Page:The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart.pdf/123

Rh them. Approaching one of these men, I ask him, "What is done here?" He answered me: "I improve." "And what taste is there in this?" quoth I. And he again: "As long as a man chews it in the mouth, he feels bitterness and sourness, but afterwards it changes into sweetness." "And wherefore is this?" I said. He answered: "It is easier for me to carry this within me; also am I thus surer. Dost thou then not see the use?" I looked at him with more care, and I see that he is stout and fat and of comely colour. His eyes glittered like candles; his speech was careful, and everything about him was lively. Then my interpreter says: "Let us see these others also."

And I gaze, and lo! some here bore themselves most greedily, cramming down constantly everything that came into their hands. Then looking at them more carefully, I see that their colour, their body, and their fat had by no means increased, and that their bellies only were swollen and puffed out. I see also that what they crammed down again crept out of them undigested either above or below. Giddiness also befell some of these men, or they maddened; others became pale, pined away and died. Seeing this, others pointed at them and told each other how dangerous it was to deal with books (for this was the name they gave to these gallipots); some fled, others exhorted each other to handle