an
introduction to the epic
At the turn of the last century,
Gonzaga was a beloved character of children's
literature, with fans all over the world. The
tale, set in the late eighteenth century, of a
pious brewer who wanders the world bringing beer
and liquor to the thirsty and fine food to the
hungry, was loved by readers of many nations.
Indeed, such was the popularity of the story that
it began to have a life outside the confines of
the written page.
in this episode:
As with many books published in the nineteenth century,
Gonzaga was originally released in serial form. The American
Editor of Mugwump--an illustrated monthly--would receive
each episode from his English counterpart, who in turn
had paid a Lithuanian to translate it-with a few name
changes so as not to breach copyright-from a tale in a
Russian literary journal, which, in any case, had been
stolen from somewhere else.
The American editor, Lincoln Dosooty, a lean and elegant
man who dressed during the summer months in suits of cream
colored linen, and always wore a tightly wound turban
of Brooks Brothers Sea Island cotton, would carefully
read the copy. He would then change what he thought fit--making
local the ethnic jokes, and adding vitriol to denunciations
of the behavior of the English, while censoring the more
extreme manifestations of barnyard humor so popular in
southwestern France, which is where, on alternate Tuesday's
during months with R in them, the epic is thought to originate.
On the first Monday morning of the month, the magazine
would be distributed all across the United States from
the printers' warehouse in Brooklyn. The following episode
was published in July of 1898.
Let us imagine the reception that the magazine had in
the home of two avid followers of the traveler's tale,
who lived in the leafy suburb of the Upper West Side.
At the door of 467 West 84th street, a brownstone with
a trio of Ravens carved in bas relief over the lintel,
the journal is torn from the hands of the delivery boy
by the usually demur Charlotte, back from Miss Porter's
for the summer, and looking like she has stepped out of
a portrait by John Singer Sargent.
"They're all crazed. Mad with Gonzaga fever," the boy
mutters, and sets about the next task of what is shaping
up to be a very long day indeed.
In the house, Mugwump is clutched to Charlotte's starched
white cotton pinafore as she rushes to the breakfast room,
where her widowed father is sipping tea.
"Papa-it has arrived!" Eagerness shines on her face.
"Oh, bully, Lotte, bully. Shall we read it now?" He casts
aside the piece of toast he's been buttering, and lunges
for the copy of Mugwump. But she is dismayed; this is
not how things should be done.
"Oh Papa, surely…"
He looks puzzled for a moment and then nods, contemplating
his over-excitement. "Yes my dear, you are quite right,
it would not be seemly."
Charlotte sighs with relief. "Shall I get it?" she asks.
"No-Hustle down to the kitchen and see if you can't get
cook to relinquish some of that ice she's so fond of cooling
her feet with."
"Right away, papa." She is aglow.
The reading must not be done in a slap-dash manner, but
properly and according to the ritual then in being performed
in houses across America. She runs back to the breakfast
room with a bowl of cracked ice, just in time to see her
father clear the table with a sweep of his arm, sending
kidneys and kippers, oatmeal, and a platter of new-fangled
safety-bacon into a pile on the floor.
On the table he lines up three bottles--Cointreau, Gin,
and bottle of the Fee Verte--Absinthe--a dark green liquid,
mysterious, enticing and dangerous.
"The ice, Papa."
"Just in time. One part of the Orange liqueur--any will
do, you know--two parts gin, and three of absinthe and
we'll double the recipe as it's a special occasion. And
then we can sip as we read."
"Can I put a drop of blood in it like last time?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. I think the goddess Hecate would approve,
I do, I do."
Charlotte's father performs a little hopping dance of
glee, and then turned to the magazine. "Right. Now what
is this fellow Gonzaga up to? Seems he's lying on the
a Beach, like a lummoxing sea mammal."
"Was he not in the hands of the nefarious British?"
"Indeed, but it seems he now being approached by some
rustics."
"Oh don't tease, Papa, read aloud, do."
"Capital illustrations this time."
Charlotte grimaces in frustration, and sends a poorly
aimed ice-cube past her father's head shouting "Read you
Bitchwhelp, read!"
Her father chuckles, and takes a hearty swig of his Gonzaga
cup, "Yes dear, at once." And so we rejoin, Gonzaga, as
ever out of the frying pan and into hell's sulphurous
flames . . .
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