Baron Trump's Marvellous Underground Journey
under world, and I was upon the point of resenting it, as became a true
knight and especially a von Troomp, when Don Fum’s brief description of
the Rattlebrains, or Happy Forgetters, flitted through my mind.
Said he, “By the exercise of their strong wills they have been busy for
ages striving to unload their brains of the to them now useless stock of
knowledge accumulated by their ancestors, and the natural consequence
has been that the brains of these curious folk, who call themselves the
Happy Forgetters, relieved of all labor and strain of thought, have
absolutely shrunken rather than increased in size, so that with many of
the Happy Forgetters their brains are like the shrivelled kernel of a
last year’s nut and give forth a sharp click when they move their heads
suddenly with a jerk, as is often their wont, for they take great pride
in proving to the listener that they deserve the name of Rattlebrain.
“Nor do I need remind thee, O reader,” concluded Don Fum, in his
celebrated work on the “World within a World,” “that the chiefest among
the Happy Forgetters is the man whose head gives forth the loudest and
sharpest click; for he it is who has forgotten most.”
You can have but a faint idea, dear friends, of my delight at the
prospect of spending some time among these curious people—people who
look with absolute dread upon knowledge as the one thing necessary to
get rid of before happiness can enter the human heart.
No joy can equal the Happy Forgetter’s when, upon clasping a friend’s
hand, he finds that he has forgotten his very name; and no day is well
spent in this land at the close of which the inhabitant may not
exclaim,—
“This day I succeeded in forgetting something that I knew yesterday!”
At last the Happy Forgetter rose from his seat and calmly walked away,
without so much as wishing me good-day; but I was resolved not to be so
easily gotten rid of, so I called after him in a loud voice, and Bulger,
following my example, raised a racket at his heels, whereupon he faced
about and remarked,—
“Beg pardon, I had quite forgotten thee, I’m happy to say, and thy name
too, I’ve forgotten that; let me see, Art thou a radiate?” (One of the
animals in the water.) I was more than half inclined to lose my temper
at this slur, classing me, a back-boned animal, with a mere jelly-fish;
but under all the circumstances I thought it best to control myself, for
I could well imagine that from the size of my head and the utter absence
of all click inside of it, I was not destined to be a very welcome
visitor among the Happy Forgetters; and therefore, swallowing my injured
feelings, I made a very low bow, and begged this curious gentleman to be
kind enough to conduct me to his people—among whom I wished to abide for
a few days.
CHAPTER XXXII
HOW WE ENTERED THE LAND OF THE HAPPY FORGETTERS.—SOMETHING MORE
ABOUT THESE CURIOUS FOLK.—THEIR DREAD OF BULGER AND ME.—ONLY A
STAY OF ONE DAY ACCORDED US.—DESCRIPTION OF THE PLEASANT HOMES OF
THE HAPPY FORGETTERS.—THE REVOLVING DOOR THROUGH WHICH BULGER AND
I ARE UNCEREMONIOUSLY SET OUTSIDE OF THE DOMAIN OF THE
RATTLEBRAINS.—ALL ABOUT THE EXTRAORDINARY THINGS WHICH HAPPENED TO
BULGER AND ME THEREAFTER.—ONCE MORE IN THE OPEN AIR OF THE UPPER
WORLD, AND THEN HOMEWARD BOUND.
The Happy Forgetter pursued his way calmly along the winding path that
skirted the glowing river, apparently, and no doubt really, unconscious
of the fact that Bulger and I were following close at his heels. After
half an hour or so of this silent tramp, he suddenly came to a
standstill, and with his placid countenance turned toward the light
seemed to be so far away in thought that for several moments I hesitated
to address him. But as there were no signs of his showing any
disposition to come to himself, I made bold to ask him the cause of the
delay.
“I’m happy to say,” he remarked, without so much as deigning to turn his
head, “that I’ve forgotten which of these two roads leads to the homes
of our people.”
Well, this was a pleasant outlook to be sure, and, I don’t know what we
should have done had not Bulger solved the difficulty for us by making
choice of one of the paths and dashing on ahead with a bark of
encouragement for us to follow.
When I assured the Happy Forgetter that he need have no fear as to the
wisdom of the choice, he gave a start of almost horror at the
information; for you must know, dear friends, that the Happy Forgetter
has more dread of knowledge than we have of ignorance. To him it is the
mother of all discontent, the source of all unhappiness, the cause of
all the dreadful ills that have come upon the world, and the people in
it.
“The world,” said one of the Happy Forgetters to me sadly, “was
perfectly happy once, and man had no name for his brother, and yet he
loved him even as the turtle-dove loves his mate, although he has no
names to call her by. But, alas, one day this happiness came to an end,
for a strange malady broke out among the people. They were seized with a
wild desire to invent names for things; even many names for the same
thing, and different ways of doing the same thing. This strange passion
so grew upon them that they spent their lives in making them in every
possible way harder to live. They built different roads to the same
place, they made different clothes for different days, and different
dishes for different feasts. To each child they gave two, three, and
even four different names; and different shoes were fashioned for
different feet, and one family was no longer satisfied with one
drinking-gourd. Did they stop here?
“Nay, they now busied themselves learning how to make different faces to
different friends, covering a frown with a smile, and singing gay songs
when their hearts were sad. In a few centuries a brother could no longer
read a brother’s face, and one-half the world went about wondering what
the other half was thinking about; hence arose misunderstandings,
quarrels, feuds, warfare. Man was no longer content to dwell with his
fellow-man in the spacious caverns which kind nature had hollowed out
for him, piercing the mountains with winding passages beside which his
narrow streets dwindled to merest pathways.”
In the Land of the Happy Forgetters care never comes to trouble sleep,
nor anxious thought to wear the dread mask of To-morrow!
Happy the day on which this child of nature might exclaim: “Since morn
I’ve forgotten something! I’ve unloaded my mind! It’s one thought
lighter than it was!”
He was the happiest of the Happy Forgetters who could honestly say, I
know not thy name, nor when thou wast born, not where thou dwellest, nor
who thy kinsmen are; I only know that thou art my brother, and that thou
wilt not see me suffer if I should forget to eat, or perish of thirst if
I forget to drink, and that thou wilt bid me close my eyes if I should
forget that I had laid me down to sleep.
Bulger’s and my arrival in the Land of the Happy Forgetters filled the
hearts of these curious folk with secret dread. At sight of my large
head they all began to tremble like children in the dark stricken with
fear of bogy or goblin, and with one voice they refused to permit me to
sojourn a single brief half-hour among them; but gradually this sudden
terror passed off a bit, and after a council held by a few of the
younger men, whose brains as yet completely filled their heads, it was
determined that I might bide for another day in their land, but that
then the revolving door should be opened, and Bulger and I be thrust
outside of their domain.
From what Don Fum had written about the Happy Forgetters, I knew only
too well that it would be useless for me to attempt to reverse this
decree; so I held my peace, except to thank them for this great favor
shown me.
The daylight, if I may call it so, now began to wane, or rather the
thousands of light-giving creatures swarming in the river now began to
draw in their long tentacles, close their flower-like bodies, and slowly
sink to the bottom of the stream. I was quite anxious to see whether the
Happy Forgetters would make any attempt to light up their cavernous
homes, or whether they would simply creep off to bed and sleep out the
long hours of pitchy darkness. To my surprise, I now heard the clicking
of flints on all sides, and in a moment or so a thousand or more great
candles made of mineral wax with asbestos wicks were lighted, and the
great chambers of white marble were soon aglow with these soft and
steady flames.
The Happy Forgetters were strictly vegetable eaters, feeding upon the
various fungous plants growing in these caverns in great profusion,
together with a very nutritious and pleasant tasting jelly made from a
hardened gum of vegetable origin which abounded in the crevices of
certain rocks. There was still another source of food; namely, the nests
of certain shellfish, which they built against the face of the rock,
just above the surface of the river. These dissolved in boiling water
made an excellent broth, very much like the soup from edible birds’
nests.
The clothes worn by the Happy Forgetters were entirely woven from
mineral wool, which in these caverns gave a long and strong fibre of
astonishing softness. The Rattlebrains were tolerably good metal-workers
too, but contented themselves with fashioning only such articles as were
actually necessary for daily use. Their beds were stuffed with dried
seaweed and lichens, and Bulger and I passed a very comfortable night.
As I was forbidden to speak aloud, to ask a question, or to walk abroad
unless in company with one of the selectmen, I was not sorry when the
moment came for the revolving door to be opened. The Happy Forgetters
had been led to believe that Bulger and I were a thousand times more
dangerous than scaly monsters or black-winged vampires, and hence they
held themselves aloof from us, the children hiding behind their mothers,
and the mothers peering through crack and crevice at us.
The size of my head inspired them with a nameless dread, and even the
half-a-dozen of the younger and more courageous drew aside instinctively
to let me pass.
For the first time in my life I was an object of horror to my
fellow-creatures, but I had no hard thoughts against them! Timid
children of nature that they were, to them I was as terrible an object
as the torch-armed demon of destruction would be to us were he let loose
in one of our fair cities of the upper world.
And now the guard of Happy Forgetters had halted in front of what seemed
to me to be a huge cask fashioned of solid marble, and set one-half
within the white wall of the cavern to which they had led me. But on
second glance I saw that there was a row of square holes around its
bulge, like those in the top of a capstan.
The Happy Forgetters now disappeared for a moment, and when they joined
me again each bore in hand a metal bar, the end of which he set in one
of these holes, and then at a signal from the leader the huge
half-circle of marble began to turn noiselessly around, exactly like a
capstan. As each man’s lever came to the wall, he shifted it to the
front again. Suddenly, to my amazement, I saw that the great marble cask
was hollow, like a sentry box; and you may judge of my feelings, dear
friends, upon being politely requested to step inside.
Did I refuse to obey?
Not I. It would have been useless, for was not the whole tribe of
Rattlebrains there to lay hands upon me and thrust me in?
So taking off my hat and making a low bow to the little group of Happy
Forgetters, I stepped within the hollow cask and Bulger did the same;
but not with so good a grace as his master, for, casting an angry glance