The First Visit of Beelzebub to India

“And as regards the way in which the contemporary terrestrial learned beings of what are called the exact sciences define the significance of this part of the spinal marrow, that, my dear boy, is a profound secret.

“And it became a secret because several centuries ago, this ‘explanation’ suddenly for no reason whatever entered the favorite mole of the famous ‘Scheherazade,’ which that incomparable Arabian fantasist chanced to have on the right side of her adorable navel.

“And there this ‘learned-explanation’ remains perfectly preserved down to the present day.

“When I was quite convinced that I had succeeded so easily in the destruction, perhaps for a long time, of that terrible practice among the beings of that group there in Pearl-land, I decided to stay there no longer but to return to the Sea of Beneficence to our ship Occasion.

“When we were quite ready to leave that Pearl-land, the intention suddenly arose in me not to return to the Sea of Beneficence by the way we had come, but by another way quite unusual in those days.

“Namely, I decided to return through the locality which was later called ‘Tibet.’ ”

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