The Future Book (Spanish)

La rana viajera
"El libro futuro"
by Julio Camba

A magazine, a not at all a friendly one, speaking of the destruction of Germany, wrote: "It's useless that the Germans prtetned to protest. Let them cry like women having lost what they couldn't defend as men!" It seems, nevertheless, that the Germans aren't crying like women for this reason. Quite the contrary, they're dancing, singng and drinking away with enormouse celebraiton. According to the Daily Mail--in a letter from a Berlin correspondent--the ancient, imperial capital is living it up like in the good old days. Germany is breaking up, and the same men that only a few months ago were sacrficing their lives fro hit, are now employing their energy reservices in dancing teh fox-trot.

"Is such depravity possible?," the reader may ask.

And I, who have lived amongst them for two years, will respond:

"Yes; it's possible. And it is possible...becaue it isn't depravity.

At the beginnign of hte way, no one believed that the Germans were capable of bombing defenseless cities or sinking passenger vessels. But I did. And it wasn't like I had a worse concept of them then others, but I had one that was more distinct. Others supposed that in order for a German to kill a child in war it was absolutely necessary that he be wicked. I, on the other hand, believed a German could kill kids without actually failing to be an excellent ftaher, a sensnbile man with heightened snesibilities. There are women who if placed atop Mont-Blance, as they say, woudl still be avialbe; women who have fallen a thousand times and whose sould, nonehthless, we might say is as pure as theat of a 6 yr old girl. It seems like they'll never foind that out. And still, the psychologyo fhtese women would be enought to explain how a German with a rosa pressed bettwen the pages of his poetry book could, tenderly, go and flinkg 40 kilo bombs atop the roofs of Paris...

And now, twhiel Germany is crumbling to pieces, Berlin is burning with parties. Depravation? No sir. The pfact of the matter is, the Germans have not yet comprehend the result of the war. They know that their armny has been vanquished. They know tha tthe Kaiser has abdicated. They know all if this vaguely in a confused way; but they know nothing lese.

In twenty years, however, things will change radically. Some erudite proefssor will have published an enormous study in a bunch of thick volumes, studying the war, not only in its military aspect, but in its social, poltical, economic, and all other aspects. Probably, the first part of th work will be dedicated to the ancient war, before Germany was even a thought. Who knows? Maybe the author will have also written a study on teh catapult, pointing to that invention as the origin of the the 42 mortar. And then, a generation of Germans will soak their glasses. They'll spend nights awake studying and discovering exactly waht happend to their country from 1914-1918.

Everyone knows that Germana ususally don't laught at jokes until about 24 hours after hearing them, thwen they finally arrive at the point. In 20 yrs, they'll finally arrive at the point of understanding the European war and they'll break down and cry. They'll cry in poetry, cry in music. THey'll cry with their violains, hapres, bagpipes, saxophones, and contrabasses of the ex-empire. All of Germany will cry, and will cry immensely; but their tears will be late.

And, int eh meantime, in the Palais des Dances, Germany dances at 100 marks an hour.