THE KAFKA: The Kafka is a magnificent and very rarely seen moon-blue mouse, which eats no flesh, but feeds on bitter herbs. It is a bewitching sight, for it has human eyes.
THE MEYRINK: The Meyrink is the only mooncalf which dropped to earth and which is now in captivity. It is occasionally put on show by its captor. For a while pregnant women were banned from viewing it, because of the occurrence of a few premature births caused by shock, but the ban has been lifted, since women with child are by now so accustomed to the sight that it raises no more than a gentle smile. Officers of the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army and German Deputies wanted to ban the public exhibition of the Meyrink because, so they said, it gave a distorted reflection of them in its one big eye. The owner succeeded in proving, however, that the reflection was not distorted, but that it was the object which distorted the eye of the Meyrink. The numbers visiting the Meyrink have declined considerably since the appearance of so many other mooncalves running around free; whether they all dropped from the moon is impossible to say, but they have certainly been dropped on the head.
© Dedalus
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