When a scientific principle puts on the toga of social dignity, it turns itself into a bell or a parrot; such phantoms have always been the most dang… - Miroslav Krleža

Ever more alone, ever madder, remoter, sadder alone,
ever darker, ever baser, as it awfuls more and more.<p>Ever colder, ever viler, ever icier,
autumn's lonely void, as it autumns more and more.<p>

A Person Unknown has brought Autumn
in the North Room.
Oh now,
when all is color, harvest, and smell of wine,
when one hears the song of Things and Beasts,
when the longing dead yell in their graves,
A Person Unknown has brought Autumn
on a silver platter
in the room:
grapes and pears, apples and figs.<p>And outside there are steaming pools of sun juice,
as one hears through the window:
in the silk of day
a woman is singing.<p>And the birds tweet on.

[Zagreb. The twilight of Austria-Hungary. At the celebration of a priest's First Mass, the youth discusses the problems of the state and the church. The older generation, on the other hand...]<p>"Ask these respectable gentlemen, if you don't believe me, to explain to you that the Earth is round!", angrily said uncle Šimonić, the janitor of the observatory. He has some little authority in astronomy, after all. When great professors and astronomers go to the attic to look at the stars, they go through his kitchen! And he carries all the keys to the stars in his pocket. And this man before him, this member of the public who doesn't even know what is an eclipse, this dolt won't believe him that the Earth is round and spinning like a ball.<p>"Round! So it is round! Fine, have it your way! It is round! Well then! Is this apple round? It is? So it is round like the Earth, as you say. And this crumb here is a man! Tell me now, how come the crumb falls from the apple when I turn the apple around? Well? Look how it falls right away! Did you ever hear that a single man fell off the Earth? You haven't? Would you be so kind and explain this to me?"<p>That's true! Uncle Šimonić never thought that a man would fall off the Earth if it was really round. And it's as simple as a slap in the face, god damn it. And when those crazy professors up in the observatory explain things to him, it all seems so clear to him. But there you have it! Crumbs fall off the apple, and Šimonić, the royal janitor of the royal observatory, could fall off the Earth by the same principle. There's something fishy here after all!