در قصر پادشاه

Chapter 7

At the King’s palace

Although GIumdalclitch tried to make things as comfortable as possible for me, such an exhausting life was beginning to have a bad effect on my health. I was becoming thinner and thinner. When my master noticed this, he thought I would not live much longer. But it was clear that he wanted to make as much money out of me a s he could.

While he was thinking how to do this, he was asked to bring me to the palace. The Queen and her ladies had heard about me and wanted to see me. When we arrived in front of the Queen, I fell on my knees and begged co be allowed co kiss her foot. But she kindly held out her hand to me. I took her little finger in both my arms, and put it very politely to my lips.

She seemed very pleased with me, and fin ally she said, ‘Would you enjoy living here in the palace, do you think?’

‘Great queen,’ I answered, ‘I must do what my master wants, but if I were free, I would want to spend my whole life obeying your orders.’

She immediately arranged to buy me from my master. He was delighted to receive a good price for me, especially as he felt sure I would not live longer than a month. I also begged the Queen to let Glumdalclitch stay with me, because she had always taken such good care of me. The Queen agreed, and Glumdalclitch could not hide her happiness.

When my master had left the palace alone, the Queen said to me, ‘Why didn’t you say goodbye to him? And why did you look at him so coldly ?’

‘Madam, I m use tell you,’ I replied, ‘chat since he found me, my master has used me as an easy way of making money for himself. He’s made me work so hard that I feel tired and ill. He’s sold me to you only because he thinks I’m going to die soon. But I feel better already, now that I belong co such a great and good queen.’

The Queen was clearly surprised to hear such intelligent words from such a small creature, and decided to show me to her husband. When the King saw me, he thought at first that I must be a mechanical toy. However, when he heard my answers to his questions, he realized I must be alive, and he could not hide his astonishment.

To discover what kind of animal I was, he sent for three of his cleverest professors. After looking at me carefully, they decided that I was a creature outside the laws of nature. I was much too small to climb their trees, or dig their fields, or kill and eat their animals. They could not understand where I had come from, or how I could possibly survive.

And when I told them that in my country there were millions just like me, they did not believe me, but just smiled. However, the King was more intelligent than they were. After speaking to Glumdalclitch and questioning me again, he realized that my story must be true.

They took very good care of me. The Queen’s workmen made a special bedroom for me. It was a wooden box, with windows, a door, and two cupboards. The ceiling could be lifted off, so that Glumdalclitch could change my sheets and tidy my room. The workmen even made me two little chairs and a table, and a lock for the door, so that no rats could get in.

The Queen became so fond of me that she could not eat without me. My small table and chair were always placed on the dinner table near her left elbow, and Glumdalclitch stood near me, in case I needed her help. I ate off tiny silver plates, with silver knives and forks.

But I never got used to seeing the Queen eat. In one mouthful she ate as much as twelve English farmers could eat in a whole meal. She drank from a cup as big as one of our barrels, and her knives were like huge swords. I was quite frightened of them.

On Wednesday, which is a day o f rest in Brobdingnag, like our Sunday, the King and Queen always had dinner together, with their children, in the King’s rooms. I was usually invited too. My little chair and table were at the King’s left elbow. He enjoyed very much hearing me talk about England - our laws, our universities, our great buildings.

He listened so politely that I perhaps talked a little too much about my dear country . In the end he looked at me kindly, but could not stop himself laughing. He turned to one of his lords.

‘How amusing it is,’ he said to him, ‘that an insect like this should talk of such important matters! He thinks his country is so highly developed! But I suppose even tiny creatures like him have a hole in the ground that they call a home. They argue, they love, they fight and they die, as we do. But of course the poor little animals aren’t on our level.’

I could not believe what I was hearing. He was laughing at my country, a country famous for its beautiful cities and palaces, its great kings and queens, its brave and honest people. However, there was nothing I could d o about it, and I simply had to accept the situation.

The worst problem I had at the palace was the Queen’s dwarf. Until I arrived, he had always been the smallest person in the country (he was about ten metres tall). As I was much smaller than him, he was very rude to me and behaved very badly, especially when nobody was looking. Once he rook a large bone from the table and stood it on the Queen’s plate. Then he took me in both hands and pushed my legs into the top of the bone.

I could not pull myself out, and had to stay there, feeling - and looking - extremely stupid. When the Queen finally saw me, she could not stop herself laughing, but she was angry with the dwarf ac the same time.

In Brobdingnag there are large numbers of flies in summer, and these awful insects, each as big as an English bird, gave me no peace. The dwarf used to catch some in his hands, and then let them out suddenly under my nose. He did this both to frighten me and amuse the Queen. I had to use my knife to cut them to pieces as they flew around me.

Another time, the dwarf picked me up and dropped me quickly into a bowl of milk on the table. Luckily, I am a good swimmer, so I managed to keep my head out of the milk. As soon as Glumdalclitch saw I was in danger, she ran from the other side of the room to rescue me.

I was not hurt, but this time the dwarf was sent away from the palace as a punishment. I was very pleased.

I would now like to describe Brobdingnag. The people who draw our European maps think there i s nothing but sea between Japan and America, but they are wrong. Brobdingnag is quite a large country, joined on to northwest America, but separated from the rest of America by high mountains. It is about ten thousand kilometres long and from five to eight thousand wide.

The sea around it is so rough and there are so many rocks in the water that no large ships can land on any of the beaches. This means that the people of Brobdingnag do not normally h ave visitors from other parts of the world.

There are fifty-one cities and a large number of towns and villages. The capital stands on both sides of a river, and has more than eighty thousand houses. It covers three hundred and forty square kilometres. The King’s palace covers about eleven square kilometres: the main rooms are eighty metres high.

The palace kitchen is huge - if I described it, with its great pots on the fire and the mountains of food on the tables, perhaps you would not believe me.

Travellers are often accused of not telling the truth when they return.

To avoid this happening to me, I am being careful to describe what I saw as exactly and carefully as possible.