To make the matter short, Adalga became so scientific as to lose all her loveliness of form and character, and became overbearing, ugly, conceited, and foolish, and the same was the case more or less with all the rest of the gnomes. The whole population became clever and cunning, but, at the same time, lying and hypocritical. Formerly they had been moved, as it were, only by one will, namely, the will of the king; now everybody wanted to rule everybody else, and nobody rule himself or be ruled by another. There was nothing but quarrels, disputes, dissensions, dissatisfaction, and selfishness; the gnomes lost their perception of truth and their light. The kingdom grew dark.
Formerly everything had been peaceful; but now it became necessary to employ force for the purpose of keeping order. Each gnome cared only for his or her own interests, and this caused fights. One of the first requirements was the establishment of a police. I soon found that the employees of the government, including the police, could not be relied upon. I therefore had to establish a corps of detectives, and employ for that purpose the greatest rascals, because it is known that “it requires a thief to catch a thief.” These detectives had again to be watched by others, and from this ensued an universal espionage, which was intolerable. Moreover, everybody seeing himself continually watched, was thereby continually reminded that it was in his power to steal, and the end of it was that the people considered it to be a great and praiseworthy act if one succeeded in stealing without getting caught.
At the time of my arrival it was the custom of the gnomes to believe everything that anybody said, but now it became fashionable never to believe anything whatever. The consequence was that each believed the other a liar; each mistrusted the other; nobody spoke the truth, if it was not in his own interest to do so. Nothing could be accomplished without bribery; crimes became numerous, and it became necessary to establish jails all over the country.
There was one curious feature noticeable, especially among the Sagani, who now constituted the great autocratic body of scientists. The more learned they became the more narrow-sighted they grew. They lost the power to open their eyes, and decided upon every question according to hearsay and fancy. Their limbs became atrophied, and their heads swollen. Some became so big-headed and top-heavy that they often lost their balance and fell down. It was especially funny to see how they tumbled about whenever one forgot himself, and by force of habit elongated his body. Finally, narrow-sightedness became so universal that a gnome without spectacles was quite a curiosity, and it has been reported that even children with spectacles upon their noses were born; but of this I have no positive proof.
To my horror, the head of the princess grew larger and stronger every day, and two hard horn-like excrescences began to appear upon it at the place where the phrenological bump of love of approbation is located. At the same time she grew exceedingly stubborn and vain. She was continually surrounded by flatterers who imposed upon her credulity. She could bear no contradiction, and nevertheless craved for disputes for the purpose of showing off her great learning. She lost her former natural dignity and self-esteem, and in its place she acquired a great deal of false pride; but her love of approbation revolted against the idea that anybody might consider her vain, and for the purpose of avoiding such a suspicion she joined gnomes of doubtful character, and went into bad company.
Let me draw a veil over the history of these sad events. Even now, although having resumed my individuality as Mr Schneider, I can look back only with deep regret upon the change that overcame the charming princess Adalga, owing to the ill-timed instruction of Mr. Mulligan. As to her father, the king, instead of comprehending the sad state of affairs of his kingdom, he took a very superficial view of it. He was delighted with the intellectual progress of the princess, and with the advancement of culture among his subjects, and he overwhelmed me with tokens of favour, calling me a public benefactor for civilising the gnomes.
Bimbam I. did not care to enter himself into the study of logic and elocution, nevertheless he did not wish to be regarded as a fool. He therefore tried to give himself an appearance of being learned, and whenever his arguments failed, he became very irascible, and lost his temper. He was excitable, but too great a lover of comfort to remain long in an excited state, and for this reason he was easily pacified. Often he would get raving mad, bucking his head against the walls; but a moment afterwards he would go to smoke his pipe, as if nothing had happened.
More and more the influence of the green frog was felt spreading through the kingdom, and there were some who claimed to have seen him wandering about the streets, spreading poisonous saliva from his mouth, from which green and red-spotted toad-stools grew. The world of the gnomes became continually more unnatural and perverted; impudence assumed the place of heroism, sophistry the mask of wisdom, lecherousness passed for love, hypocrisy paraded the streets under the garb of holiness; those who succeeded in cheating all the rest were considered the most clever; the most avaricious gnomes were said to be the most prudent; he who made the greatest noise was thought to be the most learned of all. Nor were the ladies exempt from this general degradation, for they assumed the most ridiculous fashions, putting artificial bumps on their backs and wearing tremendous balloons in the place of sleeves; they lost their simplicity, were full of affectations and whims, and to do anything whatever in a plain and natural way was considered vulgar.
But what is the use of continuing to describe conditions which everyone knows who has visited the Untersberg within the last few years? It is sufficient to say that the country of the gnomes at that time resembled to a great extent the human-animal kingdom of our days, and I would have wished to leave it if I had not considered it my duty to remain for the purpose of trying to undo some of the mischief which had ignorantly been caused by my prematurely opening the door of the palace of Lucifer.