heretical if we imagine God resting from His laborious day-and-night works, and, finding Himself in a merry mood, deciding to fashion our literary fauna, whose description I present here to the hypocrites as well as to my readers and friends, after trying sine ira, but multo studio to determine the species, the appearance, and lifestyle of each animal. I think I am now entitled to say that I have not overlooked any beasts of importance or notoriety and that I have gathered them all quite comfortably within the cage of my bestiary, or, more precisely, in this zoo—for imprisoning all these beasts in a single cage would mean to brave the extraordinary incompatibility of these animals. I would lock them up together only if I were interested in their mutual extermination, assuming God’s role, which is far from my intention. Nevertheless, should the reader reckon that an animal—or more—is missing in this bestiary, I feel confident to affirm that said animal is only familiar to the reader or his family, possibly as a local pet.
Otherwise, I choose not to mention such beasts for the following reason. There is a widespread microbe, the Bacillus imbecillus, which has many thousands of names in common life, but is always the same strain of bacteria that affects thick-skinned individuals of all social statuses and classes. At first the victim, thanks to the thick skin, only feels a pleasant tickling, but soon the infected person falls into complete dementia. This Bacillus imbecillus should be associated with the class of pathogens more than the animal kingdom; therefore it belongs to bacteriology and would be out of place in a bestiary.
I have knowingly left out some species—very few—so that learned reviewers can fully enjoy the pleasure of proving this to me, thus reaffirming the necessity of their existence. The animal lover as well as the animal hater also will immediately notice with pleasure the benefit of this succinctly written bestiary. This work renounces the verbose but pointless appendices that are peculiar to all the Natural History compendia about our literary fauna, instead offering easy-to-remember short phrases.
That being said, I agree with my dear friend Dr. Negelinus in thinking that this bestiary will soon be of no practical use, only to be valued as an antique curiosity. After all, there is every sign of an imminent terrestrial catastrophe, and then the little of the past that remains after this second deluge will be abandoned by most of the literary animals still living, with only sparse fragments available in paleontological museums. It is unlikely that a new Noah will come forth, who would good-naturedly want to build a saving ark for these creatures. Thus, the more urgent my task was to describe our animals while still alive.
As the reader will notice, I have abstained from any criticism of our creatures. We have to accept them as God created them, to Him alone the honor and the responsibility. In general, I only want to briefly comment on a recent heated debate: the question of whether our animals possess intelligence or not. There is no doubt that our ancient, extinct literary wildlife possessed intelligence to a great extent. Today’s animals, with very few exceptions, do not distinguish themselves for their intellect. Nevertheless, a new term has been invented to characterize our living beasts: it is the word “Intellectual.” The word was likely minted after the expression canis a non canendo (a dog is called a dog because it can’t sing). The truth is, our present-day animals, with a few exceptions, are quite emotional and not intelligent at all. Indeed, it can be observed that they act under the influence of undefined feelings; they have nothing but feelings and no common sense, not even in their particular fields of activity. To put it bluntly, they let themselves be ensnared by anyone who can skillfully spread some birdlime. Here is what some of our animals claim they will not do: think. They are therefore not to be called “intellectuals,” but more aptly “emotives” or “sensitivists,” who succumb to every opportunity they can grasp by means of their emotions. That which they sometimes call “thoughts” are in fact feelings. Our literary animals share this common error with today’s people.
More eruditorum, I am bound by the duty to thank those who have earned merits with this bestiary, in so far as they, like Hagenbecke with the fauna literarica, often with considerable sacrifices of time, money, patience and strength, have demonstrated interest in this endeavor, whether by discovering animals, or helping them to survive, or at least providing for the possibility of comfortable viewing via crates, preserves, cages, and containers. In particular, I would like to thank for such useful help, first of all, the dean of our literary crowd, a latter-day Hagenbecke, the equally intelligent and insightful Mr. S. Fischer-Berlin, then the multifaceted Mr. G. Müller-Munich, the always curious Mr. K. Wolff-Munich, the daring E. Rowohlt-Berlin, the cordial GH Meyer-Munich, the cautious A. Kippenberg-Leipzig, the persistent G. Kiepenheuer-Potsdam, the lively P. Cassirer-Berlin, and of course Herr Reiß. I thank all these gentlemen for doing their part in bringing some order to the collection of peculiar creatures issued from God’s many-forming hand, as we humans need order in our ignorance of the higher divine sense pervading the Creation on Earth. I must also thank my friend, Dr. Negelinus. I must thank him for his contribution based on special studies, in particular the description of the Fackelkraus, or Kinky Hare.
SECTION II (ENTRIES)
(ABRIDGED)
Altenberg, also “Peter,” exists for unknown reasons because of the mysterious whim that induced God to create a beast consisting only of a single organ: a hyperoptic, perspicacious eye made of a thousand facets—like a fly’s—each of which captures reality by fragmenting the visible world into minuscule images of great sharpness. Onto such a strange creature was of course bestowed only a short life. But against Nature and contrary to God’s purpose, this Eye, swollen with pride, fashioned something resembling a body. The beast became as result somewhat weak, as was to be expected, and the Eye known as Peter was tormented by a damning stream of annoyances, which resulted in damages to the Eye itself. Peter the Eye became so engrossed in the production of his own digestive system, that in the end he was able to see nothing more than the transient content of his own intestines: the Eye no longer reflected the surrounding world, but only the color of his excrements.
The Bahr (Hermann). There is one and only one, and this single item is kept in Salzburg. Its once sharp smell has changed into the gentler odor of holiness, and the beast’s horns, along with its fangs, have fallen off long ago, since the Bahr began to fear the Devil. In exchange for this loss, both mane and beard have grown over and over, which gives the creature a venerable appearance. The hiker who strolls across the Bahr’s reservation in the Unterberg Mountain can spot this unique specimen or even chat with it, for the Bahr is an exceedingly talkative creature, and, lacking a companion, it usually speaks to itself. Its wardens, like the very pious priest, A. B. C. Schmitz, always fear that the Bahr may kill itself, not after a bad fall but because of its continuous blabbering. In truth, the Bahr has fallen over more than once, without sustaining injuries, and anyway the beast falls on its knees at least twice a day. This sign of senile degenerescence is mistaken for piety by the devout Salzburgerians. Such a pious behavior, so rare among animals, never ceases to amaze the populace. A Capuchin monk, therefore, took the Bahr with him to Holy Mass, and the beast behaved in church exactly like its God-fearing minister, so that one could not say if the Bahr followed a Capuchin or a Capuchin followed the Bahr. All in all, the Bahr, during this pious visit, let its venerable mane fall over its small, sharp, and wise eyes.
Becher, or Beaker [possibly Ulrich Becher; unclear -ed.]. This thing does not belong in the Bestiary. The “Becher” is in fact a rocket used in modern fireworks, hence the alternative names “beaker” and “rocket-bird.” The latter appellation is the probable reason why this rocket is mistakenly kept as a pet. The only thing this item has in common with living beings is that this thing never works as its Creator wants. Loaded with any possible and impossible charges, the Beaker either does not ignite at all or it goes off at the wrong time; the rocket flies toward the audience instead of upward and vanishes with a puff, leaving behind—instead of a beautiful umbrella of sparks—a terrible stench.
The Benn (Gottfried) is a small venomous lancet fish, which is mostly found in the corpses of drowned people. If such cadavers are fished out in broad daylight, the Benn happily slithers either out the rear passage or the private parts. The Benn can also try to creep back inside the body through the same channels.
Bie (Oskar). The Bie is a crab with stringy moustaches and the apparent shape of a mollusk. This creature has lived for decades in the columns of daily newspapers, without losing an ounce of its innocence. The Bie feeds on dance and music. It builds a leaf-shaped, rapidly calcified shell once a month from the waste of German literature, and this shell the faux mollusk carries about with sudden backward movements. During this phase of its life, the Bie is very much appreciated by fishermen.
The Bierbaum (Otto Julius), also called “Beertree,” or even Birnbaum (the “pear tree”), as pronounced by the inhabitants of the Saxon-Meissen, was a plant made of cardboard, bookbinder glue, papier à main, and flyleaf. Its fruits were those sugar syrupy crunchy bonbons made of tragacanth gum. Children used to lick the fruit and cry, “How sweet!” This paper pear-tree was a beloved centerpiece on stage at the turn of the twentieth century puppet theater during the German cultural boom. Old and young sang folk songs and old favorites in the shadow cast by its paper-clad leaves and danced with grace, arching and bending their legs, both Christians and Jews as well as Berliners, mischievous and impish, “à la Bieder” or “à la Meier,” with their ornate productions of ring-around-the-rosy—circling reverently the trunk mounted on cardboard, as it symbolized the German Oak. It was impossible to make more poetic an impression than standing under the Beertree in 1902. The ax of war did not strike down the plant. A long time before, the cardboard tree had already been put away deep in the junk-room of German Poetry.
Blei (Franz), or the Lead. The Lead is a fish, smoothly diving and floating in all the fresh waters one can find, owing its name—middle high German blî, old high German blîo = clear—to the transparency of its skin, the exceptionally smooth and thin hide through which the food becomes visible with all its color. One can always see what the Lead has just eaten, and if the color of the food is lively, the Lead becomes entirely invisible, and only the food remains to be seen. Our fish eats a very varied diet, but always fastidiously picked, which is why, in analogy to the pig, this creature is called “the truffle fish” due to its ability to track down the most exquisite treats. Captured and trapped in a bowl, the Lead often serves as decoration in ladies’ boudoirs, and, because it gets easily bored, it creates quite perfect tricks for the spectator’s amusement, using fins and tail. But that is truly a misuse of this freedom-loving fish, which is unfairly prevented from hunting for its own pleasure and dietary needs. A curious friendship is maintained by the Lead with the Carthusian Crab, as well as with the Red Pike, but the nature of these friendships is not yet sufficiently understood to be part of a definitive report. Especially since the true Carthusian Crab is very rare and the most nonsensical fables circulate about the Red Pike’s lifestyle.
Paul Bourget. In its green youth, an impeccably ironed, fashionable trouser crease proclaimed that the pants’ content would hold its promise. For a short time. So, for a long time, all the salons were dominated by crowds of iron-pressed trousers—those places where, for generations, people have known that no thighs or calves exist any more, only pant creases. At the very last, and shortly before the inevitable kinks could appear even in the best-quality trousers, this tailored piece, as it always happens in France, turned into a tailcoat and entered the Museum of Fine Arts.
The Brod [The Bread], or also Maxbrod, is the last fashionable pet in the synagogues. It is harmless and takes food from the hand, even when irritated. From this fact one can form a conclusion as to its suitability as a religious animal. Some want to predict that the Maxbrod will one day enjoy the same veneration as the Martin Buber, the famous sacred animal of the Jews. But the small, not at all imposing Maxbrod lacks the stature to fulfill the function, so a greater effort is needed here. In other words, the size of the garden trellis is not augmented when you cut through the climbing twine and take the arch apart. In other words:
The Browning (Robert). So was called the giant whose one leg was much shorter than the other. This made his gait eccentric, the more so as he walked like a real Englishman, which he was. Not like the dwarf Tennyson, who had of a giant the one gigantic leg, and always took himself seriously, but whom our giant just considered stubborn, which he was.
The Burte (Hermann). This is a Black Forest hart, and a solitude lover. He is endowed with an inordinate number of antlers, which are interlocked like crosses. His own strength impresses him greatly. His voice is so powerful the can make his own echo resound no less than seven times.
The Chesterton (G. K.) uses its legs only when he thinks nobody is paying attention. In public, the Chesterton makes a point of always standing on its head, and has perfected this position to a virtuosity that allows the beast to run at any pace whilst on the head: the Chesterton can stroll, walk, stagger, swagger, march, bounce, jump, run—any possible gait—on its head. To the faithful’s great distress, the Chesterton, la tête terrible not la bête terrible, loves to display its nimbleness on all occasions, particularly in churches during worship. The Chesterton believes its particular on-the-head position offers the irrefutable proof of God’s existence.
Cabell (James Branch). This is the victory scream of a magical American horse. Its soul is limitless and its thought encompasses the entire horizon. Even though its body gleams like malleable silver, its hardness surpasses that of steel. Inconsequentially, our springy horse’s cry sounds like laughter. Perhaps the Cabell was the same Centaur that swam across the ocean two-thousand years ago, and then happened upon the land where houses are as tall as forests. The nation where the Great Pan was resurrected as Whitman—oh, yes, Cabell is that Centaur.
Conrad (Michael Georg). The Conrad belongs to Paleontology as it is long extinct and only a few bone fragments remain. The items displayed in the Munich museum confirm the assumption that this creature was a microcephalic dwarf bull, with a wooly, flax-yellow mane sprouting around its ears. German-nationalistic associations used its horns to fabricate drinking horns, but these proved to be useless, because as soon as any beverage touched these recipients, the liquid vaporized into foaming bubbles.
The Courthsmahler (Hedwig) is a louse that lays a million eggs in a second. She prefers to do this in cinema booths, where she is sure to find protection and sustenance for her numerous offspring. In department stores, the oldest shopwomen spread Courthsmahler’s eggs on slices of bread as a caviar ersatz.
The Däubler (Theodor) is a robust jellyfish that lives in the Adriatic Sea and is predominantly silver gray, but can also change color at will. The organization of its intestinal threads is extremely intricate. Often, this creature does not know itself and becomes too involved in efforts to unravel its own complexity. In doing so, the Daübler ends up trapped in the folds of its own bowels, forever losing the ability to change colors.
The Döblin (Alfred). This is the name of an admirable and magnificently built beast, which stands and strides firmly upon its four legs. He has the peculiar habit—which manifests itself on a few occasions, and always for a short duration—of standing on his left front paw, placing his head between his legs, to gaze at the world upside down. This position gives him the impression that the world is extremely filthy, either because it is so, or only because of the proximity of our animal’s nether regions. The Döblin quickly rectifies this position on his left paw because it does not suit his temperament, and if we can then see this creature for what it really is, as he strolls happily down his good, straightforward path: a strong, enduring, excellent animal.
The Einstein (Albert) is part of the study of comets, inasmuch as the Einstein is a tailed celestial object or wandering star in the metaphysical heaven, from which, at times, in an inexplicable manner—as its path is unpredictable—it strays into the earth’s atmosphere. Here it ignites with sparks and roars. Its appearance above our planet is catastrophic for bourgeois brains, the mushy substance of which boils with anger upon spotting the Einstein so near to Earth. The Einstein is therefore forced to continue its metaphysical course, whose trajectory is unknown, even by his sharpest observer Rowohlt.
The Paulernst is the name of a persistent type of tapeworm, which still continues to be expelled by the corpse of the well-known, long dead Friedrich Hebbel. The tapeworm’s droppings are perfectly harmless, but if someone happens to see one of them, she may be seized by horripilation of an inconceivable intensity, which is expressed in spasmodic yawning. To demonstrate the complete harmlessness of these excretions, the well-known Munich zoologist Georg Mueller collected a few samples. But he could not cure anyone from their delusion. Perhaps this will only happen when the complete collection of the Paulernst’s droppings becomes available, but this may not be possible, for our Paulernst is a very long tapeworm.
The Eulenberg (Herbert), or “the Owls’ Mountain.” The Eulenberg is a wretched jinxed bird of the owl family. This bird has tried to build its artistic nest in the ruins of baroque, rococo, or Biedermeier palaces, or other castle styles. But since it has always been discovered and driven out, it has renounced the project of building a nest of his own, and since then it has been living inside the limits of other birds’ shadows. Permission was granted to him to live in this place, even though there is no one in the sun, and he is also allowed on occasion to defile his refuge within someone else’s shadow in an abominable manner.
The Eucken (Rudolf Christoph). This enigmatic word can be found engraved on all the cowbells of German Ideal-Idealism. The ringing of these engraved bells is recognizable by a hollow, beautiful sound. The animals adorned with these Euckens are designated in the Austrian butchers’ lingo as “little knuckels,” meaning that their flesh is very lean and can be eaten without roasting.
The Fackelkraus (Karl Kraus), or “Kinky Torch,” has a nature contrary to Nature, as this beast is born from the waste of the enemies it wants to destroy. Because of its unclean birth, the Fackelkraus is always having fits of rage. The F. is distinguished by its ability to imitate people’s voices, in various ways: it imitates the voices of prophets and poets to feel their equal and to be taken for one of them, but other people can be impersonated, too, to mock and destroy them. Before the (Frank) Wedekind’s extinction, our Kinky Torch was its friend and stood on a raised podium to observe the Wedekind’s mating rituals and also its bodily excretions. The F. then applauded with thunderlike noises in order to be heard. When it explodes in fury, this beast becomes extremely malicious, to the point of toxicity, whenever it suspects that others could be heard in its stead. This the beast can’t abide. In order to prevent others from being heard, our creature either praises its competitors, or it derides them. In both cases the F. uses a high-pitched, sonorous screeching voice, to make sure everyone can hear. It must be remembered that the Kinky Torch has no nature intrinsic to itself, for it is nothing but a voice, and as a consequence only exists for as long as someone listens. Knowing this and fearing death, like every living creature does, it has skillfully practiced so that its voice will be heard for long periods of time. In anger, the F.’s voice is particularly elaborate, because, for fear of being ignored, the animal screams at new, never-heard-before octaves. If it realizes that someone is listening, the F. becomes very proud of itself and starts all over again. Fashioned out of its enemies’ excrements, the breath of a Kinky Torch offends every nose. But because the creature believes that by destroying bodily waste it can destroy enemies, it angrily eats enormous amounts of turds. That is why the Kinky Torch is a useful animal, even though only people born without olfaction can endure its vicinity, because the outstanding Fackelkraus can destroy vast amounts of excrement.
The Frank (Leonhard). The Frank is a shellfish without a shell, despite the fact that the harsh environment the Frank lives in should require a shell to protect its very soft, delicate body. Unfortunately, the softness extends to the Frank’s mind, and does not allow our beast to form a firm shell by exuding a hard substance, of which it is in theory capable. All that the Frank can do is to gaze with dove eyes at the encroaching and punishing surroundings, and pray that they may become as beneficent as the Frank is. One must believe that the Lord is pleased to have created a Saint Francis of the Beasts.
The Friedell (Egon). Not to be confused with the Ferret [Frettchen], as our beast is more akin to the archaic Enu, a Megatherium from the group of Polisponges. Feeds mainly on Chesterton, Kierkegaard, Shaw, Hegel, Nietzsche and other herbs. With its great head, the F. digests everything perfectly; the noises emitted by this creature during digestion are widely feared, as from a distance they can be mistaken for humor.
Hackel (Eduard). This is the name of the god on whom the freethinker takes oaths. For here a human being has truly become God, by grace of nothing outside his insistence on telling the German what Darwin made damn sure not to tell the English, that the human is descended from a monkey. An enthusiastic German humankind climbed on the tree of such knowledge and applauded with all four legs. After some time of this awe-inspiring spectacle, some meaning had to come into the matter. And so the human ape invented Monism. And because this was happening in Protestant countries, monistic Sunday preachers soon appeared—naturally from the Land of Saxony. The monists recognize one another by the well-displayed genealogical tree.
The Hamsun (Knut), the most beautiful of the living Saurians, is a perfect music-box mechanism created by Nature. Despite the alligator size and the apparent awkwardness of the limbs, and despite the Hamsun’s predilection for brooding in a state of pensive tranquility, this beast possesses an incredible and improbable agility. Very shy, he lives hidden among the rocks. As it is told, it was actually only a single researcher who discovered this species when a stone quarry was blown up, and the Hamsun stood in a cloud of dust and steam. The legend was born that our animal was in reality a simple, honest, and fair-looking person skilled in geometry, with sparks of almost feminine genius. But this legend is likely to have been invented in a big city. Not even a Nobel prize succeeded in luring the Hamsun out of its cave. The beast has too large a mouth, which makes him suffer. It is an organ which, in the case of reptiles, allows these creatures to survive in different elements, but in any case it is developed in the shape of a pharynx. Since the Hamsun is shy, humble and modest, its large mouth mortifies it a great deal. For just at the moment when one cannot deny this animal’s beauty…the gaze lingers on the disproportionate maw.
The Gehauptmann (Gerhart Hauptmann). The Gehauptmann is the most corpulent quadruped of the German fauna, with an exceptionally small head, which grows smaller as the beast ages, while the body grows larger. The original form of this body can no longer be recognized. It is astonishing that four feet can bear all these humps, bulges, valleys, excesses, bumps, and tumors. In some parts of this body small feathers sprout, in others there are hairs; elsewhere, the skin is completely bare; in yet other places, it has sunken, or is petrified. The irregularity of our animal’s surface probably explains the fact that in some parts of his body debris have accumulated, which he carries patiently, and in another place a small meadow grows. Yes, there has been a tiny coal miners’ village for a time. But the Gehaupt. is so monstrous that its brain does not even notice what’s going on. Our beast only eats vegetables, in astronomical quantities. Meat makes it sick. Its little head often remains entirely invisible; often it abstains from performing any function. The above might explain the tremendous growth and the uncertain, fluctuating gait of our Gehauptmann.
The Hesse (Hermann). This is a lovely forest turtledove that cannot be found in her natural habitat any longer. Thanks to her gracious appearance, she has become a favorite caged bird, charming the beholder by the way she behaves, as if she still lived freely in her forest. In this way she gives to the city-dweller the impression of being in the wilderness, and the illusion is increased by tiny odoriferous glands, from which our Hesse secretes a smell that gently recalls the coniferous resinous scent.
The Hofmannsthal (Hugo von). This gazelle-like animal with beautiful fur, exceptionally spindle-shanked—solely created for the reason of having him parade proudly—is the product of an interesting cross-breed between an Italian greyhound bitch (from the breeder d’Annunzio) and a dog of the English Northumberland variety Swinburne. His birth was saluted with such amazement that—to use an expression usually applied to humans—he was compared to a wonder boy, which he remained as he aged, by virtue of this exceptional admiration, and even at eighty years of age, until death took him. This very precious, fragile species can breathe only artificial air, which is why every specimen has a subtly exquisite scent. The Hofmannsthal’s taste is so refined, given the fragility of his crossbred stomach, that he often eats nothing at all for months, so as not to bring to the most delicate intestines the danger of constipation, which is his secret pain. At such times he takes to lamenting from his silver terrace in a plaintive voice on the melancholy of a Sunday afternoon in July. Sometimes the Hofmannsthal expresses the desire for a trip to a rural hay meadow, where he can take a few humorous jumps, which makes the bystanders tear up with sadness, while the Hofmannsthal finds this frolicking very funny, even though he soon becomes exhausted. Back in the time the ladies called him Cherub, and this graceful beast still responds to this name, on the one hand, out of amiability, on the other from melancholy. It is one of our most beautiful animals.
Ibsen (Henrik). He was an apothecary apprentice. Pinching and turning the tablets between his fingertips, he became pensive, pondering about the people who ingested his preparations. And he was amazed at the fact that the customers gobbled down those tablets. So he began to sell his own recipes, the labels of which he received from the Parisian company Dumas Fils. The French company was well established in the small town, and granted credit to the little pharmacist who had created his own business. The raw materials of his remedies he procured in many ways, but especially from England. When his shipments remained stored in the small windowless warehouse of his northern town for too long, the tablets were covered in a thin coat of mildew, which however tasted just right to the Germans, to which he exclusively exported for some time. At first, secretly, then more boldly, and finally very ostentatiously, any German woman who was more or less misunderstood took Nora—or Heddapills. This trend made the fortune of a Swedish exporter who was able to sell tablets of better quality, which caused the little Norwegian pharmacist to fall out of fashion. The Ibsen considered this matter in his little shop, and came to the conclusion: nosce te Ibsen. And he quietly began to unravel the fraud he had perpetrated.
The Kafka (Franz). The Kafka is a very rarely seen, magnificent moon-blue mouse that does not eat meat, but feeds on bitter herbs. Its gaze is entrancing, because this mouse has human eyes.
Kipling (Rudyard). Thus was named the great cannon that was for the first time fired over the Queen’s tomb, and the echo of which was heard by the Boers as well as the Hindus, the Canadians, and the Australians. Finally, in 1914, the Kipling tore at everybody’s eardrums in every sense of the word. The fact that a little child from Lissau pissed his pants out of fear did not help the Kipling’s cause.
The Maupassant (Guy de). A Diver bird of the Gaviidae family, which brings pearls from the depths with infinite grace. These depths, however, must not be deeper than the profondeurs du cœur, or depths of the heart, as they were fathomed in Paris, 1880.
The Mallarmé (Stéphane). A fragile insect of amethyst-blue color, with spiritual features. It is enclosed in a piece of glass-transparent amber, which is unique given its crystalline structure. The amazing thing is that an insect would survive in such airtight, confined space.
The Meyrink (Gustav). The Meyrink is the only mooncalf that fell to the earth and was captured alive. Exhibitions were initially forbidden as the frightful sight provoked a few premature births, but today the Meyrink is temporarily put on display by his catcher and pregnant women are now allowed to see the exhibit. In the meantime, the women have grown accustomed to the horrific shape, so that they can endure the view, even with a smile of satisfaction. Austrian-Hungarian officers and National-German deputies wanted to ban the public exhibition of the Meyrink altogether, claiming that the one big eye distorted their reflection, as they put it. The owner of the specimen, however, proved that the reflection was not distorted at all, but those particular objects distorted the Meyrink’s eye. The number of visitors has diminished since many lunar calves have been spotted running about. We cannot be certain that those specimens fell from the moon, but they surely have fallen on their heads.
The Morgenstern (Christian) [The Morningstar] is, as everyone knows, the same as the Evening Star. It is only a matter of the time at which one gazes lovingly at the star, to name it as one thing or the other. In the morning, our Morning Star would have all sorts of beautiful and universal feelings, but in the evening he would no longer experience those moods. So, instead, he rehashed the same sentiments by means of satire, only to fall back into his stellar clichés the next morning.
The Mombert (Alfred). The Mombert is an invertebrate, and it is remarkable that this creature was able to transform its fairly small brain mass into ganglia. This exploit has had an influence on the animal’s vocal expression, which bears a striking resemblance to the babble of certain German lyricists. This peaceful and solitary animal has not taken any new nourishment since its first meal, and continues to ruminate only on that old food.
The Hansmüller. Thus the little Moritz Benedict called his kite, which he used to fly mostly Sundays on Firs Street. Since little Moritz had a lot of rope, the Hansmüller flew very high, so that children thought him a bird, while he was only a bunch of old newspapers glued together. Later on, the rope broke, and the Hansmüller fell on the roof of an old theater, where our kite is sometimes seen flapping in the wind. Now even the children know that the Hansmüller consists only of paper cuts.
The Thomasmann and the Heinrichmann. Both these animals belong to a family of medium-sized xylophages. They are of different colors but similar in their nature and mode of life. They are always found on the same tree, but living on the opposite extremities, since these two wood beetles cannot stand each other. If the Thomasmann drills from down up, then the Heinrichmann pierces from top down. If one finds the lime tree delicious, the other thinks it rotten, and vice versa. The strange thing is that they are always wrong about the tree. They believe they are exploring an oak tree, when they are sitting on a door made of pinewood. If they are convinced they are sauntering up a spruce, it might well be a limewood chest of drawers. Nonetheless, the fact remains that they loathe each other. It is only when the two beetles are placed on a wooden fountain pen that they cease scoffing, instead engaging in their preferred activity, diligently sliding up and down, always in opposite directions. As for their colors, the Thomasmann flaunts black-and-white striped wings, while those of the Heinrichmann are blue-white-red, with sometimes the red spots disappearing rapidly when humans approach. These red small dots can also be removed by rubbing lightly.
The Robertmüller. Providing an exact description of this ruthlessly hunted animal is rendered more difficult by the fact that the Robertmüller often changes his point of view, and does not always know exactly where he stands. To be precise, it should be emphasized, however, that his outlook is always from his own perspective. The Robertmüller is an American-trained racedog with wings. This dog flutters and runs in zigzags and nobody can catch him. Similar to the Celtic bloom of the Shaw, which grows on spectral Cymric shafts and changes its smell overnight, our animal is difficult to determine. Some say he is not an animal at all, but such impression might be one of his tricks. Others think that he descends from the Jensen, although his forepaws were not conceived for grasping, but were subject to a metaphysical tension that enabled the Robertmüller to spring into the air or into the future. Zoologists are still debating whether the deterioration of the beast’s forepaws is an advantage or a weakness.
Mencken (H. L.). This is the name of the most important living American zoologist, which means that—since Lowell was American, but not important—not only is the Mencken the most important, but also the very first one. Given his argute humor, it is regrettable that he has to deal with no better fauna than the mostly ridiculous North American, which is led by Presbyterian parishioners (and that is ninety percent of all U.S. citizens) into arid pastures.
The Meredith (George). This is an Anglo-Celtic synonym for unicorn. All the others, those that in this Christian age tried to assume this pagan beast’s allure, were pantomime costumes and cardboard cutouts. Only the Meredith was a natural unicorn, which like a god fathered gigantic females. The most famous among them is Diana. At times, the Meredith entangled his horn in telegraph wires, and had to free himself with many jokes, but without losing his graceful posture for a moment. When the Meredith was shown in Protestant Germany, the poetically trained Germany shied away from the mythical beast, for Germany only knew and loved the unicorn painted by Böcklin, with a virgin for good measure, and titled: “Silence in the forest.”
Munchausen. This is the name given to a heraldic joke which represents a creature composed of all heraldic animals. Inside the Munchausen has been inserted a music box which, activated by a string, makes a clarion melody.
The Musil (Robert). The Musil is a noble animal of powerful and harmonious build. Notable is the Musil’s habit to hibernate, despite its being appropriately assigned to the small family of the Fallow deer, in which hibernation is not customary. After every year of his life, the Musil sleeps for five years in an inaccessible forest. The lethargy seems to be necessary because of this animal’s unusual muscular power joined to the high-strung quality of his nervous system, which the Musil manifests during his waking year.
Nietzsche (Friedrich Wilhelm). He is perhaps the most important zoologist of the Natural History park. Not only because he identified George Sand as a creative writing handbook—“And how self-satisfied she may have lain there”—and Zola as “the delight in stinking.” Such sidelong glances at the insubstantial, in events of secondary importance, only demonstrate the impossibility of apprehending the incalculable distance between the animaliterate and the real writer, and fall like depth charges from an unknown surface into their own abyss. Hate against all that is prejudiced, when one has come to bring the sword, is what differentiates the positive person from the mere living being. And the positive person despises the art that arises from innate gifts, the talents, the art of the actor that moves across his space through continuous transformations, while time flows untapped by the gawkers’ souls as their minds cannot fathom how to grasp it. Thus, even the Europeans, and particularly the Germans, these gifted among the Jews, have become anything into which they can transform at the eleventh hour; they have become Christians, even Buddhists—but they are nothing at all. They do nothing seriously, these Germans. They play Nation and confession, war and peace, pit Potsdam against Weimar, Weimar against Potsdam, in accordance with the date in a symbolic Versailles: 1871 or 1918; and so they progress through purely external metamorphosis, by modulation, keeping their essential cores undisturbed, tethered to a still and stubborn time in space. But the fact is that they began somewhere with something, and to become serious in the end requires a life of paradoxes, for mere information does not suffice: Cesare Borgia as Pope. The zoologist Nietzsche’s evil reveals itself in the gladiatorial net in which the German buffoon ends up entangled, and it is the first concrete thing. Make this net a mirror, and one would look at one’s reflection and finally find pleasure in the thought of being imprisoned within the glass; this German who says “no” out of comfort, theatrical showiness, coquetry of the mind, would say “yes” to the very last things, in time. And Nietzsche, who makes fun of history, called this evil with the sweetest names, the most seductive for Nordic ears: he called it South, Italy, Bizet…And he was jealous of this south of the spirit, as of a geographical south—“I have seen broken lines in Sorrento.” Yes, the human being bending under the metaphysical guilt of the act of acting, Wagner or the German, or the European, to coalesce the flow of pure being into a concrete being, must do a very dangerous thing, a monstrous thing. How? Would this person’s conversion to the cross first happen in and through the Antichrist? (What did Nietzsche expect from Wagner?) In order for the ahasverish being to break out of his destiny, isn’t his first conscious “no” to Good, a latter-day saint, his first “yes” to life? The Cross as the premature, as the arrogated and the arrogance against an unknown life, as yet not possible, as yet historically not achievable, as the prejudice that we already have history, which should be baptized, as a religion, perhaps of the very last day, certainly not the present day: it remains as an impossible task the great rebus, against a perhaps already confirmed, yet premature, and thus immoral judgment on the instincts, a judgment from mouths singing on a Christian tone, making music before they have a language, there remains only the Herculean work of anticipating the Antichristian, in order to create a counter-antiquity in the liberal present, to allow a fullness of time, again and again.
Nietzsche’s evil is the historical ens realissimum, which alone can receive its own reality and consistency; it is the Renaissance of the demiurgical ages, the same phenomenon of humanism and the Reformation, here as antiquity, resurfaced as the Old Covenant; Renaissance as the “mystical” idea of all “education” in order to repeat the demiurgical “fullness of time,” the individual’s self-knowledge and self-conquest, but as a historical act, not on the path of historicism: Cesare Borgia as a pope, Paul’s identity of both prosecutor and apostle, and even in the Judaism of the traitor and “most credulous,” and in the Antichrist! The experiencing and overcoming of the demiurgic period as a hypothetical negation of the Logos, here torn into the eternal moment and into the historical present, in order to prepare for the completed knowledge of his theological overreach in the Church, in order to render its danger with the indifferentism without which the Advent neither fulfilled its concept in time nor in the soul: this is at the same time the presumption of the most noble and profound eschatological mystery and its integration into the individual—the Antichrist as the provocation of Christ. The last things and forms projected into the future have been discovered by the boldest Protestant as heuristic principles for the highest need of faith, to be turned by the almost superhuman against himself, against the phantomatic quality within the Übermensch, those principles representing the only and foremost aphrodisiacs used to achieve the amor Dei.
Peladan (Joséphin). Peladans are called the cheap bazar articles that are sold in shops for tourists on rue Rivoli in Paris, particularly to Saxon couples on honeymoon. The things are made of undefined, but anyway cheap material. There is Richard Wagner’s head as a cigar cutter, the Flying Persian as a box for sewing spools, Siegfried who Blows the Horn as a cane handle, Isolde as a cigar holder, etc. The couples who purchase these items see in these Peladans a marriage of Gallic wit and German emotional depth.
The Polgar (Alfred). This is a fine, silent, silvery-gray mouse, particularly agreeable to behold when the wise animal runs over the tuneless lyre of time, carefree in a studied way, producing a little tinkling filled with longing and dust. Most consider the Polgar to be harmless, but our investigation has shown that the delicate powder gnawed by our animal from the house foundations contains, in a very finely dispersed and weakened condition, ecrasite (an explosive material unaffected by moisture, shocks, or fire). The Polgar viennensis builds small nests of thought called philigranitic works of art, because of their strange blend of fragility and long-lasting filigree, made of tiny absurdities and malaises, inevitable newspaper sheets, lyrism and witticisms, along with beautiful red-blood corpuscles of a better life.
The Ringelnatz (Joachim). He came swimming under the bordeaux-colored oceans, between bottle and battle, God only knows whence. He abruptly dropped in the deepest part of the ocean the highest peak of a joke. Perhaps the Ringelnatz descends from the wanderer Rimbaud’s loins, somewhere between Abyssinia, the Lower Rhine, and the rest of the world.
Rabindranatagore is the name of India reduced to the level of Europe. In the long run, the weak remainders of the Indian wall could not resist the onslaught of English Biblical societies, American theosophists, Saxon natural apostles, French Bergsonians, and Prussian monists. Dying India produces by herself that from which she died, and this process is called Rabindranatagore.
The Rilke (Maria Rainer). Zoologists and botanists are currently disputing among themselves whether Rilke belongs to the animal or plant kingdom. The Botanists, who do not wish to deal with the Rilke, assign the beast to Zoology. The Zoologists, who do not wish to deal with this creature either, assign it to Botany or to Agriculture; and the zoologists say that the Rilke lacks the right blood, which legitimates their turning the thing away, and again the botanists say that the Rilke has an animal’s dentition, which the species uses to repair lines of poetry of any length wherever there is no articulation, either melodic or rhythmic. And this strange part at least should be admitted. Strange, too, is the circumstance that the Rilke is only female, although certain external sexual characteristics, such as facial hair, have a male character. Still, these characteristics, like the Rilke’s beard, are gently, sadly downturned, as if they do not want to be there, as their presence can only cause embarrassment. These features are also contrasted by the high-pitched feminine voice of the Rilke, which tends to die out in a whisper. Like the Werfel, the Rilke is popular as a parlor pet, but more for older ladies because of the Rilke’s sexual cleanliness, a purity which triggers the delightful word “heavenly,” so loved by those ladies. Among seven such ladies you can always meet the Rilke as the seventh. In order to emphasize her gender, she likes to put on a bonnet, which, as the ladies exclaim, is “heavenly.” Because of this continuous exaltation, our beast has gotten into the pedantic habit of putting her nose into theological books, Marian legends, and the like.
Ruskin (John). This is the name of a prophet, who, sometimes, without any sexual motivation, would turn into an English nanny, and, as such, played out every ecclesiastical art against the Church. Governor Ruskin suffered from a chronic moral headache. The prophet wrote with his right hand what the governess’ left hand did not want to write. In Germany he is only appreciated in his capacity as a nanny, for here we are moral, honest, chaste, and so on and so forth.
Shaw (George Bernard). It is the name of a gardener who turned himself into a buck. The Shaw is, in fact, a zoologist who fancies the animal guise, although he always ends up transforming back into a gardener. While performing comical cartwheels, he takes the drollery out of them by trying to explain their meaning. For some time, it was debated whether “Shaw” was a pseudonym for Trebitsch, because of a certain philological incommensurability. Until it was ascertained that the Trebitsch cannot even pronounce the name of Shaw, let alone carry it.
Schnitzler (Arthur) is the name of a racehorse that runs in the Freudenau, out of the Fischer stable. This horse was in its glory days a favorite with all the ladies and the little darlings of Vienna because of his melancholy temperament. People would bet on Schnitzler out of sympathy, even if everyone knew in advance that he would not even place. Because Schnitzler was so popular, and the little darlings’ granddaughters continued to go to the Freudenau, it was agreed in the Jockeys’ Club, that Schnitzler, whenever he ran, in any race, would always be third, even if he gave up after the first lap. Long may he run.
Steiner (Rudolph) [der Stein: the stone]. “Saxa loquuntur,” claims that part of humankind who, after purchasing the price of admission cashed in by old Noah, climbs onto the ark, whose future lies not on water, but on the Steiner. The salesman lures: Quickly, quickly! It’s going to rain, and the flocks run. In hoc petro [sic]—“You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church”—capitalism was built, what he may call his church, and, behold, the stone multiplied and became the Steiner. And all the debris and the mud of the foundered, trodden souls gathered around him, or her, or it—this enormous joint stock religious company, which dismantled everything into pieces, everything that had ever been thought and formed as religious—distorted, diluted, baked, and chewed for toothless mouths. Such was Sophia, to whom Theos was to give his blessing. But God’s blessing was only for Steiner, as formerly it was for Cohn.
The Steffen (Albert). This is an apocalyptic animal and currently exists as only one specimen, more fabled than scientifically observed. But his existence is not to be doubted. The Steffen has only one eye, but can move it from a place on his strangely shaped body to any other place. He keeps his sex hidden. He has wings, but these are so attached that he cannot fly. He has legs but he does not make much use of them for reasons not yet ascertained. Most of the time the Steffen crouches, plants his one eye in the middle of his face, and lets a whole world reflect strangely in the pupil.
The Stehr (Hermann). This is the name of a large maggot that has been discovered in the Gehauptmann’s coffin. His conspicuous size led to the assumption that he had only accidentally entered this peculiar environment. It has therefore been attempted to place the Stehr, very carefully, in other living conditions, which was achieved, albeit rarely. But the Stehr has remained a maggot.
The Storm (Theodor). One cannot say of him that it is long dead, for this creature has never existed other than in a stuffed form. Truly, it never possessed something called “internal organs.” To stuff the Storm, the taxidermist filled the smooth gray-yellow skin with sea grass, heather, gull feathers, and the like, which gave the Storm a stale smell, for which the Storm is still valued today in the houses of brave German Nordic vicars. That particular smell is the essence of the Storm. One calls this odor “mood.” The fragrance was extracted, fixed with zero percent alcohol and brought into the market in bottles of all formats. The most famous of these colognes was once Jorn Uhl, and this was for some time the most popular mouthwash of the German mind, and the Germans used it to wash their deepest, toothless hollows.
The Swinburne (Algernon Charles). This large enchanted English bird sang once before the rising of a sun that never rose—an oversight. He once sang in front of the crucifix against the crucifix—a misunderstanding. The miracle of this bird is that it is, nevertheless, full of extraordinary melodies, and has, in human terms, a style that no human being ever possessed at the time or later on. This style is so inimitable that the Swinburne himself could not imitate it when he tried to, after growing old.
Tennyson (Alfred). Sometimes an elderly mime plays Enoch Arden with a musical accompaniment—no other works remain of this provincial Virgil. He was poeta laureatus; no one laughed at this appellation, for it suited him; he thought exactly what his queen thought, and he only put his thoughts into words in the best style. He was always terribly serious about what an Englishman, as the Chesterton says, has to do to assume a horrible appearance. He had a lot to say, but he had far more words than necessary; therefore, if he talked for a long time, he no longer knew what he was talking about.
The Tolstoy (Leo). Originally the Tolstoy was a steppe horse, but already selectively bred. He was first ridden by Grusinian, Circassian, and Cossacks chiefs. Later, he belonged to the regular heavy cavalry of Literature. In the north and south of Time and Space, he participated in all the great campaigns, including those which lasted several volumes. Stringy, lean, but fiery, always ready to cartwheel and quaff champagne from buckets as a fierce steppe horse should, but always hovering at the manger and even a little spoiled, the Tolstoy followed his logical destiny of becoming the company trumpet-major’s steed. In battle he had carried winners on his back; in his old age he whinnied in a kind and subdued tone while his dung balls were revered as golden apples. This animal’s most striking feature is his superior mind. All his life, he refused to understand that the sparks came from his hooves hitting the ground; that his upturned nose and small head were gruff, devoid of beauty, and even unpleasant, particularly when he rolled his big naive eyes until they protruded, giving him a gloomy stare; and that his long tail, left untrimmed, belonged to a Gobi desert of the spirit; he also refused to acknowledge that he was only a glum reminder of the vast wealth of Asiatic desert horses. With the tip of this tail, he whipped his loins in a Christian manner, believing he was lambasting the world and transforming it in the process, which showcased the limitations of his horsey narrow-mindedness. But the sparks which had once sprung from his hooves remain unforgotten.
The Unruh (Fritz Von?) [the balance]. The Unruh is a dainty frog that usually lives in ponds and feeds on small water skeeters. It is, however, equipped with an inflatable pharyngeal cavity, with which it may sing, but which it also needs to fill with air, albeit only occasionally. To this end, the frog must seek out dry land, even though this species of Anuran lacks the ability to survive out of water. The Unruh, drawing in clean air, expands its pharynx to the size of a child’s head, attracting the passers-by’s attention. Thereafter, our frog redoubles its efforts to draw air, causing its throat to enlarge to the size of a watermelon. Luckily, the Unruh loses its balance, because of the out-of-proportion air bubble, and rolls back into the water, where its throat immediately empties. When in its element, the Unruh is a delicate little frog.
The Vollmöller (Karl). The Vollmöller is a sea serpent, of which only part is visible on the surface of the water. How long the Vollmöller is, no one knows, but the assertion that it is longer than eighty centimeters is to be rejected as exaggerated.
The Walser (Robert). This is a pulchritudinous, graceful, and whimsical animal from the family of the squirrels. On the highest trees one cannot spot it (nor does our animal make any attempt to get up there). Yet the Walser’s naive and mischievous grace gives the average-sized trees a joyous liveliness.
Wassermann (Jakob) [Aquarius], also called Mogen Jaakob, is a small—but not too small—star in the constellation of Pisces, and can be seen particularly well from the high-positioned Beer-Hofmann observatory. It is equidistant from Vienna and Dostoyevsky, respectively, to the north and south of these two poles, and was made famous by a mysterious music of the spheres, which, as if emanated from Yahweh himself, gave the Germans—the new chosen people—in other words the absolute Germans, their final ahasverish name: Madness. This mysterious name was also found in a meteorite of incommensurable size, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be a mixture of graphite, ink, paper, moss, ambition, and binding strings.
The Werfel (Franz), as round as a ball, lacks the ability to curl up like an hedgehog, whereas he can expand. From the hedgehog, it has the pikes, only these are very delicate and soft and sometimes they curve inwardly, which hurts the animal. This contradiction between the appearance and the essence of the Werfel makes this round, soft, and somewhat lazy animal a very popular mundane porcupine at today’s cultural gatherings. One can hardly find a social circle where he is not on display. Therefore, the person who is unfamiliar with the nature of the Werfel’s spikes marvels at seeing this sharp-pointed grenade showcased on the palm of one hand, while the other strokes the sting-sharp creature like a cat, and, in fact, doing so seems to induce very pleasant sensations. That being said, the Werfel is loved for the sake of a different ability with which God has endowed him: he can sing like Caruso and likes doing so, happily and often, especially when he hears noise around him. If, for instance, a war rumbles, the Werfel sings. If the songs were printed, it would be easy to fill a 308-page-long octavo volume with them. On account of his tenor voice, which distinguishes itself in arias and trills, the Werfel is greatly envied by other animals, who seek to imitate him.
The Wevonscholz. This is a useful bird, given its propensity to consume the bits of tapeworm that come out of the Friedrich Hebbel (and also the Paulernst), which all other animals find indigestible. Instead, the Wevonscholz gobbles down every little piece with much satisfaction. Sometimes this bird sings quite beautifully. And it might sing even better if it fed on any other food.
Whitman (Walt). Thus is the Great Pan named, who never died, because he alone among the gods was immortal, although often times he disappeared into the deepest cave of the earth. On the old man’s wrinkled hand, a butterfly rests, and the insect knows exactly what the Whitman is: a branch from the world tree, from which was hewed out the cross planted on a mound of shards.
The Wilde (Oscar) was a famous and much-talked-about cutout silhouette from the end of the last century. The silhouette was reminiscent of the costume of a man in tights, in which the wild Wilde, a beauty of a predator—in other words, the negation of negation—loved to show up, with Lord Brummel’s grace, to be admired by the ancestors of our snobs. The Emperor Nero in a similar manner liked to dress as a comedian, to be more than an emperor, to be everything, to be Proteus himself. Faithfully, Wilde partook in the false universalism of an epoch, of a system full of hypocrisy: one can seem what one is, or one can play the role of what one would have wanted to be. It is only through terrible excesses that laws which still exist are capable of suffusing the social classes barriers with reverential fear, inasmuch as the same laws can instill the foreboding of fateful events into men terrified by their fate. To such legal excesses, the Wilde also fell victim—a vain sacrifice, for the same caste he had tried both to imitate and transform, condemned the Wilde by donning the judge’s robe, shedding the silhouette in tights.
Zola (Emile) owned a sprawling factory for the production of social schematics. His situation machines would punch people out smoothly and cleanly through continuous-flow manufacturing. Other machines, which laminated the truth on the causality chain, would collect processed people and assemble them into theater companies that were taught to act on experimental stages, as naturally as Nature itself. A small moon made of silver paper added the required amount of sentimentality.
The Steffzweig (Stefan Zweig) must be mentioned in this bestiary, since it is still regarded as a living being by a few. Still, the Steffzweig is an artifact, made to celebrate the occasion of a Viennese poet’s congress, with feathers, skin, hair, etc., from each and every kind of European beasts. It is, so to speak, a volapük* animal. At present, only in remote lands, and in certain Geneva circles, does anyone believe in the Steffzweig’s existence. Some claim to have seen the Steffzweig in a Leipzig home, on 7 Short Street, under a small glass bell. In the last few years we have heard of an Arnzweig as a real animal. Ascertaining the Arnzweig’s existence has proved to be impossible so far, since it occurs solely in Zion. Nor is it possible to determine this country’s geographical position. Breaking news report that the Arnzweig is a good, honest animal created by God.