Читать книгу The Village on Horseback - Jesse Ball - Страница 53

A race of men who can turn themselves into not animals

but inanimate objects. Europeans reach this tribe

by boat. What a grand city, they say. What fine broad

avenues, such as you might see in Paris. How lovely

the women in their long satin dresses, with their

fans and shuddering hair. Much feasting goes on.

Days later, the discovery is made. Orders are sent back

across the sea to be confirmed by the Queen.

Orders are confirmed. The populace is brought out

into a series of aesthetically ideal city squares

and forced at gunpoint to change directly

into gold. They object at first, then the King

changes himself into a large gold vase. His sons

become a pair of gold grates (for a confessional). Their

children become lockets. The royal servants

take the form of forks and spoons. This is general

throughout the population, and the objects

become a sort of faux-history, where each object

fails in its attempt to mimic the life lived.

Historians today wonder if this was intentional.