Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey Read Free Book Online Page A

see I was asking too much in addressing you with familiarity, but when I sit down to write to you it is impossible to hold back. These years banished from you have been terrible. To know that you are holding in your hands this piece of paper, that you are reading these words … I cannot pretend to be formal. Forgive me, Evelyn, for everything. Please give my love to the children. I miss them. I miss you.
    Yours
    Red Peter
    Dear Hazel
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â How glad I am to hear that you have embraced our new, healthful German body culture. Let me tell you of my own regime, in case it may help you build your body into what you would like it to be.
    Do not eat too much chocolate, I warn you. It can only lead to unhappiness. Many years ago, I decided to follow a strict dietary regimen to maximise my health, after years of suffering from ailments (back pain, migraines, sleeplessness). A stay at the sanatorium in the Harz Mountains introduced me to Mueller’s body-building program, which Frau Oberndorff has wisely started you on, and to this day I do my exercises (as you do) before an open window. Lately, I have begun to feel the benefits of exercising nude outdoors, but this I do not yet counsel for yourself. One should only venture into nudism when one has learned to wear clothes.
    I follow the Fletcher program of chewing every bite of food more than ten times. I am thin now, thinner than most humans I know, and it pleases me to be this way, without the least bit of fat on my body. Try, if you can, to eat mindfully . It will help you to overcome your instincts to fill your stomach to bursting with whatever is at hand. Eat slowly, never crack bones with your teeth if you must eat meat, do not sip vinegar noisily.
    I refuse tea, coffee and alcohol. Contrary to what you might think, this discipline I impose on myself does not make me the slightest bit envious of other people’s pleasure in indulgences. The opposite, in fact. If I am sitting at a table with ten friends all drinking black coffee while I drink none, the sight of it gives me a feeling of happiness. Meat can be steaming around me, mugs of beer drained in huge draughts, those juicy sausages can be cut up all over the place – all this and worse gives me no sensation of distaste whatever; on the contrary, it does me a great deal of good. There is no question of my taking a malicious pleasure in it.
    Think of it like this. Have you been told the story of how Herr Hagenbeck decided to create a zoo without bars, so that visitors could gaze across the ditch separating them from the animals in their open-air panoramas? No bars to get in the way of a good wondrous stare, no cages to keep the animals from full expression of their wild selves.
    What you need to do now is put those bars back in place, so to speak, in your heart and stomach and mind. Hem yourself in again, deny yourself whatever you desire, until the pleasure comes from the denial itself, not the consummation of the desire. Only then will you be truly free, and closer to human. They – the humans, that is – seem to think that what sets them apart from other animals is their ability to love, grieve, feel guilt, think abstractly, et cetera. They are misguided. What sets them apart is their talent for masochism. Therein lies their power. To take pleasure in pain, to derive strength from deprivation, is to be human.
    Sincerely
    R.P.
    Â 
    Dear Red Peter
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â I hope this short dictated reply from Hazel finds you well. I understand from Herr Hagenbeck that you do not want to visit the zoo and meet with Hazel again until she is ready to be a companion worthy of you. Forgive my impertinence, but could you ask your gentlemen friends to refrain from visiting too? They come here – the ones who have not gone to war, for one reason or another – and knock on the laboratory door, making sly insinuations about Hazel being expertly prepared for your