Study of Beelzebub's Tales

Chapter.Page

Koorkalai

 

19 Beelzebub’s Tales About His Second Descent onto the Planet Earth

19.184

“The Occasion alighted on this sea Kolhidious or Caspian Sea because this sea was the most convenient for mooring our Occasion as well as for my further travels.

“And it was very convenient for my further travels because from the East a large river flowed into it, which watered almost the whole country of Tikliamish, and on the banks of which stood the capital of that country, the city ‘Koorkalai.’

19.186

“We then set off from the sea Kolhidious, or as it is now called, the Caspian Sea, on ‘Selchans,’ that is to say, on rafts of a special kind, up the river Oksoseria, or as it is now called, the Amu Darya. We sailed for fifteen terrestrial days and finally arrived at the capital of the beings of the first Asiatic group.

19.186-7

“On arriving there and after arranging the place of our permanent existence there, I first began visiting the ‘Kaltaani’ of the city Koorkalai, that is, those establishments there which on the continent Ashhark were later called ‘Chaihana,’ ‘Ashhana,’ ‘Caravanseray,’ and so on, and which the contemporary beings there, especially those breeding on the continent called ‘Europe,’ call ‘Cafés,’ ‘Restaurants,’ ‘Clubs,’ ‘Dance Halls,’ ‘Meeting Places,’ and so on.

19.190

“Well, then, my boy, during the early days of my sojourn in the town Koorkalai, I often talked on various subjects with this mentioned friend of mine, the priest Abdil, but, of course, I never spoke with him about such questions as might reveal my real nature.

19.201

“I chanced to be also in that large temple that day and was one of those who heard his speech.

“Although the theme of his speech was unusual for such an occasion and for such a place, yet it shocked nobody, because he spoke unprecedentedly well and beautifully.

“Indeed, he spoke so well and so sincerely, and cited in his beautiful speech so many persuasive and illustrative examples, that as he spoke many of the beings of Koorkalai there even began sobbing bitterly.

19.202

“The day following his speech, this Earth friend of mine at once became for all the citizens of the town Koorkalai what is called the ‘fashionable-priest,’ and not only was the temple where he officiated always crammed with beings of the town Koorkalai, but he was also pressed to speak in other temples.

“He delivered many such speeches concerning Sacrificial-Offerings, and each time the number of his admirers grew and grew, so that he soon became popular not only among the beings of the town Koorkalai, but also of the whole of Tikliamish.

19.204

“And this occurred in the following way:

“My friend had no relatives at all in the city Koorkalai, having been born in some distant place.

“And as for the hundreds of servants and other ordinary terrestrial nullities who had been around him owing to his former importance, they, by this time, had gradually left him, naturally because my friend was no longer important.

 

20 The Third Flight of Beelzebub to the Planet Earth

20.219

“There in the city Gob I began deliberately looking for a corresponding being, in order to make friends with him, as I had in the city Koorkalai.

“And indeed I soon found such a friend here also, but this time he was not a ‘priest’ by profession.

20.219

“My friend here turned out to be the proprietor of a large Chaihana; and although I became, as it is said there, on very good terms with him, nevertheless I never had that strange ‘tie’ with him which arose in my essence towards the priest Abdil in the city Koorkalai.

 

37 France

37.665

“When I went this time to that capital named ‘Paris’—which, by the way, had now in the logicnestarian-crystallization of the contemporary three-brained beings of your planet, breeding on all the continents, already completely become also such a center of their imagined culture as the cities Samlios, Koorkalai, Babylon and so on, were for the beings of former periods in their time—I went straight from the railway station to the hotel which had been recommended to me while still in the city of Berlin by an acquaintance of mine.

37.670

“Having taken one of these guides, we also went to see the nocturnal ‘sights’ of that contemporary Koorkalai.

37.674-5

“And after Atlantis had perished, and many, many centuries had passed, when I was on the continent Asia in the city of Koorkalai, their new center-of-culture of that ancient community there called Tikliamish, and sat at times among them in their Kaltaani which were similar also to contemporary restaurants, was I not witness of similar ‘scenes’?

37.675

“There in front of me, that stout contemporary gentleman with the enormous foreign growth on his neck is sitting with two young street girls… dress him in the costume of a ‘Kafirian,’ will he not be exactly like that very type I saw then sitting in a Kaltaan of the city Koorkalai?

37.675-6

“And again it is the same… shoutings, uproar, laughter, scoldings… the same as in the city Babylon, as in the city Koorkalai, or even in Samlios, their first center-of-culture….