Page 33 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW Special Edition 5

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 3 3

MY SLOEQI

W. BU
from Die Hundewelt
In de Hond 1934
Tranlated from Dutch by Els Siebel - The Netherlands

My old lord, who has long been resting under the green sod, once, and that certainly in an
hour, when the goddess of wisdom kissed him, wrote the absolutely fair sentence, that
the one, who married for the second time, for lack of insight, should be shot in the
marketplace summary death.

However, man does not seem to be able to avoid the duality of events. For instance, after

the experience I had with my sighthound “Agamemnon”, I should never have thought of
buying myself a Sloeqi, because - to return to my father's motto - a sighthound is just as
much like a Sloeqi as a pretty young woman is like another, so it is the most natural thing
in the world that I ended up with a Sloeqi just as badly as a sighthound.

This says nothing against the breed or its characteristics, on the contrary, because breed
and beauty were precisely what attracted me, my weakness being that I seem unable to

deal with beauties. And it is precisely with my Sloeqi that beauty has become fatal to me,
it has rather spoiled me and even turned me somewhat into a vagabond, so that I must
slowly bring myself back into line to become a normal human being again. Since most of
the classical philosophers and great minds must have been terribly ugly, I will hang the
effigies of Socrates, Demosthenes and perhaps the old Confucius next to those of the fat

Caesar in my room. That will turn me away from the outer beauty of things.

My Sloeqi was there on a good day. Just like that! Someone brought him to my house as if
I had ordered him. He was as big as my writing desk, so I could use his head as a
paperweight, which was not my intention. My Sloeqi - he was called “Tasso” - was as
skinny as the Indian prophet Ghandi or an American feminist. He consisted seemingly
exclusively of bones with skin stretched over them and a lot of muscles. His homeland
was Africa, where, judging by his appearance, great famine reigned.

So I scurried around in my few chunks of Arabic and addressed him. “Bene schin” (sit
down!) I invited him. Tasso remained standing. I admonished him with a “Sseda kon” to

bark. Tasso remained mute. He stood at my writing table and looked at me. With two big
eyes, whose gaze seemed to come from another room. Beautiful were these eyes and
worldly, unfathomable.