History of a World of Immortals without a God: Translated from an Unpublished Manuscript in the Library of a Continental University

Mr. Gervaas Van Varken was a tradesman who flourished on the Boomptjes of Rotterdam in the early years of the last century. His business was that of a ship-chandlerfor so we may approximately translate the inscription, 'Koopman en Touwwerk en andere Scheepsbehoeften,' which appeared at the side of his door. Van Varken drove a tolerably brisk trade, and, being of extremely miserly habits, succeeded in accumulating a respectable amount of capital. He was a man of very morose and sulky disposition, and, when he had reached the period of middle age, married a Vrouw who was not only gifted with a moral character closely resembling his own, but had, moreover, embraced Calvinistic views of the most austere type. This disagreeable couple were blessed with a small family consisting of one son, called Gervaas, after the name of his father, and this Gervaas, junior, was the author of the diary before us. The personal experiences of this unlucky youth were such that his imbibing the very gloomiest views of things in general, and, in particular, of human nature, was a simple matter of necessity. In his earliest childhood he arrived at the conclusion that there was absolutely nothing he could do which did not issue in a sound thrashing, administered either by his father or his mothersupplemented, in the latter case, by energetic assurances that his present suffering was a mere joke in comparison with the elaborate and abiding torments in store for him, as a vessel of wrath, in the next world. In addition to these personal severities the child spent the greater part of his time locked up in an empty room, imperfectly clothed, more than half-starved, and with nothing whatever to do but reflect on the inscrutable problem of human life. When he was ten years old he was sent to a school kept by a savage old friend of the ship-chandler, who carried out the parental system of discipline with even greater vigour; and thus it resulted that when in course of time Gervaas, junior, was moved to the University of Leyden to study for the medical professiona profession for which he was destined by his father, without the slightest consideration for the young man's personal wisheshe had contracted such a habit of intense misanthropy that it remained with him as his leading characteristic for life. Gervaas, though by nature of a somewhat crusty disposition, was by no means a cruel manat least he had none of that delight in inflicting pain, as such, which characterizes some of our species. In fact he was very fond of most sorts of animals, and confined his malevolence strictly to the human race, of which his experience had been so unfavourable. When his medical education was completed he was sent, as surgeon, for several voyages in an English vessel commanded by another malignant friend of his father; and assuredly the rough and coarse life on board had no tendency to counteract his pessimistic estimate of mankind. The British mariners, with their habitual contempt of foreigners, considered Doctor Van, as they called him, an eligible subject for all sorts of violent practical jokes; which, to do him justice, he retaliated, whenever he got the chance, by the infliction of lingering torments in various surgical operations. The doctor, who had a considerable gift for languages, soon picked up English, and a copy of the, just then published, 'Voyages of Captain Gulliver' falling into his hands, he read them with intense interest; being specially delighted with the account of the crazy philosophers in the third voyage, and, above all, with the horrible description of the Yahoos in the fourth. From this time, indeed, he seems to have invariably used this term in speaking of his fellow-men.

Dettagli