Diary of a Madman and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

but the postmaster was extraordinarily stupid and knew nothing. “No,” he said, “we have had no Spanish delegates, but if you wish to post a letter, we will take it at the existing rates.” Damn it! what’s in a letter? Letters are rot. Only druggists write letters, and then only after dipping their tongues in vinegar, or else their faces would be all covered with warts.
    MADRID. FEBRUARIUS 30
    SO here I am in Spain, and it happened so quickly that I have scarcely had the time to recover. This morning the Spanish delegates presented themselves, and we started together in a carriage. The extraordinary rapidity of our journey struck me as strange. We drove so fast that within half an hour we had reached the Spanish frontier. But of course now there are iron railways all over Europe, and steamers go very rapidly. A singular country this Spain! In the first room we entered there were a number of people with shaved heads. However, I realized at once that they were either grandees or soldiers, because they shave their heads. The behaviour of the Lord Chancellor, who led me by the arm, struck me as exceedingly strange. He pushed me into a little room and said: “Sit there, and if you go on calling yourself King Ferdinand, I’ll knock that nonsense out of you.” But I knew that this was only an ordeal, so I answered in the negative, whereupon the Chancellor struck me twice on the back with a stick, and it hurt so that I almost cried out, but I restrained myself, recollecting that it was a custom of chivalry, on the admission to any high dignity, for Spain still practises customs of chivalry. When I was alone I decided to occupy myself with public affairs. I discovered that China and Spain were one and the same country, and if they are still considered to be different countries this is only due to sheer ignorance. I recommend anyone to try to write Spain on a bit of paper, and he will find that he has written China. But I was particularly worried by an event that was due to happen to-morrow. To-morrow at seven o’clock a strange phenomenon will occur: the Earth will fall on the Moon. The celebrated English scientist, Wellington, affirms this in his writings too. To tell the truth, I felt some anxiety when I visualized the extraordinary brittleness and tenderness of the Moon. The Moon, you will have heard, is made in Hamburg, and very badly made too. I am surprised that England hasn’t seen to that. It was made by a lame cooper, and one sees at once that the fool had not the slightest notion of the way moons are made. He put in tarred cord and one part of olive oil; and that has produced such a fearful stench all over the Earth that one has to hold one’s nose. And that, too, is the reason why the Moon is such a tender sphere that human beings can’t live there, so it is only inhabited by noses. And that is the reason why we can’t see our own noses, because they are all in the Moon. And when I reflected that the Earth is a heavy substance and that its pressure would grind our noses to powder, I was overcome with such anxiety that I put on my shoes and stockings and hastened to the Council Room to give orders to the police to prevent the Earth from falling on the Moon. The shaven grandees, whom I found in great numbers in the Council Room, were very intelligent people, and when I said: “Gentlemen, we must save the Moon, because the Earth is trying to fall on it!” they all rushed to carry out my royal desire, and many of them began climbing the walls to try to reach the Moon; but at that moment the High Chancellor entered. At the sight of him the grandees dispersed. I as King remained alone. But to my astonishment the Chancellor struck me with his stick, and drove me back to my room. Such is the power of ancient customs in Spain!
    JANUARY OF THE SAME YEAR WHICH HAPPENED AFTER FEBRUARIUS
    I AM still unable to understand this country of Spain. The national customs and the