“Is that a dream of very difficult interpretation?” said Mangogul, “you had at that time some affair in the divan, and before you went thither, you took a walk to the Menagerie: but Signor Bloculocus, you tell me nothing concerning my dog’s head.”
“Prince,” answer’d Bloculocus, “ ’tis a hundred to one, that madam wore, or you had observed some other lady wear a sable tippet; and that the first Dutch dog, which you saw, struck your imagination. There you have ten times more connections than is requisite to employ your mind during your sleep: the resemblance of colour made you substitute hair for a tippet, and in an instant you planted an ugly dog’s head in the place of a very beautiful woman’s head.”
“Your notions to me appear just,” replied Mangogul: “why do you not publish them? they may contribute to the progress of divination by dreams, an important science, which was much cultivated two thousand years ago; and has since been too much neglected. Another advantage of your system is, that it would not fail throwing light on several works, both ancient and modern, which are but a string of dreams; such as Plato’s treatise of ideas, the fragments of Hermes Trismegistus, the literary paradoxes of father Harduin, the Newton, the optic of colours, and the universal mathematics of a certain Bramin. For example, would you not inform us, Mr. Conjurer, what Orcotomus had seen in the daytime, when he dream’d his Hypothesis; what father C⸺ had dreamt, when he set about constructing his organ of colours; and what was Cleobulus’s dream, when he composed his tragedy?”
“With a little meditation, Sir,” answered Bloculocus, “I might compass all that: but I reserve these nice phenomena for the time, when I shall put out my translation of Philoxenus, for which I beseech your highness to grant me the privilege.”
“With all my heart,” says Mangogul: “but who is this same Philoxenus?”
“Prince,” replies Bloculocus, “he is a Greek author, who was very knowing in the subject of dreams.”
“Then you understand Greek?”
“Who I, Sir, not a syllable.”
“Have you not told me that you are translating Philoxenus, and that he wrote in Greek?”
“Yes, Sir; but in order to translate a language, it is not necessary to understand it: because translations are made for those only, who understand it not.”
“That is wonderful,” says the Sultan; “Signor Bloculocus, well then translate Greek without understanding it. I give you my word, that I will keep the secret, and it shall not make me honour you one jot the less.”
XL
Twenty-Third Trial of the Ring
Fannia
There still remain’d a good part of the day, when this conversation was closed: which determined Mangogul to make one trial of his ring, before he retired to his apartment; though it were purely to fall asleep on more cheerful ideas than those which had hitherto employ’d him. He went directly to Fannia’s house; but found her not. He return’d thither after supper; she was still absent. Wherefore he put off his experiment to the next morning.
Mangogul, says the African author, whose Journal we translate, was at Fannia’s house by half an hour after nine this morning. She was but just put to bed. The Sultan drew near her pillow, view’d her for some time, and could not conceive how, with so few charms, she had run through so many adventures.
Fannia is fair even to insipidity, tall, ungainly, with an indecent gait, no features, few Agrémens, and an air of intrepidity, intolerable anywhere but at court. As for wit, she is allowed to have just as much as gallantry can communicate: and a woman must be born very weak, if she has not acquired a stock of jargon after a score of intrigues; for Fannia was advanced thus far.
At this time she was possessed by a man suited to her character. He gave himself little or no concern about her infidelities; though indeed he was not as well informed as the public, how far she carried them. He had taken Fannia by caprice, and kept her by habit; like a piece of furniture. They had spent the night at the ball, went to bed at nine, and fell asleep without ceremony. Alonzo’s indifference would not have suited Fannia, were it not for her easy humour. Thus our couple were sleeping soundly back to back, when the Sultan turn’d his ring on Fannia’s Toy. It instantly began to speak, its mistress to snore, and Alonzo to awake.
After yawning several times; “this is not Alonzo, what’s o’clock, who wants me? your business,” said the Toy. “I think I have not been long in bed, let me take another nap.”
The Toy was preparing to compose itself to rest accordingly; but that was not the Sultan’s intention. “What persecution,” resumed the Toy. “Once more who wants me, and for what? ’tis a misfortune to be born of illustrious ancestors: how unhappy is the condition of a titled Toy! if anything could console me for the fatigues of my state, it would be the goodness of the nobleman, whose property I am. Oh! he is certainly the best man in the world in that regard. He has never given us the least uneasiness: and in return we have made great use of the liberty he granted us. What would have become of me, great Brama, if I had fallen to the share of one of those insipid wretches, who are always upon the watch? What a fine life we should have led!”
Here the Toy added some words, which Mangogul understood not, and then with surprising rapidity fell to sketching out a crowd of heroic, comic, burlesque, and tragicomic adventures: and it was almost out of breath, when it continued in these terms. “You see I have some memory. But I am like all others; I have retained but the smallest part of what I have been entrusted with. Be
