Kenelm Chillingly — CompleteLytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
General
Kenelm Chillingly — Complete
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
English fiction -- 19th century
towards the aquarium,--“no; man is the master of the world, because
of all created beings he devours the greatest variety and the greatest
number of created things. His teeth evince that man can live upon every
soil from the torrid to the frozen zone, because man can eat everything
that other creatures cannot eat. And the formation of his teeth proves
it. A tiger can eat a deer; so can man: but a tiger can’t eat an eel;
man can. An elephant can eat cauliflowers and rice-pudding; so can man!
but an elephant can’t eat a beefsteak; man can. In sum, man can
live everywhere, because he can eat anything, thanks to his dental
formation!” concluded Kenelm, making a prodigious stride towards the
boy. “Man, when everything else fails him, eats his own species.”
“Don’t; you frighten me,” said the boy. “Aha!” clapping his hands with a
sensation of gleeful relief, “here come the mutton-chops!”
A wonderfully clean, well-washed, indeed well-washed-out, middle-aged
parlour-maid now appeared, dish in hand. Putting the dish on the table
and taking off the cover, the handmaiden said civilly, though frigidly,
like one who lived upon salad and cold water, “Mistress is sorry to have
kept you waiting, but she thought you were Vegetarians.”
After helping his young friend to a mutton-chop, Kenelm helped himself,
and replied gravely, “Tell your mistress that if she had only given
us vegetables, I should have eaten you. Tell her that though man is
partially graminivorous, he is principally carnivorous. Tell her that
though a swine eats cabbages and such like, yet where a swine can get
a baby, it eats the baby. Tell her,” continued Kenelm (now at his third
chop), “that there is no animal that in digestive organs more resembles
man than a swine. Ask her if there is any baby in the house; if so, it
would be safe for the baby to send up some more chops.”
As the acutest observer could rarely be quite sure when Kenelm
Chillingly was in jest or in earnest, the parlour-maid paused a moment
and attempted a pale smile. Kenelm lifted his dark eyes, unspeakably sad
and profound, and said mournfully, “I should be so sorry for the baby.
Bring the chops!” The parlour-maid vanished. The boy laid down his
knife and fork, and looked fixedly and inquisitively on Kenelm. Kenelm,
unheeding the look, placed the last chop on the boy’s plate.
“No more,” cried the boy, impulsively, and returned the chop to the
dish. “I have dined: I have had enough.”
“Little boy, you lie,” said Kenelm; “you have not had enough to keep
body and soul together. Eat that chop or I shall thrash you: whatever I
say I do.”
Somehow or other the boy felt quelled; he ate the chop in silence, again
looked at Kenelm’s face, and said to himself, “I am afraid.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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