An excerpt from "All About H. Hatterr" by G. V. Desani

google search is great. the excerpt i posted yesterday is now the first result in a google search by the name of the poem i had posted. in that same search, i found this excerpt that i had posted in old ch for impy. (here/link) i am reproducing the excerpt. the title of this excerpt is my own invention. in the excerpt, the narrator is lying semi naked in a circus, with a raw beef steak on his chest: meal for a hungry lion.

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Don't stop this madness!




I would go to hell, to Satan's side, I said to myself, for,
angels don't mix with adulterous fellers who fed lions from their chests, and,
in the process - cause and effect - be fed on, or do they? ... How would
posterity headline this chapter? H.Hatterr and the hug of a harlot at
cut-throat rates? Should I get eaten up, and be plucked away for evermore, my
biographer, the no-scruples feller, would mock that I was kicked into the
Beyond and not even boasting the professional status of a tamer!

I am a human plate. An actual imposter, butting in, gate-crashing into another feller's
trade union [the narrator is a temporary replacement for the lion tamer],
and yet to be stomached by Charles, this one among the billions of lions
abounding on the earth!

Lions!

It's a lie, a lie!

Meanwhile, Carlos crunches on....I realize, while still in the thought-dream, that tonight's steak was a
champion. The idea was to make the show last longer. Let the animal take his time:
and, of course, in the interim, create sensation and applause. It was an
excessively tough steak, and I could not help complimenting the butcher or
providing. The chap might have made Christmas wreaths for royalty, so cunningly
exactly was his choice. The right toughness of the meat!

That was my position.

And the audience, too, caught in this vortex of circumstance, was rendered
dumbfounded.

You could hear a pin drop...
Then Smythe!

He fiddles while the Romans are done for: while the city blazes!

He makes whoopee while my very life is at stake!

He gets to work when the moment is most opportune, when the
hour is most dramatic!

And the result to me, of that feller's villainy, of
Smythe's unscruples, damme, wouldn't you like to know!
Hell, the lights!

The electric-illume!

The lights are offed, switched off on purpose!

The feller hadn't said a word to
me of this development contemplated!

What a moment!

And size up the feeling of
the audience, too, on whom this lights-off trick was as great a surprise sprung
as on me!

Not a word about this was announced in the bill of fare provided for
the evening!

The whole tent is in darkness!

I am on the boards prostrate. On my
chest is the moo-slab. A lion is bending over me, first feeling the meat with
his paws and whiskers, tickling me to death, then gnashing his teeth, and doing
more routine. So well-trained is the beast, that he wouldn't knock the steak
off a man's chest, and consume it in his own corner. No: he must it eat it
abroad, and all in good time. I cannot see the dam' animal, but I can hear his
jaws at work, and feel him as I know how.

On the top of it, that feller in the
house!

I found myself up against an emotional feller in the audience, a total
stranger to me, who insisted on flaring up ever next minute!

That feller, somewhere in the auditorium, felt duty-bound to scream in Hindusthani, every
next minute, God;'s sake, switch on the lights!

Damme, look at the feller!

He is trying to flog a dead horse, attracting attention to himself, and preventing
me from concentrating on my own predicament, from sizing up my situation up at
the situation from my end!

I can't help listening to the feller!

I can't help
waiting for his next outburst!

Damme, Dam' the feller.

Damn the feller for
butting in, for interfering in that was none of is dam' business!

Switch on the lights! God's sake, switch on the lights! Who switched 'em off? Did he switch
'em off? And he says, switch 'em on! Damme, listen to him! He wants 'em
switched on! Damme, what can you do with a feller like that?

Meanwhile, while
this is happening, my ego nearly suffers a separation from my anatomy, this
earthly garb.

And, strange, I begging to laugh.

My entire person is filled with
purest sublime humour, and I am experiencing complete content - the eternal tao
- except for one yearning , one last wish, just one desire of the
flesh.
I want to get up and wallop that feller!
Why should we switch 'em on because this son of a biscuit-eater wants us to switch 'em on? Who the hell does he think he is, eh? Switch 'em on, switch 'em on!
Won't swtch 'em on!
To hell with the feller, won't!
Then I do a devil of a unique thing!

I myself flare up, and
lustily shout, 'Don't switch on the lights! Leave 'em alone! Leave 'em alone! Peat's sake, leave
'em alone!'
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