This particular day they drowned the head of the cabinet and three ministers. The populace was beside itself. The winter-long famine had pushed them to an extreme. I feared for a while that they would come to pillage our section of town, which is the richest. "No, no," I was told. "Don't be afraid on that account. This is obviously Spectacle Number 90 with its natural sequels 82 and 84 and the General Spectacles. But to be very sure, we'll ask."
Somebody consulted his father, somebody else his grandmother or an official of the first class. It was that, all right. "Still, you had better not go out," they told me, "except with some strong police dogs because the release of the bears and the wolves, which is included in Number 76, takes place about four o'clock." The following week as the situation was getting worse and nobody was doing anything about the famine, I concluded that we might soon see some spectacles in the 80s. My friends just laughed about it. But my uneasiness was too acute, and I left, perhaps for ever, the land of the Hacs.
trns. Richard Ellmann
