Page 552 - the-idiot

might be the first to set a light to the fuel, and then run away.
But, again, I must repeat, that is not the question.’
‘What is it then, for goodness’ sake?’
‘He is boring us!’
‘The question is connected with the following anecdote
of past times; for I am obliged to relate a story. In our times,
and in our country, which I hope you love as much as I do,
for as far as I am concerned, I am ready to shed the last drop
of my blood...
‘Go on! Go on!’
‘In our dear country, as indeed in the whole of Europe,
a famine visits humanity about four times a century, as far
as I can remember; once in every twenty-five years. I won’t
swear to this being the exact figure, but anyhow they have
become comparatively rare.’
‘Comparatively to what?’
‘To the twelfth century, and those immediately preceding
and following it. We are told by historians that widespread
famines occurred in those days every two or three years,
and such was the condition of things that men actually had
recourse to cannibalism, in secret, of course. One of these
cannibals, who had reached a good age, declared of his
own free will that during the course of his long and mis-
erable life he had personally killed and eaten, in the most
profound secrecy, sixty monks, not to mention several chil-
dren; the number of the latter he thought was about six, an
insignificant total when compared with the enormous mass
of ecclesiastics consumed by him. As to adults, laymen that
is to say, he had never touched them.’

1