Moon -- Fiction; Science fiction, French -- Translations into English; Space flight to the moon -- Fiction
Thus, all the comfort I had during the misery of my hard Usage,
were the visits of this officious[1] Spirit; for you may judge what
conversation I could have with these that came to see me, since besides
that they only took me for an Animal, in the highest class of the
_Category_ of Bruits, I neither understood their Language, nor they
mine. For you must know, that there are but two Idioms in use in that
Country, one for the Grandees, and another for the People in general.
[Sidenote: Languages of the Moon]
That of the great ones is no more but various inarticulate Tones,
much like to our Musick when the Words are not added to the Air:[2]
and in reality it is an Invention both very useful and pleasant; for
when they are weary of talking, or disdain to prostitute their Throats
to that Office, they take either a Lute or some other Instrument,
whereby they communicate their Thoughts as well as by their Tongue:
So that sometimes Fifteen or Twenty in a Company will handle a point
of Divinity, or discuss the difficulties of a Law-suit, in the most
harmonious Consort that ever tickled the Ear.
The second, which is used by the Vulgar, is performed by a shivering
of the Members, but not, perhaps, as you may imagine; for some parts
of the Body signifie an entire Discourse; for example, the agitation
of a Finger, a Hand, an Ear, a Lip, an Arm, an Eye, a Cheek, every one
severally will make up an Oration, or a Period with all the parts of
it: Others serve only instead of Words, as the knitting of the Brows,
the several quiverings of the Muscles, the turning of the Hands, the
stamping of the Feet, the contorsion of the Arm; so that when they
speak, as their Custom is, stark naked, their Members being used to
gesticulate their Conceptions, move so quick that one would not think
it to be a Man that spoke, but a Body that trembled.
Every day almost the Spirit came to see me, and his rare Conversation
made me patiently bear with the rigour of my Captivity. At length one
morning I saw a Man enter my Cabbin, whom I knew not, who having a
long while licked me gently, took me in his Teeth by the Shoulder, and
with one of his Paws, wherewith he held me up for fear I might hurt my
self, threw me upon his Back; where I found my self so softly seated,
and so much at my ease, that, [though] being afflicted to be used like
a Beast, I had not the least desire of making my escape; and besides,
these Men that go upon all four are much swifter than we, seeing the
heaviest of them make nothing of running down a Stagg.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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