Memories of the future : $b Being memoirs of the years 1915‒1972, written in the year of grace 1988Knox, Ronald Arbuthnott
History
Memories of the future : $b Being memoirs of the years 1915‒1972, written in the year of grace 1988
Knox, Ronald Arbuthnott
English fiction -- 20th century; Satire, English; Twentieth century -- Forecasts
The Berthellot Institute then occupied the site of the old Hendon
Aerodrome, which has since been utilized as a library for the official
documents relating to the Great War. One did not lodge there, but spent
most of the day there in “classes” of self-suggestion: a class would
consist of fifty or sixty people all herded together in the same
lecture-room. The simplest exercise, which you ordinarily started on,
consisted of shouting “Health, health, health! Glorious health!” in
chorus. Juliet Savage, who came with me to watch one of these classes,
said it was all she could do to refrain from shouting “Beer, beer,
glorious beer” (an old chorus which she had picked up from an uncle when
young) to see if she were detected or not amidst the general din. But
there were more advanced exercises: I remember, for example, a sort of
skittle-alley where you threw a large ball at a set of nine-pins,
ejaculating “Better that time!” with every throw; it was said to be
highly restorative. And then there was the ball-room, where you danced
the Health-dance, and the gymnasium, where you did a sort of patent
Indian clubs, and much more that I have forgotten. Mr. Druce, the
Superintendent, was a brisk, rather oppressive sort of man who
positively oozed health: when I was shown into his room he greeted me
with the words, “Ha! Another of our malingerers! Isn’t it almost time
you gave up swinging the lead? Come now, you know there’s nothing to be
gained by it!” I replied that I was subject to headaches; that I had
come there that morning with a headache, which was, indeed, somewhat
worse after listening to the Health-chorus. He came up to me, put his
hands on both sides of my head, and said, “What, that thing! Aching!”
Then he rang a bell, and said to the attendant who appeared, “Oh, Miss
Sonnenschein, do come here! This young lady thinks her head is aching!”
To which Miss Sonnenschein, a rather gloomy lady to whom the whole thing
clearly came in the way of business, said in an unconvincing voice,
“That’s a good ’un!” I asked, somewhat timidly, what happened to you if
the treatment did not have a curative effect. Did the failures go out
feeling exactly as ill as they did when they came in, or was it
sometimes found that the treatment had been actually prejudicial?
“Failures?” said Mr. Druce, “my dear madam, there _are_ no failures.”
“Do you mean,” I said, “that you are quite certain I shall go out of
this place cured?” “Certain? Miss Sonnenschein, kindly explain to this
young lady the sort of certainty which I feel about her recovery.” To
which Miss Sonnenschein, who was chewing, replied “Sure thing!” I then
asked whether in the event of my proving a failure the Institute would
be prepared to refund my fees, but Mr. Druce simply repeated that there
were no failures.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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