Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

43 Beelzebub’s Survey of the Process of the Periodic Reciprocal Destruction of Men, or Beelzebub’s Opinion of War

43.1110

“Those beings of the male sex were put into these houses for a certain time who, for some reason or other, were already entirely deprived of the possibility of ever consciously contemplating; and of the number of the beings of the female sex, those were placed in them who generally either did not ‘menstruate’ at all, or in whom ‘menstruation’ occurred abnormally; likewise those who in the sense of their sexual desires became transformed at certain periods into, as it was said there, ‘Knaneomeny,’ or, as our dear Mullah would say, ‘into veritable mares in the spring.’

43.1110

“Among the beings then on the continent Atlantis, conceptions of several definite, very peculiar symptoms were current, according to which the given beings were recognized and confined in the Anoroparionikima.

43.1110-1

“And these symptoms were as follows:

(1) If a being believed in any kind of ‘balderdash’
(2) If a being began to prove to others anything about which he himself knew nothing whatsoever, or was not sure of
(3) If a being failed to keep his word of honor, or took his oath in vain
(4) And finally, if there appeared in any being tendencies to ‘spy’ upon the others and to be occupied with ‘Took-soo-kef’

43.1111

“But the most conclusive symptom of all was when that property appeared in somebody which was then called ‘Moyussool’ and which contemporary beings already consider an illness and call ‘hemorrhoids.’

43.1111

“In these Anoroparionikima, beings of this kind were obliged to remain without stirring from them during those periods indicated by the surrounding beings; but they were under no compulsion to do anything, but existed as they liked. In regard to them there was only one aim, that they neither met nor spoke with normal beings of the given locality.

43.1111

“Such beings were then confined in these buildings because, according to the notions then, they at certain periods of the month, thanks to these various ‘taints’ of theirs, interfered by their radiations with the quiet and regular existence of the surrounding beings.