Rapid Reviews

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 41, 15 December 1911, Page 8

Rapid Reviews

tafatglie's "The Sale of an Appetite."

A WORLD'S SATIRE—UNKNOWN BECAUSE PROLETARIAN.

By R. S. ROSS.

In addition to his other achievements as author and educationalist, ] Paul Lafargue has the honor of having penned one of the greatest of modern satires. It is entitled "The Sale of an Appetite." It is a most diverting story and a most original conception. I .should further regard it as a brilliantly extraordinary parable. As a satireit is inimitable, delicious, really great. In idea and execution "The Sale of an Appetite" is novel, daring, skilful end mighty. A half-hour's reading carries us absorbed from the first to the last pages; entranced with their, cleverness and their moral. * • * - Eniile Destouckes is the chief figure of this French story. He is a proletarian and worker. "We first meet him in the cold, snow-clad streets', with leeth chattering and limbs shivering. His mouth is watering before an amazing shop-window, behind .which glisten dainties in poultry and pie. He has eaten nothing for three days. He stands glued to the spot, feasting his eyes and aggravating his bellj T . "The coward! The man in a state of nature, the sayRge, would have eaten and simply said '1 arii hungry.' " But Emile Destouches fears the policeman, even though he is dying of hunger and contemplating suicide! He bemoans his fate, and in his fever talks aloud. A man of bloated face and enormous abdomen hears him, accosts him, ends by taking him to the feed of his life. The recital of the dialog\ie during' this meal is exquisite. It over, the fat man, known as Sch , makes a proposal. He declares that be lives only by the belly and for the belly—sings, indeed, a paean of the . fc*i»y. He is rich, can have anj'thing %* wants almost, but lacks an appetite. To him neither love nor fame nor forttuie count as -compared to the joys of the stomach. He complains that man's stomach is wretchedly limited, that we have eyes larger than our fceily. "But if my stomach shares the weaknesses of humanity, I can at least extend and reinforce its power , by buying the appetite of another, jtist as my brother capitalists buy the virtue and the conscience of their fellow men. I propose, then, that you sell mc your digestive power, as my laborers sell mc their muscular powers, my engineers their Intellectual poweis, my cashiers their honesty, and the nurses who care for imy children their milk and their maternal cares." "Is.it possible?" "Perfectly so. You produce and furnish the appetite. I will eat and drink for you, and you will be satisfied. The moralists, who are untoward and melancholy bipeds, teach solemnly the contempt of what they call disdainfully the pleasures of the fiesh; you are young and simple enough to indulge such scruples. Sell mc your appetite, which condemns . you to labor and poverty, and you shall have money to pay for the pleasures of which you are now deprived. I will allow you a monthly income of 1500 francs." - "But—".,:. ...,.■-' "No 'butsi' You don't think that enough. Call it two thousand; consider that if you reject my offer you will not know where to sleep this evening, or where to get your breakfast to-morrow, and if you agree to the bargain the pretty girls of the - -boulevard will welcome you to their beds." * * * Emile's ©yes sparkled. He accepts the unique proposal with alacrity, signs j & contract before a notary, sells for five years his appetite, gets gold, and-, fin-| fishes up his evening the devil knows where. The first part of "the little book closes with a. further exposition of Sehi ——'s strange views. I put it to the reader if h© has read anything more iridescent in their irony or more subtle in. their, castiga-ijioii than Sch 's ipeeches. ' "'''The nineteenth:; century, as was declared by ; the great philosopher of the bourgeoisie, Auguste Corotej is the century of altruism; never, in

fact, at any other epoch, has there been such a complete understanding of how to make use of other people. The exploitation of man by the capitalist is so' perfected that the most personal qualities, those most inherent in the individual, have been utilised to the profit of another. For the defence of his property the capitalist no longer depends on his.own courage, but upon that of . certain,-■ proletarians disguised as soldiers ; the banker consumes the honesty of his cashier, and/...the manufacturer, the vital: force, of his workmen, as the debauchees use tiie -fees-nature of the Venuses of the pavement. Nevertheless, two faculties have as yet escaped our capitalist altruism, the child-bearing faculty of women and the digestive faculty; no one has yet been able tor transform them into goods that can be bought and sold, as are already the innocence of the

virgin, the sanctity of the priest, the conscience of the legislator, the brilliancy of the writer, and the intelligence of the chemist." Sch is hopeful a,nd expectant that this miracle will be performed in respect to horning —as for him he knows the useful art of having what ho eats digested by another, though he will- not reveal the great secret until on his death-bed. When child-bearing can be done by proxy, he anticipates that the rich woman will no longer deform her -figure,- but .depcsit her fertilised ovtim in the womb of a poor woman, who" at a price will fatten with her blood the fetus of the capitalist's wife. • *•■■',.-■.* ' • . Part 11. introduces us to Emile Bestouches ..enjoying his new existence. The repasts which he takes through, the mouth and ; gullet of his master last two hours; with head heavy and body languid he-sleeps a "part of the day, digesting slowly and painfully the meats and the wines which the gourmand greedily swallows. As agreed by contract, at three o'clock he goep for a long walk to revive his gorged belly. In the evening his stomach is again filled, and then he sleeps once more. This is life's daily round, with, between whiles,, elegant dress, pleasure, and i'un with the .girls., After a time "he begins to despise himself. At such intervals he consoles himself; with the thought that after five*'years it will.be done with, arid he will liave saved enough to he I'iclii ;fle compares his , la-bo* io that of other wagf^wolk^rs—and th,<a paral-

lei is pregnant! Presently his-health suffers. He grows dyspeptic —his stomach becomes sluggish, his disposition melancholy. He is reproved'by the boss's solicitor for festive nights with gay girls, and reminded that venereal -excesses 'blunt his appetite, which, having sold, no longer belongs to him. Every day the gastric labor becomes more difficult and painful, what time his master increases in gluttony. Emile Destouches' life, at last becomes unbearable —the sight of food fills him tvith nausea. He sighs for poverty, anything, rather than his wretched state. He betakes himself to the notary, determined to break the contract. Cannot. He was bound for three years more, and even if the work killed him he nrast go on to the end. Luminously adds the notary :— "You complain because you have been reduced to becoming nothing but a digestive apparatus; but all who earn their living by working are lodged at the same sign. They .obtain their means of existence only -by confining themselves to being nothing but an or<ran functioning to the profit of another; the mechanic is the- ami which forges, taps, hammers, planes, digs, weaves j the singer is the larynx which vocalises, warbles,

spins-out notes; the engineer, is the brain which calculates, which, arranges plans; the prostitute is-.the sexual organ which gives out venereal pleasure.- Do you imagine that the clerks in my office use their intelligence, or that they reflect whein they are copying papers? Oh> but. they don't; they are nothing/but fingers that scribble. They perform in my offices for ten or twelve hours this work wlich is far from exhilarating, Avliich gives them headaches, stomach disorders, and hemorroids: and at evening' they carry home writing to finish, that they may earn a few cents to pay their landlord. . Console yourself, my dear .sir. ,, "It is sad, terribly sad, and I have not even the consolation of believing myself the most unhappy of mortals." . . . ..., "Imprint this truth on , your memory: the poor man no longer exists for himself in our civilised societies, but for the capitalist, who sets him to work at his fancy, or according to his needs, with such or such of his organs." : ■ • • • ■ Our liero retires broken-hearted. Begins to regard his joyful employer as his executioner. Suffers increasingly, almost to craziness. Attempts.; suicide, but is fished out of the-river, and thenceforward put under surveillance. "My little fellow," said his keeper ... brutally, "I am your overseer; .n*);, more farces, understand!;- You no longer belong to yourself ; ■ you have sold your appetite and roped i» forty-eight thousand plujiks.' Now you have to live, and yojaiiare no,'.

right to kill yourself. If you were to take your life, what would become of our employer ? The dear man, ■ doesn't he need to digest what he eats? There is no other way. His belly must rest, so yours must work. I give you warning that the first tyou try suicide again, I will box you up like a lunatic—those are my orders. But don't worry, you will not grow old at it. I have watched two others before you, and they died at a gallop. What an ogre our capitalist is, by thunder! His appetite oomes as he eats. It's all very fine for him; he isn't the one who gets the indigestion."

Emile now realises that ms future lot is death by indigestion. The contract ■is rigidly enforced, and decline ?*ts in. Giiice he revolts, but all the machineryof State is used to quell his insubordination. Cast down, stupified, dejected, without will power, always digesting. always ill —he is like a whipped cur. Once he throws himself at his employer's feet pleading for mercy, but is repulsed with an angry exclamation, "What does that lunatic want?" But fortunately even a worm will turn, and "Oestouches later on makes one. more stand for himself. He shoots Sch , who, -however, recovers and resumes, per another victim, the course of 1 exaggerated repasts. For Emile Destouches .is confined to a lunatic asylum in a stnaitjacket having sold his cippetite!"

I have called this story a satire and a parable. It is also an allegory and' an analogy. - Surely the social superiority of .the Fat-bellied Las never been; so scathingly sketched —nor the economic inferiority of the dependent hireling been so .riohly burlesqued— ha! ha! To .mc this little book .is one of Eternity's satires — sensationally unique in motif, wondrously luminous in phrase, intensely tragic in. social interpretation. I leave, it at that. In his preface. Paul Lafargue—who married a, daughter of Karl Marx —says the liian-vj-scriivt of the story was entrusted to him by one of the attendants rJ asylum-in which D'stouches had died in r. straitincket. The attendant assert d thrit• h.is -prisoner had never been though "committed by the order,s of some high official."

"Gilrooney," Avhose "Barrier Truth impressions of the Melbourne Cup we printed last week, is one of Australasia's brightest, truest and sanest writers His versical contributions to the "Bulletin" and other papers areas widely known as they are loved. Of him we could chat with acceptance, we trow, to many a reader, and may do so when we handle his recent book, Ihe Land of the Starry Cross," which captivating volume, is to be <yxxv Christmas holiday. In private life "Gil." is R. J. Cassidy. The English reviews, are generously noticing and quoting H. M. Hyndman's "The Record of an Adventurous Life." We are agog to .handle this treat. * * » We acknowledge with thanks the receipt of "The New Zealand Mining Handbook," by cburtesy of Mr. P. Galvin, its editor. The handsome volume is a welcome and necessary addition to our shelves. • . • • Napoleon once remarked that "You must keep the people at work or fighting if you want to keep the people in slavery s "for leisure gives reflection, and reflection gives. discontent, and discontent give® liberty and ends slavery."